60 – while she was asleep
Edgar thought.
I don’t know exactly what the effect of this candy is, but it’s clear that one of the effects is to temporarily reduce intelligence.
Otherwise, the situation that is currently happening is completely incomprehensible.
“Ed, I like you… Hee hee… … .”
“… … .”
Ariel had been sitting next to him on the sofa for a while and rubbed her face against his arm, making a cat-like noise.
Her face was also like that of a cat, so Edgar felt like a more noble cat with black fur.
If the fact that the pupils are red is also a singularity, then it must be a singularity.
Meanwhile, Sylvia, who was sitting across from her, was watching this scene with an absurd expression.
‘Did I misunderstand the effect of candy?’
Sylvia looked at the glass jar containing the candy and was lost in confusion.
I’ve heard that it allows you to bring out the words inside, but I never thought that even your behavior would change like that.
Maybe this is an opportunity and I am expressing the desire that I have accumulated so far.
Either way, it was a very entertaining sight for anyone watching.
“Why did you bring something like that?”
“Sorry. I brought it because I thought it would be fun, but the effect is really good.”
“Sigh… … .”
Edgar couldn’t say anything more at Sylvia’s act of scratching her cheek while laughing innocently.
After Ariel entered this state, he tried to hear an explanation from Sylvia, but it is said that the effect of this candy is to bring out actions and words against the will of the user.
In other words, it makes people who hate it more crave affection and those who like it more push away.
Edgar himself had doubts about the effect, but since the only two people who knew about it said so, he had no choice but to agree.
“Looking at it like this, there is no other cat. Is not it?”
“You may find it funny, but I am not.”
Seeing Ariel clinging to him like a cicada on a dead tree, Sylvia asked in a calm tone. Edgar sighed and waved his hand firmly.
If he had changed his appearance into a real cat, he would not have been conscious, but for him now, this situation was practically hell.
I would say that he is realizing what it means to reach the limit of his patience as a man.
Anyway, it was clear that it was not a happy situation.
“Fuu, wouldn’t it be nice to be hugged by a pretty girl like Ariel?”
“that’s… … .”
Edgar glanced at Ariel and kept his mouth shut.
Of course, he might like Edgar Billhark as a man, but after realizing that it wasn’t Ariel’s original will, he felt nothing but a sense of collapse.
Even in the midst of that, the soft touch that came close to my body was testing my mental strength from time to time, and it was literally to death.
“Oh, you know what? That the memory disappears when the candy’s effect ends?”
“Disappearing… You mean the memory after eating the candy?”
“yes. Aren’t you curious?”
While listening to another unexpected effect, Edgar was relieved saying it was good news.
I was thinking about what to do when Ariel returns to normal, and how to treat her now.
But if the memory is completely gone, it will at least mean it’s okay to put aside worrying about it for a while.
Of course, what bothered him the most was that Sylvia’s words could not be trusted unconditionally.
“what? Aren’t you suspicious?”
Seeing Edgar’s strange gaze, Sylvia asked in case of doubt, and Edgar narrowed his eyes even more and said in an airy tone.
“… Do you look like you don’t have any doubts? I made my child like this.”
“What is the kid? Anyone who sees it will think that Ariel is your sister or daughter.”
“… … .”
Sylvia is good at talking back even when she has made mistakes.
Edgar also kept his mouth shut as if he had nothing to say, and carefully wrapped his arms around Ariel’s shoulders, who were clinging to him.
‘It’s my little sister.’
At the sudden blow, Edgar smiled bitterly and took a sip of the black tea in front of him.
It’s not that I’m wrong, but I couldn’t come up with a way to deny it.
No, denying this would be tantamount to abandoning one’s conscience.
When he first saw a girl named Ariel, he was already an adult mentally.
That’s why, despite being in the position of her childhood friend, she has always regarded her as a younger sister with a large age gap.
Edgar never felt that it was wrong.
Even though my heart was like that, it wasn’t that there was a big crack in the relationship as a friend on the outside.
However, it was only when I just entered this year that I felt that my heart was twisting little by little.
‘I never thought being too pretty would be a flaw.’
A small laugh formed at the corner of Edgar’s mouth as he tried to bring out a story that others would have shouted at as being full.
It was as he thought.
The beauty of the girl named Ariel became more beautiful as the days went by, and she gradually acquired the nobility befitting the successor of the Loveheim family, which means that she gradually changed into an attractive woman who could not help but attract the attention of men.
And, of course, Ed was also included in the category of ‘man’.
Moreover, he was neither a corpse with dead emotions nor a crippled man with no masculinity.
Although he could be a stupid man who tried hard to restrain his gaze from going to her, while covering his own unconsciousness by saying that he was like a ‘little sister’.
‘It’s difficult.’
Edgar was confused between two emotions.
One is the feelings he has for a girl named Ariel.
And the other is Ariel’s feelings for him.
He was rather insensitive about his work, but not so dull that he would not notice it until many years had accumulated.
However, if you ask if it is sharp enough to dig into a girl’s feelings one after another, that was not the case either.
Is the feeling she harbors in her heart friendship? Or is it love?
From smiling at him, extending his hand first, to always acting defenselessly.
Maybe it’s possible because he’s just a comfortable childhood friend.
In the past, there would have been no reason to worry about this.
Edgar’s gaze on her was always friendship as a childhood friend, so there would have been no need to forcefully guess what her feelings were.
If Ariel became more honest with her feelings and matured as she got older, Edgar was the opposite.
Rather, compared to the past when he looked at the world with a plain gaze, day by day he began to have a consciousness closer to that of a boy.
With that of a boy of the same age who is clumsy with the emotions of others, ignorant of his own emotions, and troubled between them.
Just as Ariel changed little by little while being colored by Edgar, Edgar also changed little by little by being colored by Ariel.
It was just a story.
‘I didn’t expect it.’
Edgar burst into laughter at the sudden sense of collapse and took off his coat from Ariel, who had fallen asleep in the seat next to him.
It never occurred to him that he would see Ariel not as a sister, at least not as a friend, but as a full-fledged member of the opposite sex.
But now that I think about it, maybe this is normal.
Edgar knew that she was the most beautiful girl, more attractive than any woman.
From the moment I recognized it, it was as if the winner of this tug-of-war had been decided in the first place.
I should have looked away if I hadn’t harbored these feelings in the first place.
However, he faced a girl named Ariel, and sometimes he looked at her with more sincere eyes than his family.
At that point, it was as if he had already started a fight in which defeat was confirmed.
“I fell asleep from exhaustion.”
“… Yeah.”
Sylvia sent a warm look at Ariel, who was sleeping with an angelic face and exhaled breath before he knew it.
As usual, Edgar tried to reach out to tidy up his messy hair, but he hesitated, then smiled bitterly and took his hand back.
How can people change their thoughts and emotions, so they can’t even do this kind of thing recklessly.
Could this be that the thief numb my feet?
“Edgar, I’ve been curious about something before.”
“What?”
“What do you want to be for Ariel? just a close friend? Or a lover?”
“I don’t know. I was right at first, but now that I think about it, even that is uncertain.”
Sometimes people do not even recognize the emotions or thoughts they had at the time, and often realize them belatedly later.
Edgar seemed able to say with ridicule that he was just such a case.
The fact that he came a long way to Hespania with her.
The fact that he went in and out of her room every night, rationalizing that it was for a lonely friend.
On the night of the prom, having recited that decision to Ariel.
All the actions of the past that I had done thinking of friendship, now looking back, were only things that I wondered if they were really friendship.
Seruk. Seruk.
Edgar stretched out the hand he had retrieved and straightened Ariel’s hair, resting her sleeping head in an uncomfortable position on his shoulder.
That one small act seemed to clearly show the change in his mind, and somehow Sylvia felt like a hearty smile would come out.
“… But one thing is for sure, it’s pretty enough to be a waste of time for me.”
“Put, is it? Well, that’s the answer.”
Sylvia gently closed her eyes and leaned back on the sofa.
How would her friend, now soundly asleep, have reacted if she had heard this?
Well, it wasn’t her business anymore.
I just wanted to lay a paving stone, because in the end, the end of this story will have to be concluded by the two of them.
Sylvia took another sip of the tea, drawing on the face of her lover whom she suddenly misses.
There was no reason why it went into my mouth, but I felt like I could feel the sweetness.