TMLLT 38

Chapter 38

“His Two Years”

My eyes widened in surprise.

I wasn’t sure if it was just shock—but something like a wave of emotion suddenly wrapped around my entire body, as if my heart had been squeezed.

Roitz’s face, looking down at me, was flushed red.

I was surprised too, but he looked more… overwhelmed than shocked—his face was turning redder by the second.

“…Senior.”

“N-no, Serdin, I—I just…”

Roitz stammered, clearly flustered.

He was usually calm and composed, but right now, he couldn’t even form words properly.

‘Was it that bad that I kept holding onto him?’

But I just didn’t want him to leave for the shed. I wanted him to stay here.

“Senior, do you not want to stay here?”

“…”

Roitz didn’t answer. He just stared down at me in silence.

“Senior?”

His hand was still supporting the back of my head, so I slightly lifted it—trying to signal that it must be uncomfortable for him.

But he didn’t move his hand, still staring at me blankly.

“…?”

At that moment, I thought I could hear a slow, thump, thump sound—like a clock ticking.

‘What is that sound?’

I focused and tried to track where it was coming from.

And just as I realized it was coming from Roitz’s chest…

“…What are you doing, Serdin.”

He suddenly snapped, face turning angry again.

Then, like someone doing a burpee, he shot straight up off the floor.

‘That move…’

It takes real strength to get up that fast from a lying position without any dizziness.

‘He really is a male lead, huh.’

With that thought, I sat up as well, the strange, fluttering feeling in my chest still lingering.

“Why are you trying so hard to go to the shed?”

I looked puzzled as I asked.

But Roitz looked back at me like I was the one being unreasonable.

“You’re using the room, so I have to leave.”

“Why?”

“What?”

“This room seems too big for just one person.”

I pointed to the sofa in the middle of the room.

“I’ll take the sofa, so you can stay here too.”

“…”

“This was your room first anyway, so I won’t take the bed.”

Roitz looked at me like I’d said something outrageous.

‘Maybe because he’s from a noble family, this room feels small to him?’

Well, maybe. If he’s from a rich duke’s family, his perspective might be different.

“Is it really too small for two people?”

“That’s not the problem.”

Since he said the size wasn’t the issue, I thought a bit more.

“Oh…”

I’d lived in dorms for a long time and was used to sharing double rooms.

But maybe Roitz wasn’t.

‘Still, what choice do we have? There’s only one room.’

After thinking it over, I came up with a solution.

“Alright, hold on.”

I lifted my knight’s robe and pulled out some adhesive hooks from my bag.

Then, I hung the robe in the middle of the room like a curtain.

It was a bit drippy, but not bad—it worked well as a makeshift partition.

“This should help, right?”

Roitz looked like he was on the edge of losing it, but he didn’t object to the partition.

He was halfway out the door, but now he seemed to reconsider. He put down his things and stepped back inside.

“You’re the one who invited me in, Serdin.”

The door quietly closed behind him.

Night grew deeper.

Roitz lay on the bed, staring at the robe-turned-curtain.

“…Ha.”

He sighed deeply.

He didn’t know if Serdin could hear, but he had to sigh—otherwise, he couldn’t calm himself down.

“You’re the one who invited me in, Serdin.”

That’s what he had said.

But Serdin, without a care in the world, lay peacefully on the other side of the robe.

Roitz sighed again, this time from deep within.

He was sure he wouldn’t care anymore.

He came back, determined to leave it all behind.

‘…I was so sure.’

His mind wandered back to two years ago, the night of his first monster hunt.

A cold, dry night at the northern estate.

“Letter for you, young master.”

That day, Eschlé brought him a letter from Serdin—and he picked up his pen.

All night long, he wrote his reply.

He filled the page with things he wanted to say to Serdin, right until the morning sun lit up the paper.

‘What am I doing…’

But no matter how he tried to write, the words were all too hard to send.

He dropped the pen and covered his face.

In the end, he tucked the fully written letter away in a drawer.

A few days later, even without replying, another letter came from Serdin.

“Letter for you, young master.”

“…”

A soft yellow envelope, just like her—laid out before him.

He desperately wanted to read what she’d written—to hear her voice in every word.

To Roitz, Serdin’s letters themselves were enough to make his heart flutter.

But at the same time, they hurt.

“…”

He hesitated to open it. In the end, he put it away unread.

Serdin’s smiling face as she called him “senior” floated in his mind like a phantom.

“…Ha.”

He wanted to go back that instant—to see her face again.

He regretted running away to the north like that.

He wanted to talk with her, even touch her cheek.

But he couldn’t.

Because he knew their feelings were different.

“Me? Like you?”

No matter how many times he asked, Serdin was firm.

Everything she said—her every word and expression—only confirmed that it had all been his misunderstanding.

“Young master, another letter from Miss Bibi.”

And still, Serdin kept writing to him.

Even though he never replied.

Her warmth had made him hope—maybe he was special to her in some small way.

‘That could never happen.’

Even now, after she clearly drew the line, every time her letters arrived, Roitz would be shaken.

“Eschlé, don’t give me any more letters from Serdin.”

“What? But…”

“Don’t mention her to me. Please.”

From that day forward, Roitz stopped receiving her letters.

But sometimes, he still wrote letters he never sent.

When life in the north wore him down, or he missed the girl who used to fill his days in the capital—he’d pick up his pen again, almost by instinct.

Two years passed like that.

And during those two years, Roitz thought he had moved on from Serdin.

He believed he had.

That he had grown calm. That she was no longer special to him.

That he could see her again and not want her anymore.

“Roitz, what are you staring at?”

But the moment he saw her after two years…

Even from far away, he knew it was Serdin just by the way her soft pink hair swayed in the wind.

And from that moment on, he couldn’t focus on anything else.

That day, when she left the racetrack, he got up instinctively.

“Where are you going, Roitz?”

“It’s just… stuffy in here.”

Yeah. He wasn’t following her. He just needed some air.

That’s what he told himself, even as he followed behind her.

He told himself he was doing fine—he didn’t run up to her.

He just walked quietly at a distance.

‘See? I don’t want to approach her. I don’t want to close that gap. I don’t want to see her bright face or hear her voice again.’

‘I’m over it. I’ve really moved on.’

That’s what Roitz tried to convince himself.

“Ah!”

But the moment he saw Serdin about to fall into the water, all those thoughts vanished in an instant.

His body moved before he could even think.

“…!”

Without realizing it, Roitz ran and grabbed her arm.

‘No, I just saw someone falling. It was natural to help…’

But even that excuse broke the moment Serdin opened her mouth.

“Thank you, I…”

That calm voice—he thought he had erased from his world—pierced right through his heart.

When she turned around and looked at him—

When her clear eyes met his—

“….”

Roitz felt a kind of threat.

It was a threat.

The fear that these past two years—and all his effort—could be undone in an instant.

That she might pierce his heart again with a single look.

His cold expression wrapped tightly around his feelings.

It was the only way to protect himself from that dangerous emotion.

In front of a threat he couldn’t draw his sword against, that was all he could do.

He had to keep his guard up in the face of that innocent smile.

“Why didn’t you reply to my letters?”
“Because I had no reason to.”

He tried to draw the line.

He had to draw it—so no one would cross it, so no one would get hurt.

So he turned away first.