Liar and Liar - Chapter 22

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This chapter was translated by Lunox Team. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
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Chapter 22

“Y-you don’t need to go this far-“

If he had touched or brushed against her bare feet in any way, she would have instinctively kicked him away. But Frederick put the socks on Danielle’s feet in an instant, before she could even feel his touch. He was like some skilled medieval servant.

“Miss.”

What was absurd was that he was volunteering for such a role himself.

“May I hold you to share my body heat?”

“That’s not necessary.”

Danielle’s ears turned red at the unexpected words. Hold her, he said, and this was even on a bed.

“You’re still shivering. That’s what boyfriends do, isn’t it?”

Boyfriend. Danielle still found that word unfamiliar. Emotionally, he was less than a complete stranger, let alone a boyfriend.

“Forget it. The party host shouldn’t be missing. I could clearly see there were plenty of kids waiting for you, so go take care of them instead.”

She had intended it as sarcasm. Not jealousy.

‘What is this, it sounds completely like jealousy.’

Danielle scraped the floor with her white sock-clad foot and hastily corrected herself.

“It’s not jealousy. I’m just telling you to act like yourself. Why are you suddenly doing things you never did before.”

“Isn’t it natural to want to stay close to your girlfriend?”

Danielle was at a loss for words. All she could manage was to struggle to meet Frederick’s gray eyes as he looked up at her.

Can’t I be a little more brazen too? Every time Frederick looks at me with those eyes, says things like that, why…

‘Every time…’

“I run a bit hot, you know. Boyfriend therapy, something like that.”

Not animal therapy?

‘I would have hugged a retriever instead.’

Danielle thought that either way, Frederick would end up doing whatever he wanted anyway.

But instead of grabbing Danielle’s hand arbitrarily, Frederick gently placed the back of his hand on top of hers.

Warm heat quickly spread across the back of her hand. While her body still wouldn’t move at all, finally her fingertips began to move. As if thawed by the warmth.

“…”

Danielle looked at Frederick’s large hand. Then she slowly opened her mouth.

“…If I say I don’t like it, you have to move away.”

Realizing Danielle’s permission, Frederick smiled and got up from his position. Danielle expected Frederick to sit beside her and extend his arm. So she tried to lift her arm even though it wouldn’t move well.

But instead of sitting next to Danielle, Frederick scooped her up in both arms again. Only then did he sit on the bed.

A different, firm sensation touched her thighs, unlike the soft bed from before. Where Danielle was sitting was on top of Frederick’s thighs.

“Wh-what, what are you doing?!”

Though Danielle had accepted Frederick’s proposal, she hadn’t expected this level of physical contact.

‘Too close! Too attached!! Too-‘

Too hot…

Danielle pressed her arm firmly against her wildly beating heart. Whether Frederick’s body temperature was high or low didn’t matter at all. This heat hadn’t transferred from Frederick.

Danielle felt like she had become a baby. The thumb of the hand supporting her back and wrapping around her shoulder gently stroked her hood.

Should she tell him to get away? Should she yell at him to put her down? Or?

‘…Endure it?’

If Danielle had known that this kind of thing was the tax that came with using Frederick Bastia, she definitely wouldn’t have started at all.

It was just fake anyway. As Frederick’s hot body temperature transferred to her, her heart kept stirring restlessly like a box that shouldn’t be opened rattling. To an extent she couldn’t understand herself.

‘When we were young, he wasn’t this big…’

“When we were young-“

Danielle’s round hazel eyes looked at Frederick in a daze.

“I don’t think we had such a height difference. Now you’re this small.”

“…I’m not that small. You’re the one who got big.”

For a moment she was startled, thinking he had read her mind.

Sometimes when seeing Frederick Bastia at school, Danielle thought of him as a walking wall.

Because she didn’t want to think about Frederick, she had treated him like an inanimate object.

Was that why? She never imagined his body would be this hot. At first she thought it was her own heat, but it definitely wasn’t just that.

“Ever since we decided to date, I keep having the same thought.”

Frederick’s index finger poked Danielle’s cheek. As always, Frederick had a faint smile on his lips.

“Why didn’t I ask you to date me sooner. I’m glad I asked you to date me now, at least.”

Was it because of the heat? Danielle found it difficult to come to her senses. Words she didn’t need to say flowed out between her teeth on their own.

“…You keep saying that- are you saying you liked me from before?”

“I’m not sure what liking someone means.”

‘Ha.’

Even though such an absurd answer came back, Danielle blamed herself instead of Frederick. She blamed herself for asking a strange question. Why she always ended up blaming herself, even she didn’t know.

“Forget it. I wasn’t asking you to explore it together. Just forget it.”

“But one thing is certain. Now I can only see you.”

“…”

Perhaps because she had just heard the nonsense about not knowing what liking someone meant, the impact was lessened.

‘If he was trying to seduce me while thinking about the bet from the beginning, he could have just answered that he liked me.’

He deliberately kicked away that question and then casually said something like that again.

Did he have some strategy of his own? Whatever it was, Danielle didn’t want to think deeply about it.

But Frederick came at her again in a way she didn’t expect.

“…Did you become close with Chris?”

“Suddenly?”

“Because he’s Korean?”

Danielle looked at Frederick with a surprised face.

“You knew? Do you all know?”

“Only the kids who hang around with me know. So Chris revealed to you too that he’s Korean.”

Danielle couldn’t interpret the reason for the irritation that settled between Frederick’s brows. Where in this conversation was there anything to be irritated about.

“Yeah. I texted with Chris during the movie.”

The wrinkles between Frederick’s brows deepened even more.

“…That’s cheating.”

“What cheating.”

“I already know. You only like Koreans. That’s why you don’t even pay attention to other kids.”

“What?”

What kind of novel complaint is this. Danielle had plenty to argue about.

“What do you mean I only like Koreans. How can you tell from one sample of Chris Fassbinder.”

“When you were in Lower School, you liked that high school senior with Korean blood like Chris. That damn bread competition.”

“No, that was-!”

The bread competition Frederick was referring to meant the ‘Pumpkin Pancake Race’ where one student each from Lower School, Middle School, and High School formed a team of three total.

It was a traditional event that Elmir Westlake held every fall, where a high school student had to somehow eat all the pancakes that a Lower School student baked with random ingredients.

When Danielle was in Lower School, she was teamed with a famous high school senior. After the competition ended, she gave that senior a small gift separately and talked about that senior for quite a long time, but it wasn’t because that senior was Korean.

His nickname was Prince, and he was handsome enough to play Santa King, so even if that senior had been an alien, she would have liked him. However, even so, it couldn’t have been romantic interest. What was the age difference.

But Frederick didn’t seem to think so.

“This is discrimination… It’s unfair.”

“Discrimination? What discrimination?”

Did I hear that right? What am I doing?

‘He’s making me out to be a racist.’

“I don’t have a chance, do I. Don’t only accept Koreans.”

Frederick buried his head in Danielle’s shoulder like a child. Even though they were pressed close together with a strange sense of distance, it wasn’t embarrassing because his words were 10 times more embarrassing.

Even so, she had plenty to say in response.

“Korea is small in size and has a small population compared to other countries. Moreover, from my perspective, I’m living in a foreign country, so isn’t it natural to become attached to people from the same hometown?”

It wasn’t something she said to soothe or accommodate him.

“I think it’s something that can’t be helped instinctively. Something natural.”

Do you understand what I’m saying?

‘I will never accept you or let you into my heart.’

Danielle was confident that this message had been sufficiently conveyed. Frederick, who usually never missed a beat like a cunning snake, was unusually silent without any response, not even lifting his head.

“What did you talk about with Chris?”

Eventually an answer came back, but it wasn’t a response to Danielle’s words. Due to the too-close distance, a clear fragrance mixed with herbs, grass, and wood wafted gently from Frederick.

‘He’s really going to be this persistent?’

Aren’t white people usually more sensitive about privacy? Having never dated a man before, let alone a white person, Danielle had no way of knowing whether this was simply her prejudice or fact.

“Want me to show you?”

Normally she would never show it, but Danielle waved her phone as if she wasn’t joking. Frederick lifted his head that had been resting on Danielle’s shoulder.

‘You should get a little heated too.’

Danielle opened her text conversation with Chris and held it out.

Since it was fake, he wouldn’t be genuinely angry about seeing texts with another man, but at least his pride would be somewhat hurt, she thought.

“…It’s in Korean?”

“Yeah. He’s really good at it. Is that why? It was comfortable talking with him.”

You thought the bet would be easily resolved? Wake up, Frederick Bastia.

Get a little worked up looking at texts whose content you can’t even interpret.

Are you okay? Do you want to go inside? If you’re worried about the penalty, you don’t have to be.

Danielle belatedly checked the text Chris had sent. Even though it was a text, it felt like she could hear his gentle voice.

In contrast, Frederick’s voice was somewhat sulky.

“That guy doesn’t look Asian at all. But to you he’s Korean?”

“His grandmother is Korean and he speaks Korean this well, so what does his face matter? Even most second-generation Korean-Americans can’t speak Korean this well.”

Second-generation Koreans whose parents immigrated and were born here usually spoke Korean at an elementary school level. But Chris Fassbinder spoke Korean so well despite being third-generation.

That’s why it felt even more impressive. Not that being third-generation made him feel distant.

“…If someone transferred from Korea, you’d immediately dump me and go to that guy.”

It was an unreasonable leap and assumption in every way, but Danielle had no intention of indulging Frederick’s complaints that were surely fake.

“If I feel that way, I’ll tell you right away that we should break up. That’s proper etiquette.”

“…”

It really wasn’t something to say when they’d been dating for less than a week. Of course, that was the case for normal relationships.

However, the moment she saw Frederick’s stiffly hardened expression, Danielle’s heart sank a little.

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