Chapter 6 NAVY

My first class at Aurelian Academy is going exactly the way I expected it to: with me counting the cracks in the ceiling instead of listening to the lecture, all the while thinking of how I was gonna get close to the kid Nathan wants me to keep an eye on — Roman, the guy from the gate.

I'm still gobsmacked that he's THE crown prince! Like THE ALPHA KING'S SON!!

Thaddeus literally pulled up every post about him last night, calling it ‘research’. Then he called me a weirdo because I'm not up to speed with royal politics.

Uh, rude.

“Focus on the question.”

I drop my eyes from the ceiling.

Klaus is looking at me from the seat directly to my left with the expression of someone who has already repeated himself once and has decided once is the limit.

"I am focused," I whisper back.

"You've been staring at the ceiling for eleven minutes."

"I'm a visual thinker."

He turns a page. "The ceiling doesn't have the answer."

"You don't know that."

He doesn't respond to that. He just keeps reading, jaw set, pen moving in the margin of his notebook in that precise, controlled way he has — like even his handwriting is something he decided to be good at on purpose.

I look back at my own notebook.

I have written three things in the last forty minutes:

Roman = crown prince (??????????)

Thad ate my last noodles. 

Why does Klaus hate me?

I underline the last one twice.

Here is the thing. I apologised first thing this morning, before homeroom even started. I found him in the corridor and I said — clearly, directly, like a normal person — "I'm sorry about the fence. Genuinely. I didn't see you and I know it made everything worse and I'm sorry."

He looked at me for exactly two seconds.

Then he said, "It's fine," in the tone of someone for whom it is absolutely not fine, and walked away.

And now we're here. Semester partners. Seating next to each other in Economics. And he is treating me with the specific brand of polite coldness that is somehow worse than if he'd just stayed angry because at least anger is a conversation.

“Fine” is a closed door.

I don't do well with closed doors.

"The elasticity question," Klaus says, without looking up. "Bottom of page forty-two. We need to submit the working by end of class."

I flip to page forty-two. Look at the question. 

Oh. That's actually straightforward.

"Price elasticity of demand," I say, already writing. "The percentage change in quantity demanded divided by percentage change in price. If the value is greater than one it's elastic, less than one it's inelastic."

Klaus glances at my working. Says nothing. Which, from him, I'm learning to read as ‘correct’.

"You could just say I'm right," I mutter.

"You're right," he says immediately. Completely neutral. Like agreeing with me costs him nothing because he has decided I am simply not worth the energy of disagreement.

I don't know why that's more annoying than if he'd argued.

I finish the working and hand it toward him to review since apparently that's how we're doing this. He checks it, makes one small correction to the notation. Hands it back.

"Thanks," I stare at the side of his face.

"Mm."

For someone who acts the way he does, he has really good bone structure. It's distracting and unfair and completely irrelevant to the fact that he is being impossible.

"Can I ask you something?" I say.

"You're going to anyway."

"Did I do something?" I keep my voice low, level. "Specifically. Beyond the fence, which I already apologised for. Because you're being — " I pause, searching for the word that isn't “an ass” — "very cold. And I'm trying to figure out if it's something I did or just how you are, so I know whether to take it personally."

Klaus is quiet for a moment.

Then he looks at me. Full eye contact. Those sapphire eyes do the thing where they're very still and very present at the same time, like the rest of him is in one place and his eyes are somewhere slightly ahead of it.

"It's how I am," he says.

"Okay," I say. "That's actually helpful, thank you."

He blinks, like he expected a different reaction, while I turn back to my notebook.

“It's how he is,” I write, under the other three things. Then I draw a small box around it, because it deserves to be contained.

The classroom door opens.

Mrs. Holt steps in first — clipboard, silver hair, and the expression she apparently wears everywhere. Behind her… is Roman.

He looks exactly like he did at the gate — blond, green-eyed, perfectly put together, wearing Aurelian's uniform like it was designed specifically for him. Mrs. Holt says something to the teacher in a low voice who nods.

Roman's eyes move across the room. When they find me, he waves. I wave back before I've made a conscious decision to.

"Mr. Vael will be joining this class for the remainder of the semester," Me Julius announces, already gesturing toward the seating. "There's a space — next to Miss Hayes, third row."

My eyes immediately snap to the empty chair on my left. Looks like the heavens are helping me with Nathan's favour.

Roman is already moving down the aisle, unhurried, easy, nodding at the people who look up as he passes — which is most of them.

He reaches the fifth row, pulls out the chair and sits down with the comfortable confidence of someone who has never once in his life felt like he was taking up too much space.

Roman leans in, just slightly. "Hi Navy.”

His voice is warmer than I remembered. Or maybe I remembered it fine and it just hits differently when he's sitting close enough that I can see the exact shade of those sea glass eyes.

I fidget with my pen. Click it twice. Stop clicking it because that's a nervous habit and I'm not nervous, I'm just — recalibrating.

"Hi," I smile back. 

Roman's mouth curves as his attention redirects to the textbook. A couple minutes later, he leans slightly toward me, dropping his voice to something that isn't quite private but isn't quite public either.

"I'm totally lost here," he says, nodding at the textbook in front of him. "Any chance you could help me catch up after class?"

He asks it so easily, it's like the answer is already ‘yes’ and he's just giving me the courtesy of the question.

I open my mouth. "Sure—"

"No.”

Roman and I both turn.

Klaus has his eyes on his notebook, still writing whatever he is, his expression completely unchanged, like he didn't just answer a question that wasn't directed at him, like he isn't aware that both of us are now looking at him.

He turns a page just as the bell rings.

I look at Roman, who is looking at Klaus with an expression I can't read — something that is almost amused and almost not.

Then Roman smiles slowly at me. "So," he says. "Is that a yes or a no?”