“……!”

Rukna opened her already round eyes even wider. The school nurse muttered, “You’ve completely forgotten.”

“Of course I knew. You used to come here very often. Sometimes you’d get beaten up by bad guys, and once you even broke your arm. That’s how I found out. I can tell everything just by looking at you.”

The school nurse grinned.

His smiling face, unbefitting his middle-aged years, looked like an innocent mischief-maker, strangely endearing.

“Did you apply that red medicine to me every time back then too?”

“Yes.”

“……Did it work?”

“Of course. This is a cure-all, isn’t it?”

The school nurse said proudly while shaking the red medicine bottle.

‘I think it’s more likely natural healing.’

Rukna made a sour face while looking at the medicine bottle that seemed to have little effect.

“Now, Matian, unbutton your shirt a bit. My arm’s getting tired holding this bottle.”

“Ah, okay.”

Rukna unbuttoned Matian’s shirt one by one. As the creased shirt opened up, Matian’s firm chest was revealed.

‘I had a rough idea when I saw him at the training ground, but……’

Unlike his soft, handsome face that smiled gently, his thick body was rough and wild.

Every time he breathed, his chest moved up and down, occasionally convulsing as if wracked with pain.

Wondering if she should prepare for CPR, Rukna swallowed hard as the school nurse started applying the red medicine near Matian’s heart.

“Um…… Teacher?”

“Yes?”

“Why are you applying it there again?”

“It seems like he has chest pain.”

At those words, Rukna recalled the image of Matian clutching near his heart.

‘Is this teacher perceptive, or just guessing?’

No, rather, can he see a bit into the future? The location where he’s applying the medicine is surprisingly accurate.

Rukna alternately looked at the mysterious school nurse and the red medicine.

The teacher drew a heart with the medicine on Matian’s chest, then said, “The pain point was a little lower than this,” and drew an even larger heart below it.

As a result, Matian ended up looking ridiculous, as if someone had doodled on his thick muscles.

“Treatment complete.”

“……That’s it? That?”

Rukna pointed at Matian’s chest once again.

Two hearts, hardened and turned brown, were imprinted on Matian’s chest.

This is ominous. With Matian’s personality, if he sees this, all hell will break loose!

“Um, Teacher.”

Rukna cautiously called out to the school nurse with a pale face.

“Yes?”

“Please keep it a secret from Matian that I brought him here.”

“Why?”

“……Because I don’t want to die sparring.”

Rukna imagined Matian waking up.

This guy would probably smile kindly and say, ‘I didn’t know you’d humiliate me like this, Rukna,’ and then request an irrefusable sparring match.

‘It’s not like I haven’t seen it before.’

He always crushed his opponents with a slightly troubled expression.

Very cruel, but adjusting just enough so that hope wouldn’t be completely crushed.

For that reason, the defeated opponents, far from being discouraged, fall into the thought that they were just unlucky and, as if entranced, request another sparring match.

And only after making a mistake and something goes wrong do they belatedly regret their choice.

Not even realizing that the mistake was intentional on Matian’s part.

‘That could be me.’

Ugh, creepy. Rukna shuddered and was about to quickly leave the infirmary when…

“Rukna.”

The school nurse held her back.

“I forgot to tell you earlier, my name is Gale. Would you call me by my name from now on?”

“What?”

“I felt good every time you called me ‘Teacher Gale.’ And whether you have memories or not, your essence is still yourself, so don’t be too confused.”

Saying that, Teacher Gale lifted his glasses to his forehead.

Behind the bright eye smile, two sightless eyeballs were revealed. Seeing the elongated pupils surrounded by red irises, it seemed the school nurse was of a different race, not human.

“If you have a chance to fall again, don’t worry and just fall. I’ll apply the medicine every time.”

Wait a minute, Teacher. I’m not a little kid, and I shouldn’t keep falling, right?

“Oh, and this is a gift.”

Teacher Gale, who had lowered his glasses again, approached Rukna fumbling with the medicine bottle.

Then he applied the red medicine in a long streak on Rukna’s forehead. Ugh, it’s cold!

“I hope you regain your lost memories!”

It was raining lightly, and darkness surrounded everything. Rukna, riding in a carriage, lowered her gaze.

Her hands and feet looked particularly small, like those of a 10-year-old child.

Is this a dream?

“We love you, Rukna. Our daughter.”

Two people who looked like her parents hugged Rukna tightly, sobbing.

Her brother was also visible, trying hard to hold back tears. Although she couldn’t quite grasp the situation, it was clearly an urgent moment.

“From now on, we’re going to play hide-and-seek.”

“Now?”

Her mouth moved on its own, answering.

Her parents put Rukna into a small box, placing a leather pouch filled with water and some jerky in her hands.

“Yes. It’s a game where you stay hidden and endure until someone opens this box. It might be a very long game of hide-and-seek.”

“I’m scared, Mom.”

“Scared? Can’t you even handle that, pumpkin?”

Her brother taunted in a voice struggling to hold back tears.

Then he threatened to feed her broccoli every day if she came out of the box.

Father quietly patted her brother’s back.

“Our Rukna can endure well. It’s a hide-and-seek where you have to fight scary nightmares, so even if you hear terrible sounds or the box shakes, you mustn’t make a sound and just endure, okay?”

“I’ll fight nightmares?”

“We are Closet, so we must purify all evil with our power.”

“I want to be with Mom and Dad too! Brother isn’t hiding either. I don’t want to hide!”

“Hey, pumpkin. You’re too small to do it yet. You need to grow really big like me.”

“Your brother is right. When our Rukna grows so big that she can’t fit in this box, that’s when we’ll do it together, okay?”

Mom kissed Rukna’s forehead.

Mom’s face was shadowed and not clearly visible, but strangely, tears welled up in Rukna’s eyes.

Soon the lid of the box closed, and Rukna curled up inside.

Before long, the box began to roll, making her feel nauseous, but Rukna didn’t make a sound as promised.

Even when terrible sounds and unpleasant energy seeped through the planks, Rukna endured.

Soon, a nightmare that consumed everything split Rukna’s soul in half and swallowed it, leaving the remaining half of her soul trembling in fear at the wave of terror that rushed in.

‘Save me. Please, someone save me!’

And then the scene changed.

The space confining her had changed from a wooden box to a metal cabinet.

Her body had grown too big to fit in the box, yet strangely, she was still trapped in a long, narrow piece of metal.

‘Is this the memory of Hans locking me in the cleaning supply closet?’

No. The smell of rusty metal instead of smelly rags indicates a different situation than that time.

“Save me. I was wrong about everything. Please let me out!”

Clank, clank, bang! Banging on the cabinet door and kicking it was useless.

The memory of being trapped in the wooden box made her feel suffocated and like she was going to die.

Rukna, who had been pounding on the cabinet until her hand was bruised, peered outside through the thin hole in front of her.

Along with the view of the college corridor, she saw someone’s silhouette.

But the person just smiled elegantly and didn’t help her.

“Please let me out. I feel like I’m dying… Ah?”

Rukna shouted and opened her eyes wide.

The dark ceiling of the dormitory greeted her. She was lying on a bed, not in a cabinet.

Rukna abruptly sat up and rubbed her eyes. Her cheeks were damp with tears from how much she had cried.

The fear she felt in the dream was so vivid that it felt like she had glimpsed into a past memory.

‘It might not be just a simple dream, but a memory of this body.’

Rukna blinked slowly and then pulled her knees to her chest.

Her whole body was trembling and her breathing was rapid.

The terrible fear of being trapped in a narrow space wouldn’t easily disappear.

‘Wash up. Let’s go wash up.’

4:30 in the morning.

After checking the wall clock, Rukna left the room and went down to the first floor following the spiral staircase.

Perhaps because there was no one around, the square lobby looked particularly spacious today, and she noticed the huge mural that usually didn’t catch her eye.

The mural depicting three heroes who played active roles in the “Demon War” hundreds of years ago adorned the whitewashed wall splendidly.

‘Is that person the Closet who was called a saint?’

Holy light swirled around her as she held a long staff, and her face was empty like an egg ghost, as if intentionally left unpainted.

Unlike the typical image of a “saint,” she was enthusiastically beating demons with the staff in her hand.

“We are Closet.”

The words she heard in her dream suddenly came to mind.

‘Nah, that can’t be.’

Rukna shook her head as she headed towards the communal tap behind the dormitory.

She liked how quiet the tap area and bathrooms were at this time, without even an ant in sight.

Anyway, the dirty boys rarely washed themselves, so as long as you avoided the hot daytime hours, it was rarely crowded.

Rukna twisted the faucet.

She cupped her hands to catch the cold water gushing out and splashed it on her face.

The chilly weather made her skin sting as if it was freezing, but it helped clear her mind.

Just then, she sensed movement from inside the communal bathroom behind the tap area.