milk tea

02:10

"Let's end this session a little early," Shotaro spoke as he rubbed his nape ineptly. Serene did not hesitate to nod and take off the white cloth on her arms as well as the black blindfold. She placed them in Shotaro's free hand while avoiding eye contact. "Thanks."

Hurriedly, Serene exited the zone. Her strides were expeditious and eventually reached the shared room to see Yuta cleaning the place. Her presence in the room made Yuta glance at her, eyeing her head to toe.

"Training with Shotaro?" Yuta questioned.

"Yeah, how did you know?" Serene asked and headed to the cabinet. She picked out new clothes to wear as she planned to shower before sleeping.

"I just guessed," he responded lowly. "How was it?"

"It was... okay," she tried her best to get rid of the lingering memory from earlier. She reassured Yuta with a small smile. "Why are you awake this late?"

"Oh, uh..."

"Mission?"

"Yeah, you can say that," Yuta inevitably smiled despite hating the fact that he lied to her. He brought out a paper bag and handed it over to the girl who reminded him of his sister. "Here. I saw this on one of the mannequins. I thought you'd look pretty wearing it."

Gratefully accepting the gift, she peeked inside to see an elegant white dress. It had lace near the neckline and it had an innocent aura to it. It would look like one of the dresses someone would wear to a wedding.

"You have a lot of dramatic clothes in your wardrobe, so I thought that the dress would give some innocence to your style," Yuta indifferently added as he was rubbing his nape. His eyes couldn't take a break as they wandered around the room. With a fake yawn, he got the guts to look at the girl. "I'm going to sleep first, I'm pretty worn out."

"T-Thank you," the sniffles originating from the girl made the perturbed boy turn his head. Her eyes had tears forming, but not a single one ran down. "It's the first time someone bought me a gift. First time to even buy me any material thing for me to own, actually."

Yuta's eyebrows uncontrollably furrowed at the words of the younger girl. He tilted his head ever-so-slightly with questioning orbs eyeing her.

'What kind of life did you live, Serene? And why does it sound so miserably by those mere words?' Yuta pondered over the little thing he did, that was actually a huge deal for Serene.

He couldn't stop his hand from reaching out for her head. To his surprise, he wasn't greeted by a flip that would often happen to Xiaojun. Instead, she lowered her head but no tears fell nor did she ever cry. It seemed like she was in between the emotions of being sad and grateful.

Serene, on the other hand, didn't know why she let her guard down so effortlessly. Maybe it was the kind action she wanted to experience. However, it wasn't all that. Someone was actually paying attention to the things she took interest in. Especially thinking whether she would like it or not and spending the time to even think about her in the first place. Maybe that's why she was conflicted between thinking it had a catch or not.