27.
It was the day before my third scheduled visit to the exhibition with Everett. I was out shopping for clothes with Connie.
I don’t know how much I’d agonized over choosing an outfit the night before. Because I was the type who avoided wearing anything expensive to a place as drab as my workplace, my closet was pitifully sparse.
‘But I can’t wear the same thing again.’
As soon as the sun rose, I called Connie and dragged her to the boutique district. I mentally blurred out the price tags and bought an armful of clothes.
‘There are only two exhibitions left; why did I buy ten outfits?’
I regretted it for a brief moment after leaving the shop, but it was already done. I headed to a nearby restaurant to buy dinner for Connie, as promised, for accompanying me.
“Should we get the couple set, too?”
Connie crinkled her nose, unable to suppress her playfulness, and pointed at the menu. Couple sets should be banished from the capital.
“Order something individual.”
I took the menu from her and ordered the “Dish of the Day” listed at the top.
“Ah, I don’t like fish.”
Connie grumbled for a moment, but once the food arrived, she ate it well enough.
“I thought you hated fish.”
“I did, but this place does it well.”
She gathered the flaky cod with her fork, popped it into her mouth, and praised the chef.
“Wipe the sauce off the corner of your mouth.”
After filling our stomachs, the worries that had been gnawing at me grew in size once again. I aimlessly poked at the garnish with my fork before finally letting the secret slip out.
“Hey, this is about a friend of mine.”
Connie wiped her mouth and asked innocently, “You have a friend I don’t know about?”
‘No.’
“Actually, it’s about me.”
When I shamelessly corrected myself, Connie scoffed. “Sure, it’s about you. So what?”
Still, as if she intended to hear me out, she set down her cutlery and shifted her posture. Once I opened my mouth, the words became difficult to form. I started in a near-whisper.
“Well, I think Sir Rohas is interested in me, too.”
I explained what had happened at the second exhibition.
The day I went to the second exhibition, perhaps bothered by being late the last time, Everett had been waiting for me much earlier than our promised time. The look of boredom and annoyance he’d worn while navigating the incoming crowds vanished the moment his eyes met mine.
He approached with long strides, closed the distance, and held out his hand. I reached out and overlapped my hand with his out of habit.
Edwin froze for a heartbeat, still maintaining the formal posture of an escort, before blushing. His golden eyes searched mine for a cue, then drifted away. As if asking for silent permission, he interlaced his fingers with mine.
For the first time in my life, I felt the sharp, electric intensity of the spaces between my fingers. Reflexively looking away to hide my mounting tension, I saw Everett bite his lip, appearing to draw his hand away.
‘It’s not that I don’t want to hold your hand.’
I gripped his hand firmly just as he was trying to break the clasp. His expression brightened, and to hide my flushed face, I fussed over a stray lock of hair.
We walked through the hall holding hands. The distance had been closer when he escorted me, but this connection felt far more intimate. Our joined palms were damp.
‘Ugh, I can’t focus on anything.’
At some point, I was just walking, pretending to study the exhibits. Even though this was the one I’d looked forward to most, I moved through the hall mechanically. Still, the distraction gave me the breathing room to calm my erratic heart.
I finally gathered the courage to glance back at Everett, wondering if this moment—where the air felt thick enough to touch—was mine alone. As luck would have it, he was watching me, and our gazes locked.
The eye contact felt like a spell, freezing us in place. Unable to breathe properly, we were tethered to one another. Heat rushed into my ears, which had only just begun to cool. I hurriedly turned away, but it was useless—we were reflected in the glass cases protecting the artifacts.
His golden eyes reached me through the glass. The image was blurred, but his gaze was distinct. Our bodies faced the relics, but our eyes were fixed on each other. I felt a tingle in my fingertips, like a weak electric current.
Ultimately, I couldn’t endure it and looked away first. I pretended to have been studying the artifact all along and spoke in an exaggerated, cheerful tone.
“Sir Rohas, they say this is a bellows used by a dwarf.”
I broke our clasp, which was damp with sweat, and stepped close to the display. Only then did the oxygen, which had felt as thin as the high mountain air, finally fill my lungs. While admiring the bellows—which looked like nothing more than a pile of scrap metal—I secretly rubbed my palms against my dress.
Everett, who broke from the spell a moment later, chuckled, as if finding my sudden interest trivial.
“Indeed, it’s quite fascinating.”
He cleared his throat, sounding as if he were reciting a textbook. He stared into the distance and continued, “Dwarves, a mysterious race that keeps to themselves, were born with a natural talent for smithing. It is said their bellows could raise the temperature of molten metal to levels humans could never match.”
His tone was stiff; it was verbatim from the exhibition guide.
‘What is this? Did he memorize the guidebook?’
Perhaps he was bothered that I’d been the only one having fun at the first exhibition.
‘It’s okay, though.’
I laughed softly and probed him further. “They say they’re the only ones who can handle mithril, a mineral that only appears in legends, right?”
It was the very next sentence in the guide.
“That is correct. If it weren’t for the Ancient Empire’s exclusionary policies, humanity’s civilization would have advanced much further.”
‘He really did. He memorized it.’
I felt a tickle in my chest, as if it were filled with feathers, and laughter kept escaping at Everett’s cute sincerity. Excited, I dragged him around the rest of the hall. Whenever I looked at an artifact, the guide’s explanation flowed from him without a hitch.
‘He’s like a docent with a really great voice.’
I smiled brightly behind his back. Once we had completed the full round, Everett, having exhausted his memorized script, let out a sigh of relief and looked quietly proud.
‘Why is he so cute?’
I secretly found the man eight years my senior adorable. That day, as I said goodbye, I whispered as if sharing a secret.
“You know, you don’t have to memorize the guidebook for the next exhibition.”
“Something like that…”
Everett, who looked as if he wanted to deny it out of embarrassment, met my eyes, sighed, and then readily admitted it.
“You’re right. I memorized it.”
A red hue traveled from his earlobes down to his neck. He lowered his head to hide his blushing face, tapped the ground with his shoe, and whispered, “Because Ms. Diaz likes things like that, I wanted to match you.”
Everett Rohas was truly a cute man for being thirty years old.
When I finished the story, Connie tapped her plate with her fork and rejoiced. “He’s there, he’s there. He’s definitely interested.”
‘I know that much now.’
Connie, who had been teasing me as if she’d caught a lead, flinched at my gloomy expression. “He’s clearly interested, so what’s the problem?” she asked, looking puzzled.
“There are only two exhibitions left now.”
It meant there were only two meetings left with him.
“You can just make another appointment and meet again.”
Connie sounded as if she couldn’t understand my distress.
“You have to have a reason to meet without a specific excuse.”
I let out a deep sigh. In short, it meant I knew we were in the middle of a delicate “flirting stage,” but I had no idea how to move past it.
‘The remaining two times feel like a limit on my chances.’
“Ugh.”
Connie ruffled her scarlet hair. It didn’t seem like a brilliant answer was coming. If my dating experience was a negative, Connie’s was a flat zero. She messed up her curly hair even further, struggling with the nuance.
Then, she answered as if squeezing the words out: “Couldn’t you just act a bit more proactive?”
“Me?”
For some reason, it sounded like a plausible solution.