Chapter 4: All According to Keikaku

The Grand Theater of Stellaris Royal Academy was, and I say this as the person who invented it, obnoxious.

Marble everywhere. Chandeliers the size of carriages. All of it surrounding an audience of hormonal teens. I remembered writing the description at seventeen and thinking, yes, THIS is what wealth looks like.

I walked in through the big double doors and immediately stopped.

The ceremony hadn’t started. Instead, the entire entrance hall was full of students standing around in loose clumps, holding little glasses of sparkling juice, being attractive in each other’s general vicinity.

[Ohhh, right, the mixer!]

Actually, this was perfect. A room full of milling students was the ideal environment for what I was about to do, which was commit targeted romantic arson and then flee the scene.

My plans don’t have a good track record, but this one was good, and it came with three steps:

Step one: find Lily.

Step two: aim her at the trench coat guy.

Step three: leave.

This literally could not fail.

Step one resolved itself in four seconds. Lily found me.

She’d been standing near a decorative pillar in cactus mode, hands clasped, smiling at nothing, like she had decided she was going to exist very politely until it ended.

Then she spotted me. Her eyes went wide, her whole face lit up, and then she was shuffling toward me through the crowd with quick, cute little steps.

"It’s you!" she said, arriving in front of me slightly out of breath. "The fox! Um, the... person! From the courtyard! I found the theater, see? Your directions were perfect, I only got confused once, at the dragon statue, because there are actually two statues of men stabbing things and one of them is stabbing what I think is a very large fish, but I figured it out!"

"Of course they were perfect," I said, and winked. "I don’t give cute girls bad directions. It’s against my religion."

She turned pink again, collar to hairline. God, she was easy. I could sustain this girl’s blush indefinitely on two compliments an hour.

[No. NO. Bad fox. You are NOT seducing the heroine. The heroine has a destiny, four boyfriends, and a mother to punch. You are a road sign, and road signs do not flirt!]

"Kohaku, by the way," I said.

"Lily!" She did the tiny bow again. "Lily Everdawn. It’s really nice to properly meet you."

"Likewise." I threw an arm around her shoulders, and this time it was tactical. I turned her, gently, the way you’d turn a telescope, until she was facing the far wall.

Because there he was.

Cassian Holloway. Mr. Trench Coat himself, leaning against a marble column with his arms crossed, black hair over one eye, red streak on full display, wearing the trench coat indoors, at a formal event, in spring.

He was staring at the middle distance like it owed him money. Around him was a five-foot bubble of empty space.

[There’s my guy. My beautiful, broody, himbo. One quarter of the final battle, currently doing his best impression of a coat rack.]

Time for step two. A smarter woman might have engineered something elegant here. A spilled drink, a dropped handkerchief.

I was on a schedule.

"Hey," I said, and pointed, full arm extension, the way you’d point out a car crash. "See that big ball of muscle and fabric over there? By the pillar? Tall, dark, dressed for a funeral?"

Lily followed my finger, squinting adorably.

"The... sad one?"

"That’s the guy. I bet he’s a SUPER fun guy to talk to."

She looked at Cassian. She looked at me. Doubt was forming on that sweet face and I had to snuff it out in its crib.

"No, for real, he’s from a super important family," I said, which was true. "He’s really deep once you get to know him," I said, which was a lie. "And between you and me?" I leaned in, dropping my voice like I was sharing insider trading tips. "His dick is HUGE!"

"EH!?" Lily recoiled so hard it was like I slapped her.

"Anyway, somebody should talk to him." I put both hands on her shoulders, squared her up like a coach sending in the kicker, and gave her a push. "Go get him, champ!"

And off went my little bird.

I watched her close half the distance, confirmed the trajectory was true, and then I got out of there, because a good arsonist doesn’t stand around watching the fire build.

[Goddamn, I’m good!]

I found the seating hall through a second set of doors, picked a row in the back where extras belong, and slid into a cushioned seat with the deep, full-body satisfaction of a woman who has fixed the timeline before lunch.

[Okay. Recap. Lily is over there falling in love as we speak. Their fingers will brush. He’ll call her a small mammal. Flag planted, route open, three hundred Chapters of tension back on schedule, by which point I will be in a hammock, drunk, drinking foxgirl cum from a cup. All according to keikaku.]

A little "hehehe" escaped me, and a boy two seats down scooted one seat further.

Students streamed through the doors and found their seats, and the chandeliers dimmed by degrees.

"Wow, it’s so cold in here," a girl said, right next to me, settling into the seat on my right.

"I know, right? This place is..."

I turned my head mid-sentence, ready to deploy charm at whoever fate had seated beside me, and my mouth just stopped working.

Blonde hair. Blue eyes. A smile that should come with a diabetes warning.

Lily beamed at me from the neighboring seat, hands folded in her lap.

I looked past her, down the row. No coat. I scanned the entire hall, every aisle, every shadowed corner where a brooding boy might lurk. No Cassian anywhere in visual range.

[Uh...?]

"Lily," I said, very calmly. "Where’s Cassian?"

She tilted her head.

"Who?"

[WHO? WHAT THE FUCK DO YOU MEAN "WHO"????]

"The..." My voice came out strangled. I cleared my throat and tried again. "The hunk. The tall one. Coat, hair, tragic aura. The guy you were chatting with, like, five minutes ago."

"Oh! Him." Lily shrugged. "I dunno. I said hello and we talked for a minute, and then the bell rang, so I came to find you."

[She came to find me. She left the love interest to find ME.]

BUT THERE WAS STILL HOPE!!!

A minute was enough. A minute was the whole scene, canonically. Fingers brush, small mammal, done. Maybe the flag was planted and she was just playing it cool.

"Did you..." I swallowed. My tail had gone rigid behind me like a car antenna. "D-Did you like him?"

Lily genuinely thought about it, sweet face scrunched in honest consideration.

"He was fine, I guess."

The heroine of The Heroine’s Heart, the girl whose heart the title was about, had just described her destined, fated, three-hundred-Chapter love interest, the father of at least one of her babies, with the exact words you’d use for a gas station sandwich.

The lights finished dimming, a spotlight hit the stage somewhere far below, and the crowd began to applaud. I applauded too, on autopilot.

[Oh, this world is so fucked.]