Do You Want to Save Her?

The moment they stepped out of the restaurant, it felt as though someone had loosened a string wrapped around Soren’s ribs.

The air outside was brighter, louder, messier, full of ordinary movement and ordinary noise, carriage wheels over stone, merchants calling out deals that were definitely not refined, a pair of students laughing too loudly because nobody here cared if they were a little uncivilised.

Even the sunlight felt more honest than the warm gold glow of mana lights and polished manners.

Esper exhaled with exaggerated relief, rolling her shoulders once as if she had been wearing something heavier than a cropped jacket.

“Ugh. I can breathe again.”

Soren glanced at her, then at the street, then back at her, and found that the irritation he had been holding inside the restaurant had already started thinning.

“You were the one who picked it.”

“And you were the one who looked like you were going to die,” she replied sweetly, then leaned closer, voice dropping into playful judgement. “Honestly, Cutie, you should try being a bit more noble. It’s so fun~”

“It really seems it,” he said, sarcastically, and the answer came out fast because he had watched her deal with those problems yesterday, the letters, the way people thought wealth made them entitled to her future.

Esper re-hooked her arm through his, the gesture still casual, still confident, still a little too intimate looking for something that wasn’t romantic in the slightest.

It was just Esper’s way of moving through the world, making it very difficult for anyone to pretend they weren’t with her, and if it sparked rumours, she considered that a bonus.

She started walking before he could argue, tugging him into the current of foot traffic.

“Come on. Next location.”

Soren narrowed his eyes.

“Location. You’re making this sound like an itinerary.”

“It is an itinerary.”

She glanced up at him with a grin that suggested she was proud of the fact.

“If you think I dragged you out of bed for an unstructured date, then you don’t know me at all.”

“I know you too well,” he muttered.

Esper gasped, dramatic, hand flying to her chest.

“How dare you say that with no affection.”

“There is no affection,” Soren replied, deadpan.

Esper hummed, pleased, as if she had been complimented anyway.

“That’s fine. I’ll supply enough for both of us.”

He didn’t bother answering that, mostly because the streets were getting denser, the kind of density that demanded attention even if the danger level was low.

People stepped unpredictably, vendors jutted signs into pathways, children darted between legs like they were training for a battlefield.

Soren found himself guiding Esper a fraction to the side once, not because she needed protection, but because her boots were not built for someone running into her at full speed.

She noticed, of course.

“Oho?”

Esper drawled, eyes gleaming.

“So attentive.”

Soren’s gaze stayed forward.

“I didn’t want to deal with someone apologising to you.”

“Mm,” she hummed. “You’re learning.”

He decided not to ask what that meant, because it was probably nonsense.

They walked for several minutes, and gradually the district shifted again, the architecture changing in a way that felt almost like crossing an invisible line.

The polished storefronts with quiet guards fell behind them.

The street got a little narrower, a little noisier, and the shops began to look lived-in, signs painted by hand instead of carved, windows filled with practical goods instead of curated displays, the kind of places where the staff actually looked at you and tried to guess whether you were going to steal.

Soren clocked it immediately, and he slowed half a step, surprise creeping in before he could stop it.

“We’re not in the noble area anymore.”

Esper glanced back at him, eyes bright.

“Yep.”

Soren’s brow rose.

“You’re taking me somewhere cheap.”

“Affordable,” she corrected, tone offended on behalf of the entire street. “Don’t be rude.”

He stared at the shop Esper was aiming for, then back at her face, trying to read what game she was playing, because it was Esper, there was always a game, even if the game was simply watching him try to predict her.

“You’re not teasing me,” he said, and he hated the way it sounded like a question.

Esper’s grin sharpened.

“Aww. Were you expecting me to drag you into a boutique where the door handle costs more than your entire savings?”

Soren opened his mouth, then closed it again, because the honest answer was yes, he had been expecting exactly that, and she could tell.

“See? I know you, you know me,” Esper said, smug.

“I know what you’re capable of,” he corrected.

Esper laughed, then leaned in closer, voice turning mock-sincere.

“Cutie, I already got my reaction fix at lunch. I don’t need to torture you all day. Besides, you’re actually buying clothes, and even I’m not cruel enough to make you pay noble prices when you’ll need more than two shirts.”

The fact she had thought about that, even in her own way, landed oddly.

It wasn’t warm, not exactly, but it was considerate, and Esper’s version of considerate came wrapped in teasing because that was the only packaging she used.

Soren didn’t comment on it; he simply let himself be pulled towards the shop.

The storefront looked ordinary, almost painfully so after the restaurant, wooden sign a little crooked, window display a mix of folded jumpers and simple coats, the kind of place that relied on volume and steady customers rather than prestige.

A bell chimed when Esper pushed the door open, and the air inside smelled faintly of fabric dye and starch.

A woman behind the counter looked up, took one glance at Esper’s outfit, then immediately shifted into the kind of customer-service smile that said she could smell money even if the shop wasn’t expensive.

“Welcome,” the woman said. “Let me know if you need sizes.”

Esper returned a sweet smile that made her look completely harmless.

“We will.”

Soren stepped in behind her, scanning the racks, the lighting, the layout.

It wasn’t a trap.

It was just a shop.

The price tags looked sane, and the fabric didn’t look like it would disintegrate the moment it met rain.

Esper leaned into his arm as if they were an actual couple on an actual date, then whispered, voice bright with mischief.

“Go on. Pick some stuff out.”

Soren glanced down at her.

“Are you going to hover and judge.”

“Yes,” she said immediately. “That’s my right as your fiancée.”

He sighed, but the sound was less annoyed than it should have been, because at least this was a problem he understood.

Soren walked towards the nearest rack, eyes moving over colours and cuts with the quick, practiced assessment he couldn’t quite turn off.

Even now, his hands still did it without asking permission, smoothing fabric, checking seams, judging how something would fall before it ever touched his body.

His shoulders adjusted on instinct, spine straightening the way it used to when someone aimed a camera at him, and his eyes stopped looking at “a shirt” and started looking at lines, how the collar would frame his neck, whether the cut would pull his silhouette up or drag it down.

He picked up one piece, held it in front of him, and frowned.

It was the kind of thing he would have thrown on in his old life without thinking twice, neutral, easy, built for someone taller.

On him now it just looked… wrong, like the fabric expected a different shape and wasn’t shy about showing it.

Snow-white hair made some colours too harsh.

Warm red eyes made others look washed out.

Anything too loose risked swallowing him, anything too fitted risked emphasising the parts of him people already mistook.

He swapped it for another item, then another, narrowing in, adjusting, mentally stripping outfits down to a few clean shapes that wouldn’t make him look like a kid in borrowed clothes.

And, ideally, wouldn’t make him look like a pretty woman unless he meant to.

He picked one up and held it against his chest, eyes narrowing as the mirror made the problem obvious, the colour looked safe on the rack, then died against his hair and made his skin look flatter than it should have.

Esper slid in at his shoulder like she had been summoned by the word “decision,” peering at the fabric with amused interest.

“Ooh. Basic.”

“It’s fine,” Soren said, already reaching for the hanger to put it back.

“It’s boring,” she corrected, like that was a crime.

Soren slid the shirt back and moved along the rack, fingers brushing fabric.

He stopped at something darker, a fitted turtleneck with a clean collar, and held it up against his chest.

The colour was deep enough to make his hair stand out, and the cut looked structured without being stiff.

Esper’s eyes narrowed, appraising.

“That’s… actually not terrible.”

Soren glanced at her.

“You sound disappointed.”

“I’m allowed to be disappointed,” she replied, then sniffed lightly. “I came to bully you, not praise you.”

He ignored her and took the turtleneck, then added a simple button-up in a soft cream colour, something that would work under layers, and a pair of trousers that looked like they were cut to sit properly rather than sag.

Esper followed him, hands clasped behind her back, watching him pick items with a strange combination of boredom and interest.

She clearly didn’t care about clothes in the way he did, not about the technical parts, but she cared about appearance, and she cared about how appearance could be used.

Soren reached for a long coat in a muted olive tone, the kind he would have worn back then, when his hair was darker and his height could carry the weight of it.

He held it up, imagining the silhouette, and something in his head clicked wrong, but he couldn’t quite place it.

Esper stared at the coat, then at him, then smiled slowly.

“Oh no,” she said, voice full of delighted warning.

Soren’s eyes narrowed.

“What.”

“That’s going to swallow you,” Esper said, tone bright. “Put it on. Please. I want to see it.”

He hesitated out of pure suspicion, which only made her grin wider.

Soren took the coat anyway, because he needed outerwear regardless, and headed towards the changing rooms with Esper following far too closely, like she was afraid he would escape through the back door.

Inside the cramped cubicle, he changed quickly, pulling the coat over his shoulders, then looked in the mirror and immediately felt offended.

The coat was too long.

Too heavy.

The shoulders sat wrong, broadening him in a way that didn’t look sharp, it looked awkward, like he was wearing someone else’s life.

The colour made his red eyes look harsher, not warmer, and his hair, instead of popping, looked almost ghostly against it.

‘It would’ve worked on the old me,’ he thought, and the realisation arrived with the strange sting of missing a body he didn’t even fully consider his own anymore.

Esper’s voice floated through the curtain.

“Well? Are you alive in there?”

Soren pulled the curtain aside and stepped out.

Esper stared for half a second, then put a hand over her mouth as if she were trying to contain herself.

Soren’s eyes narrowed.

“Don’t even start.”

Esper failed.

A laugh burst out of her, bright and delighted, loud enough that the shopkeeper glanced over with raised eyebrows.

“You look,” Esper began, then stopped because she was laughing again, “you look like a child trying to sneak into a meeting by stealing someone’s coat.”

Soren’s expression stayed flat, but his ears were definitely warm.

“It’s not that bad.”

Esper wiped at the corner of her eye, still amused.

“Cutie, it’s worse than bad.”

He stared at his reflection again, then let out a slow breath and conceded with a reluctant nod.

“Fine. It doesn’t work.”

Esper leaned closer, tapping the lapel with one manicured finger as if she were judging a mannequin.

“It’s not your fault. It’s the coat’s fault. It assumed you were taller.”

Soren flicked her hand away lightly, more annoyed at himself than her.

“I get it.”

“Do you?” Esper teased, then tilted her head, eyes flicking over the coat and back to his face. “It’s like… you’re picturing it on someone else. Like it makes sense in your head, but not on you.”

Soren went still.

Not just a pause to think, a full-body hitch, as if the comment had caught him by the collar.

The mirror in front of him stopped being about fabric and suddenly felt too honest, and he hated that a throwaway line could hit that cleanly.

Esper didn’t look like she had uncovered anything profound.

If anything, she looked faintly puzzled for a beat, like she had expected him to snap back and instead got silence.

Soren looked away first, because he wasn’t going to stand here and unpack that.

“I’ll change.”

“Change quickly,” Esper said, sing-song. “I want to keep bullying you.”

Soren went back into the cubicle, swapped out of the coat, and emerged with the turtleneck instead.

The shopkeeper didn’t look up again, but Soren could feel the weight of being observed, not dangerously, just socially, the way people looked when they thought they were watching something entertaining.

Esper circled him once, slow, appraising.

“That one’s better.”

Soren lifted an eyebrow.

“Better as in acceptable, or better as in you’re not embarrassed to be seen with me.”

Esper smiled sweetly.

“Both.”

He rolled his eyes, then grabbed the small pile of clothes he had selected and headed towards the counter before Esper could distract him into trying on more things for her amusement.

The shopkeeper rang up the total, and Soren reached for his coin pouch.

Esper’s hand slapped down on the counter first, placing a neat stack of coins with perfect confidence.

Soren stared at her hand.

Esper stared back, chin lifted, smug.

“I invited you.”

Soren’s eyes narrowed.

“You paid for lunch.”

“That was lunch,” Esper replied, as if he had said something foolish. “This is clothing.”

“It’s my clothing.”

“It’s my date,” she corrected, then smiled wider. “Stop being difficult.”

Soren sighed, reached past her hand, and placed his own coins down with a calm that made it clear he had decided to win.

Esper’s eyes widened slightly, then narrowed.

“Oh?”

Soren kept his voice level.

“No.”

Esper’s lips pressed together, the expression almost comically offended.

“You’re so rude.”

Soren watched the shopkeeper glance between them, face carefully neutral, then accept Soren’s coins because they were closer and because, in the end, money was money.

Esper leaned in, voice sweet enough to rot teeth.

“You realise you’ve just rejected your fiancée’s generosity in public.”

Soren’s gaze stayed flat.

“We’re not in public.”

“We are in public,” Esper insisted, then huffed and crossed her arms. “Fine. Enjoy your little victory. I hope it makes you happy.”

“It does,” Soren said, and the bluntness of it made her stare at him in disbelief.

Then her expression shifted into a grin, sharp and delighted, because of course she enjoyed that too, the fact he could be petty with her without trying to soften it.

The shopkeeper handed over a paper bag.

Soren took it, then immediately paused, because carrying bags around all day was going to be irritating, and there was no reason for that when his inventory existed.

He slipped his left hand under the bag, fingers brushing the ring on his ring finger.

A faint shimmer flickered, subtle enough that it looked, to anyone watching, like a spatial ring activating, the bag disappearing cleanly into nothing as it slipped into his inventory.

Esper’s eyes locked onto his hand.

Slowly, her smile spread.

“Oh,” she purred. “Using my ring, are we?”

Soren’s expression didn’t change, but he felt the familiar itch of irritation.

“It’s convenient.”

Esper leaned in closer, voice dropping into gleeful teasing.

“Hubby.”

“I’m not your husband.”

“Not yet,” she said, and the way she smiled made it clear she was going to milk that word until he died of embarrassment.

Soren turned towards the door, deciding movement was the only way to stop her.

“Let’s go.”

Esper’s grin widened as she followed, satisfied with herself and far too energised by her own jokes.

————「❤︎」————