The gap between classes was fifteen minutes.
During that time, the hallway turned into a marketplace. Students moved back and forth between classrooms. Footsteps overlapped. Collars brushed past one another. Greetings burst out here and there, then subsided. From the windows came the sounds of the sports field, and as those sounds mixed with the hallway noise, there was no telling above from below.
Minjun was leaning against the wall by the window amid that noise.
He had nothing in particular to do. The textbook for the next class was already in his bag. The classroom he had to move to was in this building. It would be enough to leave within ten minutes.
Among the students passing through the hallway, Minjun drew attention because of Isabel’s silver hair. He still could not accept it as something familiar. He knew gazes were coming his way, but noticing them and getting used to them were different matters. Even if he noticed, he still did not know how he was supposed to react.
Simply leaning against the wall was the most natural method.
“Isabel.”
The voice came from the far end of the hallway.
It was Chloe Armand. She was holding a thick book in both hands. Perhaps because the book was heavy, her posture tilted slightly forward as she walked. She was coming toward Minjun. Her pace was a little faster than usual. Whether that was because of the weight of the book or not, he could not tell.
Minjun watched her steps. Chloe’s footsteps were usually quiet. Neither fast nor slow, but steady. Now, however, they were different. There was a slight urgency. It seemed as though she was trying to hide that urgency. Or perhaps as though she was not aware that she ought to hide it.
Minjun pushed himself off the wall and stood up straight.
Chloe stopped at a distance of about a step and a half. Minjun measured that distance unconsciously. It was a little closer than in the practice room last time. Just a little. But it was definitely a little.
“This is what I borrowed last time.” Chloe held out the book. “The magic reference book.”
The title was engraved on the cover in metallic letters. It was an old book. The corners of the cover were dented in several places, and the spine had faded in color. There were a few folded corners, as if some pages inside had underlines somewhere. Even from the outside, it was clear that this was a book that had been looked through often, and for a long time.
Minjun reached out to take it.
The spine entered both their hands at the same time.
On the cloth material of the spine, Minjun’s fingers and Chloe’s fingers were there together. It was ambiguous to say they were touching. They were not completely overlapping. But they were in the same place. For about two seconds.
Neither side pulled first.
Neither side withdrew their hand.
It was simply like that.
Minjun felt it. The temperature transmitted through the spine of the book. The lukewarmness of the book warmed by Chloe’s hands. And beneath that lukewarmness, a more direct warmth. It felt as though a thumb had moved minutely against the side of the book. It was hard to tell whether it was Chloe’s or Minjun’s.
‘This is strange.’
He had handed over documents hundreds of times at his previous workplace. Giving and receiving reports. Passing over files. Back then, there had been nothing like this. He had not felt temperature like this at his fingertips. He had not known that the sensation of another person’s body heat being transmitted through an object felt like this.
Was Isabel’s physical sense unusually sensitive? Or was it for some other reason?
‘This has absolutely nothing to do with work efficiency. This.’
Chloe withdrew her hand.
Minjun withdrew his hand as well. While holding the book.
Chloe tugged down the sleeve of her uniform once. For no reason, as if trying to look natural. But that motion was, if anything, unnatural. Her sleeve had been down from the beginning. There was nothing more to pull down.
Minjun saw it.
“I’ll make good use of it,” Minjun said.
“Yeah,” Chloe said.
A short silence came. The noise of the hallway entered that silence. Laughter rang out from far away. The sound of someone’s footsteps running quickly. The two of them listened to those sounds together.
Chloe spoke first.
“You got called by the instructor yesterday, didn’t you? What did they say?”
“Nothing much,” Minjun said. “I explained the circumstances of my ability manifestation, and they scheduled an additional checkup.”
“Wasn’t it hard?”
“I’m fine.”
Chloe nodded once. It seemed as though she wanted to say something more. Her lips opened once, then closed. In the end, it seemed she had decided not to say it. He could not know what those words had been.
He did know that he should not try to find out.
Chloe remained there for a moment. Without turning away, without bringing up another topic. She was simply beside Minjun. The noise of the hallway filled the space between them. Someone passed by quickly. A collar stirred the air.
Chloe turned around.
Minjun watched Chloe walk away. Her chestnut-brown hair swayed slightly in time with her steps. She entered among the students in the hallway and gradually disappeared from view.
Minjun looked down at the book in his hand.
The spine was still warm. It was hard to tell whether it was actually warm, or whether it only felt that way. He did not even know whether making that distinction mattered.
‘Is Isabel’s sense of body temperature always this sensitive?’
His fingertips still seemed to remember the warmth. He had not counted how many seconds had passed since he received the book, but that sensation still remained. Isabel’s hands were slender. Her wrists were slender, and her fingers were slender as well. At the ends of those slender fingers, the sensation did not disappear.
Minjun thought it was strange. But he decided not to think any further beyond the fact that it was strange.
He looked at the book cover. Magic reference book. It was a book Chloe had looked through often. There were folded corners in several places. Where the underlines were, where the notes were—he could not tell that much here. If he opened it, he would know.
He decided not to open it.
He felt a gaze coming from the other end of the hallway.
About ten meters away. It was Sylvia Kant.
She was holding a book in her hand. She looked as if she were reading it. But the pages did not turn. Her gaze was not on the book. He could tell even from a distance. The posture with which she held the book was not the posture of someone reading, but someone simply holding it.
Sylvia was looking this way.
More precisely, she was alternating her gaze between the direction Chloe had disappeared and the place where Minjun stood. Somewhere between those two points.
Minjun looked that way.
His eyes met Sylvia’s.
Sylvia lowered her gaze first. Then she took out a file. It was a thick-covered file. She opened it. A new page. Her hand began to move. Even from far away, he could see the pen moving quickly over the paper.
Minjun watched it.
‘What is she writing down right now?’
He was curious about what kind of contents were piling up inside that file. But there was no way to know right now. Until a way to know appeared, he had to remain ignorant.
Sylvia continued writing. Her gaze lowered.
The class bell rang.
The students began moving again. The hallway filled with noise once more. Minjun walked into that noise. With the book tucked under his arm. He was holding nothing in his hand, and yet the sensation at his fingertips was still there.
The fifteen-minute gap ended.
---
That night.
Minjun left the book open but did not read it.
His fingertips still remembered that sensation. The spine of the book. That surface where they had been in the same place as Chloe’s fingers for two seconds. Chloe had taken her hand away first. Minjun had been next. Minjun did not know why the order of who had let go first remained in his memory.
‘There were times our hands touched when passing documents, too. For twelve years. What’s so different about this?’
There was nothing different. It was the same kind of contact.
Having organized it that way, he turned the page of the book. The contents would not enter his head. He read the same page again. They still would not enter.
Wind passed outside the window.
The curtain trembled slightly. Light entered from the lower part of the window, thin as thread. It was the hallway light. The dormitory hallway lights stayed on all night.
Minjun set the book down.
The sensation at his fingertips cooled. To be precise, rather than cooling, it disappeared. Noticing that it had disappeared was a little strange. To notice that something had disappeared meant he had been continuously checking that it was there.
‘I’m tired.’
He repeated those words once more inwardly and closed his eyes.
For a moment, Sylvia moving her pen quickly came to mind. What was being written in that file? He could not ask. He had no reason to ask.
There was no reason.
---
Chloe returned to her room and touched the spine of the book.
When she had handed over the book and their fingers touched, Isabel had not pulled away. Chloe had taken her hand away first. Isabel had taken hers away after that.
Chloe remembered that order.
She could not know the reason. Why Isabel had not moved during those two seconds. She might have been thinking. She might have been looking at something else. It might simply have been the timing of the motion of receiving it.
She did not know which was correct.
Chloe placed the book on the desk. It made a sharp sound. Then she sat there blankly. Night entered through the window. The room was quiet.
She curled her toes.
She wondered whether she should speak first if Isabel passed by in the hallway tomorrow. Isabel did not speak first. Chloe had to do it first. That had now become something like a rule.
Sylvia’s file was growing thicker. Minjun still did not know what that meant. As long as the file existed, he had to remain ignorant. There was no way to open the file and look inside. That was the situation now.
Wind passed outside the window.
Living as Isabel was still unfamiliar. But little by little, ever so slightly, the outline of that unfamiliarity was changing.