Your head was leaned against the wall as your peered outside the window, eyes glazed over with deep thoughts so it took a while to notice the change outside.

Grey clouds were gathering around, blocking away the sun while the azure sky was obscured by smokey screen.

"A storm is coming." You murmured as you squinted at the drastic change of weather, feeling a sense of foreboding like a stone in your stomach.

It's been hours since Claude fell asleep. Once in a while he would groan in discomfort like he was having a bad dream and in turn you'd stroke his cheeks to ease his discomfort.

Your eyes stared at the sleeping Claude who moved a bit. His brows were creased as his eyelids twitched. He seem to be waking up.

Long lashes fluttered as it opened slowly. Drowsily eyelids parted to reveal beautiful jewelled blue eyes as they peered at your smiling face.

"About time you wake up, sleeping beauty!"

Claude looked blankly, blinking sleepily, not registering your words.

You shifted a little and Claude froze, his eyes widening slightly before it replaced with calm expression.

"Did you sleep well?" You asked leaning down sweetly but the mischief in your [c] orbs gave you away. "For a cautious person you sure sleep like a baby. So unguarded, so vulnerable." You wistfully sighed with a sweet face. "Such a lovely expression if only you'd wear it everytime, I'd fall in love with you. A pity it won't happen. How disappointing."

"Shut up. You're being creepy. Again." He softly groaned voicing his displeased complaints as his half lidded sleepy eyes darted around.

"I....I fell asleep." He muttered in low voice slight disbelief laced in his words.

Your grin widened and you patted his head. "Yep, so soundly at that. Look at you trusting me to sleep so vulnerably. I was tempted to draw doodles on you but I resisted seeing your peaceful adorable face. Be grateful!"

He grabbed your wrist with deadpan, face still disgruntled from waking up. "If you had done that, I would've have-- Um, what was the word uh-- yeeted you out the window."

He looked proud of himself as he got the right word.

Your jaw dropped eyes bulging out of sockets. "Y-you.. W-what..?"

Claude peered up at you in doubt. "Isn't it the word you use everytime you rant about your tutor? Or I got it wrong?"

You shook your head, giving him a thumbs up. "No, no. You nailed it. Spot-on! But you all this time you pretended disinterest, you were actually paying close attention to my words, huh?"

Now he looked slightly flustered as he pushed himself off your lap into sitting position. "Didn't you complaint about me not paying attention to you? Now I'm paying attention you're still complaining."

"I'm not complaining of course! It just...you are full of surprises this days, never failing to make my heart flutter." You grinned teasingly seeing pink tinge spread on his face.

"Screw you." He groaned, running his fingers through his messy, disheveled hair from yout fondling. Embarassed at your words as he looked away with a flustered huff.

You silently squealed at his flustered state before stretching out your cramped, numb legs out, letting out a relieved sigh.

Your sigh drew Claude's attention. He ponderously looked at you. A emotions flashing within those jewelled eyes so fast that you couldn't catch it.

Feeling unnerved under his sharp blue eyes you asked, "What?"

His eyes roamed over your features and for a slipt second his face darkened. "Your eyes are bloodshot. Why?"

He frowned as his hand extended to touch your cheeks which were slightly red and blotchy.

You leaned back from his touch, forcing a grin to cover up your slipup all the while cursing yourself. "Nah, I was trying to burn your sleeping image into my mind. Not creepy at all. So I was trying not to blink. But then suddenly I was curious to how long can I not unblink. So I forced myself not to blink for a minute.. Hehehe."

Yeah I'm weird like that. But we don't talk about that.

His frown deepened, he withdrew his extended hand and glared at you, dubious. "Really?

"Yeah, really!" You vigorously nodded and stood up with forced cheerfulness. "Let's get going. I'm super hungry!"

The moment you pressured your legs, it gave out and you fell back on Claude's lap with a yelp.

He caught you, his arms reflexively coiling around you while his torso cushioned your fall.

You blinked before flushing a deep red as you spluttered. "I'm s-sorry!"

Ah, poor guy's lap must be broken from my weight!

You tried to get up only to fell back because of your numb legs. You cringed feeling embrassment slam into you like a hammer, as you gripped his forearm to steady yourself. "My feets... they f-fell asleep."

You looked up only to see a red faced Claude just as embarassed as you.

Claude seem in trance as he stared at you. You couldn't keep your eyes off him either. He was so pretty, the red tinge on his cheeks highlighted his youth.

Still embarassed, you couldn't help snicker at Claude's flustered face.

At times like this you realized he just another kid who easily got flustered and shy, despite his cold demeanour. Your expression softened as you playfully poked his cheek making him flinch.

"Hehe, you're blushing, Claude!" You kept poking at his cheek as he squirmed, grunting in annoyance. "Aww, dont be shy. You're adorable when you blush, y' know!"

"Stop." Claude bit, voice stained and forced in fluster. When you didn't, he pinched your leg making you yelp in pain. "Your legs are numb."

Your eyes scrunched shut, "No kidding."

Claude narrowed his eyes at your sarcasm but bit his tongue to keep the sassy retorts in as his left hand lit up with glittering blue glow and he ran them over the length of your legs without touching them, only hovering above them as he repeated it once more. His magic flickered out as he finished.

For a moment there was silence as Claude hesitated feeling more bashful and annoyed as you kept smiling at him like a proud mom.

Feeling at the end of his patience, he dumped you on the ground unceremoniously and stood up. With a grunt you rolled over on the hard titles only to shot up with a cheshire grin, much to his dismay.

"That's no way to treat your savior who sang you lullaby and made you sleep like a baby!" You tsked, moving your fingers around in imitation of reprimanding a child.

"What?" You asked when he frowned, scrutinizing your face.

"Hold on."

He grabbed your face and ran his thumb over your puffy eyes. Healing your bloodshot eyes.

Your eyes softened at his caring demeanour. Of course that only lasted a few seconds as a shit eating grin fell on your lips making Claude make haste in his healing, already dreading whatever would come out of your mouth.

You slyly stared at his focused expression as he finished and looked at you, a teasing remark on tip of your tongue. He cleared his throat and looked away awkwardly, cheeks flushed over with slight pink.

"You don't have to hide you were crying."

You froze, smirk fading away as you stared at semi-awkward serious face.

"It's okay if you feel like crying. You must feeling homesick, it's fine if you want to cry. You been separate from them for a long time now so it's only natural for you to miss them." Claude mumbled rubbing his neck in awkward 'I don't know what I'm saying or doing is helpful or not' sort of manner. "It's not like I'm going to judge you if you cry."

You almost cried again. Cheeks flashing red, you bit your lips at the absurdity of how close he was to hitting the mark. His assumption were slightly off since he was keeping in mind your so called family here - the one you couldn't care less about - were the one who were missing.

But in reality you were missing your real family. The one who left so abruptly.

"Haha, what are you talking about? Who's crying?" You laughed off his words even if your heart was throbbing. Hiding behind your humour was only thing you were damn good at."But, but I'll keep that in mind the next time I feel like crying be sure to lend me your shoulder, alright?!"

Claude frowned, his lips twitching downward. "(Y/n)--

"We should make haste or else my stomach is gonna start up a earthquake!"

You shot up, dashing away with your heart pounding and cheeks flushed. Idiot, idiot, idiot.

The urge to cry was so strong, you had bit hard on your inside of your cheeks to keep the bottled emotion in check. Yet your eyes teared up, lingering with sadness no one could understand.

You zoomed away from the library, stumbling to put a distance between Claude and you.

You almost slammed into Felix who caught you with a exclaimed, "Whoa!"

"Are you alright? You look red." He steady you with hands in your shoulders and frowned seeing your red cheeks and teary eyes.

"I'm a-alright. Yeah, I'm definitely, surely, certainly alright! What's gonna happen to me! Certainly nothing!" You laughed almost hysterically. "It just hot, you know."

Instantly a cold breeze blew almost mockingly over you, ruffling your hair and clothes as Felix looked doubtfully at you. "O-okay...."

"...." Your smile froze as another breeze blew.

Well, fuck me! You shrieked in your head. Today isn't my day!

Felix being the sweetheart he was didn't questions your sanity and just gave you a reassured smile as if to tell you 'it's okay, I believe you'.

You almost cried at his sweet consideration. Your voice came out high pitched as you asked. "So what's up?"

"We were just returning from training." Felix motioned to the shy ravenette behind him.

"Cool, cool." You nodded like a brain dead idiot, mind still short-circuit from earlier event.

"H-hello." Lawrence said bashfully gathering up enough courage to address you.

Once you squinted at him in question forgetting your embrassment. "Wait I've seen you somewhere. Oh, it's you. Lawrence, right?"

Lawrence lit up like a Christmas tree and nodded eagerly. "Yes I'm Lawrence. I'm surprised you remembered me."

I'm surprised you could talk. That's the most I've heard from you.

"Geez, are you implying my memory sucks?" You teased, thanking God that your voice didn't reveal your unstable emotions.

"Nononono! That's not it! I swear I didn't mean it like that! I'm not someone special so it was surprising the prodigy healer remembered me! You quite famous among the knights, you know!"

Your head hurt as you tried to keep up with his embarassed outburst Where did the shy bashful boy go?

"I wasn't aware I'm famous among the knights. I just started attaining knights like just a week ago." You humbly replied fluttered by his words.

It was true. You officially began healing knights from their hard training and servants from palace after you passed the Healer's exam. It would still take some experience before you start treating the Nobles and Royal Guards which you weren't looking forward to since they were closest to Royal.

"It might be true but we really appreciate your hard work. We are really thankful for that. I'm really thankful to you."

Felix nodded with a chuckle as he gave his companion a subtle glance.

You chuckled at his admiring sparkling eyes. "Geez, stop it. It not like I'm the only one giving treatment to the knights. You should save some praises for other healers too."

"I'll sure do that!" He bashfully smiled and you returned it.

His doe black eyes flickered over your head and he paled, flinching away from you.

You raised a eyebrow slightly bewildered at the sudden frightened ravenette.

You turned your head to see usual indifferent Claude who averted his face away when you looked at him with a puzzled look. And why was Felix eyeing him with widened eyes filled in confusion and slight terror?

Wait, when did Claude arrived? How long was he standing behind you and listening quietly like a ghost. You felt your cheeks heat up once again.

Felix caught your eyes before he gave you a mysterious knowing smile as he side glanced at Claude. Which left you even more puzzled.

"Your Highness." Both of them bowed respectfully once they registered Claude's presence.

"We should get going." Felix said with a sweet smile and Lawrence nodded hastily though he looked disappointed but one look behind you changed his expression into a frightened puppy.

Before you could even say goodbye to them, Claude grabbed your wrist, twirling you around. You yelped almost losing your balance but the hand on your wrist prevented you from falling.

"Let's go. You are hungry, right?" Claude said as he threw a cold look behind you at the unsuspecting revenette boy who flinched and hastily bowed his head and followed Felix who was happily walking away with bounce in his steps.

"W-what?" You gaped at him unsure but the grip on your wrist suddenly felt threatening. He was acting like a provoked cat bristling at someone trying the take away his toy.

You didn't get a choice in the matter though as he pivoted on his heels dragging you behind.

The silence was awkward as Claude almost grumpily stomped on his feets as he walked, dragging you behind him.

You hated how fast he gathered his composure while you were still trying to ease the heat in your eyes. He seem to have completely forgotten about his stunt in the library while you were still grappling with it.

"What's up with you? Why are you being grumpy like a old man?" You asked trying to ignore the warmth of his hand wrapped around your smaller one.

"Ha. Very funny." Claude gave you a monotonous satre before he grunted. "I don't like him."

You tilted your head in confusion. "Why? He seem such a sweet boy. And he's Felix's friend, a double reassurance he isn't a bad guy."

Claude quickly glanced at you with expression that said 'you're an idiot with no brain.'

"I don't care about that. I still don't like him."

He muttered so low that you couldn't hear him. "Come again. Did you say something?"

"No." He coldly said.

"Wow, rude." You slightly leaned back from his coldness, scratching your cheeks confused at his sudden change in attitude.

Was he upset you left or rather ran away leaving him behind? Knowing just how moody he was it might be the cause of his cold attitude.

But you had to, before embarassment could get best of you and you would've end up bawling infront of the boy. Yeah, you couldn't live it down. But you gotta pacify this grouchy kid.

So clearing your throat, you gathered your courage, shoving down your embarassment to later day to die over and tried to cheer up the moody child.

"Stop being so upset, it doesn't look good on you. I don't get it why you're suddenly going all ice cold on me but cold cinnamon roll isn't good, y'know." You poked his stiff cheeks and he flinched coming to a standstill.

Instead of looking annoyed like you expected, he looked curious and intrigue. "Cinnamon roll? Again with the weird slang. I've been curious lately. Didn't you say you are from Almayan?"

You stiffen. His mood swings left you reeling. "Well, y-yeah. Why?"

"So where did you learn this odd phrases and weird slangs. It isn't common here or anywhere as far as I know."

"W-well.. I just.."

"You sometimes even say things that I never heard about. Like about music hearing head phones...? Or earphones?" He tilted his head quizzed. "Then you say about picture taking devices which does not work on magic. What it was uh I forgot."

He stopped brow furrowed as he tried to remember before giving up altogether and moving on to next topic.

"Not only that you are weird too. You are obnoxiously assertive. And extremely impulsive. You're hot headed too, proved when you decided to go against the Empress. I don't know whether to call that stupidity or bravery."

He listed out your personality like a pro all the while his scrutinizing eyes remained calculatively fixated on you.

"Something about you feels off too, like a presence out of place. A odd anomaly." Claude said causally as you broke out in cold sweats. "Along with your unusual manner and personality, that makes you a quite suspicious person."

Your mind went blank. Before a frantic and nervous expression plastered itself on your face. Anxiousness caused bullets of sweats to trickle down your forehead.

What the hell? How did he reach that conclusion with so little details! I knew he was sharp but this sharp?!

All this time he's been analysing me without me knowing?! Gah! This is bad, real bad.

Why do I do? Tell him everything? Hello there I'm a being from another world who got reincarnated into this world. And by the way I was murdered by a crazy lady who seem obsessed with love. Yeah totally believable.

Even reciting it in my head sounds so ridiculous!

Remembering the dull Indigo eyes filled with obsession sent a frightened chill down your spine.

You didn't know her. All you knew that she was the mysterious being who ripped you from your world and tossed you into this. All in the name of helping you.

Hell you didn't even know her name, who she was? What she was?

How the hell were you going explain that to him?

Panic started to seep in along with anxiety. Thoughts and questions swirled violently inside your head making you lightheaded. Your hands started to shake as you tried to form excuse but your mind was blank.

Earlier breakdown coming harder this time.

Claude flicked your forehead snapping you back to reality. "Stop overthinking. If you don't want to tell me, that's fine--"

You breathed out a sigh of relief but soon your breath got stuck in your throat at his next words.

"--For now at least. I'll wait till you're ready. But make it quick I'm not a patient person."

You froze at his words. His words piercing your fragile heart, cutting deep. Those words were so simple so why do you have the urge to cry?

You heart shook violently as unknown pain slammed into you, rocking you to to very core. No, not unknown. You very well knew what the pain was about. It was nostalgia. It was homesickness.

Does he know the weight of his words? Did he know how deeply those words impacted you?

The moment you came here all you done was think, think and think.

Why you were here? What the purpose of bringing you here? How long were you going to stay here? Would you ever see your family?

You hated that you couldn't let go of your past. But was it possible for one to forget her whole life, the first people who cared for you, taught you to talk, helped you to walk. Could one forget their gratitude towards one's parents? The fun moment you have with your siblings, could you forget that?

All those animes and Manga made it so easy to leave behind your whole life which moulded you to what you are, forget about your loving, caring family. But you knew you weren't a fictional character, you were a human with emotions, bonds and connection that you couldn't forget.

Once again questions came, not answers. Never answers.

Thinking, thinking, thinking yet there was no end to it, no matter how many times you done it.

A heat overlapped your eyes. Just hours ago you emptied your heart out. So why was it suddenly feeling so heavy. Ah, maybe because what you desperately wanted to spill didn't leave your lips.

Why did you have the urge to laugh while crying?