Every Time I Eat Candy
Every time I eat candy… did he fall for me? Or have I fallen for him? A guy wiping foam from the corner of a girl’s mouth has to be a total green light, right?
“Haa… haa…”
My hands and chest were trembling so violently that I was sure I’d spill the coffee if I tried to drink it. I set my rattling hand on the table like I’d strapped a motor to it and tried to steady my breathing. As I fought to calm the floating, dizzy sensation that came with the shakes—
“Don’t eat it with foam all over your lips. How sloppy.”
Jack, who had just carefully wiped the foam from my mouth, tossed the words out casually. …Wow. No, seriously. Wow. This is insane.
It sounded gruff, but the kindness behind it was overwhelming. The moment I heard it, the trembling that had been hijacking my body flipped into a burning heat that scorched me from the inside out. Head, heart, torso, hands and feet—every part of me was on fire, shaking uncontrollably. It was just a simple remark with almost no emotion behind it. So why was I reacting like this?
“Mm… yeah…”
Even the words I squeezed out from my throat came out half-formed, the syllables blurring together. All my earlier determination not to be the first one to fall for him had become meaningless. I could already feel, in real time, my heart tilting dangerously in his direction.
This can’t happen…
Every little action of his was throwing fresh kindling onto the blaze already roaring inside me. The way his face had gone bright red. The side glances he thought he was hiding, but that I could see perfectly. The way his hands trembled just like mine, unable to stay still, and the way his breathing had grown ragged. All of it made his already magnetic presence even more irresistible and mercilessly stoked the desire burning in me.
This is my chance!
Looking at him now, if I pressed my attack while he was this shaken, we might actually be able to move beyond this near-enemy relationship into something better. But I didn’t have the mental capacity—or rather, the physical strength—to do it. My body was in no condition to make a move. If he did one more cute thing, I was going to have a heart attack and end my short life right there.
But he really is dangerous.
Did he even realize that his unintentional words and actions sometimes shook people to their core? Or maybe they weren’t unintentional at all. Maybe he knew exactly what he was doing! This could all be part of a long, carefully built-up plan just to make my heart flutter.
“Huu…”
I clutched my dazed head and tried to regulate my breathing. The sight of the lush roadside trees helped my pounding chest settle again. Fine. I’ll admit what I have to admit. Even for a love veteran like me, that last attack had been pretty fierce. Fierce enough to put a small crack in my rock-solid “Seduce Jack Orlannte” plan.
Any normal person would have fallen for that, but…
Someone with my cool judgment and brilliant mind doesn’t fall that easily. The fact that I’d seen through his scheme proved he still had a long way to go if he wanted to seduce me in return. See? Even after an attack like that, I was only slightly shaken. I was already calm again, elegantly sipping my cof—
“Cough! Ack!”
Ah. It went down the wrong way.
…This is so awkward it’s actually killing me.
Ever since the cappuccino foam incident, we hadn’t exchanged a single word. We just kept walking through the city streets. We both needed to head back, but neither of us wanted to be the first to speak, so we simply continued toward the academy dorms in heavy silence. I wished Lucia would say something—anything—but true to her Golden Sun nature, she kept her lips stubbornly sealed. That was a problem in itself.
Before long we reached the dormitory entrance. I couldn’t let things stay like this forever, so I glanced at her from the side and spoke.
“Then I’ll be going now. Please get back safely.”
I gave a small bow and was about to escape when—
“…Wait.”
Lucia grabbed my sleeve, stopping me from leaving.
“Next time, coffee with me… Never mind. Just eat this.”
She started to say something in a voice so soft it was barely audible, then shut her mouth and instead shoved a lemon candy straight into mine. The problem was that she pushed the lollipop in so deep it delivered a direct hit to my uvula.
“Khup…!”
My breath caught for a second and a dull pain bloomed in my throat. This wicked woman. She’d graduated from flicking foreheads to straight-up assassinating people with candy. I never should have started thinking of her a little more favorably after the last incident.
“A-are you okay? Sorry…”
Of course I knew she hadn’t done it on purpose. Still… if I didn’t blame her a little, my mind would start wandering into dangerous territory—like thinking she wasn’t actually that bad of a person. Ever since the forehead flick, I’d been trying not to dwell on it, but the memory kept resurfacing and it was uncomfortable.
“I’m fine. No problem.”
Why are you patting my back? It’s not like I’m choking on food. That doesn’t help when it’s my uvula that got hit.
“Ugh… I’m really sorry…”
Lucia reached out to pull the candy stick from my mouth. She must have noticed my breathing had grown a little labored and was trying to help, but—
“That’s not allowed.”
Without thinking, I clamped my mouth shut, guarding the lemon candy. …Wait. What did I just do?
“Hmm… Really? You must like it then…”
Lucia clearly hadn’t expected that reaction. She gave an awkward smile, then—
“Hehe. Hehehe.”
—burst into silly laughter once she realized I wasn’t willing to give up the lemon candy she’d given me.
Why did I do that? Have I been unknowingly trained to crave lemon flavor?
“Up we go—”
Lucia looked at me with open delight and pulled something from the clutch bag she was carrying.
“Here, take it!”
It was a bag of lemon candies. It looked like it contained at least a hundred. Why was she giving this to me? I did like candy, but receiving it directly from the person who had trained my palate to lemon left me with complicated feelings.
“Buying them yourself would be a hassle, right? I have tons of these, so just take it.”
She shook the bag in front of my eyes.
“My arm’s getting tired… The dorm is right here anyway. Just take it inside and eat one whenever you feel like it.”
It made sense logically, but accepting something like this from the girl whose confession I had rejected felt…
“Agh, you’re so frustrating!”
Lucia thumped her chest a couple times, then forcibly pressed the bag of candy into my hand. She looked at me like I was hopeless and said,
“I’m giving it to you, so think of me while you eat them. Is that so hard?”
“Why would I think about you—”
“Don’t talk back. You like candy anyway, so you might as well think of me while you’re eating it. It’s not like it’ll wear out!”
To be honest, I’d grown so used to it that these days, every time I ate candy—or even saw anything yellow—I would think of Lucia just a little. If she had planned even that, it was a truly wicked Golden Sun method of training. But this kind of tactic couldn’t affect me at all.
“What would be the point of thinking about you? I don’t have any feelings for you whatsoever.”
The moment I said that, Lucia’s eyes sparkled again. She wagged her finger back and forth, declaring I was wrong. The annoying rhythm of that finger made me want to snap it backward. Ignoring my glare, she tucked her hand away, cleared her throat with a loud “Ahem!” and opened her mouth again in the manner of a cult leader addressing her followers.
“Think about it. Even if you meet another woman someday, you’ll still end up eating candy at some point, right?”
“…I suppose?”
“And if you keep thinking of me every time you eat candy like this, then even then, you’ll definitely think of me, won’t you?”
“…?”
The conversation was gradually heading somewhere strange. I tilted my head, but she continued.
“That way you’ll start missing me, and eventually you’ll fall for me, dump that other girl, and end up dating me instead—”
“What the hell.”
After all that buildup, she was proudly announcing a classic Golden Sun NTR crime plan. My mood plummeted. I tried to return the bag of candy, but Lucia quickly moved out of reach and added,
“It’s already too late. From now on, every time you eat candy, you’ll think of me. No—every time you eat anything sweet!”
Nonsense. As if I would fall for such a cheap suggestion. I just had to make an effort not to think about her. I’d leave the lemon candies at home and never touch them. If it got really bad, I’d buy some kind of memory-erasing potion and take it.
As I glared at her with that resolve, Lucia grinned and said,
“Just date me and you won’t have to worry about any of that. What do you think? Interested?”
“Absolutely not.”
Lucia clicked her tongue in obvious disappointment, then—
“Well, even so, I had fun today.”
She crouched down at a polite distance, rested her chin on her hand, and gave me a light wave. Seeing her bright, carefree smile made me feel strangely defeated. Once again, I hadn’t managed a proper counterattack and had been swept along by her pace. Whether it was because she understood men well or because it was simply her nature, she really was an impossibly seductive creature.
“And let’s go out together like this again next time, if we can!”
Lucia spoke with the same smile still on her face. Why was she suddenly being so needlessly sweet? I turned away to hide my slightly flushed face and answered over my shoulder as I headed into the dormitory.
“I’ll think about it.”
This was absolutely not because I had fallen for her. It was simply a harmless answer that left a tiny opening so that my future self wouldn’t be put in a difficult position. …Really. There wasn’t the slightest bit of personal feeling in it.