I Am the Strongest Femboy, So Stop Protecting Me!-Chapter 29: Waiting For Food.

Virginia was waiting outside the Association Headquarters when Silas arrived, looking like her patience was running extremely thin with the man that was fidgeting behind her. Despite the time, she was still dressed impeccably, wearing clothes that was truly fitting of the heir of a noble family.

She gave him a curt nod as he walked over. Silas pressed the button on his key that locked his car, putting it in the pocket of his pants as he asked.

"Is it just me?"

"No. We’re going to have to wait for a bit."

Silas looked at her. Then at the fidgeting man behind her, who appeared to be an association clerk experiencing a level of existential distress that suggested Virginia had happened to him recently. Then back at Virginia.

"For what?"

"Food."

He stared.

A moment passed by.

She didn’t elaborate.

"You called me at two in the morning," he said, "to wait outside for a food delivery."

"I called you at two in the morning because there is an Aberrant dungeon situation and an Aureate in the medical wing," she said, with the tone of someone being extremely patient. "The food is incidental."

"An Aureate...?" He rubbed the back of his neck, then decided that he would get his explanations later. "Scratch that, what do you even need the food for."

"Aris hasn’t eaten since this morning." She said it the way she said things she’d already decided were not up for discussion. "Lyra, his manager, is occupied with the association’s legal team, so." A slight pause. "We’re waiting."

Silas looked at her for a moment.

Virginia Halcyon, heir to one of the most influential families in the awakened world, standing outside the awakened association headquarters at two in the morning in a coat that probably cost more than the building he lived in, waiting for a food delivery because someone hadn’t eaten.

He let out a sigh.

Checks out.

He gave the association clerk a polite smile as he walked over, trying his best to alleviate the terror this man was seeing to have in the presence of Virginia. Unfortunately, it looked like it didn’t work the way he wanted it to, the clerk stiffed up even more when he realized that he had the attention of two high ranking awakened.

He turned to Virginia.

"What did you order," he asked.

She thought for a small moment before answering.

"I don’t know what he likes now." Something crossed her expression briefly, there and gone. "I ordered several things."

"How many is several."

She didn’t answer, which... was its own answer.

Well, not a problem. He decided. He was a little peckish anyways.

Silas leaned against the wall beside her and looked out at the street as he waited with her. The city at this hour had a specific quality to it—emptied out, the daytime version of itself packed away, just the skeleton of it remaining under the streetlights. A car went past. Somewhere down the block, he could hear the desperate meowing of kittens, most likely pestering their mother for attention.

"He used to like," Virginia said, and then stopped.

Silas waited patiently through the moment of hesitation.

"He had specific things," she said, more carefully now. "That he liked when we were young." She was looking at the street, expression unreadable. "I don’t know if any of that carried over."

"Order everything and let him pick," Silas said. "If he complains about the quantity, that’s information too."

Virginia looked at him.

He looked back.

"What?"

"That’s surprisingly sensible," she said.

"I have my moments." He smirked.

She looked back at the street. The clerk behind her had stopped fidgeting and was now attempting to achieve invisibility through stillness, which Silas respected as a survival strategy. A man had to do what he had to do to survive in this world.

"I still don’t know which guild you belong to." The question came abruptly.

He glanced at her.

"Is it that important?"

"For me? Yes."

He looked at the Halcyon insignia embedded into the collar of her jacket, deciding what the best way to answer would be.

"I’m independent." He decided to be honest in the end.

Her eyebrows raised a little, visibly surprised.

"High A rank and Independent?"

Silas stopped leaning on the wall, deciding that it was too uncomfortable. Instead, he walked over the front door of the building, and took a seat on the stairs leading up to it. Virginia followed, taking a seat next to him. The clerk... the poor guy looked on the verge of fainting from terror, concerned about what his higher ups was going to do to him, no doubt.

It was a comfortable night, perfect for whatever he had been called here to do. Silas had always had a sweet spot for going out at night, getting to enjoy the world when everyone else was deep in slumber was an experience he thought everyone should have at least once in their life.

"Associating with a banner comes with shackles." He said after an appropriate moment of comfortable silence. "I like being free." He paused for a moment before adding. "I have responsibilities that needs me to be free."

Virginia nodded, a small smile pulling on her lips.

"Fair enough."

They had to wait for about thirty more minutes for the food to arrive.

A delivery driver appeared at the corner looking slightly bewildered by the address, as delivery drivers tended to look when the address turned out to be a government building at three in the morning. Virginia stepped forward to meet him with the composed authority of someone for whom no situation was inherently strange, paid with her phone for what turned out to be a genuinely impressive quantity of containers, and turned back around.

She held out the bottom half of the stack to Silas.

He took it.

They stood there for a moment on the steps of the association headquarters, each holding an armful of takeout containers, the clerk hovering uncertainly behind them.

"Thank you," Virginia said. Not to the clerk. Not to the delivery driver who had already retreated at speed, sweating bullets through his helmet.

To him.

Silas looked at her. At the composed expression and the two in the morning and the armful of food ordered for someone who wouldn’t ask for it.

"Yeah whatever," he said. "Come on."

They went inside.