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Lisa plays with the chicken on her plate, pushing it around disinterestedly with her fork. Lumine, chewing on her own food, stares at the librarian with a questioning look. Gently, she places her palm over Lisa’s hand with a pout hanging deep on her lips. “Hey, you look down. Are you thinking about something?”
“Oh it’s nothing, cutie!” Lisa brushes off, setting her cutlery down against the table. She straightens her back against the chair, forcing a smile. Truthfully, Lisa doesn’t like going around the town and flirting with every girl or boy. Of course, there was once a time when all the flirting and chasing gave her exhilaration and a constant sense of adrenaline. However, with Master Jean now being the beholder of her affections, Lisa wants nothing more but to be in Jean’s arms, for a day and forever.
As bold as she may seem, Lisa doesn’t know how to admit to her feelings in front of Jean. Perhaps the most confident thing she would have done was to brush her fingertips against Jean’s on purpose or compliment her hair, but Jean never quite seems to have a good enough reaction. It’s always the same polite, but exhausted smile. Sometimes Lisa tries to weasel her way into Jean’s office with the excuse of bringing her tea, or cleaning her office though Jean often instructs her to leave it to Noelle. “You shouldn’t have to focus on this kind of work, Lisa,” Jean states, never reading into Lisa’s ulterior motives.
There has never been even once that Jean has found time out of her schedule or allowed a little change here and there just for Lisa. At 10am in the morning she would be in the library, scanning through the files for an hour and at 11:30am, she would be out. Lisa can do nothing more but to gaze wistfully out of the windows in the Library as she dusts the bookshelves and re-organises the books.
“Hey, Lisa?” Lumine beckons. When Lisa turns, she catches the sight of a bundle of cecilias being held out to her. When she looks up, for a moment, she mistakes Lumine for Jean and her heart skips a beat. But of course, illusions don’t last for more than a second and once again, Lisa is hit by the reality of her situation.
“Oh… That’s lovely, dearest,” Lisa thanks in a strained voice. She sniffs the flowers, taking in a whiff of the sweet freshness of the cecilias. Jean. It’s what her office smells like.
Lisa stands, holding out a hand. Lumine smiles, her face flushed as she takes Lisa’s hand. She holds it a little too eagerly and much too tightly, not wanting to let it go. Lisa winces but she doesn’t let the discomfort show. Lumine walks with a slight jump in her step, Lisa trying not to look too bored to the people around them. She isn’t trying to be rude.
“You make me happy, Lisa,” Lumine chirps. Lisa hums in response, turning her head away. She admires the cheerful smiles of the children running by and the love in the eyes of the couples that caress each other by the fountain. Monstadt is a little city, a quaint and modest town but still one with lots of love. Lisa averts her gaze. After a long walk of trying not to squirm under the touch of Lumine’s sweaty palms and melt under the afternoon sun.
As they enter the Knights of Favonius headquarters, Lisa turns and stops Lumine. With a small smile, she supports Lumine’s arms, “Till we meet again.”
“Thank you for today,” Lumine lunges forward onto Lisa without a warning. She nuzzles her nose in Lisa’s chest, gripping onto her waist tightly. She has the grip of a little kid, like a warm bear cub yearning for a mother’s warmth. Lisa sighs, rubbing Lumine’s back. They stay like this for a little while, though it feels like an eternity to Lisa. She starts to feel a little guilty for pretending to be happy around Lumine when she doesn’t quite care, how there’s always another lady on her mind when she’s with the clueless traveler.
“I have a lot of work to get through, actually. See you,” Lisa pulls away from Lumine. Ruffling her hair as a farewell, Lisa turns away and simply walks off, not looking back even once. The sound of her heels clacking echo off the walls as she fixes her hair. Distractedly, she turns into the door to the library but in front of her stands the unmistakable figure of someone who throws Lisa off guard completely. Lisa’s eyes widen as they shoot up to the grandfather clock standing proudly against the wall in front.
It isn’t time for Jean’s break yet. But there she was, the Grand Master herself, standing by Lisa’s desk with her back to the door. Lisa slows down her pace and nears her with quiet steps, questioning, “Jean?”
“L-L-Lisa!” Jean turns, holding Lisa’s schedule book in hand. Lisa catches a faint pink tinted on Jean’s cheeks which she immediately covers with the book. “I didn’t know you were going to be back so early.”
“Ah…” Lisa purses her lips. “My affairs were cut short.”
All of a sudden, the atmosphere in the library grows tense. The sunlight shines onto Jean from behind, outlining her silhouette and making her look a lot more gorgeous than she already is. Her pale skin glistens and her eyes glimmer, although to Lisa they look kind of glassy. Lisa struggles to guess whether it’s the fatigue or something else. Jean slides Lisa’s book against the table, standing with her palms firmly placed against it.
“You and Lumine seem to get along well…” Jean lowers her gaze, her tone getting shyer and softer as her sentences progress. “The two of you look quite close.”
“Uh… We’ve been…” Lisa turns her head away, her eyes darting around the room to everywhere except Jean. She rubs her neck awkwardly, “We’ve been talking.”
From the corner of her eye, she spots Jean shifting her hands down to her hips, fidgeting with her fingers nervously. “...Are the two of you, perhaps, together?”
“Together, as in, together—”
“Dating, yes,” Jean bites her lip. Moments go by, but neither of them speak and Jean feels her heart lodge itself in her throat. Flustered, she splutters, “Er—You don’t have to answer that. I apologise if I’ve been too brash—”
“We—We’re not… We’re not dating, no,” Lisa confirms. Jean nods once. She raises her head, her fringe almost blocking her eyes. Lisa notices a single, glistening tear trace its way down Jean’s jaw. Instinctively, she rushes forward and tries to wipe it for Jean, but Jean stops her halfway. She holds Lisa’s wrist firmly, keeping her head turned away from the librarian.
“Did I say something wrong?” the words breathlessly leave Lisa’s lips. She feels her heart tighten a little, making it a lot harder to breath. She wants Jean to let her support her, be there for her, care for her but there’s a boundary that’s been set that Lisa doesn’t know how to cross. Lisa lets her arm fall limp, trying to pull away and take a step back but Jean doesn’t let Lisa part from her. Her chest rises and falls and her eyes don’t stay in one place, as if she’s contemplating hard.
“It sort of makes me feel things when I see you with so many different girls on the daily,” Jean blurts. A beat passes but Lisa’s face has frozen into place. A part of her knows exactly what Jean means but the rest of her is yet to internalise it. Could she really mean—?
“I shouldn’t feel this way towards what you do because you’re your own person but… Am I too boring for you? Would I not be good enough for you if we—” Jean gulps, choking back tears. She shuts her eyes tightly, releasing Lisa’s wrist. When Lisa’s mind finally catches up to the reality of the situation, she grabs Jean’s face in her palms. She forces Jean to look at her, though there isn’t much to see in her eyes but sheer panic.
“You’re good enough, Jean! You always have been!” Lisa holds Jean’s trembling hand up. Her fingers find their place between Jean’s, interlocking them tightly. Biting her lip, with her heart beating fast enough to make her ditzy, she confesses, “I’m actually quite head over heels for you.”
“But all the girls—” Jean chokes up.
“...It was so you’d maybe take notice of me,” Lisa babbles. “I mean, we only ever talk when you’re in the library and it seems like you don’t quite want me around when you’re working. I want to take care of you but I can’t really—I just… I’m sorry.”
“You know, I come around a lot but I always hear that you’re out in town. I try my best to visit you when I’m done with all the papers,” Jean touches her forehead against Lisa’s. When she opens her eyes, they meet Lisa’s soft lime ones. She takes the Cecilias out of Lisa’s hand and tosses them away with a cheeky grin on her face. “For once, it seems I have found you.”
Lisa’s eyes widen in surprise at this side of Jean. Shy, she buries her nose in the crook of Jean’s neck. She separates their hands only to shift hers around Jean’s waist. “I’ve never been as shy around a woman as you make me, Jean. I never thought I’d be able to tell you my feelings.”
“Audere est facere, my dearest Lisa,” Jean strokes Lisa’s hair softly, something she’d been meaning to do for a long time. In fact they’d been doing a lot in the past thirty minutes that the two had yearned to do for ages. Though her face is still soggy with tears and her palms are yet to stop shaking from the adrenaline, the arches of Jean’s lips lift. “To do is to dare.”