It was by a corridor window overlooking the courtyard.
Minjun leaned his back against the window frame and was about to open his notebook when he stopped. Below the window, he could see the courtyard bench. There was someone on it.
It was Chloe Armand.
She was sitting with a book resting on her lap. Her head was lowered. The motion of her turning the pages was slow. It was the pace of someone thinking, not reading. From this height, from this downward angle, the back of Chloe’s head and her neck were visible. Her blond bob brushed just below her ears. Since there was no wind in the courtyard, her hair did not move. With her head bowed, the line of her neck looked longer. The line that ran from the nape of her neck into the inside of her collar was clear from this angle. Her shoulders were drawn in narrowly. In the way a person thinking about something draws their shoulders in.
Chloe turned a page.
Her wrist moved with the motion. The wrist emerging from the end of her sleeve paused briefly over the book, then lowered again. From this height, he could not see it in detail. And yet his gaze kept returning there, as if pulled toward it.
A gust of wind passed through the courtyard.
Chloe’s blond hair stirred. The ends of her bob swept from beneath her ears toward her neck, then returned to their place once the wind had passed. In that instant, the line of her neck changed. It was the moment her hair blew back behind her ear, revealing the side of her neck. The line that ran from her neck to her shoulder. With her head bowed, the angle of that line was different. Light fell over her shoulder and flowed along it.
Chloe did not know. Down below, she was looking at her book.
From the angle above, the back of Chloe’s jacket was visible. The shoulder seams sat neatly in place. Beneath those seams, her back continued down. When Chloe leaned a little forward—whether to look more closely at the book, or because she lowered her head slightly following the hair blown by the wind—the jacket followed that movement. The shoulder seams shifted, then returned.
Minjun pulled his gaze away from the window.
‘Checking the courtyard through the window is route reconnaissance. It is not checking on Chloe.’
Minjun shifted his gaze straight ahead from the window.
---
He sat down in the lounge area at the end of the corridor. Since it was class time, no one was there. He opened his notebook.
The notes he had taken during today’s magic theory class filled three pages. Three activation conditions for magic circles. Standards for attribute classification. A diagram of the basic structure of a magic circle.
He opened to the first page.
The professor had paused for 0.5 seconds at the third activation condition. The attribute affinity between the caster and the magic circle. Minjun remembered that pause. He had yet to confirm what Isabel’s attribute was. If he were Isabel, he would have known. Minjun did not.
‘There’s no way to access the Ester family records.’
It would be strange for Isabel von Ester to look up her own attribute in the library. There would be no noble young lady who did not know her own attribute. Only Minjun did not know.
The second page. The standards for attribute classification were written there. Fire, water, earth, wind, light, and darkness. Six in total. The professor had covered light and darkness last. Rare attributes. He had said their manifestation rate was low and that they were difficult to control.
Chloe Armand’s attribute was light.
That was how it had been in the original work. He had not written that fact in his notebook. There was no need to. And yet, without writing it down, he remembered it.
‘My memory is good in all the useless ways.’
Outside the window, the light was slanting. It was the angle of light that marked the passage from afternoon into evening. That light came through the corridor window and made an oblique line across the notebook. The line of light lay over the writing in his notebook. Attribute classification standards. Light attribute. Chloe Armand.
The three words were beneath the same light.
Minjun closed the notebook. The light was closed with it.
‘You shouldn’t create patterns when there’s no data.’
He organized his thoughts. He had organized them, and yet the line of light stamped across his notebook would not disappear from his eyes.
---
Voices came from the corridor.
It seemed class had ended. Students began to move. Minjun was about to close his notebook, then stopped.
“Lady Armand was alone again.”
“I know. She’s always alone.”
“Did you hear Lady Ester just walked right past her on the stairs? She didn’t say a word.”
“Really? Isn’t that even scarier? Not saying anything.”
The voices grew distant.
Minjun remained seated where he was.
The rumor was already spreading. The encounter on the stairs. Six witnesses. And the rumor was flowing in the direction of “Isabel ignored Chloe.” Not saying anything was even scarier. That interpretation was not exactly wrong. For Isabel von Ester, silence would have been an expression of contempt.
That was not what Minjun had intended.
‘I didn’t think about how that would have sounded to Chloe.’
He remembered Chloe sitting alone on the bench outside the window earlier. The way she had sat alone with her shoulders drawn in and her head bowed. It had looked like the posture of someone swallowing something down.
Minjun stopped that interpretation. If he attached a pattern to what he did not know, he would be wrong.
‘If I don’t know, then I don’t know.’
He adjusted the strap of his bag.
---
It was just as he was about to stand up with his bag.
Footsteps came from the corridor. Evenly spaced. Steps coming without stopping. Those footsteps halted in front of the lounge area.
It was Sylvia Kant.
She stood there holding a file in one hand. A student council armband was on her arm. She lifted her head slightly and looked at Minjun. At that angle, the line of her neck was revealed above her collar. The collar wrapped neatly around her neck, but with the motion of lifting her head, the front line of her neck changed for a moment. The line from her jaw to her neck. The light was falling at an angle toward that spot.
Sylvia’s posture as she stood was upright. Her shoulders were straight. Her back was so erect that simply standing there gave her a firm impression. The fingers of the hand holding the file gripped the corner tightly. The line from that hand to her wrist. The boundary where the end of her sleeve met her wrist. As Sylvia extended the file, her sleeve slipped down slightly. The inside was briefly revealed, then covered again.
Sylvia was not conscious of it. Because she was looking only at Minjun.
“Lady Ester.”
“……Lady Kant.”
Sylvia held the file out toward him.
“This is a letter the Ester family requested be delivered to you.”
It was a letter. A seal had been stamped on it. The crest of the Ester family. Minjun accepted it. The pressure of the seal reached his fingertips. It had been pressed down firmly. A seal stamped by someone who had put strength into it.
“When did it arrive?”
“This morning. It was delivered to the student council through the academy.”
Sylvia said only that much. Whether she had seen the contents or not could not be read from her expression. Her golden eyes briefly lowered toward the hand holding the file. To the way Minjun held the letter. Then they rose again.
“I apologize for the delay in delivering it.”
Sylvia turned to leave, then stopped.
It was one second. She stopped just before the motion of turning away was fully completed. The fingers of the hand holding the file moved slightly. Whether she was about to say something more, or had decided not to say it. That distinction existed within that one second.
Then she turned completely.
Her footsteps receded at even intervals.
Minjun looked at the letter. He looked at the seal. The Ester family.
Without knowing what was written inside the seal, his fingertips stopped over it.
It was then.
Footsteps sounded again from the corridor. This time, they were a different kind. Steps neither fast nor slow. The pace of someone thinking as they walked. Minjun did not raise his head. He was looking at the letter.
The footsteps did not stop in front of this space and passed by.
Then they came back.
It was Chloe.
She stood at the entrance to the corridor. She was looking this way. She had a book in her hand. It was the same book she had been holding earlier in the courtyard. Chloe looked at Minjun. She looked at the letter in Minjun’s hand. The letter stamped with the Ester family seal.
Something passed over Chloe’s face. Very quickly. In an instant. It was an expression difficult to read.
“Lady Ester.”
“…….”
“Has word come from your family?”
It was a question, but it did not sound like one. She asked as though she knew. Or as though she had guessed.
Minjun looked at Chloe.
Chloe’s green eyes were looking at Isabel. From the letter, then to Isabel’s face. From this distance, the evening light from the window illuminated Chloe’s profile. Her blond hair took on an orange glow. The line of her neck exposed above her collar changed as it received the light. The line from her neck to her shoulder became clearer within the light. He could see strength entering the hand with which Chloe held the book. The tendons on the back of her hand stood out slightly, then sank back down.
The Ester family did not ask for opinions. They issued notices.
There was such a fragment in Isabel’s memory. Even without memories, it was one of the things the body knew. What kind of letters Duke Ester sent Isabel—and how Isabel’s body had reacted when those letters arrived. There was a way of tensing. A tension that began at the fingertips the moment she received the seal and climbed all the way to her shoulders.
It was there even now.
It was not Minjun’s tension, but the tension remembered by Isabel’s body.
Holding the letter, he sat back down in the chair in the lounge area. He looked at the seal. The crest of the Ester family. Without knowing what was written inside that crest, the tips of his fingers stopped over the seal.
‘In twelve years of office life, being summoned by the department head was never a good thing.’
‘This is probably that kind of thing too.’
Outside the window, the afternoon light was slanting. The shadows in the courtyard were growing long. He could see the bench where Chloe had been sitting until a short while ago. There was no one there now.
The coldness of the seal remained at his fingertips.
He had to tear it open. But the fact that he had become someone who first thought about what would come out after he tore it open was something different from the Minjun before he entered this body.
He tore it open.
The letter unfolded. There was one line.
「You will attend the upcoming Crown Prince’s banquet as the representative of the Ester family.」
Minjun read that one line twice.
‘The Crown Prince’s banquet.’
Lucian von Reisen. The person who had spoken to him directly in class. And the Ester family was sending Isabel there.
‘It’s better than overtime, but it feels like a situation worse than getting stabbed.’