I’d boil with anger at the sight and try to scold them, but I held back several times because I couldn’t understand why I’d bother doing such an annoying thing. While I was prowling around with this uncomfortable mood, I heard Jayson’s voice—the one who teased Clea the most.

“Hey, doesn’t seeing Clea make you want to keep tormenting her?”

“What? What kind of nonsense is that?”

“No, seriously. You want to protect her but also keep making her cry. I think I’m going crazy too, but whenever I stand in front of her, that’s how I act.”

The moment I heard those words, the reason I’d been barely holding onto snapped.

‘How dare you. Someone like you?’

The surging emotion was clear displeasure. I’d made Clea cry before someone like Jayson. I was the first to see her crying, and I should be the only one who could see that in the future.

Only then did I realize why I’d been angry all this time. The right to make Clea cry belonged to whoever made her cry first. Of course I’d be angry when some nobody was running wild without knowing their place.

“What did you just say?”

“Th-Thadeus?”

The guys gathered there widened their eyes at my sudden appearance. Then they hesitantly stepped back at the somehow menacing atmosphere.

“I’m telling you this because you seem not to know. I was the first one to make Clea cry.”

“S-so?”

“So only I can make her cry.”

“What…?”

After that, whenever I heard even the slightest word about someone tormenting Clea, I’d go find them and sl*ughter them. I used every painful method I could think of. Trampling the opponent mercilessly was quite an enjoyable thing.

‘Seriously, these fools who don’t know their place acting up.’

One day, Clea, who’d grown curious about my behavior, asked.

“Why did you punish Timmy?”

That day, her pink eyes sparkled particularly beautifully like jewels reflecting the sunlight. I wanted to touch with my hands that cloud-like hair that swayed whenever the wind blew. 

Heat rose unexpectedly at that thought. So words I didn’t mean suddenly popped out.

“Don’t get the wrong idea—I didn’t punish him because of you. His face suddenly looked so ugly it made me feel sick.”

“Then why did you roll James in the manure field before that?”

“He…! His cackling laugh was too frivolous.”

Clea tilted her head at my words. That sight was so cute like a baby bird that I barely held back the laugh that almost escaped. Soon she looked at me with eyes still not completely free of suspicion.

“…Are you sure?”

“Yeah. It’s obvious to anyone… Don’t go around crying everywhere, ugly.”

We quickly permeated each other. Wherever my eyes reached, Clea was there, and her eyes were always directed at me. I didn’t dislike that obvious fact.

And it was the time when Clea would come looking for me like usual. The girl who came to the estate every day was unusually late. I should have just thought she wasn’t coming today, but strangely it bothered me.

“Should I go find her?”

The Blanchet estate I arrived at was in the midst of commotion. From the situation, Clea had stubbornly gone on a picnic to Dark Chestnut Mountain, and the maids who’d followed her had lost track of her. To make matters worse, rain was pouring outside.

“How could she go to a place like that…!”

Dark Chestnut Mountain was pitch black like night even if you went just a little inside. Whether day or night, it was the same. 

The cliffs were high, making the mountain terrain very rugged, and on top of that, there were many wild beasts, so you could easily become beast food if you weren’t careful.

When I came to my senses, I was already running through Dark Chestnut Mountain. Without any proper weapon or plan, I tore through the mountain like a madman. Even knowing I’d become a target for wild beasts, I shouted out loud.

“Clea, can you hear my voice? If you can hear me, please answer!”

Time passed without any results. The pouring raindrops grew increasingly fierce. Even when I tripped over tree roots, even when the clothes I wore became a mess from rolling on the dirt ground, none of that mattered. As long as the worst assumptions floating through my head didn’t become reality, anything would be fine.

‘She didn’t misstep and fall off a cliff, right? She didn’t meet a mountain beast and get eaten, right? Or if not that…!’

The world surrounding me collapsed and collapsed again several times. I cried like a fool. My heart grew anxious and I nearly rolled down a cliff after missteping. 

Rather than the fear that I might die like this, my chest sank at the thought that if I died, I might not be able to find Clea.

“Clea, where are you! If you can hear my voice, please say something!”

It was a situation full of despair, like an eternal night where morning would never come. Even so, I didn’t give up that thread of hope. That’s when it happened. From somewhere, Clea’s voice blew faintly like the wind.

“I’m here! So please don’t leave me alone and go!”

This wasn’t a hallucination or a dream. It was clearly Clea’s voice.

“Clea…? Keep shouting so I can figure out your location!”

“Here, it’s here! Under the big chestnut tree hill!”

Chestnut tree hill. I definitely remembered seeing it a little while ago. When I hurriedly ran there, I saw a steep hill under the chestnut tree. There I saw a small figure waving their hand.

“I’ll come right down, so wait there without moving!”

I grabbed the tree roots stretching long down the hill and descended. My hands nearly slipped several times in the heavily falling rain, but I barely managed to grab other nearby roots.

Finally, when I completely came down the hill, there was Clea looking at me with a completely disheveled appearance. 

Her dress was soaked and drooping, and she was shivering from the cold. Her complexion was so pale she looked ready to collapse at any moment.

She must have been scared alone all this time. I should hug her and say everything would be fine now. 

But when I actually saw that face that looked ready to cry, such thoughts disappeared and I burst out in anger first.

“What were you thinking coming into a mountain like this? If you’d been unlucky, you might have already been eaten by a mountain beast! Why would you, Clea, do such a reckless thing that even a five-year-old wouldn’t do!”

Her face full of fear slowly contorted. Clea, whose lips trembled several times, finally burst into tears. My heart ached like it was tearing at her crying voice filled with sorrow.

“I was wrong. I won’t be stubborn again or ask to come to places like this. So don’t be angry, Teddy…”

“I’m not angry… I was just so scared. So please don’t do this next time.”

I hugged the sobbing Clea tightly with my whole body. My fingertips trembled finely. At the same time, the touching body heat was so warm I felt like crying. My heart, which had stopped, finally started moving again.

Because we got completely soaked in the rain at Dark Chestnut Mountain, we had to suffer through a terrible cold. After being sick for several days, I met Clea again. 

Instead of an emotional reunion, we had a childish competition over who’d been sicker.

“Teddy! I was sicker, I tell you! My fever was so high you could brew tea on my forehead!”

“You don’t know anything. My fever was so, so high that the people around me took off their clothes and sweated!”

The endless standoff continued. Just listening to Clea and me, the world would have been destroyed several times over from the flu we’d caught. At the excessive words, we eventually burst into laughter.

“Pfft…!”

“Bwahahaha!”

It was a refreshing, pleasant-sounding laughter. Clea squinted both eyes while clutching her stomach, her shoulders shaking for quite a while. She laughed so much that she even shed a few tears later.

I captured that sight completely in my eyes without missing anything. Even the moment of closing my eyes felt precious, so I couldn’t take my gaze away for a single moment.

And I realized. Why I’d torn through the mountain like a madman that day. Why I’d been swept up in a storm of surging emotions without even time to think about the rational judgment I’d valued so much.

‘Ah, I was afraid I’d never see this smiling face again.’

After that, Clea’s gaze looking at me changed subtly. Not only did it sparkle more than usual, but subtle anticipation lingered in every look and action. Then she’d suddenly approach and blurt out a love confession.

“Teddy, I like you so much!”

There was no reason or warning. No appropriate situation had arisen. She just suddenly shouted that at me while I was drinking water because it was hot.

“Kack, cough…!”

At the unexpected confession, I spat out the water I was drinking. Coughs burst out without pause. I looked at Clea with a flustered face.

“How can you say something like that so openly…!”

But when I showed such a reaction, Clea would instead laugh nonchalantly like there was no problem.

It wasn’t just this. Sometimes I’d be swinging a wooden sword when I’d suddenly hear a love confession and end up splitting in half the statue modeled after Father. On another day, I felt like my heart would burst and just ran away, leaving Clea behind.

‘How can she do it without changing her expression at all…!’

Besides this, Clea chattered various things to me. Most were stories about a future that hadn’t come yet.

“Teddy, I want to have an engagement ceremony before becoming an adult.”

“What? Wh-why are you telling me that!”

Even while raising my voice saying not to talk nonsense, inwardly I imagined our future engagement ceremony.

A warm spring breeze would blow and you’d stand under beautifully scattering flower petals. Receiving everyone’s blessings, you’d smile more lovingly than anyone. Just recalling the thought made my heart surge.

“Teddy, if I get married, I’ll live in an estate with a quiet lakeside where you can float rowboats.”

“Then you’ll never live in a place like that. There won’t be any man who’d like an ugly girl like you!”

While watching Clea pout with a sullen face, I recalled the estate near Pervil Lake that Father had bought several years ago.

The downside was that too many people came and went because the lake was so famous, but they wouldn’t be able to intrude onto private property. Coincidentally, near the estate was also a small lake perfect for floating rowboats.

‘I should ask for that place as this year’s birthday present.’

“A flower ring would definitely be best for a wedding ring, right?”

“A flower ring? What would you do with something so shabby?”

A wedding ring for Clea had to be made of only the best, unconditionally. Gathering the most precious jewels in the world to make a pretty flower ring.

I imagined someday handing her a wedding ring while confessing my love, and Clea receiving it with the happiest face in the world. It was truly a dream-like happy future.