“You should have told me that earlier!”

Edmund’s eyes widened, and he exclaimed. The knife in his hand dropped to the floor. A passing waiter, who happened to be nearby, glanced at Edmund and quickly replaced the fallen knife with a new one.

“It was a delicate situation to talk about.”

Anita found herself justifying without even realizing it.

“Oh, for God’s sake! Anita Rodel. There’s a world of difference between simply annoying you and sneaking into your dorm room. don’t you realize that?”

“Well, first of all, there was no evidence…”

He interrupted Anita.

“You can always create evidence.”

“…What?”

“Just because there’s no evidence doesn’t mean you can let it happen. Besides, who committed the crime first?”

Anita couldn’t find words to reply and just sipped her water. Should she have been more cunning? She impaled the just-arrived fish with her fork.

Of course, Edmund’s help was appreciated. However, she felt pathetic for having to rely on him. Shameful as it was, Anita had thought of herself as someone quite wise. She used to look at people doing things that didn’t make sense to her and wonder why they were acting like idiots.

It was an arrogant thought.

No matter how self-important she was, Anita was still just a stupid girl who had barely come of age. A pathetic child who couldn’t solve her own problems without help.

And it seemed even more so because the person who helped her was Edmund. She hadn’t consciously acknowledged it, but now, looking back, she felt that she judged him as clumsy and inexperienced because he seemed so eager. Despite his seemingly carefree attitude, Edmund was a person far superior to her.

“I’m sorry.”

“”What.”

“Why am I so stupid…”

Anita found herself deeply self-blaming.

Recalling how Charles had confessed to being the culprit with his own mouth and how she had done nothing in return made her feel pathetic.

“I don’t know. Sometimes, confidence builds up for no reason. At those times, I fall into the delusion that I’m like the protagonist in a book—courageous and capable of solving anything.”

“Hmm.”

“And then I realize that I’m actually nothing.”

As she spoke, it reached the pinnacle of awkwardness. Anita stabbed the salmon with her fork and put it in her mouth with a gloomy expression.

“I feel that way sometimes too.”

His face seemed unusually serious. The playful and light-hearted demeanor Anita had seen so far disappeared, replaced by an inexplicable seriousness.

He had just been eating his steak moments ago, but now he seemed to lose his appetite. Edmund put his fork down. Anita rolled her eyes at the sudden change in atmosphere. Why had he become so serious all of a sudden?

“Everyone makes mistakes, you learn from them. That’s how we grow.”

His face showed an unusual sincerity. The usual playfulness and lightness in Edmund’s demeanor vanished, replaced by a solemnity that Anita hadn’t seen before.

Even though he was just eating steak a moment ago, he now seemed to have lost his appetite. Anita was taken aback by the abrupt shift in mood. What was the matter?

“People make mistakes, everyone does. The key is to learn from them. That’s how you grow.”

He dabbed at the corner of his mouth with a napkin on the table.

“Well, you can say all the clichés, but in my experience, they don’t help much.”

“….”

“Instead, there’s another way.”

Edmund suddenly stood up from his chair.

“Want me to show you?”

“…What?”

Anita, who didn’t understand what he was talking about, responded a beat late.

“Let’s go.”

Edmund left the restaurant just like that. Anita, who was dumbfounded by the unexpectedly serious atmosphere, only got up from her seat belatedly. Unconsciously quickening her pace to catch up with Edmund, who was walking leisurely towards the exit, she was still puzzled.

“Senior? Where are you going?”

If there was something Anita had recently learned, it was that Edmund was more unpredictable than she thought. Oblivious to the calculations going on in Anita’s mind, he didn’t slow down his pace even for a moment. In the end, Anita threw a bunch of bills to the waiter, as if tossing them away, and left the restaurant. She didn’t even hear the waiter shouting to return the change.

“Senior!”

Anita, who had been following him for a while, slowed her steps.

“What’s this place?”

The building where Edmund had stopped was a wooden structure that was rare to see in the city these days.

“A place that makes life more abundant…”

“A bar?”

Anita interrupted him when she saw the beer glass depicted on the signboard of the building.

“Uhm. It is.”

It was a type of place she had never visited before. Anita looked around with an interesting expression. The peeling paint on the old exterior of the building, or the lively conversation sounds coming from inside, were indeed different from what she had expected.

Contrary to her vague expectation of a messy interior, Anita was impressed by the neat view inside. Clean tables, bartenders in well-ironed white shirts taking orders—it was almost indistinguishable from the upscale restaurant where Anita and Edmund had just finished their meal.

The main difference was that this place seemed to cater more to drinkers than the quiet diners in the restaurant.

However, Anita’s positive impressions quickly faded. This place, filled with noise and people, was uncomfortable for Anita, who tended to lose energy in such crowded places.

“Are you sick, you look pretty down?”

Anita sat down at an empty table without answering. The wooden chair, which she thought would be light, turned out to be heavier than expected, and Edmund pulled the chair out for her.

“No, I’m fine.”

She had never drunk alcohol before, but somehow, today seemed like an appropriate day for it. Moreover, with the unsettling presence of Rutger and the strange guy who had sneaked into Anita’s room.

“Really?”

She clasped her hands together and placed them on the table as if she were in the middle of an important negotiation. Despite being someone who had come for just a drink, her demeanor was quite formidable.

“Yes.”

Edmund didn’t ask if she was okay anymore because Anita had come on so strong. Instead, he called for a waiter and placed an order that Anita couldn’t understand.