Iver did not write a diary, of course.
It made him feel unsafe, as though someone were peering into his heart. Merely writing things down gave him that feeling, even if, theoretically, no one else would ever read his diary.
Under such circumstances, if Iver were made to write a diary, he would never be able to write the truth.
It was like sharing one's daily life on social media—the content shared would naturally be edited, the interesting parts refined, the boring parts deliberately removed, and anything that might cause embarrassment hidden away. He might even tell lies convincing enough to make himself believe them, repeating them again and again in an attempt to rewrite his own memories.
--But looking at someone else's diary, on the other hand, made Iver feel a sense of aggression.
Peeking was a hidden form of aggression, but reading with the owner's consent, under their gaze, was different--it felt like peeling away layer after layer of their heart right in front of their face. That feeling excited Iver even more than stripping away their clothes.
Even if the diary did not contain only the truth, one could at least savor the state of mind the writer had been in while writing it... just as folklore was usually connected, however slightly, to things that had truly happened at the time.
After all, lies were like dreams: hallucinatory things that needed truth as their fermenting starter.
Isabel had said, "You don't have to read that part," but she had not explicitly refused him. That meant she wanted him to read it.
From that perspective, perhaps it was not Iver who was peeling away the First Layer, but Isabel herself...
Iver vaguely sensed that Isabel might have been lonely for far too long as well. She desperately hoped