Celine… since the start of the second year, had turned into someone who usually immersed herself in her training.

Which… was understandable. She had created a gap between her and her peers. Now she was trying to bridge that gap in the best possible way.

She was making admirable progress.

She didn’t need me anymore.

Then… why am I here?

I let out a deep sigh, involuntarily lost in my thoughts as I stood in front of the door to the training room she was in.

She developed feelings for me because of my wrong approach to her. If I had acted a little more correctly, if I hadn’t made her so dependent on me… I wouldn’t have to deal with this now.

Maybe if we had met under more normal circumstances, I might even have accepted her feelings. But this… this was completely against my idea of a relationship.

And now there’s Sue. So… I have to get Celine to give up or redirect her interest in me.

Slowly, I put my hand on the door, then gently knocked.

The seconds ticked by… and only at the tenth second did the door slowly open. The person behind it was revealed.

Celine was probably practicing mana, because the mana inside was quite intense. She didn’t look sweaty, but her eyes looked tired.

Although… she didn’t seem surprised to see me. As if she already knew I was coming.

Ah, her skill.

“It would have been better if you had said you were coming…”

“Maybe, yeah… Sorry, I came here on impulse.”

Celine looked me up and down, then sighed and stepped aside.

I walked slowly into the training room, slumped down in one of the chairs in the corner, and that’s when Celine came to me, closing the door.

“You… look like you want to talk about something.”

Her expression was flat, her eyes completely locked on mine.

“Actually… yes.”

She knew exactly what was going to happen.

Or rather, she could feel it.

There was silence between us for a short while. Neither she nor I spoke. The silence of the training room fell heavily all around.

And then… surprisingly, she beat me to it.

“You said ’recognize your feelings first’.”

When I realized what she was talking about, I paused, squinted… and swallowed the words I was preparing to say.

“You said you had to do what you had to do as well.”

“…”

“I know how I feel, Aiden. I was sure a long time ago. Say what you want, argue that it’s because you were with me all the time and I couldn’t communicate with anyone but you… I don’t care.”

Her lips curled upward, her violet eyes sliding to the floor.

“I… I love you for who you are, not just because you help me, but because I know intimately what you’re like. Not just because of my skill, but because whenever I think of you, I think of good memories.”

Her fingers intertwined, a lock of her hair fell in front of her.

“But… I know.”

She took a deep breath, her eyes squinted, only part of her hair showing through.

“Even though I love you… the feeling is not mutual. Because you like someone else, not me. Because you see me as a responsibility, you’ve never even thought of loving me, you’ve always kept yourself away from the idea so that you could approach me better and more truthfully. And I… I understand that. That’s why I’ve accepted it, anyway.”

She lifted her head up, brushed her hair aside. Her purple, amethyst-like eyes focused on mine again, but this time… it was me who couldn’t look.

“I don’t think I can forget, but I’ve accepted it, so… don’t worry about me.”

This time it was me who focused on the floor… and I realized I had nothing to say.

As the seconds once again ticked by, all I could do was… think.

All the time I spent with her.

From the very beginning.

Since the first time we met.

No… even before that. All the time I spent with her before I came into this world, when I was playing the game and she was just a ’character’.

I found myself smiling involuntarily. Because… I realized something strange.

I… finished the game a total of one hundred and thirty-two times.

In order to complete the achievements, while playing as Adrian, I was in a relationship with almost every romantic relationship candidate.

But… after I got the achievement and I was free to do that, I was engaged to one person for the most part.

Celine.

Because she was always the character I liked the most out of all the candidates. Even the first time I played the game, she was the character I chose to be romantically involved with.

Ah…

It’s… not that I don’t like her.

The fact that even now I’m so hesitant, that I’m so… silent in front of her… and that I can’t get the words out of my mouth…

It’s only because of that incident that I keep myself away from her all the time, involuntarily… without thinking.

Rather than seeing her as a responsibility… I blame myself for what happened to her and I believe that I have no right but to ’help’ her.

I keep a certain distance between us on purpose, always.

If… if I had realized this before I got so close to Sue… would I have accepted her feelings?

If… if that hadn’t happened… maybe we would have had a relationship from the beginning.

“…”

I waited for a few more seconds, without saying anything. And… Celine waited too. As if even more aware than I was that I was gathering my thoughts.

And in the end… all I could do was lift my head, look at her, and smile helplessly.

And… she smiled back. Not so much a happy smile, but almost aware of what was coming.

“I’m… in a relationship with Sue, right now.”

She didn’t even change her expression.

“And… it’s not that I don’t like her. I… I like her very much.”

She kept doing so.

“I’m sorry I made you deal with your feelings like that. I’m sorry… for confusing you. But… a relationship between us is not possible, Celine.”

She didn’t shout, she didn’t kick me out, she didn’t curse behind my back.

“I know, Aiden. I’ve already said I accept it.”

She just…

“So… it’s not that important. I am capable of understanding what is right and what is wrong.”

She accepted it.

Much more successfully than me.

“You don’t have to worry about me, Aiden. I’m… okay, and I’m continuing to be okay, so… you don’t have to feel like you have to help me anymore. I just…”

And she gave me the brightest smile I’ve ever seen from her.

“I hope we don’t lose touch in the future. Because… I want you to remain my friend, at least.”

And… I couldn’t find any answer.

“Of course…”

*******

After I left Celine’s side, as I slowly made my way in the other direction… all I could do was look up at the sky and think.

Celine and I have resolved the issue between us. Both of us accepting each other like this. And… she really seemed to have accepted it completely, to have gotten over it. There wasn’t even a hint of sadness or disappointment that I could see in her expression.

That’s why I thought she was already much more successful than me.

Because I… I hesitated.

When I was already in a relationship with Sue.

I actually thought, even for a brief moment, that Celine and I could have a relationship.

How stupid of me.

How… naive of me.

Thinking that Celine might still need my help… not realizing how far ahead of me she was.

I paused, took my eyes off the sky, and turned them to the building I was standing in front of.

But I saw that I was wrong, and I had already made up my mind.

So… I won’t do anything else I’ll regret.

I like Sue, and I’m going to do everything I can to make this relationship a good one.

With that thought in mind, I entered her building, came to the front of her apartment… and knocked gently.

The seconds passed one after the other.

But… this time the door didn’t open.

I knocked again.

And again… it didn’t open.

This time I pressed the bell, thinking she didn’t hear.

And again… only silence greeted me.

I sighed slightly, took a card out of my pocket, and swiped it on the screen next to the door. A few quick ’clicks’ came from the door. Then it opened a tiny gap.

I put the card in my pocket and pushed the door open.

And at that moment, a sound entered my ear.

A… melody.

A guitar melody.

“Huh…”

I remembered seeing a guitar at Sue’s house. And I remembered her saying she played it occasionally.

And yet… I was surprised by the beauty of the melody. Because I also remembered her saying that she wasn’t that skilled.

I closed the door behind me as slowly as I could, but before I went to where she was, I waited for a while, listening to the melody.

It was quite calm at the beginning. It was slow paced, in low tones. It kept following a certain rhythm.

Then the rhythm slowly broke down. The melody started to speed up slightly, the chords became harsher. The timbre of the guitar became harsh, sharp. She started to play singular notes in a high tone.

But then it settled down again. It slowed down, softened, calmed down. It became a quite pleasant-sounding rhythm. And finally, it became so quiet that it almost stopped completely.

There was silence for a short while. Then Sue started playing the guitar again. It was a slightly different version of the same melody. Each time she played it, she made adjustments, creating something a little different from the last.

By the fourth time she played it… I realized that I could feel the emotions in each strum.

Sadness and regret dominated at the beginning of the melody. Towards the middle, regret was more prevalent. But this time, it was anger that accompanied it, not sadness. Towards the end, when the melody softened again, it was quite similar to the first one, but with completely different emotions. It was calming, more positive. At one point, it sounded so nice… it reminded me of those happy rhythms I hear in love songs. But there were a few sudden notes in between that told something else. An emotion in the middle of the melody.

Anger…

Or hate.

Finally, I took a deep breath, braced myself, and took slow steps towards the room where she was. The door was slightly ajar, I could see in, and… Sue.

Her room was dark. She was sitting on her bed, her guitar in her lap. Her eyes were completely on the strings. She was about to start the melody again, but she was changing the chords a little bit. She was going to try something different.

But then she paused. Her fingers froze in mid-air as she changed the chords. She pushed her messy hair aside, her dark blue eyes slowly turned towards the door. She looked right at me.

I pushed the door slightly wider, exposing myself completely.

She said nothing. Just kept looking at me. And I kept looking at her, the same way.

Finally… only one thing came out of my mouth.

“I’m… sorry, Sue.”

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