Days had passed since the kiss.
Seven of them, to be precise.
Aiden had counted every single one in excruciating, silent detail.
The house had transformed from a quiet, cold space into a full-blown arctic tundra of unspoken words.
He and Elena had perfected a delicate ballet of avoidance.
If he was in the kitchen, she was suddenly fascinated by a dust bunny in the upstairs hallway.
If she was in the living room, he urgently needed to check his email in his bedroom.
They were two ghosts haunting the same house, bound by a single, shared memory that was too heavy to acknowledge and too potent to forget.
He felt the guilt coiled in his stomach, a cold, heavy snake. He had used her. He had taken her kindness and her secret loneliness and twisted it into a desperate, selfish act to save his own skin.
"Oh, do stop moping, my vessel," Liora's voice echoed in his head, sounding bored. "Guilt is such a drab color on you."
Aiden was currently staring at his phone, watching his energy percentage tick down with agonizing slowness.
68%.
He hadn't even done anything today except breathe and feel awkward. Existence, it turned out, was expensive.
"And besides," Liora continued with a dramatic sigh, "you're still contaminated."
Aiden frowned, directing his thoughts inward. "Contaminated?"
"With her," the spirit huffed. "That little office girl. Mira. Her affection was… passable. I suppose. Like cheap sugar. A quick rush, but it leaves a terrible aftertaste."
He could almost feel her shudder in his mind.
"Elena's affection, on the other hand," Liora purred, her voice turning rich and smooth, "is like a fine, aged wine. Complex. Deep. It warms you from the inside out."
Aiden closed his eyes. He didn't want to think about that. He didn't want to think about the dizzying warmth that had flooded him when Elena had kissed him back.
"That cheap sugar is still clinging to your aura, darling human. It's making me… irritable. And when I'm irritable, the system gets a little unstable."
As if on cue, his phone screen flickered. His energy bar dropped a full two points in a single, jarring flash.
66%.
"What was that?" he thought, a spike of panic lancing through him.
"A little hiccup," Liora said, her voice deceptively sweet. "A reminder of who provides the vintage stuff around here. We really must cleanse your palate."
A sharp, clinical chime rang through his mind, and a new notification window seared itself into his vision.
[New Quest Issued]
Aiden's heart sank.
[Quest: Prove your devotion. Generate 200 AP from Elena Vale by performing a selfless, intimate act.]
He read the words again. Selfless. Intimate.
The system wasn't asking him to steal a kiss this time. It was asking for something genuine. Something that couldn't be faked.
"Don't you see the poetry in it?" Liora sighed happily. "You must prove that you prefer the vineyard to the candy store. Go on, my vessel. Show her she's the one you truly crave."
He felt sick. This was a new level of manipulation. The system, and the jealous spirit controlling it, was now actively playing matchmaker in the most twisted way imaginable.
That evening, he found her in the garden.
The setting sun painted the sky in shades of orange and purple, and the air was thick with the sweet scent of roses. Elena was kneeling by a flowerbed, carefully pruning the bushes, her movements precise and focused.
She looked beautiful and sad, a perfect portrait of loneliness.
He stood there for a long moment, just watching her, his throat tight.
Finally, he cleared his throat.
She flinched, startled, and a single, perfect rose petal fell from her hand.
She turned, and her gentle blue eyes widened when she saw him. Her hand immediately went to the necklace at her throat.
"Aiden," she said, her voice barely a whisper.
"Hi," he managed, feeling like an idiot.
The silence between them stretched, thick and heavy. A cricket started chirping somewhere nearby, mockingly cheerful.
He had to say something. He had to address the issue.
"Elena… about that night," he began, his voice low and quiet. "I shouldn't have—"
"It was a mistake, Aiden," she cut in, her voice soft but firm. She turned her attention back to the roses, refusing to look at him. "We were both… tired. Overwhelmed."
He felt a strange pang of disappointment at how easily she said it.
"Yeah," he said, his voice flat. "A mistake."
He watched her hands, the careful way she snipped a dead leaf. He saw the slight tremble in her fingers.
Then, so quietly he almost missed it, she spoke again, more to the roses than to him.
"Still… it didn't feel like one at the time."
The words hung in the evening air, a fragile, dangerous confession.
She immediately seemed to regret saying it, her shoulders tensing. She quickly changed the subject, her voice becoming unnaturally bright. "How was work? Did you finish that proposal?"
He saw the conflict in her eyes, the desperate attempt to rebuild the wall between them that they had both shattered. He decided not to push. Not yet.
"It was fine," he said, walking closer. "Here, let me help."
He took the small trowel from her side and began to loosen the soil around a new bloom, trying to ease the tension with the simple, shared task.
Slowly, it worked.
They worked in silence for a while, the only sounds being the snip of the shears and the scrape of the trowel. Then, he made a dry comment about a particularly stubborn weed, and she laughed. It was a quiet, breathy sound, but it was real.
The conversation started to flow after that, soft and hesitant at first, then more easily. They talked about nothing important the weather, a book she was reading, a funny thing that happened at her boutique. It was normal. Dangerously normal.
When she finally sat back on the small garden bench to rest, he saw the deep exhaustion etched on her face. She looked tired. Not just from gardening, but a deep, soul-level weariness.
"You're a terrible apologist, you know," Liora commented in his head. "Like a confused monk trying to explain why he stole a pie. Just get on with it."
He ignored the spirit. He knelt on the soft grass in front of the bench where Elena was sitting.
She looked at him, her expression questioning.
Without a word, he gently took her foot in his hands. It was bare and cool from the grass.
Elena stiffened instantly, her whole body going rigid. "Aiden, what are you…"
He didn't answer. He just held her foot for a moment, his touch careful, respectful. Then, he began to massage it. His thumbs worked in slow, deliberate circles on her sole, pressing into the tense muscles.
It was a simple, sincere gesture.
A selfless, intimate act.
At first, she was completely frozen, too startled and flustered to react. He could feel the tension in every line of her body.
But he kept his focus quiet and his touch steady. He wasn't demanding anything. He was just… giving. Offering a moment of simple comfort in the quiet twilight.
He felt the exact moment she surrendered.
A soft, almost inaudible sigh escaped her lips, and the tension flowed out of her like water. She leaned her head back against the bench, her eyes closing. The walls she kept so carefully maintained around herself began to crumble into dust.
This felt more real, more intimate, than their frantic kiss in the kitchen.
This was a connection, fragile and honest.
And then, his phone buzzed silently in his pocket.
A notification glowed on the dark screen.
[Milestone Reached! Reward: Enhanced Charisma (Passive Skill Unlocked).]
[Description: Your words and actions now carry a subtle, supernatural charm. People will be more receptive to you, more willing to trust you, and more likely to find you attractive.]
Aiden stood up, his knees stiff from kneeling.
He looked at Elena, who was watching him with a fragile, hopeful expression.
Then he thought about his new "skill."
Supernatural charm.
A cold, uneasy feeling settled in his stomach.
This system wasn't just keeping him alive.
It was changing him.
Just as she opened her mouth to speak, a sound cut through the quiet evening air.
The crunch of tires on the gravel driveway.
Headlights swept across the garden, catching them both in a sudden, harsh glare.
Mr. Vale was home.