Chapter 31: Uriel’s Brilliant Plan
They hadn't gone far when Tian slowed and fell half a step behind. Uriel noticed the gap and stopped.
"Something wrong?"
"The recruitment fair isn't over yet."
"Cafeteria will be empty right now. We grab dinner, take it back."
He kept walking. Tian glanced back once toward the noise and the crowd, then fell into step beside him.
They cut through the side path to avoid the main foot traffic. The cheering and the vendor calls from the courtyard thinned out with distance. By the time they rounded the far corner, the only sound left was their own footsteps.
Uriel walked and thought.
He kept turning the headmaster's expression over in his head, worrying at it from every angle until it felt worn thin.
Most people, seeing something like that, would look away. No reason to antagonize the Headmaster of your own school. Get on his bad side and the next four years get very small, very fast. Why bother.
But his situation was different. He and Tian were, at this exact moment, occupying the perfect blind spot. Two unremarkable new students, standing in the most forgettable corner of the room. Nobody was watching them. Nobody had any reason to.
So far, the plan was working perfectly.
The problem was what happened if the school developed a scandal.
Say a fifty-something Headmaster and a girl from a prominent noble family became the subject of an incident. Attention goes up. An investigation gets opened. People start arriving from all directions, all asking questions, all looking very closely at everything and everyone nearby.
That won't work.
This wasn't about saving a damsel in distress. This was pure risk management. If it blew up, they’d be collateral damage.
The problem was how to bring it up. A male student walking up to report something like this was going to raise its own questions immediately. Why were you watching? Why do you care? What's your angle? He'd end up tangled in exactly the kind of scrutiny he was trying to avoid.
He also hadn't spoken to a girl his own age in three years, which made the whole idea miserable, and the likelihood of him opening that particular conversation without his toes curling into the floor was approximately zero.
He looked sideways at Tian.
Short hair, clean features, the kind of face that made people instinctively lower their guard. Even in the disguise, something about her presence just read as harmless.
Approachable. And fundamentally speaking, a girl-to-girl conversation was always going to land better than some random guy showing up with this kind of information.
Sure, Tian was currently wearing a boys' uniform. And sure, she was registered as a male student. But Uriel's meticulously pragmatic brain completely bypassed these minor technicalities. In his head, he was deploying a gentle woman to comfort another woman. A flawless, airtight strategy. What could possibly go wrong?
He nodded to himself. Viable.
---
The cafeteria was exactly as empty as predicted. They packed up dinner without any wait, carried the boxes back to the dorm, and by the time they settled at the desk, the window was full of the burnt-orange glow of early evening. Tian laid out the bowls. Uriel unboxed everything.
"I need to ask a favor," Uriel said.
Tian looked up immediately. Attentive. She nodded.
Uriel explained what he'd seen — the Headmaster, the girl, what he'd seen and what he thought it meant.
"…Does the girl know?" Tian asked. Something genuinely curious sat in her eyes.
"Probably not. Which is why someone needs to tell her."
"You?"
"You. You're the better fit for this."
Tian nodded without hesitation. "Okay."
Uriel set down his chopsticks. He walked through everything he'd thought about on the way back — the scenarios, the tone, the margins. He covered it thoroughly. Only the most important part he said three times:
"Do not say the wrong thing."
Tian sat across from him and listened without interrupting. When he finished, she nodded.
"I understand."
"You actually understand?"
"I do. I won't say the wrong thing."
Uriel studied her face for two full seconds. No glaze. No half-present smile. She was actually in the room with him. He exhaled.
"Good."
---
The next day, after the final bell, Tian set out.
Uriel went back to the dorm, opened a practice workbook, and positioned himself at the desk looking like someone doing homework. The pen touched the paper. No words appeared.
It'll be fine.
When it counts, she delivers.
He pushed down the urge to follow her, looked at the blank page, and kept not writing.
---
Seraphina Waldrich was having afternoon tea.
An earl's daughter had rules about this sort of thing bred into her at a cellular level — the placement of the cup, the temperature of the steep, the order in which the accompanying pastries were meant to be consumed.
Seraphina wasn't doing any of that. She poured and drank. When the cup was empty she refilled it. Her study companion sat across from her, quietly present, offering the occasional remark about the day's events, keeping the mood from going anywhere dull.
That was when Tian appeared.
She stopped at the edge of the table and addressed Seraphina's companion with the specific courtesy of someone who had been coached.
"Excuse me — would it be alright if I spoke with you for a few minutes?"
The companion looked him over. Neat uniform, unremarkable height for a boy, features that somehow managed to project a complete absence of threat. The companion held the look for a moment. A slightly nervous underclassman boy, approaching a noble heiress out of nowhere? The companion’s eyebrows rose a fraction of an inch. She shot Seraphina a highly amused, knowing glance that practically screamed ‘Oh my, a confession?’ and smoothly rose from her seat.
"I'll go and get a fresh pot." She said, her voice dripping with strategic tact.
Then she left. The exit was impressively smooth.
Seraphina set down her cup and looked at the person now sitting across from her.
Her expression was the same expression she always wore. It was the kind of face that gave nothing away by default — pleased and displeased looked identical from a distance, and you had to be close enough to read the very edges of her eyes to catch the difference. The universal look of someone who had worked a customer-facing role in a previous life and never quite stopped.
"Please go ahead," she said, and, without any particular fanfare, poured Tian a cup of tea. "What is it?"
Tian told her.
She laid out the previous day's events from the beginning, kept the important parts direct, and waited when she reached the end.
Seraphina went quiet.
She looked at the teacup on the table for a long moment.
Something moved across that composed face — a brief flash of confusion and distaste, gone almost before it arrived.
She pulled both emotions back with visible effort, looked at Tian, and spoke in a voice of absolute courtesy.
"You're a male student, aren't you?"
She seemed to want to make sure there was no misunderstanding, so she added:
"You're — not a girl? Correct?"
Tian blinked.
Little Uri hadn't said anything about this part. Hmm…
"That's right," Tian answered, radiating complete sincerity. "I use the men's room."
The hand Seraphina had extended toward the teacup froze in midair.
The light vanished from her eyes. Instantly.
Her perfectly practiced, earl's-daughter smile remained glued to her lips, but her eyes became the dead, unreflective orbs of a deep-sea fish.
Uriel would later reflect that it was genuinely lucky he hadn't come along. If he'd been there to hear that exchange in real time he would have physically sprinted over to intervene.
"I see," said Seraphina, closing her eyes. A moment passed. "Thank you. I appreciate it."
The tone stayed even. The voice stayed level. But she was already on her feet, collecting her things with the quiet urgency of someone who had identified their exit and was using it. The speed at which the table got cleared was notable.
"Please excuse me."
She left. The hem of her skirt swept the air behind her.
The study companion materialized from somewhere nearby, kettle in hand, and gave Tian a single look — the look of someone who had seen a great deal of life and was still, somehow, a little sympathetic. Uriel heard the description, thought about it for a moment, and arrived at two conclusions in sequence: first, that it was the look of someone watching a puppy stroll cheerfully into a minefield; and second, more specifically, that the puppy had just been friend-zoned.
---
Tian was back before Uriel had managed to write a single word.
"I told her. She was polite."
Uriel put the pen down. "How did she react?"
"She thanked me. Then she left." Tian paused. "Quickly."
"…Alright. Good work."
Tian sat down on the edge of her bed. She was quiet for a moment, and then the particular expression of someone who had decided to be helpful settled across her face. She opened her mouth.
"She seemed nice. That girl."
"Yeah."
"Pretty too."
"Yeah."
"Good manners. Good family." The energy in Tian's voice was picking up in a direction Uriel had genetic-level familiarity with. "And you're in the same year, so —"
Uriel put the workbook down. Turned around.
"Tian."
"Mm?"
He reached over, took her face in both hands, and held it firmly in place. The commentary stopped.
Tian's mouth got slightly compressed. Her words came out muffled.
"Mm— Uriel—"
"Roommate mode," Uriel said, with the calm of a man reading off a checklist. "We are currently in roommate mode, not mom mode. Are we clear?"
"Mm—mm—"
"No matchmaking."
"Mm."
"Answer me properly."
Tian tested the grip, found it solid, and gave in. A muffled affirmative. A small nod.
Uriel released her and went back to his workbook.
Tian sat where she was and used the back of her hand to rub at the faint pink left on her cheek. Under her breath, almost nothing:
"…Very pretty though."
"Didn't catch that," Uriel said, turning a page. "What was that?"
"Nothing."
The evening wind came through the window and moved through the leaves outside, filling the small silence between them with something that didn't need a name.