[ Sylvain just. Rubs a hand over his face, still flustered.
It's not that he was selling himself short, he just so rarely expected anyone to actually be paying attention to him. Sure, he was used to being pursued for a number of reasons - his wealth, his position, his Crest. None of them had anything to do with him, and with all those things nonexistent here... Well. He doubted those mattered all that much to Claude anyway since he had all those things and more.
But he's also not ready to let Claude go back to hiding behind that mask of his, where the emotions he showed were not the ones he felt. He might not know how to deal with this level of honesty just yet but he did know he didn't want to fuck this up, either. ]
That would imply you told me something unpleasant, not something just very unexpected. [ He casts Claude a look over the table, maintaining eye contact now. ] I guess I'm just more used to friends tolerating my flirting and then dismissing it immediately as just that. And I've always been careful not to cross a line when it came to people I actually liked.
[ Not stated is the fact that he'd so very rarely even approached a true flirtation with someone he actually liked. It was used instead as a shield, or a means to an end. Despite Sylvain's reputation with women - and more - he'd very rarely actually pursued anything with anyone within school grounds. There was a reason for that. ]
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It's not that he was selling himself short, he just so rarely expected anyone to actually be paying attention to him. Sure, he was used to being pursued for a number of reasons - his wealth, his position, his Crest. None of them had anything to do with him, and with all those things nonexistent here... Well. He doubted those mattered all that much to Claude anyway since he had all those things and more.
But he's also not ready to let Claude go back to hiding behind that mask of his, where the emotions he showed were not the ones he felt. He might not know how to deal with this level of honesty just yet but he did know he didn't want to fuck this up, either. ]
That would imply you told me something unpleasant, not something just very unexpected. [ He casts Claude a look over the table, maintaining eye contact now. ] I guess I'm just more used to friends tolerating my flirting and then dismissing it immediately as just that. And I've always been careful not to cross a line when it came to people I actually liked.
[ Not stated is the fact that he'd so very rarely even approached a true flirtation with someone he actually liked. It was used instead as a shield, or a means to an end. Despite Sylvain's reputation with women - and more - he'd very rarely actually pursued anything with anyone within school grounds. There was a reason for that. ]