It was before morning class.
Minjun entered the classroom early. The reason was simple. If he sat down early, no one would speak to him first. This was experience he had accumulated in the workplace. It felt unnatural to start a conversation with the first person to take a seat. People usually joined an existing flow; they did not try to create one from the beginning.
He was Isabel. If the young lady of the Ester family was sitting there early in the morning, the other students would be even less likely to speak to her first.
It was a perfect plan.
He sat by the window. Set down his bag. Took out his notebook. Then looked outside. Light was settling over the morning campus. Early light, falling at almost a right angle. Within that light, the dew was drying. Beaded on the leaves, then quietly disappearing when the light touched it.
‘If I watch this, five minutes just vanish.’
---
The students began to come in.
Minjun looked out the window and listened to the classroom fill. The sound of chairs, the sound of bags being set down, low voices. Then a familiar kind of gaze arrived.
On the opposite side from the window. Chloe Armand took her seat and looked this way.
Their eyes met. Chloe did not look away. If she had looked away immediately, it would have been coincidence. Because she did not, it was intentional. It was only a brief moment, but there was something in it. A searching look. A gaze that remembered walking together yesterday.
Minjun was the first to turn his gaze back out the window.
Even after thirty seconds, he could feel Chloe’s gaze still directed this way. The temperature of a gaze touching his skin was different. The gazes from the Ester sphere of influence and Chloe’s gaze were different. It was strange to say the temperature was different. There was no way a gaze could have temperature. And yet he felt it.
‘It’s a ventilation problem. They keep the windows closed to save energy, that’s why.’
Then another kind of gaze arrived.
This time, it came from the hallway.
Sylvia Kant was standing in front of the classroom door. She had not come in yet. She held a file in her hand. But she was not looking at the file. She was looking this way. Precisely this way.
Her eyes met Minjun’s.
Sylvia’s gaze was the same as it had been yesterday in the library. But today, something inside it had changed. There was no movement of avoidance or concealment. She was looking while knowing that she was looking.
One second. Two seconds. Sylvia was the first to withdraw her gaze. She entered the classroom and sat diagonally from Minjun.
Minjun opened his notebook.
‘I feel like I’m sitting in some strange position right now.’
---
Class ended around noon.
A short break began. Most of the students headed toward the dining hall. Minjun remained in his seat. If he moved, he would end up running into people. If he stayed seated, the people he would run into had to come to him. A passive position was not necessarily a bad thing. Of course, if someone actually came, it lost its meaning.
“Lady Ester.”
It was Sylvia.
She did not sit in the seat beside Minjun, but stood there. Her posture was upright. Her shoulders were straight and her back was erect. The student council armband was on her arm. The collar of her uniform wrapped neatly around her neck. Above that collar, her jawline formed a clear angle. When she tilted her head slightly to look at Minjun, the line of her neck beside the collar was revealed. The line running from her neck to her collarbone. She was someone whose uniform collar had not become even slightly disheveled despite spending the entire morning class in the classroom.
“Yesterday in the library.”
“I remember.”
Sylvia lowered her eyes for a moment.
“I thought again about what I said.”
“Which part?”
“That I wanted to know the reason. And that I didn’t know.”
Minjun looked at Sylvia.
There was tension in her eyes. The muscles used by someone managing their expression were slightly taut. He could sense that after leaving the library yesterday, she had tried to sort something out. Whether that sorting had gone well still needed confirmation.
“And so?”
“The fact that I need to know the reason hasn’t changed.”
“Why?”
A brief silence fell.
“I still don’t know that either.”
She had said she did not know twice. And both times, it was not a lie. This person’s expression changed when she admitted she did not know. Very subtly. As if the inside of her gaze softened.
---
It was at that moment.
“Lady Ester, there you are.”
Chloe’s voice sounded.
It came from the classroom door. Chloe stood there holding two small cups. Herbal tea. Something handed out by the academy kitchen. Chloe had brought two of them. One for herself, and one for—
Chloe’s gaze reached Minjun. Then she looked at Sylvia.
She saw Minjun and Sylvia beside each other.
At that moment, something passed across Chloe’s face. Very quickly. In an instant. Too brief to be called an expression. But Minjun saw it.
The corners of her eyes narrowed for about half a second, then returned to normal.
‘What was that?’
Chloe walked over. Naturally. As if Sylvia were not there. The very act of behaving as though Sylvia were not there meant she was conscious of Sylvia.
“I brought tea. I thought something warm would be nice before lunch.”
She placed the cup in front of Minjun. Only after she finished speaking did she look at Sylvia. Her gaze was gentle. It was always gentle. But beneath that gentleness, there was something. Like tea with sugar dissolved in it. Sweet, yet beneath that sweetness, another taste.
“Lady Kant, you were here as well.”
“Miss Armand.”
The two of them faced each other.
---
Golden eyes looked at green eyes.
Green eyes looked at golden eyes.
Minjun was between them. The two gazes passed each other and turned toward him at the same time. They were aimed in the same direction. From the same direction, two pairs of eyes were looking at him.
‘Can I report this to the Labor Ministry? The psychological pressure is too much.’
Minjun picked up the cup of tea.
It was warm. Warmth transferred into his palm. It was the kind of temperature that made him feel Chloe had carried it here from the kitchen in both hands.
‘……Since when did she start bringing mine too?’
Sylvia opened her mouth.
“If I’m interrupting, I’ll take my leave first.”
Her voice was flat. A voice without emotion. But he could feel that she was suppressing something in order to maintain that flatness. Her shoulders were drawn back ever so slightly. The line beneath the shoulder seam of her uniform had shifted a little.
“No.”
Chloe spoke. Her voice was still warm.
“If you had something to discuss with Lady Ester, please continue.”
The words were kind. Perfectly kind. But that kindness had an edge somewhere. In the part that said if you had something to discuss. As though the fact that they had been talking meant it was now over.
Sylvia picked up her file.
“I have class preparations to make.”
With only those words, she turned around.
Her footsteps receded at regular intervals. The door closed. After that sound, only Minjun and Chloe remained in the classroom.
Chloe lifted her own cup and took a sip.
She said nothing. She looked out the window. The early afternoon light was coming through the window. Within that light, Chloe’s profile caught the glow. Her golden hair shifted color in the light. And at the corners of her mouth was a very small expression, one that almost did not exist at all.
Minjun looked at the corners of her mouth.
‘That expression is gentle—so why is it scary?’
---
It was the afternoon free period.
After class ended, there was a short stretch of time before returning to the dormitory. Minjun was sitting on a bench in the campus courtyard. Isabel’s body stood out strangely even outdoors. No matter the angle, the way the light touched her silver hair was different. Minjun did not like that. He was sitting there trying not to stand out, but it felt as if he stood out even more.
A gust of wind passed beside the bench.
Her silver hair flowed to one side. The line of her neck on the opposite side was revealed. Whether it was visible or not, Minjun did not care. The campus courtyard was empty.
Footsteps sounded.
‘Guess it wasn’t empty.’
It was Sylvia. She was alone. She was walking while holding a file to her chest. It looked as though she was on her way somewhere for student council work. But her route was strange. The student council room was in the opposite direction from the main building. The direction Sylvia was walking now was this courtyard.
Sylvia noticed Minjun. Her steps slowed for a moment. Then returned to an even pace.
‘Was she conscious of me, or not?’
Sylvia passed in front of Minjun’s bench. She did not stop. But at the moment she passed by, her gaze came to him. It was brief. An instant. But Minjun saw what was inside that gaze.
It was the look of someone who had been about to say something, then had not.
Sylvia continued walking.
Minjun watched her back. Her short black hair swayed lightly at her shoulders. The waistline of her uniform was visible. Her back was straight. The line from her shoulders to her waist changed ever so slightly with each step. Sylvia was someone who did not waver even when she walked, but within that straightness, there was something now. As if her shoulders were raised by about 0.1 degrees more than usual. That level of difference.
‘I can see from here that there’s strength in the hand holding that file.’
The fingers gripping the corner of the file had turned white. Sylvia walked all the way to the end of the courtyard without looking back. She turned the corner and disappeared.
Minjun looked forward again.
The courtyard was quiet once more.
‘What she tried to say during class earlier but didn’t, she also didn’t say just now as she passed by.’
‘I don’t know what it is.’
‘I feel like I know what it is, but I don’t want to know.’
The wind passed once again. Her silver hair scattered, then settled back over her shoulders.
The evening light was beginning to slant. Orange spread across the entire courtyard. Within that light, the empty courtyard was quiet. The fact that no one was there felt clearer than before.
He decided not to analyze the reason.