Chapter 55: The Rented Boyfriend

As far as Seraphina was concerned, everything already made sense.

She still clearly remembered that day at the corridor junction. The first person to approach her was that silver-haired boy. His features were so delicate they bordered on unfair, and his voice was as crisp as cut glass. Every single word of his confession sounded like it had been transcribed from a courtship manual and recited from memory.

Cold sweat had drenched her back right then and there. The person standing in front of her radiated a kind of earnest intensity that felt strangely oppressive. More importantly, that exquisitely feminine face perfectly matched the exact archetype she feared the most.

Only then did she notice the second person standing nearby.

It was Uriel. He was leaning against the wall with his arms crossed, looking like he was just next in line to confess. His posture was completely relaxed. His gaze rested openly on his silver-haired companion, showing neither tension nor hesitation.

A single thought had flashed through Seraphina's mind at that moment. What exactly is the dynamic between these two? Why is he just watching his friend confess to someone else without a single ounce of jealousy?

Later in the cafeteria, she had spotted them a few more times.

The silver-haired boy would sit quietly beside Uriel, eating his meals and occasionally glancing up at him. There was something in those eyes she couldn't quite put into words. It wasn't the clinginess that exceeded normal friendship, nor the casual indifference of a regular buddy. It was more like observation. He was scanning everything around him with a gentle but overwhelmingly dense scrutiny.

Two other guys frequently sat with them. One was a loudmouth with red hair, and the other was a blonde guy who carried a notebook everywhere. Those had to be Kai and Leo. They had also confessed to her a few days ago. The loudmouth hadn't even managed to finish his sentence, while the blonde delivered his lines so fluently it sounded like he was presenting a thesis defense.

Three guys. Add Uriel, and that made four.

Two failed confessions.

One silver-haired boy who clearly didn't mind standing aside while his friend confessed.

Then Uriel himself.

Then Uriel showed up, using an exaggerated and obviously insincere tone, claiming he had already thought about their future children's names. She had glanced behind him right then. The silver-haired boy was standing at the corridor junction, watching them with golden eyes and a focused, gentle expression.

She understood everything in a split second.

Now, sitting on the bench by the training grounds, she watched Uriel's face freeze completely after she dropped the line about the person beside him. That was all the confirmation she needed.

Pack mentality.

In a tight-knit guy group, if the other three members all go and confess to the same girl, the last guy has to do something. Otherwise, he becomes the odd one out. Uriel didn't come here because he liked her. He came here to avoid being ostracized by his peers. She didn't feel offended at all. In fact, she found this reason far more authentic than a bouquet of roses and a cheesy love poem combined.

Seraphina lowered her gaze.

This specific situation reminded her of one particular person.

It was the person she least wanted to see and feared the most. Her cousin. That aggressive, strikingly beautiful, and overwhelmingly oppressive woman always looked at her with that "I know what's best for you" gaze. Estella turned every single one of Seraphina's life choices into a heavily micromanaged schedule.

The silver-haired boy's eyes were different, but the danger level registered in the exact same tier in her mind. That gaze wasn't rooted in romantic affection. It was an appraisal. It reminded her of the countless hours she spent repeating dinner table etiquette and social pleasantries. It was the feeling of being measured against a specific rubric, only for the evaluator to nod in satisfaction.

When the silver-haired boy looked at her, his eyes clearly said: Yep, this one will do.

It carried the exact same temperature as her cousin's gaze. It was deeply uncomfortable.

---

She pulled herself out of her thoughts. Looking at the thoroughly stiffened Uriel in front of her, she decided to stop beating around the bush.

"But you see, it would be quite troublesome for me if we broke up right now."

Her tone was gentle, but her words cut like a scalpel.

"If you walk away now, your overly pretty 'best bro' will definitely come looking for me again."

She said the words best bro very softly. The implication sat in the air between them like a stone.

She recalled those golden eyes once more. Every time in the cafeteria, every time they passed each other in the hallways, those eyes would quietly land on her. They would scan her from head to toe, then back up again, before curving into a gentle smile. That wasn't hostility. It was a thorough evaluation.

It was exactly how a mother sizes up her child's blind date. It was so uncomfortable. It was just so deeply, viscerally uncomfortable.

"That kind of evaluative, clammy stare really makes me feel grossed out, you know."

Uriel snapped his head up.

His eyes had changed. The previous stiffness and panic were washed away, replaced by a far more complex expression. The heart that had been suspended in mid-air out of sheer terror that his mother's divine identity was exposed just shattered into glass shards. It immediately dissolved into a wave of sheer absurdity and sudden realization.

He got it. An evaluative, deeply invested stare? Wasn't that just his mother's ultimate daughter-in-law audit mode? Yesterday in the cafeteria, he had literally watched Tian sitting next to him, shoveling rice into her mouth while staring at Seraphina with that deeply satisfied smirk.

Perfect score. A flawless daughter-in-law.

After a brief moment of sheer shock, his rational brain finally booted back online.

Wait a minute.

Seraphina just said 'If you walk away now'. She isn't trying to expose me. Her tone was way too calm when she said it. It didn't sound like a threat. It sounded more like she was stating a consequence she desperately wants to avoid.

She doesn't want Tian coming after her again. So she's hinting at something? Is she implying that as long as I maintain the status quo, she won't dig into Tian's business? Is she keeping this a secret?

Seraphina watched the expressions rapidly shifting across his face. The corners of her lips twitched upward by a fraction.

He reacted. A reaction is good.

She slightly adjusted her posture, clasping her hands neatly over her knees, and continued. Her tone was a bit more relaxed now, sounding like she was discussing a business deal both parties were eventually going to hash out anyway.

"Besides, if the rest of the school finds out that I was treated like a disposable fling and dumped by an, well, utterly average guy, how do you think your social standing would fare?"

Uriel sank into deep thought, his eyebrows slowly knitting together. The question itself wasn't the real issue. The real issue was her motive for asking it.

The victim of a callous breakup would undoubtedly reap massive public sympathy. Meanwhile, the scumbag who dumped her would be upgraded from a school-wide pariah to a universal public enemy across both academies. But that didn't matter. He had survived three years of middle school and handled crises way bigger than this. A mere school-wide boycott couldn't scare him.

He was thinking about something else entirely. What is this woman plotting?

She was talking in circles. She circled around the topic again and again. Every single question felt like she was handing him a stepping stone. Why?

Seraphina looked at his expression and knew he was still waiting. This guy was far more cautious than she had initially anticipated. She decided to stop dancing around the subject.

"Actually, I didn't agree to date you because I liked you either."

Her tone suddenly became incredibly candid. It shed a layer of polite wrapping and revealed a layer of direct honesty. The wind blew a few stray leaves off the trees. They spiraled down and landed on her shoulder. She raised her hand and gently brushed them away.

"It was purely to, well, avoid my cousin. And your excessively pretty friend."

She listed the two reasons side by side, delivering them so casually it was as if she were explaining why she picked black tea over coffee today. Then she tilted her head slightly, looking at Uriel. There was no shyness in her pale grey eyes, nor any romantic ambiguity. There was only a strictly business-like calm.

"Let's just treat this as a rent-a-boyfriend arrangement."

She pulled a bank card from her pocket and held it out in front of Uriel.

The card bore the exclusive insignia of the Royal Bank. The luxurious, gold-foil watermarks caught the dappled sunlight filtering through the canopy, refracting a blinding glare that was more than enough to blind a peasant.

Uriel's eyes widened by a microscopic fraction. His Adam's apple bobbed up and down. It wasn't out of gratitude, nor was it out of anger. His brain was simply stuck buffering.

Seraphina continued speaking, her tone exactly the same as before.

"I will deposit one hundred gold coins into it every month. Is that acceptable?"

Uriel stared at the bank card, his mouth opening and closing without producing any sound.

She pinched the card between two fingers and pushed it half an inch closer to his face.