I’m Done With Unrequited Love - Chapter 71

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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 71
Xavier had made two wishes clear to me.
That I not interfere in his private life, and that he wanted to get closer to Caesar.
I intended to honor the child’s wishes as much as I could.
‘Not to interfere… well, I can accept that.’
A person’s own will matters most in all things.
Xavier wasn’t suffering severe abuse that would warrant forcible separation from his birth parents.
Besides, Sarubia had already removed him from the palace, keeping him at a great distance from Emperor Bruno.
‘I should acknowledge this.’
I’d been hasty.
As for his wish to grow closer to Caesar…
I glanced at the clock, still occupied in the laboratory with Syren, turning over various medications.
‘By now they’d be eating their snack, wouldn’t they?’
Should I go and talk to him?
Caesar, that is.
To be honest, I was curious about the child’s real feelings.
More precisely, I wanted to understand what was in his heart.
‘Whether he actually wants to become close with Xavier, something like that.’
So I planned to have a meeting with Caesar.
“Oh, so that’s how you decided to go meet Caesar, then.”
Syren, upon hearing my intention, spoke as she tapped white lumps into the Mixing Machine.
I nodded absently before freezing.
‘Wait.’
“Children’s friendships truly are complicated things. How those young ones try so hard to love each other, knowing nothing of the world—ah, I wasn’t referring to Xavier in such crude terms! That was purely a metaphor.”
“I know that much.”
But that wasn’t the important part.
“…What exactly did you just put in the Mixing Machine?”
Syren answered confidently, as if stating the obvious.
“Mold.”
At that answer, I looked at the Mixing Machine with disbelieving eyes, at the substance already inside it.
“That’s hydrogen peroxide.”
“…Huh?”
Huh?
I didn’t even have time to feel exasperation at that vacant response.
‘The whole house is going to blow up!’
High-concentration hydrogen peroxide has an extremely high probability of exploding upon contact with organic matter.
Actually, I’d only brought the hydrogen peroxide to the laboratory for disinfection purposes.
‘So why are you dumping mold into it?’
Even the most composed person has their moments of complete senselessness.
I quickly pulled Syren away from the Mixing Machine, whose contents had begun to bubble and clatter, and headed for the laboratory door.
Or rather, I tried to.
“Ah, Fidellia! Be careful!”
“…!”
I failed to see what was beneath my feet and stepped on something, losing my balance.
And then.
Crash-boom!
Syren and I tumbled to the ground spectacularly.
At that very moment.
Bang!
The Mixing Machine on the table exploded with a tremendous sound.
Sssshhhhh…
The hydrogen peroxide that spilled across the table reacted violently with the wooden surface, producing an ominously ominous sound.
‘It’s going to go off again?’
I was beginning to wonder if the whole house really was going to blow up.
‘At least it’s only a tiny amount. Thank goodness for that.’
“Are you all right?”
Supporting his body on his knees and arms to avoid touching me as much as possible, Syren, pinned beneath me, asked.
He immediately tried to get up, but I stopped him.
“It looks like it might explode again as you’re getting up. Let’s just stay like this for a moment, then get up.”
“Y-yes…”
Syren gazed down at me with an expression that was oddly, ambiguously smiling.
She looked as though she had something to say.
Yet Syren ultimately kept her mouth shut.
‘What is it?’
I was puzzled, but saw no reason to press her further, so I simply lay there waiting for a second explosion.
Yet as time passed, no detonation sounded.
‘That’s odd.’
……Wasn’t that hydrogen peroxide?
But I’d clearly seen Syren pour a bottle with “Hydrogen Peroxide” written in large letters into the mixing machine.
Besides, it had definitely gone off just now, and I’d heard the sound of the desk catching fire.
Still, it was risky to get up confident nothing would happen—there was a real chance it could explode while we were rising.
‘So we’re just supposed to lie here for hours waiting for it to go off?’
……This was getting rather awkward.
That was when it happened.
Creak!
“Fidellia! There was a loud noise—what’s going on……?! Gasp!”
A door opened above my head, and Kiara’s voice rang sharply through the laboratory.
I lifted my head to look toward the doorway.
With only my chin raised, the world appeared upside down.
And in that inverted view, it wasn’t just Kiara who came into sight.
Rene and Xavier too.
‘The children have rushed over.’
They usually stayed in the Main Building, so I couldn’t fathom why they’d appeared in the Annex today.
‘Or did the sound carry all the way to the Main Building?’
Yet that earlier explosion hadn’t been anywhere near that loud.
“F-Fidellia, Syren. Are you all right……?!”
At Rene’s concern, I smiled faintly from my inverted vantage point.
“Perfectly fine.”
“I’m quite well too.”
As we answered, Kiara tilted her head, not understanding.
“Then why aren’t you getting up?”
She then narrowed her eyes.
“Are you two…that kind of couple?”
“No.”
I answered at once.
Kiara then let out a relieved sigh, saying thank goodness.
“Ernan almost started crying.”
‘……Who’s crying?’
I concealed my bewilderment and explained.
“We’re not getting up because this thing could explode again……For heaven’s sake, you all get far away from that door. Get clear before you get hurt in the blast.”
Belatedly realizing the danger, I raised one hand and waved it urgently, urging them to leave.
Thankfully the children obeyed.
They said “Yes” and stepped back, though they didn’t venture far from the laboratory itself.
Around then, behind the children clustered near the doorway, I caught sight of a pair of long legs.
Following those legs upward past a neat, formal suit, a face came into view.
Someone utterly out of place in this disorganized laboratory.
Someone who must never learn what sort of medication we were making here.
I blinked.
“……Ernan?”
* * *
After yesterday’s laboratory explosion incident, Ernan had stopped his advances toward me.
‘Just as well, perhaps.’
I’d been on the verge of telling him to stop anyway.
……Ernan?
What had his expression been at that moment?
In truth, I’d noticed something in Ernan’s face that I’d never seen before.
Shock.
It was the look of someone witnessing something they couldn’t believe.
His eyes, widened slightly, his gaze wavering—and his swift retreat from the scene—all attested to it.
But what truly surprised me lay elsewhere.
It was a strong impulse to follow him at once and explain myself.
I don’t know. I don’t understand why I did it either.
‘Though I didn’t actually follow him to explain…….’
Even if I had attempted it, wouldn’t I have stammered helplessly, unable to find words, and simply returned to the Laboratory?
Ernan and I aren’t anything to each other—what would I even explain?
‘It’s a misunderstanding. Syren and I have nothing between us’?
Why would I say that to Ernan?
‘What does it matter to Ernan whether Syren and I have nothing between us.’
I think the reason for that impulse came from Ernan’s reaction.
Ernan had stared at Syren and me with his eyes wide open, as if he’d witnessed an affair firsthand.
I’d never seen Ernan that shocked before.
‘……Will it be all right.’
What more could go wrong, though.
Yet despite my mental turmoil, the Joneus Mansion remained peaceful and quiet.
Caesar and Noel were still shut away in their rooms.
Ernan hadn’t left his room since yesterday either.
Kiara, Rene, and Xavier occasionally darted about the mansion, but they made no great fuss.
If I felt it was the calm before the storm, was I being too dramatic?
And then, in the afternoon when the Joneus Mansion maintained an outward semblance of peace,
a commotion erupted.
“Fidellia!”
“Pippin?”
“The Lord Cleroor—!”
I observed him, thinking that lately I’d had many reasons to hear Pippin shout.
But in the next instant, my composure cracked.
“The Lord Cleroor has collapsed!”
Ernan had fallen.

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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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