For a moment, Noel just looked at her. The faint glow of the ruined sanctuary cast pale light across Selene's flushed face, the cyan of her eyes refusing to look away even as her grip on his sleeve trembled.

He exhaled slowly, grounding himself, then leaned in just enough for his voice to reach her clearly.

"Since when?"

Selene blinked, taken aback. "What?"

"That feeling." His tone wasn't sharp, but steady, searching. "How long have you been carrying it?"

Her lips parted, then closed again, the frost at her feet melting into damp soil. She lowered her gaze, strands of blue hair falling over her eyes.

"…I don't know," she admitted softly. "Maybe it started when you—" She hesitated, then forced it out. "When you took me from Iskandar Peaks. Back then… everything shifted. The way I saw you. The way I saw myself."

Noel's brows furrowed, memories of that night flashing briefly—her tears, her anger, the fire in her eyes when he dragged her out of the cage she'd been trapped in. He had never thought that moment could root itself into her this deeply.

"That's… a long time," he murmured, almost to himself.

Selene gave a faint nod, her jaw tightening as though bracing for rejection. "It was confusing. I was weak then, and I didn't even understand what I was feeling. But now… now I know it wasn't nothing."

Silence stretched between them, thick but not suffocating. Noel studied her again—the girl who always hid behind ice, now standing exposed in the dim light, waiting for him to answer.

He let out a quiet chuckle, shaking his head. "You really don't do things halfway, do you?"

Selene tilted her head, confusion flickering briefly across her features. "I don't understand. What do you mean by halfway?"

Noel's smirk faded into something softer, almost weary. "Never mind. Just… you've been holding this in for quite a while, then dropped it on me with a kiss. That's not exactly subtle."

"I don't do subtle," she said plainly. Her eyes didn't waver, as if daring him to deny her words.

Noel dragged a hand down his face, exhaling. For once, he wished she had laughed, deflected, anything that would've bought him time. But Selene wasn't built like that. She stood there, still as ice, waiting for his answer.

"Selene…" His voice lowered, almost a warning. "This isn't simple. You know I—" He stopped himself, then forced the words out. "I'm already with Elena. With Elyra. With Charlotte. If I let this go further, it doesn't just affect me. It affects them."

Her jaw tightened, but her gaze didn't flinch. "I know."

"Do you?" Noel pressed, his green eyes narrowing. "Because what you just did—kissing me like that—wasn't just reckless. It could change everything."

Selene's hands curled at her sides. "I don't care if it was reckless. I've been… holding this for too long. And I don't want to keep pretending it doesn't exist." Her voice trembled, but only once. "I know it's selfish. But I want to be selfish. Just this once."

Noel's chest tightened at her honesty. She wasn't manipulative, wasn't trying to bargain. She was simply… raw. Vulnerable. It made it harder, not easier, to answer.

He leaned back against the cold stone wall, eyes closing briefly. "…You picked the worst possible time to drop this on me, you know that?"

Selene didn't blink. "There's never a right time."

The silence between them stretched, heavy and unbroken. Noel rubbed the back of his neck, clearly struggling with what to say. Selene, didn't press him. She only turned away, her wand loosely held at her side, eyes fixed on the ruined archways of the sanctuary.

'Love?' The word echoed in her mind, sharp and unfamiliar. She had read it in books, seen it painted on the faces of others—Clara looking at Marcus, Elena stealing glances at Noel—but she had never thought it belonged to her. Not to someone like her.

Her mother had beaten warmth out of her when she was a child. Discipline. Duty. Silence. Those were the things she had been taught to carry. Not affection. Not longing. Certainly not love.

So why now? Why him?

Selene's chest tightened. She remembered mornings at the academy, when Noel trained alone before the sun even rose. Back then he was weak, clumsy. And yet he never stopped. She had told herself he was foolish. But she had watched. Always.

Then came the night of her abduction, when he had dragged her away from the peaks of Iskandar. She had hated him for it. Feared him. But beneath that, there had been something else—a shift. Something she couldn't name.

Noel stayed silent longer than he meant to. The ruins around them seemed to hum, the faint drip of water echoing off the broken stone. Selene's confession still lingered in the air, raw and undeniable.

She didn't flinch. Her cyan eyes, sharp as ever, held his with a steadiness that didn't match the faint tremor in her hands.

Noel finally exhaled. "Selene… I don't reject what you feel. Don't think that." His tone was softer than usual, steady but careful, like he was walking across thin ice. "But this isn't something I can answer in a single breath."

For the first time, something like a flicker of relief crossed her face. Not joy, not ease—but the quiet acknowledgment that he hadn't turned her away.

"I know," she said. Her voice was quiet, stripped of its usual cold edges.

He rubbed his temple, the weight of it all pressing down. Fights, monsters, even the system's cruel missions—those he could plan for, could cut down, could win against. But this? Feelings. Hearts. Bonds. Those weren't numbers. They weren't percentages ticking upward.

'This is more complicated than any monster or mission. Hearts aren't something the system can calculate. And I'm not sure I can either.'

Selene stood there, still as stone, waiting for his judgment like it was another battlefield. He shook his head slightly, a wry smirk tugging at his lips. "We'll figure this out. But not here."

Her grip on her wand eased, her shoulders lowering just a fraction. It wasn't victory. But it wasn't rejection either.

The air between them settled into a fragile calm. The sanctuary loomed around them, vast and ancient, whispering of dangers yet unseen. But for once, the battle wasn't with mana or steel.

Selene lowered her gaze, lips parting as if to speak again, but no words came. Instead, she just nodded once.

Noel glanced at her, then back into the darkness stretching deeper into the ruins. He didn't say it aloud, but the thought clung to him like a shadow: 'Can I really balance all of this… without breaking everything apart?'

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