Chapter 32

༺ The First Letter (32) ༻

A stone-cold silence descended upon the infirmary.

Neither Celine nor I paid any heed to the tense atmosphere, which was on the verge of eruption.

Anger is the manifestation of your inner feelings.

The angrier you get, the easier it is to spot your flaws. People tend to become more emotional when there’s something they want to hide from others.

But Celine wasn’t angry. She remained silent without uttering a single word. Instead, she just stared at me with her brown eyes.

Celine crossed her arms and leaned against the wall. Her gaze moved away from me as she looked up at the ceiling.

It was only after a little more time had passed, that a sound was born amidst that silence.

Celine smiled and asked.

“......What are you saying all of a sudden?”

It was a forced smile. She looked as if she was asking for clarifications, but I knew.

Celine reacts that way when there is something she wants to hide. The nascent sprout of doubt in my heart began growing taller.

I heaved a sigh as my complexion turned pale. God, I pray that I’m wrong.

“Bad rumors about Seria were circulating among the second grade girls.”

“Are there only one or two girls in the entire second year?”

Celine’s furious retort was a sign that she didn’t want to continue the conversation.

She now took a small knife from her inner pocket and began to trim her nails with it. Either way, I continued to interrogate her.

“From what I heard, sophomore girls tormented Seria only with their words. I wondered why, and then I found out that they were all lower aristocrats.”

Celine let out a strange sound and turned her brown eyes towards me. A cold glint lingered in those eyes. No one could imagine that gaze belonged to Celine, who was always cheerful.

Looking back, there were so many hints.

The first of them was from Leto. He even explicitly mentioned that I ought to take good care of Celine. Even now, I couldn’t figure out why it would be a reason for her to torment Seria.

Nevertheless, as the pieces fit together, the room for doubting Celine grew.

Of course, there was no conclusive evidence, but seeing Celine’s reaction now, I was half convinced.

I was sure Celine wasn’t the instigator, but she must have had a connection. Otherwise, she couldn’t hide anything from me.

Because our relationship was not so superficial and fragile.

Celine’s icy face was far from the one she usually had, but it wasn’t like I was unaware of this side of her.

It happened a few years ago. There was a time when I stayed in the Haster estate for a while, hanging out with Leto and Celine.

At that time, there was an instance when I went out to hunt at the Haster family’s hunting grounds thanks to Baron Haster’s care. It was a small woodland, but a hunting ground nonetheless.

There, I caught a deer and served it to Baron Haster and his wife at the Lord’s Manor that night. Back then, the three of us were just kids aspiring to go to the academy.

However, the most memorable scene of that day was neither the successful hunting nor the time when we were served venison as the main dish at the dinner.

The most memorable scene was Celine, who began chasing her prey in a cruel and relentless manner.

Back then, Celine had an icy face. She pretended to be indifferent to anything, but was in fact, scanning the surroundings with her cold eyes.

Of course, I didn’t expect that those words would work on Celine, who was extremely agitated..

“Anyway!”

As I expected, Celine growled and leapt with clenched fists.

She was like a cat with a furious temper. The atmosphere was tense, but even after those actions her appearance made her look rather cute.

“I don’t like that bitch no matter what Ian Oppa says. And I just said what I thought. Is that a sin?”

Now it was my turn to shout.

My brows furrowed. As I was about to shout, I violently slammed the arm I had raised. I heaved a deep sigh in annoyance.

As my mood turned cold, Celine’s body trembled after seeing me on the verge of exploding. It was around this time that her momentum waned.

She bit her lips and avoided my icy gaze. A deep voice came out of my mouth.

“Then, I wasn’t wrong, was I?”

Celine looked at me with dissatisfaction, perhaps wanting to shout again after those words, but after seeing my completely serious face, she kept her mouth shut.

Her gaze turned to the floor. She kicked the pitiful marble floor with her feet.

“What did Seria do? Even if you claim that it’s Seria’s fault, she only followed my orders. So how is she at fault?”

Celine’s fierce gaze turned to me again. Heat and chill coexisted in her brown eyes. Hostility like frost and rage like fire.

“...... Also, why did you take that bitch’s side?”

“I’m not on her side. You were the one who crossed the line first!”

Eventually, I couldn’t stand it anymore and screamed at her. I didn’t even know how many years it had been since I last yelled at Celine.

At my shout, Celine trembled as if she was startled, then tears began to form in her eyes as if she had just been mistreated.

It was a heartbreaking sight, but I thought that I had to take this opportunity to tell her off, because I cherished Celine.

I spoke to Celine in a serious tone.

“Anyway, how could you make fun of someone else’s miserable family history? Do you know how much it hurt Seria?!”

A low, growling voice.

My voice, which contained a clear resentment, made Celine even more sad, as she rubbed her eyes with her uniform sleeve. She clenched her teeth once more as a gnashing sound resounded.

I felt even more absurd and confused. After having made such an obvious mistake, she still feels mistreated?

In an instant, memories with Celine flashed through my mind. Was it because she has been loved so dearly since she was young that she had now become shallow? Then it was clear that I was also responsible for Celine’s moral corruption.

Back then, I was also looking at Celine with the same disappointed gaze, and excused myself by saying that I needed to consult with Professor Andrei about the Theology Seminar.

“...... It wasn’t me, you idiot!”

Celine screamed like that, as if she felt it was really unfair.

“Oh...”

I tilted my head. Was it really not Celine’s doing? Was I wrong?

But the reddened corners of Celine’s eyes were testifying to me that she wasn’t lying. Then there was only one conclusion.

Apparently, there had been some misunderstanding.