Carbon pressed his fingers hard against the corner of his eye. He could feel the desire leaking through no matter how he tried to contain it.

When had it started. When had he begun harboring this dark and ugly feeling. When had that girl stopped being a child in his eyes and become a woman. Carbon traced back through his memory. It had been before he ever saw Hyde flushed and writhing in heat. The girl who had smiled shyly at him, who had lingered around him in clothes that showed off her figure, who had pressed her hands all over him under the pretense of giving him a massage……

……None of that mattered now.

I like you, mister.

Her peach-tinted cheeks flushed, her sparkling eyes full of affection as she looked at him and confessed. How could anyone not be drawn to that endearing girl. How could anyone look away from someone who seemed like she would taste sweet all the way through.

He knew it was an ugly greed to want to occupy the space beside Hyde, who was still young with her whole life ahead of her. And yet giving her up was hard. She shouldn’t be tethered to him and lose what she was supposed to have at her age. She needed to leave him and meet more people and have more experiences in a wider world.

Carbon watched Hyde standing alone in the party hall. Amid the lively music and laughter-laced conversation, she stood half-hidden behind a smooth pillar, quietly looking around with an awkward expression, and it tugged at him. He wanted to go to her and take care of her, but in their current in-between state he couldn’t be at her side.

Keeping his eyes on Hyde in case anything went wrong, Carbon pressed his fingers to his throbbing temple.

What was the right thing to do.

‘I’m at this age and I still don’t know this much. What a wasted life.’

Carbon swallowed a sigh and took a sip of his cocktail.

On any other occasion he would have been in the middle of the party floor socializing, but tonight he wasn’t in the mood. His tangled thoughts and the heaviness weighing on his chest had him on edge. Things he would normally brush off without trouble felt like they might set him off and cause a scene. Better to hide in a corner and leave at the right moment than to start something and end up in the news for the wrong reasons.

Instead he sat at the bar and worked his way through drink after drink. He was starting to regret coming at all when someone slid into the seat beside him.

Carbon glanced sideways, and Milopy, meeting his eyes, smiled and asked,

“Carbon. Where did you leave your daughter? Why are you alone?”

“My daughter?”

“Your sidekick. Judy, the one you raised.”

Carbon’s brow furrowed.

Judy, the nickname for Jerusha Abbott, the heroine of Daddy-Long-Legs. So Milopy wasn’t referring to the novel’s character.

The ‘Judy’ she meant was Hyde. People jokingly called her that from time to time, saying Carbon and Hyde’s relationship was like Judy and ‘the mister’ from the novel.

It wasn’t entirely wrong. When Carbon had sponsored young Hyde at the care facility, Hyde had faithfully sent him letters of thanks. She had addressed them to ‘mister.’

That was why he let it go when people called Hyde Judy for fun. But daughter? Daughter?

He looked at Milopy with a frown, and she shrugged and explained.

“Don’t look at me like that. You keep Judy so close to your side. People say it looks exactly like a dad doting on his daughter. It means you two look close, that’s all. No bad intentions.”

Even so, daughter was a bit much.

Of course there was an age gap, and Hyde tended to look younger than she was while he looked his age or perhaps a little older, but…… fourteen years apart was more like siblings with a big gap, or an uncle, wasn’t it.

As though reading Carbon’s thoughts, Milopy watched his expression grow serious and said with a laugh,

“You’re not actually offended, are you? Come on, it’s not that strange a thing to say. If you and I had gotten into trouble when we were young, we could have had a daughter around her age by now.”

“……If we were sixteen maybe, but if we’d had a child at fourteen it would have made the local news.”

“That’s not the point! And are you seriously pulling rank on me just because you’re two years younger?”

Milopy narrowed her eyes and pressed him, but Carbon didn’t answer. He was too caught up in the shocking revelation that to outsiders, he and Hyde apparently looked like a father and daughter.

Right. And that’s the girl I’ve gone and gotten involved with.

The guilt that had already been crushing him swelled further. His stomach turned and he couldn’t stand it. Carbon drained his glass in one go.

“My, my.”

Milopy laughed with obvious amusement, then swiveled her chair and quickly scanned the hall. Milopy, whose ability was archery worthy of Artemis, had excellent eyesight and found what she was looking for in no time.

“Oh, there’s Judy. But who’s that next to her? He’s quite good-looking. A new date?”

Carbon’s head snapped around. His eyes found Hyde, smiling and talking with some man.

Carbon’s gaze locked on. Everything else fell away to the background, and it was as though a spotlight had landed on Hyde alone.

What are they talking about that has her laughing like that? Why are they standing so close? Are they going to kiss or something? Carbon’s mood sank like a stone as he sniped at the scene in his head.

“Is Judy finally leaving her stuffy old sponsor behind and becoming a woman in another man’s arms?”

Milopy said it with a spinning smile, and Carbon shot her a sharp look with a deeply creased expression. Milopy wagged a finger.

“Don’t make that ugly face at me. When you smile you look like a hero, but when you scowl like that you look like a villain.”

“……”

Carbon gave up on arguing with Milopy and exhaled, turning back to look. But in the brief moment he had looked away, something had happened. The man talking with Hyde leaned his upper body forward and placed his hand on her waist.

Bang! The moment Carbon saw it, he was on his feet. He didn’t notice the glass he slammed down crack and spill, soaking the table, as he moved urgently toward the hall where Hyde was.

“Oh my!”

Milopy let out a startled exclamation at the sudden development and watched Carbon’s broad back stride away, then giggled to herself.

“Tonight’s going to be entertaining.”

* * *

In the beautifully decorated party hall, everyone was laughing and chatting, and Hyde alone was sipping her champagne in a poor mood.

Coming as Carbon’s partner had been fine. She had bought an expensive dress that made her hands shake at the price, determined not to look out of place beside him, and had gone to a salon first thing in the morning to have a professional do her makeup. Of course, all of this had only been possible because Carbon’s card had covered it…… but regardless, Hyde had put in the time and effort to stand proudly at Carbon’s side.

She was genuinely pleased with how she looked tonight. She had felt a little stung at the salon when someone murmured “It’s the first time Mr. Carbon has sent someone this young and pretty……” but she had let it go. She looked this good today, so surely she would at least catch Carbon’s eye, even if not quite to the level of his past partners.

But Carbon hadn’t given her the reaction she wanted at all.

“You look pretty.”

“Really?”

“Yeah. Pretty.”

That was it.

Hyde deflated at the flat response. She missed Carbon quietly rubbing at the corner of his reddened eye and muttering, “Idiot. Get it together.”

On top of that, Carbon hadn’t stayed at Hyde’s side once they were at the party.

To be fair, Hyde had been the one to push him away first, saying she was fine on her own. When Carbon asked again if she was really sure, she had told him she wasn’t a kid and she was fine.

Even so. How could he not come back to check on her even once?

Hyde stuck out her lower lip. She felt slighted. The feeling wasn’t just from today. It had been building layer by layer over the past two months.

When an unfamiliar man approached with a pickup line, the reason Hyde didn’t brush him off immediately was Carbon, who had put distance between them and was now sitting next to Milopy chatting pleasantly.

She knew they were close friends, but the rumor article had only just come out and there he was talking with her that closely. Carbon is too careless. Look, people around them are already whispering that they look good together, that the rumors must be true after all. Hyde’s chest burned.

Does he think I’ll just keep staring at him? I can have a good time with other people too. That petty, childish defiance.

And maybe, just maybe, Carbon would feel a little jealous. Even a fraction of what she felt. Hyde held onto that hope as she engaged with the man who had approached her.

“My name is Jeff Lattry.”

“I’m Hyde.”

“Are you, by any chance, Carbon’s sidekick?”

“Yes, that’s right.”

“Ah, I knew it! ……Actually, I’m a fan of yours, Hyde.”

“Wow, really?”

He showed clear interest in Hyde and kept the conversation going.

In a short time Hyde learned that he was the grandson of the founder of L Corporation, which was hosting the party, that he had loved heroes since childhood, and that he had recently joined the company and was frustrated that he couldn’t follow hero news the way he used to.