Welldark B1 Ch. 03

Eventually, our tranquil moment came to an end. Esther peeled out of my half-embrace and distanced herself. Not in any rude or dismissive way, it had lasted too long to give that impression. It was a clear gesture of 'let's stop this for now'. My feelings were torn on the matter. I was experiencing that cliche desire of having a moment last forever. However, if it somehow did, we would never get to do more intimate things than embrace. Spending an eternity only touching someone I barely knew, all perception of compatibility aside, would have been rather awkward.

Esther had me show her the rest of the house. Afterwards, she went ahead and picked her dwelling place in our humble abode. It was a two room arrangement, with a comparatively small bedroom (which meant the queen sized bed was a snug fit for the walls) and a living room with a table, a mirror and a few other things. Further, it was closest to the tower and, as I noted with great interest, she would likely be using the same bathroom as me.

As a man of honesty, I could not wait to see her undressed and women were especially sexy after showers. The combination of flushed skin, wet hair and the fresh smell of shampoo was tantalizing beyond even normal nudity. In her case, I was particularly interested in seeing her with open hair. With how unruly it was even with the effort she spent on keeping it bundled up, I was left wondering how wild her black mane would be once left to flow freely.

Such imagery had to be left to my imagination. I was more straightforward in my public ogling than most people, but I was not someone who invaded private spaces. I had enough faith in my ability to win them over through flirting and actions to stay away from such reprehensible behaviour.

Anyway, since she wanted to be left alone for now, I went up to Arlethia and Willt's room on the third floor. We had a few talks about this and that, as friends do. Given novelty, much of the conversation revolved around Welldark. The list of available courses was now viewable through our Ashods and we scoured through in search of things that piqued our interest. We didn't make any binding choices as to what or, in the case of the mandatory classes, when we would be attending yet. It wasn't that pressing anyway. Since we were first years, we got an extra week to decide things before our classes started, while our seniors were already listening to their professors. This time was not only to be used for the write-ins, but also to explore the campus area and get at least broadly familiar with the locations of things.

I highly doubted that this week was put in there purely out of the niceness of the teachers' hearts. My personal theory was that they had gotten tired of people coming thirty minutes late into the first class because they hadn't yet gotten used to the train schedule or the way the universities' room ordering system worked. Whatever the reason, it was an arrangement that worked out for everyone. Write-ins were open until Sunday. If they even called them Sundays around here.

Welldark, like just about every other institution founded on knowledge of the Dimensional Truth, operated on a seven day -- one-week system. While that building block of time management was near universal, months and years could scale a bit differently. A month might only be three weeks, for example, and a year only six months. That seldomly led to difficulties, as far as getting individually situated, as months and years were such large brackets of time. Complications typically arose when a world had a day-night cycle that completely invalidated the 24-hour clock. Those were, thankfully, few and far in-between.

As for where this system stemmed from, I had no idea. I very much doubt it was Earth, it sounded more like the local God had followed it when creating that world. Wherever it originated, it worked and made it easy for people to slot their schedules into a new environment. A figment of familiarity during dimensional travels that reduced stress by a fair amount.

None of us three had entered any courses by the end of our talks, but we had decided we would visit the city tomorrow. Checking out what was on offer and stocking up on supplies was important, particularly because the kitchen was dreadfully empty of foodstuffs. After that, I went directly to bed. I had decided to try and wake up early the next day.

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I blinked a large number of times and focused on reality. Being an extremely vivid and lucid dreamer, many of my mornings started with a moment of confusion. This one was no different. After I spent about a minute yawning, stretching and trying to change the scenery with my mind, I accepted that I must have been awake and sat up. I checked the time, nodded groggily to myself after the numbers made sense to me. 'The sacrifices I make for flirting,' I thought to myself. I wasn't an early riser. I, however, had something to do and therefore went to put on my clothes.

I raised an elongated, slanted cushion of hard foam and put it to the side. Underneath was a row of wooden boxes. They were lowered into the floor and the contents easily accessed by raising the lid. In a room that was one large bed, this was a creative solution to allow for storage space. I took out my outfit for the day which was, since I didn't own anything else that looked good, a school uniform.

Not the same one as yesterday, of course. That one I had stuffed into a plastic bag. Welldark provided several uniforms and did pay for repairing or replacing them, as long as the damage happened during school activities. I would take the bag with me when we headed into the city later. As far as the Welldark app had informed me, the uniforms could be handed in there.

I put on boxers and pants. The shirt I took with me to the bathroom, but only put it on after I had brushed my teeth and showered. I would not risk spilling any toothpaste on my shirt, not if I only had one more replacement.

Freshened up, adequately awake and looking as crisp as I possibly could, I nodded to myself and went to approach Esther's room. I knocked carefully and waited.

My plan was simple. I would start with a simple joke, asking if she wanted to take a shower with me. Snowballing the predictable, hopefully amused, denial into some smalltalk, I would nonchalantly offer that she accompany me, Willt and Arlethia on our trip into the city later.

Worst I expected to get was a disciplined no on the initial joke. Sure, that would have gotten myself in a bit of a bad standing, but she already knew what I was about and still decided to move in. Therefore, that would have been a recoverable disadvantage. Alternatively, I could have misread her character and she was still sleeping and would be rather disgruntled that I woke her up. I heavily doubted that, however.

For a while, I heard nothing and I was afraid that I had miscalculated in the opposite direction. 'Did she wake up so early that she already headed out?' I asked myself and pondered. 'No, there were no signs of usage in the bathroom... she would at least brush her teeth before heading out, anybody would. Maybe she used the other one?'

I was attempting to figure out what reason would drive her to walk all the way to the other bathroom, when I finally heard some movements behind the door. Then it flew open so suddenly my mental preparation was slightly shaken. In front of me stood Esther. She was as beautiful as before, no signs of make-up, and wore a fresh uniform of her own. Her hair was less orderly than yesterday, but still bound together and partly hidden by her tricorne. The tip of it pointed at me like the end of a dagger.

I managed to quickly gather myself, and smile with the warmth of the morning sun. "Good morning," I mused in a tone that was both friendly and had that masculine depth I had found a lot of women to be weak too. It switched to something less serious as I continued, making it clear I was joking. "I was wondering if you would be interested in taking a shower with me. Being clean is very important, after all."

The reaction I got was none I had anticipated. Her amber eyes, although they struck me more as sulfuric yellow in that moment, stared at me with such an intensity that it could have killed a small animal. After several seconds of that stare drilling into my skull, I felt an unpleasant tingling at the back of my neck. "Keep your foolish advances for someone with patience, overacting Karitas," she loudly hissed at me, before stepping back and slamming the door shut with such intensity that a gust of wind blew back several strands of my white hair.

I blinked multiple times, failing to properly process what just happened..

'What did I do?' the questions echoed in my mind repeatedly. Her hair hadn't been as groomed as yesterday, but it hadn't been disorderly either and I would have heard it if she put on her uniform in a hurry. She clearly had been awake for quite some time, so that wasn't the issue. Was it the joke? No, she hadn't mentioned what I had actually said at all. It felt like she hadn't even heard what I said and was simply annoyed with my very existence. I continued to blink rapidly.

The door opened again, giving me a brief moment of hope. I expected an explanation at worst and an apology at best. The difference between the content happiness we had experienced yesterday and her venomous utterings just now was just too stark.

What I got was a stare that could have killed a medium sized animal. It almost killed me, I can say that much, as it stopped my heart for as long as it took all of the enthusiasm I had put into this morning to wilt away into nothingness.

"Step away from my door, insistent Karitas," she warned me. The accent I had previously found so unfathomably attractive had now been tempered into a beautiful blade that slashed my pride into ribbons. "I do not appreciate your attempts at conversation at this hour. Your failure to move makes you appear like a stalker above anything else. Go and bother someone else." The door was again slammed shut. I was just as confused as before, perhaps even more so, but I could recognize a signpost if I was beaten over the head with it. Salvaging what I could, I decided to hurriedly retreat to the kitchen and continue my pondering there.

I spend thirty minutes alone, looking down on my hands and occasionally creating tiny things to fidget around with, before my friends joined me. "You look like you had a terrible nightmare," Willt said first thing, as he and his girlfriend sat down opposite of me on the wooden table. "Did the crazy ex appear in your dreams?"

"No," I drily stated, "I had a terrible morning. Worse than memories of that girl."

"She tried to stab you once, so what the fuck could be worse than that?" Arlethia asked. Before I could answer, Esther walked into the kitchen. Without any word or acknowledgement of our presence, a quick glance in our direction aside, she approached the fridge. Her hair was now in the same orderly state as it had been before her fight with Aclysia yesterday.

Critically analyzing the empty inside of the fridge, she slammed it shut and then looked to the table, which was just as empty. I had stationed myself in the kitchen because my own room lacked a table to desperately brood on. Since we hadn't bought any provisions yesterday, there was no food to prepare. I was happy that I had gone here, right at that moment, as I could at least try to ask her if she wanted to tag along later. My plan was completely shattered, but as long as I got that done, there would be plenty of hours in the day to make up for it. "Esther do you want to..."

"I'm heading out," she declined by interrupting me, causing my insides to shrink to the side of a goldfish. With determined and impatient steps, she left the kitchen and headed for the front door. A few moments spent putting on her shoes later, the raven-haired woman had left the building.

"Wow..." Arlethia was almost as speechless as I was, albeit for different reasons. With no more Esther to stare after, she turned to look at me. "What did you do?" she asked-

"I don't know!" I exclaimed, throwing my hands into the air and then collapsing onto the table.

After a short recuperation period, I decided it was time to head out as well. Even if my current mood was depressed, we still needed groceries. Moping around wouldn't have solved anything anyway and I much preferred to stay in motion.

I considered writing Esther a text message, telling her where she could meet us if she wanted to. Two reasons kept me from doing so. One, I was not about to get backlash a third time and, more importantly, two, I was a man with self-respect. I had taken her shouting because it was obvious I had done something wrong. That did NOT mean that I was going to grovel before someone, especially a potential partner, who shot me off so ferociously without explaining themselves.

For this instance alone, I wasn't angry at her. I was a pretty patient person, at least I liked to think of myself that way. There were a few things that set me off immediately, but getting shouted at wasn't one of them.

What this incident made me, however, was cautious.

I would not end up as the puppy dog in a highly unequal relationship. What I wanted my relationship with lovers to be was either equal, or slightly slanted towards me. Under all circumstances, I wanted gestures of affection to be based on the understanding that they were not something that my partner or I simply deserved for existing. There had to be reciprocity and respect.

Given that this was only the second day I knew and I was not yet fully aware what had sparked that outburst, overthinking it like this may have been counterproductive. My mind went on strange tangents at times. For this particular one, I took it under advisement, not letting it control my actions, but nudging me in a certain direction.

With all of that in mind, I had decided to leave Esther a written note, saying that we had gone to the city. I didn't mention where we planned to go and I did not explicitly invite her. If she wanted to join us later, she would have to ask me. If she didn't do so, then her interest in me must have been rather thin. Either that, or she had better things to do. Or she was too prideful to do it. Two of these three were indications that I had misread our compatibility drastically. One was just regular life. 'Things are always so exceedingly difficult,' I thought.

Willt must have noticed my continued brooding. By putting a hand on my shoulder, he (almost literally) grabbed my attention. "How about you walk us through your morning?" he offered in a friendly tone. Like all good friends, both him and Arlethia put back their usual teasing for a moment of earnesty, when noticing I was in genuine distress. I was thankful to have them, talking about things was usually relieving.

"I woke up at like... four," I began and had to push back a yawn, as if the mentioning of the time alone reminded my body of the usualness of that hour. I stretched a little bit, both to give that feeling some relief and because I didn't want my friends to think this was too grave a matter. As much as I wanted Esther, this was still a very short-lived infatuation.

"Hot damn," Arlethia whistled in comment. "You're really serious about that gal, aren't you? Can't remember the last time you woke up before you needed to."

"I can remember all the time he nodded off in class though," Willt jokingly added.

"That was less because I was tired and more because the classes were horribly boring," I retorted. "I did tell both of you that I would retreat to the place in which my future harem will gather to partake in the sweet slumped at a usual hour than usual, if I may remind you, my dear friends with short-lived memory."

"To which we logically assumed that you were taking your ten hour beauty sleep, trying to maintain that jawline of yours," Willt's dry tone put an end to that tangent. "Alright, so you got up early. Do tell me what you wanted to do during such an ungodly hour?"

"I wanted to have a bit of a morning talk with Esther," I stated. "Got dressed properly, took a shower in advance, was at the best I could be and wore my most confident smile. Indeed, I prepared to be at the most charming that my youthful body could allow me to be. I was full of vigour and confidence, my shoulders pulled back and my stance fantastic. My state was..."

Arlethia lightly punched me on the shoulder, to get me to stop. "Ceaseth on thy extrapolation," her words were dripping in aggressive sarcasm. "Maybe she smelled your pretentiousness and was instantly turned off."

"Everybody's a critic..." I grumbled, but took the point and stayed on point. "Basically I had everything planned out and didn't change anything from how I acted yesterday. I started with a light joke, the kind that she was at least tolerating off yesterday. I got berated and she shut the door in my face. I stood there for a few moments, pondering. Then she opened the door again only to tell me off even harder. Then she slammed it shut again. That's when I took a tactical retreat."

Both of my friends made a humming noise as they thought about the situation. "Maybe she is even less of a morning person than you are?" the red-skinned succubus suggested first.

"That's definitely not it," I dismissed immediately, since I had already thought of that myself. "She was already awake, for a while, as well."

"Okay, so that can't be it... anything you noticed that was off?"

"When she left, her hair was combed more thoroughly," I responded quickly, since I had already sorted that out as well. Both of my friends gave me a 'That's the amount of detail you notice, you stalker?' stare, to which I could only roll my eyes. "Look, I had better grades than both of you despite sleeping through most stuff and not learning for tests, I just notice these things," after clearing my throat, I added, "although I do wonder what her hair looks like open, I didn't get to look at it for too long in the arena..."

"Aha!" Arlethia snapped her fingers. "So, she had bound her hair together even when you met her at the door?"

"Yes," thinking back, that was a bit weird. "She even had her hat on."

"Alright, so my first guess is that she's the type that really hates getting seen without her hair done," Arlethia suggested.

"Eh, feels a bit far-fetched...," I slowly pushed back, since that didn't really line up with previous behaviour. More fundamentally, I couldn't quite believe someone would be that mad over such a triviality. "You sure about that?"

"Take it from a girl, bitches be crazy," Arlethia pointed out. "You don't know what little thing will piss a woman off. Everyone has their quirks and I can definitely see someone get crazy over their hair being seen before it's orderly. Especially if someone knocks on my door unannounced."

"If either of those two are it, why was she still angry at me when she left?" I kept poking holes at the theories presented to me.

"'Cause she was still mad?" Arlethia's response was less a question than a mocking statement.

"...Maybe..." I conceded that much. "But I'm still not sold on the hair being the reason. It didn't look worse than it did yesterday after the fight and she didn't hide it then."

"I mean, you said she did have her hat on," Willt pointed out.

"Yeah, but that was the case yesterday as well. Also, why would she even show herself if the hair was the problem? She wasn't shy about it, when she just as well could have yelled at me through the door," the two of them were silent, leaving me to wallow a little bit as they ponder other possibilities themselves. Since they were at least trying to help me out here, I decided to let them know I was grateful for whatever they had to offer, "Not saying that can't be it, anger doesn't exactly lead to rational decisions, but I'll keep thinking. Thanks, gu... Oh, shit, hurry!"