Chapter 40 Aether’s Selflessness, Zachary Breaks Down
Neil was intoxicated as his lips trailed down from Aether’s lips to her slender, delicate neck and beyond.
Just as he reached for the hem of her shirt, Aether got startled and pushed him away. She then quickly jumped off the piano stand, “No, we can’t keep doing this,
“Why not?”
“You like Gloria, don’t you?” Aether said, her voice firm. “If you like someone, shouldn’t you only want to kiss her? Besides, I’m a man. If you get this close to me, people will call you gay and make fun of you.”
In truth, he wasn’t afraid of the mockery, nor did he care about gender.
But something felt off. So off that, suddenly, it seemed like neither men nor women made a difference. Even though he had never been with a woman before
“It’s late,” Neil muttered, shifting the conversation. “do back. I’ll try everything you taught me on Gloria, one by one. If nothing works, you’ll still have to die”
Aether lowered her head, feeling utterly defeated.
She was already at–57 favorability. I she assumed that Neil didn’t know she was actually owens, his favorability toward her should be at 14.
A whole 13 points.
And yet, she still had to die.
The next day, Aether picked her package up and retumed to her room to wrap it.
Meanwhile, Zachary was playing a game nearby.
When Aether glanced at him, their eyes unexpectedly met.
Aether smiled slightly, but Zachary quickly averted his gaze, flustered.
In that split second of distraction, his character died again.
Back when he played PC games alone, he rarely lost. But ever since he started playing in the dorm, distractions kept piling up.
Zachary had lost count of how many times he’d died, how many times the screen had gone dark.
“Zachary, how’s the massager I gave you?” Aether asked.
Zachary’s gaze flickered to the massager in Aether’s hand, assuming that she was about to give him a new one.
– In reality, he had always taken good care of the one she gave him. He only used it when she wasn’t amund
“It’s not bad,” he casually said, hinting at something more. “But if you keep giving me more, it’d be a bit much
“You mean this?” Aether held up the new massage. “This one’s for Neil. He does a lot of experiments, right? He’s probably always looking down. If his neck gets sore, he can use it too.”
Zachary immediately frowned.
He lost all interest in his game, and his eyes turned cold as he looked at Aether. “You buy breakfast in bulk, and now massagers too? So what about the candy you gave me last time? Was that part of a bulk order too?”
[Zachary Conner’s favorability–LCurrent favorability: -70.)
Upon seeing the drop in favorability, Aether panicked, though she wasn’t entirely sure why.
She hesitated, themasked, “Are you mad because I gave some to Wesley, and you didn’t get any?
Zachary said nothing.
When he didn’t respond, Aether immediately grabbed a handful of candy from her jar, walked up to him, took his hand, and stuffed the sweets into his palmi.
“If you like them, Have plenty more. However much you want, I’ll give you.”
Het Zachary still looked upset.
So, Aether brought her candy jar doser, popped open the lid, and gestured toward it. “If you think my hands are too small and i didn’t grab enough, you cant som poll. Your funds a big, you’ll definitely get a lot more.”
Zachary was speechless, This silence made Aether anxious.
After a moment of hesitation, she simply placed the entire candy jar into his hands. “Alright, alright, I get it. One handful tu’t enough. Then just take it all. But
she quickly plucked two pieces from the jar and held them in her palm. “I’ll just keep these two. Once I finish them. I’ll go buy more. I’ll even get extra and give you Ijo back
still, Zachary said nothing.
From the look on his face, he deadly wasn’t appeased,
After another paine, Arther sighed and placed the last two pieces back into the jar. “Fine, I won’t keep any, okay?
Still, the silenge continued.
“How could you give the same gift to two different people?” Zachary let out a sharp breath, feeling as if his head might explode.
THE
the gift
“I thought the
you gave me was special. But Aether, you this gift–you just hand it out like it’s nothing! You might as well be giving it to a whole group of
“You’re right ” Archer finally realized what he meant. “Your birthday gift shouldn’t be the same as a caural gift for Neil. I wasn’t thinking it through. I’ll get tell something else instead, so you won’t be mad. “
Η
“Are you that clueless, or are you just pretending?” Zachary asked.
“I’m sorry,” Aether mumbled, her eyes reddening, a hint of grievance in her voice
“Fjust thought this massager was useful, so I wanted to give it to my good friends. I didn’t consider that giving the same gift to different people would take away its original meaning. That was my mistake.”
“That’s why you think I’m mad?” Zachary blurted out
“Do you not get it? I’m mad because how could you give gifts to two different men? chce you’ve given it to one person, you can’t give it to another! thon’t you understand?”
Aether froze, unable to say a word.
She understood the first part about how giving the same gift to multiple people could make it lose its significance. But now, Zachary was saying that once she gave a gift to one person, she couldn’t give one to anyone else.
Aether wondered if she had misheard or misunderstood him.
She hesitated before asking, “Even if I give Neil a different gift, it’s still not okay?”
“Why do you have to give him amthing at all? Zachary, usually so mild–tempered, was on the verge of exploding.
Wesley beats you up, and you take a bullet for him. Neil barely lows you, and you give him gifts. And what about me? I took you in. I pulled you out of that bathroom
“But in the end, I mean nothing to you. I’m just like them, right? You treat the people who are good to you and the ones who are bad to you the same way.
so, tell me, why did I ever bother being good to you? Do you even know what I want? To you, I should be different. I should be special! And yet, what have you done?
Frustration bumed through Zachary, It was overwhelming and irrational.
He didn’t even know why, but it just drove him crazy to see Aether treating others with the same kindness she gave him.
She should always be by his side and care for only him.
Hetes–why weren’t they on him alone?
Her heart—why did it have room for so many others?
Aether was at a loss, unable to answer Zachary’s questions
She was doing all this because she had to be good to everyone in the main cast. She needed to raise their famunobility
she ever wanted to go home.
And if going home wasn’t an option, then at the very least, she needed to survive. If her real identity was exposed, and their favorability wasn’t high enough, she’d be hunted down
she had to get everyone’s favorability to at least a
After a long silence, Aether finally tried to justify her actions.
She said, “Neil had a tragic childhood, I feel bad for him. And besides, there were a few times when I got captured and taken to him, but he didn’t dissect me. He let me go twice.”
