Chapter 161| Champ On A Uniform

Chapter 161: Chapter 161| Champ On A Uniform

She looked him up and down.

"A uniform," Nil said, tilting her head and looking him over.

"Yeah," Zane said, tugging at his cuff.

"You wore a uniform to this..." She bit her lip to keep from laughing.

"It seemed like the right call," Zane said, glancing at the floor.

"It’s adorable." She grinned, quick and unguarded. "You’re on time, too. I had a bet with myself you’d be early."

"Who won?"

"Nobody. You’re exactly on time. It’s annoying." She stepped back and swept an arm toward the room. "Come in before someone walks past."

He ducked past her.

The room was small. A single bed against the wall with a rumpled blue blanket. A desk buried in textbooks and a half-eaten bag of crackers. A string of fairy lights pinned above the window, spilling gold across the floor. On the shelf, three framed photos he didn’t look at too closely.

The door clicked shut behind him.

He heard the lock turn.

Nil leaned her back against the wood and folded her arms. For once she didn’t have a joke ready. She just looked at him, and it hit him that her fingers were gripping her elbows a little too tightly.

’She’s nervous,’ he thought.

『 System Note: Maybe,Maybe not, women nature can be predicted accurately. 』

"So," Nil said quietly. "You came."

"You invited me."

"I did." The corner of her mouth lifted. "I wasn’t sure you would."

"Neither was I," Zane said.

"But you’re here."

"I’m here."

The fairy lights hummed faintly. Outside, the lamp at the end of the walkway flickered once and went out.

_ _

Nil stayed against the door with her arms folded. Zane stood in the middle of the room with his hands shoved into his pockets, because he didn’t know what else to do with them. The fairy lights hummed. Somewhere in the main dorm a door slammed and a girl laughed, far away and muffled.

"Okay," Nil said at last, pushing off the wood. She tugged her grey hoodie straight over a short checkered skirt, then crossed to the desk and swept the crackers into a drawer like she was hiding evidence. "Sit."

"Where do I sit?" Zane asked, glancing around the cluttered room.

"The bed." Nil nodded toward it with her chin. "It’s the only seat that isn’t buried in a textbook."

He sat. The mattress dipped, and a faint smell of shampoo and citrus came up out of the blanket. He kept his back straight, hands on his knees, and looked at the wall.

Nil dropped onto the desk chair, spun it to face him, and tucked one foot under her.

"It’s unfortunate you won our bet," Nil said, with a short smirk.

"I won’t say unfortunately," Zane said, grinning back.

『 System Note: The host seems to disagree with the statement. 』

’Shush,’ Zane thought. ’Who wouldn’t? It’s Nil.’

"And I don’t go back on my word." Nil held his eyes, and her blue ones were doing something he hadn’t seen before, a stubborn, almost bickering kind of cute, like she was daring him to be the one to look away. "Not when I make it. Not when I mean it."

Zane stared right back. He’d learned that from Nyx. If you blinked first, you lost the exchange, and tonight he couldn’t afford to lose anything.

His gaze slipped anyway. Just for a second. It dropped to her waist, to the hem of the checkered skirt, to the bare line of thigh where the chair pressed into it.

He dragged it back up.

"Okay," he said. "I don’t want to undermine your resolve."

Nil burst out laughing, and it bounced off the walls.

"My resolve?" She pressed a hand to her chest. "Zane. Just touch my butt already."

"Right." He cleared his throat. "Yeah. Okay."

"Don’t say okay like you’re signing a form."

"I’m not."

"You are. You’ve got your serious face on."

"It’s my only face."

"It’s a lovely face." She stood up, walked over, and turned around with her back to him, hands on her hips, glancing over one shoulder. "Whenever you’re ready, champ."

The room got very quiet.

’Don’t think,’ Zane told himself.

『 System Note: The host should breathe. 』

’I’m breathing.’

『 The system will not comment further. 』

He stood. The floor creaked under him. He stretched out both hands and shifted closer until he could feel the warmth coming off her through the hoodie, and then he laid his palms against her butt.

The checkered fabric was thin and slightly rough. Underneath it, she was soft and warm and a lot fuller than he’d imagined. His fingers sank in, and the curve of her ass pressed against his hands and filled them. A short, shaky breath escaped him.

Nil didn’t move. She didn’t tease. She just stood there, perfectly still, and let him.

He hadn’t meant to keep going. His hands started moving on their own, slow circles at first, then a gentle squeeze, then the slide of his thumbs along the seam of her skirt. She was warm all the way through. Every time his fingers shifted, the soft weight of her shifted with them, and a thought drifted loose in his head, quiet and foolish.

’She feels incredible.’

He looked up.

Nil had turned her head. Her eyes were half closed, her lashes low, her lips parted a little. Her cheeks had flushed pink to the ears. She was watching him sideways with a look he didn’t have a name for, soft and a little drowsy, like she’d forgotten she was supposed to be joking.

『 System Note: The host seems to be enjoying the moment. 』

’Shush,’ Zane thought, without taking his eyes off her. ’I told you not to interrupt epic moments.’

『 The system apologises. It did not realise the moment was epic. 』

’It’s epic.’

『 The system has noted that. 』

Nil’s eyes opened.

She reached down, slow and deliberate, and closed her fingers around his wrists. She didn’t pull his hands away. She just held them where they were.

"Seems like you were enjoying yourself back there," she said, her voice rough around the edges.

Zane smiled. He didn’t bother hiding it.

"Obviously," he said. "Who wouldn’t, when they’re given a chance with a beauty?"

Her mouth twitched. She tried to look unimpressed and failed.

"That line was terrible."

"It’s the best I had."

"It was terrible." But she was laughing quietly, and her grip on his wrists tightened a little, and she didn’t let go.

Then the system chimed.

『 GACHA METER: +7% 』

『 Current: 22% 』

『 Condition met: genuine intimate interaction. 』

Zane’s eyes flicked up. He ignored it.

Nil turned around.

She did it slowly, keeping hold of his wrists, until her back was against the desk and she was facing him from a foot away, close enough that he could feel her breath on his chin. She let go of one wrist. Then she reached up and cupped his cheek in her palm, her thumb resting just under his eye.

Up close, her eyes were very blue. There was a faint crease between her brows, and the corner of her mouth trembled. She was nervous. She’d been nervous the whole time. She’d just been better at hiding it.

"Hey," Nil said, barely above a whisper.

"Hey," Zane said, his voice coming out lower than he meant it to.

She took his other cheek in her other hand, so that he was held in place with his face tilted down and her thumbs on his cheekbones. A single strand of her hair had fallen across her eyes. He didn’t move to brush it away.

"Want to do more?" Nil asked.

Zane didn’t answer yet. He looked at her, at the pink on her cheeks and the pulse beating in her throat, and the fairy lights turned everything gold.

The lamp outside the window flickered. Somewhere in the main dorm the laughter had stopped. Down in Arena Two, Maren was still running drills for another hour and a half.

’I should say something,’ he thought.