Chapter 62: Chapter 62: Good People Have Strange Tastes
Chapter 62: Good People Have Strange Tastes
While Daphne Whitlock was still sitting there with her hand half-raised to her cheek, Cyrus had already reached for the things she had prepared beside the sofa.
The snacks went first.
Then the handheld console.
He hugged the bag to his chest, lifted his small face with a perfect little smile, and said, "Miss Daphne, I should go now. Thank you for everything."
Daphne blinked, still caught in the brief contact from earlier.
"All right, be careful going home."
The door clicked shut.
That sound finally snapped her back into herself.
Daphne stood too quickly.
She should have walked him out. She should have asked where he lived. She should have at least watched which direction he went. She had let him leave with an entire bag of snacks and a handheld console, yet she still did not know his address.
That was careless.
Daphne hurried out into the hall, but all she caught was a flash of white disappearing near the stairwell.
"Cory, wait a second."
No answer came back.
She followed at once.
By the time she reached the bottom of the stairs, that same pale blur slipped around the corner outside the building. Daphne quickened her pace and pushed through the front entrance, her slippers nearly catching on the threshold.
The street outside had already darkened.
A few cars rolled past with headlights on. The air smelled damp and faintly metallic, the way Grayhaven often did before rain. Apartment windows glowed along the block. Somewhere nearby, a dog barked once and then lost interest.
The child was gone.
Daphne stood at the corner and searched the sidewalk, the curb, the parked cars, the mouth of the next alley. Nothing.
No small figure.
No white hair.
No little boy carrying snacks and her game console.
Regret settled in her chest, sharp enough to sting.
After a while, she exhaled and turned back toward the building.
It was fine. She had still gained something today.
Cory had taken the handheld console. That meant he had a reason to come back. Children were simple about things they liked. He would want to return it, or play again, or ask for more games, or pretend he had come over for no reason while hoping she would offer another meal.
Daphne touched her cheek again.
An adult’s small tricks were not something a child could see through.
A smile crept over her face before she could stop it.
Today had been a little progress. Next time, she could be more prepared. She could make better food, set out more snacks, and keep him there a little longer. Maybe if she was patient enough, she could learn where he lived without scaring him off.
Daphne pressed the back of her hand to her mouth and laughed under her breath.
Behind her, not far from the corner, a black-haired child stood half-hidden near the shadow of a parked car and watched her return to the building.
Cyrus waited until Daphne had gone back inside before moving.
The child-sized clothes still hung on his smaller frame, and the bag of snacks rustled against his knee. He stayed still for another stretch of time, listening. No door opened. No footsteps came back. No neighbor stepped into the hall. Only then did he slip toward the apartment entrance and carefully unlock the door to 203.
This time, he had not made the same mistake as last time.
Running back into the room right under Daphne’s nose would have been too careless. Today, he had left first while she was still dazed, ducked around a corner where no one was watching, and changed his hair back to black. That flash of white she had chased belonged to a child who no longer existed by the time she reached the street.
Against someone like Daphne, that was more than enough.
A person could not be that easy to fool and still expect to keep her snacks safe.
Once inside, Cyrus shut the door softly, dropped the bag on the table, and let his body return to its usual shape. The little clothes came off, his own clothes went back on, and he opened a bag of chips with deep satisfaction.
The first bite was salty, crisp, and wonderful.
He leaned back and chewed, pleased with himself.
Still, credit where credit was due. Daphne had been teased, tempted, and dragged right to the edge several times, yet she had not actually grabbed him or tried to keep him there by force. Her self-control had not been impressive in the moral sense, but it existed, which was more than he had expected.
Maybe women who became teachers really did have something in them that could still be dragged back onto the correct road.
He glanced at the handheld console inside the bag.
The urge to turn it on was immediate.
Cyrus resisted.
Exams were coming in a few days, and the cash award mattered far more than a revenge match against a woman who had destroyed him in a fighting game. He could play later. He understood moderation better than anyone alive.
Obviously, this had nothing to do with losing confidence.
That last match had been luck. Pure luck. A sliver of health and a full reverse sweep did not prove Daphne was stronger. It proved the game was unfair, the buttons were suspicious, and the universe liked watching him suffer.
Cyrus sighed with real resentment, then pushed the snacks aside and opened his workbook.
The room settled around him.
The small apartment was not much, but the door was locked, the table was his, the snacks were won through perfectly reasonable effort, and the console was waiting like a future reward. Outside the window, the evening slipped deeper into night. Inside, Cyrus worked through problem after problem, pencil scratching across paper.
Time passed.
Around ten, a knock sounded at his door.
Cyrus lifted his head from the workbook.
When he opened the door, Daphne stood outside with a takeout container in her hands. Her mood looked brighter than usual, though she tried to keep her expression composed. She held the food out as if this were a casual neighborly favor and not the second meal she had provided him in one day without realizing he had already taken a full bag of snacks from her in another form.
"Thank you, Ms. Whitlock."
"You are welcome," Daphne said. "Good luck on your exams."
Her voice had softened again.
To Daphne, the student in front of her was pitiful in his own way. He lived alone, kept odd hours, looked tired more often than not, and had somehow become the bridge between her and the mysterious little boy who visited without warning. Giving him food at this hour was not much. She was his neighbor, and she was also a teacher. A little extra kindness could be called basic decency.
Cyrus accepted the container with a polite nod.
After he closed the door, he looked down at the dinner and let out a small laugh.
She had obviously made this after he left.
Her tastes were disturbing, no doubt about that. There was something deeply wrong with her. And yet, somehow, she was not a bad person in the everyday sense.
Good people always had the strangest tastes.
Cyrus ate the dinner anyway.
Free food did not become less delicious because the provider needed serious psychological correction.
By Wednesday, exam week had reached its last day.
October had arrived without asking anyone’s permission. Rain had fallen sometime before dawn, leaving the streets dark, clean, and slick under a low gray sky. The sun hid behind layers of cloud, and the air had cooled enough that Cyrus left his apartment with an umbrella hooked over one wrist, prepared for weather and pleasantly free from the feeling that the sky wanted to cook him alive.
He loved this kind of day.
Without the hateful sun glaring down, he felt as if his exam performance might reach one hundred and ten percent.
The past few days had been unusually peaceful. He had paused the extra tutoring with Audra, partly because he had already caught up enough to keep pace, and partly because too much time alone with her would invite questions he did not want to answer. That did not mean he had stopped studying. He had done the opposite.
At school, he stayed awake through classes more often.
At home, he worked through science and math assignments on his own.
During the weekend, when he was not stealing meals from dangerous women or managing his medicine, he did practice problems until the pages stopped looking like a foreign language.
Little by little, he was beginning to resemble an actual student.
That was probably a good thing.
One day, maybe he would be able to walk right past that woman with his bangs low, his back slightly hunched under a backpack, and a miserable student expression on his face. She might not even recognize him.
After all, even she would not imagine him hiding in human society by doing homework every day.
The future looked promising enough.
Cyrus sat in his usual corner of the classroom before the exam began, letting his thoughts drift while other students flipped through notes, whispered last-minute formulas, or stared into space with the haunted faces of people who had not slept enough.
The days had passed faster than he expected once he started studying seriously.
A life with no major accidents, no new women trying to drag him somewhere, and no surprise exposure risks felt almost luxurious. The only part that hurt was his wallet. Buying more Frostborn suppressants had emptied it again, and every time he thought about the remaining cash, he felt a small funeral procession pass through his heart.
The cash award had to happen.
His poor wallet’s survival depended on it.
A light tap sounded on the desk in front of him.
Cyrus looked up.
Faye Larkin had turned halfway in her seat, placing the exam paper that had been passed back from the front gently on his desk. Her movement was tidy and quiet, like always. She did not linger, did not make a fuss, and did not ask whether he was nervous.
Cyrus nodded in thanks.
Faye turned back around.
The exam began.
Cyrus lowered his head and focused.
The problems were not impossible. Most of them matched the material he had reviewed, although several still required care. He worked through them one at a time, leaving the questions that needed longer thought for later, then returning with the patience of someone who could almost hear money rustling behind every correct answer.
This was not simply an exam.
This was rent breathing room.
This was food money.
This was medicine money.
This was dignity in paper form.
He wrote steadily until the final minutes passed.
When the exam ended, Cyrus set down his pencil with a calm that felt earned.
Unless something had gone badly wrong, the award money was close enough to touch.
Lunch break began soon after.
Cyrus rewarded himself at the campus store with two packaged sweet rolls. They were not enough for a real celebration, but they were cheap, sweet, and easy to carry. He took them up to the rooftop terrace, where the cloudy weather made the space tolerable instead of punishing.
On sunny days, coming up here would have been self-harm with extra steps.
Today, the concrete was cool, the metal railing smelled faintly of rain, and the city beyond the school looked washed out under the clouds. Grayhaven’s rooftops stretched toward the dim line of the water, though from this angle he could only catch pieces of it between buildings.
Cyrus ate the sweet rolls, leaned back, and let his body go loose.
The exam was over.
The sky was not trying to murder him.
His stomach was not full, but it was no longer empty enough to complain.
That counted as a decent noon.
At some point, he dozed off.
The rooftop stayed quiet around him, broken only by distant shouts from the field, the hum of school vents, and the occasional rush of wind carrying the smell of wet pavement.
By the time afternoon came, St. Alder had reshuffled the schedule as if the school itself wanted to reward everyone for surviving exams. Two gym periods had been pushed together, giving the students a longer stretch outside to burn off the stale pressure of the week.
Several classes were on the fields and courts at once.
The track had scattered groups walking in loose circles. A few students kicked a soccer ball near the far side of the field. Others sat on the bleachers and pretended they were participating by holding water bottles. The basketball courts were already crowded, sneakers squeaking over damp pavement that had dried enough to use.
Cyrus felt better than usual.
He still chose a spot on the steps not far from the court and settled there alone, lazy and content to watch. Moving around was acceptable in this weather, but unnecessary movement was still movement. He had already used plenty of effort on the exam.
His peace lasted only a short while.
A shadow fell over him.
Owen Keats stood in front of him with a basketball tucked under one arm, his school gym shirt already wrinkled and his expression bright with the kind of enthusiasm Cyrus instinctively distrusted.
"Cyrus, come play with us."
"I have never played basketball."
"That means you should try it," Owen said. "It is not that hard once you get used to it."
Cyrus considered refusing.
Then he looked at the sky.
No sun.
No heat hammering down on him.
No immediate risk of melting into an embarrassing puddle in front of half the grade.
Basketball was not completely unknown to him either. Like badminton, he understood the basic rules from watching others play and reading enough to recognize the shape of the sport. He had tried badminton before. Basketball, at least, deserved one attempt.
"All right, I can try for a little while."
Owen grinned.
"That is the spirit."
Cyrus followed him onto the court.
Several students called out to Owen as they passed, asking him to join their teams, but Owen waved them off with easy friendliness. He pulled Cyrus toward an open side of the court instead and started with the basics.
Dribbling looked simple.
It was not simple.
The ball had opinions. It bounced too high, then too low, then angled away like it had been offended. Cyrus chased it twice, caught it once with both hands, and decided that humans had invented this sport specifically to make people look foolish in public.
Owen did not laugh at him.
Not too much, anyway.
"Use your fingertips more," Owen said. "Do not slap it with your whole palm."
"I am not slapping it."
"You are definitely slapping it."
Cyrus tried again.
The next attempt was better.
After a few minutes, he could move the ball in a way that looked almost like dribbling. His shooting was unreliable, which was a polite way of saying the rim had no interest in his hopes, but his body picked up movement faster than his pride expected. When Owen drove toward him, Cyrus managed to block one attack through a combination of reaction speed, stubbornness, and guessing where Owen was about to step.
The ball bounced away.
Owen let out a surprised laugh.
"Okay, that was actually pretty good."
Cyrus straightened a little.
"Maybe basketball respects me now."
"Let us not get ahead of ourselves."
They switched sides.
Cyrus took the ball, tried to dribble forward, and nearly lost it off his knee. He recovered with as much dignity as possible, which was not much, and Owen backed up to defend him.
Before Cyrus could make another attempt, a voice called from the nearby court.
"Owen, want to run another class game today?"
