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Are you insane? Put away that ridiculous plan immediately. It would be wise to heed the advice of someone with trustworthy reason.
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The short and blunt message passed by with Olivia’s snort. Olivia immediately took up her pen and began writing a reply on crisp, white new paper.
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I am not insane
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Olivia, who had been wielding her pen with quite a combative spirit, stopped before even completing the first sentence. It would be troublesome to have an error from the very first sentence. However, judging that it wasn’t necessary to go through the trouble of getting new paper, Olivia drew a short line over the incomplete sentence.
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I am not insane Well then, I am a little insane. This is something that cannot be done without being a little insane. That’s why I wrote it there, you know? If you have no desire to be involved in this matter, return the book to its place and leave my letter back at the bookstore. I didn’t start this to receive useless advice from someone whose face I don’t even know. Please let us use each other’s time a bit more preciously. I have no more time to waste, and even if you have plenty of time to waste, there’s no need to go out of your way to do so.
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When Olivia put the period at the end of the last sentence, she was breathing a little heavily. This was the first fruit she had borne in a full three months since putting this plan into action. But to think she would get caught by a meddlesome gentleman of all people. She hadn’t expected things to go smoothly from the start, but she couldn’t help feeling deflated nonetheless.
She still didn’t think that choosing a partner to share her first time with in her own way was such a wrong thing to do. Of course, she agreed that this was not an ordinary method, but there should be options for those who cannot take the path everyone else takes.
Olivia glared for a long time at the face beyond the letter whose outline she couldn’t even see. She knew it was of no use, but she hoped that somewhere—the back of his head, his back, or anywhere—would sting uncomfortably.
***
The lending bookstore ‘Little Fortune’ located at the corner of B 32nd Street was a place Olivia had cherished for a long time. She cared for it so much that she personally brought and shelved each of her new books there, so it wasn’t surprising that she chose it as the starting point for this meaningful plan. Even if it hadn’t been for this plan, Olivia was confident that this place would have changed her life through something else.
When ‘Vivian Bennett’s’ fifth new book settled into the romance novel corner of ‘Little Fortune,’ Olivia instinctively knew that the moment had come to make the most important decision of her life.
It was a resolution closer to ‘I must do this before it’s too late’ rather than ‘I can’t live like this anymore.’
Here, ‘before it’s too late’ meant ‘before getting older than now,’ but the ‘this’ that must be done was not ‘marriage.’ If it had been something so trivial, she wouldn’t have been called insane by a man whose face she didn’t know, and she wouldn’t have used this method in the first place.
So what Olivia wanted was not ‘marriage’ but ‘an experience obtainable only through marriage.’ Precisely, the very private and intimate experience that passes between two men and women on a bed—or any other place.
Since the partner wasn’t an object, she couldn’t choose while weighing options like shopping, nor could she ‘purchase’ just anyone. Well, it might be different for men. Anyway, Olivia, who wanted to match preferences if possible, decided to seek help from the books she had published. It was based on the simple calculation that a man who could empathize with the characters she had created and feel something about their love stories would not be ‘just anyone.’
Since this was something she had been contemplating for a long time, there was no need to hesitate. Olivia immediately found a way to put her plan into action. It was quite a simple method compared to the long period of contemplation and solemn resolve. Olivia left a letter briefly outlining her intentions with James Hoover, who ran Little Fortune, and asked him to deliver it when a ‘male customer’ who borrowed ‘Vivian Bennett’s’ books appeared.
Since there weren’t many male customers interested in romance novels generally targeted at female readers, Olivia’s fishing line remained quiet for a while. Just when she was seriously wondering if this method might not work, a contact arrived from Mr. Hoover, and the letter she received was far from the kind of response Olivia had been waiting for.
Olivia looked down at the letter that had clearly been written with great force while keeping her arms crossed. Not only did it dismiss the plan she had implemented after much deliberation as ‘ridiculous,’ but it also regarded her, whom he had never met, as someone with ‘untrustworthy reason’—there wasn’t a single likable aspect in the short sentences.
To think that after three months, the man she caught was this kind of person.
Olivia couldn’t believe that this man had actually borrowed her book in the first place. If he was someone who believed that women should never express any desires outwardly, he couldn’t possibly like her writing, which consistently featured progressive female protagonists in matters of love. Perhaps this man had borrowed her book by mistake. Mr. Hoover wouldn’t have known that, so he would have handed over the letter she had left. She didn’t know the details, but it seemed like a reasonably logical explanation.
Since Olivia wasn’t prepared to accept that such a person was her reader, she rather hoped this speculation was true.
Olivia, who had risen with the reply to deliver to the man, carelessly put on the bonnet she had thrown aside and tied the strings properly. The letter would be entrusted again. For another man, not that man. That meddler would surely say it wouldn’t work. That such a thing couldn’t be possible. However, Olivia thought it was regrettable that she couldn’t show him directly that there was nothing that couldn’t be done.
***
It was just an errand for his busy younger sister. So, at first…
His younger sister, who was busy writing books she liked to read, often asked him to do various things when he went out, and borrowing Vivian Bennett’s new book was one of those trivial requests.
If he had bought it to read instead, he wouldn’t have discovered such a strange letter. Perhaps it was fortunate that he discovered it before it reached his sister’s hands. If it had been the sister he knew, she would surely have used this letter as good story material too.
Richard, leaning against a corner of Little Fortune, was flipping through a travel book while keeping the outrageous letter neatly folded in his chest. It wasn’t because he had any travel plans, but merely functioned to avoid looking like someone with other purposes.
There was no guarantee that he could find the sender of that letter by sitting here, but anyway, it was the third day today that he had started secretly watching the entrance with a grasping-at-straws mentality. If asked why he was going to such lengths, well. Perhaps it was because he thought of his younger sister.
Richard was truly grateful that Iris, who seemed no different from the letter writer when it came to unpredictability, had a fiancé before marriage. If Iris, who had no betrothed, had discovered this letter……
Richard shuddered lightly. It would be fortunate if it ended with it being called a brilliant idea, and she might have written and left the same kind of letter. That’s why he thought he had to stop this madness. Especially after receiving a reply angrily rejecting his advice, that thought became even firmer.
‘Looking for someone to sleep with.’ Where on earth, how could such an idea come from? Could the sender of that letter even guess that he was rather startled by the words saying not to worry because she had no intention of demanding marriage?
If this person had male siblings, they probably would have thought exactly the same thing. So this might be the result of the protective behavior ingrained in him. It might be meddling, or it might just be someone’s prank, but Richard wanted to meet the person involved and give proper advice.
Even if he ended up being told not to meddle after delivering a long speech about this dangerous world.
However, Richard’s hope that it would rather be a prank was soon shattered. He caught the wrist of a woman handing a suspicious note to Mr. Hoover. The pair of eyes that met his were unbelievably blue, and Richard truly felt like all of this was like a dream.
“Is it you?”
“……What?”
“……Let’s go outside first.”
Richard looked around and left the bookstore. He didn’t forget to take the new note the woman had left.
Richard, who guided the woman to a small alley next to Little Fortune, took out the letter he had obtained from the bookstore the other day from his chest and showed it. The woman’s eyes, which had seemed to narrow sideways, gradually widened and turned toward him.
“Was that you? That useless meddler?”
“Look here—”
“……I’m Vivian Bennett.”
“You were the author?”
“Is that some kind of problem?”
“That’s not the problem, but this is a problem. Do you really think this makes sense? This isn’t slightly insane but completely insane. I’ve always believed my younger sister was the most peculiar person, but now I see that belief was wrong.”