The Scumbag's Guide To Heroism novel Chapter 172

Chapter 172: 172 | Cautiously Engaged at Zero Percent [PS BONUS]

Her grip on the duffel loosened by about ten percent. She stepped fully through the doorway, and the afternoon light from the south windows caught her from behind, turning the white hair into a halo and silhouetting the horns against the warm glow from outside. The tail was still tucked close, but it had stopped trembling.

"Are you. Also a resident? Of this building?"

"Room 205. Second floor, east side."

"Oh." A pause. Her eyes darted to the side, processing. "I’m. Room 302. Third floor. West Tower." She said this like she was reading it from a card she’d memorized, which she probably was. "I’m Rina. Rina Soleil. I apologize for introducing myself so. Abruptly. I should have waited until you were. You looked busy with your phone and I shouldn’t have interrupted, I’m really sorry—"

"Lukas Belmont." I pocketed the phone. Sloane’s incoming messages could wait thirty seconds. "And you weren’t interrupting anything. I was just arguing with my girlfriend about whether I said goodbye this morning."

"Oh no, did you not say goodbye? That’s. That sounds like an important thing to. I’m sorry, it’s none of my business, I shouldn’t have asked, I—"

"You didn’t ask. I volunteered. It’s fine, Rina."

She blinked at hearing her own name. Like she hadn’t expected me to remember it from twelve seconds ago, or like hearing it from a stranger’s mouth recalibrated something in her internal model of how this interaction was supposed to proceed. Her cheeks colored, a soft pink that climbed from her jawline to her cheekbones and made the contrast between her white hair and her skin even more striking.

"You can sit down if you want." I gestured at the opposite end of the couch. Plenty of distance. No pressure. "The cushions are decent."

Rina Soleil looked at the couch. Looked at me. Looked at the duffel bag in her hands. Looked at the elevator bank. Looked at the couch again. Her internal debate played out across her face with the transparency of someone who had never learned to hide what she was feeling because she’d spent too much energy learning to apologize for feeling it.

She sat.

Not on the opposite end of the couch where I’d pointed. Not close enough to suggest familiarity. Exactly in the middle, which was its own kind of statement, a compromise position between fleeing and committing. She placed her duffel on the floor between her feet and folded her hands in her lap with the careful composure of someone attending a job interview rather than sitting in her own building’s common room.

Her tail poked out from behind her on the cushion, fluffy and white and now visible from my angle. It twitched once, then settled.

"I came early," she said, as though this required explanation. "I know move-in isn’t mandatory until Wednesday but I thought. If I came early I could. Get familiar with the space before everyone else arrived. Without the. Crowds." Her voice dropped on the last word in a way that communicated her opinion of crowds without requiring elaboration.

"Same logic I had."

"Really?" Her purple eyes widened in a way that completely bypassed the apology-register she’d been operating in for the past five minutes. The surprise was genuine and immediate, like the concept of another person sharing her preference for early arrival and crowd avoidance hadn’t occurred to her as a possibility worth entertaining.

"I thought most people would wait until the last day. To maximize their time at home before the semester started. I know my parents thought I was being. Unnecessarily cautious. But I just. I wanted to see where things were. Where the fire exits were located. Whether the showers had doors or curtains because curtains make me. Um. Uncomfortable. If that makes sense."

She was rambling. The realization hit her mid-sentence and she cut herself off with an apologetic wince, like she’d just committed a social infraction that required immediate correction. "Sorry. I’m. Sorry. That was probably more information than you needed."

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