"Soren…?"
Olivia's voice came softly from behind the fitting room curtain, hesitant enough that both he and Louise looked over at once.
Soren had been leaning against the wall a short distance away, arms folded, listening with half an ear while Louise continued to mutter objections about his taste in cardigans.
At Olivia's voice, he straightened a little.
"Yeah?"
There was a small pause, then the faint rustle of fabric.
"Are you sure these will suit me?"
The uncertainty in her voice was so sincere that Soren almost laughed, not at her, but at how completely Olivia seemed unable to understand what she looked like to other people.
He tipped his head back against the wall for a second, thinking, then answered in a tone that came out gentler than his usual dry one.
"I'm confident at least one of them will," he said. "Probably more than one."
"Really…?"
"Yes, really."
Another pause.
Olivia still sounded unconvinced.
Soren exhaled through his nose.
"Olivia, you need to have a little more confidence in yourself."
From beside him, Louise glanced over.
The words themselves were simple, but something about the way he said them caught her attention.
There was no impatience in it, no teasing edge meant to hide embarrassment, just a quiet firmness, the sort that came from sincerely wanting the other person to believe it.
It made Louise smile before she quite realised she was doing it.
This was nice.
She had not expected to spend the afternoon like this at all.
Running into Soren at the café had been chance, nothing more, and yet somehow the day had unfolded into wandering through the shopping district together, teasing him, watching him get dragged into a friend's happiness and then throw himself into it far more seriously than anyone had expected.
And he really did look happy.
Not constantly, not perfectly, but in glimpses so genuine they were hard to ignore.
There was a looseness to him today that had been missing before.
His posture was less guarded, his answers less careful.
Even when he snapped back with sarcasm, it felt lighter, more natural.
He was not bracing for something.
He was just… here.
Louise had noticed that change growing stronger as the afternoon went on.
At the café there had still been tension in him, a thin layer of caution every time she leaned too far into warmth or familiarity.
Not rejection, not exactly, but the instinctive flinch of someone who did not quite know what to do with being cared for.
She had felt it, even when she pretended not to.
Now, though, after walking, talking, and arguing over clothes for long enough, some of that tension seemed to have melted away.
Soren had stopped watching himself so much.
He rolled his eyes at her more openly.
He smirked without immediately pulling it back.
He even looked comfortable enough to be mildly insufferable.
Louise was far more relieved by that than she intended to show.
When he had started talking about life at the academy earlier, about the people around him now, it had taken genuine restraint not to drag him into a hug on the spot.
She had worried about him more than she liked to admit.
Feared, at times, that he might still be trapped in old pain, unable to step properly into his new life no matter how much time passed.
Seeing him like this eased something in her chest.
'I'm proud of you,' she thought, the words quiet and private.
…Even if some of the people around him sounded ridiculous.
A playboy with too much charm and not enough shame.
A terrifyingly intense princess who apparently decided she liked someone and then simply attached herself to them.
And then there was Lilliana.
That one still bothered Louise in a way she could not quite smooth over with logic.
From the way Soren spoke about her, it was obvious they were close.
Not casually, not in the distant way a student might admire a teacher, but closely enough that the softness in his voice changed without his permission whenever her name came up.
Louise was not blind.
Affection was there, strong and real, whether or not either of them had named it yet.
That alone would have been enough to make her wary, but Lilliana was also older, high-born, and by the sound of it, far too important to be simple.
Louise did not like complicated women around Soren.
Or perhaps, more accurately, she did not like the thought of Soren being hurt by complicated women.
Still…
If he was smiling like this now, if he had people around him who mattered enough to pull him into ordinary, foolish little afternoons like this one, perhaps she could live with a little unease.
Her attention shifted back to the fitting room curtain.
And, honestly, Olivia was impossible not to like.
Sweet, earnest, obviously in love, and so transparent about it that Louise almost wanted to laugh every time she tried to insist tomorrow was not a date.
If Olivia had been one of Soren's options, Louise would probably have championed her shamelessly.
There was something deeply charming about a girl who looked at the person she loved as if the whole world had gone a little softer around the edges.
A shame, really.
"Do you want some help, Olivia?" Louise called, stepping a little closer to the curtain.
There was a rustle from inside, then Olivia's voice came again, small and uncertain.
"Uhm… is that okay?"
"Of course it is."
Louise did not wait for a second invitation; she slipped past the curtain…
…and stopped.
"Oh."
The sound escaped her before she could stop it.
Olivia, who had clearly only managed to half-change so far, was sitting on the little bench inside in her underwear, shoulders slightly hunched and one of the outfits folded nervously in her lap as she looked up in immediate alarm.
"Is something wrong?" Olivia asked at once, her eyes widening.
For a brief second, Louise forgot to answer.
It was not that Olivia looked shocking in any vulgar sense.
It was simply that the image of her people got at a glance and the reality of her figure up close were not remotely the same thing.
Olivia usually came across as soft in a harmless, almost cuddly way.
Timid smiles, round eyes, hesitant movements, that slightly flustered sweetness that made people want to protect her.
All of that was still true.
But beneath that softness, her figure was far fuller than her loose clothes usually suggested.
Warm curves, a soft waist, a generous chest, plush thighs, all of it tied together by the sort of unintentional femininity that felt unfair precisely because Olivia herself clearly had no idea what effect she could have.
There was nothing practised about it.
Nothing deliberate.
She was not trying to be alluring.
Which somehow made it worse.
Louise, athletic and toned and fully aware of what her own body looked like, felt a sharp, instinctive flicker of jealousy all the same.
'This is absurd,' she thought, half in disbelief, half in reluctant admiration.
Whoever Alex was, the idiot had no idea how lucky he was.
And again, with even greater certainty than before, Louise felt that mild, useless regret.
What a shame Olivia was already hopelessly attached to someone else.
"Miss Louise…?" Olivia asked again, shrinking in on herself a little. "Did I do something wrong?"
Louise came back to herself immediately.
"No, no," she said, composure sliding back into place with admirable speed. "Nothing's wrong."
Olivia still looked worried.
Louise softened her voice.
"You're fine, Olivia. I just wasn't expecting you to still be changing."
"Oh, sorry."
Olivia glanced down and then immediately turned pink.
"There's no need to apologise."
Louise stepped fully inside and let the curtain fall shut behind her, then reached out and gently took the dress from Olivia's hands.
"Now then," she said, brightening her tone on purpose, "have you decided which one you want to try first?"
Olivia looked even more embarrassed by the question.
"Not really…"
"Mm. I see…"
"Sorry…"
"Stop apologising so much."
Olivia gave a tiny, helpless nod.
Louise looked over the three outfits, considered them for a moment, then held out the white dress.
"Let's start with this one," she said. "It's simple, it's pretty, and it'll tell us a lot immediately."
Olivia accepted it with both hands.
"Okay…"
Louise tilted her head, studying her for another second.
Up close, it was even easier to see why Soren's choices had been right.
He had balanced softness with structure, used colour to warm Olivia's features instead of washing them out, and avoided anything that would make her self-conscious.
He had done it almost instinctively.
Interesting.
Very interesting.
She wondered, not for the first time that day, where exactly he had learned all this.
Then again, perhaps it didn't matter.
Today, more than anything, she was just glad to see him this animated.
Glad to see him fuss over a friend, argue with her like they had been doing it for years, and step into something ordinary with both feet instead of holding himself at the edge of it.
Even choosing clothes for Olivia, he had not been distant about it; he had cared.
That warmth sat well on him.
"Go on," Louise said, giving Olivia a gentle nudge with the dress. "Try it on."
Olivia nodded, stood, and reached for the curtain of the little changing space at the side of the booth.
Louise turned away at once to give her privacy, though not before catching one last glimpse of Olivia's flustered face and nearly laughing at how impossible it was to match that expression to the body she had just seen.
A disaster.
Poor Alex.
Or perhaps lucky Alex.
She had not decided which.
A minute later, after hearing Olivia shuffle into the dress behind her, Louise stepped back out from the fitting room and pulled the curtain closed again, her thoughts lingering longer than she expected.
————「❤︎」————