AFTER THE DANCE

Ren had 'gentlemanly' brought Luna to her room, where she finally could speak with him without an audience observing every gesture and analyzing every word.

"It was perfect," she said, and there was something in her voice Ren hadn't heard before despite days of practice together. Warmth that didn't bother hiding. "The dress, the dance, everything... Thank you!"

Ren nodded while maintaining the tranquil expression and smile, the relaxed posture of the mysterious knight he'd been embodying for the last several days through the sheer force of his concentrated will.

Internally his brain was absolutely fried from the sustained effort.

'Keep back straight, don't look at your feet, count one, two, three, smile subtly, breathe with rhythm guide without forcing, let her shine...'

The advice kept circulating in an automatic loop even now that the dance had finished, as if his mind couldn't process that he could finally stop concentrating with that absolute intensity on every microscopic detail of movement and positioning.

His head hurt with a dull ache that came from hours of sustained focus without rest.

But he didn't show it because Luna was looking at him with that expression that made him dizzy but made all the effort worthwhile, and Ren wasn't going to ruin the moment by admitting he was mentally exhausted to the point of barely functioning.

"Not just for the dress," Luna continued, taking a step closer with a daring movement that seemed unconscious. Her voice dropped, becoming more intimate in a way that suggested vulnerability. "For everything... For the practices. For listening when I needed it, for being there when I looked so pitiful and... For making these days be... very different from how they would have been."

Ren's brain was operating on reserve power, running on fumes and muscle memory.

So he only nodded again, allowing Luna to continue speaking while his exhausted mind tried to keep up with processing what was being said.

"And I..." Luna paused with something crossing her face, maybe determination mixed with nervousness she was trying to hide but not completely succeeding. "I realized something today during the dance…"

Another pause while she gathered courage. Luna took a deep breath as if preparing to jump from a considerable height without a safety net.

"I'm MADLY… held to you."

The words came out more direct than she'd probably planned in her internal rehearsal. Perhaps the intense internal Luna had pushed too hard wanting to say MADLY IN LOVE and Luna had reduced it slightly to "I wanna hold you" by inertia in the end, but the words still emerged without an elegant preamble or even a careful, correct grammatical construction… any better words a noble lady would usually employ for such an important declaration.

She turned completely red from the boldness... but continued anyway because retreating now would be worse than pushing forward.

Ren blinked slowly, processing working at reduced capacity.

'She... what? Hold? Holding? Held?'

"And I know that I..." Luna was continuing now that she'd broken the initial seal, words flowing with momentum of confession that couldn't be stopped. "I know I ruined our first date. I was a disaster. I was in bad place then and didn't know how to handle it and probably made you feel confused or uncomfortable and..."

She stopped, breathing deeply to calm herself before continuing with more control.

"When the exams end... I want to repeat that date," she declared with more firmness that came from a decision already made. "To do right what I did wrong."

She didn't explicitly say anything about "the forced kiss" that had ended that disastrous first attempt. Didn't verbalize exactly which specific part she wanted to correct or improve.

But the implication would be clear to almost anyone paying attention... Who didn't have a completely fried brain from sustained mental exertion.

Ren kept processing while his exhausted mind tried catching up with what he was hearing.

'Held. She's holding? To me… feel safe? Wants to repeat... the date? To do... what right?'

Luna watched him waiting for a response, and something in her eyes showed a vulnerability that probably cost her significantly to display.

She was taking a risk by being this direct.

Putting herself completely exposed to potential rejection.

And waiting for him not to crush that vulnerability with dismissal or confusion.

"Do you want to as well?" she finally asked when Ren didn't respond immediately, filling the silence that was stretching too long.

The question was simple and direct without noble embellishment.

What was it going to be?

Rejection?

Acceptance?

Ask for time to think?

'Anything but silence!!'

But Ren was still operating on autopilot with his conscious mind struggling to maintain the basic functions after days and nights of absolute concentration.

Which meant he responded not with careful thought about implications but with the pattern he'd been following all day long.

The pattern that had worked perfectly so far…

And would again.

Because it was not the awkward stammering of a normal teenager but the smooth confidence of a dream prince. The perfect knight. The boy who said exactly the right things at exactly the right moments.

He stepped closer with a single movement that closed the distance between them.

Luna inhaled sharply at the sudden proximity that brought him into her personal space.

And Ren leaned down slightly, his voice dropping to whisper that only she could hear in the empty room.

"Whatever you want," he murmured close to her ear with a tone that carried a firm yet unconscious intimacy, "I want too."

In his mind, he was thinking about helping her with whatever she needed. About supporting her like he'd been doing for days. About being the reliable presence she needed for whatever this meant that she was trying to express.

But the words themselves...

The words sounded completely different from that innocent intention.

Sounded like a more mature promise rather than a supportive agreement.

Like firm, direct and EAGER consent to what Luna had just suggested without saying explicitly.

As if Ren were saying without evasion that he also wanted to kiss her, that he also wanted to correct that first disastrous attempt, and that apparently he hadn't found it unpleasant at all despite how awkward it had been.

Luna went completely still with body freezing in place. Her eyes widening with shock. Color rising to her cheeks in amounts she couldn't control no matter how much she tried.

'He... he said…'

'HE SAID YES WITH THAT SERIOUS FACE?!'

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