(Risking My Life) Proposing to Miss Hazel - Chapter 14

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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 14

The sky is blue.

The clouds are white.

The meringue cookies that Anna sometimes bakes for us were dotted across the sky.

And for some reason I don’t understand, I’m being carried on Felix’s back.

Villagers passing by asked Felix if Hazel was sick somewhere. Felix quickly answered that I was.

But I’m not sick at all.

Why is he doing this?

“Felix.”

“What.”

“Put me down. I’m not sick.”

“No. Stay still and let me carry you.”

Felix’s voice was stern today. As if he was scolding me.

It seems like I’ve been the one scolding Felix for the past 7 years, so it was refreshing to have our positions switched for once.

And somehow… it felt a little nice.

“Hehe.”

I wrapped my arms tightly around Felix’s neck and buried my face in the nape of his neck.

The same ash-gray hair as mine gently tickled my cheek. Felix’s lips, which had been pressed in a straight line, curved into a loose arc.

“What are you smiling about like you did something good.”

“You’re smiling too, Felix.”

“I wasn’t smiling.”

I poked Felix’s cheek with my finger. The slightly dimpled cheek seemed to bite at my fingertip as it wrapped around it.

“You smiled.”

“Ah, I can’t live like this. This is why I can’t scold you properly.”

“Why am I getting scolded? Did I do something wrong?”

“Sleep one more time and we’ll talk when you wake up. Go to sleep quickly.”

“I don’t want to, I’m not sleepy.”

“Really, you… Don’t ever go to Rupert’s house again.”

“Did I go there?”

Felix burst into laughter as if he found it absurd.

“Is this that mirror treatment thing or whatever?”

I couldn’t understand what Felix was saying at all.

I just felt incredibly happy. Maybe it was because my feet were floating off the ground. The cool breeze brushing my cheeks and the village scents flowing in with it felt particularly precious today.

Ah, I know. The reason I’m excited. Of course I am, since I’m skipping work. Sometimes I want to live recklessly like that good-for-nothing Felix too.

Not diligent at all, not hardworking, just wanting to play with Felix all the time like when we were children.

While humming and enjoying this inexplicable rebellion, I suddenly remembered Felix’s dejected face.

‘Ah.’

Forgotten memories came flooding back like seeping water.

It was a memory from this morning.

The words I had kept in my heart burst out before I could stop them.

“Felix, I’m sorry.”

Felix, startled, wiped away his smile completely and looked at me.

“Suddenly? About what?”

“I got angry at you. Today I want to apologize first.”

Felix’s eyebrows twisted mischievously. After moving his lips for a while, he answered in a whisper.

“Why are you sorry. I’m the one who’s sorry. I’m sorry for being such a pathetic brother.”

“Don’t say things like that. You’re not pathetic.”

“Really?”

“You and I look exactly the same, so if you’re ugly, then I’m ugly too.”

“That’s true.”

We laughed softly and brushed away our resentment. As expected, a preemptive apology is the best way to make up.

As we got closer to home, Felix’s steps slowed down a bit. The house farthest from the village center and the most shabby. The only shelter for siblings with nowhere else to go.

Felix gazed wistfully at our house visible in the distance and spoke as if letting the words flow.

“Did you want to move that badly?”

“…No. We’d have to sell 30,000 bottles of purification water dilution to buy a house, but it’s true that I got excited for a moment thinking we could buy one right away.”

“Just wait a little. What’s 30,000 bottles. I’ll let you live in a house that requires selling 300,000 bottles. Hazel will only wear pretty clothes and eat delicious food there.”p>

Even though it sounded like an impossibly sweet lie, I couldn’t just let those words pass by.

Felix has always accomplished what he sets his mind to since long ago.

By whatever means necessary.

I spoke to my increasingly suspicious brother like a warning.

“I don’t need things like that, so don’t do dangerous things. And don’t do foolish things either.”

“I’ll do it without getting caught so you won’t have to worry.”

“You won’t say you won’t do it until the very end?”

“I don’t want to lie to you. I am hiding something right now, but I’ll tell you everything someday.”

“Why are you hiding it now?”

“Because you won’t believe me even if I tell you.”

“Tell me. I’ll try to believe you.”

Felix’s eyebrows curved mischievously. He rolled his eyes lazily and moved his tongue disgustingly.

“Actually, a fairy came down from the sky and told me a secret plan to pave Hazel’s life with only flower paths before leaving. I have to do what the fairy told me to do.”

“I wish you’d put at least minimal sincerity into your lies.”

“See, you don’t believe me.”

“I told you to say something believable?”

“Hmm…”

Felix hummed and played dumb. I glared at that annoying face and asked casually.

“But what’s the point if only I walk on flower paths. What about you, Felix?”

“Your flower path is my flower path.”

An obvious answer without a moment’s hesitation.

A sunny smile spread across his clear face without any trace of alcohol. It was a full smile as if he was watching me walk on flower paths.

“…”

I was at a loss for words.

Somehow I felt like I might cry.

***

‘Hazel, I just need you to be happy.’

Felix put the sleeping Hazel down on the bed and gently stroked his sister’s hair.

The precious silver hair inherited from their parents.

Though it was now dully faded, it would someday regain its original luster.

Like Hazel before she turned seven.

“Hazel, I’ll put everything back in its place soon.”

Felix muttered as if making a vow and poked Hazel’s cheek.

His sister is as cute as a two-year-old even at twenty-two. She was like that at twelve too, so she must have sold off her ten and twenty-year-old selves somewhere.

Hazel’s face as she slept soundly looked like a two-year-old’s, then returned to twenty-two again.

‘She really grew up exactly the same.’

He could never forget the moment he held newborn Hazel in his arms. The soft, warm touch of the baby. He couldn’t even hug her greedily for fear she might break with just a little force.

‘Hazel does resemble mother a lot. Her abilities too.’

As nostalgic memories flooded back, his eyes grew moist. His cheerful mother’s voice echoed vividly in his ears.

‘Felix, is your sister that pretty?’

‘I can’t believe this small, precious, beautiful, and treasured life is my little sister. Her eyes look like they have stars embedded in them—how can human eyes be like this?’

‘From Mom’s perspective, Felix has the same stars embedded in his eyes too?’

‘No. My eyes are dim stars that have lost their light and are about to fall from the sky, while Hazel is a star that has just begun to shine. Even if they’re both stars, they’re completely different.’

He was such a devoted brother that even his parents were amazed. Felix’s love for his younger sister was so extreme that their mother would constantly say that Felix made child-rearing easy.

Those peaceful and beautiful times when the whole family was together. Those memories are buried only in Felix’s heart.

In his childhood, just stealing glimpses of those memory fragments would engulf him in terrible sadness, but now he simply lives on silently while harboring that longing.

“Hazel, your brother will be back.”

He pulled the blanket up to his sister’s neck to cover her, then slowly stood up.

His one and only sister was always pretty, but she was prettiest when sleeping. It had been that way since she was a newborn.

A small, precious being that must always be protected.

To him, Hazel was consistently that little baby.

Felix’s face, which had been relaxed with a silly grin from admiring cute Hazel, hardened coldly the moment he left the house.

With his smile gone, he seemed like a different person.

‘The treasure should be fine. Should I check on it one more time?’

He looked around to confirm no one was there, then went around to the back of the cottage.

Between the mountain of straw and firewood, he could see a well that had dried up long ago.

A dark, deep pit where nothing could be seen. He threw himself into it without hesitation.

Thud-.

His jumping form was clumsy, but his landing was light.

The bottom of the well, which had once been filled with groundwater, had become a maze-like cave.

Felix’s golden eyes glinted. He skillfully navigated through the dark space where nothing could be seen.

After a while, a red light faintly leaked from the end of the path. As he approached, he could hear a pulsing like a heartbeat.

Thump, thump, thump.

A week ago, on the night when the full moon rose.

A living, breathing red gem he had risked his life to find in the Monster’s Domain.

The key to paving a flower path for Hazel had come into Felix’s hands.

‘There’s not much time left now. Just wait a little longer, Hazel.’

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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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