A Candy That Reveals the Heart
A girl sat leisurely sipping tea in the reception room, waiting for her friend to arrive. Platinum-blonde hair tied back in a long ponytail and deep indigo eyes. Even while alone, the faint mischievous smile playing on her lips revealed her personality perfectly. Her name was Silvia Lorenz. The second daughter of the Lorenz Count family and one of Ariel’s few close friends, she had come to visit the Robeheim household after quite some time.
“Slurp.”
Her friend, who usually arrived exactly on time, was unusually late today. Silvia took a sip of the richly fragrant black tea and tilted her head in mild curiosity, though she wasn’t particularly bothered. After all, she had a pretty good idea why.
Crash!
“Haa, haa… Sorry. Am I late?”
“Welcome, Ariel. This is rare.”
Silvia greeted her friend with a soft smile, marveling at how perfectly timed her arrival had been. Ariel was panting, hurriedly fixing her disheveled hair.
‘Hm?’
Then a strange feeling came over her. She tilted her head slightly and glanced toward the door Ariel had entered through. There should have been one more person, yet Ariel had come alone.
“Edgar didn’t come with you?”
Like a needle following thread, Edgar was always by Ariel’s side. Since their first meeting, he had grown quite close with Silvia too, so there was no awkwardness between them. That was precisely why his absence felt so odd.
“Huh? Uh, yeah… He said he had something to do.”
“Really?”
Silvia blinked several times, tilting her head in confusion. It was strange. Knowing Edgar’s personality, it didn’t seem like him to step away just because he had an errand. Although Silvia hadn’t met him often, she knew how exceptionally devoted he was to Ariel. He wasn’t the type to leave her side over some trivial matter. Could it really have been that urgent?
“So it’s just the two of us today.”
“Looks like it. He’s been with us almost every time lately.”
“Well, I don’t mind either way.”
When he was around, Silvia got to see more of Ariel’s adorable sides, which was fun. Still, she was perfectly happy just having a warm chat with her friend. Besides, she had brought a gift she wanted to give, and doing so in front of Edgar would have been a bit awkward.
“By the way, how have you been? How are things with him?”
“D-don’t call him ‘him’! People will think he’s my fiancé!”
“Hehe, so you’re still like that?”
When Ariel shrieked upon realizing “him” referred to Edgar, Silvia stirred her teacup with a spoon and gave her a sly look. It had been a while since her last visit to the Robeheim family, so she had expected some progress. It seemed her prediction had been quite off the mark.
“Why does that pride of hers have to make things so difficult? If it were me, I would’ve stolen a kiss ages ago.”
Silvia shook her head with a pitying smile at her stubborn friend. She had always been extremely proactive when it came to romance and love. If the other person wouldn’t come to her, she would go to them. That was exactly how she had won her current lover. So watching her friend constantly overthinking and hesitating was incredibly frustrating. Especially since it didn’t seem like the other party was uninterested. If she just took the initiative and kissed him, he would probably fall right away.
“K-kiss…!?”
“Hm?”
Just as Silvia let out a sigh of exasperation, a sharp squeak escaped Ariel. Sensing something off, Silvia lifted her head slightly.
‘What’s this?’
Normally Ariel would have shouted something like “How could you even suggest that!” But instead she was blushing furiously, unable to form a proper response. Something felt wrong.
‘Could it be…?’
Silvia’s eyes narrowed as she caught the opening. It probably wasn’t what she thought, but there was no such thing as absolute certainty in this world. With nothing to lose, she decided to poke a little. Wearing a playful smile, she opened her mouth.
“Ariel, you… you kissed Edgar, didn’t you?”
“……!?”
“…For real?”
Silvia stared at her with disbelief, her already large eyes widening nearly twice their normal size. A heavy silence stretched between them.
Watching Ariel hang her head, Silvia decided this wouldn’t do and stood up. She moved to sit beside her and poked her shoulder.
“Alright, interrogation time. Miss Ariel Robeheim, would you kindly explain in detail what happened?”
“I-it was an accident…! Why would I ever kiss that idiot…!”
“Oh? An accident, you say?”
A light whistle escaped Silvia’s lips at the very Ariel-like excuse. Whether it truly had been an accident or she was just pretending it was, the reaction itself earned full marks.
“So what exactly were the circumstances of this accident?”
“I-it’s nothing special. It just happened a little while ago…”
“A little while ago… right before I arrived?”
Nod. Nod.
Ariel answered by silently bobbing her head. Silvia’s hands trembled with rising excitement; she could barely contain herself.
Just before I got here?! This is piping hot news!
‘What a perfectly warm piece of news!’
Silvia shivered with delight, cheering inwardly. She was so glad she had decided to visit today. To think she would receive news this fresh, like bread straight from the oven. And the gift she had brought seemed perfectly timed too. Of course, she would have to save handing it over for a little later.
“So, um, how was it?”
Too excited, Silvia actually stuttered—very unlike her. After all, what could be more entertaining than someone else’s love story? And not just anyone’s, but her closest friend’s. How could she not be thrilled?
“How was it… It hurt.”
“It… hurt?”
“Yeah.”
The answer was completely unexpected. Silvia blinked blankly, stunned, but Ariel simply nodded with a calm expression.
‘It couldn’t possibly be that, right?’
Silvia nearly let her imagination run wild into dangerous territory, but she barely managed to rein it in. Since it had been an accidental bump of lips, it probably hadn’t gone that far. She needed to calm down and hear the full story.
“How on earth did it happen?”
“It really wasn’t anything. After training, he had fallen asleep, so I was trying to fix his hair. Then he suddenly woke up and we bumped into each other. That’s all.”
“Ah, I see.”
Silvia nodded in understanding.
‘So that’s why she said it hurt.’
Of course. If you suddenly collided with someone who had just woken up, the last thing on your mind would be the sensation of a kiss. It would simply hurt. Whether their lips happening to meet in that moment was good luck or bad luck, even Silvia couldn’t quite decide.
“Anyway, that wasn’t a kiss at all! I don’t even want to acknowledge it!”
“What exactly is it that you don’t want to acknowledge?”
“T-that’s…”
The sudden sharp question made Ariel visibly flustered. She had realized what Silvia was really asking. Was it the act of accidentally kissing that she refused to acknowledge? Or her feelings toward Edgar?
In truth, Ariel had already accepted her feelings for Edgar long ago. It was simply her stubborn pride that kept her from revealing her true heart to Silvia or even to Shuri.
‘It feels like I’m losing somehow.’
Even without a confession, it still wounded her pride. For Ariel, who had lived her entire life on pride alone, this was an incredibly serious issue.
“Hehe, alright. I won’t tease you with any more mean questions. Okay?”
“Y-yeah…”
Thankfully, Silvia backed off, allowing Ariel to breathe a sigh of relief. As expected, she was the kind of friend who could find every crack in Ariel’s defenses just as well as Edgar could—though the way she did it was quite different.
“As an apology for teasing you, I’ll give you a very special gift. Just let me off the hook with this one, alright?”
“A special gift?”
Silvia’s gifts were always full of curious things, so Ariel’s expectations quietly rose. Even if they weren’t always practical, Silvia’s presents had a way of making you gasp in wonder the first time you saw them.
“Here, want to open it yourself?”
“Sure.”
Ariel accepted the small box her friend offered and carefully unwrapped it. The box was so tiny it could barely fit a music box, so her expectations had already lowered somewhat from earlier.
‘Some kind of accessory?’
That wouldn’t be bad either, she thought, fully removing the wrapping. What appeared was a glass bottle containing colorful candies of various hues.
“What do you think? Pretty, right?”
“Yeah, they are pretty.”
It wasn’t exactly what she had hoped for, but as Silvia said, they looked quite elaborate for mere candy.
“Can I eat one?”
“Of course. I brought them for you to eat.”
Since Ariel loved sweets, it was a welcome gift. She thanked her lightly, opened the lid, and picked out a pink candy. It was small enough to disappear after a few crunches.
“Is it good?”
“Yeah, it’s tasty. Where did you get these?”
“I received them as a gift too. I thought you might need them.”
Need?
Ariel frowned slightly at the odd word. ‘Need’ wasn’t the usual thing one said about candy. Not ‘I thought you’d like them’ or ‘I wanted to give them to you,’ but ‘I thought you might need them.’ It sounded a bit strange, but she figured it was just a slip of the tongue and let it pass.
“All done?”
“Yeah.”
She wasn’t sure if the pink one was strawberry-flavored, but it tasted good to Ariel. Other than its unusual appearance, she didn’t sense anything particularly special about something Silvia had brought.
“But why did you call it a special gift?”
When Ariel popped another candy into her mouth and asked, unable to contain her curiosity, the smile on Silvia’s lips grew even wider.
“Hehe, curious?”
“Of course I’m curious.”
Ariel looked at her with an expression that said she couldn’t believe this. After bragging about it being a “special gift,” she couldn’t possibly refuse to explain now. When Ariel gave her chin a little nod as if to say ‘hurry up and tell me,’ Silvia finally revealed the candy’s true nature in a secretive voice.
“Those are magic candies.”
“…What?”
Magic candies? The nonsensical answer made Ariel drop the candy she was holding and ask again without thinking. Silvia picked up one of the candies from the glass bottle, held it in front of Ariel’s eyes, and added with a devilish smile.
"When you eat this candy,"
"you end up speaking your true feelings whether you want to or not."
⟨ Magic Candy of Honesty ⟩
Rather than simply making someone honest, it was more accurate to say it dragged out the hidden knots buried deep in one’s heart. A drug that forced you to speak the words you wanted to keep locked away. That was the true identity of these candies.
Upon hearing the truth, Ariel’s pupils gradually widened. Then a scream-like cry burst from her lips.
That day, Silvia had to work up a serious sweat for the first time trying to stop her friend from using magic on her. Though, in the end, she had dug her own grave.