Chapter 4

Her hectic schedule finally eased as exams ended.

The important exams were all finished. By the sixth year, students in the same department took different classes, so some friends finished early and moved out of the dorm. But Delilah, as always, filled her schedule tightly and still had two exams left. Luckily, she felt confident about both.

“Both are the day after tomorrow….”

Late in the evening, sitting in her room and muttering to herself as she planned her schedule, she sighed deeply.

She was truly, unbearably tired and suffocated. She planned to rest all day tomorrow and review in the afternoon, but having free time only made her pent-up frustration and gloom surge up. The emotions inside her felt like a solid lump she could spit out if she opened her mouth and bowed her head.

On the nights before exams, Delilah always recalled his image in her mind. Despite his height and broad shoulders, he looked smaller when hunched over his papers at the table. His soft caramel hair and fingers calloused from holding a fountain pen for years….

It had been almost a month since she’d last seen him. Maybe that’s why her memory was fading. No matter how often she recalled him at night, busy days swept her memories away.

To recall the blurry parts clearly, Delilah remembered every moment spent with him in the same space, from the first time she saw his sun-bright golden eyes.

As she retraced her memories, Delilah remembered the last night she said goodbye to him. She hadn’t been able to look him in the face, just quickly said goodbye and ran out of his room into the cold night, her cheeks burning so much she didn’t even notice the chill. Remembering that embarrassing moment, her cheeks were still a little warm.

But it was different from when her mind had spun in confusion. The intense shame and embarrassment had been washed away by the passing time and accumulated fatigue.

Thinking back, that book had always been in Eric’s room. She hadn’t noticed before, but Eric seemed to have known its contents and snatched it away so she wouldn’t be shocked. He’d said his older sister wrote it….

But she had definitely read that book too eagerly, too intently. She was surprised, but because of that, or maybe not, but definitely not because she liked that kind of thing!

Lost in thought and shaking her head, Delilah suddenly wondered,

‘What if Eric thinks I like… that kind of thing?’

If Delilah had been a little more rational, and had talked with Eric a few more times, she would never have worried about such things.

But Delilah was exhausted, and even though her embarrassment had faded, her reason was still defensive, and their short conversations hadn’t been enough to fully understand Eric’s personality. So, her sudden worry colored her thoughts completely.

‘What if he thinks I’m… an indecent woman for the whole break?’

Her worries, growing and gnawing at her reason, began to torment her in more specific and varied ways.

‘Vacation is soon, so I won’t have a chance to clear up the misunderstanding. If he talks about it with friends or family back home….’

No! Delilah screamed internally and jumped up. But she quickly sat back down. It was late, but not deep enough into the night to barge into his room. If she headed to the boys’ dorm now, she’d definitely get caught climbing the emergency ladder.

From that moment, Delilah anxiously waited for night to deepen. She pressed down her inexplicable anxiety as hard as she could.

Forgetting her fatigue, Delilah paced her room restlessly, waiting for darkness to fall. As soon as she saw the lights in the garden go out, she opened her door. The cold made her shoulders shiver, but she didn’t even think to go back for a coat. Lost in thought, her mind spun with wild ideas of rumors about Delilah Erica spreading across the Academy and the country.

Without making a sound, she opened the hallway window and climbed onto the ladder, quickly crossing the garden. Within minutes, she stood at the end of the second-floor hallway of the boys’ dormitory. Only now did the worry cross her mind—what if Eric had finished his exams early and already returned home?

In the dark hallway, a thin line of light leaked out. It was the trace of the lamp shining from inside Eric’s room, spilling through the crack under the door.

Her heart was pounding. She’d done this many times before, but somehow it felt like she was about to do something wrong, making her anxious. But she couldn’t not do it.

Knock, knock, knock. The sound of her knocking echoed as always.

* * *

Eric Briar was unable to concentrate, feeling an unusual emptiness behind him.

In truth, it had been this way for the past month. In the mornings, when he headed to the lecture building or holed up in the lab, he could forget it, but at night, returning to the dormitory, he felt a strange emptiness. It was as though something that should exist in his room had disappeared.

He knew what it was.

The three small knocks that came unexpectedly in the dead of night when everyone was asleep. When he opened the door, a petite figure with fluttering pink hair would walk in as if it were her own room, bringing with her a sweet scent. Sometimes she would call out to him with no real purpose, and they would exchange meaningless conversation, or he’d feel her gaze from behind.

These were things that used to be absent, but now their absence felt odd and empty. Like the final piece of a puzzle that made everything complete.

Even as he spun his fountain pen, Eric would often lose his train of thought, sitting blankly in that emptiness.

At such times, it felt as though he was waiting. Waiting for her knock, her sweet scent. Waiting for her, Delilah Erica. Sometimes, when the wind rattled the window, he would suddenly lift his head, as if to prove it was true.

But the secret visit never came.

Since exam season began, he had half resigned himself. It was something that couldn’t happen in the first place. Whenever he thought of her, Eric Briar held onto that thought.

Exam season was nearly over. Perhaps Delilah Erica had already finished all her exams and left the dormitory. Maybe she’d left, shuddering at the cheap romance novel Eric Briar had hidden in the corner of his room.

Even without extra studying, he’d earned excellent grades. It was only natural, given his exceptional knowledge in magical engineering.

The papers scattered across his table were not study materials but notes on his experiment results. He recalled the day Delilah first visited, and the day she last came, when he organized the method for refining magical potions—of course, he had succeeded. All that was left was to compile the results and inform the academic world.

Yet, he still couldn’t focus.

Eric’s golden eyes glared at the handwriting scrawled on the paper. Even though he had written the formulas and explanations himself, none of it felt real.

The knock came after several minutes—or perhaps tens of minutes—had passed.

Knock, knock, knock. The familiar three knocks snapped him to attention. It was so quiet he wondered if he imagined it, but Eric instantly recognized it. He could picture a small hand tapping on his door in the darkness. He rose from his seat and slowly walked toward the door.

Knock, knock, knock—impatient, the knocking sounded again. Had she gotten nervous after so long, or was she angry? Thinking so, Eric reached out and turned the doorknob. Click, the door opened. Light spilled slowly into the dark hallway.

Standing in the light was Delilah Erica.

“…May I come in?”

“Yes.”

After their usual brief exchange, she entered the room. The door closed silently behind her.

In that moment, the emptiness that had haunted him for a month melted away as if it were a lie.

“…….”

“…….”

But unlike usual, they didn’t naturally move to their places. A few awkward steps apart, Delilah and Eric stood facing each other in a tense silence. Delilah kept her head bowed, so Eric, much taller than her, couldn’t see her expression at all.

He vaguely thought she might be angry or about to cry, and looked down at her round, pink crown. He wondered when she would lift her head, revealing her pale nose, and what words would spill from lips the color of cherry blossoms, so like her hair. Perhaps he was even hoping for it.

When she finally lifted her pale face, Eric Briar felt a strange satisfaction at seeing what he had only imagined now displayed on her features.

A faint passion, and the moisture glistening on her now flushed eyes.

“I’m not that kind of woman…”

“…Excuse me?”

But what she said was unexpected. Regardless, Delilah began to mumble with her pretty lips.

“I don’t like that stuff, I’m not like that. Anyway, I’m not!”

“What do you mean, Delilah?”

“That… that stuff!”

“That stuff?”

Waaah. Delilah’s face twisted in a pitiful, almost crying expression. Her reddish eyebrows drooped under her white forehead in a curved line. Her pink lips drooped too. Her soft-looking cheeks formed round marks that faded.