Chapter 190
At first, it felt like a punishment.
Averted gazes, whispers that stopped the moment he drew near, chairs that suddenly sat empty at the cafeteria table.
He was an island, slowly eroded by the tides of exile, with a single tragic mistake in the past forming an inexplicable and unforgivable chasm between him and everyone else.
The accident that claimed the life of the only teammate he had left not only carved a wound, but also branded his name with a stigma—an aura of misfortune and calamity that made people keep their distance, afraid of being infected by the bad luck believed to cling to him.
Ilux had once been choked by that loneliness.
Every breath he took in the crowded corridors felt like inhaling air devoid of oxygen, a torment so suffocating it made him wish he could simply vanish.
Yet time—and the silence imposed upon him—proved to be a strange kind of alchemist.
Slowly, the pain began to crystallize into something else.
The solitude that once felt like a damp, dark prison gradually transformed into a quiet altar-like chamber.
With no one to talk to, no distractions, no demands to pretend or explain himself, Ilux discovered a rhythm he had never imagined possible.
He began to realize that the stillness around him was not a curse, but a protective blanket.
The irritation and avoidance of others, which once wounded him, now became an invisible wall that safeguarded his dominion.
A realm of contemplation and inner peace.
He no longer had to waste energy reading other people's expressions or choosing the right words.
That energy was redirected entirely inward, into the ocean of words he explored on every page of every book.
Thus, his steps were no longer those of a fugitive.
They were the steps of a pilgrim, certain of his path.
Pages turned beneath his fingers at a steady, unbroken pace, a symphony of paper friction that became the soundtrack of his journey.
Each paragraph he consumed was a new world he entered, far more compelling and comprehensible than the social world of the Star Academy, with all its performances and prejudices.
The calm he felt was a calm born of total acceptance.
Acceptance of his solitude, of his dark past, and of others' choice to distance themselves.
Unburdened by expectations or forced conversations, his mind soared higher and farther.
He found a paradoxical freedom.
Excluded from the crowd, yet liberated within his own thoughts and imagination.
Every cynical glance, every faint murmur he overheard, only strengthened his conviction that behind his glasses, behind the curtain of letters he read, stood a fortress they could never reach.
And with that fortress, he continued onward—calm, relaxed, and wholly his own.
'The library, the most honest place for those who are not invited.'
The bell rang, slicing through the remnants of Ilux's private silence with a commanding metallic vibration.
The sound marked a transition—from a world he fully controlled to one that imposed its own rules.
An announcement of assignments—a team-based cooperation simulation—echoed through the classroom, followed by long sighs and the rustle of papers.
From behind his glasses, he watched as the space around him instantly came alive in a deft choreography.
Exchanged glances, smiles, nods, and the formation of small groups unfolded naturally, like molecules drawn toward one another.
Ilux did not move.
His seated form was a static island amid a swiftly moving current.
Glances passed over him, beyond him, as though his chair were an unoccupied piece of furniture.
No one approached.
No one made an offer.
It was a certainty colder than surprise, and Ilux accepted it with a calm that was almost climactic.
His face was neither pitiful nor empty.
It was the face of an observer recording data.
While others busied themselves with arms around shoulders and light laughter, his fingers calmly etched a list into his notebook.
Objective points, technical steps, the minimum requirements to pass.
He was not recording rejection.
He was constructing a solo strategy for a mission designed for many.
The corridor leading to the library felt like a silent time tunnel.
The commotion of group formation faded behind him, replaced by the soft echo of his own shoes against the polished floor.
The library, a cathedral of knowledge, stood at the end of the hall with its heavy wooden doors perpetually half open.
The first breath that greeted him carried an unmistakable scent.
Dust from aging paper decades old, mingled with the wood of worn shelves, and the cool impression of a perpetually dim room.
There, behind the circulation desk, the librarian merely nodded faintly, eyes returning to the book in hand.
Ilux did not need to search or wait.
His steps carried him straight to the shelves of philosophy and social theory, a territory whose layout he knew as well as the lines of his own palm.
Without hesitation, his hand pulled five thick, heavy volumes from the shelves—their leather covers worn, their pages a yellowed ivory.
The weight of the five books in his arms was not a burden.
It was a shield, a physical alibi for his undeniable solitude.
Those books were his groupmates.
They would not refuse him, would not whisper, and would offer every answer he needed.
With the stack of knowledge clutched to his chest, he surveyed the vast room.
Other groups had already formed in corners, atop old carpets, or around long tables.
Their sounds—low murmurs, muffled laughter, the tapping of laptop keys—merged into a background orchestra foreign to his ears.
Hins eyes, refracted by the lenses of his glasses, swept the room and found an empty table near a tall window.
A pale beam of afternoon light pierced through the glass, illuminating dancing dust particles, as though preparing a stage.
Ilux walked toward it.
The sound of his steps was swallowed by the thick carpet.
He set the five books down on the wooden table with a solid thud, a declaration of presence.
Then he sat.
His position lay exactly where the sunlight fell, splitting his shoulder and the stack of books into two domains.
Light and shadow.
This was where he would work.
This was where he would build his own collaboration—a silent alliance between himself, mute texts, and a clear target of passing ahead.
The social world pulsing around him blurred into an indistinct background, like an impressionist painting, while the details before him—the letters on the page, the grain of the wood—sharpened and gained meaning.
He opened the first book, and the entire noisy universe vanished, replaced by a productive silence.
He was ready to begin.
'If understood slowly, the meaning is clear—not to be memorized, but to be connected.'
Under the increasingly stretched light from the window, Ilux entered his most sacred ritual.
The world around him—sighs, whispers, the scraping of chairs from other groups—dimmed into meaningless background murmurs.
The five thick books before him lay open like stacked horizons, each presenting layered universes of thought.
His eyes, magnified by his glasses, traced each line not merely to read, but to filter, to mine.
Every word was contemplated within a resonant space in his mind, shaken gently to see whether it would ring with the truth he sought.
Then, when a sentence, a paragraph, shone with absolute clarity, his hand moved.
The notebook beside him opened, and his pen began to dance across the blank page.
Its sound was nothing more than a soft, rhythmic scrape, a mantra spoken through his fingertips.
To be continued…