The soft touch of ceramic against wood carried through the room more clearly than it should have.
Lilliana placed the mug down in front of Soren with both hands, her movements slower than usual, not graceful in the polished way she carried herself at the academy, but careful, as if she were still trying to gather herself after everything that had already happened.
After setting it down, she lingered there for a second, fingers resting lightly against the handle, then moved to sit beside him.
This time she sat close.
Not pressed against him, not quite, but close enough that the small gap between them no longer felt like distance so much as caution, as though both of them were aware that something had shifted and neither wanted to jostle it too hard.
"Thank you, Professor Roseblood," Soren said automatically.
Lilliana stopped.
He heard her draw in a breath, then let it out again, shaky enough that it caught his attention immediately.
"…Lilly."
Her voice came out hoarse, roughened by crying, stripped of its usual softness and composure.
It was not commanding, not playful, not even particularly steady.
If anything, it sounded uncertain, as though she still wasn't quite sure she was allowed to ask for that.
Soren blinked.
"What?"
Her eyes stayed lowered.
"You can call me Lilly," she said quietly. "When it's just us."
"Oh. Okay…"
He rubbed the back of his neck, unsure what the correct response was supposed to be, because the atmosphere between them had changed too much for a simple answer to feel simple.
The room was quieter now, heavier too, but not unpleasantly so.
It felt warm in a strange, delicate way, full of the aftermath of things that had already been said and things that did not need to be said again.
Then something else came back to him, a fragment pulled up from memory.
"If you want," he said after a pause, "you can call me Ren."
Lilliana looked at him for a moment, then nodded once.
That was all, just a small nod, but it still made something ease in his chest.
They sat like that for a while, neither of them rushing to fill the silence.
Steam drifted up from the mugs in thin, wavering trails.
The leaves of the plants around the room shifted faintly whenever the breeze reached them through the window.
Every so often there was the quiet sound of ceramic being lifted and set down again, or one of them breathing a little too deliberately because they were still aware of each other.
The distance between them had nearly disappeared, but Soren still had one question left.
He turned his head slightly.
"It might be a bit insensitive, so feel free to ignore it, but I was wondering why you always act like… that."
She looked up from her mug.
"Like what?"
He hesitated, trying to put it into words without making it sound harsher than he meant.
"So careful," he said after a moment. "It's obvious you were always… trying not to let too much of yourself show, Lilly."
At hearing him say the nickname, the faintest, almost disbelieving smile touched her face, but it faded quickly into something more thoughtful.
She looked down into her mug as though searching for the answer there.
"Uhm… yeah," she said quietly. "I wasn't."
Soren waited.
Lilliana's fingers tightened a little around the mug.
"I was very sheltered before I enrolled here. You already know that much, I think. When I first arrived at Stellaris Academy, everything felt too big and too loud and too unfamiliar, and everyone else seemed to know how to exist around each other so naturally. I didn't."
She let out a small breath.
"My mother taught me to be careful all the time. Careful with my words, careful with what I let people notice, careful with trust. So when I came here, I was still living like that. I spoke the way I had been taught, I kept my distance, and I told myself that if I was polite enough and useful enough and harmless enough, then that would be enough."
Her gaze stayed lowered as she spoke, and there was something painfully unguarded in the way she said it now.
Not dramatic, not performative, just honest in a way that made the words feel smaller and sadder.
"I don't think I really understood how to be close to people," she said softly. "Not properly. It was easier to be kind than open, and easier to be useful than real. So I was never really able to make any friends."
Soren frowned slightly.
That made sense.
It made too much sense, really.
The polished composure, the soft professionalism, the way she always felt warm but just a little bit distant, as if some invisible line was always being maintained no matter how kind she was.
Before, he had only taken it as part of who she was.
Now he could see the habit underneath it.
"You weren't able to make any friends?"
"Uhm… I don't really think that was the right way to say it," Lilliana said, then stopped and tried again. "I don't mean that no one has ever been kind to me or that I've never spoken to people, I just never got close enough for anything to really form."
Her ears twitched once, then settled again.
"...This might be the wrong time to say this, but that wasn't what I meant."
Lilliana looked up, surprised.
"It wasn't?"
He leaned back a little, eyes drifting towards the ceiling as he tried to organise the thought into something less clumsy, but after a moment he gave up on elegance and just said it.
"Well, I just… I don't know. I thought we were already friends. Are we not?"
He immediately avoided eye contact.
A faint warmth had already climbed into his face, and he hated how obvious it probably looked.
For several seconds, Lilliana didn't say anything at all.
Soren glanced sideways.
She was staring at him.
Not blankly, not coldly, just completely still, as if the question had caught her so off guard that her mind needed a moment to catch up with it.
The silence stretched long enough that he started wondering whether he had said something strange, but then, very slowly, the corners of her mouth lifted.
"Do you want to be friends, Ren?" she asked.
There was a little softness in it, a little lightness too, but it wasn't bright enough to break the mood that the earlier conversation had brought entirely.
It felt gentle, almost careful, like she genuinely wanted to hear the answer rather than assume it.
Soren gave her a look.
"Well, maybe I'm wrong, but usually you don't cry in someone's arms, tell them something awful and personal, and then let them hold you for ages if you're not friends."
He paused, then glanced at her properly.
"Would you, Lilly?"
The colour rose into her face almost instantly.
"I…"
She looked away, clearly embarrassed.
"I'm sorry. Yes. Yes, we're friends, okay?"
"Good," Soren said, unable to stop the small grin that slipped through. "Glad I didn't misunderstand."
She huffed and looked even more flustered for a second, but she didn't deny it.
The quiet after that felt different.
Still awkward, a little, but in a way that no longer carried the same uncertainty.
It was warmer now, more settled, as if the thing between them had finally been named and could breathe properly.
Neither of them quite knew what to do with that yet, but it was there.
Eventually, Lilliana cleared her throat.
"Anyway," she said, very obviously trying to pull herself back together, "we need to figure out when I can teach you blood magic. So, when are you free?"
Soren went silent at once.
Lilliana tilted her head.
"Why did you go quiet?"
"…I'm always free."
She stared at him for a moment, then let out a short, tired laugh, the sound roughened around the edges but real.
"Oh," she said. "That does make things easy."
There was the faintest trace of amusement in her expression now, something gentler than a smirk, though still close enough that he knew she was teasing him.
"Well, I'm usually free after classes on most days," she continued, "but I still have lesson plans, grading, reports, meetings, and everything else, so I'm not always free. Unlike a certain someone."
Soren could hear the tease in it, but it didn't sting.
If anything, it made something in his chest feel strangely warm.
"I don't mind, but wouldn't it be easier to make a schedule at the beginning of each week so we don't need to keep worrying about each other's availability?" He paused, then added, more awkwardly, "And it's not like this needs to be some stiff tutoring arrangement. We could just use the time to hang out a bit after, too."
Lilliana looked at him, and for a second he wondered if he had phrased that badly.
Then she nodded.
"That makes sense," she said. "And I admit, it would be a little depressing if I spent time tutoring you only for you to disappear the moment it was over."
Her expression shifted after that, and the warmth in it gave way to a more practical concern.
"But where would we do it?" she asked quietly. "I can't exactly make my bloodline public knowledge."
Soren's eyes wandered over the room before coming back to her.
""…""
They looked at each other for a moment, both having arrived at exactly the same answer.
Lilliana gave a small nod.
"…I suppose we'll do it here."
Soren hesitated.
"Won't that make people suspicious, though?"
It was only after he said it that Lilliana seemed to fully process how repeated visits to her private room might look.
Her gaze drifted over him from head to toe in a frankly assessing way, then returned to his face.
"…You're too young for me," she said flatly. "And you are almost the complete opposite of my type."
"That's not the problem," he muttered.
"And don't you already have someone?" she added.
"Who?"
She looked at him as though the answer should have been obvious.
"…Miss Einhardt?"
"No…?"
They both stared at each other in confusion for a few seconds.
"But she acts like…"
Soren sighed and cut in before she could finish.
"She asked to be friends during the midterms, I agreed, and ever since then she's been following me around. That's it. Just friends, nothing more. Only friends. Not at all romantic. Never happening."
Lilliana gave him a dry look.
"You know, when you deny it that hard, it sounds suspicious."
"Okay, let me put it this way," Soren said. "Do you honestly think Amelia is capable of dating in the first place?"
Lilliana thought about it for a moment, then let out a small breath.
"…Fair point."
"Also," Soren added, "you're only four years older than me, and we're friends now, so don't start trying to act like some distant mature instructor again."
Lilliana pursed her lips at him.
It wasn't dramatic or exaggerated, just a small, faintly wounded little look that made it obvious she had wanted to retreat back behind composure and had just been denied the chance.
Soren felt an unreasonable urge to laugh, but managed not to.
After a second, she exhaled and gave up on the point.
"So," she said, clearly changing the subject, "should I teach you a little before you leave?"
"Yes, please," Soren replied immediately.
————「❤︎」————