My head felt heavy from the next morning on.
It wasn’t that I hadn’t slept.
I had definitely closed my eyes.
But that had been less sleeping and more like my consciousness had briefly shut off and then switched back on.
The first thing that came to mind the moment I opened my eyes
was the black line I’d seen last night beneath the outer wall of the experiment building.
The second gap beside the drainage groove.
The edge of the broken stone.
The rupture line spreading from there.
That sense that if I’d gone even a little closer,
I really would have died.
Great.
Bad memories don’t end at night.
They drag themselves all the way up into morning.
I wet my face with water from the sink and kept my head lowered for a long while.
Cold water ran past my eyes and dripped from my chin.
Even so, the dullness in my head didn’t clear easily.
As soon as I went down to the dormitory dining hall and took one spoonful of soup, I knew right away.
It tasted awful again today.
That didn’t matter.
The problem was that I had no appetite.
I roughly tore up some bread, soaked it in the soup, and swept my gaze around the dining hall.
Rine was mixed in among the others as usual, smiling.
On the surface, she looked fine.
Mia still wasn’t in sight.
Erka didn’t usually show up at this hour anyway.
Everyone was walking around with perfectly normal faces.
If I was the only one in this state, that just made me feel worse.
I half-heartedly emptied my tray and got up.
I’d already been only halfway inclined to attend class today.
To be precise, even if I did go to class, I’d been planning to take a look around the main building.
Last night, I’d stopped when I tried to go down.
Then today, I had to look up.
This school was always like that.
If one side was blocked, the other side showed signs first.
As I headed toward the main building,
I saw two students wearing student council aide sashes carrying documents at the end of the corridor.
They looked busier than usual.
I was about to pass them by when I stopped.
I smelled something.
It was very faint.
It wasn’t the smell of burning paper.
It was a much more pressed-down smell.
The resinous scent of sealing wax melting.
The smell of dry cloth heated and cooled.
And a very thin trace of soot.
The back of my throat turned slightly nauseous.
Great.
I raised my head.
It was toward the central gallery on the first floor of the main building.
Student council aides were moving several small tables,
and a decorative frame bearing the school crest was propped against one wall.
It seemed like they were setting up some kind of temporary reception desk before an event.
Preparations for the freshman welcome festival?
Or checking the student council schedule?
Whatever it was, it looked ordinary on the surface.
And that ordinariness was the biggest problem.
I moved closer to the gallery.
One aide passed by carrying a box of ledgers,
while another was placing something like a small seal case on a table.
Near the railing, a heating plate for sealing wax had been turned on as well.
A faint red glow spread shallowly from it.
Then, hair of a gold so pale it was almost silver entered the edge of my vision.
It was Serena Arsein.
Great.
Now this was really bad.
Serena was entering the gallery with a knight.
Her attire, her steps, her expression—everything was as upright as ever.
At a glance, she looked like a duke’s young lady briefly making an appearance to check on event preparations.
But unfortunately—no, more accurately, because I was unlucky—I could see the spot where Serena would stop.
Only that spot.
My vision went dull for a very brief moment.
Serena’s toes.
The corner of the ledger box.
The support under the sealing wax heating plate.
The fastening cord of the school crest frame propped against the wall.
All four were connected at once by an extremely thin black line.
I instinctively held my breath.
This wasn’t an explanation.
It wasn’t an answer either.
I just knew.
If she stood there, she would die.
No, more precisely, the moment she took one step back in that spot, she would die.
Serena stopped in the middle of the gallery.
One of the student council aides bowed and held out the ledger box.
“Lady Arsein, if you could please give this a final check—”
At that moment,
the inside of my left eye prickled.
Under the aide’s foot.
A faint wax mark.
One side of the support beneath the heating plate was tilted by the slightest amount.
Serena reached out to receive the ledger.
The aide’s body leaned forward a little under the weight of the box.
Serena would instinctively step aside.
And then after that.
I didn’t look any further.
My body moved first.
“Wait—”
The way I rushed toward Serena was almost reflexive.
The knight was a beat too late to react first, and Serena didn’t even have time to look my way.
I snatched Serena’s wrist just as she was about to take the ledger and pulled her sideways.
Serena’s body wavered for an instant.
Before the knight could even shout, “How dare—”
something slipped behind us.
Tak.
Clack.
And then it all came crashing down.
The ledger box slipped from the student’s hands and struck the corner of the heating plate.
The tilted support was pushed aside, and the vessel of sealing wax overturned.
The hot sealing wax and the heating plate skimmed past beneath the decorative frame beside the railing.
The fastening pin, which had already been half-ground through, came loose,
and the school crest frame that had been propped above fell exactly where Serena had originally been standing.
Crack.
The sound of wood and metal smashing into the floor rang through the gallery.
Hot sealing wax splattered everywhere, and ledger papers flew.
One aide let out a short cry as if swallowing a scream.
The two knights belatedly threw themselves in front of Serena.
Only then did I let go of Serena’s hand.
Great.
Too accurate again.
Serena didn’t fall.
Instead, she lost her balance for a very brief moment, then immediately straightened herself.
People who could stay upright even in situations like this were more exhausting.
One knight took a step toward me.
“What do you think you’re—”
“Stop.”
Serena cut him off shortly.
At that one word, the knight shut his mouth.
Serena looked at me, then at the frame smashed on the floor, then back at me.
Her gaze wasn’t so much cold as it was so precise that it felt chilling.
“Let go of my hand.”
She said it deliberately, even though I had already let go.
Great.
That meant her mind was intact.
I pulled my hand completely behind my back.
Serena asked in a low voice.
“Why were you there again?”
This time, no answer came right away.
If I were honest,
I smelled something,
I saw it,
and it felt like you would die if you stood there, so I pulled you away.
How was I supposed to say that?
Before I opened my mouth, I looked at the floor once.
Beneath the broken frame, one fastening pin had rolled out.
The end had not broken naturally.
It had been half-ground away.
And from the ground-down metal end came an extremely thin smell of burning.
Great.
The same hand, then.
Seeing that my answer was delayed, Serena spoke again.
“No.”
She took one step closer.
“That was not the question I should be asking.”
The gallery was still in chaos.
The aide was spilling out apologies, the knight was belatedly giving orders to clear the area,
and another student council member was running over from afar.
But even amid all that, Serena’s eyes did not leave my face.
“You.”
She asked quietly, but clearly.
“What do you know?”
Great.
So it had finally climbed up this far.
I did not answer right away.
It wasn’t that I was choosing what to say,
but calculating how much I had to cut away for things not to get tangled.
“It looked dangerous, so I intervened.”
Serena’s eyebrow moved ever so slightly.
“How did you do so that accurately?”
“I don’t know either.”
That was half true.
“But.”
I glanced toward the broken frame.
“Sometimes, I can see it.”
“You can see it.”
“Yes.”
“What?”
The questions were coming faster.
Great.
That meant she had no intention of letting this pass.
I looked at Serena.
“It is difficult for me to say more than that right now.”
One knight immediately cut in.
“Lady Arsein, this man—”
“Be quiet.”
Serena cut him off without even turning her head.
Then she looked at me again.
“This is not the first time, is it?”
“……”
“At the entrance ceremony as well.”
She looked once at the broken frame, then once at my hand.
“And even before that.”
So she remembered.
Well, she was the kind of person who had asked my name again.
There was no way she would have forgotten.
The accident was dealt with faster than expected.
The broken school crest frame was cleared away, the overturned sealing wax vessel was taken care of, and the papers scattered across the floor were gathered together again.
A few students who had gathered in the gallery muttered, “The fastening must have been done wrong,” then soon lost interest.
The student council aides repeatedly apologized with pale faces,
and the knights, while not believing them, pretended to believe for the time being.
That was the kind of place this school was.
Even when there was a loud noise, things got covered up even faster.
Great.
Which meant it was truly bad.
I stood beside a pillar at the end of the gallery and rolled the fastening pin in my hand.
The half-ground cross-section caught on the tip of my finger.
It was not the shape of something that had broken naturally.
It had been deliberately filed down.
And on the filed surface, a very thin layer of black powder clung.
Soot.
The smell of heated metal.
The resinous scent of sealing wax.
It was not exactly the same as what I had smelled last night beneath the outer wall of the experiment building.
But the texture was similar.
Just as I was about to put the fastening pin back into my pocket, one of the knights approached.
“Lady Arsein is calling for you.”
His tone was polite, but his expression was not.
Until moments ago, he had been on the verge of practically tackling me.
I understood.
There was no way a guy who had grabbed and pulled a duke’s young lady right in front of him would look normal.
“Where?”
“This way.”
In front of a small reception room by the window at the end of the gallery.
People did come and go there, but it was empty now.
There was nowhere to run and no excuse to use.
I followed the knight.
Serena was already standing by the window.
Sunlight entered from the side, making her hair shine coldly.
For someone who had been right beside the frame when it fell just moments ago,
her face did not look the slightest bit unsettled, not even her breathing.
That made her even more exhausting.
Serena looked my way and spoke shortly to the knight.
“Wait outside.”
The knight hesitated for a very brief moment.
But in the end, he withdrew.
Only after the door closed did Serena look at me again.
“Sit down.”
I deliberately sat in the chair opposite the window.
Serena did not sit until the very end.
It seemed she was more comfortable standing.
Or did she think the one asking questions had to stand?
Both felt like Serena.
It was Serena who spoke first.
“At the entrance ceremony as well.”
Of course she started with that.
“You were too accurate then too.”
I did not answer.
“And today as well.”
“I was lucky.”
Serena’s eyebrow moved ever so slightly.
“If I had intended to let you get away with an answer like that,
I would not have called you here.”
Great.
She knew it too.
I briefly turned my gaze out the window, then looked back at Serena.
“What do you want to hear?”
“The truth.”
“I don’t know that well myself.”
This time, Serena took another step closer.
The distance was not far, and her voice grew lower.
“Then let us at least narrow the scope.”
“……”
“Why were you there again?”
Great.
I couldn’t dodge it this time.
I steadied my breathing and answered.
“I smelled something strange.”
Serena did not react immediately.
Instead, she asked again, slowly.
“A smell?”
“Yes.”
“Did you think it was related to today’s accident?”
“I wasn’t certain at the time.”
“And yet you intervened so precisely.”
After saying that much, Serena fell silent for a moment.
Then she looked straight at my face and said, very clearly,
“You knew that place was dangerous.”
It was not a question.
It was a judgment.
I delayed my answer by a few seconds.
Lying was easy.
All I had to say was that I didn’t know.
But if I pushed through like that,
then from next time on, I wouldn’t be able to get anything out of Serena either.
“That it was dangerous.”
I opened my mouth while choosing my words.
“Sometimes, I can feel it beforehand.”
Serena’s eyes narrowed very slightly.
“You can feel it.”
“Yes.”
“What?”
I pressed the armrest of the chair once with my fingertips.
“Where something will collapse first.”
Serena said nothing for a while.
Would she laugh it off as a joke,
cut it off as lunacy,
or take it as a lie?
I thought it would be one of those three.
But Serena did not.
“……You are aware that those words sound strange, yes?”
“Yes.”
“And yet you still say them.”
“I thought it would be better than turning it into a lie.”
At that, Serena tilted her head ever so slightly.
The thought that I was a strange man, and,
It was a face that showed she had also decided I wasn’t deliberately deceiving her, at least for now.
Good.
So it hasn’t gone completely wrong.
Serena lowered her gaze, thought for a moment, then asked again.
“About today.”
“It will look like an accident.”
“But it doesn’t look that way to you.”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
I took out the paper I had picked up from the floor earlier.
It was a single sheet mixed in among the student council’s guidance documents.
At a glance, it looked like an event preparation chart.
There were a few short items written on it, with check marks in a couple of places.
But the contents were strange.
It wasn’t an order of guidance,
but a note of who would stand where, and what would be moved when.
Omit confirmation of crest frame fastening
Place sealing-wax hot plate on the right
Fix representative signature position
One handover 담당 to stand by at the front
Rather than a notice, it was closer to an arrangement chart designed to make an accident likely.
Serena took the paper and read it to the end.
Her expression hardly changed as she read.
But at the last line, her fingertips stiffened ever so slightly.
“Where did you find this?”
“It was on the floor.”
“Among the student council guidance documents?”
“Yes.”
Serena folded the paper in half.
“Very well.”
That one low utterance already contained half a conclusion.
“We’ll have to confirm who handled this document.”
“It probably won’t end with just one person.”
Serena immediately lifted her gaze.
“Why do you think that?”
“This.”
I took out the fastening pin I had been holding and set it on the table.
“Can’t be done alone.”
Serena picked up the fastening pin.
She looked at the worn cross-section, then looked back at me.
“The decorative frame.”
“Yes.”
“The sealing-wax hot plate.”
“Yes.”
“And even the student who came carrying the ledger.”
Good.
She’s quick.
Serena set the fastening pin down and took a step toward the window.
Sunlight brushed over the back of her hand.
I could see a thin layer of callus there.
Details like that are what make people more exhausting.
Because they’re proof that even someone who looks perfect isn’t entirely ornamental.
“There’s also the possibility that student simply slipped by chance.”
Serena spoke quietly.
“But this pin was not chance.”
“Yes.”
“And neither was the document.”
She let out a short breath.
“In other words, someone planted an accident inside my schedule.”
“That would be the proper way to look at it.”
Serena moved straight to the next question.
“Do you think the entrance ceremony was the same?”
Good.
She goes right there.
I didn’t nod at once.
“I don’t know if it was the same method.”
“But?”
“The smell was similar.”
Serena narrowed her eyes.
“The smell again.”
“Yes.”
“Specifically.”
For a moment, I recalled the exterior wall beneath the laboratory building last night.
The second gap beside the drainage groove.
The air leaking from under the stone.
The smell of smothered ash.
And today, in the corridor, the heat-soaked resin and the thin soot that had risen into the air.
“It smelled like traces burned to hide something.”
Serena didn’t understand immediately.
Instead, her face showed she was turning those words over in her mind once.
“There was a smell like that at the entrance ceremony too?”
“Yes.”
“And today as well.”
“Yes.”
“And.”
Serena asked slowly.
“You’re saying you think the student council schedule and something else are connected?”
Good.
Now this is the truly important point.
I can’t say here that it’s the same hand.
That would be a conclusion ahead of what I have.
“I’m not sure.”
Silence settled for a moment.
Students’ voices could be heard outside the window.
From afar came the sounds of a school where nothing had happened.
Serena was the first to turn her gaze away.
“Very well.”
For something said with a face that did not look well at all, it was strangely decisive.
“I will look into today’s incident separately.”
“Officially?”
“If I move officially, it will be covered up at once.”
So she knows that much.
“Then unofficially.”
“I need to look at the student council records first.”
Serena looked back at me.
“You’ve been looking in the same direction since earlier.”
“What do you mean?”
“Records over people.”
Good.
That one stings a little.
I moved my shoulders just slightly.
“People lie.”
“Records do too.”
“Yes. But they leave evidence.”
At those words, Serena almost smiled, very briefly, then didn’t.
The corner of her mouth rose minutely before settling back down.
By that person’s standards, that was quite a large reaction.
“Your explanations are lacking.”
Serena said.
“And what you say is suspicious.”
“I know.”
“And yet, strangely, you are helpful.”