I Never Followed You
Tilia’s heart hammered hard enough to shake her ribs, having nearly pitched headfirst onto the marble floor. The belated jolt of danger prickled the fine hairs at her nape before it finally subsided.
“Careful.”
From behind her drifted a scent that was not quite unfamiliar—something like stepping into a deep forest.
“You’re the type who spaces out a lot, aren’t you?”
The low voice that rolled through the damp air hung a little longer in the empty space.
Tilia felt the scorching hand that had seized her slowly release its grip. The residual heat on her shoulder lingered like an afterimage across the thin fabric of her shirt.
“Let’s go. Looks like there’s someone over there.”
In the brief instant she almost drifted off again, the hurried clatter of the freshmen’s shoes retreating sounded like an alarm bell.
Tilia stepped back as if waking from sleep and turned around.
Then she fixed a wary gaze on the man who had caught her shoulder.
In the air of the old library, where sunlight poured in unchecked, glittering dust motes drifted. Standing among them, Elex’s gray-blue eyes had been washed pale by the strong light—remote and faded, like glass marbles left too long in a display cabinet.
Yes. Those eyes.
Tilia looked up at him and, without realizing it, bit her lip again. As if drawn by some magnetic pull, she felt his gaze slide down to her mouth.
Those unreadable, thoroughly unpleasant eyes were the problem. In the cold gray-blue lurked a heat that did not belong there at all. It was so suspicious she almost wanted to gouge them out and dig around inside—though she was certain that if she ever did, she would only be disappointed by how little she found.
“Elex Davenport.”
The sting made her release her lip; she spoke. The clouded gray irises rose once more to meet her own.
Holding his gaze, Tilia issued a quiet order.
“Follow me out.”
No matter how steeped in history and tradition the library might be, its decrepitude was plainly a problem. Once the risk of collapse entered the discussion, the construction committee decided to leave the original central library as a memorial hall and build a new one. Consequently the right-hand side of what had once been a quiet refuge had turned into a construction site.
A place abandoned by foot traffic because of dust and noise. In a far corner even of that desolate ground, Tilia exhaled a long sigh and turned her back.
Across a measured distance, the green eyes that regarded Elex were thick with irritation.
She had picked him because he seemed the least troublesome option. Who knew he would turn out to be such a massive landmine? She felt an urge to punch her past self for ever thinking she had chosen well.
After a moment’s hesitation over how to begin, Tilia recalled the box still sitting untouched in the corner of her room and opened her mouth.
“The medicine chest delivered to the dorm a week ago.”
Her eyes interrogated him without mercy.
“You sent it, didn’t you?”
No answer came. Yet Tilia already knew. Nestled among the assortment of remedies had been the ointment for heat-induced abrasions. Only Elex Davenport—who had shared her body that night—could have known she needed something for a wound that deep. Only he.
“I don’t need it. Take it back.”
She continued with a look of pure annoyance.
“And I thought I made myself perfectly clear before, but since you seem not to have understood, I’ll say it again.”
Elex Davenport still said nothing. Tilia, for her part, did not require a reply.
“I have no intention of holding last week’s events over your head.”
“……”
“And I’d prefer you felt the same.”
As if resenting the necessity of saying any of this aloud, she glanced once at the floor, sighed, and lifted her chin.
“Just… pretend nothing happened and go on the way we used to. Do you understand what I mean?”
Somehow voicing it made her feel a little like trash.
Well, he’s trash too, so it’s fine.
She regarded him with that convenient conclusion.
“So could you stop following me around?”
Until now it had been enough simply to spit the words out; now it was different. She needed a firm confirmation from him—that he would never loiter near her again, that no matter where she went he would not send those subtle glances her way. She could not stop him from snickering about it with his friends, but at the very least he had no business interfering with her daily life.
Tilia looked at Elex Davenport with an expression that demanded an answer.
Still none came.
The racket of the construction site filled the silence between them. Beneath the clear sky, a breeze mixed with lime dust and pollen stung her eyes—
“Ha.”
At last Elex’s face changed.
…He’s laughing?
It was not the reaction she had wanted. As if he had just heard the most ridiculous story imaginable, Elex snorted and looked down at her from above.
“You’re the one under a delusion.”
The low voice had grown a shade more sardonic than the one she had heard a week ago. In his gray eyes flickered the same faint irritation that had just been in hers.
“I’ve never followed you.”
It took Tilia a beat to parse the words; a crack appeared belatedly between her brows.
“What?”
“I said I’ve never followed you.”
She skewered the sudden, brazen denial with acid sarcasm.
“Oh, really? Then I suppose the person spotted around me for an entire week was just your ghost?”
“I have no idea what you’re talking about.”
Elex shrugged as though enduring pure nonsense.
“Our paths simply happened to overlap. Is there some law that says I can’t go where you go?”
Coincidence?
Tilia was so flabbergasted she almost laughed out loud. The same man who had hovered so conspicuously that even dense Judy had noticed was now pretending none of it had ever happened.
“I went to the lecture wing for a consultation with a professor, and I came to the library because there were books I needed to look at.”
“Oh, is that so?”
“It is. And if I remember correctly, this library was built with donations from the Davenport duchy.”
But his childish turf war was only beginning.
“If we’re going to be particular about it, shouldn’t you be the one to leave?”
Hearing the blatant equivalent of “My father built this place, so get out” left Tilia speechless.
“……What did you just say?”
“Exactly what I said.”
Elex merely glanced at the half-finished new building and crossed his arms with open arrogance.
“These academy grounds don’t belong to you either, do they? So why act as if only you have the right to use them?”
At those words, one of the definitions Tilia had held of Elex Davenport collapsed. She had thought him an irritating but still high-minded type who struggled to preserve his lofty pride.
And he’s going this low?
“You… what…”
She stared at him in pure disbelief and the words slipped out unbidden.
“Are you eleven?”
The corner of Elex’s mouth twitched. He was clearly holding back a laugh.
“Tilia.”
Arms still folded over his thick biceps, he spoke the way a thug might tease a girl who caught his fancy.
“If I were eleven, you’d already be under arrest—and then some.”
“What are you even saying.”
“Think about it. If I were a minor, you’d be the one in the worst trouble right now, wouldn’t you?”
What the hell. To the blank-faced Tilia he whispered,
“And I believe I’ve already proven sufficiently that I’m a proper adult.”
The moment she found the curve of his lips unpleasant, realization arrived a beat too late. Tilia shuddered and snarled,
“Hey, you…”
“Can’t you shut up?”
Even while snapping, she kept her voice down and shot a quick glance around for witnesses. At the sight, Elex finally burst out laughing.
The clear, ringing sound carried through the murky air. In that instant even the thunder of the construction site could not drown out its brightness.
What’s so funny?
Glaring at him with a deeply furrowed brow, Tilia suddenly realized she had never seen him laugh like that before. And that the expression looked far more like his actual age than the perpetual boredom he usually wore.
…Like his age, my ass.
He was just laughing at his own filthy joke.
She slammed the door on any softer impression and returned her face to its usual hardness.