I Thought Your Friend's Sibling Wasn't a Girl? - Chapter 53

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

Chapter 53
* * *
Different from then? What’s different about it.
The moment the words left his mouth, that doubt flooded Aiden’s mind entirely. But there was no time to dwell on it—the moment swept forward regardless.
“Oh, what?”
“What do you mean, what.”
“Well, we booked this room for the mission anyway.”
“Yeah, that’s… true.”
So his outburst moments ago had been nothing short of instinct. Today, Aiden had lost his reason more than once.
Whenever something involved Olivia, he plunged in without thinking twice. He held back less than he should, and spoke more than he swallowed.
Why? That question always followed. But the answer was always the same.
Because she was Olivia. His sister—the only one he cherished without reservation.
So this attitude was only natural, wasn’t it…
“The bed being one might be a little inconvenient, but… we can think of it as standing night watch in turns.”
“Yeah. Right.”
“And since we’re in the middle of a mission anyway, it feels more natural.”
Wasn’t that the obvious answer?
Aiden’s thoughts moved sluggishly.
Olivia was right. They were on a mission.
This room wasn’t booked so they could laugh and talk idly—it was a kind of operational meeting room, reserved in case they needed to monitor something.
So if Aiden had truly thought of Olivia as merely a close younger sister, or—befitting the situation—merely as a junior from the Knight Order, he wouldn’t have been so flustered.
But this was the genuine feeling he’d been desperately trying to bury.
“But why are you so startled? What are you thinking—oh.”
A genuine feeling that awakened another relationship he’d pretended not to know, not to acknowledge.
As if Olivia had just realized it herself, her movements stiffened and stopped. Her pale face began to flush.
“What I mean is, well…”
“Yeah. A lot has changed since then…”
Night had fallen completely. Sounds from outside filtered through the slightly open door, and the light inside cast a faint red glow across their faces.
Aiden suddenly acknowledged it. So much really had changed.
A long silence fell between them.
Unintended though it was, neither could think to dispel it—as if both were entranced by something.
His fingertips tingled. His neck felt tight, his chest ached.
In Aiden’s eyes, nothing existed but the flush rising in Olivia’s cheeks.
This is dangerous.
Aiden recognized the warning sign. But Olivia’s steady gaze wouldn’t release him, and he couldn’t look away.
The two stood quietly, eyes fixed on one another.
Whishhh, click.
The capricious summer night air stirred violently. The window, left open to the outside, swung shut with a sharp click.
The air inside, now sealed off from the world beyond, grew denser, heavier than before.
It was Olivia who broke the silence.
“Brother.”
“…Yes.”
“Can I ask you something?”
“Just like that?”
“Yeah. Somehow I just felt like I needed to ask.”
Olivia laughed softly as she spoke. The emotion in that smile was impossible to read.
Tension and unease, anticipation and affection—emotions tangled thickly in her gaze.
A small nod. An unexpected movement.
Aiden was confused, but Olivia spoke as if she’d been waiting.
“I’m not… disliked, am I?”
Thump.
A sound like thunder in his chest. His heart might have plummeted. It wasn’t excitement or surprise—it was shock.
Because he understood that the question wasn’t a joke or a tease.
“What… did you say?”
“I’m not… something you’ve come to dislike, am I?”
The question was vague and unclear. Why she thought this, how she’d come to think it—there was no information at all.
But Aiden couldn’t possibly not understand what lay beneath those words. There was no one who knew better than himself what he’d been saying to Olivia all this time.
Olivia was asking sincerely now, truly laying bare her wound.
‘Olive.’
How much have I wronged you.
And yet I keep choosing to hurt you. What am I supposed to do.
I promised to protect you. Why must I be the one who wounds you, even now.
It was something he’d resolved to do, yet it felt impossibly distant. His heart ached terribly.
“Brother.”
Olivia looked up at him, waiting for an answer.
Those green eyes, gleaming with nothing but Aiden in them, and that face—strangely unfamiliar now. While he’d been running from her, she’d grown so much alone.
“…How could I dislike you.”
Aiden answered as if in a trance.
At least he didn’t want her to carry that misunderstanding. He knew it would become a wound she could never undo.
“How could I dislike you.”
“So… you don’t dislike me.”
“…Olive.”
“That’s enough for now.”
Aiden could say nothing else, only repeating the same words, and Olivia smiled brightly, saying that much was sufficient.
A sensation like his entire body was being drawn tight.
Those hazy feelings he’d had whenever he saw Olivia, those emotions he’d been deliberately ignoring, seemed to find their moment and rise up defiantly, declaring their presence.
‘Hold back.’
Whatever this is, just hold back.
“But did you know?”
Yet Olivia was someone who shook him. The only person in this world who could bring him down.
“I’ve always liked you so much—then and now.”
Olivia, with her guileless face, so easily undid him.
Aiden was swept away by her without resistance.
“So there’s no difference for me between then and now.”
“…”
“What’s changed is you.”
Everything about Olivia shook him. Those sincere eyes, that voice tinged with a tremor.
Yet more than anything else, what stirred his heart was the fact that all of this was true—utterly without falsehood—evident in how Olivia’s ears and neck had flushed a deep red.
Words spoken lightly, yet not light at all, confessing how difficult they truly were—those crimson marks said it all.
He took a step forward and stopped directly before her. His face, lifted to meet her gaze, held the same features as in childhood, yet now they seemed subtly unfamiliar, gathered close in that new, grown face.
“Olive.”
“Yes, Aiden.”
He reached out carefully. His hand hovered near her cheek, as if asking permission, and Olivia tilted her head as if she’d been waiting, leaning her face against his large hand with ease.
Just as they had when they were young.
But the eyes that met in the space between them now held an entirely different emotion. Aiden’s voice dropped low and slow.
“…So the lady who chases after me must be out of her mind.”
Olivia’s eyes curved prettily as she smiled back.
“Why. Do you dislike someone out of her mind?”
He had no choice but to laugh at those words.
How could I dislike you.
Aiden swallowed the same answer he’d given moments before, his gaze fixed on Olivia.
It was an eternity in an instant. Another warmth settled over his hand, and though they both knew the danger of the moment, neither could tear their eyes away—just for that brief, eternal second.
Then it happened.
Knock, knock.
“Excuse me? The bedding you requested is here!”
The two woke from their brief dream.
The warmth that had touched their hands vanished like frost under the morning sun, leaving not even a trace.
The door opened and Raven’s voice followed.
“Um, m-miss? Guest? Are you all right? Your face is quite red.”
“Oh. It’s nothing. Bedding, you said?”
“Yes. Fortunately, we still have some extra bedding available.”
Aiden stared at his hand, which had been filled with her warmth, then clenched it into a fist with all his strength.
His hand moved as if trying to seize even a memory, but it closed around only empty air.

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