Chapter 137: Public Claim
"Cecilia. We need to talk."
Even if Cecilia hadn’t been in the middle of her highly unorthodox campaign of seducing Eastiel, she would not have gone out of her way to agree to talk to this man.
And thankfully, Eastiel was on the sa wavelength.
"She busy, lil bro," Eastiel drawled, a lazy, deliberate condescension that was so perfectly calibrated to annoy it was an art form.
Cecilia was hit with such a wave of secondhand cringe she physically recoiled, smacking his ass. "East! Ugh! What the fuck?!"
SLAP!
A stinging impact landed. But Eastiel just cackled. He knew it was a cringe line of astronomical proportions, but the reference, the sheer, territorial claim of it, was worth the social mortification. He wanted Arzhen to understand that he was no longer the man.
The way Arzhen’s carefully blank face twisted, a flash of disgust and fury, was proof enough the cringe had been a tactical masterpiece. "I’m serious," Arzhen ground out, his voice tight. "My father is looking for y—"
"If he’s looking for , then let him look for
himself," Cecilia interjected, her tone gentle, even warm. It was half a callback of the barb he’d thrown at her in this very hallway.
’Father should have married you himself if he wants you in the family so badly.’
She didn’t wait for a response. She simply turned, tucking her hand into Eastiel’s, and pulled him away.
As they moved to leave, Arzhen’s composure cracked further. "If this is how you choose to try and get my attention this ti, you better stop," he called after her, his voice rising. "This guy is an asshole, and he’s not good for you, Cecilia Arace—"
"If you keep making everything about you, not even that cunt Ruby is going to like you, Arzhen," Cecilia cut him off, not even looking back.
Arzhen was so flabbergasted he seed to short-circuit. "You—You’re just faking it, right?" he sputtered, a last-ditch attempt to reclaim the narrative. "You know no one would believe that you’re actually dating this guy, ri—"
"Bitch, sit down. You look pale. Drink so water," Eastiel sneered over his shoulder.
Here, in this world without the power boost of a human bond, the raw, natural disparity between them was laid bare. On a normal day, Arzhen wouldn’t dare confront Eastiel head-on. He knew, in his bones, he would lose.
"You think you can go around fooling girls and ruining their lives?!" Arzhen spat. "It’s you, isn’t it? Is it your influence?"
That did it. Cecilia’s warm, gentle mask cracked at the edges. She stopped and turned, her eyes glacial. "You speak as if I’ve always been a good girl who would do whatever you expect, huh? Whether it’s staying in my lane... or being a strong punchbag for you?"
Arzhen flinched back as if struck, his face paling further at her sudden ferociousness.
"But what if I was never a good girl?" Cecilia hissed, her tone returning to that warmth, but now it was hollow. "What if I’m just a fake bitch, trying her best not to get caught?"
She offered him a small, lopsided smile. Then she whispered, just loud enough for him to catch, "Well. He caught ."
Eastiel barked another laugh and tugged her hand, leading her away. Cecilia held that mocking smile on Arzhen for two seconds too long before finally turning her back on him.
"Yea, loser, I caught her," Eastiel cackled, selling the teenage bully act.
As they sauntered off, Arzhen’s eyes that were burning with humiliation caught on a detail that punched the air from his lungs.
Dangling from Eastiel’s belt loop, clinking together with a faint, rry sound, was a cluster of small, delicate keychains in soft pastel colors. Then his gaze dropped to Eastiel’s wrist, where a stack of colorful, beaded bracelets sat.
He rembered Cecilia showing up to class one day adorned with similar little trinkets. Not long after, the whispers started. The sidelong glances. The mocking comnts about how she was copying Ruby’s signature style, trying too hard.
He’d believed it. What else could it be? Of course she’d emulate Ruby to gain his favor.
After the gossip swirled, he never saw her wear those things again. Her style beca plainer, more austere.
But why... would those sa trinkets, the ones she’d buried to avoid ridicule, now be displayed so boldly... on him?
They weren’t in a drawer. They weren’t forgotten. They were on him. Tapping against his hip with every confident stride. Wrapped around his wrist like trophies.
Had she actually just... liked them?
For herself?
Those little objects, the ones that should have been forever cursed, locked away in the shadows of her room, witnesses only to her most private, unguarded monts—
Her sleeping, studying, dressing, her lone tears or her bare skin in the quiet of her little boudoir...
Those very sa tokens were now out in the open, claiming the sunlight and the attention, adorning the body of another man?
How... dare... were they publicly displayed on the body of the man who had "caught" her.
How dare she give this golden boy the artifacts of a self she’d hidden from him—a self he’d helped force into hiding?
To make them love tokens adorning her champion?
Now, each tiny tap-tap against Eastiel’s belt loop felt like a nail being driven into the coffin of his sanity.
They were... actually together.
***
DING!
"Aah!" Cecilia flinched, the sudden chi in her mind startling her out of the lingering tension.
[You’ve succeeded in the task: Make him claim you in front of everyone!]
[Reward Rank 4]
- [5 Stars Artifact: Bully!Eastiel’s Woven String Bracelet]
50% CritDMG
DING!
[Unlock Rank 4 to gain this reward!]
[Would you like to roll?]
"Mmm..." Cecilia mused. "That little exchange... was enough for a public claim, it seems?"
"What?!" Eastiel jolted as if electrocuted. "I ss up!" He buried his face in his palms with a loud groan that echoed in the now-quiet side corridor they’d ducked into. "Nooooooo..."
Cecilia giggled.
"It’s the ’I caught her, loser’ bit, isn’t it?" he moaned from behind his hands, his voice muffled. "My vocabulary has descended into a cringe abyss. I know I was trying to be cringe to annoy him, but this ’bully’ prompt... it’s like it’s hijacking my tongue and dialing everything up to eleven! Making it cringier!"
Cecilia laughed even harder, clutching her stomach.
"I’m not a bully in real life!" Eastiel yelled, dropping his hands to glare at her, his face flushed.
Cecilia yelled back, "You are! You called
a tryhard the first ti we ever t!"
"I did, but that was stupid!" he spat back. It was the one thing he regretted and groaned about alone at three in the morning or whenever it ca out randomly from the cringe side of his mind.
"Seeeeeee?" she sang, drawing out the syllable.
"Fuck!"
Eastiel groaned again, the sound even more pained. He ran a hand through his short hair, tugging at it. "Why am I twelve again...?"
Cecilia side-eyed him. Then she delivered the reminder like a perfectly tid punchline, "Fifteen."
Eastiel turned to look at her so sharply it was a miracle he didn’t dislocate his own neck. The expression on his face was humiliation, begrudging admiration, and a solid slap to his ego. Was she implying he’d acted worse than a twelve-year-old when he was actually fifteen?
But yes, he had said that to her when he was fifteen.
So, yes. He had, in fact, been worse than a twelve-year-old when he was fifteen.
"You know what?" he said, his voice flat. "I’m tired of this world. Let’s have sex."
Cecilia lost it—
"—wahahwahhahahah—mmmhh!"
Locked into a deep, sudden kiss, her laughter was smothered, transford into a muffled hum of surprise and delight against his mouth. Ahh... How many tis had Eastiel gagged her today?
Such a... bully...
"Mmm..."
RIRIRIRIRIRIRIRING!
The bell clanged through the building. Around them, the sounds of rushing footsteps grew fainter as the school’s hallways gradually bled into silence. The next period had started. The classes were full.
Eastiel broke the kiss slowly. "We never actually specified that we’re ’together’..." he whispered. "So the ga... with Elder Brothers... won’t be affected. We just... made a scene. That’s all."
"And the ntal block of fucking an 18-year-old you in the school corridors..." He took a deep breath, as if steeling himself for a great trial. "I’ll power through it."
As if it was hard...?
Cecilia pulled back just enough to glare at him, seeing right through the performative struggle. She knew that he was savoring every twisted, taboo, thrilling second of it.
The forbidden setting, the stolen monts, the sheer wrongness of it all that made it feel so right in this fabricated reality.
And he would be. For the rest of their ti here, and probably long after they’d left, the mory of this would live in him. Like a glowing ember of a teenage fantasy they’d never had.
Reviews
All reviews (0)