She made his head spin, his thoughts jumble, his intelligence disappear. All she had to do was be near to him, and she would reduce him to a shy, middle school boy with a crush.

As fast as the speed of light, Vir grabbed my arm, being utterly careful to prevent hurting me. As he inspected every inch of my arm, sometimes softly prodding the skin with his fingers, I looked at his face. Even though his glasses almost fell off of his face, he made no effort of pushing them up again. He was completely focussed on investigating the chip that was injected in my arm, possibly wrongfully. There were soft sparks between us each time the skin of his finger touched my wrist, arm, or whatever other part of me. 

What seemed like seconds, were probably a few minutes, but I was still a bit disappointed when Vir let go of my arm, sweetly putting it back onto my lap. I had sat down on a stool, so I had to look up at him even more when he stood straight. 

Vir looked at me for a while, his curls constantly threatening to fall in front of his eyes, but never actually doing so. He only started speaking when I asked him to, which led him to flush red – again. 

"Well," he said slowly. "It seems as if you have contracted almost every muscle in your arm during the injection, is that right?" He looked at me with slight worry.

Sheepishly I stared back at him. "No..." 

He cocked his head and lifted an eyebrow. How could a person ever lie to a face like that? Not me.

So I grunted loudly before changing my answer while looking away. "Okay yes I did... Needles freak me out, a lot." 

Vir shook his head, chuckling quietly. "Well, in that case I don't think there is a very big problem. No, it is not normal, and no, it isn't a very good sign." 

I sighed sadly, now I probably had to get a new injection, and get this old one out as well. Double the trouble. Yay. 

"But," Vir continued with a soft smile. He put his hand up to my face to hold up my chin, but right when he came close to touching me, he dropped his hand. "It does happen sometimes. Usually it resolves itself after a week. When the swelling goes down and the bruising reduces, most of the time the chip starts working properly again. So don't worry, you won't need surgery. Yet." 

Wait would I need surgery to take the old chip out? Oh no, please no. I wouldn't accept that. I didn't like needles, but I was absolutely terrified of surgery. 

It was only when Vir put his hand on my shoulder that I calmed down a bit. "Kidding," he said, awkwardly. 

I sat there, flabbergasted. "You," I stopped. "You-you," I huffed and pouted slightly. "Are a very mean person, did you know that?" 

Vir grinned and pulled me up on my feet. "I know. Well, ehm, to make it up to you, would you have lunch with me the day after tomorrow? I'm very busy the rest of the week, and I'm out of town tomorrow so I probably won't see you that often." 

"Yhea, I would love to," I smiled widely, before frowning. "Wait, I believe that the planning is that we then go to that company with all the representatives. ImmunovaGen? Yes that was it. And that's the whole day..." In my head I was already planning on how to ditch Willow there. Of course it would be extremely difficult to trick her, but I guess I could do it?

"Oh, surely you wouldn't want to miss that, now do you?" He sounded apologetic, but I was sure I spotted a hint of scepticism. At least he kept his suspicions to himself, for now. 

"No, no, this is too much of an opportunity to miss, I guess," I said, showing my obvious hesitation through my speech. 

Stop.

Stop whatever this is, Livia. You can't blow your cover just yet. 

"I believe that the day after that we have a couple free hours around lunch, so that should work, right?" I fumbled slightly with the golden ring around my middle finger. "Are you sure you can't see me tomorrow?" 

Vir shook his head, a sad smile on his face, a pinkish blush on his cheeks. "No, I have a lot to deal with tomorrow. Even now I'm very busy, but I just needed to make sure you were okay. In fact, I need to get back to work soon." 

"At this hour?" It must have been after nine in the evening, no normal person would start working again now. "Do you even sleep?" My voice may have sounded jokingly, but I was definitely worried. Sure, Vir looked like a God, and not as if he was sleep-deprived. But well, my opinion was kind of biased, as he was my soulmate. He could wear a garbage bag and be covered in dirt, and I would still think he was the most attractive man in the universe.
I looked at him in concern, stepping a bit closer to him. 

"Don't worry," he whispered, his breath fanning softly on my face. "I sleep more than enough. I'll live." 

"Are you sure?" 

He chuckled quietly as he pushed his rimless glasses up once more. "I'm sure. Now, I need to leave again, so I'll see you in three days, okay?" He turned and started leading me out of the lab.
I nodded, before my voice decided it wanted to be heard again, even though it did sound incredibly doubting. It was a bit of an impulse question, but I needed to ask. "Vir?" 

He turned around quite quickly. "Yes?" 

Now it was my turn to blush, as the question I was about to ask may have seemed embarrassing to some. "Can I tell my mum?" I pointed at him, and then at me. "About us being mates, I mean?" 

He thought it over for a while, before shrugging his shoulders. 

"I guess you can tell your mum and friend about me, yhea." I gushed excitedly and rushed over to him to give him a tight hug, at which he awkwardly patted my back. 

"Thank you thank you thank you!" I was impressed he remembered that I would want to tell Allison too, so my impulse decision to hug him wasn't a wrong one. 

Hell, now I was holding him, I didn't want to let him go. He smelled so good. I couldn't put my finger on it what it was that made it so godly, but from then on I knew I had a new favourite laundry detergent. 

I was so involved in hugging and smelling him – looking back, that was actually quite weird – that I almost missed that Vir started talking again. 

"O-o-one con-conditi-ion th-though," his stutter hadn't been this bad before, and he sounded very uncomfortable, so I let him go before he would have a heart attack or something. When I looked at him, his face was bright red, and his eyes were wide. It was adorable and painful to watch at the same time. How was it that he was that uncomfortable around me? The knowledge that he was, was like a rope around my heart that was pulled tightly. I stepped back and hugged myself. "Yes?" my voice was no louder than a whisper. 

"Pl-please don't say anything about m-my, my title. Please?" 

My face fell, and I nodded. "Okay."

***

We then just stood in silence for a while, my head bowed down a little, sad and confused about his request. This was the reason that he startled me when he grabbed the hair that had fallen in front of my face in his fist, and put it on my back bluntly. 

It would have been romantic, had he done it with his fingers, maybe touched my cheek while doing so, or if he had looked at me afterwards with a smouldering look, but he didn't. Though I had to admit, it was cute, and my mood brightened instantly. "I guess I'll see you in three days then?" 

He nodded, a small smile on his still reddened face. "Yes. See you then."