SSS Talent: From Trash to Tyrant

Chapter 663: After

The important conversation finally reached its end, though the room did not know how to return to normal at once.Trafalgar stayed where he was, watching Mayla, Aubrelle, and Cynthia without being able to read everything passing behind their faces. That was rare enough to bother him. He could understand enemies when they reached for knives, nobles when they shaped insults into etiquette, monsters when they lunged, and even Caelum when the man decided to behave like a particularly well-dressed nightmare. But this was different. These three were quiet because he had given them too much truth, and now he had to wait for whatever they decided to do with it.

'Will this be all right?' he thought, though the question irritated him the instant it formed.

Who in their right mind stayed close to someone who collected imminent disasters like badly wrapped gifts? Ancient bloodlines, Void Creatures, old grudges, hidden domains, Vaelion's shadow, homunculi built with forbidden material. There were easier men to like. Safer ones too. Trafalgar was painfully aware of that, and if someone had asked him for advice from the outside, he probably would have recommended running in the opposite direction with impressive urgency.

Only madwomen would stay after hearing all that.

Unfortunately, he already knew Mayla's answer. Mayla had stood beside him when he had nothing good enough to offer, had suffered because of him and still kept finding ways to move closer instead of farther away.

Aubrelle was not innocent either. She had married him knowing he was dangerous, strange, and surrounded by secrets, though perhaps even she had underestimated the exact architecture of the disaster she had accepted.

Cynthia was the new uncertainty. One day was not enough to digest all of this, not for someone who had only recently stepped across the invisible line between Trafalgar's public life and the uglier truth beneath it.

Mayla was the one who rescued the room from the weight first.

"Well," she said, pushing herself up from the table with a gentleness that did not quite hide the worry in her posture, "I think we need something to help digest all this information. Do you want a light dessert?"

Trafalgar blinked at her. "No, thank you. I am fine."

Mayla turned her head toward him with a look so mild it became dangerous. "No. You will have some too. You probably have not eaten properly these past few days after everything you had to do."

Trafalgar opened his mouth.

Mayla kept staring.

He closed it again.

There were laws older than nations and powers that could break mountains, but apparently the true hierarchy of the world remained unchanged. In the house, the woman ruled. It had been similar back on Earth, now that he thought about it. His father had been almost one meter ninety, broad enough to fill a doorway, while his mother had been closer to one meter sixty. Yet Trafalgar still remembered how small his father became whenever his mother was truly angry.

This felt painfully familiar.

'So this is how it feels,' he thought as Mayla moved toward the kitchen with the quiet authority of a general claiming a battlefield. 'Honestly, it is not that bad.'

Aubrelle rose with graceful ease, one hand brushing Pipin's pale feathers before sending the bird toward the counter. "Let me help. Pipin has listened to enough terrible secrets tonight. He can make himself useful."

Pipin gave a small offended chirp, but flew after Mayla anyway.

Cynthia watched the two women move, then released a breath she had been holding without realizing it. "Then I suppose I will not be the only one refusing."

"You are learning quickly," Aubrelle said, her unfocused red gaze angled in Cynthia's direction while Pipin handled the actual inspection of plates, cups, and whatever Mayla was taking out.

Mayla returned with something small and sweet, not enough to turn the night into another meal, only enough to place warmth back on the table. Cynthia accepted hers with both hands, staring at it for a little while before finally speaking.

"Being honest, I did not expect this much in a single day," Cynthia said. She did not rush the words, and that made them sound steadier than her fingers looked. "I knew being close to you would never lead to a normal life. I think anyone with eyes and common sense would know that after watching you for more than five minutes. But this surpassed even the expectations I had, and I already thought it would be difficult."

Trafalgar took the dessert Mayla put in front of him because refusing had already proven suicidal. "You like a man who is not normal. I suppose the things that happen around me are not normal either."

All three women nodded.

Trafalgar paused with the spoon in his hand.

"Why are the three of you nodding like that?" he asked. "Is it because I am not normal, or because the things around me are not normal?"

Mayla, Aubrelle, and Cynthia shared a brief, terrible harmony.

"The first one," Mayla said.

"The first one," Aubrelle agreed.

"The first one," Cynthia added, a little more quietly, though not quietly enough.

Trafalgar stared at them. "What exactly do you mean by that?"

Mayla busied herself with her dessert.

Aubrelle stroked Pipin's head with suspicious serenity.

Cynthia looked down at her cup, suddenly fascinated by its existence.

Trafalgar narrowed his eyes. "Cowards."

"Wise women," Aubrelle corrected.

Mayla smiled into her spoon. "There is a difference."

The small exchange did not erase anything they had heard, but it helped them swallow it. The truth remained on the table with the empty plates and half-finished cups, yet the apartment no longer felt as if one careless breath could crack it open. Mayla's warmth, Aubrelle's composed teasing, and Cynthia's nervous honesty stitched the night into something bearable.

Eventually, Trafalgar checked the hour.

"I should return to the academy," he said. "Cynthia has to go back as well, and I need time to order my thoughts before deciding what comes next. Aurevane, Selara, Vaelion, the domain, Rhosyn's search… there are several things I need to arrange before they arrange themselves in the worst possible way."

Mayla's hand paused over the plates.

"You are leaving already?"

The question was soft, but Trafalgar heard what sat underneath it. He turned toward her. "Do you want something?"

Mayla looked at him for a few heartbeats, her expression warm enough to make the room feel smaller. "You."

Trafalgar swallowed.

Of all the ancient horrors, political traps, and murderous bloodline grudges discussed tonight, that single word managed to strike him with the least mercy.

Mayla's smile turned gentler when she saw his reaction. "But if you are busy, I can wait. I know tonight was not simple for you either."

Trafalgar's throat felt inconveniently dry. "I will come back one of these days."

"You should," Mayla said, accepting the promise with a warmth that did not make it lighter. "I will be waiting."

Aubrelle tilted her head slightly. "I will stay here tonight."

Mayla glanced at her. "You do not have to."

"I know," Aubrelle replied. "That is why I am staying because I want to. Besides, leaving you alone after all this would be poor taste, and I have very refined taste."

Pipin chirped in agreement, which ruined some of the elegance.

Cynthia stood as well, smoothing her clothes with a nervous gesture that slowly became more composed. "I will go back with Trafalgar. The academy is on the way, and I think… I think walking might help my head stop spinning."

"It may not stop," Trafalgar said. "Mine rarely does."

"That is not a comforting thing to say, you know?."

Mayla walked them to the door with Aubrelle beside her, Pipin perched proudly on her shoulder as if the bird had personally survived the conversation through superior discipline. Mayla adjusted Trafalgar's collar with quiet familiarity before stepping back. Aubrelle offered Cynthia a softer farewell, reminding her that she could return without needing Trafalgar as an excuse, which made Cynthia flush so quickly that even Trafalgar had the decency not to comment.

A few minutes later, Trafalgar and Cynthia left the apartment and stepped into the corridor together.

Behind them, Mayla's home remained warm, guarded by two women and a bird that now knew far too many dangerous truths. Ahead, the northern currents of Velkaris waited, along with the station and the twenty-minute train ride back to the academy.

Cynthia walked beside Trafalgar in silence at first, quieter than when she had arrived, but no longer outside the circle he had drawn around his life.

And somewhere between the apartment door and the station lights, she finally said, "There is something I want to ask you before we reach the academy."