Chapter 83: Bad Misunderstanding
"Fredrinn?" Rose’s sharp voice pierced through his fog of nostalgia. Turning toward him, she immediately registered that something was off and grabbed his shoulder, shaking him with enough force to pull his entire body back to reality.
Yanked out of the memory of his past, Fredrinn blinked away his haze. He was startled to find Rose staring into his face with intense scrutiny, while Jenny observed him from a few feet away with an awkward mix of confusion and genuine concern.
Rose, however, was fixated on a single detail.
She saw the glint of moisture in his eyes—she saw that Fredrinn had tears—and her mind reached an immediate, absolute conclusion.
In a fraction of a second, her razor-sharp nails extended, and her crimson eyes snapped straight onto Vivienne. Her curled demonic horns glinted wickedly under the cafeteria lights, reigniting every seed of suspicion Vivienne had harbored about her unnatural appearance.
A choked, terrified gasp escaped Vivienne’s lips. She reeled backward out of pure instinct, her heart hammering against her ribs like a trapped bird.
The movement saved her life. Her chair tipped backward, sending her rolling onto the floor, her head cracking lightly against the table behind her as a plastic pitcher overturned, spilling water across the tile.
She was extraordinarily lucky to have moved when she did.
Rose’s hand slashed through the exact space where Vivienne’s neck had been a millisecond prior, her claws cutting a lethal arc through the empty air.
No one had anticipated such a sudden, violent strike. Before Rose could recover for a second swipe, Fredrinn snapped out of his trance and lunged forward, grabbing her wrist tightly.
"Rose, stop it! Why are you attacking her?!" he shouted, letting out a heavy, exasperated sigh.
The moment his voice echoed in her ears, Rose froze instantly, obeying without a shred of hesitation.
She turned back to him, her terrifying aura vanishing as a sweet, innocent smile graced her lips. "She made hubby cry. She needs to die."
Saying that, Rose gently raised her hand to his face, her sharp nails retracting as she cupped his cheek with incredible softness. With the tip of her thumb, she tenderly wiped away the faint wetness lingering near his eyes. Her movement was so deliberate and gentle that it was almost impossible to believe she had nearly decapitated a woman just two seconds earlier.
Fredrinn stood frozen, truly not knowing whether to laugh or cry at the sheer absurdity of the situation. Meanwhile, the rest of the survivors were either screaming, stumbling back, or frozen in sheer terror. Even Jenny, Aadav, and Max flinched, their hands hovering near their weapons as they caught their breath.
"Rose..." Fredrinn closed his eyes, taking a long, deliberate breath to regain his composure. "I wasn’t crying out of sadness. I was just feeling emotional because the food was actually amazing. Instead of attacking her, you should be thanking her because I really liked what she cooked."
He spoke patiently, using the gentle, measured tone a father might use to explain a simple lesson to a confused child.
[ sighs in nostalgia. Oh, the fun and awkwardness of fucking a woman and then finding out she has zero social awareness and emotional intelligence. Good ol’ days. ]
’...’ Fredrinn stared at the glowing blue text hovering in his vision, deciding it was best for his sanity to ignore the System prompt entirely.
The atmosphere in the room had plummeted below freezing. On the floor, Vivienne was hyperventilating, her full chest heaving rhythmically as she stared up at Rose with wide, terrified eyes. She had come within an inch of losing her head—and the reason was that her cooking was too good?!
She wanted to scream, to curse out the demonic woman, but her throat was so bone-dry that no words could form.
Rose blinked several times, digesting Fredrinn’s explanation. She glanced down at the panicking teacher, noticing for the first time that everyone in the room was on edge, watching both her and Fredrinn with intense fear.
Before she could process it further, the grey-haired teenager, Ash, rushed forward and placed himself protectively in front of Vivienne. He stood tall, glaring furiously at Rose.
"What the hell is wrong with you?!" Ash shouted, his voice cracking with adrenaline. "Why would you attack my teacher out of nowhere?! Look at you—you look like a fucking zombie, you freak! Are you even human?!"
Rose looked at him with a flat, emotionless stare. Strangely enough, she didn’t feel a drop of anger toward the yelling boy.
"I am sorry for attacking her. It was a misunderstanding," Rose recited, her voice monotone, like a child reciting a memorized poem. "And yes, I am human. I am his wife."
She finished the sentence by pointing a pale finger toward Fredrinn, flashing a stiff, robotic smile.
Her gesture immediately redirected Ash’s burning rage onto Fredrinn instead.
Ever since the rescue group had entered the school, Ash had picked up on the way Fredrinn looked at Vivienne. To make matters worse, Vivienne seemed to be subtly responding to him, even if it was unintentional. Jealousy and rage bubbled over inside the newly Awakened teen.
"What the hell, man?!" Ash screamed, stepping toward Fredrinn. "Why did your wife attack my teacher?! She just served you the best meal of your life, and instead of thanking her, your woman tries to kill her?! Is that the kind of manners your parents taught you?!"
Fredrinn’s relaxed expression flattened instantly at the mention of his parents.
Manners his parents taught him?
He knew for a fact that his parents had raised him exceptionally well, and those exact values were the reason he was disciplined enough to survive the apocalypse on his own.
Yet, looking at the hyperventilating teacher on the floor and the terrified kids huddled behind the tables, Fredrinn forced his annoyance down. He couldn’t bring himself to get genuinely angry at an emotional teenager reacting to a life-or-death moment.
At the end of the day, it really was Rose’s fault.
"I apologize on her behalf, Vivienne," Fredrinn said, his voice calm and grounded as he looked down at the trembling woman. "Rose is a bit too protective, deeply emotional, and slightly impulsive, as you’ve just seen. I know she almost hurt you, and it’s not something easily forgiven... but please, if you can, excuse her misunderstanding."