For Your Failed Unrequited Love

Upon making up his mind, Felix arrived in front of the girls’ dormitory at once. But he couldn’t get in as he wanted. Mrs. Flora, the superintendent, stood in front of him, wide-eyed and angry.

“How dare a man crawl in! Not even the principal can enter without my permission!”

Unlike superintendent Lauren, who sometimes writes a permit for the female students, she was strict and determined.

The female students in the dormitory looked out of the window curiously after hearing Flora’s clear voice.

Felix had no choice but to turn away from the female dormitory. He trudged helplessly toward the male’s dormitory with a confused expression. Everything was a mess, and he was the reason for it.

He misunderstood everything and behaved childishly. 

Even if Lucy was tired of him and avoiding him on purpose, he could not protest. If he were her, he would do the same.

People like me…

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Felix returned to the dormitory and was frozen on the spot. He stared at the flowerbed in front of the dormitory with his eyes wide open.

“Lucy!”

Next to the ornamental tree planted in the flower bed was Lucy, sitting on the ground. She immediately stood up upon hearing Felix.

“Felix-sunbae,” Lucy said, her emerald eyes shining under the moonlight in the dark autumn evening.

Felix approached her. However, when he got closer, Lucy suddenly stepped back. Felix stopped at her unfamiliar behavior.

Lucy stood silent in her place and looked at him, instead of smiling brightly at him like before or approaching him with a welcoming voice saying, “Sunbae!”

For a moment, Felix remembered the first time he had known her was when she was busy running away and avoiding him.

…No, that’s wrong, too.

Somehow, he felt more distant from her than he had then. Her blank face with no emotion seemed to say so.

Lucy, who had hesitated for a while, spoke slowly. “Sunbae. I don’t know why you’re angry, but…” 

Contrary to her calm expression, Lucy’s voice trembled slightly. “Regardless of how you feel, I’ve enjoyed spending the past few weeks with you. We went to town together, and we studied together.”

Her words knocked Felix off his feet. He blinked as if he had lost his mind. What she said was so unexpected that he couldn’t immediately understand it.

“I was so happy that I wished those times would never end. Of course, there are many moments in my life when I feel happy, but… it’s the first time I’ve been so happy. I don’t think I’ll ever feel that way again. But I was so happy that I didn’t consider your position.”

Before he knew it, Lucy’s face was filled with sorrow. She was like a ghost at that moment. The ghost standing in front of him but seemed to disappear quickly in a sudden gust of wind.

“You’re right, Sunbae. I think I was being greedy for wanting to study together.’

“Lucy.” Felix was out of breath. His mind went blank as if he were dizzy.

He reached out to her. But Lucy took another step back. Felix’s hand fell from the air in vain at the obvious rejection.

Lucy avoided his gaze and pulled something out of her pocket. It was a small box. She held it out to him. “I was going to give this to you on your birthday, but… I’ll give it to you now. I don’t think I’ll see you then.”

Felix took it in a daze.

“Well, I’ll have to go.” Lucy took a step forward and tried to leave him.

“Lucy, wait!” Felix held her by the wrist in a hurry. 

Lucy looked back at him. Her cold eyes, which he had never seen before, met Felix’s eyes, and Felix found himself letting go of her wrist.

Lucy strode away into the darkness, leaving Felix standing in place. 

He stood staring at the place where she had disappeared for a long time and felt like he was dreaming.

Her words that her time with him made her happy and that she would never see him again sounded like they came from a faraway dream to him.

“Why… What’s going on here?” he murmured in the dark.

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He felt the small box in his hand as he stood in a trance and opened the lid of the box in a daze. When he saw the necklace in the box, Felix let out a deep breath. A deep sense of regret came over him. He picked up the necklace slowly. 

In the tiny crystal, his constellation shone brightly in the moonlight.

* * *

Eight years ago, Lucy never imagined that she would be able to attend one of the best academies in the empire. She was only ten years old at the time, and all she knew of the world was Brom, her hometown.

The village was a quiet rural village located at the eastern edge of the empire with small mountains lined with soft ridges. Fresh green waves fluttered along the wind in the fields. The bright sun glistened in the clear blue sky, day after day. On the dirt road, chickens, dogs, and children ran together, and laughter rang out here and there.

Although she had never been out of town, Lucy had her own happy days in the simple and peaceful village. At that time, she had one dream that was more important than entering a leading academy. It was to inherit her grandmother’s medicine shop.

Lucy’s grandmother ran the only pharmacy in town. More than 50 years ago, she lost her husband during the war, and she carried Lucy’s father, who was a newborn baby, on her back and set up a pharmacy with the money she saved.

She had incomparable knowledge and a unique sense of dealing with herbs. Thanks to this, even after the war had ended, her shabby little medicine shop remained firmly in the same place for decades.

The grandmother made her only son study hard with the money she earned from running a pharmacy. Thanks to this, Lucy’s father was able to learn medicine at a clinic in a nearby city.

Now that he had become a doctor with twenty years of experience, he gained the villagers’ trust as Brom’s only doctor and the Lord’s doctor. He was quite successful for a commoner from the countryside.

Lucy’s grandmother, who was a war widow, built a great family in half a century.

It was a distant past that Lucy had never witnessed, but just hearing the story was enough to tell how difficult and great the road her grandmother had been through. It was all thanks to her grandmother that she was able to sleep in a comfy bed and eat well every day.

In Lucy’s eyes, her grandmother was more powerful and bold than anyone else. After hearing her grandmother’s story as if it were a heroic tale, she was inspired to take over the pharmacy and run it well one day.

Lucy thought her Grandma’s hands were like magic whenever she saw her grandmother squishy, calloused hands. Then she looked up at her small and fair hand.

Could such powers reside in this hand of hers?

Besides her herbal skills, Lucy had another ability she inherited from her grandmother.

“Lucy! The food is going to get cold. Come on!”

It was her grandmother’s cooking skill that no one could imitate.

Lucy, who was chasing the wild cat that suddenly appeared in the yard, jumped up. She quickly ran to the kitchen. On the table was a large, juicy roast chicken. She unknowingly brought her nose closer and took a whiff of the enticing aroma.

Lucy was unable to stop her mouth from watering. She quickly sat down on the chair and reached for the roast chicken.

“Wait a minute,” The old lady quickly stopped her hand, and Lucy looked at her, puzzled.  She continued, “We have something else to eat, and this is a chicken for the lord’s house. Hurry up and bring it to them before it gets cold.” 

Lucy pouted and frowned at the words. These errands have been getting on her nerves lately.

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I don’t want to see Collin! she complained to herself.

“Come on, Lucy. Hurry up,” her grandmother urged her by holding out a bowl containing roasted chicken; perhaps she knew how Lucy felt. 

Lucy carefully took the bowl with both hands reluctantly and left the house. 

There was a particular reason why she didn’t want to go to the lord’s house. At some point, the Lord’s employees kept telling her lame jokes every time they saw her.

Sure enough, when they saw Lucy entering the lord’s mansion with the roasted chicken, old man Tom, the stable keeper, quickly greeted her with a joke.

“Here comes my little lady.”

“Don’t call me that!” Lucy bawled at once.

The old man laughed and walked past her in spite of her bitter protest. Lucy glared disapprovingly at his sly backside.

One day, her village elders began to spread words that Lucy would be the lord’s daughter-in-law. Then the distasteful joke started as if the engagement between Lucy and Colin, the son of the lord, had been confirmed.

For Lucy, the whole thing was very difficult to swallow. No matter how good their lord was and how well she grew up, there was a stark difference in their status in this world.