He blinked.
"Me?"
She nodded.
"You were reading that book very seriously. Are you interested in romance, too?"
He glanced down at the novel in his hands, then scratched at the back of his neck.
"I like romance stories," Soren admitted. "But I don't really have a deep reason behind it like you do. I just… enjoy watching the characters get closer, seeing their cute moments together…"
He trailed off, feeling the words become more tangled as they left his mouth.
"If I had to give one reason, then maybe I like them because I don't know how it feels?"
His voice went a little higher at the end, betraying his lack of confidence in that answer.
Lilliana tilted her head further.
"You don't know how it feels?" she repeated.
"Ah, well."
He looked down at the book again.
"I've never fallen in love before."
Back on Earth, he had been in multiple relationships.
People had confessed to him, and he had tried to accept, to go along with the idea of dating because he thought maybe if he tried hard enough, he would eventually feel what they felt.
But in the end, every one of those relationships had ended in the same way: awkwardness, miscommunication, and the dull, heavy guilt of knowing he couldn't reciprocate properly.
Even his closest relationship with Aria had remained a friendship, despite the physical aspects that had been added by accident and habit.
They had shared a bed, shared a life to some degree.
But love?
He had never been sure.
Lilliana's eyes filled with surprise and curiosity at his words.
"Never?" she asked.
"Nope," he answered simply.
He spoke with a casual tone, but his fingers tightened slightly around the edges of the book.
It was only then that it hit him properly.
Even if he hadn't thought about it seriously before, Lilliana was still a woman, someone who had her own experiences and interests.
Of course she would care about things like this.
Love talk, crushes, stories about people's relationships.
"Not even a crush?" she pressed.
Soren frowned slightly as he looked back through his memories.
"I don't think so?" he said slowly. "Even if I had, I don't think I'd know."
He genuinely didn't know what "being in love" felt like.
Every time he read about it in books or heard his friends talk about it, they always said the same things:
— My heart beats fast when I'm around her.
— I feel restless.
— He's all I can think about.
— I get jealous whenever she talks to another guy.
All of it felt a little too exaggerated, too flowery, too… distant from his own experience.
To him, love in novels always seemed like something that happened to other people.
He couldn't imagine himself feeling those things.
"No, you would," Lilliana said.
Her clear voice cut through his thoughts.
He looked up at her.
"How are you so sure?" he asked.
"Because I've had a crush before…?" she said, as if it were obvious.
Her expression carried the faintest hint of, "Are you an idiot?"
Soren's mouth fell open.
"You have?" he asked.
"Why are you so surprised?" she countered. "I'm twenty-two. Of course I've had a crush before."
This time, it was his turn for his eyes to sparkle with curiosity.
He had always enjoyed listening to other people's love stories, even if he couldn't relate.
Friends gossiping about their relationships, forum posts dissecting character romance routes, he had eaten all of that up.
"Spill it," Soren said bluntly.
Lilliana blinked, then let out a small, nervous laugh.
"Uhm… okay? Well, I've had a couple of crushes…"
She fidgeted with the corner of her book.
"When I was a child, I had a crush on many of the male leads I found in novels," she confessed.
That much made sense.
Given what she had said earlier, locked away in a mansion with nothing but books, falling for fictional knights and princes was almost inevitable.
But that wasn't what Soren was interested in.
It was the next part he was waiting for.
"When I finally got out of that place and came here, to the academy," she continued, "I managed to score high on the entrance exam, letting me enter class B."
Her voice carried a quiet pride for just a second, then softened.
"Then, when the midterms arrived, the theme was teamwork. We were sorted into groups based on strengths and weaknesses to see what we could accomplish."
She shifted in her seat, eyes growing a little distant as she dove into the memory.
"That was when I met him…"
A wistful look appeared on her face before she abruptly giggled and glanced up at Soren.
"He was the complete opposite of you," she added.
Soren's mind snapped back to a memory.
— ...You're too young for me anyway, and you're the opposite of my type.
He could almost hear her saying it again, completely straight-faced.
"How so?" he asked, despite already having an idea.
"He was way taller than you. His shoulders were broad, and his body was full of muscle. He was also ranked third in Martial Studies," she said seriously.
Soren nodded slowly, leaning forward slightly as she spoke, showing he was listening properly.
"H-He was manly… and handsome…"
Lilliana's voice dropped to almost a whisper, her cheeks flushing more than he had ever seen them.
Her ears twitched, the tips turning faintly pink.
"So what happened?" Soren asked.
He already had a guess, but he wanted to hear it from her.
"W-Well…" she said, eyes lowering. "We were put on the same team and worked well together, so we kept talking after the midterms and even went to dungeons together a couple of times, but…"
Her words trailed off. Her gaze drifted down to somewhere around her knees.
"He already had someone," she finished quietly.
"Ah…"
Soren let out a sigh without meaning to.
He hadn't expected a perfectly happy ending, but the way her sentence cut off so cleanly made even him feel the sting.
"I ended up confessing to him after summer break ended," Lilliana continued. "But he told me that he hadn't seen me that way, and that I wasn't his type."
There was no bitterness in her voice, just a tired acceptance that sounded older than she looked.
"Then, a few days later, I saw him with an elf senior," she added.
Her eyes flicked down to her own body as she said that, lingering for a moment on her chest, her small frame, before looking back at the floor.
Soren understood immediately what she was implying.
Tall.
Muscular.
Handsome.
With someone older, elegant, and, most likely, beautiful in a way that matched all the "proper" stories.
Lilliana was didn't match that ideal.
Her small figure that could easily be mistaken for a teenager.
Her cute face, that screamed "adorable" rather than "beautiful".
The freckles sitting on her body, that smudged her perfect skin.
While she was still attractive, compared to the princesses in stories, she seemed lacking.
In response to the quietly heavy mood settling over them, Soren's brain did what it always did when faced with someone else's pain.
It latched onto the first stupid idea that might distract them.
"Want some blood?" he asked.
The words slipped out of his mouth before he could filter them.
On paper, it didn't fit the atmosphere at all.
He could hear how ridiculous it sounded.
He had always been bad at comforting people.
When emotions became too raw, his thoughts scattered, and what came out was rarely what normal people would say.
Lilliana stared at him, mouth falling open.
"Hahh… Really, Ren?" she said, exasperation clear in her voice.
He just smiled slightly and waited.
He wasn't joking to make fun of her; he was trying, in his own warped way, to pull her out of that spiral of comparison and regret.
A few seconds of silence stretched between them, thick but not uncomfortable.
Then…
"Ahaha…"
Lilliana's shoulders shook slightly as laughter began to spill out.
"Sure, why not?"
She understood.
Of course she did.
Lilliana wasn't stupid enough to miss the intention behind the question.
She knew exactly why he had offered, and that was precisely why accepting it didn't make her feel bad.
The heavy, depressing memories that had been swirling in her chest just moments ago were already fading, slowly replaced by a warm, fuzzy feeling that lingered when she looked at him.
"You're so stupid," she said, grinning from ear to ear as she shifted her body closer.
She didn't bother hiding how happy she was.
She moved over to him without hesitation, climbing lightly onto his side of the sofa and settling herself across his lap, as if she had done so a hundred times before.
His muscles tensed for an instant in surprise, but he didn't push her away.
Lilliana reached up with one hand and gently brushed his hair back, exposing the side of his neck.
Then, without waiting for his response…
She lowered her head.
Crunch.
————「❤︎」————