Chapter 4

People called Lara Max’s Cinderella. Simply because Lara had once been the daughter of a family that earned decently well but was now poor and left with nothing but debt, while in contrast Max was the heir to an enormous merchant company overflowing with money.

Lara hated hearing that Cinderella talk, so she worked hard at both studying and work. Thanks to that, she had gained a stable job with no fear of being fired, and not long ago her salary had even gone up……. As for Max, it seemed he now wanted to be Cinderella himself.

“He’ll marry me anyway? The more I think it over, the stranger it sounds. He really must be insane.”

Tears of resentment welled at the corners of Lara’s long, clear eyes. Sorrow, forcing its way out through disappointment, anger, and emptiness, settled over Lara.

“I’m not seeing someone like you anymore either. I’ll also, uh, catch myself a younger man than me and…….”

Suddenly, Max’s face as he looked at Jeruna came to mind. The face of someone looking at something very small and lovely. That pale pink gaze Lara had never once received. It even made her wonder whether Max had ever truly loved her at all.

‘Maybe Max didn’t love Lara the person, but the Cinderella he had made up for himself.’

Ziiing. The gloomy acoustic guitar melody scraped across Lara’s nerves once again.

‘Is this place a funeral hall or a tavern?’

Lara wanted to hit the bard, who was immersed in music that had become not merely mournful but almost like a funeral march, just once, really just once, on the forehead.

Lara swept her eyes across the tavern filled with that gloomy song. It did not feel as though much time had passed, yet the customers inside had vanished without a trace. Lara would have bet her wallet that at least half of that was the fault of that bard.

“If people want to leave, let them leave. One more drink, please.”

Drawing back the gaze she had been casting around, Lara turned back toward the owner standing at the bar. No, she was about to turn back.

Her body froze in that vague middle point where she was turned neither toward the bar nor toward the back. It was because her eyes had met the eyes of the man sitting with one empty chair between them.

A man with pale black hair like the night sky before dawn and broad shoulders. He was a man who had been there ever since Lara entered the tavern.

The moment her eyes met his, Lara thought she was dreaming. It was because that excessively handsome face was imprinted in her sight with such vivid clarity.

‘……An actor, or a bard?’

Lara, who knew no one famous for their looks except the bard her friend Ida liked, found herself studying the man’s face without realizing it. At the very least, he did not seem to be Rius, whom Ida liked, nor one of the bards who moved around in a pack with him. The man before her was more handsome than all of them put together.

Feeling sorry because it seemed she had stared too openly at someone she did not even know, Lara gave the man an awkward smile. She meant to look forward again and order herself another drink.

But Lara’s gaze would not leave the man. It was not Lara’s fault. Now it was the man, not Lara, who was staring intently at her. Even drawing his brows together.

‘What is that.’

If she had not been pouring alcohol into an empty stomach, if she had not been in a state where anger and sorrow had come over her all at once—in other words, if this had been the usual Lara—she would probably have cursed him with her eyes and roughly avoided the gaze.

The impression of the man, with half his face soaked in the bluish light that lay over the entire tavern, looked strangely cold. The color of his eyes, which she could not tell for certain whether they were violet or dark blue because of the lighting, also contributed to that cold feeling.

The man’s slightly downturned eyes narrowed. It was a very strange look indeed. It looked like the gaze of someone examining a person he did not like from every angle, and also like the gaze of someone turning his mind over, trying to drag from memory the name of a friend he could not recall.

Lara did not want to avoid his eyes. At this point, it was a matter of pride. Strength entered Lara’s eyes as she too drew her brows together like the man. In silence, a staring match that was not quite a staring match went on.

Lara was the first to look away. That was because a mug of beer had been set in front of her. A beer mug was also placed before the man.

“……It’s on the house.”

The owner, a man with a somewhat timid impression, gave Lara a small smile.

At the smile, which felt like a curious sort of encouragement, Lara nodded without realizing it. There was no need to keep up a pointless stare-down. Giving up the staring contest, Lara gulped down the golden liquid of brilliant color, topped with white foam.

Sweet. But the stronger the sweetness she felt on the tip of her tongue, the darker her mind became, as though storm clouds had gathered in it.

Lara let out a small sigh and brushed back the hair that had fallen over her forehead. In that moment, she felt that strange gaze once again. She turned her body to the side. As expected, the handsome man whose name she did not know…… was still looking at her.

‘Seriously, why is he doing that.’

One of Lara’s eyebrows rose. The hot, burning warmth that had been going down her throat had just reached the area around her heart.

“……What are you looking at?”

With a slightly slurred pronunciation, Lara spoke to the man.

It was much like the earlier situation when they had been staring each other down. The usual Lara, who did not like fights or picking quarrels, would never have been able to say such a thing. But the only feelings left in Lara now were that this world, the weather, Max, the bard, and that man were all making her furious. So Lara, her face reddened, threw the words at him.

Even after hearing such a sharp remark thrown at him, the man showed no particular change in expression.

“Here.”

Instead, with that short word, he tapped his own head. His fingertips were pointing somewhere between his ear and the crown of his head.

“……Here?”

“Yes. Here.”

The man repeated himself to the questioning Lara. It was as if he were telling her to look at her own head. Like someone possessed, Lara used the man as a mirror and placed her hand on her hair.

……Squish? For some reason, Lara felt something soft and unpleasant against her palm. It was a sensation she should not have been feeling. Wearing a grave expression, Lara felt around her head more thoroughly, then slowly lowered her hand. Her gaze dropped to her own palm.

A white lump. Lara’s mouth slowly fell open as she confirmed the hideous thing smeared on her hand.

“You’ve got bird droppings on you.”

The man’s finishing blow struck Lara right in the ear.

“…….”

“…….”

A long silence fell between the two of them—no, between the three of them, including the owner.

“Please take it.”

Taking a handkerchief from the inner pocket of the coat hanging on his chair, the man held it out to Lara as he spoke. The silence that had been about to drag on was broken thanks to him.

“I’ll take your thanks as something conveyed from the heart.”

After saying that, the man smiled. The impression that had felt cold turned kind the moment his eyes curved slightly. It was a change that happened in an instant.

Still looking dazed, Lara carefully accepted the handkerchief the man offered her.

“You don’t have to return it.”

“……Thank you.”

“Not at all.”

After first wiping her hand with the handkerchief the man had given her, Lara hurriedly searched through her bag and found a small hand mirror. She could see the man saying something to the tavern owner, but she had no room to pay attention to that.

The sight reflected in the mirror was truly a spectacle. The bird droppings that had landed on top of her head had hardened while running downward. It seemed they might even have melted slightly in the rain and slipped.

“Ah, seriously…….”

Lara was dumbfounded. Right now, she was exactly what anyone would say she was—a person who had gotten hit by bird droppings on a rainy day. Because of her pitch-black hair, the white lumps stood out even more.

The owner handed Lara a wet towel. So that must have been what the two of them had been talking about asking for.

“……Thank you.”

Wiping away the excretion of the winged friend scattered over her head, Lara expressed her thanks once again. The man watched her silently. His gaze had become far softer than when he had first looked at Lara.

“Excuse me. Um, that, I’ll buy that for you.”

After roughly cleaning up her hair and hands, Lara spoke to the man.

“This?”

The man asked, pointing to the glass set beside his beer mug. Instead of answering the question, Lara nodded with an awkward smile.