A lover.
Two people who've fallen for each other, who know it, and who become a couple—
Giddy and giggling, or shy and sweetly tangled up in each other.
*Is that what this is?*
I honestly don't know. I've only ever heard about romance secondhand.
Never actually done it myself.
Elline's unwavering eyes were still fixed on me, and I had no idea what would happen if the silence stretched any longer—so I forced myself to think clearly.
I confessed to her.
And she said, *"Understood."*
She waited here, on this night road.
For me.
"Hey."
I shoved every stray thought aside.
I held onto exactly one thing in my head, and I said it to her.
"Are we... dating?"
Her eyebrow moved again—just barely.
"…"
A faint shadow seemed to fall across her face as the lamplight dimmed her eyes.
*Terrifying.*
But I needed to get a clear read on the situation, so I couldn't back down.
"I confessed back then, but... you never gave me a straight answer, so I thought you were turning me down."
Elline listened, then let out a quiet sigh.
"Didn't I say 'understood'?"
She's right.
"Yeah."
"Isn't that an answer?"
Also right.
So... yeah. I'm in a relationship.
With Elline.
With *Elline.*
…
Why, though?
Elline watched my reaction for a moment, studying me, then—as if she'd decided she had no patience left for this—swept her hair back behind her ear.
"Tomorrow."
"Hm?"
"Come to the North Courtyard by nine in the morning."
"Okay."
*Okay,* I said.
There are times when a person can't open their mouth because they have nothing to say.
I learned tonight that the opposite is also true—that sometimes you say nothing precisely because you have too much to say.
She delivered her one-sided announcement, and then, as if her business here was done, she turned and walked away. I stared blankly at her retreating figure—that steady, unshaken back I'd always known—until it disappeared beyond the campus grounds.
Then a gust of night wind hit me, as if to say *go inside already*, and I let it push me back to my room.
I turned off the light, lay down quietly, and stared at the ceiling.
A pair of flies were tracing lazy arcs through the air, perfectly at ease with each other.
*North Courtyard. Nine o'clock tomorrow.*
Let me sort through this. Elline said it with her own mouth. *Lovers.* That means she accepted my confession.
So let's apply some basic, rational common sense here.
I closed my eyes and conjured an angel in my imagination to ask.
*Angel, I confessed to someone and she said yes—why do you think she said yes?*
"Are you two in love with each other?"
I don't know.
"Have you been close for a long time?"
No, we've barely spoken.
"Oh... um... are you from the same hometown, maybe?"
No?
"...Then why?"
I have no idea, I'm telling you.
The imaginary angel furrowed its brow, thought hard, then waved its hand and vanished.
Useless.
And then, just as I was giving up—
*Maybe you and Elline have had more points of connection than you realized?*
The angel flickered back into existence, posed the question with a flash of inspiration, then flapped its wings and flew off.
*Points of connection with Elline.*
"Points of connection, huh..."
I turned over the memories of the past two years.
Two moments that could count as real connection.
First year, when a practice troll escaped and went on a rampage—we'd ended up in the same evacuation shelter, not by choice. Even then, while the other students were crying and panicking, she alone had stayed perfectly composed.
And once more, near the end of first year, when we were paired together for a group presentation.
Right—that was probably when we talked the most. But I don't remember anything particularly meaningful coming out of it.
Second year was even worse.
Once Alpha Class and Beta Class were formally separated, she became something like a figure above the clouds. At most, I'd catch a glimpse of her face passing by, or spot her far down a hallway. Naturally, there was no reason for us to meet at all.
Hmm...
I genuinely had no idea.
Time passed without mercy, and a pale blue light began to creep over the mountains.
The weekend morning that should have been peaceful was thoroughly ruined long before it started.
I spent the whole night desperately wanting to know what she was thinking, why she'd called me here, why she'd said yes.
Honestly, it still didn't feel real.
If she met me today and said *"I was just joking,"* I think I could laugh it off without too much trouble.
*No—she said she wanted to date you. Why are you being so suspicious?*
Someone listening in might say exactly that.
But this is Elline.
*That* Elline.
For two years, outside of group projects and mandatory collaborative work, she hadn't made a single friend.
She always walked alone—so consistently that it had long since stopped being remarkable.
For someone like her to have me beside her not as a friend, but as a *lover*—wasn't that completely absurd?
Still, I got up and started getting ready.
I opened the wardrobe. Next to my uniform, three identical sets of clothes hung in a neat row, as if they'd coordinated in advance.
The academy technically only permitted uniforms, so there was no real need for anything else.
Of course, the more expressive types found ways to personalize theirs—adding crests, pinning medals, and one guy had even draped an entire cape off his shoulders.
Not my concern.
By the time the sun had begun its slow climb up the mountainside, I drank a glass of water and set off toward the North Courtyard.
Please, I thought. Let nothing happen.
The weather was cheerfully oblivious to my mood.
Birds were making a racket. The weekend air was lazy and unhurried; first-years wandered around taking in the campus, while older students drifted in small clusters, chatting. On any other day, I would have been part of that scene.
Not today.
With every step toward the North Courtyard, something heavy pressed down on my chest.
The academy was built on a mountainside, but it was vast—so vast that even within its walls, each section had its own distinct atmosphere. The north in particular had a peculiar gloom to it. Years ago, a magical experiment had gone wrong, and most of the buildings in that area had either been demolished or left standing for repairs. The further north you went, the more noticeably the student population thinned.
I arrived at the meeting spot to find weathered equipment, a fountain that had long since stopped running, and a few benches.
The open space had its own kind of character, but it was quieter than any other courtyard on campus—unmistakably so.
And there,
she was sitting.
Elline.
She sat on the bench as if feeling the breeze, gazing quietly at the trees.
…She was beautiful.
I keep saying it, I know. But the scene truly was beautiful.
Her silver hair caught the sunlight and drifted softly in the wind. Her blue eyes were clear as the sea.
What made it even more striking was how she was dressed.
No crests to show off, no cape, no medals—just a plain, unadorned uniform in its simplest form. And yet somehow, that very plainness suited her. The neatness of it matched something noble in her bearing.
That was exactly why I'd never been able to approach her easily.
But today, I had to.
I took one slow breath.
And walked toward her.
Maybe because there was no one else around—she didn't show it, but she must have sensed someone coming. Elline turned her head.
Our eyes met.
*Right. I'm not scared.*
My feet stopped without my permission.
I needed to keep moving, but I stopped.
*No.*
*I'm absolutely terrified.*
With stiff, awkward steps that creaked along like a badly-oiled door, I finally made it to her and forced the most neutral expression I could manage.
"Hey."
I offered the greeting, and Elline calmly glanced at the watch on her wrist.
"Eight fifty-nine."
She looked up at me.
"Just barely made it."
I didn't want to imagine what *barely not making it* would have meant.
"…Sorry."
*Why are you apologizing? You were on time.*
*Please don't say anything weird.*
My inner voices were at war again.
Separate from the chaos in my head, Elline was already rising from the bench.
I noticed now that she was quite short. Even standing, she had to look up at me.
I'd never realized it from a distance, but the closer I got, the more I kept learning things.
Yesterday, today—it kept happening.
She could show emotion. She was quite short. And despite the coldness she always projected, there was something warm about her too.
…Warm?
I glanced down instinctively.
My hand was resting over hers.
On top of Elline's hand.
Oh. A hand.
She's holding mine.
"…?"
*How am I supposed to react to this?*
Before I could finish the thought, she gave me a light tug.
So naturally that I didn't even register it happening.
"Let's go."
Her expression was still neutral, but there was nothing forceful about it.
Something I learned for the first time today: Elline's hand was very small, and very soft.
We walked.
For about ten minutes, the two of us walked alone down a quiet path on the north side of the academy, where no one else was around.
It wasn't a dream. The sensation was too vivid for that.
When I turned my head, Elline was beside me, her hair drifting in the cool spring breeze.
She held my hand and walked slowly through the campus grounds, and at some point she closed her eyes, as if she was simply feeling the wind.
"Elline."
It took ten minutes before I worked up the nerve to speak.
"Mm."
A reply, as unhurried as ever.
"Why did you say yes?"
I didn't know how to be smooth about it, and I didn't know how to talk to girls, so I just said it directly.
*Why did you say yes to my confession? Are you sure you meant it?* There was a lot packed into those few words.
She paused for a moment, then turned to look at me.
"You confessed to me."
The same answer as yesterday.
She said yes because I confessed. In one sense, that was perfectly logical. In another sense, it made absolutely no sense at all.
*That's not what I'm asking. I want to know why.*
"Is that really the only reason?"
"Yes."
*Yes,* she said. Just like that—no other reason, she accepted simply because I confessed? So if someone else had confessed, would she have said yes to them too?
Thinking about it that way, things almost started to make sense, and yet—
"Elline."
"Mm."
"If someone else had confessed to you, would you have said yes to them too?"
"No."
Immediate.
The word came out before I'd even finished asking. She looked ahead, expression unchanged, taking in the surroundings with the same calm as before. Like someone on a rare outing, savoring the air—she closed her eyes gently and tightened her grip on my hand.
"Just."
And then she said it.
"What?"
"Just because it's you."
"…"
When I confessed to her, she'd asked me why I'd chosen her—and my answer had been *just because.* A forfeit, technically, but that hardly mattered anymore.
Elline.
She was genuinely difficult to understand.
Did she have any idea what kind of image she projected?
She was someone every man at this academy looked up to.
Someone whose presence alone kept people from approaching her.
*Then again, she probably doesn't care about any of that.*
She'd likely ignore the stares entirely.
That was how she'd been for the two years I'd watched her.
She was someone who didn't concern herself with what others thought.
The walk ended thirty minutes later.
After circling the entire North Courtyard and returning to the original fountain, she finally let go of my hand. There was a faint dampness where our palms had been pressed together, but she didn't seem to notice or mind.
"That was nice."
*What was?*
We'd just held hands and walked. What exactly was nice about that?
I genuinely couldn't follow her logic.
Were all geniuses like this?
"Rutess."
Hearing my name in that clear, bright voice did something strange to me.
"Yeah."
She took a small breath, as if preparing to say something.
"Did you eat?"
Oh. Food.
I hadn't, obviously.
When would I have had time for that? I was too wound up to get anything down anyway.
But if I said I hadn't eaten... she might feel bad about it for no reason.
"I had something light."
"Did you?"
*That should be a safe enough answer.*
Then—
In an instant, I caught it. The faintest downward twitch at the corner of Elline's mouth.
*...Wait. Surely not.*
*She's not disappointed that I didn't eat, is she?*
"Though I am kind of hungry now..."
I corrected myself, just in case.
"Is that so."
The corner of Elline's mouth lifted, just slightly.
*...She's not hiding it very well.*
Maybe—
Maybe Elline was far more expressive than she let on. The thought began to seep quietly into my mind.
"Then let's go."
"To eat?"
She nodded.
"Yes."
She took my hand again.
"Let's go."
Her tone was decisive. Without any regard for my opinion, she was already pulling me along.
Toward the dining hall.