novelI want to live next door to her house (9)
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Chapter 71: Chapter 71 I want to live next door to her house (9)
"Please have breakfast, " she said.
He sat at the table face to face with her.
She asked him to try the food she prepared. It was quite a bit of breakfast for her, but he gladly ate everything as she recommended. However, he couldn't enjoy the food in a relaxed mood because he often found himself distracted by her adorable lips when she was constantly chewing and watching how much he was eating.
He had no choice but to recite the boring Imperial Knights' code of conduct again.
"Here is dessert for you."
She presented the steamed pudding with fruit.
"It was a nice breakfast. I enjoyed it very much."
With dessert on the table, he praised her cooking skills. Although he didn't remember the taste of the food, he knew he swallowed it as if it was delicious.
"Try some pudding. It is good for your body as it is mixed with herbal juice. It helps you with overcoming fatigue... You may also love the soft texture of this pudding. You won't taste this kind of food at other places. My cooking skills might not be better than your chef, but all the food you ate today was made with rare ingredients."
Holding her index finger, she praised herself. She felt it was a pity that she couldn't explain the ingredients of each dish a little more in detail. Then, she also had a spoonful of pudding while watching him tasting it. Like she said, he felt its soft texture while enjoying it. He liked it.
Right at the moment, both looked at each other's lips as if they promised. It was fortunate that they did not meet each others' eyes. As she was embarrassed, she repeatedly picked up and put down a bottle of salt. It was the right decision that she didn't put lemon in the pudding.
That afternoon Lard returned to his house and sat alone in his study, lost in deep thought.
The raindrops were still knocking on the windows, creating a clear, cloudy sound as if they reflected his heart.
When he fixed his eyes on the piles of papers that randomly spread out, the letters floating in his mind began to complete a certain name: Wendy Waltz.
More concise than any epigram, these letters were surprisingly swaying his mind.
A name never got stuck in his head. When he found himself carried away with a flood of unfamiliar emotions, he tried to control his mind by closing and opening his eyes several times.
Concentrating on the documents in front of his eyes, he barely put away her name.
This time, however, he recalled the soft touch of her red lips. The touch of her lips lingering in his mind despite his hard efforts disturbed this young knight.
Even though he saw her only a few hours ago, he couldn't understand why he kept thinking about her, so he pressed the tip of the quill to the paper a little harder than necessary.
He didn't know when this kind of symptoms began, but they were bothering him more than usual today.
Tuk tuk tuk.
The sound of rain grew louder as if the raindrops were getting bigger. Hearing the heavy raindrops, he kept focusing on her image despite himself.
'Is she thinking about me like I am thinking of her?'
Suddenly he recalled what she told him last night.
~...Sure, let me refrain from visiting your shop, too. ~
At that time she kept pushing him out of her mind. Trying to pull himself together, he put the slightly bent nib into the ink bottle and pulled it out.
While he was lost in such idle thoughts, he heard somebody knocking on the door and came to his senses.
"Sir, it is Belhar." He was the butler of Lard's mansion.
"Come on in."
The old butler opened the door and entered his study.
"Master, Sir Edmonds is here. I led him into the waiting room as he urgently asked to see you."
His friend came to see him without any notice. He assumed Edmonds visited because of the Brugonu accident. Edmonds dashed to him the moment he opened the door, with a hardened expression.
"Hey, my friend! How do you feel? I'm so surprised to hear about the accident in the Brugonu forest. I hear you have severe bruises. Let me take a look."
Edmonds spoke, urgently opening the medical box he brought with him.
"It's not a big deal. It's just a bruise. I've already been treated."
"Well, if you were cured overnight, Linus Medical Center would have already been closed.
You have to take care of the wound every day. Don't neglect it."
Edmonds resolutely asked him to take off his shirt. Lard reluctantly took off his shirt.
"You have bad bruises. I heard you fell from a cliff. Fortunately, your wounds are not that serious, given your fall. By the way, I hear you are dating a woman. Do you know that people in the social circles are going crazy about your dating? Altarin's fabrication of the accident is also in the news, but they are more interested in the mysterious woman you accompanied at the hunting competition."
Edmonds picked up a medicine bottle and applied a topical medicine on his skin, which smelled bitter. He sat silently with his back to Edmonds.
Edmonds waited for a moment to feel out his reaction and then continued, "Hey, I've heard some rumors about you that I really can't believe. According to the rumors, you didn't hesitate to risk your life in order to save that woman. Of course, I didn't take it at face value. You did your job honorably as a knight, but I hear you cast a romantic gaze at her. Of course, I would like to ignore it as a groundless rumor..." Edmonds spoke awkwardly, clearing his throat as if he was embarrassed to repeat the rumors.
"Who is that woman, Lard? I understand she won in the shooting competition among ladies before the hunting contest began. Marian told me with a hearty laugh that she received the crown prince's violin bow as the reward for her victory."
Looking at the back of his friend, Edmonds once again got up the nerve to ask him.
"Hey, talk to me about that woman! Who is she? Are you dating her now?"
"...Edmonds."
As Lard opened his mouth after some silence, Edmonds demanded with delight, "Just tell me, please?"
"Well, I suddenly recall the days when you were feverishly in love with Prince Marian."
"What the heck are you talking all of a sudden?" Edmonds quipped, with a displeased voice.
"You know, you kept telling me how much you missed her every day, right? Back then, I thought you're the most pitiable guy in the world."
"Hey, Lard, I don't know why you're trying to bring up my old love stories."
"Don't you remember you kept wandering around the palace, hoping you could see the princess. You sometimes bashfully told me you wanted to eat and sleep in the palace to see her face."
"Nope! When did I tell you such a lie?" Edmonds denied, blushing.
"At that time, I couldn't understand why you were sticking around the princess."
"Oh my...that's why you don't know anything about love. Isn't it natural that you want to stay with your lover all the time? Haven't you ever thought you are weird because you don't know the ways of nature in human life?"
After rebuking him, Edmonds undid the bandages around his shoulder.
"Hum... the ways of nature..." Lard murmured to himself.
"But the problem is you didn't bring too little results for your enormous efforts. Don't you remember you never saw the princess while you were hanging around at the palace? If you really wanted to see her, why didn't you volunteer to be a royal doctor back then? You were really stupid at that time, Edmonds."
"Well, as you know, the royal doctor at the time was Dr. Benhount. How could I dare to replace him?"
"You told me it was the ways of nature in human affairs that you wanted to stay with your lover, right? Didn't it go against the ways of nature because you didn't?"
"What the heck are you talking about? That's sheer nonsense!"
Lard just chuckled at him without replying. Ways of nature in human affairs? Lard liked that expression of his friend's because it accurately reflected his frame of mind right now.
If that's the case, he thought he shouldn't go against the ways of nature in human affairs as far as Wendy was concerned.
"So, are you dating a girl or not? Tell me, Lard."
"Edmonds, is this medicine effective?"
"... Sure. It's a drug that researchers at Linus National Medical Center developed after years of research. It is very popular among patients these days because of its excellent effect on bruises and pain relief." Edmonds spoke with a languid voice, as if he gave up hearing from Lard about that mysterious woman he was rumored to be dating.
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