Besides the identity of Leo Pavilion, I have a job as the one owning a part of this luxurious restaurant. Yeah, you don’t misunderstand. It’s me, who has just graduated from high school.

To be honest, the birth of this restaurant derives from lots of factors: Long’s own dramatic parents, his mental wound, and a crazy moment of mine. Not the intentional idea to startup at a young age, certainly.

The guy who is grabbing every piece of abalone over there is Long, one hundred per cent. He is ugly; I have to accept that reality, with naturally brown skin, black curly hair, a round face, and congenital myopia which forces him to wear glasses all the time. Those are the reasons he got rejected by his own parents.

I don’t know it clearly, because it was Long’s sad memory, anyway. I just heard his butler saying that his mother, a young wealthy heir (yes, childish too), slept with her boyfriend and gave birth to Long a year later, when she was just sixteen. She rejected the little one who was her son because he wasn’t as beautiful as her. What’s worse, her boyfriend—Long’s father and a rich man—was something of a crazy man as well. His top priority was that young girl, and he refused Long too.

His butler was the only one taking pity on little Long, asking for money from Long’s grandparents and bringing him back to his homeland, Vietnam, to raise him.

Ah? Didn’t I tell you that Long is not a full-blooded Vietnamese? It's unexplainable but he looks like us, though his father is American and his mother is French. His mind differs from theirs too. Long is a genius. He soon knows about everything, he understands all, and he might have successfully ended his life if I didn’t go find him on that stormy night two years ago.

This restaurant was his father’s property in Vietnam and the first thing I told Long to take back from those heartless parents. It might be cruel in some ways, but I have no way to go, except to burn his flame of revenge, encouraging him to be richer than his parents, who are now having their own families, to let him live.

That spirit is expressed through the restaurant’s name too, which Long himself put up, in an elegant style, when we opened this location. Rearrange all the letters in the name ‘Genvere’ and you will see another word: Revenge. So, you can guess how he felt then.

I do not know what Long has done to take this fancy restaurant back from his father, but I can’t betray what I said. Err, I once said to him when I pulled him out of the lake that day that I would help him. So when Long the brat told me to contribute capital because he couldn’t work alone, I put all the precious money that I had saved for years, and kept working like a horse to raise this restaurant.

It may sound like a startup story, but what’s the truth? I am still as poor as a church mouse! All the money I had thrown into Genvere just went around and around, getting bigger and bigger like a snowball because of the pretty good business. Nominally, the money I invested is growing, but from a realistic point of view, my money is growing, so I can’t take even a penny out because it will ‘cause some negative effects’, as the manager had told me.

Gulping down a mouthful of lemonade, I think.

F*ck the silly friendship between us, and yeah, my damn kindness too.

“Nguyệt Anh, have you seen Nam anywhere?”

As soon as this sweet voice echoes in my ears, for heaven’s sake, my heart does lose one beat. My mind tells me her identity first, and by the moment I look up, the stubborn thing inside my chest just simply starts… racing.

She is Khanh, one of my classmates, the goddess of beauty. And she is my cup of tea. I have had a crush on her for three years, but the only thing that I can see from her was just her hasty back when she was late for school. I had more or less forgotten her beauty, my emotions toward her since I always had something to do when she showed up. Three years have gone and how incredible it is, I’m in love again.

I am nearly deaf, hearing nothing from her cute cherry lips, just drowning in her deep brown eyes. What is this sound? Love for sure! Owing to that wonderful force of love, I take at least ten seconds to vomit only one word.

“Pardon?”

“Ah, I mean, have you ever seen Nam since the party started?” She repeats her question. Her glitter eyes seem to shine and lure me to fall…

Wait a damn minute. Nam?

All my ‘love’ vanishes straight away with magic when that moron’s name shows up in my ears. What am I hearing? Nam? It was the stupid thing who yelled at me in the morning! It was Leo Killer! Why does this miserable name appear in my crush’s mouth? What’s happening? Is she paying attention to that dunderhead? I haven't tortured that guy but he is now…

“I’m sorry, Khanh. I haven’t seen him appear at this party. And I don’t have his phone number either. You may have to ask another one.” Not letting her ask anymore, I respond with my eyebrows raised but my voice is still calm.

Nam? F*ck! If this moron turns to flirting with Khanh, I’ll cut off his tiny bird! I swear!

Khanh gets no information, so she turns her back and is about to leave, asking the others. I don’t let her go as a matter of course. One is I have to know more about this ‘potential love enemy’, and another is I have seen Nam nowhere for sure. Though it was difficult to change the planned karaoke bar into Genvere to hold the party in safety, this restaurant is famous here and Long has announced it to everyone. That idiot can’t get lost, can he?

“Hey Khanh, has anything happened to him?”

Her leaving figure stops. Khanh turns back, looking at me. However, what I see in those dreamy brown pearls isn’t the warmth but the obvious weirdness mixed with some… pity?

No, no, it may be my vision’s problem. It’s impossible…

While I am still confused, her voice transmits into my mind like scissors cutting through my line of thought, leaving nothing but the shock.

“Don’t you know that? Something attacked him this afternoon. It jumps from the ground to his room on the third floor. His neighbors have called the police too.”

“What?”

Another girl is enjoying her drink and suddenly stops, she comes to her seat and asks Khanh, “You also know it? Before I came here, I could even see a big hole in the road in front of his house! Nam doesn’t get injured much, does he?”

“I’m not sure,” Khanh answered. She sits down on a chair not so far away, looking around and telling that girl with a low voice like a whisper, but thanks to my perfect sense of hearing, it does not differ from a big hammer nailing to my broken mind.

“Thuy was near the scene at that moment. Do you know what she told me? She said the culprit was ugly yet scary, like a monster or…”

“An alien.”