A Glimpse of the Past (4)
Two days passed without incident. Lutes and Eline spent the entire night awake, barely managing to finish the final inspection, and fortunately, no further errors were found.
“That concludes our presentation.”
The calm presentation ended with Eline’s final words, followed by a round of applause. Despite having pulled an all-nighter for two days, Eline showed no signs of fatigue for some reason.
“Everyone, you’ve worked hard this semester. All of your presentations were so impressive that I’m already looking forward to the next year. Now, this concludes all the lectures.”
With the professor’s gentle announcement of the end of the semester, the first year came to a close.
“Good work, everyone.”
At Eline’s words, the other group members nodded. It was time to wrap up their brief connection. They exchanged light farewells and parted ways one by one.
As the crowded lecture hall emptied, the space that had always felt cramped began to feel vast. And then, there was one last connection she had to settle.
“Lutes.”
“Yeah?”
“You worked hard.”
Lutes looked up while packing his bag.
“You’re the one who worked harder.”
A brief silence flowed between them. She parted her lips. She wanted to talk more, but no topic came to mind that could keep him there.
“You.”
“Yeah?”
“In your second year… you’re in the Beta Class, right?”
“Yeah, I suppose so.”
She had expected as much. She had rarely seen him studying during lectures. He was always either dazed or only occasionally focused. It was strange that he would even make it to the Alpha Class doing that anyway. In the second year, when the classes were officially divided, the places where they attended lectures would be different, so there would be no more points of contact.
“…I see.”
Eline had nothing more to say.
“I’ll be going now?”
It was a perfectly natural thing to say—that she was leaving because there was nothing left to talk about. The assignment was over, and there was no reason to see each other anymore. So, they had to part ways. And yet.
‘Why…’
Her heart ached. Without even realizing her own feelings, she simply nodded.
“Take care.”
She could only watch helplessly as Lutes’s back disappeared after he waved goodbye one last time. After Lutes had completely left, Eline was left alone in the lecture hall, filled only with silence.
It was a familiar situation she had always experienced, but for some reason, she felt a sense of emptiness.
If she had never had it from the beginning, she wouldn’t have known, but it was like feeling the cold all the more sharply after the warmth had already vanished once. It was a day that felt particularly lonely.
‘…’
A day passed. Two days passed. She still opened her books to study, but her mind wouldn’t settle. She kept making mistakes on trivial formulas, and even when she tried to focus, her thoughts began to drift away immediately. Irritation rose up.
‘Why?’
Even as she tried to set her thoughts straight, invisible things crumbled her path like pebbles. Even if she buried her face in her books or opened the door to let in fresh air, it didn’t disappear.
Eventually, she pushed her chair back and stood up. She went outside without a plan.
Crunch.
Crunch, crunch.
She walked. Despite it being a cold winter, she went for a walk. Even as her hands turned red and froze, her nose stung, and her toes lost all sensation, Eline kept walking. How many minutes had she walked?
She stopped in the soft, piled-up snow and looked up at the sky. When her breath came out, it rose into the sky and vanished.
No matter how cold a place she walked through. No matter how tightly she clutched her aching heart. Her feelings simply wouldn’t be sorted out. There was only one reason why those feelings wouldn’t settle, and Eline knew the cause well.
‘…Ha.’
It had only been three times. A strange encounter, short and fleeting, with barely a few conversations shared. Why was she so hung up on such a relationship?
She didn’t understand it herself. As the falling snow touched her cheeks, it melted and flowed down indifferently, but her mind only grew more complex. No, ‘I suppose I’m the one making it complex.’
She slowly opened her eyes. She wiped away the melted snow flowing down her cheek. Let’s admit it. She was sad. That there would be no more points of contact with him, that the opportunity to feel that warmth was gone.
“…”
She was a fool. At the entrance ceremony, when the trolls escaped, during the final group project—she should have been the one to speak first. Or at the very least, she should have accepted his conversation. Why, “Why did I only realize it now?”
For the first time, she felt resentful. By the time the snow piled up on her shoulders and the sensation in her cheeks disappeared, Eline started walking again. And she realized. It was because she hadn’t been sure of herself.
Because she was afraid to walk a path where she didn’t know the answer. Because she had no experience in how to talk to someone or how to keep a conversation going, she lacked the courage to sustain the connection.
She stopped.
“…”
She pressed down on her heart. It was already too late. It probably wouldn’t change anything, but ‘Perhaps.’ She bit her lip. Perhaps she might have liked Lutes.
Three brief, passing encounters, but he was the one who stayed by her side when she was at her lowest. Everything he offered had calmed her down and always caught her when she was struggling.
But that was all in the past now. Lutes had no particular feelings for her. No, it was obvious that he actually felt uncomfortable around her.
‘How foolish.’
What would he think if she told him about these feelings? She had feelings for someone she had only met three times. Even though they hadn’t talked much, she had developed feelings on her own.
It was a laughable story. And it was a feeling she had to sort out. She had to shake it off quickly. Eventually, she walked for a long time before going back inside, and for the next few days, she caught a cold and lay sick in bed alone.
She moved up to the second year. As expected, as the classes began to divide in earnest, she became even busier. Her study load increased, and her assignments piled up.
The number of times she ran into him decreased noticeably. Very occasionally, she would see his back in a distant hallway, but that was it. Even so, if she saw his silhouette from afar, her gaze would turn toward him.
“…”
He seemed to be living well. The one friend he had became two. Then three. Before she knew it, he had created his own group and was living within it. That was only natural, as she was nothing more than a passerby to him.
Eline calmed her emotions and decided to bury the ticklish feeling in a corner of her heart. Was it to get rid of such useless feelings? She focused even more on her studies.
Throughout her second year, she kept breaking records at the academy. The gazes of those around her drifted further and further away. Even though they were in the same grade, the height from which they looked at her began to change.
‘…Did she get a pre-assignment from the Magic Tower?’
‘That’s amazing, I heard she even had a private interview with the President.’
Every time she walked down the hallway, she felt gazes mixed with envy and awe. It was a gaze she was all too familiar with—the look that she was someone different from them.
No, now it was actually annoying. ‘…So noisy.’ Why were they so interested in other people’s business? Just ignore me, please. She closed her ears and simply continued to move forward.
Time flowed quickly. In winter, inside a meeting room warmed by the heat of a fireplace amidst a particularly raging blizzard, a middle-aged man in a high-end suit slowly turned the pages and nodded.
Eline, sitting across from him, was quietly smoothing her hair that reached her shoulders. The man, having finished reading, set the paper down gently with a satisfied face and stared at Eline.
“Your grades are excellent, and the thesis you submitted this time is also of very high quality.”
“Thank you.”
“If there are no major issues, I believe you will be fully capable of joining the Magic Tower after graduation.”
Eline nodded quietly. Joining the Magic Tower. After graduating from the academy, it was her predetermined path.
“I look forward to it, Eline.”
As the man in the suit adjusted his circlet and stood up, Eline stood up as well. When she stepped outside, she felt the coolness of winter in the hallway, as always. She suddenly remembered her mother’s words. The words telling her to find her own path.
‘My path…’
She couldn’t find it. She didn’t have the room or the heart for it. Because walking forward while looking only ahead was everything.
Yes, perhaps she had known it all along. That from the moment she took the name Payless, there was only one path for her. That entering the Magic Tower was the only way.
Third year. When there wasn’t much time left at the academy, Eline fell into a dilemma when told to sign up for a liberal arts course. Originally, she would have signed up in her second year, but because the professor for that course had an urgent situation and canceled it, she had to sign up in her third year.
She had already filled almost all her credits anyway. It didn’t matter much since she spent all her remaining time studying, but she didn’t feel any interest in any of the liberal arts courses.
Eventually, she impulsively signed up for the most unpopular course that no one seemed to want to take, one that wouldn’t disrupt her schedule. A course where she didn’t even know the title.
‘…’
On the day she went to attend the first lecture, as she entered the classroom indifferently, the students began to murmur as they saw her, as always.
Of course, no ripples occurred in Eline’s heart, and she sat in a corner by the window, indifferent. And, as she looked up when the lecture was about to begin, the back of a very familiar silhouette caught her eye.
It wasn’t the slicked-back hair from before, but the comfortable attire and brown hair. The silhouette she could recognize even from just a side profile. Lutes.
‘…’
Did they end up taking the same class because it was a liberal arts course? Her heart fluttered ever so slightly. ‘…No.’ She decided to bury this feeling. Because it was too late to move forward anymore.
Once she had decided to go to the Magic Tower, she shouldn’t be swayed by useless emotional games. Fortunately, she didn’t make eye contact with him until the end of the lecture.
‘…’
Watching Lutes stand up indifferently and walk out, she decided to be satisfied with just looking at him from behind. That was the last line she allowed herself.
The second week began. On Friday, the day that marked the end of the week, an excited mood hovered in the lecture hall, but that didn’t apply to Eline. She sat in her seat, planning in her head what she would do tomorrow and what she would do next week.
‘Assignment tomorrow afternoon, and…’
She took notes indifferently on what the professor teaching the liberal arts course was saying, her mind busy at work. Since the difficulty of studying for the exam to enter the Magic Tower had increased sharply, she had to plan her schedule tightly.
“You’ve worked hard today as well. Tomorrow is the weekend, right? Get some good rest and see you next week!”
With the professor’s final words, the students began to stand up in a rush, and she also closed her book and began to pack her things.
And today, too, she glanced at Lutes in the seat in front of her, who was also packing his books. She had decided to just quietly look at his back until he left today as well. But then.
Suddenly, he turned his head. Their eyes met. Her body flinched subconsciously.
Why was he looking?
She didn’t know the reason. Was it just a coincidence that they made eye contact while he was looking back? Yes, that seemed to be it. And if it were Lutes, he would turn back again. He always did.
Eline naturally turned her gaze and began to pack her things. As naturally as if they had just happened to make eye contact by chance. Calming her trembling heart, she tidied up slowly.
Fortunately, Lutes seemed to have averted his gaze as well, and she heard the sound of footsteps as he pushed his chair in and left.
No.
‘…?’
The sound of footsteps didn’t fade away. The footsteps, which she wondered if she had just imagined, gradually grew closer. There was definitely no door behind her. No, there shouldn’t be—she always sat in the back. At most, there were only dusty old paintings and ancient inscriptions of unknown origin.
As she slowly looked up, Lutes was standing in front of her. And he was looking at her precisely.
‘…’
She swallowed her breath. Why? Why was he here now, when he had always avoided her gaze himself? No, his gaze was still restless. Something was wavering within his eyes, which were as resolute as someone being chased.
“…Why?”
Eline opened her mouth with difficulty. She could feel her voice trembling, but he didn’t seem to notice.
“Do you have something to say?”
“…Oh, that.”
His tone was awkward yet anxious. Eline’s emotions began to churn again at the conversation they were having for the first time in a year. She had to calm down. These were feelings she had already sorted out.
“Hey, Eline…”
Thump.
As her name was called by him again, she couldn’t suppress her emotions. It surely wasn’t anything special, and she knew that, but as he called her name, a corner of her heart began to tickle.
“You know.”
She cut him off in a rush. No. If she talked to him more, it felt like this heart she had barely managed to sort out would churn again. As she suppressed the emotions surging up, her expression crinkled slightly. And she said firmly,
“If it’s not something important, can I go? I’m busy.”
Eline cut him off in a hurry and walked away as naturally as possible. She looked at his face one last time before turning her head.
*Thump. Thump.*
…Yes. I’ll admit it, Lutes. Seeing you, I can’t sort out my feelings. Seeing you up close again, my heart keeps aching. Why? …No, you know why.
*Thump. Thump. Thump.*
Because I like you. Because I feel comfortable when I’m by your side. Because I like that feeling. Because I want to keep being by your side.
*Thump. Thump. Thump. Thump.*
It’s funny, but I think that’s it. So I have to move away. The closer I get, the more painful it will be. I thought it was enough just to look at your back, but it seems that’s going to be difficult.
*‘I should cancel this course…’*
She walked away, barely managing to calm her heart.
“I like you, Eline.”
Stop.
“Please go out with me.”
Those two short sentences were heard clearly by her ears as she passed by. For the first time in her 22 years of life, all of Eline’s thoughts came to a complete halt.