Chapter 387
Both of his palms gently cupped Aldraya's cheeks, holding that porcelain face in place.
The texture he felt was truly surprising.
An extraordinary softness—supple and elastic—like high-quality slime wrapped in silken skin.
The strange and unexpected sensation almost distracted him, yet his smile only widened.
This was a physical interruption, a shift in script from a corrective rite into a spontaneous gesture of familiarity.
For a very brief moment, Aldraya seemed to become static.
Her empty gaze anchored itself to Theo, perhaps her processor running through a new tactile variable not listed within the "tie-teaching" scenario.
Her remarkably pliant cheeks followed the pressure of his fingers before slowly returning to their original shape.
But before her system could formulate a standard response, Theo moved again.
With a smooth and confident motion, he brushed aside Aldraya's hands that were preparing to demonstrate the Windsor knot or something similar once more.
Not with roughness, but with a gentle certainty that implied the tutorial session had ended.
Then, with both hands now free, Theo spoke.
His voice carried a confidence different from his earlier defensive admissions.
He stated his understanding—not as a plea to stop her corrections, but as a declaration.
His words served as a conclusion, and at the same time, a promise.
He would prove it, and more importantly, he would prove it immediately.
It was no longer a request for time or space to analyze further, but a signal that he was ready for final execution.
His pale blue eyes shifted from Aldraya's face to the mirror before him, as though signaling that the true performance was about to begin, and the only audience he required was his own reflection and the strange girl with slime-soft cheeks standing before him.
"Like this?"
Time seemed to freeze briefly inside the lamp-lit room.
Theo's fingers moved, yet the motion was no longer stiff or experimental.
There was a new fluidity, a flow born from freshly formed muscle memory after repeatedly observing demonstrations and receiving physical corrections.
He was no longer thinking about each step.
He simply did it.
The tie knot forming beneath his collar was an almost perfect replica of what Aldraya had taught with her cold patience.
Every twist, every pull, every final neat arrangement was executed with a precision that had previously seemed impossible.
When Theo finally tightened the last fold into place, a different kind of silence enveloped the room.
This was not the silence of awaiting failure, but the silence born of completion.
A faint smile curved at the corner of Theo's lips, small yet filled with satisfaction and a trace of relief.
He did not look at the mirror first.
Instead, he turned toward Aldraya, presenting the result as though it were a great achievement.
The smile was a wordless statement, an acknowledgment that after endless cycles of overanalysis, careless modification, and flicks to the forehead, the instruction had finally been absorbed and executed.
Aldraya responded not with a smile, but with a gaze that grew deeper and, by her standards, intensely focused.
Her face remained flat like the frozen surface of a winter lake, without lines of joy or approval.
Yet her usually empty eyes now performed a careful scan.
Her gaze moved from the neat tie at Theo's neck, tracing every properly aligned fold, then rose to his smiling face.
She repeated the rhythm several times.
Tie, face, tie, face.
Within that visual cycle lay a subtle confusion, a computational process running behind her clear eyes.
Her logical system, accustomed to direct cause and effect, struggled to process Theo's transition from repeated failure to sudden perfection.
Was it because of the pinch to her cheeks? Or because of his confident declaration?
Those variables did not fit into the standard teaching formula she understood.
Theo could read that confusion.
He saw how Aldraya's monotonous gaze seemed to be trying to decode something, how the faint stiffness in her shoulders suggested an unspoken question.
The awareness that he had successfully puzzled the girl who was usually calm and certain only deepened his satisfaction.
He stood there, allowing himself to be examined, enjoying the small moment in which he—the stubborn student—had finally done something the way his strict instructor expected, while at the same time leaving that instructor in a rare state.
A silence filled with question marks.
"Your way of thinking is not very different from mine."
'We truly are not that different. And somehow, hearing that from Aldraya means far more than ten flicks to the forehead.'
Her head shook slowly and measuredly, four times, like a delicate pendulum marking a new conclusion.
Aldraya did not ask about the miracle of transformation, nor did she demand an explanation for the leap from repeated failure to instant perfection.
Such questions appeared irrelevant within her cognitive algorithm.
Instead, her monotonous gaze, still fixed upon Theo, began to convey a different acknowledgment.
Her flat voice flowed once more, delivering an assessment.
She stated that she was impressed—not by the neat tie, but by Theo's thinking ability.
She drew a parallel, equating his cognitive process with her own.
In Theo's mind, her words were immediately translated.
He understood that this was not empty praise, but operational identification.
To Aldraya, they were two entities that fundamentally functioned by the same principle.
Once the fundamental concept of a system—be it a tie knot, a spell, or a battle strategy—was grasped and understood at its root, flawless execution became an inevitable logical consequence.
The ten flicks to his forehead had not been punishment for stupidity, but repeated corrections until the correct conceptual foundation was firmly planted.
When that foundation finally settled, everything "clicked," and perfect action flowed naturally, like a program finally running without bugs.
Ploook!
That feeling of fondness swelled in Theo's chest, a light and spontaneous urge to celebrate this small moment of shared understanding in a way completely absent from the etiquette of Star Academy's nobility.
His faint smile broadened into something warmer and slightly boyish.
Without much thought, he lifted his right hand, opened his palm, and directed it toward Aldraya.
The motion was a universal invitation—a gesture for a high five, a ritual of collaboration and agreement that might be foreign to this world, yet deeply familiar to him as a gamer from another one.
Aldraya, who had just processed the conclusion that Theo operated with parallel logic to her own, showed neither confusion nor hesitation.
Her response was immediate and reflexive.
As though Theo's gesture were a command or a new variable that required instant acknowledgment to preserve interaction continuity, her right hand—usually reserved for demonstrations or flicks—rose swiftly.
There was no doubt, no verifying glance for confirmation.
Before Theo could assume he needed to explain, Aldraya's smooth, cool palm had already met his with a firm, well-timed smack that echoed clearly in the room.
To be continued…