Evaline hesitated. "Did you, though?" she asked, deciding to push the subject, just a little. "I think you liked the company, even if they're mages giving you the stink eye."
"Oh," she said quietly, her gaze falling on the path in front of her as she let his answer sink for a second. She knew that his experience differed from hers, but she didn't know that it was so bad, he would choose to undo it if he could. It sounded like he regretted agreeing and staying.
She was thinking that the entire experience felt like a surreal, dream-like event. But it wasn't to James.
It was good to know.
"It's a good thing we probably won't encounter another one," she said blankly, saying the first neutral thing to come to mind to not let the awkward silence linger for too long.
Somehow, Evaline did and did not expect this. It certainly didn't stop the embarrassment from showing in her face. Again.
How was he able to keep doing this?
She awkwardly fidgeted with her hands behind her back, still looking ahead, trying not to look like she was glaring at the empty air in front of her, but it was hard to focus on that when she was actively trying to shove down this feeling.
"That sounds like something Masil might have read from her romance books," she said with a small, forced, and awkward laugh.
Even in this state, she felt the tenseness from the conversation leave her body. It made her nervous to hear him deliver those words, but at the same time, she was relieved of the message.
She decided to ignore the last part of what he said, ignoring her heart's too-loud beating against her face and ears.
"A little cliché?" she repeated in a teasing tone, quickly glancing up at him. "More like a lot."
“Just because something’s cliché doesn’t mean it’s bad,” James said with a shrug. “Maybe it’s not creative, but people reuse old words over and over and over throughout history. Even the things we say that we think are new have likely been said before, maybe in another language, or a different time, but the meaning still remains.”
It was funny that James was defending his usage of a cliché statement in an almost cliché way.
Evaline shelved the thought of the conversation leading up to this and decided to treat this as a thought exercise instead.
"So you're saying that most phrases are a cliché, then?" she said. "I mean, I'm sure there have been plenty of conversations of someone pointing out something is cliché, and then they say the same thing as you, defending their statement. What, then, is this conversation, if not a cliché?"
