“I, I…”
Keti opened her mouth. The momentum she had built up from that shout just now deflated at a visible speed like a punctured balloon.
Especially when her enemy stood up and, with a click, shut the office door tightly and locked it.
Keti felt her heart tremble hard as well.
‘I’m done for.’
Just now she had been busy imagining those not-for-children scenes and busy trying not to let Alice see her embarrassing black history, so her head overheated and she rushed in.
Now Alice had indeed been sent away by her, but… but that also meant that in this closed space filled with male hormones, only she and this grinning enemy in front of her remained.
What was this supposed to be?
Out of the wolf’s den and into the tiger’s lair?
Or was this what people called delivering herself to the door?
“Um… I just remembered there’s something at home I need to handle. My clothes haven’t been collected yet, so I’ll just…”
Keti gave a dry laugh, her eyes drifting, and while babbling she turned to grab the doorknob.
However, before she could touch it, a warm hand had already pressed against the door, completely blocking her path.
Thud.
A dull wall-slam.
Lynn leaned in, his whole body looming forward, completely covering that small silver figure in his shadow.
He lowered his head slightly. Those deep eyes that seemed able to see through hearts stared teasingly at the flustered girl before him.
“Clothes not collected? Student Keti, if you’re going to make excuses, at least make them believable. Student Alice would help you with that. No need for you to worry.”
His warm breath brushed lightly over her sensitive ear, stirring a flush of red.
“Besides… weren’t you shouting pretty loudly just now? Saying things like ‘come at me if you dare.’ So what, now that I’m really coming at you, the little cat wants to run?”
“W-who wants to run! I just… just…”
Keti’s face turned bright red from his words. Her back pressed tightly to the door, both hands braced before her chest, trying to keep distance between them as it grew more and more dangerous.
“I just didn’t want you using dirty tricks to deceive Alice! Hand over that Projection Stone! I won’t allow you to show Alice those messy things!”
Summoning her last bit of stubbornness, Keti stretched out a trembling hand toward Lynn.
But Lynn only raised a brow, then leisurely pulled the so-called Projection Stone from his pocket and tossed it lightly in his hand.
“Oh? You mean this?”
“Y-yes! Give it to me!”
Keti reacted quickly and reached to snatch it, but Lynn did not dodge. Instead, he generously placed the stone into her palm.
Eh?
He gave it that easily?
Keti froze, subconsciously lowering her head to look. Her whole body stiffened instantly.
This… this wasn’t some advanced Projection Stone that recorded images at all.
It was clearly just an ordinary fluorite used as a teaching aid, the kind seen everywhere. Aside from giving off a faint glow, it had no image-storing function whatsoever.
“This is…”
“It’s a teaching prop for class. There’s no way I’d carry that kind of thing with me every day, so how could I bring it into the temple?”
Lynn spread his hands, looking at her innocently, but the smile at the corner of his mouth refused to stay down.
“Oh my, I didn’t expect our Student Keti to react so strongly. Tsk tsk. Looks like you really care about those images. Could it be… you were actually looking forward to me playing that kind of thing in front of Alice?”
Boom.
In an instant, Keti felt hot blood rush straight to her head. Her whole face turned so red it looked ready to drip blood.
She’d been played.
Completely played.
This guy had been bluffing her from the very start.
He never intended to show Alice any video. He deliberately said those ambiguous things just to trick her into coming in from outside.
“Lynn! You… you bastard! Big liar! Scum! I’ll kill you! Sob…”
Humiliated and furious, Keti’s eyes filled with tears. She raised her small fists and swung at his chest, but he easily caught her wrist and pulled.
“Ah!”
With a cry, the world spun. By the time it stopped, Keti realized she was already tightly held in Lynn’s arms.
Their bodies pressed closely together. Through the thin fabric of their clothes, she could clearly feel his strong heartbeat and his gradually rising body temperature.
“L-let go of me…”
Keti struggled weakly, but her body felt soft and powerless, almost as if she were refusing while welcoming.
“Tricking you was my fault. But Keti, shouldn’t some things be made clear?”
Lynn’s teasing expression faded slightly. His black eyes gazed deeply at the girl in his arms, as if trying to see through to the most secret corner of her heart.
“If you were only worried I’d show Alice the video, wouldn’t shouting from the door have been enough? Why rush in so anxiously? Why get so angry and drive her away?”
“I… I was…”
“Was it really just to protect Alice?”
Lynn interrupted her. He slowly lowered his head until his forehead touched hers, nose to nose, his voice soft like he was coaxing a startled kitten.
“When you saw me standing so close to Alice just now, when you saw me about to make a move on her, at that moment, here…”
One of his hands slowly slid down and gently pressed against the left side of Keti’s chest.
“Here, didn’t it feel even a little uncomfortable? Not even a little… sour?”
“!!!”
His words were like a precise scalpel, mercilessly cutting open the feelings Keti had always tried so hard to hide.
‘Ugh, th-that’s not true.’
She really wanted to refute him like that.
But she could not hide what she truly felt inside.
When she saw Lynn show that gentle smile to Alice through the crack of the door, when she imagined Alice lowering her head shyly, even though reason told her there was nothing between them, even though she knew Alice was her childhood friend…
At that moment, her heart felt like a bottle of mixed flavors overturned, sourness, grievance, anger… all kinds of emotions tangled together.
She didn’t want to see Lynn smile like that at other girls.
She didn’t want to see Lynn put his attention on anyone else.
Because… because in this world, the person who understood Lynn best was her, the one most entangled with him was also her, the one who had been bullied by him, trained by him, and seen by him in every embarrassing state… was only her.
But how could she possibly say such things out loud?
Admitting that would mean admitting she had fallen for this bastard enemy.
Wouldn’t that mean admitting she had completely turned into a petty woman who only knew how to be jealous?
That kind of thing… absolutely not.