Clara inspects the contents of the letter silently. After confirming the details, she puts it down again. Her voice comes out unusually quiet.
"The admission letter for the Silverfang Citadel..."
She meets his gaze, searching for any sign of deception there.
"How much? You couldn’t possibly have done it by yourself."
Zane sulks under her scrutiny while he searches for the answer inwardly.
*Loan was for 500k... so, maybe the fees should be the same too?*
"You need time to think about what you did, Jack?" Her voice carries a hint of disappointment within it.
Bracing himself, he breathes out, "...500k."
Her fingers curl imperceptibly against the pillow at his answer.
The room feels suddenly pressurized, the tension rising high as, for a moment, there is only silence. Then, she asks.
"Why now?"
Her words get sharper with every breath she takes. "You don’t have money, so you must have done some dirty work or probably taken a debt? Why are you telling me all of this now!?"
The next action comes faster and more dangerously than he could have expected.
With a sudden lunge of her hand, she grips his collar and yanks him forward.
"You kept the admission hidden, then the money. Did you come to ask for help now, Jack?"
The sulking vanishes instantly, replaced by a sudden dread and then the shimmering rage.
"...Don’t." Zane mutters under his breath, taking a deep breath and then closing his hand on her wrist. He tries to push her back, but her gaze holds firm still. His annoyance just increases even more.
"If you don’t want to listen, then just... just..."
He tries to find words, some better and sweeter words, but he fails.
"Just fuck the hell off if you don’t want to help. I am not begging."
Clara’s fingers freeze for a moment, and she pulls herself back. She looks shocked and dumbstruck for a moment.
Then, the anger drains out of her as she leans back against the bedhead. Her hands clasp in her lap as she watches him, but now more as an observer than as someone interrogating him.
He sits back too, but doesn’t look at her anymore. Instead, the wall seems more important to him right now.
Why should I endure all of this? It’s enough now. I will handle the consequences if some random knights come at me for not paying the installments.
I don’t need her help.
As he prepares to leave the room, she follows his movements thoughtfully. Just when he is about to climb off the bed...
"Do you remember our first year together?"
She wears a slightly nostalgic expression on her face now, her fingers fumbling with her skirt absentmindedly.
The confusion enters his mind at that, but she continues now instead of waiting for him to respond.
"It was good. I had been happy for once... all the conversations, the times I was giving you pointers... I thought I could finally have a friend outside of my boring life. But, then..."
She smiles wryly, shaking her head slowly.
"After that, I destroyed everything by lying to my family."
Zane has forgotten what to say anymore. The words go over his head, except for the faint ache in his heart that he cannot seem to explain.
"What do you mean by that?" The concern about not making him look suspicious disappears from him briefly. The ache makes him uncomfortable, reminding him again that this body is not his, at least not yet.
Her brow furrows in confusion at his words, but she doesn’t assess him for once.
"What do I mean...? Because I tried to use our friendship to escape my family’s problems at that time, you changed your attitude towards me over time."
A sad expression appears on her face.
"During the time we started living together, you still acted like a friend, but after that... you started ignoring my personal issues. You started making advances on me despite my repeated denials."
She snaps her gaze to him and lunges forward again. But this time, she leaves no room for him to escape or push her away.
"I was hurt! But you ignored it. Friendship is a different thing, but even I wouldn’t recklessly offer my body to anyone. I am not in that position!"
Zane’s wrists hurt in her hands, and her knee digging into his abdomen makes him almost cry. He can do nothing but listen.
Woman... I am a virgin! I don’t ask for a woman’s body! False accusations! It hurts though...
Clara doesn’t stop. Instead, her knee just presses harder as she blurts out.
"If it was anyone else... I could have definitely beheaded them. But, destroying the two years of friendship just because of your... stupid urges and insecurities, I had to offer that dirty condition."
She loosens her grip on him.
"And now this. You didn’t think about your condition before taking the admission there? What was the reason for doing that? You couldn’t hold back your inferiority complex anymore? You weren’t satisfied with that... conditional satisfaction anymore?"
She leans back completely afterward, brushing her hands off.
Zane manages to sit up again slowly, though the shock to his nervous system is still high.
Inferiority complex...? Condition?
As she goes silent after that, the tension in the room dies down slowly. The amount of information has given him too much to process.
After a minute, she swallows a mouthful of water and sets the glass down on the bedside table. Her expression looks relaxed now after saying what she wanted to.
Noticing his expression, a flicker of guilt crosses her. She reaches out and brushes her finger against his cheek, then lets out a sigh.
"Do you even know anything about that academy? While they allow normal people to enter after paying a large sum... their main focus is still on growing the main assets of their kingdom."
Zane focuses immediately on her words. The mention of the academy brings him back to his current predicament.
The abrupt change in his expression catches her off guard. She fails to process for a moment how he can just move on from her revelation this fast.
"Ha... what am I supposed to do?"
Her touch is warm against his cheek, but he cannot bring himself to feel that in his current situation. The previous ache in his heart has settled down now, though he cannot remember whether it happened because of her actions or when she started speaking about Jack’s emotions.
She observes him closely and then, as if finalising her decision, her hand closes on his collar again. But this time, instead of a forceful push, she pulls him toward her gently.
Her gentleness after that surprising revelation is not understandable to him. Though, it lowers his guard anyways.
Soon, their bodies are pressed together. Her hands rest on his shoulders, and her thumbs circle his collarbone slowly.
"You did all of this while hiding from me..." she murmurs. "So, I am not going to help you in this. But..."
He searches her face as she speaks, hopefully. His hands hold her waist for support.
"But what...?"
Her thumbs stop circling and dig instead into his skin briefly as she hums.
"But, you have been nice to me lately. I noticed... that you even tried to hold back sometimes. Most of the time, you didn’t even try to touch me first."
"Only because I think that you are trying to change... I will take care of your payment problem for exactly three months. I suppose you took some stupid loan for it, right? There’s no other proper way."
"Three months!" A smile appears on his face despite himself at her words. Tears almost well up in his eyes. The relief is immediate, as new paths for him open up suddenly.
Three months of freedom from debt... I can finally breathe properly and figure things out.
...
Slowly, her hands move again, wrapping back around his neck and pulling him down on her. Her lips part as she whispers.
"Will you keep changing like this, or is this just an act...?"
Neither of them waits for the answer. With a sharp intake of breath, their lips meet together.
Zane’s hands rise upwards over her and find her cheeks, cupping them with increasing tenderness as he kisses her.
Clara reacts by slipping her tongue between his lips, tracing the underside of his lips and then, with another tug at his neck, she locks her mouth fully against him.
The kiss goes slow, exploring and gentle.
...
After around a minute, they part their lips as he struggles to breathe. Her teeth nip at his upper lip for a moment longer before she lets him go.
His head comes down to rest on her shoulder. He inhales her scent through the gap between her skin and her neckline, then closes his eyes.
With no further movements from him, she smiles in satisfaction and continues stroking his head with a final kiss at his forehead.
Several seconds later...
"...Thanks."