I Need the True Ending to Graduate - Chapter 107

“…!”

Startled by a voice I shouldn’t be hearing, I turned around in surprise. Then, aside from not having slicked his hair back, Evan came into view, properly dressed in a suit.

My heart thudded as if I’d been caught trying to do something bad.

“…Evan, why are you here? The restaurant’s closed today.”

“Ah, there were some documents I left behind for a bit.”

Evan answered calmly, as if it wasn’t a big deal at all, with his hands stuck into his trouser pockets, then asked me, “But what are you doing here? It looked like you just shoved something through the crack in the door. What did you do?”

“…Nothing.”

“For nothing, you can’t even look me in the eye.”

At some point, Evan had come close. He bent at the waist and brought his face in close to mine.

At the gesture, like he was interrogating me, I avoided his gaze and backed away in little hesitant steps.

The cold glass door of the shop touched my back. The scent of the cologne he used and his body heat lingered around my nose.

“…It really is nothing.”

“Then why were you sitting in front of a closed shop? Judging by your expression, it doesn’t look like you came to see me.”

“….”

At Evan’s reasonable point, I suddenly ran out of things to say.

I came without thinking because I thought there was no chance we’d run into each other, so I had nothing to use as an excuse.

Evan glanced at my face, which couldn’t hide my discomfort, then straightened the waist he’d bent and said, “It looks like it’s hard for you to say, but I can just check for myself.”

Then he pulled a key out of his pocket and walked toward the shop door.

He was going to open the closed door and check the letter I’d slipped in himself.

“No…!”

Startled, I grabbed Evan’s forearm without thinking.

Evan’s hand, which was pushing the key into the keyhole, stopped. Then he looked down at me with a face showing confusion.

“That’s weird…. What is it that you’re so shocked you’re stopping me like this?”

I knew I must look strange to him. But it would be really troublesome if he read the letter I’d written to him right now.

After moving my lips as if I were thinking for a moment, I decided to confess honestly.

“It’s a letter.”

“…What?”

“A letter. I put a letter for you inside.”

“If it’s something like that, you could’ve just sent it to me directly instead of putting it inside the shop. And if it’s a letter addressed to me, doesn’t it mean it’s fine if I read it now? Why are you stopping me?”

Every point Evan made was reasonable. From his perspective, there was no way he could understand my behavior at all.

But I had a clear reason he couldn’t read it right now.

Because it was a farewell letter.

A letter I wrote because it bothered me to leave with Evan behind, and because I couldn’t just leave without saying anything when the image of him in the past, searching for Lucia, kept flashing before my eyes.

So, he shouldn’t see this letter now.

But even that was something Evan couldn’t know, so all I could do was keep holding his arm and speak with an earnest face.

“I know. I know I’ll look strange.”

“….”

“But, Evan. It’s a letter I sent you, but it’s a letter you can’t read right now. Not today, absolutely not.”

“….”

“You can take the letter. But promise me you’ll read it tomorrow, definitely tomorrow. Please. Okay?”

Evan looked at me with eyes that said he couldn’t understand why I was clinging to him and pleading so desperately, but he still obediently let his hand drop. My hand holding him naturally fell away, too.

“…All right. I don’t know what it is, but I’ll check when I open the shop tomorrow. That’s enough, right, Lucia?”

“Yeah. That’s enough. Thank you for doing what I asked.”

I smiled at Evan as I let out a breath of relief inside. But Evan’s expression as he looked at me wasn’t very good.

‘This is why I was going to just leave the letter and go.’

As I quietly chewed on the bitterness inside, Evan said, “The letter is fine. It doesn’t matter whether I read it today or tomorrow….”

He trailed off, then his brows furrowed.

“But why a letter all of a sudden? You’ve never written me a letter even once.”

“….”

“Are you going far away? Or are you planning to run off in the middle of the night with another man instead of me?”

“It’s not that…. It’s just.”

“There’s no such thing as ‘just.’”

At my evasive answer, Evan shot back harshly. He was like a beast bristling with fur, on guard against his surroundings.

I didn’t know the exact reason, but it seemed he instinctively sensed that me sending a letter wasn’t normal.

So he wouldn’t catch on, I wrapped it up with an appropriate excuse.

“Sometimes there are things that are embarrassing to say face-to-face. That’s why I wrote a letter. To you… I feel like I’ve never honestly told you what’s in my heart, or how I feel about you.”

“….”

“And when it came time to hand it to you, I was embarrassed and awkward, so I was just going to wedge it here and run away. Then the employees would deliver it to you on their own, and I wouldn’t have to see your face directly.”

It wasn’t an explanation that made much sense, but it seemed it was enough to make Evan accept it.

I could see his stiff expression soften in real time.

Even so, the ominous feeling he vaguely sensed didn’t seem to fade, and Evan asked cautiously, “You’re not going far away, right?”

“What are you talking about all of a sudden? Where would I go? I haven’t even had the graduation ceremony yet.”

My heart jolted, but I pretended to be calm and laughed it off, acting like his sudden joke was ridiculous.

But Evan couldn’t shake his anxiety.

“I don’t know why I’m like this, but I keep feeling like you’re going to leave somewhere far away.”

Then, with a rigid face, he pulled me tightly into his arms.

Evan’s solid yet warm body pressed close without end. I could hear his heart beating by my ear.

Holding me as if he might crush me, Evan said it. His voice was desperate, like he was grabbing onto something unseen.

“You can’t leave me behind, Lucia.”

“….”

“No matter where in this world you go, I’ll chase after you, so there’s no point trying to run. And you remember, right? What kind of wound you left on me.”

“….”

“Don’t forget that you said you’d repay it with your forever, Lucia. You mustn’t ever forget.”

The voice blowing into my ear, whether it was a threat or a plea, wavered with anxiety. The hand wrapped around my back was gripping and crumpling the clothes I was wearing.

At some point, Evan’s broad shoulders, which had seemed calm, were trembling pitifully.

Even though it was a sloppy hunch with no basis at all, just the fact that I might leave made Evan afraid like a little child who lost their mother.

Knowing where his fear came from, I knew it was deception, but I still reached out and hugged Evan back, soothing him.

“I know, Evan.”

“….”

“I’m here, right by your side. I can even hold you like this. So don’t be so anxious.”

“…All right.”

Only after I gently soothed him did the emotions that had been in turmoil settle, and Evan’s trembling eased.

Then he loosened the strength in the arms that had been holding me, and with a face full of relief, he took me in carefully and said, “Tomorrow, after I’ve read the letter you sent, I’ll contact you. Since you’re graduating soon, let’s also throw a commemorative party while we’re at it.”

“…There’s still a long time until the graduation ceremony, though?”

The graduation ceremony was held around the time winter break was coming to an end. And right now, it wasn’t even winter yet.

But it seemed when the graduation ceremony was didn’t matter much to Evan.

“That doesn’t matter. What matters is the day your graduation is decided.”

After saying that, maybe because even to himself it sounded a bit forced, he confessed his honest feelings with an awkward look.

“…It’s just that I want to be the first to congratulate you on graduating.”

“….”

“So when I contact you, you have to answer. If I call you, you have to come to me. Got it?”

I nodded at Evan, who was emphasizing it again and again.

“Yeah, I got it. I will.”

Only then did Evan, as if reassured, let me go from his arms.

Evan’s solid body and warm body heat that had been holding me moved away.

I decided to part ways with Evan around now.

“I should go now. The magic demonstration’s coming up soon.”

“All right. …You should go.”

With a face that didn’t want to let me go, Evan still said it as if resigned because he knew he had to let me go.

I said goodbye to Evan like that and slowly moved away. It was a final farewell.

“Then take care, Evan.”