Three weeks until the Harvest Rose Ball. Milena Valentia had claimed the most secluded reading seat in the library tower "Rose of Wisdom"—a five-story structure housing forty thousand volumes, the pride of the Royal Tirian Academy. The small desk was wedged between bookshelves, away from the crowded window seats. One candlestick. Three reference books stacked beside it. A quiet space, nothing more. Maintaining a mask takes physical strength. The moment that thought crossed her mind, Milena stopped herself. (A mask. I've been using that word more often lately.) The memory of yesterday's courtyard surfaced again. The rose hedge. A petal from the fading autumn flowers falling onto the stone path. And—the touch of Julius Vanders's hand, cold yet faintly warm. Milena pressed her pencil to paper. She switched gears. Analysis, not emotion. That was her strength. On the open notebook, she wrote a title: "Second Prince Julius Vanders—Behavioral Patterns." She drew a vertical line beneath it, dividing the page into two columns. Left: "Game Source Material Settings." Right: "Real-World Observations." She began filling in what the original game knowledge provided. The second prince route in the otome game *Rose Princess and Knights*—a route renowned for its difficulty, praised as the deepest story among six chapters. In that route, Julius Vanders showed no interest in any lady except the heroine. He would answer if spoken to, but never closed the distance himself. He concealed his emotions, fulfilled social obligations, but avoided private contact. Her pencil stopped at the right column. "…" She tried to write her real-world observations. But couldn't. He closes the distance himself. Sits beside her in the library. Seeks her as a training partner. Corners her in the garden corridor. Takes her hand in the tea house courtyard. The more she wrote, the wider the gap between the two columns grew on the page. As if she were comparing two entirely different people. (The game's target and who he is now—they're completely different.) Milena exhaled quietly. If it were merely a discrepancy or random variation, that would be manageable. But if she had to operate under the premise that "living humans don't follow game patterns"—how reliable was the game knowledge she'd believed was her greatest weapon? The White Rose Oath—ladies of ducal rank and above must secure a marriage contract approved by the royal family by age eighteen, or lose their territorial rights—had less than a year remaining. Calculations must be precise. Predictions must be certain. If the foundation for those predictions wavered... Outside the window, the sky was shifting from white to orange. She'd lost track of time. Milena returned her gaze to the notebook. But this time she didn't move her pencil, only stared at the divergence on the page. --- As closing time approached, footsteps sounded. Measured, quiet footsteps. Milena recognized them as belonging to the tower's librarian—Lilic Northgren. Lilic Northgren was thirty-two. Silver-gray hair tied back, water-blue eyes that rarely reflected any emotion. Multiple fingers on her left hand bore old signet rings. A commoner who had earned her position as Tirian Academy's librarian through effort alone—Milena had learned this on her first day at the academy. The footsteps stopped beside Milena's desk. Lilic said nothing. She simply placed a candle on the desk's edge. A spare for the one Milena already had. Then she departed without a sound. No questions. No sympathy. Just that. Milena stared at the candle for a while. (Why.) She tried to reason it out. Standard consideration for students staying late? Or did Lilic notice that Milena always claimed this seat and care about her? Either way, there was no demand, no expectation of return—and that very casualness made something deep in Milena's chest loosen slightly. (This is emotion. Unnecessary.) She commanded herself immediately. Eliminate it. Place it outside calculation. Don't let emotion drag you down. But the loosening didn't easily reverse. Then the door hinge at the tower's entrance creaked softly. Milena didn't look up. She assumed it was a student coming for a final checkout before closing. Footsteps approached slowly through the bookshelves. They stopped. The chair across from her was pulled out quietly. That sound sent something cold down Milena's spine. The sound of sitting. The sound of pages turning. She read the presence without looking up. The height. The quiet movement. The fact that he'd found this seat without hesitation. (How does he know about this place.) Milena slowly raised her eyes. Pale silver hair. In the candlelight, shadows softened his features. The rose-shaped earring on his left ear flickered faintly in the flame. Julius Vanders wasn't wearing his sword today. He had his uniform jacket on, but the usual pressure was diminished. He simply opened an old book and quietly turned pages. It appeared to be a text on rose-mark sorcery. No words passed between them. Milena lowered her gaze to her notebook. But the words wouldn't register. The text "Behavioral Patterns" she'd written looked strangely hollow. (Don't look up. If he says nothing, say nothing. Just work. When closing time comes, leave.) She told herself this while trying to move her pencil. It wouldn't move. Each time Julius turned a page, his silver hair swayed slightly. The shadow cast by candlelight softly outlined his profile. Different from the frozen expression she'd seen in the courtyard—was he simply concentrating, or did he truly not mind being here? She couldn't judge. When she realized it, Milena had been staring at his profile for three seconds. Her heart beat once, unnecessarily fast. (...) That heat, Milena quietly pushed deeper inside. She turned her face away. Drew meaningless vertical lines in her notebook's margin. Then erased them. She didn't bother checking whether he'd noticed. The silence between them was strangely not heavy. Just quiet. The candle flame occasionally flickered, making the depths of the bookshelves flicker in response. Distant sounds from the academy outside the tower faintly reached them, then faded. Resistance to his presence and the strange peace within this small circle of light accumulated contradictorily inside Milena. --- The hand turning pages stopped. Milena wasn't sure when it had stopped. She was looking at the divergence between her left and right columns again. The prince from the source material and the prince in reality. Two images that didn't overlap. "...Why do you move the way you do?" The murmur wasn't directed at Julius. It was meant as a soliloquy. It wasn't meant to be spoken aloud. But it had reached him. Julius didn't look up from the old book. But his hand stilled. "Isn't that a question you should ask yourself?" His voice was low, quiet. Milena had no answer. Silence fell. Within that silence, something broke free from inside her and rose to the surface. The memory of her previous life—the night she'd played through the otome game *Rose Princess and Knights* alone, the feel of that room. She'd pretended to talk to someone while conversing with characters on the screen. She hadn't discarded that loneliness after reincarnation. She'd polished it instead—polished the glass wall called calculation, watching everyone from beyond it. (Loneliness was my choice.) She'd repeated this countless times. Hundreds of times. Tonight, those words echoed hollow. She tried to compose her mask. Tried to craft a polite smile. But— "...I..." Her voice trembled, just barely, for one beat. Milena realized it the moment it happened and closed her lips. She bowed her head. Gripped her pencil tightly, letting the tremor escape through her fingertips. Julius said nothing. He didn't blame her. He didn't comfort her. He simply existed quietly beneath the same candlelight. That silence held no pressure at all. Then footsteps sounded from the corridor. Measured, quiet footsteps. Lilic's gait. She'd come to announce closing time. Milena stood. She had materials to organize. She returned her pencil to its holder and tried to stack her notebook and reference books—her hands moved awkwardly. Several sheets of paper that had been tucked under the notebook slid to the floor. Julius reflexively bent down. He picked up the papers and straightened, extending them to her—in that motion, they faced each other. They were separated by only the distance of one candle. Close enough that their breath could reach each other. Julius's blue eyes, tinted orange by the flame, looked at her. Eyes that revealed no emotion. Yet something lay within them—the same unreadable something as always. He returned the notebook to Milena. In that moment, his fingertips brushed hers for the briefest instant. Whether intentional, she couldn't tell. An ambiguous contact, balanced on a boundary line. Milena's fingertips felt, for one moment, like they didn't belong to her. Temperature became indiscernible. Her pulse quickened, and her body honestly reported it. (This is... residual resonance from rose-mark sorcery. Magical interference is temporarily affecting my senses.) She tried to rationalize it. But those words felt unbearably thin and hollow tonight. Lilic's footsteps in the corridor paused once, then faded away. She'd finished her closing check. --- Julius left the library tower first. Milena didn't watch his back. She kept her head down while gathering her things. She tried to pinch out the candle flame with her fingers—then stopped. She wanted to remain in this light a little longer. Her things were organized. Before closing her notebook, she had a habit of quickly checking the margins. To confirm she hadn't missed anything written. There was writing in the margin. Not her handwriting. She tilted the candle, bringing light closer. Neat characters, minimal flourish. A single line. "Isn't what you're calculating not me, but your own fear?" There was no signature. Milena stared at that single line for a long time. She tried to read his motive. Love? Political calculation? An intentional move to break down her defenses? Or something entirely different—something about Julius Vanders that existed outside her game knowledge? She couldn't tell. The person who was supposed to be a game's target had touched, with precision, the most hidden part of her inner self tonight. He'd seen through—or had he seen through?—the hollowness of the words "loneliness is my choice." Or perhaps it had simply reached her by chance. She couldn't even know that. But this single line left on her notebook definitely existed. (My calculation system is wavering.) Milena quietly cut away the paper's margin and folded it. She held it in her hand, gripping it tightly. When had she sworn to "discard emotion"? The night right after reincarnation? Or earlier—in the loneliness of her previous life that she could show no one? Tonight, for the first time, she felt that oath was certainly a lie. Knowing it was a lie, she still couldn't let it go. That was Milena Valentia's precise condition now. She picked up the candle. Headed toward the tower's exit. Her footsteps struck the stone floor. The darkness between the bookshelves moved with the flame's flicker. The folded paper slip was warm in her hand. Even knowing that warmth was her own body heat, not Julius's, Milena couldn't discard it. The heavy door of the library tower "Rose of Wisdom" closed quietly behind her. Autumn night air brushed her cheek. Stars dotted the sky. From the direction of the Moonlight Garden—where magically luminescent flowers bloomed at night—a faint blue-white glow seeped through. Milena didn't look up at the sky. She began walking toward the dormitory, confirming the feel of the paper slip in her grip. Her defensive logic stood higher than ever tonight, yet simultaneously more fragile than ever—on