The courtyard near the training hall always smelled faintly of metal and stone that had baked in the sun all day.
Soren sat on one of the benches with his elbows resting on his knees, letting the heat leave his muscles in slow, pleasant waves.
His breathing had already steadied, and the post-training burn that used to make his limbs feel like lead was gone, replaced with that clean kind of tired that promised a good night's sleep instead of a collapse.
Beside him, Amelia leaned against his shoulder like it was the most natural thing in the world.
Her clothes were slightly damp from sweat, nothing dramatic, just the honest aftermath of moving hard and fast for a few hours.
She didn't seem to care.
Amelia rarely cared about things that weren't food, fighting, or Soren specifically, and even then she only cared in the blunt, direct way she did everything.
Soren had already cast [Clean] on himself out of habit, the spell sweeping over his skin and hair in a brief shimmer that left him feeling cool and fresh.
It was one of the simplest spells he knew, and it was still one of the most useful.
The difference between being sweaty and being clean didn't seem like much until you had spent months training and fighting and coming back coated in your own exhaustion.
He shifted slightly, glancing at the darkened patch along Amelia's collar where sweat had soaked in.
"You want me to cast it on you too?"
Amelia didn't answer immediately.
She paused like she was processing the question, then tilted her head down slightly, lifting her shirt from her body to her nose.
Soren blinked once.
Amelia sniffed her own chest.
Then she sniffed again, slower, as if the first result had been inconclusive.
Soren felt the corner of his mouth twitch.
Amelia's eyes narrowed at nothing in particular.
"Do I smell?" she asked, blunt and serious.
Soren let out a short breath that wasn't quite a laugh.
"No," he said immediately.
Amelia stared at him for a moment like she didn't fully trust his judgement, which was unfair considering he had only made the offer out of worry of her being uncomfortable.
Then she sniffed herself one more time just to be sure.
Soren reached over and set his hand on top of her head, fingers threading lightly through her hair. It was warm from training, a little damp at the roots.
"You don't smell," he repeated, gentler, giving her head a small pat.
Amelia's ears flicked, the motion subtle enough that most people wouldn't catch it.
"Then why?"
"Maybe because your shirt is sticking to your skin, dumbass?" Soren replied, amused. "I figured you might be feeling gross after all that moving."
Amelia looked down at herself, then back at him.
"I'm fine."
"You always say that."
Amelia didn't disagree.
She just watched him with that steady, assessing look she always had, like she was deciding whether to allow it.
Soren kept his hand on her head, thumb brushing once along her hairline, not pushing, not rushing, just waiting.
After a few seconds, Amelia gave a small, reluctant nod.
"Fine," she muttered, like she was doing him a favour.
Soren's smile warmed a fraction.
"Good girl," he said without thinking.
Amelia's head snapped toward him so fast it almost made him pull back.
Her eyes sharpened.
Soren immediately realised what he had said, and his brain, which had been perfectly relaxed two seconds ago, decided to sprint.
"…It's what I say in my head sometimes," he blurted, then immediately regretted how that sounded and tried to patch it with more words, which only made it worse, "it just slipped out, sorry, I didn't mean it like—"
Amelia stared at him for a long second as he dug himself deeper.
Then she leaned into his side harder, like she had decided the best response was to trap him there and make his embarrassment his problem.
"Doesn't matter," she said, tone flat and final. "Just cast it already."
Soren huffed a quiet laugh under his breath, partly at himself and partly at the fact Amelia had somehow made him feel like the one being handled.
He raised his free hand.
"「Clean」."
The spell flowed over Amelia in a quick sweep, a soft shimmer that vanished almost as soon as it appeared.
The dampness on her clothes faded, sweat and dust lifting away as if they had never been there, and the slight cling of fabric against skin disappeared with it.
Amelia blinked once, then looked down at herself with faint surprise.
"…It's cold."
"It's clean," Soren corrected, amused.
Amelia sniffed herself again.
Soren stared.
"You're doing it again?"
Amelia didn't look ashamed.
"I'm checking," she said, as if that explained everything.
"And?"
Amelia paused, then with absolute sincerity said, "I don't smell."
Soren's hand returned to her head automatically, fingers moving through her hair in a slow, absent-minded pet.
"See?" he murmured. "Told you so."
Amelia relaxed against him, tension from training fading out of her posture.
She let out a quiet breath that sounded almost like a satisfied hum, and the sound was so small and so content that it made something in Soren's chest go soft.
He leaned back against the bench, letting the moment settle.
It felt… nice.
Normal.
Not the fragile kind of normal where you were waiting for something to snap, but the kind where time passed without needing to be fought for, where the next second didn't feel like a threat.
He glanced sideways at Amelia.
Her eyes were half-lidded, gaze drifting across the courtyard, and the late afternoon light caught in her hair.
For a second she looked peaceful, not in the delicate way nobles liked to perform, but in the simple way someone looked when their body finally believed it was safe to rest.
Soren's mood lifted even higher.
He'd had a good day.
Training had gone well, and the results of the Elixir of Growth were already becoming obvious in subtle ways: stamina returning faster, mana settling more smoothly, his body propelling faster when he kicked off the ground.
There was a clean confidence in it that didn't feel arrogant, just practical.
Then there was Amelia herself.
Maybe it was because of their outing, or maybe it was because she had finally stopped circling and chosen to stand where she meant to stand, but she had been in a better mood today, the kind where she occasionally hit him with dry one-liners or paid more attention to his movements in sparring.
He had even seen her smile multiple times, which was a vast improvement considering that even on the best of days a genuine smile from Amelia was a rare event.
It was the kind of day that made him feel like maybe the world wasn't always trying to bite his throat out, that he could simply relax and enjoy it.
Amelia shifted, pressing her shoulder into him a little more.
Soren didn't move away; he just let his hand stay where it was, resting lightly on her head as if it belonged there, fingers brushing through her hair with a slow, thoughtless rhythm.
They sat like that for a while.
Students passed by in ones and twos, most heading toward the training hall, some leaving it, and the sounds stayed distant, footsteps on stone, muted conversation, the faint clang of weapons being put away.
Soren let his eyes drift, scanning out of habit more than concern, and he tried not to think about anything bigger than this bench and this warmth and the fact that his day had been good.
And then—
A pressure moved along the path behind them.
Not a physical force.
Nothing in the air changed.
It was simply a quiet, sharp awareness, the kind that made the back of his mind tilt, as if the world had adjusted its weight.
Soren's gaze shifted without urgency.
Tall figure.
Pale hair.
Long ears.
Yvette Astrin Yggdrasil.
She walked along the courtyard path silently, posture straight, expression unreadable, uniform immaculate the way it always was on her.
Not a wrinkle, not a strand of hair out of place, not a sign that she had ever sweated in her life even though Soren knew better.
His brain registered her presence the same way it registered weather.
There.
Passing.
He didn't sit up.
He didn't stiffen.
He didn't adjust Amelia's position.
In fact, he didn't do anything at all.
Yvette's eyes flicked toward the bench.
For the briefest moment her gaze landed on Amelia leaning into him, and Soren felt the temperature of that look.
Disgust, clean and immediate.
It didn't flare into anything dramatic, and it didn't come with words or a confrontation.
It was simply there, sharp enough to be felt even from a few metres away, like a blade drawn in silence.
Soren kept his attention where it had been, hand still on Amelia's head, fingers moving once in a slow, calming stroke.
He didn't look away in panic.
He didn't try to prove a point.
He simply continued existing.
Yvette's gaze lingered for a heartbeat longer, then she looked forward again and kept walking, footsteps quiet on stone.
"Tch."
The sound was small, dismissive, and she passed them like they weren't worth her time.
Soren tracked her with the edge of his vision until she moved out of range, the pressure fading as smoothly as it had arrived.
He exhaled through his nose and returned his attention to the courtyard in front of them.
Amelia had gone still.
Not frozen, exactly, but alert.
Her posture had tightened subtly, the relaxed weight of her body shifting as if she were bracing without realising it, and Soren could tell she had felt the look even if she hadn't seen it properly.
He glanced down at her.
Her eyes were on the path where Yvette had just walked, ears angled slightly back, wariness written in the small details.
Soren's hand moved again, a quiet stroke over Amelia's hair, slower this time, a grounding gesture more than affection.
Amelia's eyes flicked up to him.
"Did you do something to her?" she asked.
The question was so blunt, so Amelia, that it almost made Soren smile again.
He didn't, not fully.
He just kept his expression relaxed.
"Nope," he answered simply.
Amelia stared at him like she was testing whether that was true.
Then she asked the next obvious question, still blunt.
"Then why does she look at you like that?"
Soren leaned back against the bench and shrugged.
"Rumours," he said.
Amelia's brows knit.
"About you?"
"Yeah."
Amelia's eyes narrowed.
"What rumours?"
Soren hesitated for half a second, not because he didn't know, but because saying it out loud always made it sound even more ridiculous.
He settled for the simplest version.
"How do I put it… She thinks I'm like Felix?"
Amelia's stare sharpened as if she had just been given permission to be annoyed.
"That's stupid."
Soren's mouth quirked.
"I agree."
Amelia looked back toward the path, jaw tight.
"You should tell her she's wrong."
Soren let out a small breath.
"I'm not going to talk to her," he said, tone calm.
Amelia's eyes snapped back to him.
"Why not?"
Because boundaries are real.
Because forcing myself into someone's space isn't friendship, it's arrogance.
Soren didn't say any of that.
He kept it simple, the way Amelia liked it.
"She told me not to," he said. "So I won't."
Amelia stared, like she couldn't decide whether to respect that or challenge it.
"She's hostile," Amelia pointed out.
"I noticed," Soren replied dryly.
Amelia's lips pressed into a thin line.
Soren kept petting her head, steady and slow, letting the rhythm do what words didn't need to.
"Look, it doesn't matter, does it? What is some second-year student going to do? Especially when I have a princess sitting right here," he said, half-jokingly, voice still light
Amelia didn't look convinced.
Soren glanced at her and softened his tone without turning it overly serious, keeping it in that middle ground where honesty didn't become a weight.
"You remember the story I told you a few months ago, right?" he asked. "When we went for drinks?"
"Yeah."
"I don't want to repeat that mistake," Soren said. "If she doesn't want me near her, that's fine. I'll leave her alone."
Amelia watched him for a moment.
Then she huffed quietly.
"…Stubborn."
Soren's smile returned, warmer.
"Takes one to know one."
Amelia didn't deny that.
She leaned into him again, tension easing out of her shoulders as if she had decided to accept his answer for now.
Soren's hand stayed on her head, fingers idly brushing through her hair.
He looked back out at the courtyard.
Students continued to pass.
The world continued to move.
Yvette was already long gone, swallowed by distance and stone and the academy's endless paths.
The encounter hadn't changed anything.
Not yet.
And that was the point.
Soren's mood didn't drop.
He didn't feel crushed or offended.
If anything, he felt mildly amused in the quiet way he had been learning to allow himself, as if part of him recognised the shape of the problem and had already accepted that it wasn't going to be solved with brute force.
This wasn't a duel.
It wasn't a quest.
It wasn't something that could be fixed with one good line and a dramatic gesture.
It needed time, patience, and repetition, which was almost funny when he thought about it because repetition was something he was good at.
He had built skills with repetition, built habits with repetition, rebuilt himself in small ways through repetition, and if this was going to be another long, slow process, then fine.
He could do long.
He could do slow.
He just needed to keep doing it without turning it into a performance.
He exhaled, a faint laugh slipping out before he could stop it.
'…This is going to take a long time.'
————「❤︎」————