The library was quiet in the afternoon.
There were only a few students scattered through the large reading room at the front. But the alcove between the inner stacks was empty. Three bookcases enclosed the space in a U-shape. There was a single window, and through it the afternoon light slanted in. Minjun’s notebook lay open on the table where that light fell.
It was a summary of magical theory.
He was copying it out with the reference book Chloe had returned placed beside him. The sentences in the reference book were old-fashioned. The expressions were unfamiliar. But the content was precise. Minjun understood it by organizing it in his own way.
The library was quiet. He was growing used to this quiet. It was easier to think in a place like this than somewhere noisy. He could not tell whether Isabel’s body preferred this kind of environment, or whether he had always been like this.
He heard footsteps.
From the direction of the stacks. Minjun did not raise his head. It could have been a student passing by to use the library.
But the footsteps stopped.
“Miss Isabel Armand.”
It was Sylvia Kant.
Her uniform sleeves were pulled down to her wrists. In her hand she held a thin file. Her expression was as neat as ever. There was no crack in that neatness.
“The second inspection has been scheduled for today.”
Minjun set down his pen.
‘Second inspection.’
The first had been two weeks ago. That interval was shorter than the usual cycle. If this were a company, it would be a frequency on the level of a special audit. He wanted to ask the reason, but asking directly would be giving the other party something. Showing any sign of fluster or resistance would be the same.
“Sit,” Minjun said.
Sylvia sat in the chair across from him. She opened the file. There were several sheets of paper. The first page seemed to have a list of questions. The handwriting was orderly.
The questions began.
Magical output value. The circumstances of the manifestation during the last practical lesson. Physical condition immediately before manifestation. Any abnormalities afterward. The list was specific. The specificity itself was not the problem; it was too specific. The questions exceeded the scope of an ordinary inspection. Minjun listened and thought.
‘This isn’t an inspection. It’s an excuse for some other purpose.’
But he could not yet know what that purpose was.
Minjun answered. Briefly and clearly. Without adding emotion. He stated only the parts that counted as fact and said he did not know about the rest. Sylvia wrote it down. Her writing speed was steady. She continued to write without any sign of admiration or doubt.
But the intervals between questions changed. They were growing longer than at first. It did not look like time spent thinking of the next question, but time spent resolving herself to bring it out.
“We also need a record of the surrounding situation at the time of the sixth manifestation.”
Minjun raised his head. “Which part?”
Sylvia paused for a moment. Her pen circled once in place over the paper, then stopped. “The reactions of the students nearby.”
And she stopped a little longer.
The length of that pause was strange. Minjun had already grasped from their three meetings that Sylvia was not the sort of person to leave gaps like this. She was a neat, brisk person. But now she was different.
Then footsteps sounded.
From the direction of the stacks. The two of them turned their heads at the same time.
It was Chloe.
She was walking out from between the shelves. In her hand was a thick notebook. It was clear from her expression that she had been looking for Minjun. When she discovered the two of them sitting inside the alcove, her steps slowed by one beat.
But she did not stop.
“So you were here,” Chloe said. Her voice was natural. A naturalness made too natural. Minjun noticed the difference.
Three people had gathered in the alcove.
The space had not suddenly narrowed. Its actual area had not changed. But something was different. It felt as though the density of the air had changed. Minjun felt it on his skin.
‘This has the same structure as when factions clash in a conference room.’
Two teams with differing departmental interests encountering each other in one space. Not colliding directly, but sharing the same air. That tension existed here as well. The shape was different, but the structure was the same.
Minjun looked back and forth between the two of them.
Sylvia did not close the file. But she set down her pen. She did not look toward Chloe. She was looking at the grain of the wood on the table. It was obvious she was pretending nothing was wrong. To Isabel’s eyes, it was visible.
Chloe remained standing. She did not sit. Standing there, she looked at Sylvia, then at Minjun. Her gaze moved back and forth somewhere between the two of them. It did not stop.
“We’re in the middle of an inspection,” Sylvia said.
Her voice was shorter than usual. Each syllable seemed more sharply cut off. It did not sound like an explanation, but like drawing a line.
“I don’t intend to interrupt,” Chloe said.
But she did not leave. She leaned against the end of a bookshelf. She placed her notebook at one end of the table. In other words, she had claimed a place. As if her body were saying, I’m going to be here.
Sylvia opened the file again. She picked up her pen. As though searching for the next question.
“After class, the crystal orb’s management was.”
It was a sentence that seemed to be missing a word. It was not the kind of sentence Sylvia usually used.
Minjun answered. He had put it in the storage box. According to procedure. Sylvia wrote it down. Her writing seemed to have more force in it than usual. The degree to which the pen pressed into the paper was different.
Chloe said nothing. But her gaze kept moving. From Sylvia to Minjun. Somewhere between the two of them.
Silence came.
About ten seconds with no question and no answer. From the far side of the library came the sound of a page turning. The alcove was so quiet that the sound was too clear.
Sylvia closed the file.
“That will be all for today,” she said.
She stood. She picked up the file. She tucked away the pen. Each motion seemed as though it was trying to look precise and quick, but in reality each was slightly slow. Her gaze moved as if she might look toward Chloe once, then did not. Minjun saw that instant.
Sylvia left the alcove.
Her footsteps receded between the shelves. At regular intervals. They grew distant, then disappeared.
Only Minjun and Chloe remained in the alcove.
Chloe sat in the chair across from him. Not the seat Sylvia had occupied, but the one beside it. She pulled her notebook closer.
“Did you wait long?” Chloe asked.
“No,” Minjun said.
Light entered through the window. It was light with the afternoon slanting a little further. It fell on the reference book on the table, then on Chloe’s hand. Chloe looked at that light for a moment before lowering her gaze.
The two sat without speaking.
It was not awkward. Rather, it fit quietly. It was a quiet in which adding words felt as though it might break something.
Minjun picked up his pen. He began writing something in his notebook again.
Chloe opened her notebook as well.
The sounds of their pens alternated. When one stopped, the other continued. It was as natural as if they had matched each other.
The light through the window slanted a little further. From the stacks, footsteps could occasionally be heard. They belonged to other students using the library.
Minjun turned another page of his notebook.
Chloe set down her pencil. She stretched her fingers for a moment, then curled them again. It seemed her hand cramped if she wrote for too long. Minjun saw the movement. He lowered his gaze back to his notebook.
Chloe picked up her pencil again. The sound of writing continued.
---
Evening.
As Minjun returned to his room, he thought about the library that day.
The fact that three of them had been in one space. Sylvia had left first, Chloe had remained, and the two of them had studied without speaking. That quiet had been strangely comfortable. It had not been unpleasant. The way Chloe held her pencil, the speed at which she turned the pages, her habit of curling and stretching her fingers. Those things had naturally entered his field of vision.
‘Even at work, you end up memorizing the habits of the person sitting beside you.’
It had been an observation from a work environment. Efficiency-related.
He organized it that way.
The dormitory corridor was quiet. Since it was evening, most of the students were inside their rooms. Only Minjun’s footsteps echoed through the hall. These footsteps still felt unfamiliar at times. Too light and small.
He opened the door to his room. Went in. Turned on the light.
He saw the mirror.
Silver hair rested over his shoulders. Red eyes glittered as they caught the light. The strange feeling that came whenever he saw this face had still not completely disappeared. Even as he grew used to it, there was a part he could not grow used to.
Minjun remembered how Sylvia’s gaze had lowered toward his neck when she had been sitting across the table from him today. It had been an instant. Very brief. Sylvia herself must have noticed.
Had Chloe seen it?
If she had, what expression had she made?
Minjun cut off the thought. Thinking about what he could not know was unproductive. That was one of the things twelve years of office life had taught him.
He drew the curtains. The outside light was blocked.
---
That night, Sylvia did not open the file.
Not because there was nothing to write. There was much she had to write. Today, the three of them had been in the same space. It was the first time. Isabel and Miss Armand being together had already become a pattern. Today, she herself had been added to it.
In that situation, Isabel’s expression had not changed.
The fact that it had not changed was itself data. Even with the two of them in the same space, Isabel did not waver. But Sylvia had not yet reached a conclusion on how she should interpret that.
Wind passed outside the window.
Sylvia left the file in her bag. She would write it tomorrow. Today, it felt as though she had not yet sorted everything out.
She tried to think about the reason it was not sorted, then stopped.
The way the light on the table had briefly pooled along the line of Isabel’s neck was still in her mind. That image was interfering with her organization. To classify that image, she needed more observation. There was not enough data.
She only had to observe again tomorrow.