I Don’t Want to be an Ojakgyo (170)

SEPTEMBER 6, 2021~MOONLIKETRANSLATIONS

“But what do you mean, people who would ask me to be their partner? Are you talking about Swan or Cory?”
“Yes. I’m including Yves too.”
“Oh…. But why would they ask? Yves is probably too busy, and I don’t know about Swan. If Cory doesn’t think too much about it, he can ask Viedielle too.”

I huffed out a laugh. It felt like I was trying to pick who I wanted to eat a meal with. Cory was lucky to have a back-up partner like Viedielle.

Sure, the only reason I wanted Swan to be my partner was because I felt bad for him. Swan had such a horrible personality that he couldn’t possibly find a partner. That was why I put on makeup and everything. Everything I had done was because I was worried for him. Sure, let’s say that.

Hylli raised a single eyebrow at my words.

“You don’t know if Cory or Yves or Swanhaden is going to ask to be your partner? Are you serious? There’s no way they wouldn’t.”

At Hylli’s surprised tone, I smiled bitterly and nodded.

“Hadn’t Cory been trying to say something to you before giving up?”
“Yup. He’s been doing that.”
“Have you gotten a letter from Yvnes? Or no.”
“…..I got one.”
“And look at how Swan skipped class today.”
“What about that?”

When I agreed with everything, Hylli laughed hollowly. He lightly tapped my shoulder with his outstretched hand.

“Beware of the storm, Shuraina.”

And if it’s too much, then come to me. Hylli muttered quietly.

What did he mean, beware of the storm?

I bit off a piece of my cream bread from dinner and walked along the trail. I remembered what Hylli had told me as I walked. When I asked Hylli to elaborate, he quickly shut his mouth and told me that I’d find out on my own. I mean, if he wasn’t going to say anything, why say anything at all? His added comment about how I didn’t have to do anything was a bit of a relief, though.

Anyway, Yves told me that he would visit to give me some food from the outside. I took out Yves’ letter from my pocket and read through it.

Yves said that he would bring a cream castella from a new cake shop at around 6 PM, and that he would be waiting at the fountain. I shoved the rest of the cream bread into my mouth and walked towards the fountain.

The closer and closer I got to the fountain, the more and more roses I saw. The single rose I saw became two, and the roses kept multiplying as I walked down the path. Even a small gust of wind made petals fly everywhere. It was a rose party.

I had no idea who did this, but the road was quite beautiful. I took a single rose.

There wasn’t a single thorn on the rose.

It wasn’t just the one I had picked up. Every single rose on this path had its thorns taken out. Thanks to that, I didn’t have to worry about pricking my finger. It looked like the thorns had been plucked out one by one–what an effort.

When I raised my head up after staring at the roses littering the ground, I was right in front of the fountain. I could see Yvnes’ orange hair from far away. He was sitting on the fountain with a cream castella in one hand and his arms crossed.

But Yves wasn’t the only one I saw near the fountain.

I could see Swanhaden, who had a huge pile of roses, still with their thorns, by his side as he hid in the grass. Swanhaden was looking at Yves, who was sitting on the fountain.

Swanhaden was silently drawing something into the air. I glanced at it and saw that it was a white magic attack circle.

When Swanhaden completed his circle, he muttered an activation spell. The spell was invisible and silent as it shot towards Yves. Yves had somehow noticed this attack–he lowered his back and avoided it, as if he was used to this.

Yvnes, who had briefly lowered his back, looked up as if he realized I was coming. When I entered the rose-filled area, he waved his hand.

Yves handed me a large-sized cream castella into my arms.

“Thank goodness you arrived at the perfect time. I’m saved, thanks to you.”
“Saved?”
“I accidentally picked the wrong place to meet. No, was it good? I unknowingly messed up Swanhaden’s plans. It seems like he was trying to ask you here too.”

At his explanation of how he messed up Swanhaden’s plans, I stared at where Swanhaden was hiding in the leaves. I waved my hand at Swan, who was probably looking this way. I don’t know what exactly is going on, Swan, but good luck. Yves is always like this.

I was curious as to why Swan was hiding, but I stopped caring about anything else except the castella in front of me.

The castella was massive and I was hungry, so I tried to eat it right away. I opened up the castella box and propped it like a plate. A fork and cake knife was also neatly packaged in the box.

I took out the fork and cut a pretty slice and put it in my mouth. The combination of the sweet, melting whipped cream and the moist bread was beautiful.

Yves just watched as I busily ate. He had a thin smile on his lips. When he asked an obvious question like, “Is it that good?” I nodded.

When I gave him a piece to try it, he refused and told me to eat lots. He said something stupid like how he’d eat it if I fed it to him, so I just kept eating on my own.

“It’s the senior end party soon, have you thought about your partner?”

Yvnes curled my hair between his finger. I went quiet at his question. I was still eating.

“You were my partner when it was my party. So I was hoping that you’d choose me, too.”

Yves smiled gently as he pointed at himself. He pushed back a strand of my hair behind my ear.

As soon as he finished speaking, the ground began to shake slightly. The roses on the ground began to vibrate slightly.

The roses that decorated the fountain slowly began to float in the air. The roses littered on the ground began to do the same before they all bunched together in thin air and began to twirl.

I looked at Yves, eyes wide as I wondered what was going on. Yves had a half smile as he sighed.

The incredible amount of roses all began flying towards Yves and smacked him. I suddenly remembered what had happened in the junior end party. Yvnes probably got smacked with roses back then too.

I frowned as I couldn’t see because of the roses.

“Shuraina.”

Rose petals fluttered down from the sky. I blinked a few times. I heard a familiar voice coming from somewhere.

I saw someone who was covered in mud. There were a few rose petals atop his silver hair.

“Shushu. Will you….”

He called my name. Then, he tried to say something but hesitated.

“Will you, be, my partner?”

While Swanhaden was hesitating, I heard another voice from right next to me. The slightly husky voice was incredibly familiar. His voice was breathy as if he had run or flew here.

Right at this moment, all of the fluttering rose petals calmly floated down to the ground. My eyes became clear once again.

The castella that I had been eating was high up in the sky. Once the rose petal rain was all calm did the castella come back onto my lap.

I was a bit surprised, so I looked around. I could hear voices coming from here and there. It was confusing. Who was saying what to me?

Swanhaden was right in front of me, and Yvnes was in the water behind me, and on my right was a Cory who had popped up out of nowhere. Cory, who had coming running over, was gathering his breath with his hand on my shoulder.

I knew that Swan and Yves was already here, but Cory’s sudden appearance surprised me. Where’d he come from? Did he fly here? I patted Cory’s breathless back.

A bunch of people told me that I’m not too quick to the catch, so I knew that already.

But no matter how slow I was, I knew enough to know that these three were all here to ask me to be their partner. Even if the reasons why they were asking weren’t the most romantic of reasons.

Right at that moment, Hylli, who had been passing by the fountain, discovered me.

He burst into laughter as he saw me awkwardly sitting with the castella in my lap and a fork in my hand amongst the three of them. Then, he grabbed his homework and walked towards the fountain.

“Wow, what a mess.”

Just like Hylli said, this was a twisty tornado. I munched on another piece of the castella and muttered to myself.

Everything had happened at once, so I felt a bit out of it. I tried to organize everything that had happened.

So, Yves had called me over and gave me some castella and asked me to be his partner. Then, at the same time, Swanhaden had been trying to ask me to be his partner but Cory popped up out of nowhere and asked me to be his partner.

Cory’s sudden appearance was so fascinating that I asked him when he appeared. Cory said that he had been passing by the fountain just at the time. He had been hesitating asking me to be his partner, but he rushed over when he saw Swan and Yves beat him to it, he stated with his eyes in the sky.

These three weren’t the only ones, though. Hylli, who had asked me to be his partner during swordsmanship class, had come over too.

What kind of drama was this? I had four people who asked me to be their partner. And three out of these four wanted an immediate response.

The castella provided me with enough sugar. My brain was functioning well.

How could I solve this problem?

“So all of you guys are here to ask me to be your partner, right?”

Hylli responded positively when I asked.

Okay. I would become Solomon. There was only one baby, but the two mothers in the situation was going to make me split the baby in half.

Here was the problem, though: all of these poor poor people didn’t have partners, and I was their closest female friend. There wasn’t enough supply for too much demand.

I frowned as I thought. It was silent.

Cory fiddled with his fingers before he discovered Yves, who was submerged in the fountain water. He put his hand in his dimension pocket and soon took out a rubber duck that would float on the water. He placed the rubber duck next to Yves.

Yves’ gaze left me and instead focused on the floating duck. He chased it with his eyes, looking from left to right.

It was silent.

Yves raised his hand in the water and soon clenched his fist. He sprayed water onto Cory. When the water got in his eyes, Cory frowned and wiped off the water off of his face.

The water splashed, but it was still quiet.

After the long silence, I finally finished my castella. I put down my fork and wiped my mouth.

I finished thinking.

“Yves, you’re a graduate and you’re coming from the outside, so you don’t really need a partner, do you?”

When I suddenly began speaking, Yves looked up as he pinched the rubber duck’s face.

“It’s not like I need one, it’s that I’d like to go with you. Like you said, I don’t really need a partner if it’s not you.”

That wasn’t a sad enough reason, so I decided to skip. Without even a bit of hesitation, I shifted my gaze from Yves.

Now, next question.

Hylli came into view.