Chapter 535. Don’t Treat Bread Like an Enemy Combatant

Chapter 535: 535. Don’t Treat Bread Like an Enemy Combatant

The smile didn’t vanish, but it sharpened. Without breaking eye contact, she reached behind her and produced a second apron, thrusting it at his chest.

"You’re making the bread," she said. Her tone left no room for negotiation.

William stiffened, holding the apron like it was a foreign object. "I’m a guest, Catherine."

"You’re a man who nearly destroyed my kitchen two weeks ago during that impromptu cooking lesson," she countered, stepping aside to let them into the warm embrace of the house. "You owe me a rematch."

Ten minutes later, William was losing a war against a stubborn lump of dough.

It was a humiliation beyond words. He had once held off a Tier Five Abyssal Reaver for nearly an hour, his blade singing through demon blood while his lungs burned like molten iron.

He had faced down horrors that would shatter most men’s minds without blinking. And yet here he was, being systematically dismantled by yeast and gluten.

The sticky mass had slipped through his fingers like living sinew, smeared across the edge of the counter, plastered itself onto his sleeve, and somehow defying the laws of physics had found its way into his hair.

"You’re kneading it like it’s an enemy combatant, William," Catherine observed.

She didn’t even look up from the stove, where she was tending to a simmering pot, but her voice carried that infuriating note of amused authority.

William grunted, wiping a glob of dough from his forearm with a frustrated swipe. "It’s bread, Catherine."

"It’s supposed to be cooperative... I should be winning this."

"That’s your problem right there," she said, finally turning to face him. Her eyes sparkled with a knowing mischief. "You’re treating it like a duel."

"You keep pushing harder and harder, trying to force it to submit, trying to get some kind of reaction out of it."

"But it’s not fighting back, William... That is the problem."

"You keep demanding a reaction from something that has none to give."

’She’s talking about more than just bread,’ William thought grimly.

The metaphor hit him like a physical blow. He spent his days treating every problem as something to be crushed, every threat as something to be overpowered.

He approached Ellie’s trauma like a battlefield, trying to siege it with protection and concern, when perhaps he should have been learning how to simply... exist alongside it.

Suddenly, a sound cut through the domestic hum of the kitchen.

It was a laugh.

But it wasn’t the careful, brittle little sound Ellie had been offering up all week—the sound of someone walking on eggshells. This was something else entirely.

It was a genuine, unguarded laugh that burst out of her chest, loud and startling. It was raw and unfiltered, the sound of a dam finally cracking under pressure.

The moment the sound registered, Ellie’s entire body stiffened. She immediately clapped both hands over her mouth as if she had committed some unforgivable sin, her eyes widening in panic.

She looked terrified, as if she had forgotten that she was allowed to be happy, that she was allowed to feel anything other than exhaustion.

Catherine glanced over her shoulder at the girl, then turned her gaze back to William. Her expression softened into something profoundly tender, something achingly vulnerable.

In that look, William read everything: she had orchestrated this moment. She had known that the only way to reach Ellie was through the absurdity of his failure.

She had given him permission to be the fool, to be the distraction, to be exactly what Ellie needed in that moment.

William didn’t hesitate. He saw the opportunity in the fragile, precious crack in Ellie’s armor, and he took it.

He deliberately grabbed another handful of dough and shoved it into the counter with more force than necessary, making a dramatic show of his struggle.

"I think it’s winning, Catherine!"

"I think it’s plotting something!"

"It’s moved to my left flank!" He exaggerated a stumble, nearly knocking over a bowl of flour, playing the part of the overwhelmed warrior with theatrical conviction.

Ellie’s eyes crinkled at the corners, her hands slowly lowering from her mouth. A small, genuine giggle escaped her again.

William continued to make a fool of himself, leaning into the absurdity with every ounce of his prideful dignity.

It was a performance, a calculated sacrifice of his own image, and as he watched Ellie’s shoulders relax for the first time in days, he decided it was the kind of sacrifice a man could be deeply proud of.

Later, once the bread had been slid into the oven and the kitchen had settled into that particular, fragile quiet that only follows a burst of genuine noise, Catherine moved with practiced grace.

The frantic energy of William’s full-covered humiliation had dissipated, leaving behind a warm, golden haze. She poured steaming tea into three ceramic cups, the fragrant steam curling upward like incense.

She set one in front of Ellie with deliberate gentleness. Catherine didn’t approach this as a healer, nor as a concerned guardian; she approached it as a woman sharing a moment of mundane comfort.

Her voice was light, almost conversational, as though she were merely commenting on the shifting season.

"Does your back get stiff often, dear?" Catherine asked, tilting her head slightly. "The old training injuries are the ones that never quite heal; they tend to flare up in me whenever the weather turns cold."

The question hung in the air, weighted and precise.

Ellie flinched. It was a minute reaction, a fractional tightening of her shoulders, but to William, who was sitting at the far end of the table pretending to be deeply interested in a chipped piece of wood, it felt like a thunderclap.

"Not really," Ellie said.

Her voice was too quick, too hollow. Immediately, she dropped her gaze to the amber depths of her tea, staring into the liquid as if it contained the secrets of the universe.

She was a terrible liar; the way her fingers trembled against the ceramic betrayed the falsehood before she could even finish the sentence.

William felt a surge of protective fury, but he forced himself to remain still. He knew Catherine’s methods.

Catherine didn’t attack; she waited for the wound to speak.

Catherine did not press. She didn’t call out the lie or demand an explanation.

Instead, she simply sat down across from the girl and wrapped both hands around her own cup, seeking its heat. She let the silence stretch, not as a pressure, but as an invitation.

"I won’t ask again, Ellie," Catherine said quietly, her voice dropping an octave, losing its casual veneer and replacing it with something raw and ancient. "But I once knew a student..."

"A girl who reminded me very much of you... She was exceptionally brave, more than most soldiers I’ve met."

"And she carried her pain entirely alone... She wore it like armor, thinking that if she never showed the crack, no one would see the weakness."

Catherine leaned forward slightly, her eyes locking onto Ellie’s with an intensity that made the air feel thick. "But that was exactly what made the pain last longer."

"Because she was so strong, everyone around her assumed she didn’t need help."

"They admired her suffering instead of offering to share it... And so, she withered from the inside out while everyone praised her for standing so straight."

Ellie’s breathing hitched. A single tear escaped, tracking a slow, glistening path down her cheek before she could stop it.

"I don’t want that for you," Catherine continued, her voice soft but unyielding. "I don’t want you to become a monument to your own endurance."

"The door to this house is not locked, Ellie... It never will be."

"Not for you, not for William, and not for anyone who needs to remember that they don’t have to fight every war alone."

Ellie stared at the tea for a long time. The steam rose between them like a veil.

She gripped the cup with both hands, knuckles white, holding onto it as if it were the only warm, solid thing left in a world that had suddenly become terrifyingly uncertain.

Her shoulders shook once, just once, a silent acknowledgment of the truth she had been running from.

"Thank you... Miss Catherine," Ellie whispered.

The words were small and broken, but they were real.

"You’re welcome, dear," Catherine replied, a sad but satisfied smile touching her lips. "Now drink your tea before it gets cold."