Chapter 137
Chapter 137
It had already been over ten minutes since Cassian left the laboratory.
All that remained in the vacated spot was a neatly emptied teacup and a settled silence.
Iris had already lowered her eyes from the book and was quietly staring at the spot where her student had been sitting.
Her red eyes, usually sharp with scholarly fervor, now shimmered with a faint melancholy like mist hovering over water.
'I want to be of help.'
She unconsciously clasped both hands together.
A genius mage who saw through the principles of magic and pursued the truth.
She was the youngest archmage ever appointed a professor in the Academy's history, and she had never failed to produce an answer before any abstruse formula or magical problem.
Yet at this very moment, all that vaunted knowledge and magical power of hers felt utterly useless.
It was the first time she'd seen Cassian look so pale.
She had also clearly seen her student, who normally lived as freely and recklessly as he pleased, wavering as something consumed him with deep confusion and anxiety.
The fact that he was struggling alone under a heavy burden he could tell no one about.
That fact weighed heavily on her heart.
It was a rather unfamiliar and painful emotion for Iris.
She reached out and lightly brushed the rim of the teacup Cassian had emptied with her fingertip.
And yet, how strange.
Even amid her gloom and distress, a warm glow had somehow taken root in one corner of her heart.
'If I ever have to tell someone about my situation again, you'll probably be the first person I tell, without a doubt.'
'If it's something I'm agonizing over right now, I think I'd ask you before even my father, Professor.'
The rough words Cassian had left behind.
'……Me.'
He had said he would rely on her first.
"Haa……."
Iris took her hand away from the empty teacup and leaned back.
Her thoughts were tangled.
The helplessness of being unable to do anything for her student and
the joy of confirming her student's trust were all tangled together, turning her logical circuits into a hopeless mess.
It was then.
Without warning, the laboratory door flew open.
*
Bang!
"Iri……"
Seria's lively voice, as she entered with an armful of documents, abruptly cut off the instant she crossed the threshold.
Seria paused and quickly took in the mood inside the laboratory.
Then she strode straight toward Iris, who was sprawled across the sofa.
"What?"
Seria asked, narrowing her eyes.
"Why do you look so depressed?"
"Me? I look depressed?"
"Yeah. Totally."
As Iris straightened her posture again,
Seria casually set the documents down on the table opposite her and answered.
"Anyone would think something happened to your student. You look like you'd collapse if you let out one sigh, girl."
Iris blinked.
'How did she know?'
She was quite taken aback.
Her mood really had been complicated, but
hadn't she hidden her expression the moment Seria came in?
She knew better than anyone that she was the type to conceal her emotions quite thoroughly in her face.
The other fussy old professors at the Academy often couldn't read her true thoughts and ended up barking up the wrong tree, for goodness' sake.
Yet Seria was uniquely capable of accurately catching even the slightest ripples in her emotions.
"Tell me."
Seria plopped down onto the sofa and crossed her arms.
"What's going on? Judging by the teacup, someone was here until just now. It was Cassian, right?"
"……"
She toyed with the teacup on the table, then gazed at Seria with a serious expression.
"Seria."
"Yeah."
"This……"
Iris pushed up her glasses and carefully chose each word.
"I don't think this is an appropriate matter to discuss with you."
"What? Why am I not the appropriate person?"
"Just so we're clear."
Iris raised a palm, putting up a preemptive wall.
"Today, I don't want to discuss some unproductive topic like whether I see Cassian as a romantic interest or get butterflies over him as a man."
"Oh, really? Fine. I won't tease you; I'll listen seriously, so tell me. What is actually wrong?"
She hesitated for a moment at Seria's urging.
Refusing even this and suffering alone felt awkward, considering how she'd repeatedly gone to Seria for advice whenever she ran into difficult problems in her relationships with others, including this one.
In the end, Iris set a condition with a short sigh.
"Before I tell you, I can't give you any specifics about Cassian."
"Why?"
"You'd obviously keep quiet even if you knew, but I genuinely don't know either. Cassian didn't tell me the details of his situation."
A trace of bitterness colored her voice.
"So because the overall context is missing from what I'm telling you, talking about it probably won't be very meaningful."
Seria let out a snort of laughter at that.
"What? So I'm not even getting your student's personal secrets spilled to me after all."
"That is true, but……"
"I won't let even that slip outside, ever, so stop worrying about pointless things and just tell me."
Seria nodded, resting her chin on her hand.
At her friend's agreeable attitude, Iris slowly parted the lips she had kept tightly shut.
Then she opened up about the sequence of emotions she'd just experienced on the training grounds and in the laboratory, without embellishment, yet striving to describe them in the most objective language possible.
That Cassian had looked terribly anxious and pale, crushed under some enormous worry.
That it had distressed her so deeply that she felt as though her insides were burning away, because as his teacher, she could offer such a student no practical help whatsoever.
By the time she'd gotten that far.
"Wait a second."
"Why?"
"No, wait—huh? You? Seriously? Huh?"
Seria made a fuss midway through listening.
"You had physical contact? You? Iris, the idiot genius? Seriously?"
"How is stroking a troubled student's cheek physical contact?"
"……?"
Iris reprimanded her friend for indulging in pointless fantasies.
"Don't take it in that weird direction. Not only was it completely unrelated to your little solution, I'd have done the same if it had been anyone other than Cassian."
"……Oh, yeah. Got it. Just keep talking. So?"
"So."
Iris continued, looking down at the empty teacup through her clear lenses.
"Through this incident, I was able to understand the true nature of my feelings with absolute certainty."
"You understood the nature of your feelings with absolute certainty? You?"
"Yes."
"……What does that even mean?"
While Seria's eyes narrowed ominously,
Iris looked straight at her with eyes full of conviction.
"This pity and distress I feel when I look at Cassian."
"Yeah. That."
"There's no doubt. This is……"
Iris's eyes flashed with the light of truth behind her glasses.
"A feeling close to maternal love."
"……What? Close to what?"
"I've never given birth to a child myself, of course."
Iris began laying out her logic as if giving an academic presentation.
"When I saw Cassian looking anxious right in front of me, I was worried sick from the depths of my heart, and I felt a powerful protective instinct telling me I had to do something for him."
"Hey, Iris."
"Of course."
Iris added, holding up one finger.
"I know that, with only a seven-year age gap between Cassian and me, it's difficult for maternal love to exist physically or biologically."
"No, that's……"
"Perhaps some kind of mental error has occurred in me. But I know."
Iris reached her conclusion, intoxicated by her own insight.
"Analyzing only the essence of my feelings, it's clear that I see Cassian not as a man, but as a child I must protect and guide. My sense of responsibility as his teacher has mutated into the form of maternal love."
A perfect syllogism.
A flawless progression from premise to conclusion.
"Haaaaaa……"
Unable to hold it in any longer, Seria let out a deep, earth-shaking sigh.
"If it's maternal love, then there really is no hope for you."
Seria muttered, pressing a hand to her forehead.
"What? What do you mean, Seria?"
Iris furrowed her brows in puzzlement.
Seria shook her head from side to side.
"You look terribly serious and troubled today, so I don't want to complicate things by explaining my own position."
"You understand my anguish."
"……Yeah, sure. Something like that."
She was about to question what Seria meant by "something like that," since it bothered her, but
Seria spoke again before she could.
"Anyway, I understand what you're saying—your splendid academic analysis."
Seria shrugged.
"For the time being, until that unknowable worry of Cassian's is resolved, let's put my hypothesis test—where I tried to determine whether you feel him as a man—on complete hold."
Iris's red eyes widened into circles.
Seria, whom she'd expected to snap with 'What nonsense are you talking about!' only moments ago, had accepted her argument and backed off so easily.
"……You're backing down awfully easily."
When Iris scanned Seria with suspicious eyes instead, Seria gave a small, amused snort.
"Why? What, do you want me to stubbornly insist to the end that you see Cassian as a man and have a crush on him?"
Iris felt considerable discomfort at those words.
"No. That would be uncomfortable in its own way."
"See? So accept it quietly when I back down."
"……Thanks."
"Sure."
After accepting her thanks, Seria gave a small nod, then whispered in a helpful tone.
"Then, if I were to give you one answer to the problem you're struggling with."
"Yes. Go ahead."
"How about devoting yourself to that feeling of maternal love you've identified?"
Iris narrowed her brows slightly and asked in return.
"Tell me in more detail."
"I mean, look at Cassian while focusing solely on the feeling of maternal love."
Seria's eyes turned serious, all trace of playfulness gone.
"Then maybe the parts confusing you right now will become clearer, and you'll be able to care for Cassian a little more warmly?"
"……Care for him."
"Right. Like a mother dealing with an injured child."
Seria gave examples, counting them off on her fingers.
"Whether you should approach him first to ask what problem he's suffering through alone and show concern."
"……"
"Or whether you should quietly pretend not to know and wait until he opens up on his own and comes to rely on you."
"……"
"Or even whether you should ask nothing at all and simply figure out what you need to do for him right now."
It was reasonable.
No—more than reasonable, it instantly cleared Iris's tangled mental circuits.
'That's right. Exactly.'
There was no need to press him for answers and burden the boy.
He had promised that he'd seek her out first whenever he needed someone, so all Iris had to do was become a nest where he could come and rest.
With this maternal love.
The stiffness around Iris's mouth eased, and a radiant look of realization spread across her face.
She unconsciously let out a deep exclamation of admiration.
"Seria."
"What?"
"You may lag behind me in magical theory,
Iris offered her praise, packing every ounce of sincerity into it.
"but when it comes to social skills and insight into human relationships, you really are remarkably wise."
At that lavish praise, Seria let out a hollow little laugh and rose from her seat.
"Maybe I'm not as broad as you think."
"Huh? What do you mean?"
"I mean I might not be quite so wise across the board."
Seria shrugged as she gathered up the stack of documents.
"Anyway, keep fighting, maternal love, Master."
Creeeak, click.
Seria left,
Iris was left alone, rolling the word 'maternal love' Seria had left behind around in her mind.
For some reason, one corner of her heart tingled and fluttered.