Chapter 3

In the end, Hailey really did call Raymond out separately.

And Diana hid herself at a distance where the two would not notice her and watched what happened.

She was so curious about what they were saying that she wanted to go closer and listen, but she could not get greedy and risk being discovered.

Hailey’s calm voice and Raymond’s low replies scattered in the blowing wind and could not be heard properly.

Diana bit her lip.

So little by little, really little by little, she shortened the distance.

From behind a tree to beside a pillar, and then again to the corner of the hallway.

Thanks to that, she was able to hear only the very last sentence clearly.

“To be honest, it made me very uncomfortable. So I hope something that crosses the line like this never happens again.”

Diana covered her mouth on instinct.

Wow.

It was her first time seeing her sister speak that firmly.

She must have been truly furious.

A sense of guilt slowly raised its head.

“……”

In the place Hailey left first, only Raymond remained alone.

He kept his head lowered and did not move in the slightest for quite a while.

‘Was the shock bigger than I thought?’

Because of that, her guilt tilted in Raymond’s direction as well.

No matter how obnoxious a rival he was, maybe she had gone too far.

But she soon shook her head hard.

‘It has to be made clear here.’

She had to make sure he could never again look down on her with that conceited face right in front of her.

She had a goal.

The goal of becoming first place in the Academy!

“Ahem, wow. What did you do to my sister?”

Diana deliberately approached him in an unconcerned voice.

Of course, Raymond still kept his head lowered and did not look at her.

To be precise, it was closer to saying he did not even give her a glance.

“Hm, don’t misunderstand. I just came out for a walk following my sister and happened to hear it! It was really just by chance.”

An excuse slipped out first for no reason.

After saying it, she felt it only made her seem more suspicious instead, so Diana moved her lips awkwardly.

“……”

But Raymond still said nothing.

Feeling awkward, Diana absently fiddled with the ends of her hair.

“A-anyway, that’s rough for you too. My sister is unexpectedly very clear-cut, so once she draws a line with someone like that, she never looks at them again.”

After hesitating for a moment, she finally continued honestly.

“So it would probably be better for you too to go back to your room and sort out your feelings.”

And if possible, to spend long enough sorting them out for me to beat you and take first place on the practical exam.

Especially while not even going near places like the library.

It was then.

Raymond, who had kept his head lowered the whole time, slowly raised his face.

Their eyes met head-on in an instant.

For a moment, Diana’s breath stopped completely.

Under black hair, gray-brown eyes were staring straight at her.

A thin sheen of moisture spread around his eyes.

Eyes trembling with hurt frustration.

It was not the usual gaze that was only cold.

Frustration, hurt, trampled pride, and other things were tangled together chaotically, shaking so precariously that he looked as though he might collapse at any moment.

For some reason, she could not take her eyes off him.

A single tiny gap she had found in that perfectly composed face.

That unfamiliar crack was beautiful.

From the narrow gap in the door of emotions that had always been tightly shut, the hottest and clearest thing was leaking out vividly.

She did not even think she should look away.

The inside of her chest tightened coldly, and at the same time burned as if it might burst into flame at once.

At this very moment, it felt as though the whole world consisted only of those wet gray-brown eyes directed at her, and the raw emotion swaying within them.

Thump.

Thump, thump.

Her heart began to beat at a speed it never had before.

It felt like the inside of her throat was drying up.

Inside her head, a voice urgently rang out that she had to look away at once, but strangely, her body would not obey at all.

Raymond was crying.

Right now, in front of her.

With the self that had always been flawlessly composed broken down, unable to hide his raw emotions even a little.

“……”

The next moment, as if bewitched by something, she stepped closer to him.

If she went just a little closer, she felt she would be able to see that crack she had first discovered more clearly.

If she reached out from closer by, if she lightly brushed the dampness at the corner of his eyes with her fingertips, if she saw that fragile face leaning wholly on her…….

Drawn by that thought, her hand rose very slowly.

Her fingertips, cutting through the air as if hesitating, were finally about to touch the corner of his eye.

But in the next moment, Raymond turned his head away.

His black hair swept through the air as though it would brush the back of her hand, and her hand, unable to touch him, stopped awkwardly in midair.

After that, without saying a single word, he turned his back and moved out of sight.

Diana stared blankly at his retreating figure for a long time.

It was only when he had completely disappeared from view that the breath she had been holding burst out.

Only then did she belatedly realize that she had been holding her breath all along.

Her fingertips tingled strangely.

If he had not turned his head a moment ago, she really might have touched him.

It was hard to calm her breathing at all.

Because Raymond’s tearful face was far more…… stimulating than she had imagined.

“U-unnie.”

As Diana returned to the dormitory and was just about to turn the doorknob, the door suddenly opened from inside first.

“What are you so startled about?”

“Ah, no. It’s just…….”

When Diana avoided her gaze, Hailey, who had narrowed her eyes, shrugged.

“I’ll be coming in late today, so go to sleep first.”

Leaving only those words behind, Hailey walked away down the darkened corridor.

After entering the room, Diana had to spend a long while in the bathtub trying to cool the heat that had risen in her.

Even though cold water ran down over her skin, the warmth that had risen would not easily subside.

It was a relief that her sister was not in the room.

Otherwise, seeing her face more flushed than usual, she surely would have asked if something had happened.

She lay down on the bed after barely calming at least the outward heat, but naturally, sleep did not come.

If anything, her mind only kept growing clearer.

Whenever she closed her eyes, the scene from earlier kept vividly coming back to life.

‘So he cries like that too.’

Wet gray-brown eyes.

Moisture spread around his eyes.

Raymond, who normally never showed the slightest disorder, had looked astonishingly vulnerable in that moment.

He had looked like someone her own age, someone who held emotions and could be hurt.

A tear had run down along his neat jawline and fallen onto his shirt.

The tear stain that spread across the pure white cloth.

Those traces might perhaps sink farther inward, following the lines of his body.

Flowing down like that, lower still.

Perhaps even to some hidden, private place he usually kept concealed.

Diana slowly swallowed.

The sound of her swallowing echoed unusually loudly in the stillness of the night.

Without her even knowing since when, her hand had slowly begun to slide down over the blanket.

To the place that was still damp from having just washed.

To some hidden, private place, simply exposed without even wearing undergarments, normally concealed.

She was simply curious.

Raymond Black had completely fallen apart before her and shown tears.

So she was only curious whether a moment even more defenseless than that could exist.

Whether there really could be a moment when that perfect face was overtaken by some yearning, his breathing falling apart in ragged disorder, breath he could not quite contain slipping through his tightly closed lips, until at last he could not endure and let himself go.

Really, only that much curiosity.

The kind of very simple curiosity anyone might have.

‘A little more……’

Before she knew it, more and more strength entered the fingertips she had lowered below.