Chapter 22 The Bragging Tour

Chapter 22 The Bragging Tour
The movie had ended, and the theater lights suddenly flared on.
Ruth sat completely frozen, staring blankly at Matthew. He was leaning entirely into her space, his fingers still resting gently against her cheek.
His eyes were wide open, making the sharp, upward curve of their outer corners even more distinct. Right now, he didn't look like the arrogant, punchable guy who constantly teased her, nor did he look like the impossibly charming siren who always flirted with her.
He was just staring at her, completely unblinking, and looking devastatingly handsome.
Being this close to him, Ruth's mind suddenly flashed back to the very first time she ever saw him.
Back when she was a teenager, she had spent a long time quietly obsessing over the legendary "Master Lynes"—the untouchable, mythological tyrant who had ruled the local high schools before graduating early. He had always occupied a massive, intimidating space in her mind.
Whenever she met a good-looking guy, or whenever someone confessed to her, she had subconsciously compared them to that untouchable legend... even though she had never actually seen his face.
Looking back, she supposed you could technically call that her first crush.
But when she finally met Matthew Lynes in person, it hadn't felt like a distant, hazy fantasy at all. In that exact second, she had experienced a violent, undeniable moment of clarity. She suddenly understood what "love at first sight" actually meant.
Ruth had always thought she was entirely rational. She loved looking at handsome guys, but she lacked any actual romantic sensibility. She genuinely never expected to associate herself with such a cheesy, romantic phrase.
When she tried to explain it to Anne and Olivia later, she had blamed his god-tier face. But honestly, saying she fell for him purely because he was gorgeous wasn't the whole truth.
It was incredibly difficult to describe the feeling of her brain completely short-circuiting the first time they made eye contact. It was like trying to describe the exact sound a flower makes when it blooms.
She just knew it was an incredibly, breathtakingly beautiful moment.
When she first met him, Matthew hadn't revealed his true colors at all. He had played the role of the perfect, flawless campus god—pure, devastatingly attractive, endlessly cool when he was expressionless, with impossibly long legs, a lethal waist, and a perfect ass.
At the time, she had thought: Is this guy's character design literally too perfect to exist?
But as she got to know him, she realized he wasn't perfect at all.
He suffered from crippling morning sickness and could literally fall asleep standing up.
He was a broke college student who couldn't afford to fix his shattered phone screen.
Sometimes he showed up with a chaotic tuft of bedhead sticking up in the back. He slouched constantly, even though he looked incredibly sharp when he actually stood straight. He never brought a pen to class, but he never forgot to bring her candy.
And the closer they got, the more aggressively he flirted with her. He could say the most outrageously dirty things without ever blushing; the thickness of his skin was an absolute medical mystery.
At first, "Matthew Lynes" had just been a perfect, two-dimensional character drawn straight out of a comic book. But as she discovered all of his strange, cute little habits, he slowly became three-dimensional. He became real. He stepped seamlessly into her life, quietly and irreversibly changing everything about her world.
And now.
He had just told her... he liked her.
It felt like an invisible hand was squeezing Ruth's throat. She couldn't make a sound. The sharp, witty banter she usually used to destroy Jerry had completely evaporated. She was officially suffering from the exact same 'chronic vocabulary deficiency' she always mocked other people for.
She took a shaky breath, desperately trying to gather her completely shattered thoughts and process the emotional whiplash of the last two minutes.
Finally, she moved her lips. Her voice came out incredibly small. "...Did you plan this entire routine in advance?"
Matthew was incredibly patient. He hadn't rushed her. He had fully expected her to open her mouth and deliver a sweet, romantic "I like you too." He absolutely had not expected an interrogation.
He paused slightly. "What do you mean, 'planned routine'?"
Right as he spoke, the movie officially ended. The end-credits music blasted through the speakers, and the surrounding crowd immediately stood up, filling the theater with chaotic noise.
Realizing the moment had passed, Matthew dropped his hand from her cheek. He leaned in close to her ear. "Let's head out first."
Ruth nodded, hugging the half-empty popcorn bucket to her chest like a shield.
The crowd moved slowly. Directly behind Ruth was the couple she had been eavesdropping on earlier. The completely oblivious, aggressively idiotic boyfriend was still desperately trying to save his life. "Hey babe? Babe, what's wrong? Why won't you talk to me? Wait, what did I say wrong?! I said I USED to like that type, but obviously I like you now! Right?!"
Listening to the tragic sound of a man digging his own grave, Ruth followed Matthew out into the bright lobby. By unspoken agreement, they walked over and sat down on the exact same double sofa they had occupied before the movie.
Matthew turned to her. "What were you asking me earlier?"
"I asked..." Ruth hesitated, her face flushing slightly as she thought about his confession. "Um... did you plan to confess like that in advance?"
Matthew raised an eyebrow. "Confess like what?"
"You know." Ruth summarized his entire chaotic operation flawlessly. "The 'Bait-and-Switch'."
First, aggressively lie and say your ideal type is a blonde, curvy, incredibly sexy supermodel who looks nothing like me. Second, wait for me to get sad. Third, execute a massive plot twist, tell me you were talking bullshit, and confess that you actually like me.
The classic Bait-and-Switch. Incredibly toxic. A flawless emotional manipulation tactic. In other words, entirely Matthew Lynes.
"..." Matthew instantly understood what she meant.
He was completely speechless, but he also wanted to laugh. He looked at her seriously. "I swear I didn't plan that."
Who the hell intentionally sets a psychological trap right before confessing? He had genuinely just been teasing her.
But looking at the intense suspicion written all over Ruth's face... Matthew suddenly realized that he had probably exposed way too much of his sociopathic nature to her over the last month.
He let out a heavy sigh. "Alright, fine. I'll just lay it all out."
"Honestly, I've been wanting to confess for a while now... But honestly," he paused, suddenly smiling, "I thought my pursuing you was already incredibly obvious. And you never rejected me, right?"
Many of the things Matthew had said over the past month had already become legendary running jokes in Ruth's group chat with Anne and Olivia. Specifically, the time he told the class: 'I'm already basically lying down for her.'
Ruth could practically recite his flirty lines from memory. She immediately shot back, "I didn't reject you, but you never officially asked! So I never officially agreed!"
Matthew didn't mind her defensiveness. He continued calmly, "So, I went online and did some research. I found a women's forum dedicated to relationship advice."
"I read a lot of posts where girls said the 'talking stage' was the sweetest part. They said the period where the guy is actively chasing them is when they feel the happiest..." Matthew leaned back into the sofa, letting out a lazy "Tsk." "I didn't understand it at all. But since men and women are fundamentally different, and all the girls were agreeing on it... I figured I should listen."
He paused, his eyes locking onto hers.
"So I decided to chase you a little longer, and delay the confession."
Ruth hadn't expected that reasoning at all. She froze.
Then, she watched as Matthew broke into a brilliant, impossibly arrogant smile. He looked completely, devastatingly confident. "Because once I actually caught you, you'd never get to experience the thrill of being chased by me ever again."
Wow.
Listen to the absolute arrogance of this man.
Ruth's pure, innocent wave of emotion was instantly tainted by a heavy dose of exasperation. "Teacher Lynes, is it genuinely necessary to be this narcissistic?"
Matthew's expression shifted slightly. He seamlessly dragged the conversation back on track. "I'm not being narcissistic, and I'm not joking around anymore. I'm telling you the truth."
He dropped his smile. His tone became incredibly serious. "You are the first girl I have ever pursued in my entire life."
"I know we haven't known each other for... that long," Matthew paused slightly at the words 'that long', before smoothly continuing. "I thought if I confessed too quickly, it would make me look reckless."
Ruth genuinely didn't want to interrupt his romantic speech, but she quickly did the math in her head and couldn't help herself. "So... you think waiting barely over a month makes you look cautious?"
"It's definitely fast," Matthew admitted without a shred of hesitation.
Two seconds of silence passed. He murmured, "But I couldn't hold back anymore."
Before Ruth could even process the words, Matthew suddenly reached out and pinched her cheek. "For example, while I was chasing you, I wasn't allowed to openly do things like this. If I did, I'd just be a creep."
The corner of his lips curved up into a devastatingly attractive smile. "But once I catch you, I can do whatever I want."
"So, Classmate Keen..." Matthew gently pinched her cheek again. "Did I catch you?"
The spot where his fingers touched her skin felt like it was literally burning. The heat rapidly spread from her cheek, flooding her entire body until she felt like she was on fire.
She held her breath for three agonizing seconds.
Then, mimicking his exact movement, she reached out and pinched his cheek right back.
"...You caught me."

The newly minted couple didn't leave the movie theater lobby immediately.
She said I caught her.
That means from now on, she's my girlfriend.
Matthew felt an overwhelming, unprecedented wave of satisfaction wash over him. He was finally living his dream of openly pulling his girlfriend into his arms. He leaned back comfortably against the sofa, genuinely confused by his past self's iron-clad restraint.
"How the hell did I manage to hold back for so long...?"
Ruth, who was currently aggressively chewing on a handful of popcorn, glanced up at him. "Mmph?"
"Having to look at you every day but not being allowed to touch you..." Matthew stroked her hair gently, sighing heavily. "It was actual torture."
Ruth stopped chewing. "..."
She suddenly felt violently exposed.
Having to look at you every day but not being allowed to touch you...
Yeah. Tell me about it.
After all, he was the undisputed owner of a lethal waist and a perfect ass.
Just a few days ago, Ruth had refreshed the poetry thread on the campus forum. After the legendary line "Mat doesn't need a knife to kill", a brand new masterpiece had taken the top spot.
Mat's waist is a lethal blade,
Mat's ass puts my soul in the grave.
It was a literal Shakespearean masterpiece.
As Ruth continued to chew and reminisce about his ass, her boyfriend's voice interrupted her thoughts. "Why are you suddenly aggressively attacking that popcorn? If you can't finish it, just throw it away. I'll take you somewhere else to hang out."
"...Throw it away?!" Ruth froze with a piece of popcorn halfway to her mouth. She whipped her head around to glare at him. "How can you be so wasteful?!"
Matthew: "..."
Wasteful? What am I wasting? It's literally three dollars worth of popped corn.
Oh. Shit. I almost forgot.
My broke college tutor persona cannot afford to casually waste food.
Matthew realized that the sheer euphoria of finally locking down his girlfriend had made him completely reckless. He had almost made a fatal, rookie mistake. He cleared his throat, desperately preparing to invent an excuse to save his cover—
But Ruth spoke first, passionately defending his honor.
"This popcorn was bought using the literal blood, sweat, and tears my boyfriend earned from tutoring!" The girl aggressively emphasized every single syllable, her eyes wide with fierce determination. "Of course I am going to finish every single piece!"
That afternoon, they were forced to sit on the lobby sofa for another twenty minutes to finish the massive bucket of popcorn. Honestly, sitting there aggressively dry-eating a gallon of popcorn made them look like absolute idiots. Every time someone walked past, Ruth felt their judgmental stares burning into her skin.
But pure embarrassment couldn't stop her. Even if they hadn't just officially started dating, she would have finished everything Matthew bought for her.
Because in this brutal economy, it was incredibly hard for a broke college student to make a living.
Her heart ached for him.

On the night she officially secured a boyfriend, Ruth originally planned to drag her two aggressively single best friends out for drinks to celebrate. But considering she had an 8:00 AM class the next morning, she suppressed her excitement and decided to wait for the weekend.
Generally speaking, returning to class after a four-day long weekend was universally depressing. The entire student body usually walked around like zombies.
But absolutely no one expected the campus forum to violently explode at 7:30 in the morning.
[THREAD] HOLY FUCK! SISTERS ON THE TIMELINE! KEEN-LINES IS OFFICIALLY CANON! I'VE ONLY BEEN SHIPPING THEM FOR FOUR DAYS, WHAT KIND OF GOD-TIER PACING IS THIS?!
[Post 1 - OP]: I just got several pictures and a dozen 50-second voice notes from my friend in Finance 101! Even though I am literally about to be late for class, I had to post this immediately!
Long story short!
I'll call my friend 'Girl A'. Girl A sits near Ruth Keen and spent the entire weekend feeding me gossip about them.
This morning, Girl A walked into the classroom and the two of them were already there. She went to the lockers in the back to grab a textbook, and when she turned around... she saw Mat sleeping on the desk, while Ruth was playing on her phone with one hand.
And then she looked closer!
MAT WAS USING RUTH'S ARM AS A PILLOW!
HOLY SHIT! He was half-hugging, half-sleeping on her arm, exactly like a giant cat aggressively cuddling its owner!
[Image][Image]
LOOK AT THE PICTURES AHHHHHH I HAVE LITERALLY DIED A THOUSAND DEATHS! They are both so impossibly gorgeous, the visual harmony is actually bringing me to tears! QWQ!
Girl A said she was practically sleepwalking, but seeing that instantly injected 10,000mg of adrenaline into her veins. She walked over and quietly asked Ruth why Mat was sleeping on her arm.
Before Ruth could even answer, Mat lifted his head, looked Girl A dead in the eye, and said with absolute, arrogant entitlement: "I'm sleeping on my girlfriend's arm. Is there a problem?"
Girl A told me to add a P.S.: The candy Ruth is eating in the picture belongs to Mat. She never brings candy to class, but her deskmate gives her a different flavor every single morning. That's the whole story.
I am deceased.
[Post 2]: Holy fuck, I am also deceased... IT'S CANON! IT'S OFFICIAL! KEEN-LINES IS REAL! SCREAM WITH ME SISTERS AHHHHH!
[Post 3]: I am literally sprinting across campus right now and my roommate asked why I keep screaming 'holy fuck' every five seconds... I can't help it! My vocabulary has completely regressed! 'Holy fuck' is the only phrase that can express my emotions!
[Post 4]: AHHHHH the second I read the main post I physically screamed out loud! I punched my bed so hard I woke my roommate up! But even if she beats me to death and nails my coffin shut, my ghost will still scream: KEEN-LINES IS REAL!
[Post 5]: THEY ARE SO REAL!
Ruth only saw the post during her first class because Helen frantically shoved her phone in her face.
“Keen-Lines” was obviously their ship name, and what “Keen-Lines IT’S REAL” meant was entirely self-explanatory.
Below the massive block of text in the original post, the rest of the thread was entirely devoid of intellectual conversation. It was just hundreds of replies spamming the exact same three words.
Riding the euphoric high, Ruth anonymously joined the mob, happily typing: "Keen-Lines IT’S REAL!"
Reading other people passionately describe their relationship actually made her feel incredibly smug.
Today, Matthew's level of exhaustion had reached an absolute, historic peak.
When he arrived in the morning, he had yawned four times before even saying a word. But a sleepy beauty was still a beauty. Looking completely devastating with sleep-hazy eyes, Matthew slumped into his chair and murmured, "Morning, girlfriend."
The thick, sleep-deprived rasp in his voice was enough to make anyone's knees go weak.
Ruth's heart was already beating entirely too fast. She couldn't help but ask, "You're so tired... did you not sleep well last night?"
"To be accurate, I basically didn't sleep at all."
"Why?"
"Because I finally got a girlfriend, and I was way too excited to fall asleep."
Girlfriend: "..."
If my boyfriend was so excited he stayed up all night, does the fact that I slept like an absolute rock mean I don't care enough?!
But Matthew was genuinely exhausted. He barely lasted five minutes. After handing her a piece of candy, he stretched his arm out across the desk. "Let me borrow your arm."
Ruth obediently slid her arm over. Without a single word, Matthew wrapped his arms around it, buried his face into her sleeve, and closed his eyes.
And then... he actually nuzzled against her!
He nuzzled exactly like the girl in the forum had described! Like a literal giant cat demanding affection!
On the very first day of our relationship, my boyfriend is already impossibly clingy. What a sweet, terrible burden.
When the classmate had sneakily taken the photo of them earlier, Ruth had been entirely calm. In the picture, she looked completely normal, casually scrolling on her phone. Matthew, however, was tightly hugging her arm. Only a quarter of his face was visible, showing one closed eye and a row of impossibly long eyelashes, while the rest of his face was deeply buried in her hoodie sleeve.
It was an incredibly soft, intimate picture.
Without a second thought, Ruth saved the image to her camera roll and immediately texted it to Matthew.
When the professor finally arrived, he handed out a stack of one-page handouts, instructing the front row to pass them back.
When the stack reached Ruth, she only had one free hand. She placed one sheet on her desk, and reached over to drop the second sheet onto Matthew's desk.
But with terrible timing, right as she moved her hand, Matthew slowly opened his eyes and lifted his head.
The sharp edge of the stiff paper sliced directly across his cheek.
Ruth hadn't noticed anything wrong. She casually said, "You're awake? The professor just got here. This is the handout, we're supposed to read it."
Matthew felt a sudden, sharp sting on his cheek. It wasn't severe, just a slight, itching pain. He reached up and touched the spot.
When he pulled his fingers back...
His sleep-addled brain was momentarily confused. He stared at his fingertips. "...Where did this blood come from?"
Ruth froze.
Blood? What blood?
She whipped her head around just as Matthew turned to look at her. Against his impossibly pale, flawless skin, the tiny, bright red droplets of blood were violently obvious. She couldn't help but gasp, "Ah!"
"Was it the paper just now...?" Ruth suddenly realized what had happened. "When I put the paper on your desk, the edge must have caught your face! I'm so sorry, I wasn't looking... it definitely has to be that!"
Matthew was still half-asleep, his eyelids drooping lazily. With the tiny red scratch marring his flawless cheek, he looked impossibly, devastatingly alluring.
"Holy shit," Ruth accidentally swore out loud, entirely captivated by his face.
Matthew's eyelashes fluttered. "...Holy shit what?"
"I just wasn't expecting it... I'm just amazed..." Ruth reached out and gently touched the uninjured side of his face. His skin was incredibly smooth. She spoke the absolute truth. "How is your skin this impossibly soft?"
The air pressure around Matthew instantly dropped. He stared at her completely deadpan. "I'm what?"
"I mean... your face is really delicate." Having delivered the driest explanation possible, Ruth immediately shifted back to panicking about his injury. "But what do we do about the cut?! It looks small, but it's actually bleeding... I have band-aids in my bag, do you need one?"
Matthew's immediate, instinctual reaction was to refuse.
But right as the word reached his tongue, he aggressively pivoted. "Yes. I need one."
Ruth reached into her bag with her free hand, simultaneously leaning closer to inspect his face.
"Actually, I think it stopped bleeding. If we put a band-aid on it now, will it stop the wound from breathing...?"
"No," Matthew stated firmly.
Ruth still looked hesitant, so Matthew blinked slowly. "You're the one who cut me. Obviously, you have to take responsibility."
"..." Ruth pulled a band-aid out of her bag. As she tore the wrapper open, she muttered, "When did I ever say I wasn't going to take responsibility... Oh, just a heads-up, my band-aids have tiny pink flowers on them. Don't be mad."
Matthew watched her quietly complain as her nimble fingers peeled the backing off the adhesive. She held the band-aid by the very edges and leaned intimately close to his face.
A second later, the sharp sting on his cheek was covered by the bandage, accompanied by the lingering, soft warmth of her fingertips against his skin.
Back when Matthew had been the undisputed boss of the streets, getting injured was a daily routine. He completely ignored minor cuts. If he suffered a major injury, he was forced to go to the underground clinics, and he was always incredibly annoyed when the doctors aggressively patched him up.
But watching the incredibly focused expression on the girl's face, and feeling the warmth and faint perfume radiating from her fingers... for the very first time in his life, he actually thought getting cut every single day wouldn't be so bad.

After Ruth finished applying the band-aid, she decided that the tiny pink cartoon flower on his cheek looked unbelievably cute. Right before class ended, she practically forced him to let her take several photos of his face. Matthew acted completely indifferent to the entire process.
After their first class, Matthew walked her to her elective course, escorted her back to the dorms, and then drove straight home.
When he walked through the front door, he completely ignored the violently meowing orange cat begging for food. Instead, he walked directly into the bathroom and stared at himself in the mirror.
The pink floral band-aid was aggressively cartoonish. No matter how devastatingly handsome his face was, it undeniably looked slightly ridiculous on a grown man. But for some inexplicable reason, the longer Matthew looked at it, the more he liked it.
He walked into the living room, dropped onto the sofa, and opened his phone.
First, he initiated a video call with Arthur Finlan.
"What the fuck do you want, Mattie..." Arthur answered the phone looking intensely irritated, but the second his eyes locked onto the screen, he froze. "Holy shit! What happened to your face?!"
Before Matthew could say a single word, Arthur started firing like a machine gun. "Who the hell beat you up?! Who finally delivered divine justice?! Who on earth has the skills to actually scar your face?! Tell me right now, I need to worship him as my master! I—"
"Pause for a second."
Entirely unfazed by Arthur's manic screaming, Matthew offered a faint, perfectly relaxed smile. "It was just an accident. I got a tiny paper cut. It bled a few drops."
Arthur: "?"
Arthur was completely baffled. "Then why the fuck are you wearing a band-aid?! A cut that small probably isn't even visible to the naked eye! Since when are you this fragile?!"
Excellent. He finally asked the right question.
"I obviously didn't put it on myself. I knew it was fine."
Matthew adopted the exact tone of a man casually complaining about his domestic life. "But my girlfriend thought it was a massive deal... she was so incredibly worried about me. She was terrified it would get infected, so she absolutely insisted on putting a band-aid on it..."
Without waiting for Arthur to process a single word, Matthew smoothly hung up the phone.
Having successfully tortured his first victim, Matthew immediately initiated a video call with Russell Collins.
"Ah, nothing really. I just called because I kinda missed you... What, just because we drank together last night means I can't call you today?"
"Oh, yeah, I haven't been going to the corporate office much lately, I—wait, did you actually not notice the thing on my face, or are you just pretending you didn't see it?"
"If you saw it, why didn't you ask? Oh... no, I didn't get into a fight. It's just a paper cut."
"I'm not being fragile... My girlfriend thinks I'm fragile. The second she saw a drop of blood, she absolutely insisted on putting a band-aid on me. She just cares about me so much, I really had no choice but to let her do it... Hello?"
The line went dead.
Matthew looked at his screen.
The other party has ended the call.
Seeing the notification, Matthew's smile deepened. He scrolled down his contacts list and called his older brother, Wayne Lynes, who was currently overseas.
It rang for a long time. Right before it automatically disconnected, the call connected.
"...Hello?" Wayne's voice was thick with exhaustion. "What do you want? Why are you video calling me...?"
Wayne had probably just finished a brutal, 24-hour raid in Six Realms and had just fallen asleep. Matthew briefly forgot about the massive time zone difference. Feeling a tiny sliver of guilt for interrupting the internet addict's precious sleep, he almost decided to spare Wayne for the day.
But before Matthew could apologize, the person on the other end of the screen suddenly sat up violently.
The two brothers stared at each other. Wayne let out a loud "Holy fuck", instantly wide awake. "Mat, who beat you up?! Huh?! Have your fighting skills actually degraded?! You used to take on ten guys at once, what the hell happened to you?!"
Wayne's voice got louder with every sentence. "Is it serious?! Is a band-aid actually going to fix it?!"
"...I wasn't in a fight. Calm down. It's just a paper cut," Matthew explained smoothly. "It's not an actual injury. The edge of a paper just grazed me, it bled a few drops, and it was perfectly fine..."
Wayne: "...Huh?"
When Matthew was younger, he violently hated wearing bandages or gauze. Sometimes when he got slashed in a street fight, he would rip the bandages off after two days because he thought they were annoying and unnecessary.
Wayne was the one who used to constantly chase him around the house, begging him to properly bandage his wounds. He knew Matthew's personality better than anyone.
Wayne was genuinely, completely baffled. His jaw dropped. "Wait... then why the hell are you wearing a band-aid?! I get paper cuts all the time! For a cut that small, you literally just let it air dry and it heals in an hour!"
Matthew nodded gravely. "I completely agree."
"Sigh... I really didn't want to wear it. And as you can clearly see, this band-aid literally has a little flower on it..." Matthew sounded incredibly helpless, perfectly enunciating his next sentence. "But my girlfriend was just so incredibly worried about me. She was terrified of infection... so she absolutely insisted on putting it on my face."