Never Die Villain

Ilya came to class with a heavy heart.

Even after leaving Gustav behind, their conversation plagued his mind. Regret, guilt, and more than a little self-blame kept circling through his thoughts, and no matter how many times Ilya reminded himself that he couldn’t have known what was happening, another part of him kept returning to the same question.

What if he had been there?

"Are you listening?"

"...."

"Ilya."

"Hm?"

Ilya finally looked up and found Solveig staring at him from across the table. They had gathered with their Spell Construction research group again, with the others sitting nearby as they worked through the next stage of the project they had started two weeks ago.

"You’ve been looking at the same page for the past five minutes."

"Have I?"

"Yes." Solveig tapped the paper in front of him with her pen. "And unless you’ve discovered some hidden meaning in the third paragraph that the rest of us somehow missed, I’d appreciate having you back here."

"Sorry." Ilya rubbed his forehead and looked down at the papers spread across their table. "Where were we?"

"The related literature."

Solveig slid one of the books toward him.

"We already have the basic references. Professor Eklund wants us to narrow them down and identify which ones actually support the construction we’re proposing. Anything we can use to justify why this should work before we start building the actual spell."

Ilya picked up the paper again and forced himself to focus.

Two weeks into the project, they had already gone through enough material to know that their idea was at least theoretically possible.

The problem now was finding research close enough to their proposed construction to support each part of it, and that was proving considerably more difficult than simply finding papers on the same general principles.

"Ah, yeah."

Ilya flipped back several pages until he found something he remembered reading earlier.

"There’s a paper by Professor Edvard Rask from twenty-three years ago. This one might actually be useful."

Solveig leaned closer. "What did he try?"

"Closed-loop mana circulation inside autonomous formations." Ilya turned the paper toward her. "Rask was studying remote magic circles and found that once mana entered a properly balanced circuit, it could continue circulating internally with almost no additional input from the caster."

Maelle leaned closer. "For how long?"

"That wasn’t what he was measuring." Ilya tapped one of the diagrams. "The circles were anchored, so persistence wasn’t a problem. What matters to us is this."

Solveig followed his finger.

"...Mana loss at the junctions."

"Yes. Most of the mana wasn’t disappearing naturally. It was leaking whenever it passed between different sections of the construction."

Garen frowned. "And that helps us how?"

Solveig was already reaching for their own notes. "Because we’ve been trying to make the entire construction more stable after the severance."

"But if Rask is right," Ilya continued, "we might be able to keep the mana circulating instead. We wouldn’t need enough mana to keep replacing what the spell loses if we can reduce how much it loses in the first place."

Maelle looked between the two diagrams. "His formations were physical, though. The inscriptions themselves maintained the circuit."

"That’s the problem."

Ilya picked up his pen.

"We need to figure out how to make the spell construction do the same thing without an anchor."

The discussion continued from there, with each member throwing out possible ways they could adapt Rask’s findings to their own construction. It only took a few exchanges, however, before Ilya’s attention began drifting again, and although he kept his eyes on the notes in front of him, he had already stopped following most of what was being said.

Solveig noticed.

She continued speaking for a little longer before eventually stopping, then reached across the table and lightly touched Ilya’s wrist.

"Could I borrow you for a moment?"

"Huh?"

"Come with me."

Ilya looked around the table, confused, but complied anyway. The two stepped out of the lecture hall without drawing much attention from the Professor, who had already given the class the remainder of the period to work with their respective groups.

"Alright. What’s wrong with you?"

"...What?"

"You’ve barely been here for the past hour." Solveig crossed her arms. "You keep reading the same things twice, I’ve had to repeat myself several times, and every few minutes you start looking like you’ve forgotten there are five other people sitting at the table with you."

"Sorry. I’ll pay more attention."

"That wasn’t what I asked."

"...."

Ilya looked away.

Solveig watched him for a few seconds before her expression softened.

"Did something happen?"

"...Did you really bring me all the way out here just to ask me that?"

"Would you rather I ask you with everyone else sitting there?"

"I’d rather you didn’t ask at all."

Solveig blinked, and Ilya couldn’t help but chuckle at the look on her face. He shoved both hands into his pockets, then pulled out his cigarettes after a moment and placed one between his lips.

"Might as well..."

He lit it and took a long drag, giving himself a few seconds to decide where he was even supposed to begin.

Solveig didn’t rush him, although she did wrinkle her nose slightly when the smoke drifted in her direction.

"A friend of mine died today."

"...."

Whatever Solveig had expected, it clearly wasn’t that.

"Oh. You mean..."

There was no need for Ilya to elaborate. News of what had happened in the Knight Department had already spread across the academy that morning, and by the time afternoon classes began, there were probably very few students who hadn’t heard about it.

As Gustav had said, Charles’s death had been ruled a suicide. There wasn’t much uncertainty surrounding what had happened either, since several students had seen him making his way toward the upper floors shortly beforehand, and there had been witnesses below when he jumped.

"...I’m sorry."

Ilya glanced at her, then looked away again.

Solveig didn’t press him, simply standing beside him while he smoked and waiting to see whether Ilya would continue on his own. After a while, however, her brows drew together as she took a closer look at his expression.

"But... why do you look like you had something to do with it?" Solveig tilted her head. "Did you?"

Ilya let out a quiet breath through his nose.

"I might as well have killed him—"

Solveig leaned forward, looking him directly in the eyes.

"Did you?"

"...I didn’t."

"Then grieve like his friend. Don’t stand here acting like you’re responsible for his death when you aren’t."

"...."

Ilya exhaled, smoke spilling from his mouth as he looked out across the courtyard. It was much easier for Solveig to say that than for him to actually believe it.

Solveig leaned back and let out a sigh.

"You know, I’d be lying if I said you didn’t intimidate me when we first met." She crossed her arms against the windowsill. "Of course, I’d heard about Ilya Belozersky before then. Your reputation isn’t exactly something people keep quiet about around here."

"...I figured."

"But do you know why I approached you anyway?"

Ilya glanced toward her. "Why?"

"Because I don’t like Elise."

"...."

"She’s as fake as can be." Solveig said it so casually that Ilya wasn’t entirely sure how to respond. "Always smiling, always polite, always saying exactly what someone wants to hear. I couldn’t stand her."

"You two really don’t get along, huh?"

"...Not particularly." Solveig shrugged. "But I also knew Elise de Beaumont wouldn’t cling to someone with a genuinely questionable character. She cares far too much about how people see her for that."

Ilya frowned. "That doesn’t sound like a compliment to either of us."

"It wasn’t supposed to be." A small smile appeared on Solveig’s face. "The point is, I saw how she acted around you and figured there had to be something about Ilya Belozersky that all the rumors were missing."

"Huh. Haha."

"I took a gamble." Solveig nodded. "I walked over, introduced myself, and waited to see whether you were actually as unpleasant as everyone made you sound."

"And?"

"Well, you’re unpleasant."

"...Thanks?"

"But not in the way they said."

Ilya gave her a flat look, which only made Solveig smile a little more.

"You’re quiet, awkward, occasionally rude, and your face makes it look like you’re annoyed with everyone around you, even when you’re apparently having a perfectly good time. But you’re not cruel. That’s the important difference."

"...."

"So if you’re going to mourn your friend, then mourn him." Solveig looked back toward the courtyard. "Be angry that he’s gone, regret that you weren’t there, hate yourself for not noticing if you really have to. But don’t start rewriting what happened just so you can make yourself the villain."

Ilya remained quiet, the cigarette slowly burning between his fingers.

For some reason, coming from someone who had only known him for two weeks, those words were harder to dismiss than he would have liked.

"Oh, and you’re smart."

"...?"

"Smart enough that I’ve actually wondered whether you should be leading the group instead of me."

"Pfft." Ilya nearly laughed into his cigarette. "I don’t know half the things I’m talking about most of the time."

"Well, you’re certainly good at pretending you do."

"Fake it till you make it, as they say."

"Pfft."

After that, the conversation continued for a little while longer. They talked about this and that until Ilya eventually noticed that his cigarette had nearly burned down to the filter.

He dropped it to the ground and crushed it under his boot, then looked toward Solveig as she started making her way back to the lecture hall.

Whatever guilt remained hadn’t disappeared, but at the very least, his thoughts no longer felt quite as suffocating as they had before.

"Solveig."

She slowed and glanced back at him.

"What?"

"What does it mean to be happy?"

Solveig fully turned toward him, then tilted her head as though the question itself confused her.

"Isn’t it obvious?"

"...?"

"You’re happy when you’re happy. And you’re sad when you’re sad."

"...."

"If you’re eating something and enjoying it, then you’re happy. If you’re with someone and you want to stay a little longer, then you’re happy. If you wake up looking forward to something that day, even if it’s something stupid, then you’re happy."

Solveig walked toward him, and before Ilya could figure out what she was doing, she suddenly took his hand between both of hers and raised it between them.

There was an oddly determined look on her face, enough that Ilya could only stand there and let her hold his hand while wondering where this sudden seriousness had come from.

"It doesn’t have to be some grand state where everything in your life is suddenly perfect. You can have a terrible morning and still laugh about something in the afternoon, and you can hate half the things happening in your life while still having something that makes you want tomorrow to come."

"...."

Solveig tightened her hands around his.

"As long as you’re alive, Ilya, there’ll always be another chance to find something that makes you happy."

Crash——!

The sharp sound of something shattering against the floor echoed through the corridor, causing both of them to turn.

"...."

"...."

Elise stood a few steps away, completely frozen, her eyes wide as she stared at their clasped hands while whatever she had been carrying lay broken at her feet.

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