The Seductive Pretty Boy of the Matriarchal World-Chapter 77: No Comparison [Bonus - ]

Chapter 77: No Comparison

The moment Giselle spoke, Sloane finally dragged her gaze off Elias, only to narrow her eyes at Giselle instead.

"Don’t tell me you..."

Giselle understood her immediately. "You’re overthinking it."

Sloane nodded. "Yeah. You’re right."

She had seen the look on Giselle’s face at the birthday party. There had been a softness in those eyes, a kind of warmth no one who knew her would have believed possible.

Before tonight, Sloane had genuinely wondered whether there was something unusual between Giselle and Elias, something closer than it looked. Now it was obvious she had read too much into it.

"Besides," she added, glancing Elias over again, "I don’t think your taste could be this bad."

A faint curve touched Giselle’s lips. "There’s no comparison."

"Obviously." Sloane laughed, then draped an arm over Giselle’s shoulder with easy intimacy. "Come on. Same room as before. It’s already been cleaned up."

The two women kept talking as they walked away, putting distance between themselves and him.

Only after several steps did Giselle seem to remember he was still there. She turned, saw Elias standing frozen where he was, and said coolly, "Why are you still standing there?"

He hurried after them at once, awkward and quiet, trailing behind the two women with his head lowered and his eyes cast down.

Elias understood now.

He had never gotten inside Giselle’s heart. Not even a little. He had never pried open so much as a crack. She had never taken him seriously at all, which was exactly why she could stand there, right in front of him, and speak so casually about Lucien Hart.

"Elias Kane" did not know who Lucien was. He did not know the women had been talking about him. But Giselle did know, and the fact that she had been that calm about it could only mean one thing. In her mind, he did not even qualify as a replacement.

Just like she had said.

There was no comparison.

He did not even deserve to be mentioned in the same breath.

So what was he to Giselle, exactly?

A nuisance.

The kind you got stuck with and could not quite shake off.

Maybe that was still too clean a word. Giselle probably would not even want to describe another person that way. For someone as pathologically fastidious as she was, even saying something dirty out loud might have felt contaminating.

But Elias thought it fit perfectly.

Mud.

Not even ordinary mud, but a foul, bubbling patch of it, thick and rotten and still quietly blipping at the surface.

And yet he felt no sadness, no disappointment. He only looked at Giselle’s straight, elegant back, tapped his little finger lightly against his lip, and smiled.

Only something filthy could drag down someone as proud as Giselle.

Someone with that kind of obsessive cleanliness, willingly swallowed by mire, letting it spread over her spotless white body until every inch of her was stained.

Wasn’t that interesting?

[System Theta: ...]

It almost felt sorry for Giselle.

When they returned to the familiar room, Elias immediately saw how thoroughly Sloane had arranged everything. A thunderstorm had rolled through the night before and the temperature had dropped, so she had even had the heat turned on ahead of time.

The second Giselle stepped into the warmth, a faint restlessness prickled over her skin. She lifted a hand and tugged open her collar, exposing a sliver of pale collarbone. She was just about to take off her coat when she paused.

Elias was still in the room.

Without changing expression, she lowered her hand. Lifting her chin, she said, "You go first."

Then she turned and walked back out. She clearly had no intention of returning until Elias had finished washing up.

It was not just about propriety. More than that, Giselle had no desire to create any unnecessary connection between herself and Elias in a place like this.

A man and a woman alone in the same room, one showering while the other waited outside.

The image alone was bad enough.

Seeing that Giselle was about to leave with Sloane, Elias hurriedly blurted, "I, I don’t want to shower yet."

"Hm?" Giselle looked back at him. A trace of coldness surfaced in her sea-blue eyes. "It’s late. If you’re not washing up and going to bed, what exactly are you trying to do?"

"I..." Elias looked as if that glance alone had frightened him. His voice trembled. "I still have some homework I haven’t finished."

"Homework?"

From the doorway, Sloane, who had not gone far yet, nearly laughed out loud when she heard those words.

Even Giselle froze for a second.

She honestly could not remember the last time homework had been part of her life. To her, it was nothing but busywork, a waste of time. At her level, even if she skipped it entirely, no professor would dare say much. The concept had disappeared from her world a long time ago.

Only now, hearing it come out of Elias’s mouth, did that old memory stir again. At the same time, she was reminded that Elias was still a student.

"Can’t you do it tomorrow?"

Elias licked his dry lips with the tip of his tongue, uneasy and hesitant. "It’s due tomorrow..."

Giselle closed her eyes for a brief moment and drew a quiet breath. "How much?"

Elias took off the backpack he had been hiding behind his back the whole time.

He had come prepared.

He stepped into the room and crossed to the table.

Then, right in front of Giselle and Sloane, he opened the bag and started pulling things out one after another like some kind of magic trick. Sheets. Packets. Notebooks. Handouts. Enough paper to make Sloane’s eyelid twitch.

"Good grief," she muttered. "This feels like senior year all over again."

She traded a look with Giselle, both of them nearly incredulous. "Do college students seriously get this much paper homework?"

Elias gave a small nod, pressing his lips together. "Mm."

As if.

He was not in high school anymore. No one had this much written homework, and even when assignments piled up, most of them were done on a laptop.

He had patched this stack together piece by piece, scraping up anything he could find just to make it look overwhelming.

So she thought he was not even qualified to be compared to Lucien Hart?

Fine.

Then nobody was sleeping tonight.

Giselle only had to glance over the pile once to tell it was substantial. If Elias did it all by himself, he would probably be stuck there until dawn.

Her expression did not change, but a hint of displeasure surfaced between her brows. "Why didn’t you do it earlier? Is this how you got into Westbridge?"

"I..." Elias faltered, unable to answer. The rims of his eyes, already faintly red, deepened another shade.

The moment she saw that look on his face, Giselle understood.

What had happened to him had spread too far, touched too much of his life, and drained him badly enough that he had not had the energy to finish any of it.

Given the way Elias had done nothing but cry when the incident first broke, this outcome made perfect sense.

A shadow came over Giselle’s face, but her anger was not aimed at him. It was directed at the fact that the fallout from that incident had been worse than she had anticipated.

Elias misunderstood immediately.

He watched her stand there in silence, her expression so grim, and moisture began to gather in his eyes. It looked as though he might burst into tears at any second.

Giselle spoke before that could happen.

"I’ll do it with you."

She had no desire to hear Elias cry again.

That sound was exhausting.