Jasper was getting a bit frantic.
He didn’t quite understand why Alice would suddenly say such a thing.
God is his witness, when he deliberately spread the rumor that he was also Alice’s boyfriend, it was to make Mike back off, not to give Mike a signal that he could take things further.
Jasper was going crazy.
His thirst for blood was stirring, and he couldn’t wait to run right up to Mike this instant and take a big bite out of his neck.
But Jasper held back.
Seeing that Emmett and Rosalie didn’t grasp the underlying meaning of his words at all, Jasper had to look for another teammate to support him.
Just in time, Jasper looked at Edward, who had just walked in and sat down near them, and said, “Edward, you’re on my side, right?”
Edward, whose gaze was fixed on a certain new transfer student, didn’t hear a word.
Jasper called out again.
Edward, possessing the perfect appearance of every vampire in stories, snapped back to reality and frowned at Jasper, who was waving a hand in front of him.
“What’s the matter?”
Jasper retold the story to Edward.
Alice, whom he had admired for so long and had loved ever since she was turned into a vampire, had suddenly accepted an invitation from a human to go see a movie tonight.
Edward tried hard to block out the tempting scent at the tip of his nose and looked at Alice, saying, “Did Mike ask you out?”
Alice nodded with a smile.
Alice, who had just transferred in ninth grade, had noticed Mike on her very first day of school, just like a firefly in the darkness that caught her attention.
At first, it was out of curiosity.
But afterwards, Alice couldn’t quite explain it either.
That was why, when she heard the rumors going around school that she and Mike were together, she didn’t choose to clarify it.
And when she saw that Mike didn’t seem to intend to clarify the gossip either, she felt a little happy inside.
This left Alice a bit confused.
She wasn’t really a girl just budding with first love as her nineteen-year-old appearance suggested, but she felt as though she had found that fluttering feeling of a heartbeat in Mike.
So, when Alice received Mike’s movie invitation just now, she only thought about it for a split second before agreeing.
Edward, feeling distracted by a gaze directed toward him, pretended to be nonchalant while discreetly reminding Alice, “Mike gives off a very mysterious vibe. I haven’t interacted with him much, but during a few physics classes, Mike mentioned to others that he would be heading to New York University for pre-studies this June.”
The meaning behind Edward’s words was simple.
It was just one sentence.
Mike is a human, not like them, whose graduation caps were already piling up endlessly.
Moreover, Mike would be leaving Forks this June.
Alice smiled slightly, accepting Edward’s well-intentioned reminder.
Jasper was even more frustrated, completely unable to understand why his family members hadn’t grasped the crux of the issue.
Jasper hadn’t considered one problem at all.
That was Mike himself.
If it had been any other high school student, whether it was Edward, Rosalie, or even Emmett, they would have tried to stop it.
But the one asking Alice out was Mike—the same Mike who, in the eyes of Edward, Rosalie, and Emmett, had been the target of a girl chasing a boy from the very beginning.
As the big sister of the Cullen family, naturally, since the object of their sister’s affection had finally asked her out, how could the younger brothers and sisters possibly try to stop it?
The most important point was that Mike had a very good reputation both at school and in town.
Although he gave off a mysterious vibe, both the town residents and their father, Carlisle, had a very good impression of this Mike, who worked part-time on his days off to earn money for his future college tuition.
Whether it was the boss at the coffee shop or the doctor helping out at the clinic, they would always give Mike an extra ten dollars as a work bonus after he finished his shift.
Jasper took a breath, lowered his voice, and simply said, “But he is a human, a human!”
The muscular man Emmett, who had his arms wrapped around his girlfriend Rosalie to make her sit comfortably on his lap, nodded and said in a deep voice, “Yes, he is a human.”
Jasper’s eyes lit up as he looked at Emmett.
“So you support me?”
Emmett just laughed out loud.
Rosalie couldn’t watch this anymore, shook her head, and whispered, “Emmett means that because Mike is a human, we don’t have to worry.”
Jasper blinked.
What does that mean?
So, in your eyes, a vampire dating a human is a good thing?
Shit.
How can you date when you’re not even the same species?
Jasper screamed internally.
Alice stood up directly and said, “I have a biology lab this afternoon. I’m leaving now.”
Edward snapped out of it and said, “Wait for me. I have that class this afternoon too.”
Soon, after Alice and Edward disappeared through the cafeteria entrance, Rosalie looked at her brother Jasper, whose face was full of frustration and anger, and said bluntly, “How long is a human’s lifespan, and how long is ours, you fool.”
Jasper looked up sharply.
Rosalie didn’t say anything more.
She turned her head toward her muscular boyfriend Emmett, licked her lips, raised her eyebrows, and pulled Emmett’s large hand, heading off toward the restroom on the third floor of the teaching building, leaving Jasper sitting alone in the cafeteria, stunned.
Four o’clock in the afternoon.
Mike was leaning against his 1988 yellow Pajero in the parking lot, waiting for Alice, whom he had an appointment with.
Like all U.S.
high school students, this 1988 yellow Pajero SUV was a used car.
It cost Mike five hundred dollars plus half a year of continuous part-time work to successfully purchase.
Around here, you can generally consider getting a driver’s license at sixteen.
Soon, Mike saw someone walking over from a distance looking a bit distracted, go down the steps, start up his Volvo, and drive away.
Mike smiled, suddenly realizing that the plot seemed to have entered a strange development line.
Edward and Bella.
Mike and Alice.
Mike looked up at the darkening sky.
Suddenly, an interface that only he could see appeared in his field of vision with a whoosh.
[System activating]
[Progress…]
[…98%!]
The corners of Mike’s mouth twitched.
This system, whose name he still didn’t know, was probably the slowest system in history to activate.
It had taken a full seventeen years and still hadn’t finished.
Sometimes, Mike was even afraid that this guy would be like some junk software, getting stuck at 99% and then displaying a message saying “Download failed, retry.” If that really happened, Mike would be left wanting to cry without tears.
Mike shook his head and saw Alice walking over from the steps not far away.
Short black hair, snow-white skin.
Wearing a black and white striped shirt and a pair of jeans that perfectly accentuated the shape of her legs.