"Good," Elena said evenly and continued past her. She was doing it again—shrinking the meaning behind something she worked hard at with her flat affect.

'I was right. It was an apology!' Maya congratulated herself in her thoughts.

That aside, this has opened a whole world of questions.

"It's perfect," Maya glanced at the picture once more. "How did you do it? You must've studied it tremendously."

"Studied?" Elena raised an eyebrow. She glanced at her masterpiece with a blank face as if wondering what was so amazing about it that would need studying. "I guess I did get a good look once."

"Once?"

The one time Maya knew Elena definitely did get a close look was right before she set it on fire.

"Are you saying you only looked at it once? But it's too flawless of a replica."

"I know," Elena crossed her arms, tilting her head. A small smile appeared on her face.

'Now, she is surprisingly becoming full of herself.'

Leo groaned and stepped away.

"B-but… Would once be truly enough?" Maya simply couldn't understand it. While Maya was present, Elena never showed any interest. And, Leo never mentioned Elena eyeing the photograph when Maya wasn't around, so, in a strange way, Maya believed Elena was telling the truth.

"It is for me," Elena shrugged.

There was no point in lying about the effort she had put in because she had an undetectable witness who could disprove her claims. If anything, knowing about ghosts had made Elena a more honest person. At least in front of Maya.

Art was Elena's forte, but this was adding to an already extensive list of strange, unexplained things about Elena. Things she seemingly wanted to hide. However, to conciliate with Maya, there was no other way than to reveal this much.

Elena may not be a genius, but something in her mind workings was unique. An oblivious person, who at times can be quite shrewd and incisive. There was even a recent incident where a professor accused her of being smart.

Maya felt as though she was close enough to grasp Elena's secret. She only needed one more hint.

"I don't understand," Maya confessed.

"You don't need to," Elena shrugged it off.

"But I want to know."

Elena gave a long sigh. It seemed like she wanted to dismiss Maya, but then she asked:

"Do you remember learning how to tie your shoelaces?"

Elena's sudden and seemingly unrelated question took Maya aback. "Please don't change the subject. What does that have to do with anything?"

"Just answer. Do you remember who taught you?"

"My dad, probably," Maya responded, trying to think far into the past about something so trivial. All she knew was that she could tie shoelaces, but who could remember the first instance you did?

"You are not sure?"

"I was a child. Who could remember that far back?"

Elena gazed into the distance pensively. "I was three. It was late spring, and our orphanage had just received donations of goods and necessities. Lucky me had just received a brand-new pair of worn-out shoes. However, they came with long, tangled shoelaces."

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"Who gives a three-year-old shoes that need to be tied?" Maya was bewildered.

Elena chuckled. "Well, I didn't know how to tie them and did receive a slap when I tried to seek out a caretaker to do it for me."

Maya gasped. "They slapped you?" She pitied young and innocent Elena, who received such uncalled treatment.

Elena continued with her story. "I had two options: to walk around with untied laces on shoes already too big for me, or… watch and learn for myself. I wasn't willing to give up on the shoes I barely scrambled for, so I needed to find my way. Luckily, learning how to untie them was much easier." A subtle, spiteful smirk spread across Elena's face. "Then the caretaker who slapped me earned herself having her shoes untied by a sneaky child."

Maya couldn't help but chuckle at that. Somehow, it seemed very on-brand for Elena.

"I still remember vividly how her breath stank of home-distilled liquor as she yelled at me while her spit flew everywhere, how her feet were smelly when I got close to them, and the roughness of the straw broom she used to threaten me with. But when she was done with her fit, she had only one thing left to do—tie her shoes."

Blinking, Maya was only more and more bewildered. 'This was Elena's childhood?'

"So I observed. Then repeated it in my head, over and over again, until I could make some sense of the movements her quick hands made. And finally, I tied my own shoelaces for the first time."

Maya was staring at Elena wide-eyed. Not only did that experience sound horrifying, but in the end, no one was willing to teach her until she had done it herself. And most of all, Elena was only three, and she could still vividly describe her experience as if it were something that had happened yesterday.

"H—" Maya's voice cracked. She had to clear her throat and reaffirm herself. "How can you still remember all that?" Could it be humanly possible?

"Simple," Elena raised a glass she had filled for herself while telling the story and smirked, "I was sober."

While pieces began clicking in place in Maya's head, Elena quietly returned to her doodling.

The secret was her memory. But not only that—if Maya went back to think about all the horrifying things Elena had shared about her past and thought of it through the lens of them staying vividly embedded in Elena's brain, it would start to make sense why she was a heavy drinker. And that couldn't be more than grazing the surface of her true trauma.

Suddenly, it made sense why those bottles, which she was dependent on, were as important to Elena as Maya's family was to her.

Also, if it was this easy for Elena to recreate a precious image, Maya could understand why she would so easily destroy it in anger. She was making it as if Maya's invaluable memento was as replaceable as alcohol bottles, which hurt Maya the most. Now, Maya got a hint as to why Elena thought that way.

Despite all that, even having to remember the horrible things, this still felt like a blessing to Maya… Elena would never have to worry about her precious memories fading away.

"So you have a photographic memory?" Maya concluded.

"A cursed memory, more likely…" Elena muttered darkly.

As far as Maya knew, true photographic memory existed only in fiction, but now she had a real example right in front of her, just like she had encountered a dragon the other day. She had always imagined someone with such an ability would be incredibly gifted and accomplished—someone like Sherlock Holmes, who couldn't help but achieve fame through their remarkable talents.

And the real example turned out to be a total wreck—Elena lived as if something so rare was a punishment more than anything else.

"Oh," Elena added as if she wanted to undo her mistake, "I'd appreciate it if you kept this between us."

"Can you tell me more about it?"

"No," Elena was firm. "We will never speak of this again."

"But, wait," Maya scratched her chin, realizing, "How are you failing so many classes if you basically have an embedded cheat in your brain? Shouldn't classes be easy for you?"

Elena chuckled. "It doesn't make me smart. It's just raw memory."

"You don't need to be smart, only memorize the material!" Maya claimed enthusiastically.

"You boiled it down pretty nicely," Elena was amused by Maya's unintentional insult to the educational system.

"My point still stands," Maya said, setting her hands on her hips.

Elena sighed. "Wouldn't it be weird if a girl who shows up late and intoxicated to class aces everything? They'd turn me into a specimen…"

"And your solution is to fail on purpose…?" Maya's gaze was scrutinizing.

"Why do I feel like you're calling me stupid in a roundabout way?" Elena squinted at her. She took a deep breath and closed her eyes with a hint of regret. "Promise me you will keep this a secret." Elena was persistent.

Maya's thoughts suddenly returned to Maureen's advice: 'Instead of forcing a friendship, strike a deal with her…'

"Okay, but only if you promise to help me with my exams," Maya clasped her hands, determined.

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