Class was over.
The moment the professor finished writing the last line on the board, Minjun was already closing his notebook.
'I used to be the type whose concentration peaked right before clocking out. Looks like this body is the same.'
The classroom began to stir. Twenty-two students. Still seated, Minjun quickly organized the mental chart in his head. He had figured out more than expected during today’s one-hour class.
The faction directly under the Duke of Esther’s influence — the three seats on the left side of the front row. Even during class, they had checked Isabel’s direction more than twice. Judging by their reaction speed, their loyalty was high, but whether it was voluntary or obligatory remained undecided. In corporate terms, they were similar to a direct reporting line. They moved without orders, but if the direction wavered, they would be the first to break away.
The neutral faction — most of the middle rows. Students who looked neither to Isabel nor Chloe. This side was actually more dangerous. When the wind changed, they would be the first to turn. He had seen enough of those people over twelve years of late nights at work. The type that sat in middle management, watching the higher-ups and the people below them at the same time. They never moved first. And once someone else moved first, they all followed in the next instant.
And at the end of the row by the window.
Chloe Armand.
'She’s still looking.'
Without turning his gaze, Minjun tidied his pen case. Isabel’s eyes were facing forward, but at the edge of her vision, Chloe’s position was caught. She was still looking this way. Those eyes held neither fear nor anger.
They were eyes like someone reading a report.
'I’ve seen that look at work. New hires look like that when they’re trying to figure out a senior. But when a new hire uses that look on a senior, it’s usually one of two things. Either they’re genuinely exceptional talent, or they still haven’t grasped the situation.'
By the standards of the original work, Chloe Armand was the former.
Minjun did not particularly like that fact.
The students began getting up one by one and leaving the classroom. Minjun was about to stand up as well.
The sound of a chair being pulled back came from right beside him.
Chloe Armand was walking over from the end seat of the classroom. Minjun’s row. The empty chair beside Minjun’s seat.
'……No way.'
Chloe sat down there.
Silently. Naturally. As if she had intended to sit there from the very beginning.
---
That seat had been empty throughout the entire class today.
Minjun only now recalled that fact. The seat to his right had been empty throughout the whole class. Was it an unwritten rule that no one sat to Isabel’s right? Or had Chloe deliberately left it empty?
'If it’s the latter, then this person is the type to move with a plan.'
Chloe placed her bag on her knees and folded her hands together. Her posture was upright. The collar of her uniform top lay neatly along the line of her neck. Inside that collar, just below where the collar ended — the shallow curve of her collarbone where light gathered briefly appeared, then was hidden by the fabric.
Her golden hair flowed forward and covered one shoulder. The opposite shoulder was revealed. The shoulder seam drew an exact line, and below it, the sleeve came down to her elbow. From below the elbow to the wrist, a line that looked different depending on the angle from which one viewed it.
Minjun looked straight ahead.
'Don’t look. If you look to the side, you’ll give her what she wants.'
But his senses were more precise than sight. The warmth of someone sitting right beside him. The sound of breathing. Something faint coming over her shoulder — whether it was the scent of soap or the breeze from the campus, he could not tell — reached Isabel’s nose.
'This is an invasion of personal space in the workplace. There has to be a clause about this somewhere in labor law.'
“Lady Esther.”
Chloe spoke first.
Her voice was close. Much closer than he had expected.
Minjun turned only his eyes to the side.
Chloe Armand’s face was far closer than expected. Were the gaps between the seats originally this narrow, or had she pulled her chair closer? Her golden eyes were looking straight at Isabel. Without wavering. Sunlight came in through the window and struck those golden eyes at a slant. The parts touched by light and the parts untouched by it coexisted within the same eyes.
'……I know I shouldn’t look at this, and yet I’m looking.'
“May I speak with you privately today?”
Her tone sounded less like speech and more like she was presenting him with a choice.
Minjun tried to find a reason to refuse. He couldn’t.
'What justification does Isabel have to refuse meeting Chloe? None. Actually, refusing would look even stranger.'
“……Speak.”
Chloe lowered her eyes for a moment, then raised them again.
“Thank you for what happened in the hallway the other day.”
It was brief. That brevity, if anything, carried weight.
Upon hearing those words, Minjun froze completely for 0.3 seconds.
“And――” Chloe continued. “Right now, I am trying to understand what kind of person Lady Esther is.”
'Understand?'
“I do not remember,” Minjun said. “What happened in the hallway.”
Chloe’s eyes narrowed for an instant.
It was a look that said she did not accept that. But she did not argue.
Silence fell.
The classroom was now almost empty. He heard the footsteps of the last few students leaving. The sound of the door closing.
And after that sound, only Isabel and Chloe remained in the classroom.
'……When did it end up like this?'
Minjun swiftly assessed the situation. An empty classroom. Chloe sitting beside him. He did not know what expression was on Isabel’s face. Chloe had closed the distance, and he had not retreated.
'This is at the level where I’d need to submit an incident report to HR.'
Chloe’s hand was resting on the desk.
The back of her hand was visible. Her fingers were neatly gathered. Long, even fingers. Light passed between them. Her sleeve came down over the upper part of her wrist, so only up to that line was visible. The boundary where the end of the sleeve met the wrist. The problem was that his eyes stopped at that boundary.
'I’m not looking at the line of that wrist. I’m looking at the desk right now. I’m appraising the material of the desk.'
Chloe said,
“Lady Isabel.”
It was that form of address. Not young lady, not Esther — Isabel.
“What do you think of me?”
---
Something in Minjun’s head went rigid.
'This is a reverse interview question.'
Something like, “Is there anything you’d like to say about our company?” during an interview. The question that flustered interviewers the most. If you weren’t prepared, you usually did one of two things. Spouted nonsense, or said nothing at all. In his twelve-year career, he had never been on the receiving end of this. He had always been the one asking.
'How am I supposed to answer this?'
Chloe Armand was waiting. Without hurrying. Her golden eyes did not leave Isabel’s face. The front of her uniform top drew taut ever so slightly each time she inhaled, then loosened. It meant she was nervous. But it did not show on her face. She was the type who did not reveal tension through expression. Her body spoke first.
Minjun noticed that fact and immediately withdrew his gaze.
'Isn’t this a violation of the Occupational Safety and Health Act? Having someone who looks like that sit this close.'
“I don’t know.”
Minjun said.
It was an honest answer. Of course, Chloe would take its meaning in a different way. It wasn’t that he had yet to sort out what Isabel von Esther thought of Chloe Armand — it was that Minjun himself had not sorted out what he thought of Chloe first.
She was the enemy in the original work. And yet yesterday, they had eaten together. And today, she had watched Isabel. And now, she was sitting beside him, looking into Isabel’s eyes.
He couldn’t sort it out.
'In twelve years of workplace experience, I’ve never had a case like this. There’s no protocol.'
Chloe lowered her eyes for a moment. Then raised them.
“I see.”
That was all she said.
“That’s all right, too.”
Those words followed after.
Minjun tried to interpret what they meant, then gave up. If he interpreted them, it would become a situation where he had to give an answer.
That was when he felt a gaze.
From the direction of the door.
A gaze looking into the classroom from the hallway.
It was Sylvia Kant.
A face half visible through the gap in the door. Her black bob rested against her shoulders. Golden eyes — were looking precisely this way. At Isabel. And Chloe. And the distance between the two of them. And the two hands placed on the desk.
Their eyes met.
Sylvia was holding something in her hand. A notebook.
She wrote something in that notebook.
One line.
Then turned away.
Her footsteps receded beyond the hallway.
---
Chloe seemed not to have seen that direction.
Because she had been looking only at Minjun.
“Lady Esther?”
Chloe called.
Minjun withdrew his gaze from the door. Chloe was waiting. That question was still suspended in the air. Unretracted.
'What do you think of me, Lady Isabel?'
“…….”
Minjun knew he could not answer this question honestly.
Beyond the window, the afternoon light was slanting. That light drew long, diagonal lines across the classroom floor. Dust drifted within the light. It was a sight only visible in an empty classroom. Things that could not be seen when there were many people became clear in empty spaces.
Minjun realized that Chloe’s hand was still on the desk.
Isabel’s hand was on the desk as well.
The distance between the two hands was — perhaps about a handspan.
Neither of them moved away.
Not Chloe.
Not Isabel.
In the empty classroom, the afternoon light came through the window at an angle. Within that light, Chloe’s golden hair briefly glittered, then grew quiet as the light passed by. That light also passed over the two hands on the desk. Over Chloe’s hand, and over Isabel’s hand.
A handspan.
That distance neither shrank nor widened.
Minjun looked down at that handspan.
'What’s the right way to end this?'
No one answered.