A Monodrama for Carolyn August - Chapter 63

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This chapter was translated by Lunox Novels. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
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Chapter 63.
“I’m glad I had the peppermint candy.”
Caroline held sympathy and compassion for him.
It meant there were many things that would happen even if she tried to hide them.
Each time, she could use the candy like a cheat code, so it put her mind somewhat at ease. Caroline felt her spirits lift as she shook the candy tin.
Rattle-rattle.
“?”
The sound seemed sharper than what you’d expect from candy, but it was probably just her imagination.
Caroline put the candy back in her bag and settled onto the bed in a crouch. There was still time before she’d meet Aiden at 3 AM.
‘I don’t know exactly when or where he appears, but the person must change at 3 AM.’
Since she’d already had that nerve-wracking encounter with Friedman, there was no need to wait for 3 AM with him outside.
Besides, she was still too shocked to see him again so soon. At this rate, her heart wouldn’t survive.
Caroline dozed off like this, ate snacks, and passed the time in various ways.
And when the circular clock’s hour hand pointed to 3.
“!”
Caroline sprang from the bed.
Holding the bell that would alert her to a servant’s arrival, she first looked around the second floor.
‘Nothing.’
Friedman had vanished, transformed into Aiden at 3 AM.
The second floor showed no sign of anyone.
‘At 3 AM, wouldn’t the servants have stopped working and gone to bed?’
There’s no way they’d patrol for three hours.
With this in mind, Caroline climbed carefully to the third floor.
Whatever he was, if he was Aiden and not a character, she thought he’d be in Aiden’s room.
She crept up the stairs without a sound, and before ascending the final step, Caroline quietly surveyed her surroundings.
No servants were visible here either.
‘Good.’
The real problem was that she sensed no presence at all besides the servants.
‘Do I really have to go inside the room?’
The moment Caroline stepped toward the locked middle room in that silence,
“You again.”
“?!”
Caroline spun around with a start.
‘Why is it you again, Friedman?’
Whatever Aiden at 3 AM was,
it wouldn’t be the man before her.
Friedman emerged from the third of the four rooms, the one with blue wallpaper.
“What brings you to someone else’s house?”
“…….”
He wore a damp robe, as if he’d just showered in the blue room.
Caroline opened her mouth but couldn’t speak.
‘I didn’t come to see you…….’
What was she supposed to do about this?
‘It’s definitely past 3.’
[As compensation, you will receive Aiden at 3 AM.]
She’d thought “Aiden at 3 AM” meant a different version of Aiden would appear.
But what if that wasn’t the case?
‘The way it said “you will receive”—is he an object? Did I misunderstand?’
In the meantime, Friedman regarded her standing near his door with narrow eyes.
Then, as if he’d made up his mind, he opened the door wide. His manner was full of swagger.
“You know what it means to be standing outside another man’s room in the middle of the night.”
He brushed his hair back as if bored.
“Is this why you abandoned your husband?”
At words dripping with malice, Caroline’s brow furrowed.
‘How infuriating!’
She recognized that Friedman was deliberately needling Regina. And that it was his particular defense mechanism.
Regina appeared after so long, and he was genuinely glad to see her, still fond of her.
But that affection was twisted by a greater hatred, expressed through mockery and cruelty.
‘This is like elementary school boys.’
Strictly speaking, Friedman throughout the entirety of “The Oyster Man” was like a boy trapped in a man’s body—unable to be honest with his own feelings, and warped.
And Regina was a kind of teacher who set him straight.
“Don’t get the wrong idea. That’s not what this is.”
“Then what is it?”
Caroline stepped closer to him, her brow furrowed.
“You said you needed my help to live in this town. You said I’d need your permission to settle here.”
“That’s right.”
Friedman, true to form as a thug, wielded his power over who could open a business or take residence in the area.
And so Regina had to get his permission before she could lodge at someone’s house or move into an abandoned one as she pleased.
‘I can’t blame her for hating that.’
Friedman, who had been gazing elsewhere as if lost in thought, nodded slowly.
“But what makes you so confident?”
“What?”
He leaned his upper body toward Caroline, reeking of stale oysters.
“You think I’m going to help you willingly?”
Part of her wanted to pop another peppermint candy in her mouth and run, but
she sensed it wouldn’t have much effect unless his emotions were already running high.
‘I don’t know how many I have left, so I need to ration them.’
What was she going to do about this bastard?
Caroline glared at Friedman with narrowed eyes as he smirked provokingly.
“Ha, your eyes are disrespectful.”
The man’s expression turned calculating as he grabbed her arm and pulled her toward him.
And so she found herself yanked into Friedman’s room—a bed diagonally across, a bathroom straight ahead, and the wardrobe she’d organized herself off to the side.
“If you want my help, you need to be prettier about it, Regina. Come on, show me what you’ve got.”
‘How infuriating.’
His long fingers tapped lightly against her cheek.
“God, really.”
Even though she liked Aiden, acting like this was making irritation creep up her spine. Caroline nearly laughed at herself—when had she become so immersed in a role, like some actress?
And again, her true emotions were threatening to break through the character.
‘Calm down. Act like Regina.’
Regina wasn’t the type of woman to be rattled by this level of provocation.
She needed to act with his assertiveness.
“Is that so?”
When Friedman tried to torment her with teasing and taunts, Regina wasn’t someone who denied it or tried to escape.
‘A gutsy woman. The kind who actually raises the stakes.’
Caroline drew courage from the vivid memory of Regina grabbing Friedman by the collar in that cramped phone booth and kissing him like she’d do anything in there.
And so she took a step closer to him.
“What do you want?”
!
Friedman’s expression froze like a startled cat, and he faltered.
Idiot. It was funny that he started it and now he was getting scared.
Caroline decided to take full control of him.
“Like this?”
Taking advantage of Friedman’s hesitation at Regina’s unexpected response, Caroline shoved his upper body back hard. Under normal circumstances, his large frame would have been too much for her strength to move easily.
But the startled Friedman toppled backward, and then…….
Thump.
He landed flat on his back on the bed.
……?
It was Caroline, though, who was more shocked.
He lay sprawled on the white sheets, his eyes just blinking slowly like someone roused from sleep.
‘Why, why is he like this? Did he hit his head?’
Normally, he would have immediately gotten up and been furious, demanding to know what the hell she was doing.
But instead, he blinked slowly several times, then rose from the bed with an almost languid movement, and…….
“……Ah.”
!
Caroline stepped back one pace.
The man before her had transformed into someone else.
And Caroline could instinctively tell he was Aiden at 3 AM.
If someone asked her how she knew, she’d have no answer. His appearance hadn’t changed, his voice hadn’t changed. He wore the same form, the same face, and yet…….
‘His eyes are different.’
The arrogance, the vaguely sordid and delinquent air, the perpetual appearance of barely contained rage.
It had all vanished.
Aiden before her eyes wore the same Friedman makeup, yet his bearing was something Caroline had never witnessed in all her time knowing him.

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This chapter was translated by Lunox Novels. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
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