Chapter 060
“…Madam? Customer!”
“Gah.”
It took Joy calling me several times before I could break free from my thoughts.
Joy, who had been staring at my suddenly darkened face, soon asked with a tone full of certainty, “Is it because of your husband?”
“Ahem, no.”
“Of course it is. I saw you together yesterday.”
Right. I had forgotten that Joy was right next to me when I ran into Evan while walking down the street.
The perceptive Joy seemed to have already figured out why I was acting this way and kept pressing me with questions.
Since I had already been caught, I decided to share my concerns with Joy a little.
“It feels like Evan has been avoiding me since the day before yesterday.”
“The day before yesterday? What happened then?”
“Well…”
I recalled everything from the nightmare of my older brother appearing in my memories to going out to the garden and meeting Evan, eventually leaving the city together.
Thinking about the kiss we shared by the lake made heat rush to my face.
Joy, who had been quietly watching my expression, pouted and said, “Why do I suddenly feel so uneasy? It feels like I’ve learned something I didn’t want to know…”
Muttering a few more words as if chewing on them, Joy then decided to push me out of the tower.
“Weren’t you going to help me with my worries?”
“Yeah, but you two are just sulking over something that isn’t even a real problem, so it’s making me sick.”
I looked at Joy with a confused expression, asking what that meant, but Joy didn’t reply.
“This is ridiculous. You act like you’ll give me a solution if I tell you!”
As I stood my ground at the entrance of the tower, protesting, Joy leaned against the wall and momentarily looked down at me.
“Why are you staring at me like that…?”
“No, I was just thinking. When did we get this close?”
At Joy’s words, I had to look up at him with a momentarily flustered expression.
His playful gestures and light tone were gone, and in an instant, he seemed like a stranger.
‘Have I been too casual with him?’
Although he was essentially a stranger, there was an inexplicable sense of intimacy when I was with him.
As I shared more conversations with Joy and grew closer, I even thought it would be nice if he stayed here after his contracted period ended.
So, when he clearly drew a line with a single word, I felt like a fool just moving my lips.
“Were you uncomfortable…?”
“Yeah.”
The answer came out without a moment’s hesitation, and I quickly sealed my lips.
If he was uncomfortable, a light remark of regret would suffice, and I could just maintain the boundaries of our employer-employee relationship, yet strangely, I couldn’t bring myself to speak.
It seemed I was more comfortable with Joy than I had realized.
“This is a big problem.”
At that moment, Joy, who had been quietly observing my flustered face, spoke softly.
“I didn’t intend to get this close… I knew it would be hard to pretend not to know each other later.”
“What do you mean?”
I asked back, puzzled by his cryptic words, and he lightly chuckled, replying, “Well, I guess it’ll work out somehow. By the way, customer…”
As he muttered to himself, Joy began to move a little closer to me.
“W-what is it?”
Since Joy’s earlier reaction had created a slight distance between us, I slowly backed away toward the wall.
Thud.
Then, completely blocked by the wall and unable to retreat any further, Joy traced a line with his lips and moved closer to me.
He then reached out with both hands and trapped me in his embrace.
Feeling the increasingly strange atmosphere, I urgently pushed his face away and shouted.
“Joy! I’ve never seen you as anything more than a friend. Besides, what are you doing with someone who is already married?”
“…I don’t have even a single ant’s tear of those feelings for you, you know?”
Joy replied in a tone of disbelief as he listened to my words coming out without pause.
“Then what’s with this strange position?”
“You asked me for a solution, didn’t you?”
Looking at him with a confused expression, Joy took a step back and said,
“If the fish runs away, you have to pull the line. What are you going to do, just wait quietly for it to come back?”
Joy lightly grabbed both of my shoulders, still standing there in shock, and turned his body toward the path leading to the castle.
“Let’s hurry and go catch that escaping fish.”
☪︎ ִ ࣪𖤐 𐦍 ☾𖤓 ☪︎ ִ ࣪𖤐 𐦍 ☾𖤓
“Are we really going to go up like this?”
“What else can we do? You said he disappears every time you go looking for him, so we have no choice but to barge in.”
For a moment, I almost nodded in agreement with Joy’s brazen words, but I quickly regained my senses and countered his argument.
“Still, this is a bit much, don’t you think?”
I lowered my voice, wary of anyone passing by.
No matter what, this was too much.
“How am I supposed to climb the castle walls in a dress?”
He acted confidently as if he could solve my worries in one go, which had raised my expectations.
The solution was to sneak up the castle walls like a thief and infiltrate Evan’s office.
“I really can’t do this. I want to go back.”
“Wait, hold on! There’s no more certain way than this!”
As I turned to leave without hesitation, Joy quickly ran in front of me and blocked my path.
“Honestly, if you just keep wandering around like this, you won’t be able to meet your husband properly.”
Joy insisted that I trust him just this once and led me back to the wall.
The idea of being able to meet Evan if I just closed my eyes and climbed the wall was tempting, but the dignity of being a noble kept holding me back.
“No matter what, I’m not an assassin. How can I climb all the way up there?”
I sighed and tilted my head back.
Among the large windows visible on every wall, Evan’s office was located on the third floor.
Even if the outfit wasn’t an issue, I lacked the strength to climb that high.
The thought of someone discovering me struggling to hang onto the wall was terrifying just to imagine.
“Who said you really had to climb the wall? Who do you think I am standing next to you?”
Just then, as I was looking up at the wall with a dazed expression, a haughty laugh came from the side.
At the same time…
“Ah!”
“Shh! If you don’t be quiet, your husband will hear you!”
As I let out a short scream from the sensation of suddenly floating up, Joy immediately scolded me to lower my voice.
“What are you doing all of a sudden?”
I shot a glare at Joy, trying to keep my voice as low as possible so no one would hear.
“I thought this would be much better than listening to you sighing.”
After finishing his sentence, Joy didn’t give me a chance to respond and continued to rise higher.
“Ugh.”
Suddenly floating in mid-air without anything to hold onto, a wave of anxiety washed over me, and I instinctively grabbed the hem of Joy’s clothing.
Joy glanced down at one of his sleeves and shook his hand as if annoyed, but when I didn’t let go, he eventually surrendered and offered me one arm.
I looked at Joy with a sense of wonder.
‘Air magic, huh.’
Even in the tower of magic that only geniuses could enter, there weren’t many who could handle such complex spells.
Every time I saw Joy casually casting such difficult magic, I became increasingly curious about his past.
‘Where on earth has he been, and what has he done?’
I had many questions I wanted to ask, but the more I became curious about him, the more I realized that one day he would leave without a trace, so I didn’t say anything.
“We’re almost there. Oh, perfect, he’s right there.”
While I was momentarily lost in thought, we had arrived at Evan’s office.
Upon hearing that Evan was there, I mimicked Joy and hung from the window frame, peeking my eyes out.
Just as Joy had said, inside the office was Evan, the person I had wanted to see so much.
midori
thanks! Brother Joy to the rescue! a cliffhanger, a cliffhanger—?!?