"Twice?" he repeated, the word catching, because it didn't fit his internal timeline.
He had been injured in Rena Forest, yes, badly enough that his body still complained about it, but that was once, not twice.
Then a memory shifted in his mind, the sterile smell, the bandages, the nun calling out to him, the way his body had already been hurt before he had even taken his first step his new body.
'Right…'
His fingers curled lightly against his knee.
'When I first woke up here, I was already in the infirmary.'
He had dismissed it as convenience, a story starting point, but Lilliana had just acknowledged it as a fact, and that meant something had happened before he arrived, something that had put Soren Arden in that bed.
The thought pricked at him, not panic, not yet, but a quiet unease, because it was another gap, another missing piece, and he didn't like gaps.
He forced himself to focus on the present again.
Lilliana was watching him with a mild crease between her brows, as if she regretted bringing it up but couldn't pretend it didn't matter.
"I apologise," she said, voice controlled. "I shouldn't have mentioned it so suddenly. It's just…"
She hesitated, then continued with careful honesty.
"As your homeroom professor, I would be negligent if I ignored the pattern."
The phrasing was professional, yet the concern beneath it was harder to hide.
Soren nodded slowly.
"It's fine."
Then he opened his mouth again, because he felt like he should say more.
"I'm alright now. My body just aches a bit."
"That's good," Lilliana said.
Then her gaze dropped briefly to his ribs, to the way he held himself when he shifted in his seat, and her tone warmed by degrees, not suddenly, but steadily, like she was letting herself care in increments.
"Mr Arden," she began, then paused again.
He waited, because she looked like someone trying to decide whether she was allowed to say the next part.
When she spoke, her voice was quieter.
"I want you to know that if you ever need someone to talk to, you can come to me."
Soren's first instinct was to refuse.
Not because it was offensive, but because talking to an authority figure was never safe in his experience, and because his problems were messy in ways he didn't know how to articulate, and because admitting vulnerability felt like placing your throat on a table.
Then he looked at her.
At the way she kept her posture formal, as if professionalism was armour.
At the way her eyes stayed steady, but not cold.
At the way she had chosen to ask him to lunch in an empty classroom rather than making a spectacle of "checking up" on him.
It was careful.
It was considerate.
And that made it harder to refuse.
He swallowed.
"I may not be the most experienced professor," Lilliana continued, as if trying to pre-empt his objections, "and I'm aware I'm young, but I'll do my best. If you need help, all you have to do is ask."
Her words were simple.
They weren't dramatic, nor were they sentimental.
Yet they still made something in Soren's chest tighten, because they didn't match the "game" version of her, not cleanly, not neatly, and that mismatch brought the same small spike of anxiety he had felt in the infirmary.
Not because she was doing something wrong.
Because his map was shifting.
Because if Lilliana Roseblood could be warmer, gentler, more human than he had memorised, then other things could be too, and that meant relying on "knowing the script" was dangerous.
He didn't show that thought outwardly.
He didn't want to worry the woman before him further.
Instead, he nodded, because the truth was that he wasn't good at pushing people away when they offered care without demanding anything in return.
"Thank you," he said quietly. "I appreciate it."
Lilliana seemed to exhale at that, as if she had been bracing for rejection.
Then, after another brief hesitation, she lifted her hand, movements controlled, and gently rested her palm on his head, not ruffling his hair or making it playful, just a light, steady touch.
A reassurance.
A check-in without words.
Soren went still for a second.
He wasn't flustered per say, but simply caught off guard by the action that didn't fit her previously serious tone.
His mind tried, reflexively, to label it, to decide what it meant, but the warmth of her hand wasn't something that could be explained easily or logically.
Yet he didn't pull away.
He could have, but he didn't.
He sat there, accepting it, because correcting her felt cruel, and because, privately, he realised it was… comforting, in an unfamiliar way, the kind of comfort that made him want to close his eyes and also made him wary of wanting it at all.
It was the first time in a long time that he had felt the warmth of another person.
Maybe that was why he let her do as she pleased.
Then, after a few moments, Lilliana's hand lifted away after a moment, as if she had only allowed herself that much.
"Promise me that you won't do something like that again without telling someone," she said, tone still light enough to pass as casual, but her eyes were serious.
Soren blinked.
He could have joked or deflected, but instead, he just answered plainly.
"I promise I'll be more careful."
He couldn't entirely accept her words, because he couldn't plan for the future, but he wouldn't lie to her either, not when she was showing him such care.
Lilliana held his gaze for a second longer, then nodded once, satisfied, though the worry didn't fully leave her eyes.
"Good," she said, and the word sounded like relief disguised as authority.
She straightened slightly, gathering herself back into her professional shape, then glanced toward the clock near the door.
"We should finish up," she said. "Lunch will be ending soon. What's your next class?"
"Demonology," Soren replied. "You?"
"I don't have one," Lilliana said, matter-of-fact. "I'm returning to my office to prepare for next week's lessons."
Soren rose carefully, shoulders rolling once as if to test how much his body would complain.
"Then I'll see you tomorrow," he said, then hesitated, because gratitude felt insufficient, but it was what he had. "And… thank you again. For lunch. For everything."
Lilliana inclined her head, a soft hum of acknowledgement, then turned as if to leave, and Soren reached for his bag.
"Mr Arden."
Her voice stopped him.
He turned back.
Lilliana was standing with her hands loosely clasped, composure intact, but there was a faint crack in it, subtle, the way her fingers fidgeted once before she stilled them, as if she was trying not to look nervous.
"How would you feel," she began, then paused, and when she continued her tone softened, "about doing this again sometime?"
Soren blinked.
The question landed heavier than it should have, because it wasn't just "lunch," it was… continuity, a repeating pattern, something he would have to fit into his life.
It was something that implied she planned to keep checking on him, keep caring, and the instinctive part of him twitched at the idea of being watched that closely.
His anxiety flared briefly, then guilt followed right behind it, because she was offering kindness, and his first reaction was to create distance, and he hated that reflex remained, even now, even as he recognised it.
Lilliana continued, voice gaining the faintest nervous lilt, just enough that her professionalism didn't fully mask it.
"Perhaps… once or twice a week," she said, then added quickly, as if tightening the explanation would make it safer, "It would allow me to ensure you're eating properly, and it's also an efficient way to monitor a student who has demonstrated… a tendency toward dangerous decisions."
There was professional logic, but there was also something else under it, a warmth she wasn't fully hiding anymore.
Soren opened his mouth, then paused, because he realised he didn't know how to refuse without sounding like he was rejecting her personally, and he wasn't good at that, he wasn't good at drawing lines when someone was gentle.
Instead, he latched onto the only part he could safely protest.
"Dangerous decisions?" he repeated, brows lifting. "Are you calling me a troublemaker?"
He pointed at himself, incredulous.
Lilliana's expression softened further at his half-joke, and for a second the corner of her mouth lifted in something close to amusement, quiet and restrained.
"Yes," she said, as if it were obvious. "What else would I call a student who has already spent multiple nights in the infirmary before the mock duels have even started?"
Soren stared at her, then closed his mouth.
He couldn't argue with that.
"…Fair," he admitted, a reluctant exhale escaping him.
Lilliana's eyes warmed, and that was when the last of her composure slipped, just for a heartbeat, not into overt cuteness, but into something more openly human.
She fiddled with her hands again, then looked at him with a faint, tentative hope.
"So, would you… like to?" she asked, quieter this time.
The phrasing was careful.
The question, suddenly, was no longer purely professional.
Soren felt that subtle anxiety again, the sense that the game version of Lilliana would never have asked this, not like this, not with that tone, and his map wavered under his feet.
Then something inside him whispered something ugly, that he should turn her down, that he didn't deserve her kindness.
But another part of him, quieter but more stubborn, whispered back that refusing would only make him more alone, and he was scared of that.
He didn't know which of the voices was "right", not anymore.
So he chose the path that hurt the least in the moment.
"Yes, please," he said, simple, honest, then added, because he wanted to keep the boundary somewhere safe. "As long as it doesn't interfere with your work."
Lilliana's shoulders eased so visibly it almost made him smile.
"It won't," she said quickly, then caught herself, smoothing back into professionalism with effort. "I'll inform you ahead of time, so it doesn't conflict with your plans."
Soren almost told her that he didn't have plans.
He almost told her that "plans" were usually just him eating alone or, at best, Felix dragging him into something by sheer force of personality.
But he held himself back.
For reasons he couldn't fully explain, he didn't have the heart to puncture the neat version of himself that she saw, where he had a schedule, where he was a busy person.
"Alright, thank you," he said instead.
Lilliana nodded once, then turned toward the door, her composure returning, but right before she stepped out, she glanced back over her shoulder.
And for a moment, her mask dropped almost entirely, her expression softening into something shy, almost cute in how earnest it was.
"Then, I'll see you at lunch again soon, Soren," she said, voice gentler than it had been all conversation.
It was a simple line, but it made him feel strange.
Lilliana left, footsteps quiet, and Soren stood in the empty lecture hall for a moment longer, staring at the door as if it might explain itself.
He shook his head once, then slung his bag over his shoulder and began walking toward the lecture hall where Demonology took place.
As he moved through the corridors, his thoughts circled back to what had just happened.
It was strange.
Not the lunch itself, not the food, not even the scolding, those could all be explained by "concern" and "responsibility," but the accumulation of small gestures made his mind feel like it was trying to stack mismatched pieces into a puzzle that didn't want to fit.
Lilliana Roseblood, the genius professor who, in the game, rarely made personal connections and kept everyone at arm's length, had invited him to lunch, prepared food deliberately because it was "polite," checked on him like he mattered, touched his head like reassurance was allowed, and then asked to do it again.
It felt like she was telling him to discard information he had memorised.
Like she was quietly proving that his knowledge was not a guarantee.
'Her mask just… slipped,' he thought, uneasy, then corrected himself, because it hadn't "flown off," it had peeled back in layers, and that was almost worse, because it meant it was real.
'Does she even realise how different she's acting?'
The question gnawed at him.
Then another question, heavier, followed.
'Why me?'
No matter how many times he asked it, it didn't make sense.
He wasn't special.
He was the opposite, low-ranked, dismal stats by academy standards, a nobody in Class F who wanted to stay out of the story.
His thoughts snagged on a single word, and he slowed mid-step.
Stats.
His gaze flicked to the side, and his status window appeared with obedient clarity.
.
[Charm - 8.7 (S-)]
.
Soren stared at it.
"…In the end it can only be that… right?" he murmured under his breath.
Completely ignoring the possibility that it wasn't true at all, Soren latched onto the idea with the quiet desperation of someone trying to keep his world predictable.
It made him feel better.
And right now, he needed that.
————「❤︎」————