°•.˜"*°•𝓞𝓷𝓮 𝓸𝓯 𝓽𝓱𝓮 𝓰𝓲𝓯𝓽𝓮𝓭 •°*"˜.•° (C. Madrigal X Reader)

Chapter one hundred and four: Part of our group

"We decide who's gonna seek!" Ruben replied "So who's playing?"

Everyone shouted "me" simultaneously except Amelia.

"Ames, you aren't gonna play?" Emilio asked.

Amelia thought to herself for a moment. Then she sighed and stood up from her lounge chair.

"Fine," Amelia said sharply, "But only if Hugo promises not to cheat."

"I'll try. I don't really have a clear grasp on the rules yet so..." Hugo replied.

"Whatever" Amelia said, dismissing him "Let's decide who's gonna be the seeker."

We decided that it would be unfair to make Ruben or Hugo the seeker, unfair for Ruben since he's injured and unfair for Hugo since it's his first time ever playing the game. We decided who would be the seeker by having Ruben think of a number from one to ten and the person closest to that number would be the seeker. Camilo chose seven, Amelia chose three, Emilio chose ten and I chose one. The number ended up being exactly three so Amelia was chosen as the seeker, which earned a groan from her. I giggled a bit at her distress.

Amelia stood with her chest towards the wall, her hands over her eyes so that she couldn't see us. Then she started counting downwards from twenty and all of us scattered. I decided to hide in the kitchen since nobody except Julieta was there at that moment.

"Oh, Y/n!" Julieta exclaimed when she saw me "Do you need something?"

"No thank you, Senora Julieta" I answered "I'm just playing hide and seek right now."

"Oh alright, I won't give you away then!" Julieta said, turning back to the dough that she was rolling out.

I nodded at her as thanks before climbing into a cupboard close to the ground. I kept the door of the cupboard just the tiniest bit open so that I could see if Amelia was anywhere close to where I was hiding.

After just ten minutes, Amelia had found me and started celebrating. I realized that she had already found Ruben, Emilio, and Camilo before me.

"Yes! I am the best at Hide and Seek, I found everyone after ten minutes!" she exclaimed.

"You forgot about Hugo," Ruben pointed out.

Amelia stopped cheering and groaned.

"Right..." she sighed.

Then she went right back to searching. I was following close behind her, wondering where Hugo might've gone. After maybe thirty minutes of searching the second story of the house, including everyone's rooms, we still hadn't found Hugo. I was considering the fact that he might've misunderstood the rules and hid somewhere outside of Casita or something.

Then Amelia started sniffing the air, it looked very strange and I tilted my head in confusion when she started doing it.

"Um, what are you doing?" I asked hesitantly.

"I can smell him," she answered quickly.

"No, you can't," Ruben said, clearly in disbelief.

"Yes, she can," Emilio corrected. "She's been baking since she was like five, her sense of smell is strangely heightened."

"I work at my dad's restaurant all the time and I can't just sniff people out like a dog" Ruben replied "And you've been baking the same amount of time, how come your sense of smell isn't insanely good?"

"Your dad just gave you that sous-chef job last year" Emilio said "And Amelia likes baking, I don't."

"Shhh!" Amelia hushed "I can smell his cedar wood perfume!"

She moved towards a painting on the wall and began inspecting it closely. She pulled the painting open as if it was a door causing Hugo, who was leaning up against it from the other side, to fall forward and stumble into the hallway.

"Ahah!" Amelia exclaimed when he had fallen out "That gross perfume you always wear gave you away."

"Nice hiding place dude!" Ruben exclaimed "It took Amelia like forty minutes to find you!"

"Thank you?" Hugo replied, phrasing it as if it was a question "Forty minutes? It wasn't that hard to find me, was it?"

"Hey! At least I didn't give up and I ended up winning so you can't say anything about it" Amelia replied, smiling at Hugo for what I think was the first time ever.

Hugo stood up with the help of Camilo and laughed softly.

"Yeah, you won, Amelia," he replied, smiling back at her. "That was fun, I should play Hide and Seek more often."

"Sure! You can play hide and seek with us whenever you're bored" Amelia said, back to her usually cheerful self "Unless you 'don't have much time for games.'"

"Haha" Hugo said sarcastically.

I was smiling brightly at their interaction. They were talking to each other like normal people, like friends even!

"I'm hungry" Camilo exclaimed "Who wants to come with me to get arepas from the kitchen?"

"I'll go!" Ruben and Emilio said at the same time.

"I'm just gonna get more raspberry juice," Hugo answered.

"I'm gonna go back to sunbathing!" Amelia said in a sing-songy tone "You boys can get me an arepa or two and some orange juice."

"Absolutely not," Emilio replied.

I laughed at all of them. I was happy that they all seemed willing to forgive and forget what had happened last night. For today, Hugo was part of our group.

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I don't know if I wrote this chapter very well. Like I am trying very hard to not make Amelia seem like a bad person and also trying to make the transition from "We hate Hugo" to "He's alright" not too jarring lmao.

-Kolour