Chapter 109: Crack in Expression

Nora’s POV:

I opened the book to a random page and let my eyes move across the lines, though not a single word entered my mind. Every part of my attention was fixed on the person who had pulled out the chair directly opposite me and sat down, and I could sense the faint flow of his mana, restless and uneasy, circling around the table like a child who didn’t know where to stand.

Then I felt his finger poke the back of my hand which was resting on the table. The touch was light and hesitant, yet it was warm, the same warmth I had been craving for ten months, and it travelled up my arm like a small spark. I pulled my hand under the table before my fingers could betray me by turning over to hold his, and I kept my eyes fixed on the page, pretending that nothing had happened.

’Don’t look at him, Nora. If you look at him even once, you will fall apart in front of him, and then everything you have built for months will be gone in a single moment.’

He didn’t give up. I could see from the corner of my vision how his hand waved over my book, again and again, trying to block my sight and gain my attention, and I felt something between amusement and pain in my chest, because it was exactly what he used to do when we were children. I pulled the book away from his reach and turned the page with a calm expression, though my heart was beating so loudly that I felt it would shake my whole body.

After a while, he leaned back on his chair and stopped moving, and for a moment I thought he had finally given up. But then something touched my foot beneath the table. It was his bare foot, poking me carefully, as if he was testing whether I would react or not.

I almost laughed at how childish it was, even though it was impossible for me to let him see even a tiny trace of it. He had taken off his boot and his sock just to try and get my attention, and the sight of him doing something so foolish, so purely Neo, nearly broke the mask I had been holding on to so tightly. My gaze moved on its own, flicking towards him for a single moment, and I saw his eyes light up as if I had just given him the whole world. I immediately pulled my feet back under the chair and returned my eyes to the book, hating myself for that small slip.

’That was careless. I should not have looked at him. He will only get more hopeful if I keep slipping like this.’

I felt his sigh without hearing it, because I saw his shoulders drop slightly as he folded his arms and sank into deep thought. His expression was so serious that I wondered what he was planning, and I pretended to keep reading while watching every small movement of his from the edge of my sight.

Then he summoned a diary and a pen from his inventory and started writing quickly, his brows furrowed with concentration. I knew that look very well. It was the same look he had worn when he talk to me through paper, back when I couldn’t understand what people’s faces meant and he had patiently written everything down for me, line after line, until I learned to trust him more than anyone else.

When he finished, he pushed the diary on top of my book, and my hand, which was about to turn the page, stopped midway in the air. I didn’t want to look at it, because I knew that whatever he had written there would be something that could shake me, but I also knew that ignoring it completely would only make me look suspicious. So I lowered my gaze slowly, as if I was only reading out of mere curiosity, and let my eyes follow his hurried handwriting.

[Nora, I know you are angry with me, and you have every right to be. I left without telling you anything, and I am sorry for that, I really am. It was never my intention to leave you alone, and I came back as soon as I could or maybe not. But Please, just look at me once, even if you hate me, because I only want to know that you are okay.]

I read it once, and then I read it again, even though I understood it perfectly the first time. My fingers wanted to tremble, and I had to press them against the edge of the page to keep them still.

’Angry? How foolish of you, Neo. I am not angry with you, and I could never hate you even if I tried with everything I have. If I were only angry, then it would have been so much easier. You don’t know that what I feel for you is far heavier and darker than anger, and that is exactly why I cannot let you see my face right now.’

I picked up the pen lying beside the diary and held it for a moment, wondering what I should write that would keep him at a distance without making him leave. If I wrote too much, he would find the cracks in my words, and if I wrote too little, he would grow suspicious of my silence. In the end, I wrote the coldest and most careful sentences I could think of, keeping my handwriting neat so that no emotion could slip into it, and I pushed the diary back to him without raising my eyes.

[I am fine. You do not need to worry about me, so please go back to wherever you came from.]

I knew those words would hurt him, and my chest ached as I imagined his expression, but I told myself that it was necessary, that it was only the beginning, and that I had no other way to protect what I was hiding from him.

But Neo was Neo, and he had never been someone who obeyed when I told him to leave. I felt him pull the diary closer and begin to write again, much more slowly this time, as if he was choosing every word carefully, and when he pushed it back in front of me, I saw the determination on his face even without lifting my eyes completely.

[I won’t go anywhere. If you want me to leave, then you will have to look at me and tell me so with your own eyes, because I will not accept it from a piece of paper. And if you really are fine, then you should have no problem looking at my face for a moment, should you?]

My fingers tightened on the edge of the page. I couldn’t stop them, no matter how hard I tried, and I knew that he had noticed it, because I felt his gaze fixed on me with such intensity that it was almost painful.

’That stubborn idiot... He always knew exactly where to hit me, even after so much time.’

The library had become so quiet that I could feel nothing but the silence pressing against my heart, and yet I could feel him, every breath of him, waiting patiently across the table with all the hope he had left. I knew that if I looked at him now, I would be taking the first step towards a path from which I could never return, and I also knew that I had already walked too far to turn back.

So I let out a small breath, one so quiet that even he might not have noticed it, and I slowly raised my head.

My eyes met his, and for the first time in ten months, I saw him clearly, his blue eyes shining with relief and worry, his lips slightly parted, and his whole face full of everything I had been starving for. I kept my expression cold and my eyes steady, but deep inside me something that I had locked away for months stirred, whispering that he was finally here, finally within my reach, and that this time I would never allow him to leave.

His lips moved slowly, so that I could read every word without difficulty.

"Nora... I’m back."

I stared at him for a long moment and said nothing, because the only thing I wanted to say was something that he was not yet ready to hear.