I Am the Strongest Femboy, So Stop Protecting Me!-Chapter 36: Double Takes and Jaws Dropped.

Amari had woken up next, a little shaken for some reason. The woman looked like she had experienced a horrible nightmare, somehow looking more exhausted than before.

To no one’s surprise, Silas woke up last, shook awake by Virginia five minutes before the meeting.

Lyra had brought Aris a change of clothes once he had finished his tea, her timing as impeccable as ever. To be honest, Aris felt a little guilty about getting in such bad trouble, first day of working for an Ashborne again, and Lyra had already been put through more stress than she had been in the last few years.

He changed in the small anteroom Virginia showed him to and came back out without thinking much about it.

The outfit was practical. That was the main thing, he couldn’t really bother to care about appearance right now.

It was a soft wide-leg trousers in a pale cream that moved when he walked, a fitted white shirt tucked loosely into them, and over it an oversized cardigan in a dusty sage green that fell nearly to his knees, the sleeves slightly too long, the collar wide enough that it kept slipping to one side. Simple. Comfortable.

Lyra knew he hated anything restrictive before a meeting that required him to perform.

He pushed the cardigan sleeve up and checked his phone.

Eight fifty.

"We should go," he said.

Nobody answered immediately.

He looked up.

Silas was looking at him with a weird expression that he quickly rearranged into something more neutral, but not quite quickly enough.

Virginia had her cup raised halfway to her mouth and had stopped there.

Amari had her pen out and then appeared to think better of whatever she’d been about to write.

"What," Aris said.

"Nothing," Silas answered a little too quickly.

"You were all looking at me."

"We weren’t," Virginia said, and drank her tea.

"I was," Amari said, because Amari did not see the value in the alternatives. "The cardigan is very-" she paused, appearing to search for the precise word. "Good."

"It’s Lyra’s choice, not mine." He pushed the other sleeve up. "We’re going to be late."

He walked toward the door.

Behind him, in the room he was already leaving, Eyes wide, Silas turned to Virginia with an expression that said something quite clearly.

Virginia looked back with an expression that said she had already known for some time.

Amari had a really smug expression on her face.

None of them said anything out loud because there was a meeting in four minutes and some things could wait.

Though it was a big regret that things had to wait.

The elevator was not built for four people who collectively carried the weight of four S ranks, a prophecy, an Aberrant dungeon situation, a classified Aureate, and one extremely soft cardigan.

It was, however, built for more than four people, technically, so they made it work.

Silas pressed the button for the seventh floor and then stood with his hands in his pockets. looking at the ceiling, but not exactly because he looked like he was minding his own business extremely loudly.

Amari had her notebook in her hand.

Of course she had her notebook in her hand.

She was still flipping through it.

Virginia stood with the composed uprightness of someone for whom elevators were simply small formal rooms.

Aris stood in the middle of all of them and thought about nothing in particular.

The elevator moved.

"Are we ready," Virginia said, to the general air.

"No," said Silas.

"Adequate answer," said Amari, without looking up.

Aris said nothing, which was its own answer.

The elevator dinged.

Seventh floor.

"Right," Silas said, to no one specifically. "Let’s go be convincing."

The doors opened.

They went.

The corridor on the seventh floor was a different atmosphere entirely from the medical wing below. Polished floors, institutional lighting, the particular quality of carpet that existed specifically in buildings where important things happened and someone had decided the carpet should communicate that. Several association staff moved through it with the brisk energy of people who had been awake since before the crisis and had developed strong feelings about it.

All of them looked up when the four of them stepped out of the elevator.

Aris watched the sequence happen the way it always happened—the initial glance, the double take, the specific rearrangement of expression that people performed when they recognized him and then remembered the context and then tried to reconcile those two things into a single appropriate face. It was a process he had observed so many times it had become a taxonomy.

That one was surprised, he noted.

That one, the one on the far corner, was trying to look professional about being surprised.

The one closest to them had given up entirely and was just staring.

He looked forward and kept walking.

"Twelve," Silas said quietly, from beside him. 𝒇𝒓𝒆𝒆𝙬𝒆𝒃𝓷𝒐𝓿𝙚𝙡.𝒄𝓸𝒎

Aris glanced at him.

"People who did the double take," Silas said, with the tone of someone providing useful data. "Personal record?"

"Fourteen," Aris said. "Guild summit, two years ago."

He couldn’t help the amused smile that tugged at his lips.

"Competitive." Silas nodded. "We can probably hit fifteen if we slow down a little."

"We’re not slowing down."

"Just a suggestion." He shrugged.

Virginia, from his other side, cleared her throat. Her indication that she wasn’t going to dignify with a response but wanted it noted that she had heard it.

Amari said nothing. She had closed her notebook and was looking at the corridor ahead with the calm assessment of someone mapping the room before entering it, which was, Aris had come to understand, simply how she experienced spaces. She was always a few steps ahead of her own arrival, if only she had been fast enough yesterday.

The doors to the conference room were at the end of the corridor. Large, dark wood, the kind of doors that were specifically designed to make the people walking toward them feel the weight of what was on the other side. Aris had seen more impressive doors. He had also, in the last forty-eight hours, dismantled two Aberrant dungeons, extracted an Aureate, and survived Virginia ordering soup on his behalf, so his threshold for intimidation was not at its most available.

He stopped in front of them.

The other three stopped with him.

A beat of quiet.

"Remember," Virginia said, low enough for just them. "Lucky civilian. Anomalous data. We know nothing about the fifth."

Nods.

"Silas."

"Lucky civilian, got it."

"Amari."

"Messy framework, we’re just as lost as them."

"Aris."

He looked at the doors.

"I’ll be quiet," he said.

"That’s all I ask," she said, and pushed them open.