It was rare for Isabel to be called on in magic theory class.
From the moment the professor looked down at the attendance sheet, Minjun knew. That subtle pause that appeared when a professor’s eyes stopped on a particular name. A 1.5-second silence. The same 1.5 seconds he had experienced dozens of times in meeting rooms over twelve years of overtime, right before someone was picked to present.
‘It’s me.’
“Isabel von Ester.”
The professor spoke.
The classroom went quiet.
Minjun closed his notebook. Isabel’s bodily memory operated automatically. The motion of pushing the chair back and standing. The angle at which her shoulders straightened. The way her gaze fixed forward. Her body moved first, and Minjun simply rode along on top of it as he went forward.
‘I didn’t prepare a presentation. What am I supposed to show?’
The professor explained. “First-half practical magic demonstration — we will measure Lady Ester’s basic output compared to the beginning of the semester.”
‘Output measurement. So I just have to use magic.’
He knew Isabel could use magic. It was in Isabel’s memories. Fire-attribute magic. High output, low precision.
‘The low precision is just how Isabel originally was, not my fault.’
He stood at the front of the classroom.
---
The classroom spread out below him.
Twenty-two gazes were directed his way. Some eyes were expectant, some were appraising, and some were — simply watching. Since the semester had begun, Minjun had felt several times that when Isabel stood at the front, the very air in the classroom changed. The weight carried by the name Isabel von Ester. Not something Minjun had created, but something already engraved into this space.
He tried not to look toward the window.
He looked.
Chloe Armand was holding the sleeves of her uniform jacket with both hands. The motion of rolling the ends of the sleeves between her fingers, then smoothing them out again. It seemed to be a habit when she was nervous. Her gaze was fixed this way. Her lips were parted ever so slightly. The gap of someone holding their breath.
Minjun realized he had grasped that fact in unnecessarily vivid detail and immediately withdrew his gaze.
‘My heart is beating fast because I’m nervous before magic output. Definitely. There’s no other reason.’
He raised his hand.
Isabel’s bodily memory guided him. Palm forward. Focus the mind. Feel the flow of mana.
But — something was different.
The way Minjun focused his mind was different from the method in Isabel’s memories. Isabel was the type to use emotions as fuel. Anger, pride, desire for superiority. Minjun had none of that. He was someone trained over thirty-seven years to suppress those emotions in order to achieve work objectives.
‘Then what do I use as fuel?’
It was the memory of a deadline. The night before a report submission. Twelve hours of overtime. That concentration in the moment he placed his hands on the keyboard. Thinking of nothing else. Seeing only the numbers on the screen. Everything converging there. He drew that sensation in.
Something began to grow hot in his hand.
---
Light came first.
It was not flame. It was the stage before flame blossomed — the instant the air took heat into itself. A heat that began at his palm and climbed up to his wrist, his elbow, his shoulder. Isabel’s silver hair swelled upward. Though no one had touched it. It was the current created by the heat.
Isabel’s hair floated up against gravity.
Her long silver hair, which had fallen to her waist, flowed from below to above. The nape of her neck was revealed. As her hair swept up behind her ears, the line of her neck — the line that continued from her throat to her shoulder — was exposed to the entire classroom. For the first time, the students in the front row saw that line continuing to the back of her shoulder from this close.
Her eyes. They were deep red even normally, but when she concentrated her mana, light formed inside those pupils. Red light. A color that grew clearer in the dark. A color that made one unable to look away, even while knowing one should.
And then the flame bloomed.
It began above his palm and stretched vertically toward the ceiling. The measuring magic circle reacted. The professor checked the numbers.
The classroom was completely silent.
Minjun cut off the flow of mana.
Her hair fell back down. The line of her neck was hidden again. The light vanished.
Isabel’s face returned to an ordinary face. A face that was strange to call ordinary, but at least less overwhelming than it had been one minute ago, when she was holding flame in her hand.
‘……Ah, I was the one who did that.’
“Output has increased twenty-seven percent compared to the beginning of the semester. Isabel von Ester, you may return to your seat.”
The professor’s voice sounded.
Twenty-seven percent. Minjun processed that number as he returned to his seat.
‘Is this something I can put on my performance evaluation?’
---
On the way back to his seat, Minjun tried not to look at Chloe.
He looked.
Chloe was looking this way.
Minjun knew she must have been looking like that the entire time Isabel had stood at the lectern. Because — Chloe’s pupils had followed Isabel’s position exactly. All throughout the walk back to his seat. Her gaze arrived faster than his steps.
Chloe pressed her lips together slightly, then relaxed them.
She said nothing.
But her eyes were speaking. Chloe Armand’s eyes were saying something, and Minjun failed to interpret exactly what it was until the end of class.
‘I’ll think about it later. Right now, sitting down comes first.’
Class ended.
The students began to stand. Minjun also picked up his bag. He thought it would be better to leave quickly. On days like today, strange conversations tended to arise. After using magic at the lectern, people wanted to talk to you. That pattern existed in Isabel’s memories.
He was about to head out toward the corridor when a male student came up beside him.
He was one of the students in the front row within the sphere of influence of House Ester. There was a name for him in Isabel’s memories. Lucas.
“Lady Ester, today’s demonstration was impressive. If I might have the opportunity to speak with you—”
It was at that moment.
Chloe Armand was right beside Minjun.
He had no idea when she had come. He had not heard footsteps. She was simply — there at some point. Beside Isabel’s right elbow, in precisely that spot. Standing with her bag held in one hand, looking straight ahead.
Lucas stopped speaking.
Chloe said nothing. She did not even look at Lucas. She merely stood beside Isabel and looked straight ahead. There was no expression on her face. No emotion at all.
And yet that expressionlessness was doing something.
Lucas said, “……I will speak with you another time,” and withdrew.
Chloe looked straight ahead until he turned and left. Once he had completely disappeared into the corridor, Chloe adjusted her grip on the strap of her bag. There was no hurry at all in the motion.
Then she looked toward Isabel.
Their eyes met.
The corner of Chloe’s mouth moved ever so slightly.
He could not tell whether it was a smile or not.
Her eyes were not smiling.
The way those eyes looked at Isabel — was exactly the same as the way she had looked at the lectern during the magic demonstration.
---
Minjun stood frozen in place for several seconds.
‘She just did something, but I can’t explain exactly what I saw.’
She had done nothing. Not a single word, not a single action. She had simply stood there.
And yet Lucas had backed off.
‘What principle is this operating on?’
Chloe adjusted her bag on her shoulder. The strap pressed down on one shoulder, and the opposite shoulder naturally rose. The asymmetry of her shoulders became clear along the seams of her uniform. The line of her collarbone inside the collar briefly changed angle with the movement. It was obvious Chloe was unaware of that direction. If she had known, she would not have done it so naturally.
Minjun turned his eyes away.
‘Visual pollution in the workplace. Potential violation of the Occupational Safety and Health Act. Planning to report to the Ministry of Employment and Labor.’
“Will you be going with me, Lady Ester?”
Chloe asked.
Minjun was entirely unprepared for that question.
“……Let us do that.”
The words came first. Before Minjun could decide, Isabel’s mouth answered on its own.
‘When do I turn off the bodily memory auto-reply function?’
Chloe walked first.
Minjun walked beside her.
As they passed through the door into the corridor, Minjun tried to organize, in no particular order, the things he had seen during class today. The way Chloe looked at Isabel. The way Chloe’s lips had parted when the line of Isabel’s neck was revealed at the lectern. The way she had come and stood beside him without a word when Lucas tried to speak to him.
If he made a list, he could analyze it. That was something he had learned from work experience. If emotions would not process, first turn them into a list.
But no list would form.
There was one reason.
While Chloe Armand was walking right beside him — analysis was impossible.
Minjun decided not to think about the reason.
Afternoon light came in through the corridor windows.
The light settled on Chloe’s golden hair, then swayed with her steps. Her stride was slightly shorter than Isabel’s. A distance that did not look quite like they were walking side by side. Yet it did not look as though she was following, either.
Minjun could not decide whether Chloe had calculated that distance, or whether it had come naturally.
‘If she’s the calculating type, then it was calculated. If it came naturally — that’s even scarier.’
At the end of the corridor, the stairs appeared. Chloe went down first. Her golden hair moved in time with her steps down the stairs. One strand slipped behind her ear, then fell back down again.
Minjun watched her back from the top of the stairs.
‘I shouldn’t have looked.’
Chloe turned back halfway down the stairs.
“Lady Ester, you should come down.”
There was something in her voice. It was not laughter. And yet it was something close to laughter.
Minjun went down the stairs.
When he had stood atop the lectern during class today — when Isabel’s hair had floated upward and light had formed inside her eyes — the moment Chloe Armand’s lips parted and her breath stopped was still left unprocessed.
As for why that was, he thought it would be better not to analyze it right now.