After Tuesday morning's classes ended, Isabel came as usual to find Iver for lunch.
Isabel had many things she wanted to share with Iver. In the four days since they had last met, from Friday until today, their topics had piled up.
Before this, Isabel had never had much sense of time. To her, every day was an endlessly repeating cycle, with nothing to look forward to on any particular future day.
But things were different now. She looked forward to advancing with Iver, to adventuring together in the Dream Realm and experiencing another life; she also looked forward to chatting with Iver and sharing the interesting things in their recent lives.
Even if this sharing happened every day, the content was entirely different each time.
In the past, Isabel had rather liked weekends. Every weekend, she could quietly stay in the Silver and Tin Palace without speaking to anyone. She could sing, paint, and play instruments there alone, and time would pass in the blink of an eye.
That tranquil feeling of being apart from the world could always heal her exhausted mind.
But now, when the weekend drew near, Isabel became anxious and unsettled. She would not see Iver for several days, and she had gradually grown accustomed to conversing with others. Once she had adapted to that kind of life, she came to understand loneliness.
Therefore, Isabel would carefully prepare a notebook filled with possible topics of conversation. She and Iver were not in the same faculty, and they could reliably meet only during those three-odd hours at noon. They might not even have time in the afternoon—one of them would often suddenly have something to do.
As a result, she sometimes missed topics she had thought of. She might encounter something interesting the night before or