“Ohhh! Sorry!” I apologized, quickly getting off of him.
“Can’t you be a tiny bit careful?!” he snapped, breathing heavily, with a hand to his face. More than pink, right now, he was red.
“I must have hit you so hard that your whole face turned red! I’m so sorry!”
My face slammed straight into his face, so that must have hurt.
“No, this is… Don’t worry about it. Go get some rest. Your legs must be tired,” he suggested before running off toward the children once again.
Maybe the reason I couldn’t stop myself in time was because, as he had said, my legs were tired. If he hadn’t been there to soften the blow, I’d have dived into the ground face-first.
He’s always complaining about stuff, but deep down he’s a really kind guy. He’s been like this since we were kids! I guess I’ll take his advice and go rest for a while.
I sat down in the shade of a tree and watched Alan chasing after the children. They already seemed to be having a lot of fun playing with him.
Alan would make a really good dad, I thought as I enjoyed some rest.
★★★★★★
I, Alan Stuart, was running as fast as I possibly could. I needed to do that in order to take my mind off of what had just happened. I mean, the fact that I’d have to play with children was enough of a surprise already. I thought I’d help them with homework, even though I wasn’t that good at that kind of thing, but Katarina had dragged me into this instead.
The situation itself was annoying, but I was glad I could spend time with the girl I had feelings for. Of course, she didn’t know this. Nobody did. She was my brother’s fiancée, so I had to keep it a secret. Not that I was expecting anything to play out between us, either before today or in the future. But still, just being here, looking at Katarina, was enough to put a smile on my face. While she chased after those kids, running out of breath, she was as lovely as she’d always been since I first met her when we were kids ourselves. Looking at Katarina, yeah, that would have been enough. But I was in for another surprise…
I was going after a particularly fast kid when all of a sudden Katarina jumped out in front of me from behind a tree. We crashed into each other, and I did my best not to hurt her, but in order to do that I had to sacrifice my balance and fall backward, allowing her to fall on top of me. Since we were facing each other, we ended up kind of…hugging. As if that wasn’t enough, her lips even smacked against my cheek. I couldn’t tell whether she didn’t realize it or was just pretending not to, but as far as I was concerned that was a huge shock. I felt the blood rush to my head.
I mean… Her lips! On my cheek! That’s just like getting kissed on the cheek! They’re so, well, soft. And her body pushed against me… No! The more I think about this the worse I’m going to make it for myself!
I shook my head like I wanted to make my thoughts fall out of it and went back to playing tag with the kids. I had to focus on running. By the time I’d caught all of them, I had calmed down a bit.
The girl who had made me feel so weird in the first place then had the gall to come to me and say, “You’re very good at playing with children, Alan. I’m sure you’ll make a great dad one day.”
Her words and the casual way she said them left me so appalled that I whacked her on the head.
“Ouch! Alan! What are you doing?!”
Even the way she looked mad after that, with her cheeks puffed up, was cute. I remembered the feeling of her lips on my face and got all fidgety again.
Calming down completely is going to take me some time…
★★★★★★
“Hide! One… Two…”
One of the older kids had closed her eyes and started counting. After tag and racing, it was time for hide-and-seek.
We were playing in pairs, and the smallest children had immediately paired up with the older ones, as if they were used to always doing so. One of the girls, who looked a bit too sassy for her age, chose Alan to pair up with her.
That’s one of Fortune Lover’s male characters for you. Even little girls like him.
As for me, nobody had asked me to pair up with them. It’s not that the kids didn’t like me; they just told me that they saw me trip during tag and drag my feet during the race, and they didn’t want to lose this game. The world of children was a tough but just one.
Since I was totally spent, this actually gave me the perfect opportunity to rest. I would find a good hiding spot, far away from the counting kid, and take a breather there. During my search for the perfect hiding place, I saw a kid walk all alone through the garden. This kid looked older than the ones we were playing with—definitely of school age, at least. That was weird, since the older children were supposed to be inside of the orphanage, studying.
Maybe they also send kids on errands sometimes, I thought while the kid walked away.
After running around the building’s corner, I found another person I wasn’t expecting to see in the garden.
“Nicol?!” I called out to him, and he looked up toward me dejectedly.
“Oh, Katarina…”
His expression was as neutral as always, but I could tell that he was feeling down.
“Why are you here? Weren’t you helping the children with homework?” I asked, remembering that he’d personally offered to do that.
“I was told to leave… They said that the children cannot concentrate if I’m around,” he reported sadly.
I always forgot about that, having known him for so many years, but Nicol was cursed with being so attractive that he ended up charming everyone even if he didn’t mean to. I definitely saw why he would be too much for those pure and innocent children.
I understood that, but that wasn’t his fault. It wasn’t anybody’s fault. If you wanted to place blame, you would have to blame the heavens who gifted him with that wicked charm. He knew he couldn’t help it, but I didn’t want to see him so sad. According to Sophia, he was looking forward to coming here with us so much that he’d stayed up late cooking, and now he was here, alone and unable to help.
Maybe it was because I’d been playing with children for so long, but right now, to me, he looked like a small, sad child. I walked toward him and hugged his head, gently stroking his hair.
“Don’t worry, Nicol. We’ll find something that you can help with. Together.”
I could feel him twitch in my arms, but then he stopped moving and let me pat his head. Nicol had grown up so much… He was way taller than me now. But somehow, I remembered the young Nicol from my childhood.
★★★★★★
I, Nicol Ascart, have sinned: I let Katarina Claes, my friend’s fiancée, embrace my head, without asking her to stop or moving away. Worse yet, I enjoyed it.
There was no doubt in my mind that Katarina’s gesture had no romantic meaning as far as she was concerned. She just saw me looking sad and comforted me in the same way she would have done with one of the younger children that she had been playing with. I could have insisted, “I’m fine now,” and that would have been enough for her to release me from that warm, sweet hug.
However, whatever her intentions, that was not something that a woman of her age should be doing to a man in such a place, with no one around. Had Jeord—or anybody else, for that matter—seen us, it would have led to incredible trouble. The rational part of me knew that I had to tell her, “I’m fine now.”
The part of me who had hidden my feelings for her for so many years, however, forbade me from speaking those words. It was wallowing, reveling in Katarina’s warmth. Though this whole incident had started through no fault of my own, I realized that it was my responsibility to act before I lost the last remnants of that composure which Katarina’s touch had already made thin. Worst of all, I could feel myself longing for more. I knew that just being there, touched by her, was bad, and I did not want to make it worse.
“Ah! Found ya!”
A young girl came out of nowhere and shouted at Katarina, at which point I hurriedly escaped her embrace.
“Aw! You found me!” Katarina, nonchalant to a degree I could only dream of, conceded, heading toward the girl.
“I can’t find the other big mister though…” the child observed.
“The big mister is very smart, so he’s probably hiding where it’s difficult to find. I’ll help you search for him!”
“Thanks!” the child replied to Katarina before pointing at me. “What about that mister over there?” she asked.
“Can he play too?” Katarina asked back.
“Sure!” the girl happily agreed.
“Would that not be a problem, Katarina?”
“Oh, don’t worry, these children are way too young. Let’s go!” Katarina responded with a smile, holding out her hand. Before I could think about what to do, my hand had already moved to meet hers.
★★★★★★
I got poor Nicol to play with us, hoping that it’d make him feel better. I thought that the kids were too young to be attracted to him, but they were all staring at him with wide eyes, going, “That mister is so handsome!” Thankfully, since we weren’t studying, being unable to concentrate wasn’t really a problem, and, once the game started, everyone focused on running anyway.
This addition to the grown-ups team had made me lose yet another position in the popularity ranking. I couldn’t blame the kids for liking the smart, handsome, and fast mister rather than the clumsy, slow miss…but it did make me kind of sad.
Right as I was starting to feel a little blue, one of the orphanage’s employees walked out to the garden to tell everyone that it was snack time. I was no kid and certainly no orphan, but I figured I’d sneak in and partake of the snacks. We all went into the dining hall, where the kids sat down to eat. Today’s snack seemed to be some simple cookies. I ate one and a mellow, pleasant sweetness immediately spread in my mouth.
“Hmm? I know this taste…” I muttered to myself.
“I’m impressed you’d recognize it,” the orphanage’s employee remarked. “It was that girl from your group, Maria, who baked them.”
That explained why the cookie tasted familiar—I’d had one of Maria’s sweets just hours earlier in the carriage.
She’s such a good cook. It’s such a simple, unassuming cookie, but it tastes great. All the kids are stuffing their faces too. Isn’t she awesome? I thought with pride, despite not having done anything to be proud of. Right at that moment, Maria walked into the dining hall, accompanied by a group of children who looked slightly older than the ones I’d been playing with.
“We made these cookies together,” Maria told everyone, introducing the kids one by one and praising them for how skilled they were, how good they were at mixing flour, and so on.
They definitely looked proud of themselves when they heard Maria’s compliments, and the smaller children were also looking up to them with sparkling eyes. Only someone like Maria could make them look like that.
“Maria,” I spoke up, walking over to her after she was done with the introductions, “you’re really incredible. The cookies were delicious, and look at the faces of these children!”
She shook her head.
“The children were the incredible ones. They all gave their best,” she deflected humbly, and then we told each other in detail what we’d been up to. Maria recounted her cooking class and I recounted playtime.
“After we finished baking, the children said that they wanted to try making something savory too. We obtained permission, so we will cook something for dinner too. We just need to go and buy some ingredients.”
“You and the children?”
“No, that would be dangerous. It will be me and some of the employees.”
“I see. Oh…! I know! Maria, there’s someone much better than the orphanage’s employees to help you out with shopping!” I told her.
This time I’m going to make it count. It’s time to repay him for all he’s done for me!