When you finally came to, your eyes fluttered open in a very fairy-tale-esque way, only to see a blushing man sitting next to you and examining you intently. When he noticed your consciousness, the redhead flew backwards with a small yelp.
"I didn't think you were alive!" He exclaimed, panic and anger prominent in his Jersey accent. His curly hair bounced as he screamed at you, his face turning a more vibrant red than his hair.
You sat up and giggled at him, pulling your knees to your chest and smirking. "Luckily, I am." You smiled at him as he got up and dusted himself off.
He shot you a scowl and extended a hand to you, that you avoided with a "hmph!" and attempted to stand up on your own, only to stumble over and nearly collapse.
"Christ," he hissed through his teeth, watching your attempts to stand on weak legs. With a frustrated sigh, he bent over and pulled you to your feet.
You stood for a moment, dumbfounded, as he started walking off to god knows where. He stopped for a moment and looked back at you, "well?" he asked, a bit too loudly, "are you coming or not?" Each word that escaped his throat was laced with years worth of endlessly flowing anger.
You snapped out of your daydream state, "oh. Yeah," you stuttered a bit as you forced out the words. You picked up the pace and caught up to him in a couple of seconds.
You two walked side-by-side for a while, and you noticed he held himself like a warrior, with his strong demeanor, bit he walked like a man who played video games all day and night. You pulled yourself out of your thoughts, "So where are we headed?" You tried to sound as innocent as possible to avoid another outburst.
He grunted, "Achievement City." He continued to look forward, away from you. You opened your mouth to question, but he interrupted, "I'll tell you more when we get there." He insisted sternly.
You looked to the ground and spoke your name, "what's yours?" Your voice was so soft it could have been confused for a mumble.
He looked down and made eye-contact for the first time in a while. And for the first time in this encounter, he smiled, "I'm Michael," he smiled wider.
You immediately noticed how cute his smile was, making your face flush red. You looked away, hiding your blush. His expression turned to that of curiosity and you quickly tried to change the subject, "I used to have a buddy named Michael," you mumbled sheepishly.
"A lot of people do, it's a common fucking name," he rolled his eyes and growled at you in a complete mood shift that you surely weren't expecting.
You flinched a little and he looked to you in regret. "Look," He said softly as he stopped and turned himself towards you, "I'm sorry, okay?" He reached down to hold your hands in his, but as soon as he started reaching out to you, you heard a deep voice interrupt the moment.
"Michael, did you find someone new?"
Michael turned to the man speaking, his face a blistering shade of red, "Shut the fuck up, Jack," he shouted over your shoulder to a bearded man standing behind you, who you had turned to see.
"Well there's no need to get aggressive," chuckled another man with blonde hair and an oddly similar voice to the bearded one.
When you turned to see Michael's reaction, his jaw was clenched and his face was red as a beet. "What the hell are you guys doing here? We're like a thousand miles away from downtown."
"We were just going on a little adventure to find you." The blonde nodded toward Michael.
Jack, who had been glaring at the blonde since his arrival, spoke up, "yeah, we weren't expecting a new..." he hesitated, searching for a word to describe what you were in this situation.
The blonde cut in, giving the proper term, "we weren't expecting a new, erm," he paused, "resident. Especially not a female. Plus we haven't seen anyone new around for almost three years now." He smiled warmly to you and you rose an eyebrow. "I'm Ryan, and welcome to Achievement City," he approached you and swung his arm in a wide motion, gesturing to as group of six buildings surrounding a green star emblem.
On that star emblem stood three men. One wearing a tuxedo and a masquerade mask noticed you and pointed you out to the other two. You smiled warmly at their approach. The man in the tuxedo was the first to reach you. He handed you a bright red rose. You looked at him with befuddled eyes and he chuckled. "I'm ray," he said before backing out of sight.
You saw Michael roll his eyes and he began pointing out the other members of the group. A man in fancy armor you learned was Geoff. "He's sort of our leader," Michael said and Geoff took a modest bow. "And this guy in green is-"
Michael was interrupted by the man jumping forward and taking your hand, kissing your knuckles softly, "Gavin free, at your service." You felt your face get hot, but as you looked around you could see all the men groaning in annoyance.
You saw Ryan mumble something to Geoff and suddenly Geoff darted toward you. "So you're going to need a place to stay," he said as he slowly pulled you from the group, "so who's it gonna be?"
(Who is it going to be, trusty reader? Choose in the soon to be released "stay with ____" chapters! (Sorry, diligent readers BTW, this one never uploaded fully and that always bugged me, so now I've finally gotten around to finishing it haha. My bad.))
