Klein looked around, verifying that nobody was close enough to overhear.
The area bustled with activity. Students celebrating their hauls, comparing quantities, making plans for wealth they’d never imagined possessing.
But in the small bubble around Klein and Ren, the noise felt distant. Muffled. Like the world had contracted to just the two of them and whatever Klein was about to say.
The others from their team were occupied celebrating their gains too, comparing amounts, making plans that sounded equal parts ambitious and naive. Zhao talked with the new evaluator about sothing technical.
Nobody was paying attention to the quiet conversation happening in the corner.
"It’s about Luna," Klein began, his voice tense.
Ren’s expression changed instantly.
His posture tensed. Shoulders drawing back. Weight shifting to the balls of his feet in unconscious combat readiness. His eyes narrowed, focus sharpening from casual attention to absolute concentration.
Almost like a transformation... From relaxed genius student to sothing far more dangerous in the space of a heartbeat.
"What about her?"
The words were carefully neutral, but Klein could hear the edge beneath them... The promise of violence if the answer was sothing Ren didn’t want to hear.
"You need to know sothing. Sothing that..." Klein swallowed, his mouth suddenly dry. "Sothing she probably doesn’t want you to know, but that I think you need to know anyway."
He breathed deep, gathering the courage that wanted to flee.
"A few weeks ago they called ... Luna’s uncles... Orion Starweaver specifically."
"They called you?" Ren frowned, confusion mixing with growing concern. "Why?"
Why would the Starweaver power players contact a fallen noble heir with no apparent connection to their family politics? The question hung unspoken but obvious.
"They offered a ’paper role’. The role of..." Klein paused, the words sticking in his throat like physical objects he couldn’t quite force out. "’Husband’... In an arrangent."
The air between them beca dense with mana.
Dangerous.
Not an overt technique, not a deliberate attack... Just raw energy pressure leaking from soone whose control was slipping under the weight of sudden rage. The unconscious power expression that happened when emotion overwheld discipline.
Klein felt it pressing against his skin. Making breathing difficult. His own beast stirring in response, recognizing the threat even if Klein himself had expected this reaction.
"Continue," Ren said, his voice dangerously low.
The kind of low that suggested violence was being held back through sheer force of will and might be released at any mont depending on what Klein said next.
"They blackmailed with a property that was forrly ’mine’." Klein spoke faster now, recognizing that delay would only make this worse. "One of many the crown had taken when my family fell into disgrace because of my idiot brother. Luna’s uncles bought it afterward along with many others, and they told they’d ’return’ it if I acted as I should."
The words tumbled out in a rush. Confession mixed with explanation mixed with desperate need to get this said before courage failed completely.
"In fact they had much more they could gradually give ... Until I got them the ’heir’ they want one way or another."
"Heir?"
Ren’s voice was ice. Pure fury that made the surrounding temperature feel like it had actually dropped several degrees.
"Wait, let finish." Klein raised his hands, sweat beading on his forehead despite the suddenly too cold air. "When I heard that, the house didn’t matter to . Nothing about that mattered... But I accepted eting with her anyway, because it ant I’d talk to Luna about an arrangent."
"Why would you do that?"
The question carried implications. Why help the uncles? Why participate in sches that sounded increasingly sinister? Why agree to et Luna under false pretenses?
"Because they told Luna had already categorically rejected having anything to do with Jin." Klein explained quickly, words racing to get ahead of Ren’s building rage. "She said he was an idiot kid who’d be a headache to negotiate with. Her exact words. So that left Seiya and as the best prospects according to her uncles, and an endless list of minor nobles who wouldn’t be a good match given House Starweaver’s size."
He paused, gathering so more courage for the next part.
The part where he admitted to having been driven by a desperate need to fix his past mistakes.
"I realized that if I wanted to do sothing to make up for my forr idiocy, to redeem myself for the stuff I did in the past, I had to act here before they sent that Seiya. At least offer help to Luna... So that’s what I did."
"What kind of help?" Ren asked, his tone still cold but with a hint of curiosity forcing its way through the anger.
A crack in the ice. Not forgiveness... but at least willingness to hear the full explanation before deciding whether Klein deserved whatever violence Ren was contemplating.
"When Luna allowed the visit and we t, she was just going to scold ." Klein smiled bitterly at the mory. "She thought I’d beco insistent again after so many years of leaving her alone. That I was reverting to my academy days behavior of pursuing soone who’d made it clear they weren’t interested."
The sha of those mories still burned. Klein had been an arrogant ass during their first school years. Had treated Luna’s rejections as challenges to overco rather than boundaries to respect. Had made himself into exactly the kind of entitled noble that made people hate the aristocracy.
"But I was quick to tell her everything I knew and thought. Everything about the blackmail, about the offers, about what her uncles wanted."
"And?"
"Her mana eyes read completely." Klein rembered that mont with crystal clarity. Luna’s gaze stripping away every defense, every careful mask, seeing straight through to his genuine intentions. "She saw I only wanted to help and redeem my past actions. So Luna allowed to know so things about what she wanted..."
Klein was blushing heavily now but he looked directly at Ren.
Ren relaxed a bit, seeing easily that all Klein had said until now was true.
"So she saw that you really wanted to help, then... What did she tell you?"
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