Chapter 348: The Weeknd Night 3

"If this is all they want, why do the books talk for ten pages?""Because the books are written by people who like hearing themselves. The exam is written by people who want a short answer."

Her knee bumped his under the table and stayed there.

Neither of them moved it.

After a while he closed the theory notebook and opened a thinner one. Numbers. Lots of them crossed out.

"Maths."

Kuri immediately looked like she wanted to leave the room.

"Don’t."

"It’s addition and subtraction. Two digits. The hard ones are multiplication. That’s the ceiling for Class D."

He wrote 27 + 14 on a clean page.

"What is it?"

She stared at it.

"3...No. 4...1?"

"Count it on the page. Not in your head."

She added the ones first, then the tens, the way a child would. She got 41 again and looked at him like he was mocking her.

"I can add."

"You can add when nobody is watching. On the exam you panic and skip a column. That’s why these are all wrong." He tapped a row of her old answers. "You rushed. Write the ones first. Then the tens. Every time."

They did six more. 35 + 28. 62 − 19. 44 + 17. She got faster. She still scowled at every problem.

Then he wrote 12 × 8.

Kuri stared at it like it had insulted her family.

"That’s the hard one?"

"For this class, yes."

"I hate this."

"Do it as addition. Eight twelves."

She wrote 12 eight times down the page and added them in pairs. It took her almost a minute. She got 96 and checked it twice before she would say it out loud.

"Ninety-six."

"Good. That’s how you survive the last three questions. Don’t try to be fast. Be correct."

She leaned her elbow on the table and rested her cheek on her hand, watching him correct a line. The soap smell was stronger up close. Clean skin. Damp hair. The faint heat of someone who had just come out of a bath.

"You’re actually serious about this class thing."

"I am."

"Why? You scored thirty on purpose. Feels like you’re sandbagging."

"Doesn’t mean I want the rest of you to stay at the bottom."

Kuri looked at him for a longer moment than before. Then she clicked her tongue and went back to the page.

"Don’t say things like that. It makes you sound decent."

"I’ll try not to."

They worked through another short set. He made her say the steps before she wrote the answer. Every time she skipped one, he made her start over. She hated it. She also started getting them right.

At one point she reached across him for another sheet. The loose shirt hung off her shoulder again. The dark shorts had ridden a little higher on her thigh.

Lor watched her write 23 + 19, then 15 × 6 the slow way, adding fifteen six times until she landed on ninety.

"One more," he said. "Then we stop for tonight."

Kuri took the last sheet, read it, and groaned.

"This is the same as before."

"Same type. Not the same problem."

"That’s worse."

She started anyway. Ones first. Then tens. Then, for the multiplication, the same slow stacking he had shown her. She got it right on the second try.

Lor nodded.

"Good. That’s enough."

Kuri set the pen down and sat back. For a second she looked almost pleased. Then she remembered herself and covered it with a scowl.

"Don’t get used to me sitting here like this."

"Too late," Lor said. "I already am."

He closed the notebook and set the pen down.

"That’s enough theory," he said. "Now it’s your turn. The deal. Give me your holes."

Kuri’s face twisted at once. Annoyance settled across her features, sharp and automatic. At the same time a low heat moved through her lower stomach, slow and unwanted. She kept her arms crossed under her chest and did not look at him.

The room went quiet.

He did not reach for her. He did not pull her closer or start undoing anything of his own. He simply sat in the chair and waited, as if the next move belonged entirely to her.

It felt worse than the alley.

In the alley he had taken her roughly. Here he was still, watching her decide.

Kuri’s mouth tightened. The pride came first.

"I already gave them to you behind the tavern," she said. "That counts. That was payment for this."

Lor shook his head once.

"That was for not killing you in the forest after you tried to kill me. This is different."

She stared at him. Her jaw worked. A long breath left her through her nose.

"...Fine. I will stick to my word."

She stood up.

She hooked her thumbs into the waistband of both the shorts and the panties beneath them. For a second she just held them there, fingers hooked in the fabric, as if she might still change her mind.

Then she pushed them down.

The material slid over the curve of her hips.

The soft skin of her lower stomach came into view, then the neat triangle of her pussy. She kept pushing.

The shorts and panties moved down her thighs together, dragging slowly over smooth skin.

She had to bend a little to get them past her knees. The shirt rode up with the motion, and for a clear moment the full shape of her bare ass and the soft line of her pussy from behind were completely exposed under the lamp light.

She stepped out of the clothes one foot at a time and kicked them aside with her heel.

Then she stood in front of him, bare from the waist down.

The shirt still covered her chest and her stomach. Everything below that was open to the air. Her pussy was neat and already flushed.

The outer lips looked soft. A thin sheen of wetness caught the light at the centre, right where the folds met.

Her thighs were long and smooth.

Lor was still sitting. From that angle he could see all of it at once — her pussy, the length of her toned thighs, and her face.