CHAPTER 132: A DIFFERENT SHADE

The wind blade dissolving into a gentle breeze that dissipated into nothingness. Eirin got back on her bed and sat there, her body now a limp, tired thing, the adrenaline of the moment gone.

"Are you even allowed outside, Shade Cromwell? You know there’s a curfew. A rule that applies even to you, I believe." Eirin’s voice was laced with a tired amusement, a silent, knowing look on her face. "Do you know that it’s a crime to sneak into a girl’s room in the middle of the night? You scared me half to death."

Eirin followed the young man with her gaze as he walked towards the light switch, his movements a graceful, fluid dance in the shadows, and opened it all up, flooding the room a cold, antiseptic light that made the quiet, moonlit darkness a memory.

The sudden brightness caused Eirin to squint, her eyes protesting the abrupt change, and she was about to tell him off again when he turned to face her, his dark, intense eyes a shimmering pool of light.

"Is that how you’ll treat someone who saved you? With scolding and a lecture on the curfew? I expected a little more, Luxfield. A thank you, at the very least."

Eirin immediately blinked, her mind a blank slate of disbelief, before sighing again. "I’m sorry... it’s just, I heard you got detained because of me. I don’t want you to get reprimanded again." Her voice was laced with a genuine, heartfelt concern, the guilt of the situation a heavy, leaden weight on her heart. She couldn’t shake the image of him, the reckless, brave boy who had saved her, being punished because of her.

Shade looked straight into Eirin’s eyes, his gaze an unwavering beam of light. "Why is it your fault?" The way his eyes looked, as if he was asking genuinely, as if the very idea of it being her fault was a ridiculous, impossible thing, caused a strange, flustered sensation to ripple through Eirin’s body, causing her heart to skip a beat, a frantic, hummingbird flutter in her chest.

"Were you the one that detained me? As far as I could remember, you were knocked out cold that day. I made my own decisions, Luxfield. My actions are my own. You had nothing to do with it."

Eirin’s forehead creased with the way Shade spoke. "Were you even allowed to be here?" she asked, her voice a quiet, knowing whisper. She already knew the answer, of course, but she had to ask, had to be sure. When Shade didn’t answer, his silence a knowing admission, Eirin already knew. "You’re going to get in trouble because of this. You’re going to be in even more trouble, all because of me. And I’m supposed to be okay with that?"

Despite her worries, Shade laughed. It was a low, melodic sound that was so sudden and so unexpected that Eirin was left in complete bewilderment. His eyes, usually so intense and serious, were gone, squeezed shut with an unbridled, joyous glee as he laughed his heart out, the sound a beautiful musical thing that filled the sterile, white room with human warmth.

’What is wrong with him?’ Eirin thought, her mind a frantic, confused mess of emotions. ’This is not normal. This is not Shade Cromwell.’

"When I learned from Link that you woke up, I had to see it for myself. I didn’t believe it. I didn’t believe you were really here, really safe." He said, the laughter fading into a soft, tender smile.

Eirin wondered to herself, why was Shade Cromwell, the quiet, brooding, and often-cruel boy she had known, being a little talkative, and why does he sound so soft and gentle to her, as if he were talking to a fragile, delicate flower?

"Were you just staying in your dorm room the whole time? Were they just... giving you a short, easy detention for being so reckless?" She asked, a small, hopeful note in her voice.

Shade shook his head, the soft, knowing smile still on his face. "That old hag brought me to the underground prison of the academy. She thought I’ll suffer there, thought I’ll learn my lesson, but the underground prison of the academy is much better than other prisons I went to before. It’s quiet, it’s clean, and the food, though a bit bland, is actually edible. I enjoyed my time there, to be honest."

Eirin’s mouth hung open in disbelief. Her mind, a quiet, orderly place, was struggling to comprehend the casual, almost-gleeful way he was talking about being in a prison. "How many times have you been to a prison?" She asked. Eirin could not believe how happy Shade sounded despite describing something so grim.

"I don’t know. I’ve lost count over the years. Hockenbury always put me there before when I was younger, a punishment, and sometimes there are situations during missions that made me have to stay inside a prison. It’s just a part of the job."

Those words, so simple in their casual dismissal of a horrible reality, left Eirin sad, a deep, aching sorrow. How could the young man, the same age as her, experience such a thing and still act like it was something normal?

"What do you do there... like, to spend time? To not go crazy?" She asked.

Shade shrugged. "Sleep. And meditate. And train. The underground prison is filled with plenty of places to train without disturbing anyone else." He laughed, a low, gentle sound, after seeing the expression on Eirin’s face, a mixture of pity and horror. "You don’t have to look at me as if I’m the most pitiful thing in the world."

Eirin gulped and averted her gaze. "I did not! I was just... concerned."

Shade pulled a chair in front of Eirin’s bed, the legs scraping against the clean, tiled floor with a soft, scraping sound. He sat down, leaning forward, his dark eyes, a bottomless abyss of light and shadow, fixed on her.

"You don’t have to pity me. Being in prison makes like easier for me." His words, which were meant to comfort her, did the exact opposite. "It was easier being away from people. You already know what happens to me when I’m in contact with people. I can’t control myself."

Eirin blinked lots of times, the realization of what he was talking about a slow, painful crawl into her consciousness. The whispers, the way people looked at him, the way they shield away from him, the ways his power seemed to be a living, breathing thing inside him... it all came together in a flash of terrifying understanding.

’Am I even allowed to ask about that?’ Eirin thought as she fiddled with her fingers, her hands a frantic, nervous mess. "About that, why do you go through something like that? Why do you... lose control sometimes?" She tried to face it head on, to ask the difficult, dangerous question, her voice a low, hesitant whisper.

Shade smiled, a soft, tender curve of his lips, a smile that was a beautiful mystery. It was such a soft smile that it caused Eirin to back away, a sudden, flustered motion, until her back could feel the cold, reassuring presence of the wall behind her.

"Why? Are you curious about me, Luxfield?"

Eirin stuttered, her mind a feverish, disorganized chaos of emotions. "O-Of course! Who wouldn’t be after what you said? You’re a person, not a criminal. Not a monster."

Shade leaned his arm on the bed and rested his chin on his palm, his dark eyes never leaving her face, an intimate gaze that made Eirin’s heart beat a frantic, panicked rhythm against her ribs.

"I guess, I made you curious about me."

Eirin could feel her face heating up, a fiery blush that spread from her neck to the tips of her ears due to Shade’s continuous, unwavering gaze on her. "W-Why would you do something like that? And why do you sound like that? Why aren’t you calling me stupid or idiot? That’s what you usually do." Her words were a confused, flustered mess, a mix of her old expectations and her new reality.

Shade chuckled, a low, melodic sound that was a beautiful shock to her system. "I didn’t know you like being called like that," he said, a playful, teasing light in his eyes. "I thought you wanted to be kind to you? This is me being kind, Luxfield."

Eirin bit her lower lip, it wasn’t something she expected. She always thought that Shade Cromwell was someone good-looking, someone she could appreciate from a distance, but he wasn’t someone she would even see in a romantic light because of his crude, arrogant, and often-cruel personality.

Eirin had always seen him as someone who doesn’t care about others. ’So what is this!?’ she panicked inside her head, her mind a frantic, disorganized mess of emotions. ’What is this new, kind, gentle Shade Cromwell? And why am I feeling flustered?’