Chapter 21

Her emotions, always calm, now surged wildly in unfamiliar waves. Beatrice found it strange to show such a disgraceful side in front of Julian.

But perhaps this was the trick of fate.

‘I hate this.’

Beatrice squeezed her eyes shut. That familiar sense of déjà vu. The door that wouldn’t open. When she opened her eyes, heavy with gloom, and looked at the blackboard, she saw these words written there:

<Room you cannot leave unless you cure the illness>

***

Click, click. Beatrice, her face flushed, kept turning the doorknob. She knew from many experiences that the door wouldn’t open this way, but she simply couldn’t bring herself to look back.

‘I hate this. I hate this. Please, please open.’

As if pleading with an ancient, shapeless magic, or chanting a spell, Beatrice kept wishing for the door to open, turning the knob again and again. But, as expected, the door did not open.

The timing was truly cruel. To be trapped in a room in such an awkward atmosphere…. Embarrassed, Beatrice couldn’t bear to turn around. Behind her, she heard a rustling sound.

“Ah!”

Noticing the sound, Beatrice quickly turned her head to stop Julian. But he had already taken the letter she’d shoved at his chest and pulled it from the envelope. Julian read the letter rapidly. Startled, Beatrice snatched the letter from his hand, but he had already read most of its contents.

“What is this? This letter.”

“Why—why did you read it without asking!”

“You gave it to me to read, didn’t you?”

“That was, that was for you to read after I left!”

Not at a time like this, trapped in a room with no way to escape! Unable to say the rest, she swallowed her words. She could feel Julian’s intense gaze staring right at her. Holding the letter awkwardly, Beatrice turned her head aside, pretending not to notice his eyes.

“I asked what’s in the letter. You’re leaving? All of a sudden?”

“It’s not all of a sudden. I’ve been thinking about it for weeks.”

“So why did you suddenly start thinking about that a few weeks ago?”

Julian’s voice grew rough. He clenched his fist and tried to calm himself. Did he even have the right to raise his voice at Beatrice?

He owed her a million apologies. Yet, ever since ‘that day,’ Julian had avoided Beatrice. Using her collapse as an excuse, he’d unilaterally canceled all the experiments they used to conduct every week.

He was afraid. Julian never cared about the reputation other women attached to him, but the moment Beatrice woke up in the hospital and turned away from him, that trivial moment had terrified him. He feared seeing true contempt in her eyes. He feared she would hate him, just like the others.

But now that Beatrice was actually leaving the Academy, he felt suffocated. He had treated Beatrice like she was invisible for weeks, yet he couldn’t stand the thought of her ignoring him.

It was truly a childish emotion. So much so that it was hard to believe this was Julian Sancio, who had always been so skilled at mingling with women.

“That day… Is it because of that day?”

The letter contained words of apology. But those words could not truly reach Julian’s heart. It was he who, with Beatrice inexperienced with men, had engaged in overly provocative physical contact. Using the excuse of fulfilling the room’s conditions, he had indulged his own desires. Seeing Beatrice collapse and lose consciousness, what Julian felt was a deep self-loathing for having acted like a beast.

“Just get angry at me. To suddenly quit like this, how can you say something like that?”

“Get angry at you, Julian? Why would I… I really was grateful for everything. I never thought our final farewell would be like this.”

“Just call me a beast! Call me shameless, call me a rag like my nickname!”

“Julian!”

Beatrice’s face turned pale at Julian’s emotional words. She shook her head quickly and spoke to him.

“Why, why are you saying things like that? Rag, beast… I don’t think of you that way. Really.”

At some point, Beatrice had taken Julian’s tightly clenched fist in both her hands.

Julian pulled his hand free from Beatrice’s grip and let out a hollow laugh.

“How can you say that now? Did you forget what I did to you that day?”

He had teased the chest of Beatrice, who was to become a pure Priestess. Even when she fainted, he couldn’t stop himself. If that wasn’t beastly, then what was?

But Beatrice kept shaking her head in denial.

“I know. But I asked for it. I made things hard for you, Julian, even though I knew you didn’t want it.”

The fact that Julian felt so much guilt was what made Beatrice regretful. Julian looked at Beatrice. It felt as if it had been ages since they’d last met each other’s gaze.

An awkward silence followed. Julian was the one who broke it.

“If you really think that way, then don’t leave the Academy.”

His voice was filled with an anxiety he couldn’t hide.

“But Julian, there’s nothing left for me to learn here. I’ve finished my studies… Other people are uncomfortable with me, and you don’t need to do any more experiments.”

“No.”

Julian spoke through gritted teeth.

“No. I need you, Beatrice.”

“What? Why would you need me…?”

Beatrice looked at Julian with eyes that said she couldn’t understand. Hadn’t he been avoiding her ever since that incident? Now, suddenly, he said he needed her—it didn’t make sense.

Julian desperately searched for a reason. Then, the shining words written on the blackboard caught his eye.

“For graduation.”

The topic of his graduation thesis was Spatial Transposition Magic. To analyze that magic, he needed more data, and as far as he knew, this ancient magic only activated when he was with Beatrice. No one else in the Academy had experienced it, and even he found his own excuse surprisingly convincing as he said it aloud.

Beatrice accepted his logical explanation without question. But she was still hesitant.

“But when I get trapped in this room with you, Julian, it always causes you trouble…”

When asked if it wouldn’t be better to quit, Julian shook his head.

“I’m fine. The reason I’ve been avoiding you until now was because I thought I’d done something unforgivable to you.”

That hasn’t changed, even now. He still believed he shouldn’t lay a hand on Beatrice. That was why he had spent so much time in the library, poring over books and revising his thesis.

The feelings he realized too late were now so cautious that he hardly dared to show them. If he used the room as an excuse to touch Beatrice, his emotions would never truly be accepted.

But rather than letting her leave the Academy and become a Priestess, it was far better to take the risk. If she left the Academy, there would be no chance to meet her again, and once she became a Priestess, he wouldn’t even be able to confess his feelings to Beatrice.

What Julian needed was time. He had to find a way to keep Beatrice from suddenly cutting him off and returning to the Temple.