Chapter 654: Chapter 654: A Little Too Direct [I]
Cynthia turned her head slowly.
For a few seconds, she only stared at him. The train kept moving, the window kept carrying Aurevane farther away, and the faint noise from the other compartments continued as if Trafalgar had not just thrown a sentence into the middle of her chest and left it there. Cynthia, however, had gone completely still. Her hand remained on the strap of her bag. Her lips parted slightly, but no answer came out.
Trafalgar watched her reaction with the same calm he had used to say it. Or almost the same calm. He was not as unaffected as he made himself appear, but Cynthia looked so thoroughly struck that teasing her became impossible to resist.
"Do I have something on my face?"
Cynthia did not answer.
Her skin began to warm first around the cheeks, then deeper, color spreading until even her attempt to keep a serious expression failed her. She stared at him as if she had heard the words perfectly but her mind had refused to accept them as real. Trafalgar stayed where he was, close enough for the quiet between them to grow heavier.
"Are you all right?" he asked, lowering his voice a little. "Did the trip make you dizzy?"
Cynthia blinked.
At last, sound came out, but it was not the steady, sharp Cynthia he was used to. It came broken, nervous, almost painfully close to the way Barth spoke when embarrassment caught him by the throat.
"W-what did you say?"
Trafalgar did not dodge the question. He did not wrap it in a joke this time. "I said I like you, Cynthia."
The second time hit harder.
Cynthia’s face turned even redder, which was impressive, considering how little room there was left for the color to spread. She looked down at the seat, then back at him, then toward the window as if Aurevane might explain what had just happened. Nothing helped. Trafalgar had said it directly. No hint, no strange half-comment, no careful line that she could pretend meant something else if her courage failed.
Cynthia had known she liked him.
That part had been terrifying enough already. She had understood it little by little, from the orphanage, from Euclid, from the way he spoke to Barth, from the way he stood beside people he cared about without making a performance of it. And yes, Trafalgar had given hints. He had looked at her differently at times. He had worried. He had stayed. He had made small comments that lodged under her skin for days.
But he had never said it like this.
"In serio?" she asked, the words leaving her before she could smooth them into better English. She swallowed and corrected herself, voice lower. "You mean it?"
Trafalgar nodded. "I do."
Cynthia drew in air, held it badly, released it worse, and somehow managed to answer while looking as if she wanted the floor to open for professional reasons. "I like you too."
"I know."
Her head snapped toward him. "You know?"
"It was written all over your face," Trafalgar said. "But I wanted to say it first."
Cynthia covered part of her face with one hand, which did absolutely nothing to hide the red. "That is horrible."
"It is accurate."
"It is still horrible."
"You did ask if I meant it."
"I did not ask you to tell me I have been obvious."
"You were very obvious."
"Trafalgar."
He let the corner of his mouth rise. "Fine. Not to everyone. But to me? Yes."
Cynthia lowered her hand slowly, mortified and strangely relieved at the same time. She had changed around him. She knew that. She had been softer, more attentive, more careful with how she approached him. She had gone to Aubrelle. She had spoken to Mayla. She had worried when he vanished into things he refused to name. Perhaps it had been visible from the outside, especially to someone like him.
"Since when?" she asked.
Trafalgar leaned back slightly, considering it properly instead of giving her a fast answer. "I do not know the exact moment. I think it happened with time. We have known each other for more than a year, and the way we spoke to each other changed during that time. You stopped being only Barth’s sister. I stopped being only the dangerous idiot you nearly shot in a bathroom."
Cynthia gave him a weak glare. "You are never letting that go, are you?"
"No. It is one of my treasured memories."
"It was a misunderstanding."
"A small one."
Despite herself, Cynthia laughed under her breath, and that small sound loosened something between them. Trafalgar reached for her hand. He did it without rushing, giving her enough time to pull away if she wanted. She did not. Her fingers were warm when he took them, tense at first, then slowly closing around his.
Cynthia stared at their joined hands.
"This is not a joke, right?"
Trafalgar’s amusement faded. "No, Cynthia. It is not a joke."
The change in his voice made her lift her head.
"I would not joke with you about this," he said. "This is complicated for me. I am not saying that to make myself sound tragic. It is simply the truth. People close to me can become targets because of who I am, because of my family, because of the things that keep finding their way to me. I am afraid of that more often than I say."
Cynthia’s fingers tightened slightly.
Trafalgar continued, quieter now. "So no. I would not bring you closer with a careless joke. If I say this, I mean it."
Cynthia breathed in, then out, trying to force some of the heat from her face. It did not work very well. She glanced toward the other compartments, perhaps realizing only now where they were. The train was the same type as the one they had taken before, but the students were spread farther apart, tired from the trip and the inspections. Director Selara was in another carriage with the homunculus. No one nearby looked as though they had heard anything.
Trafalgar let her have that moment.
