Still inside the cafe, Mia had, at some point, moved from her seat and slid right beside Kael.
She clung to him softly, like it was the most natural thing in the world, her shoulder pressed against his arm as she stared at the laptop screen between them.
"It shouldn't be this slow," Mia muttered, tapping the trackpad. "It's just a simple dashboard."
The page took nearly thirty seconds to load.
But, Mia didn't look annoyed. If anything, she looked pleased.
She explained how she'd already dragged three engineers into it. One blamed the server. Another blamed the network. The third blamed the database.
None of them had solved anything.
Now she was here, sitting close enough that her perfume sat in Kael's lungs, watching him like she'd already won.
Kael took it calmly.
Even as a small part of him felt like things were going too smoothly… too easily.
His gaze stayed on the code.
He scrolled for a few seconds.
Then stopped.
"You're querying the database inside a loop," he said.
Mia blinked. "So?"
Kael didn't bother with her frown. he concisely explained.
"You're running ten thousand queries instead of one."
Before she could argue, his fingers moved.
Two minutes later, he rewrote it.
The page loaded instantly.
Mia froze.
For a second, she didn't even react.
She stared at the screen, as if the code had personally betrayed her.
It wasn't like she didn't know this.
Which made it worse.
Her expression was not of embarrassment though.
She looked… troubled.
As if she'd been counting on this taking longer.
As if the point had never been the dashboard at all.
She swallowed, her gaze flicking between the screen and his face.
"…That's it?" she asked, disbelief slipping through. "Just like that?"
Kael closed the laptop, the quiet click snapping her out of it.
"That's it," he said.
Mia stared at the laptop for another second.
Then at him.
And her expression shifted — not frustration, not panic.
Calculation.
Finally, as if deciding to stop playing around, she leaned closer and said, "…Hey. Since you're already saving my life today… can I ask one more thing?"
Kael didn't answer.
He only glanced at her, a silent cue.
Mia took it.
"My laptop's been stupidly slow lately. Like… ten minutes just to boot. Can you take a look? My charger's at home though."
She hesitated, just long enough for it to feel accidental.
Then, as if forcing herself to sound casual—
"So… should we go somewhere else to continue? My place, I mean?"
Kael had already thought of the same thing.
He didn't want a hotel again.
And he didn't want Mia inside his apartment.
So the only remaining option was hers.
But he hadn't planned to be the one to suggest it.
Her offering it now, on her own, was almost too convenient.
So this time, he didn't play hard to get.
He stood up and said, "Fine. Let's go."
Mia gathered her things in a hurry, suppressing the grin that threatened to show, and followed him out.
-------
Using his car, Kael went with Mia to her house.
Now seated comfortably in her lavish living room, he opened the laptop while Mia disappeared into the kitchen, supposedly to bring drinks.
He expected an excuse.
But after thirty seconds of watching the machine struggle just to respond, Kael's eyebrow arched slightly.
"There really is a problem," he muttered under his breath. "Not just an excuse."
The system lagged in a way that felt familiar.
Not software.
Hardware.
The drive was choking.
He was already about to check the disk health when soft footsteps returned from the hallway — unhurried, like she wanted him to hear her coming.
When Mia finally stepped back into the room, she came with a wine bottle and two glasses… something clearly chosen for a romantic date, not for troubleshooting.
And she wasn't wearing what she'd worn in the cafe anymore.
A black silk slip dress reached mid-thigh, with a matching robe draped loosely over it.
It wasn't vulgar.
It wasn't desperate.
But it was deliberate.
It gave him glimpses instead of exposure; cleavage when she leaned, thigh when she stepped, soft skin framed by silk.
The most dangerous part was that she wore it like it was normal.
Like this was simply how she existed at home.
Like she hadn't changed for him at all.
She set the glasses down slowly, close enough that the scent of her perfume reached him before her body did.
Then she sat beside him.
Not at a polite distance.
Right beside him.
Leaning her body into his and resting her head lightly against his shoulder, like they'd done this a hundred times.
Mia might have wanted to look like she wasn't trying.
But she absolutely was.
Kael had already realized that much.
Her motives were clear now.
She didn't even acknowledge the laptop.
Her eyes stayed on him.
After a silent moment like that, her gaze finally moved to the screen, as if she'd remembered it was there.
"So…" Mia murmured, her voice sweet, almost lazy. "What's wrong with it~?"
The tone didn't match the words.
She wasn't asking because she cared.
She was asking because she needed something to say while she pressed herself closer.
Because she needed an excuse to keep him here.
Because if she stopped moving for even a second, she was afraid he would remember he could leave.
What had made him change his mind after refusing her every advance during their university days?
She didn't know.
But she didn't care.
This moment was everything.
Kael wasn't shutting her down.
Wasn't pulling away.
Wasn't giving her that cold look that used to end every attempt before it even started.
It mattered more than the laptop.
More than her project.
More than anything else.
She didn't want to ruin it.
Unbeknownst to Mia, Kael had the same goal in his mind.
So he didn't drag things out.
He told her what was actually going on with her laptop, briefly and calmly, like it was nothing.
A dying drive.
A system choking on its own startup.
Something fixable.
Something boring.
Then his gaze dropped.
Not to her face.
To his hand, now trapped between her breasts, pinned there by the way she leaned into him as if it belonged.
And then he spoke.
"You know whatever problem you had is already solved, right?" he said. "Like… there's no need for you to do something like this."
He explained it "kindly."
But his words weren't meant for Mia.
They were meant for whoever was monitoring him.
Whatever he fixed for her, to him, was so trivial it wasn't even worth charging for.
But that was his view.
Those who were watching or listening might not see it the same way.
So Kael made it clear, in a roundabout way.
This wasn't a transaction.
He wasn't here because she needed help.
He was here because she wanted to be fucked.
And because he wanted to fuck her.
Nothing more.
Nothing less.