Rutger turned off the lantern.

As the annoying light disappeared, Anita lowered her hand. Taking advantage of the moment, Rutger shone the lantern at her again.

Realizing that he was playing a childish prank on her, Anita didn’t even look back and continued walking toward her house.

A brief smile crossed his lips.

He wasn’t sure why he found himself smiling, even though his attempt at a prank had been completely ignored.

On his way home after school, a girl suddenly called out to him. She introduced herself as Brelin. Rutger had no idea why, but the girl stared at him expectantly, so he awkwardly responded.

“Rutger Baylan.”

But that clearly wasn’t what Brelin wanted to hear. She looked visibly disappointed, then handed him a neatly wrapped box. Before he could even ask what it was, Brelin urged him.

“Open it.”

Something about this felt ominous. But with her constant pestering, Rutger reluctantly unwrapped the box. Inside was chocolate.

He hadn’t guessed wrong.

Rutger closed the box with an irritated expression.

“Do you want to go out with me?”

“Take it back.”

He pushed the box back toward Brelin.

“Just eat it yourself. I bought it for you.”

He knew. He knew all too well, and that was the problem.

Rutger glanced at the box, then lifted his eyes to look at Brelin. The longer his gaze lingered on her face, the redder her cheeks became.

Rutger couldn’t help but think that Brelin reminded him of someone he knew. Objectively speaking, their features were completely different, but there was something in her expression or the way she looked at him that felt familiar.

“I’m allergic to nuts. Just take it.”

He shoved the box back into her hands and turned away. He half-expected her to persist, worried she’d keep bothering him after being rejected. But thankfully, she did nothing.

Occasionally, when they passed each other on the street, she would glare at him as if he were her mortal enemy, but that was the extent of it.

Similar things happened several more times.

Because of his inability to gently reject people, Rutger found himself disliked by many. A couple of months later, he noticed that the number of girls glaring at him had only increased.

Despite being disliked by many, Rutger remained indifferent. After all, these were people whose names he didn’t even know.

As he opened the gate and entered the garden, he ran into Anita. She was carrying a stack of books, likely on her way to the library, and upon seeing him, she quickly stepped aside.

She wasn’t even in his way, so why avoid him like that? There was no chance they’d bump into each other.

“Where are you going?”

“…The library.”

Anyone looking at the two would never guess they had known each other for five years. Their words were awkward and stiff, and their gazes briefly met in the air before quickly darting away in different directions.

Rutger hadn’t intended for things to be this uncomfortable. It was Anita Rodel who kept acting so awkwardly, and now he’d caught it from her.

Would Anita, like the others, start glaring at him with resentment after he rejected her?

Knowing Anita Rodel as he did, that seemed unlikely. Still, he didn’t want her to end up disliking him.

“Where are you coming from?”

“Just… had an appointment.”

It wasn’t until he realized he was on his third aimless lap around the neighborhood that Rutger understood the lie he had told.

There had been no appointment to begin with.

***

After a year of absence, Sarah Baylan returned home. From Rutger’s perspective, it seemed that Sarah considered her friend Elina more like family than either him or her husband, Heindel. Why else would she spend most of her life with Elina rather than with her own family?

Wasn’t Anita bothered by this?

Rutger shook his head at the random thought. Anita Rodel wasn’t the type to be upset over her mother’s absence. She was probably holed up in her room reading books, too absorbed to even notice that Elina had been away.

Seeing Heindel waiting at the front door with a tired expression to welcome Sarah reminded Rutger of his real father.

From what he had heard, his father had been the only son of a wealthy family. Had he married the fiancée arranged by his family, he would have inherited a fortune and lived a prosperous life.

But instead, he left it all behind to marry Sarah.

Even the grandest love story, the kind you only find in romance novels, eventually fades. When Rutger was around seven, there had already been talk of divorce between his parents. If his father hadn’t passed away during one of his volunteer missions, Rutger would have lost one of his parents to divorce regardless. Love isn’t eternal, and Rutger had learned that at a young age. That’s why, even though he understood Anita’s feelings, he had resolved never to let their relationship become something romantic. He didn’t want to get any closer to her than they already were.

He was content with the distance they maintained. Sometimes they had family dinners together or bumped into each other in the garden, exchanging casual conversation and light jokes. That was the extent of their relationship, and he liked it that way.

“Shall we have dinner together?” Sarah suggested cheerfully.

Rutger hesitated to answer. It seemed he would be seeing Anita again tonight.

Selfishly, he knew that Anita wouldn’t easily confess her feelings to him, and his assumption had proven correct. Anita Rodel wasn’t great at hiding her expressions, but she was very good at keeping her emotions to herself.

Time passed, and the two of them entered high school.

“So, what’s going on between you two?”

“Huh?”

Finian plopped down next to him and suddenly asked the question. Rutger, lazily skimming through his boring geometry book, only half-listened to him.