Chapter 127| Wrong bathroom

Chapter 127: Chapter 127| Wrong bathroom

The first thing Zane registered was soft.

Not the floor. Not a wall. Not anything that belonged in a corridor ambush.

His face had landed in something warm and yielding. The fabric pressed softly against his cheeks, giving way under the impact with a softness he hadn’t expected. For a moment, he remained frozen, unable to process what he’d just buried his face in, especially at 1:18 PM on a Tuesday in an academic block corridor.

His hands came up instinctively and landed on something soft and compact from behind. His palms pressed against the soft mounds, compressing the fabric beneath them as his fingers curled around them before his brain could process what he was touching.

He registered the squeeze.

The material giving under his grip.

Then he looked up.

The bathroom logo on the door behind him was the girls variant.

He was in the wrong bathroom.

He processed that in approximately one second.

Then processed the face in front of him.

Maren.

Not like he was expecting someone else.

Or was he.

Her face was fully red. The deepest version he’d probably seen. The specific shade that had been setting records since week one and had apparently decided Tuesday afternoon in a girls bathroom was the occasion to attempt a new benchmark.

"Wow," Zane said.

’Maren,’ he thought. ’She pulled me into the girls bathroom. My face went into her boobs and my hands are currently at her soft portable ass’

He looked down.

His hands were exactly where they’d landed when he’d grabbed for purchase.

Both of them. Resting on her. The blue flowered pattern of her sundress soft under his palms.

He looked back up at her face.

She hadn’t moved.

He hadn’t moved.

The bathroom went quiet around them. Empty. Just the two of them and the wrong logo on the door and his hands still exactly where gravity and instinct had put them.

’I’m in the wrong bathroom,’ he thought. ’With someone I probably like. And my hands are in a location that is going to require an explanation at some point or not.’ He looked at her red face. ’But not immediately.’

Maren raised one hand slowly.

Rubbed his chin with her thumb. The specific gentle gesture of someone who had just done something and was deciding whether to acknowledge it.

"Rare," she said. Her voice carrying a different tone from the one he was used to. Quieter. Warmer. "Running into you at lunch hour in the academic block."

"Likewise," Zane said. Still looking at her face. His hands still in their natural position. Not moving them. Not drawing attention to the fact that he wasn’t moving them.

She looked at him.

He looked at her.

The blue flowered sundress was indeed a development. The casual version of her that existed outside training gear and class uniforms. The sundress sitting on her slim frame with the specific fitted quality of something that had been chosen rather than assigned. The fabric soft under his palms in a way that training gear categorically was not.

"You’re not at lunch with Nil," he said.

Her face already fully red did something that suggested she found the question specifically poorly timed.

"Do we have to think about her right now?". Her voice went lower. The specific version that existed in rooms with closed doors. "When it’s just the two of us in here."

He looked at her.

"Fair point," he said.

She looked at him directly. Something in her expression that didn’t have the usual careful management around it, the version of her that came out in rooms with thick walls and clicked locks and the specific privacy of somewhere nobody was going to walk through without knocking.

"I’ve been thinking," she said quietly. "About the first time. You know." A pause. The red face not going anywhere. "Sometimes I can’t just get over it."

Zane looked at her.

’Does she mean the first time we fucked,’ he thought. ’Is she actually saying what I think she’s saying at this moment in a girls bathroom located in an academic block.’

He looked at her face.

The sundress. The red face. The thumb that had just rubbed his chin. His hands were still where they were, gripped firmly just caressing with minor movements.

’She’s saying it,’ he thought. ’She’s absolutely saying it.’

’And between there’s a quest active with a 48 hour timer,’ he thought. ’And I’m currently holding Stellar Blitz in a girls bathroom and she just told me she can’t stop thinking about the first time.’

’Dex,’ he thought suddenly. ’Dex once said... and he’d said it about something completely unrelated at 2:45 AM while eating noodles, that opportunity doesn’t knock twice and sometimes it kicks the door in.’

’Never thought I’d use that advice,’ he thought. ’And yet.’

He moved his hand from where it had been resting.

Brought it up slowly to her face instead.

Looked at her properly.

"You look extraordinarily beautiful this afternoon," he said.

Maren’s breath caught.

A small sound. Involuntary. The specific exhale of someone who had been holding something at careful distance and had just watched it close the gap on its own.

Then under a millisecond she kissed him.

Not the careful version. Not the measured version. The specific kind that came from someone who had been thinking about Thursday since Thursday and had been carrying it through training grounds and classrooms and cafeteria tables and apparently lunch hour in the academic block until it had found the first available closed door and decided here was good enough.

Zane pulled her closer.

His hands finding her waist. The sundress fabric warm under his palms. Her hands at his shoulders. The bathroom quiet around them except for the specific sound of two people who had been in the same corner every morning since week one finally running out of things to wait for.

The system surfaced.

『 Maren Cass — Familiarity +5% 』

『 Current: 98% — Genuinely Close tier 』

『 System Note: 98%. The system notes two more percentage points exist between the host and the ceiling. The system is saying nothing about what happens at 100%. 』

’Say nothing then,’ he thought.

『 The system is saying nothing. Very loudly. 』

Then the Gacha meter notification.

『 GACHA METER: 58% → 66% 』

『 Fill source: Physical intimate contact with bond target 』

『 Base fill: +5% 』

『 Bond depth bonus +20% fill rate applied: +3% additional 』

『 Total fill: +8% 』

『 System Note: The system notes the host is in a girls bathroom at 1:18 PM on a Tuesday. The system has no further comment on the location. 』

He looked at Maren.

She looked at him.

The blue flowered sundress. The red face that had stopped being embarrassed and started being something else. The only thing awkward was them being in a girls bathroom in the academic block in hope of nobody scheduled to need this specific room for the next however long.

He separated to reach out and bolted the door.

’I was already stressed out from today,’ he thought. ’And finally a way to relieve it and complete a quest .’

’Killing Two birds with One stone for sure.’