The Scumbag's Guide To Heroism novel Chapter 285

Chapter 285: 285 | Side Quest: Don’t Disappoint the Sheep

The response took twelve seconds.

How did you know

I’m looking at the courtyard from the common room window. You’re sitting on the bench near the fountain.

A pause. Longer this time.

That’s creepy Lukas

I’m not being creepy. I’m being observant. There’s a difference.

The difference is timing and I think 1am tips the scale toward creepy

I smiled despite everything. Rina’s texting voice was different from her speaking voice. Drier. Less apologetic. The absence of face-to-face social pressure let something sharper emerge, something closer to who she actually was underneath the constant performance of smallness.

Can’t sleep? I texted.

Thinking too much. Today was a lot.

Yeah. Yeah it was.

I looked down at her on the bench. She hadn’t moved, hadn’t looked up toward the window. Just sat there with her phone in one hand and her other arm wrapped around her knees, her horns catching the silver light and her tail curled protectively against her thigh.

Want company?

Another pause. Fifteen seconds this time.

You don’t have to

That’s not what I asked.

The longest pause yet. Twenty-two seconds. I watched her head tilt down toward her phone, the soft glow of the screen illuminating the planes of her face from below. Her tail uncurled slightly from her waist, the tip twitching the way it did when she processed something she wasn’t sure about.

Okay.

I pocketed the phone and headed for the side exit that opened onto the courtyard.

The night air hit my skin with that specific California coastal coolness that showed up after midnight, the kind that made the daytime heat feel like a memory from a different lifetime. The courtyard was a simple space, a circle of stone benches around a low fountain that burbled with enough volume to mask quiet conversation from anyone who might be listening from the windows above. Rina sat on the bench closest to the eucalyptus trees, their peeling bark a pale column of white beside her own white hair.

She looked up when my footsteps crossed the stone.

"Hey."

"Hey." I sat down on the opposite end of her bench, leaving enough space between us that she wouldn’t feel boxed in. Her purple eyes watched me settle with the wariness of someone who still defaulted to threat assessment in every new interaction, even with people she trusted.

"You really were awake," she said.

"Couldn’t sleep either."

"Too much thinking?"

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