On the second day at the academy, Chloe Armand spoke to her.
It was lunchtime.
Minjun sat alone by the window, looking down at his tray. It was a full-course meal. From appetizer to dessert. Considering that when he had been working, lunch had meant convenience-store triangle gimbap, this was practically welfare. Through the window, he could see the garden. It was quiet. Nice.
While he was thinking that, someone sat down across from him.
He looked up.
Short blond hair. Green eyes. A small, neat face.
It was Chloe Armand.
As she set down her tray, she lifted her gaze. Her green eyes looked straight at Isabelle. Above the collar of her uniform, the line of her neck was slender and long. From the front, the line leading into her shoulders was visible. She sat with both hands placed on her lap. Her fingers were neatly aligned.
But in that seated position, her skirt had ridden up. Skirts rode up when one sat in a chair. He knew that, but it was an angle he was seeing for the first time. As Chloe sat, her skirt rose toward her thighs above her knees. The inner line was visible beneath the table. Chloe did not seem conscious of it. She sat with both hands on her lap, and the way the skirt spread beneath those hands was natural.
Minjun looked down at his tray.
“Judgment reserved.”
“……If it would not be discourteous, may I sit here?”
It was a strange order of events to ask permission after already sitting down, but he decided to let it pass.
“Do as you like.”
---
Chloe did not move.
He glanced at her. Chloe sat with both hands placed on her lap. Her lips opened slightly, then closed. She looked as though she was about to say something but was holding back. When she breathed in, her shoulders rose by the smallest amount. That inhale carried all the way to the front of her uniform. The front of her jacket pulled taut with her breath, then softened again as she swallowed her words and exhaled. In that instant, the shape around Chloe’s chest changed, then returned.
“I saw plenty of people like this at work. People who have something to say but can’t find the timing.”
“If you have something to say, say it.”
Chloe’s eyes widened slightly. The green wavered.
“……Lady Isabelle, why did you simply pass by yesterday?”
“It was a hassle.”
Chloe was silent for a moment.
“……It was a hassle for you.”
“Yeah.”
“Is that all?”
Minjun looked at Chloe.
Her green eyes were trembling. She was not frightened. She seemed confused. Her lips were slightly parted. From the angle at which she looked up at Isabelle, the corners of her eyes dipped faintly. From that angle, her lashes lowered downward. They were fine, short lashes.
When Chloe inhaled, the line of her neck lengthened slightly, then returned to its original length as she exhaled. That inhale reached the front of her jacket. It pulled taut, then loosened. Chloe was not conscious of it. She was focused only on Isabelle.
“Yeah. That’s all.”
Chloe slowly let out a breath. There was a table between them, but he could hear it. It sounded as though a little of her tension had escaped. Her shoulders dropped ever so slightly with it. He could see the strength leaving her fingertips as well. The fingers of the hands resting on her lap straightened a little. As they did, the position of her hands atop her skirt shifted slightly, and the skirt beneath them moved by a fraction.
Without showing any of it, Minjun stuck his fork into his dessert.
---
After that, Chloe ate.
She did not speak. Neither did Minjun. It was a quiet lunch, but strangely, it was not uncomfortable.
“I liked quiet lunches at the company, too.”
Chloe took a sip of water. Her wrist lifted as she raised the glass. The wrist emerging from the end of her sleeve was slender. As she tilted the glass, the inside of her wrist was revealed. When she set the glass down, her wrist touched the table first, and the way her fingertips were the last to leave the glass looked hesitant. Her fingers lingered on the glass for a moment before pulling away.
He glanced beneath the table. Chloe was seated there. In that posture, her skirt had ridden up. Chloe was not conscious of it. She was looking at her tray and eating quietly. That unconscious posture made it seem all the more natural. That boundary met the place where Chloe’s hands rested on her lap.
Minjun turned his gaze back to his tray.
“It’s the problem of a brain that spent thirty-seven years as a man. Completely.”
“I should request an inspection of the ventilation system.”
He could feel that Chloe was looking at something. Her gaze periodically came his way. The direction it touched was not his face, but a little lower. His neck. The line of his neck visible above the uniform collar, and the area around his collarbone.
He did not look back.
“This is a gaze-detection ability trained over twelve years. I know the direction.”
But the fact that it did not feel unpleasant was still strange. If the department head’s gaze had felt sticky and clinging, this was the kind that touched and immediately fell away. As if she was aware of it but could not bring herself to look properly, it came and disappeared in intervals.
Chloe took a sip of water. The hand setting down the glass was slender. When she let go of the glass, the way her fingertips were the last to touch it looked hesitant.
“…….”
Minjun ate his dessert. It was sweet.
---
The next day, and the day after that, Chloe came as well.
On the third day, Chloe sat across from him again. She sat without a word and quietly ate. Her hands trembled less than on the first day. She sat down more quickly, too. The number of times her gaze came his way increased.
Minjun observed all of it.
“Three days in a row means this is the habit-formation stage.”
Chloe put down her cutlery and looked out the window for a moment. Toward the garden. Sunlight came through the window and touched Chloe’s profile. Light pooled at the ends of her short blond hair. The line of her neck continued beneath it. When she looked toward the window, her head turned slightly, revealing the side line of her neck. Light lingered there for a moment.
And in that posture of looking out the window, Chloe leaned against the chair, her body tilting slightly forward. That tilt changed the front of her jacket. There was a way the area beneath her neck changed for a moment as the collar followed the tilt of her body. Chloe was looking outside. She was not looking this way. In that state, she breathed in. The front of her jacket pulled taut.
Minjun set down his fork.
“Wait. I’m a woman. It must be because I’m tired. It must be the ventilation.”
---
As the meal was ending, Chloe rose and spoke.
“……Will you be coming here tomorrow as well?”
“Who knows.”
“If it would be all right with you.”
Chloe stopped there. She did not finish her sentence. She waited.
“If you want something, say it to the end.”
Chloe’s shoulders rose by a hair. She lowered her gaze to her own tray, then turned it back to Isabelle. As the line of her neck dipped and rose again, the tips of the hair beneath her ears swayed slightly with the movement.
This time, her green eyes did not lower.
“……I would like to eat here tomorrow as well.”
It was the first time she had spoken while meeting his eyes.
Minjun looked into those eyes. They were green. Deep green. From that angle of looking up, her eyelashes were somewhat distracting. The line of lashes that lightly descended from the corners of her eyes. The depth of green visible beneath them. He could tell from the tension in her shoulder muscles that Chloe was holding her breath. While waiting for Isabelle’s answer, the uniform around Chloe’s chest had stopped moving. She had breathed in and was not breathing out.
Light came from Chloe’s side and touched those eyes. The green caught the light and grew clear. That moment lasted one second, but the one second felt long.
“Is the original female lead asking me to eat with her right now, or what?”
“Do as you like.”
He heard Chloe exhale very softly. It was the sound of something she had been holding in coming undone. As her shoulders lowered, the line of her neck lengthened a little. The front of her jacket relaxed softly with that breath. Her lips opened slightly, then closed.
---
On the way back to the dormitory.
“Is approaching Isabelle part of the original scenario? Or did I change something?”
He could not know.
“This is exactly like being given work with no handover.”
Afternoon sunlight came in through the corridor windows. His silver hair caught the light and briefly brightened. The hem of his skirt swayed back and forth with each step. Even today, this sensation was still unfamiliar.
---
That night.
Chloe stood by the dormitory window and replayed that day’s lunch.
The warmth she had felt across the distance of a single table. The way Isabelle’s wrist moved whenever she held her fork. The depth of the line revealed when her collarbone showed beneath the light.
And the way the front of Isabelle’s uniform changed each time she breathed. When she inhaled and when she exhaled. Chloe had seen it from across the table. She had not yet admitted that she had seen it.
The way the light changed when Isabelle’s silver hair spilled over her shoulders. The brief instant when Isabelle, after looking out the window, turned her gaze this way, and her red eyes caught the light and shone like rubies. That instant had lasted one second, but the afterimage left in Chloe’s eyes lasted longer than that.
Tomorrow, Isabelle might sit in the same place. The feeling that she would come felt like some kind of expectation.
Chloe had not yet given that sensation a name.
Wind passed outside the window. Chloe, with her eyes still closed, still could not forget the way Isabelle’s breathing had changed the front of her jacket today. When she tried to forget it, it became clearer. So she stopped trying to forget.
And what had been visible beneath the table throughout lunchtime, too. Chloe had seen it. She did not admit that she had seen it. But she remembered. The fact that she remembered was true. When she tried to forget that as well, it became clearer. So she stopped trying to forget that, too.