Soren's eyes slowly fluttered open as he stretched out his arms, causing the blanket lying on top to fall off.
"Nnnngghhh—"
As his eyes adjusted, he finally noticed his situation and jumped up when a voice suddenly called out from behind him.
"You're finally awake?"
Soren turned to look at her and quickly apologised, but Lilliana smiled softly and shook her head.
"It's fine, if you were that tired, you should've said something, Ren."
"Mmm… What time is it anyway?"
"Uhm, last time I checked it was around eleven."
"Eleven?!"
Soren's eyes turned as wide as an owl's at Lilliana's words.
'I slept for that long?'
When he had first arrived at Lilliana's dorm, Soren hadn't felt all that tired; if anything, he was wide awake, but for some reason, the moment he lay down after eating, drowsiness crept up on him out of seemingly nowhere.
Then Soren realised something and spoke.
"Wait, have you been waiting up for me?"
"Well, someone has to be awake to lock the door when you go home, Ren."
Soren felt apologetic for keeping Lilliana awake, but noticing this, she quickly reassured him that she didn't mind.
"You don't need to worry about me; it's actually normal for me to stay up multiple days in a row. Plus, it was nice to see you asleep for once."
Listening to Lilliana's words, Soren decided to let it go and instead thanked her.
"Thank you, Lily."
"What are you going to do now then?"
Soren thought for a moment.
"I'm not sure, I've kind of messed up my sleep schedule, and training in the middle of the night doesn't seem like a good idea."
"Then why not just stay here? You can read some books, or we can just talk, nights are boring anyway."
"Are you sure?" He didn't want to overstay his welcome.
"Think of it as repayment for the food," Lilliana said with a smile.
With those words, Soren's first overnight stay at Lilliana's dorm began.
••✦ ♡ ✦•••
Clink
Soren placed his mug on the coffee table and turned over the page of the book in his hands.
It was a novel that he had found on Lilliana's bookshelf with a title that interested him.
'So this is the type of book that Lily likes?'
He was somewhat surprised by the girl's tastes.
The novel was a somewhat generic romance story between a lady and her knight; it showcased the journey the knight took to save his lady's life and how their love transcended the boundaries of status.
With Lilliana's personality, Soren had somewhat expected her to be wholly removed from romance, especially fairy-tale-like romance that was shown in this book.
He glanced up from the page and directed his eyes to his side.
There, sitting not far from him, was Lilliana, reading her own book with a melancholic expression, her little bear ears twitching as her eyes went down the page.
Although he had seen a variety of expressions on the girl over the course of his time in Ivansia, tonight he was seeing an entirely new side to her.
'Cute.'
Now that he knew the reason behind her short stature and somewhat young appearance, he felt awkward complimenting her out loud, but that didn't stop him from thinking those thoughts internally, after all, Soren was still a man.
Then, as he was watching Lilliana, her eyes also turned up from the page, and so they ended up looking directly at each other.
Lilliana's mouth curled up into a smile upon noticing that he had been looking at her.
Soren turned his head back to the page and then asked a question he had been curious about ever since taking a look at her collection of novels.
"Are you interested in romance, Lily?"
It was a question that could easily inspire misunderstandings, but Soren had none of those thoughts when asking it; it was a question filled with pure curiosity.
She nodded with a faint blush on her cheeks.
"Would you like to know why…?" She asked in a hesitant voice.
Soren nodded, his gaze full of intrigue.
After taking a few moments to think, Lilliana answered with a slightly embarrassed voice.
"When I was living back at the mansion, my only respite was reading, and during those times I would imagine myself as the female lead… I would dream of being rescued by the knights or princes in those novels… It's silly, isn't it?"
She looked at Soren with a slightly pained yet embarrassed expression, and in response, he shook his head.
"It's not silly, if it helped you get through hard times, who can judge you?"
His warm response embarrassed Lilliana even more, leading her to try to shift the conversation.
"What about you?"
In an attempt to change the topic, she had noticed that Soren was also intently reading the romance novels she owned, so she couldn't help but be curious.
"I like romance stories, but I don't really have a deep reason behind it like you do; I just enjoy watching the characters get closer and seeing their cute moments together…" Soren rubbed his neck awkwardly. "If I had to give one reason, then maybe I like them because I don't know how it feels?"
His voice became higher-pitched near the end, showing his lack of confidence in his answer.
"You don't know how it feels?"
"Ah, well, I've never fallen in love before."
Back on Earth, he had been in multiple relationships with people who had confessed their feelings to him, but in the end, they had all ended poorly because he could never reciprocate their feelings.
Even his closest relationship, with Aria, had remained a friendship, despite the addition of physical aspects.
Lilliana's eyes filled with curiosity at Soren's words.
"Never?"
"Nope."
It was then that Soren belatedly realised that even though he never thought about it much, Lilliana was a woman as well, so of course she would be interested in things like love talk.
"Not even a crush?"
"I don't think so?" Soren rolled his eyes as he looked back on his memories. "Even if I had, I don't think I'd know."
Soren was unsure of how people in love even felt.
Whenever he read romance novels or heard his friends' experiences, they would always say 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
It was all things he couldn't relate to.
To him, a lot of the descriptions in novels felt too flowery, too unrealistic.
He couldn't imagine himself ever feeling such a way.
"No, you would."
Lilliana's clear voice cut through his thoughts.
"How are you so sure?"
"Because I've had a crush before…?" She looked at Soren as if he were stupid.
In response, Soren's mouth fell agape.
"You have?"
"Why are you so surprised? I'm twenty-two? Of course, I've had a crush before."
This time, it was Soren's turn to have his eyes sparkle in curiosity.
Although he had never experienced it, he had always loved listening to his friends' love stories and trying to help in any way he could.
"Spill it," Soren said bluntly.
"Uhm… Okay? Well, I've had a couple of crushes… When I was a child, I had a crush on many of the male leads I found in novels."
It was an understandable answer, given her previous words about reading romance novels as a form of escapism, but that wasn't what Soren was after; it was her following words that he was waiting for.
"When I finally got out of that place and came here, to the academy, I managed to score high on the entrance exam, letting me enter in class B. Then, when the midterms arrived, the theme was teamwork, and we were sorted into teams based on our strengths and weaknesses to see what we could accomplish. That was when I met him…"
A wistful expression momentarily appeared on Lilliana's face before she giggled and looked up at Soren's face.
"He was the complete opposite of you."
A memory of Lilliana suddenly came to the forefront of his mind.
– ...You're too young for me anyway, and you're the opposite of my type.
"He was way taller than you, his shoulders were broad, and his body was full of muscle. He was also ranked 3rd in martial studies."
Soren leaned forward in response to Lilliana opening up, showing that he was listening intently.
"H-He was manly… and handsome…" Lilliana's voice came out as almost a whisper as her cheeks flushed more than he had ever seen them flush until now.
"So what happened?"
"W-Well… we were put onto 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 as her eyes wandered, "He already had someone…"
"Ah…"
Soren couldn't help but let out a sigh full of regret at her words that so cleanly cut off the tail of her pure love story.
"I ended up confessing to him after summer break ended… but he told me that he hadn't seen me that way, and that I wasn't his type. Then, a few days later, I saw him with an elf senior."
Lilliana's eyes fell to her body as she spoke those words, making Soren realise what she was getting at with her words.
In response to the somewhat solemn mood, Soren said the first words that came to mind in an attempt to fix the atmosphere.
"Want some blood?"
Soren had always been bad at comforting people; it was a question that didn't fit the situation.
In response to the stupid question, Lilliana's mouth fell open in exasperation.
"Hahh… Really, Ren?"
Soren just smiled slightly as he awaited her response.
After a few moments of silence that could only be described as awkward, laughter spilt from Lilliana's mouth.
"Ahaha…Sure, why not?"
Lilliana wasn't stupid enough to not understand why Soren had asked that question, which was why she didn't feel particularly bad about accepting his offer.
The depressing memories that had filled her mind only minutes ago had long since disappeared, replaced by a warm, fuzzy feeling.
"You're so stupid," She said with a wide grin on her face as she shifted over to his lap, then, without even waiting for his response,
she brushed his hair back and…
Crunch
————「❤︎」————