Chapter 133: The Desire to Admire

Chapter 133: Chapter 133: The Desire to Admire

Chapter 133: The Desire to Admire

Under the attention of the other customers in the store, the outfit that had looked slightly casual without the tie gradually took on a more polished elegance beneath Helena Baird’s careful hands.

She stood directly in front of Cyrus Calder, close enough that the distance between them seemed to disappear entirely.

Cyrus could hear the soft rhythm of her breathing.

If he lowered his eyes even slightly, he could see her lashes moving like the slow flutter of butterfly wings as she concentrated on fixing the knot at his collar.

He had noticed before that Helena handled personal distance strangely.

She did not seem bothered by standing too close, touching his clothes, taking his wrist, adjusting his sleeves, or leaning into his space when she thought something needed to be handled. She did it all with such natural composure that it was difficult to tell whether she even recognized how intimate some of those actions looked.

Cyrus had no doubt that if Helena treated almost any other man this way, the poor person’s heartbeat would be loud enough to fill the store.

Maybe she simply did not pay attention to those boundaries.

He sighed inwardly.

Fortunately, the person she had encountered was him.

If it had been another guy, he could already imagine the sequence. Helena would straighten his tie, stand too close, look at him with those calm eyes, and he would immediately convince himself that she liked him. Then his brain would overheat, he would confess, and Helena would probably stare at him as if he had suddenly started speaking another language.

Cyrus did not have that problem.

His head was not going to overheat over something like this.

As for the other part of his body, that topic could stay buried. He had suppressants for a reason.

Helena finished tightening the knot and smoothed the tie flat against his chest. Only then did she seem to realize how close they were and step back.

Her gaze traveled over him carefully.

Cyrus knew that look by now.

Appreciation.

Nothing else was obvious in it.

He said nothing and turned slightly, letting her see how the outfit sat from different angles.

Strangely, the clothes felt almost custom-made. Cyrus had expected something fitted this closely to feel restrictive, but the fabric moved easily with him. Nothing pulled at the shoulders. The waist sat correctly. Even the sleeves ended exactly where they should.

Maybe his body simply happened to fall within a standard human size.

That seemed reasonable enough.

Helena quietly studied him as though she were examining a finished piece she had been waiting to see.

Then she took out her phone.

The camera clicked.

Cyrus looked toward it, and an unpleasant memory surfaced.

The last time someone had taken pictures of him without much warning, several things afterward had become irritating in ways he would rather not repeat.

Daphne, in particular, could spend some time reflecting on herself instead of creating new problems.

Cyrus’s attention drifted for only a moment.

When he looked back, Helena was already holding out another set of clothes.

He accepted them.

A trace of surprise passed through him, though he did not show it.

He had been thinking about this since the first outfit.

There were no obvious price tags where he could see them, but the fabric, stitching, and overall design were clearly expensive. This was not the kind of clothing he would ever buy for himself.

If he accidentally tore something while changing, he was not sure several nights of wages at The Full Moon Lounge would be enough to pay for it.

With that thought in mind, Cyrus handled the second outfit far more carefully when he returned to the fitting room.

Once he unfolded it, he became even more puzzled.

The style was completely different from the first.

Everything had been prepared together, from the shirt and inner layers to the jacket and matching accessories. Nothing looked like it had been picked randomly off the rack.

Did high-end clothing stores usually prepare outfits this thoroughly?

Or had Helena chosen these specifically for him?

If so, how did she know his measurements?

Cyrus stared at the clothes for a moment.

Surely she had not been looking at him so carefully during work that she could estimate his size by sight alone.

That sounded excessive.

Still, while changing, Cyrus realized he might understand Helena a little better than before.

As far as he could tell, Helena’s attention toward him was probably based on ordinary appreciation.

At least, she was the only person who consistently looked at him that way.

At the lounge, other eyes often carried something mixed into them. Attraction. Curiosity. Hunger. The urge to approach. The urge to test how close they could get before he moved away.

Helena’s attention felt cleaner.

She looked because she liked what she saw.

Maybe after seeing him in the same work clothes often enough, she had simply become bored and brought him here to satisfy that sense of appreciation with different outfits.

The conclusion seemed reasonable.

Then another thought arrived.

If Helena eventually got tired of his face, he might want to finish arranging his future safeguards before that happened.

Cyrus went quiet.

There was a practical problem.

He could not afford clothes like these.

If Helena’s impression of him depended even partly on how he looked, what happened when he went back to wearing cheap clothes from ordinary stores?

Would his score drop?

That was bad.

Maybe getting tired of him was inevitable after all.

Outside the fitting room, Helena had already made a decision.

"This one, and the three over there. Have them sent to this address."

"Yes, ma’am."

The store employee accepted the information without hesitation.

Helena barely thought about the price.

There was little reason to.

Long-lived elves in her family had accumulated wealth over generations. Some relatives had spent lifetimes collecting investments, property, art, jewelry, and other things humans struggled to keep for even a century.

Others had been almost absurdly obsessed with gemstones.

The total family wealth was a number Helena had stopped trying to conceptualize years ago.

Buying several outfits was not worth calculating.

When Cyrus emerged from the fitting room again, the first thing he saw was Helena lifting her phone.

Another picture.

He was beginning to suspect this work was more exhausting than a shift at the lounge.

Helena kept handing him clothes, and Cyrus kept changing.

One outfit became another.

A fitted suit.

A more formal evening look.

A dark service uniform that made him look as though he belonged in an expensive private residence.

There was even an outfit with a long structured coat and details that vaguely reminded Cyrus of an old-fashioned ship captain.

He did not understand the theme.

At some point, he stopped trying.

He had become a machine whose only purpose was putting clothes on, stepping outside, standing still, and returning to change again.

Judging by the fact that Helena took pictures every single time, she seemed satisfied.

By the eighth or ninth outfit, Cyrus had lost count.

He was currently wearing a formal service-style ensemble.

A crisp white shirt sat beneath a fitted black vest. Black trousers followed the line of his legs cleanly without being overly tight. At Helena’s earlier request, he had not put on the outer coat yet and instead carried it over one arm.

He stood in front of her with an easy, upright posture.

This time, she had not needed to help him at all.

After watching her tie the first one, Cyrus had gone back into the fitting room and tried the process himself. Once he understood the structure of the knot, it turned out to be simple enough.

He had already learned how to manage the rest.

Helena looked at him.

Her eyes seemed to brighten.

A small smile appeared at the corner of her mouth before she seemed to notice it herself.

Cyrus caught the reaction.

She definitely liked this one more.

That was reassuring.

If she was this satisfied after seeing so many different looks, maybe it would take quite a while before she got tired of him.

His concern eased slightly.

Helena raised her phone again.

Another picture joined the growing collection.

Over the span of only a few hours, the number of photos she had taken of Cyrus had already surpassed the number of pictures she normally took of herself over far longer periods.

She lowered the phone and immediately began checking the results.

Cyrus waited.

Then he finally asked, "Are we finished now?"

Helena nodded without looking up.

"Yes, we are finished."

Cyrus accepted the answer and returned to the fitting room.

A few moments passed.

Helena continued scrolling through the pictures.

Then she stopped.

She had forgotten the coat.

She had taken several pictures of the outfit without the outer layer, but none with Cyrus actually wearing the final piece.

Helena looked toward the fitting room.

"Cyrus?"

No answer came.

She waited briefly.

"Cyrus, are you still changing?"

There was still no response.

Helena walked over and raised her hand to knock.

Her knuckles had barely touched the door when it moved inward.

It had not been locked.

The door opened easily.

Helena froze.

Cyrus had already removed the shirt.

He stood inside the fitting room bare from the waist up, the discarded clothes gathered near one hand. There was faint tiredness in his expression, and moisture had collected at the corners of his eyes.

He looked as though he had just finished yawning.

Helena’s gaze moved before she could stop it.

The outfits had made Cyrus appear slender, almost delicate in some styles.

Without the fabric covering him, that impression changed.

His waist was narrow, but not weak. Clear lines of muscle crossed his abdomen, defined without looking bulky. The shape was clean enough to make the difference between his school appearance and his actual body feel almost unreasonable.

Cyrus looked toward the open door.

A little surprise crossed his face.

That was all.

He did not panic or rush to cover himself. Instead, he rubbed the moisture from the corner of one eye, and the tiredness in his expression disappeared with the same casual motion.

Being interrupted while changing apparently did not rank very high on his list of emergencies.

He straightened the clothes in his hand.

"What happened, Helena?"

Helena drew her attention back to his face.

"I am sorry. I wanted to tell you not to change yet."

Cyrus looked down at the shirt he had already taken off.

"Do you need me to put it back on?"

Helena paused.

"No. If you already changed out of it, then forget it."

"That is fine."

Cyrus did not mind.

He had forgotten to lock the fitting room door. He also had probably missed Helena calling his name because he had been yawning.

Besides, it was not as though she had walked in while he was completely undressed.

There was no reason to make it into something strange.

Helena stepped back.

Cyrus began reaching for his own clothes again.

At that exact moment, his stomach made the decision for both of them.

A low growl sounded through the fitting room.

The noise was not loud, but in the enclosed space it came through with embarrassing clarity.

Helena’s hand, already moving to close the door, stopped for a brief instant.

Then, without saying anything, she calmly pulled the door shut.