The kiss was sudden and intense, carrying all the frustration and rebellion she felt toward her father. Ren’s mind went completely blank, overwheld by the unexpected intimacy and the intensity of the mont.
When she finally pulled back, both were breathing heavily, staring at each other with wide eyes as the reality of what had just happened began to sink in.
Ren’s eyes widened.
After the awkward and sowhat rough kiss, Luna sat on top of him.
"You always caught my attention," she told him, "although we’re really not compatible."
Her voice had changed completely, becoming more direct and aggressive than he had ever heard it.
"I’m the opposite of you. Ambitious, you’ve shown several tis that you’re not. Introverted, when you’re not afraid to express what you feel. Elitist, toxically competitive, ignorant, vengeful, and privileged in a bad way. I never would have achieved anything with a weak beast like yours, rising from your total lack of privilege... much less with a spore, even though it beca such a cute little creature."
Her words poured out like a torrent, as if she had been keeping them for years.
"Based on our opposite foundations, we should be enemies like Klein or Jin were to you. I shouldn’t be your friend or close in any way. But after so many things and thinking about it..." she paused, "no one has interested more."
Ren was completely overwheld by this avalanche of confessions and self-recriminations.
"Although today I wanted to beat Liora... see if you wanted to ’conquer too’," Luna continued, "see if I’d like that... but I realize that a relationship with soone like only soone like could accept or enjoy... since it’s based on all superficial interest, appearances, and tastes."
Ren forced himself to ignore the hormones that had awakened with the kiss and the position they found themselves in. He breathed deeply and looked at her directly.
"You’re lying," he told her softly.
"What!?"
"My mana eyes don’t work very well at the mont, but at least I can tell you still have that strange habit of saying things backwards..."
"...We’re not opposites," he told her firmly. "And especially, I’m also very privileged. I wouldn’t change what I had at the beginning, my loving family, for any other privilege in the world."
Luna looked at him with a face full of surprise and sothing more.
"It’s okay to be whatever you are. You always interested too, and you failed to ntion ’very pessimistic’, because I’ve observed you and you’re not even a tenth as bad as you think."
Luna blushed intensely, but seed to rember sothing and got angry again.
"I just wanted to ’test you’ to see if I would regret it," she told him brusquely, "but in the end it wasn’t like that. I’m sorry, but now we’re enemies and I’ll take the first place seat from you now that your power is reduced."
Ren was confused, sensing through his mana that this statent was completely true.
Enemies.
Completely blushed, Luna reiterated: "Forget the kiss. It’s not a big deal for , so it shouldn’t be for you either. And I didn’t like it either."
Then she lted into the shadows, disappearing completely.
Ren remained there, completely confused, touching his lips.
He reproached himself because he had liked it so much when she pushed him and kissed him. His heart had accelerated just thinking about it again.
That he could only enjoy it if he was soone superficial? Maybe then he was MUCH more superficial than he believed.
And worse still... his self-proclaid "enemy" had lied two more tis at the end. So, the kiss was actually a big deal for her? And she liked it too?
He sighed deeply, realizing his situation was now infinitely more complicated than before.
♢♢♢♢
Even giving himself a long ti to think...
Everything was completely tangled.
The situation had sohow ended up worse than before. The first apology had led him to recover his friendships, but now he had lost them again just like that.
Not exactly lost, but interacting with the girls like always after all this?
Impossible.
All because of... Selphira and Sirius?
Sohow they had turned what should have been simple extra apologies into a complex web of feelings he didn’t know how to handle.
But now, beyond his own confusion, he began to feel genuine curiosity about the situation.
He had to do sothing. He had to find a way to help Lu... the mory of the kiss still fresh made him blush just thinking of Luna’s na... help her solve her problems.
First he could try to understand them better.
She had looked really upset by whatever her father had done. There was a desperation in her crying that went beyond normal family problems.
To understand them...
Ren concentrated on sensing mana signatures as best as possible. His perception abilities were significantly reduced, but not completely lost.
He didn’t manage to find them imdiately, so he forced himself to cycle mana in his system as he had been practicing to improve perception with his ’fungus-emulating’ mana technique.
After a mont and a small headache that reminded him of his current limitations, he managed to detect her trail. Sirius was, fortunately, at the academy. But he wasn’t alone.
He quickly headed toward the area where he had sensed the combined mana signatures: Sirius, Selphira and... Zhao? It was sowhat far, but Ren used all his movent abilities to get there as quickly as possible.
When he was close, he could sense the mana without forcing himself too much and realized they hadn’t moved. They must be in a room, probably having a private conversation.
He activated his artifact to hide his mana and employed a new trick he had also developed trying to emulate his fungus’s abilities. He cycled his mana from outside toward his center, making his mana signature beco even smaller, almost imperceptible.
He approached the door cautiously and listened, amplifying vibrations with his affinity for earth and air elents.
"Are you sure it was there?" he heard Sirius ask, apparently addressing Zhao. "And it was a tree that looked like a claw of this specific black color?"
He seed to be showing him sothing, perhaps an object or image.
The conversation carried an urgency that made Ren’s instincts sharpen. Whatever they were discussing involved sothing significant enough to require Zhao’s knowledge and Selphira’s presence, and Luna’s emotional state seed connected to it in ways he couldn’t yet understand.
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