History at the Library

“Ha,” she couldn’t accept the situation.

If a scholar named Ray didn’t exist in the Scholar’s Tower, then who exactly was the man who went in and out of the library and pretended to be from the Scholar’s Tower?

“What exactly is this…….”

To be honest, Ray was most definitely suspicious. He was incredibly different from the other scholars who stayed in one corner to research continuously. Though it was a different story if he were a noble.

However, if he was a noble, there would have been no reason for him to masquerade as a scholar just to borrow books at the library. What reason could there exist for someone to hide their identity as a noble?

Fraud!

Oh my. She held interest for a man that was actually a fraud who hid his identity!

Then all those conversations up till now and all those sides of him he’d shown me were all a mere act?

Not only had her heart been cajoled with by a man whose identity she didn’t know, and her notebook, that was equal to the weight of her life, had been stolen away by him? Vivian’s blood pressure rose up to the very tip of her head and she felt as though she would drop dead at any moment.

He’s not coming…….

Not even a glimpse of Ray, who would usually visit every single day, could be seen today.

Vivian was awake all night and continued to wait for Ray. After she had finished her work, she leaned against the wall and looked down at her watch every five minutes impulsively.

Even though it was way past when he should have arrived, she couldn’t find even a single hair of him in sight. She felt as though she had become a dog who awaited its owner.

As she waited around for the promised meeting, she received the suspicious glares of the day librarians as the time to switch shifts approached.

“What are you doing, Vivian? Not leaving yet?”

Everyone looked at her as though she was ill. Of course. After all, which employee would remain at their workplace past their shift? It was a rather strange incident.

Vivian changed her clothes and pulled together her belongings before she set upon her way back home with a miserable face. There hadn’t been a day, be it a weekday or a weekend, ever since Ray’s first appearance that he’d been unable to visit the library.

With this, she came upon a definite conclusion.

Ray, that bastard, was a fraud!

He ran away with my notebook!

Vivian was like a volcano on the brink of explosion. She kicked the wall, which only brought injury to her foot, and walked through the corridor. As time passed, her rage was overtaken by bitterness.

Vivian recalled her first meeting with Ray.

At that time, Vivian had carefully observed the one who was draped in a black hood and searched the library and asked the following, “Didn’t we meet somewhere before?”

Now that she thought about it, it was embarrassing to the point she wanted to hide in a mouse hole. It was an outdated, past to the point of frowning, even if she read novels to excess. But for her to say those lines with her own mouth, Vivian felt a great shame as the century’s greatest erotic novelist. However, she had definitely felt an unusual sense of longing for the stranger whose face she’d never seen.

It had been such a vibrant feeling that she had even thought, Is this what they call fate?

At that, Ray grew quiet, and before he replied to her words in a quite histrionic tone, “If we met somewhere before, there is no way I would have forgotten someone like yourself.”

Rather than with sincerity, it appeared he had generously replied in a similar manner because Vivian appeared humiliated.

“Is this how I should reply?”

As though he was embarrassed,  he added on the question as he drew a small smile. At her cloy comment, he freshened the atmosphere with a light joke.

From that day onwards, Vivian became entirely captivated by Ray’s generosity. Though he clearly defined the ‘line’ that should not be crossed and showed restrained kindness, all of it felt even more charming to her, and from some point in time, she started to want to step over that ‘line.’