The Guardian Knight of Affection-Starved Young Ladies

41 – The Meaning of a Bottle of Traditional Liquor Offered by a Northern Woman (03)

042.

His head was ringing.

“Hahaha!! To think you drank it all there! Well, an outsider like you wouldn’t know the meaning!”

He clearly remembered the events of the previous day, despite the noisy chatter of Sir Crathers beside him.

Kallen lay down, covering his face with his arm to calm his throbbing head.

The Hyatt mansion had plenty of unused rooms.

There were more than enough rooms to lay down a drunken guest who had drunk too much.

Kallen, covering his face with his arm, lay in one of those rooms.

Of course, he wasn’t with Crathers.

Crathers had burst in at some point and started talking.

Despite his taciturn appearance, Crathers enjoyed talking.

He couldn’t just let the shocking events of the previous day pass without comment.

“What was that? I haven’t lived long, but it was the first time I’d seen such beauty. Miss Selassie seems to have changed a bit since that incident, is it thanks to you?”

The giant bonfire of the traditional festival melted the cold hearts.

The northern people valued tradition, but there was a special reason they cherished that time.

However, it was fundamentally different.

The indescribable something that Selassie showed seemed like magic.

The ecstasy that lightly tinged with crimson could not be expressed in words.

Everyone could only stare in a daze.

It felt a warmth incomparable to any bonfire.

With such a backdrop, they had done something even more.

It was no wonder they were astonished.

“What did you say it means to drink it all…?”

Already having a headache, the words he heard made his heart even more troubled.

The words Cradus chattered as soon as he came in were too much to take in at once.

“A bottle of traditional liquor made by a northern woman and handed over is a proposal. And drinking it all at once…”

Cradus said with a sly voice, wearing a smile that made you want to punch him.

“It’s a rather hot acceptance, almost indecent. Hmm.”

“…”

“Don’t try to know too much, Carl. There’s a world of adults.”

-But don’t take the bottle~.

When he first arrived in the north. The warning given by Sir Cradus.

Why does that come to mind?

He felt a bit resentful.

If he was going to tell him, he should have told him properly from the start.

How could he just say to be careful?

Ignoring the chattering words of Sir Cradus beside him.

Kallen recalled the smile of Selassie he saw the day before.

His head still hurt, and his stomach felt tight.

It’s not that he doesn’t remember.

He remembers every word, action, and smile Selassie gave.

That was the problem.

Having heard from Cradus the meaning behind those actions, he couldn’t just ignore it.

He was an outsider and didn’t know the meaning of receiving a drink made by a northern woman and drinking it all at once.

But that doesn’t erase the fact that Selassie handed him the drink.

Unlike him, she would have known the meaning of that action, that handing a drink to a man meant a proposal.

In other words, Selassie handed over the drink of her own will.

Kallen removed the hand covering his face and stood up, ignoring Sir Cradus.

Magic that broke through the third rank.

Following Eliana, even Selassie awakened her image centered around him.

…Even the meaning contained in that drink.

There were too many things bothering him, and his head throbbed, making it impossible to make a proper judgment.

So, Kallen, who had not yet undergone the coming-of-age ceremony, made a firm resolution.

Never to drink again.

Staggering like that.

Kallen walked through the corridors of the mansion, tangled like a maze.

Unaware that an ordinary person would collapse before drinking half the amount Kallen had consumed.

*

-You’re beautiful. Sister.

I couldn’t sleep.

That one casual remark.

It kept disturbing my mind.

A soft yet heavy voice.

It was far from the usual bluntness.

The glasses suited him, but personally, I preferred him without them.

He smiled, a smile he had never shown before.

And he said such words with that smile.

What sister, what woman wouldn’t fall for that?

Especially when he did that to someone who had even prepared to offer traditional liquor.

From noble mtl dot com

Still pinned under Kallen, the feeling of being forcibly pressed against him was vivid all over my body.

My heart pounded as if it were broken.

My face flushed for no reason.

The thought of being embarrassed to see Kallen and the thought of just wanting to see Kallen crossed my mind.

Selacia couldn’t muster the courage to leave the room despite the restless sleep.

Being called beautiful.

What did he mean by that?

It was a remark made by the trashy Thorn, but he did say the face was worth looking at.

Was it about the most plausible face?

Or could it be the personality?

Since he accepted such a rough personality without a word, and understood all my inner thoughts.

If not that…

“Eyes…”

There was a time when such words were spoken.

That the first thing people noticed about her was her body.

Kallen had replied to such a statement by saying he would look at her eyes first.

In fact, when they first met, Kallen had looked into her eyes.

That was Kallen.

Good face, good personality.

Eyes.

It must have been about the eyes.

Selassie covered her now burning cheeks again.

It seemed she needed a lot of preparation before leaving the room.

Thinking that, she glanced towards the door.

Click.

The door opened at that moment.

“Miss.”

“K-Kallen?!”

Unable to leave the room, Kallen came to her.

Selassie couldn’t hide her embarrassment.

It was truly a mischievous trick of fate.

To come so suddenly when it was hardest to see him.

The heartbeat that had been trying to find its place started to malfunction again.

Her cheeks had already been burning.

Seeing Kallen’s bare face from yesterday overlapped, she couldn’t react at all.

Looking at the boy’s face coming closer, her body faithfully remembered the boy’s embrace.

Thump, thump, thump.

Would he hear her heartbeat?

Even as she crawled to the end of the bed and backed away.

Kallen approached regardless.

“Hic…”

The ruby trembling aimlessly.

Kallen, who had approached the side of the bed, looked down at Selassie.

Like prey before a predator.

Selassie trembled, barely holding one hand to her chest.

It wasn’t fear.

Far from such an emotion.

It was something soft and ticklish.

“I heard, miss.”

“…”

“The meaning behind a northern woman offering the drink she made herself.”

“Ah…”

It was Kallen’s words that helped her hold onto her fragile sanity.

She had assumed Kallen didn’t know.

Because if he knew that the act meant ‘proposal’, he would surely reject it.

However, Kallen said he knew.

He had discovered the shackle she had secretly tried to place.

A shackle made from selfish desires.

“…”

Her lips trembled as if broken.

A situation she had never imagined.

The shackle she had tried to place on her own was, in a way, the last line she could use to brainwash herself.

Now, a world with only Kallen.

The thought of him leaving her side, where she could trust no one else, made her dizzy.

She had only tried to bind him in a marriage he didn’t even know about, one only she knew.

Kallen had found out everything.

Time flowed slowly.

As if telling her not to open her mouth.

The ruby that trembled aimlessly fixed on Kallen’s lips, denying the words that would follow.

She couldn’t bear to hear those words, as they were too predictable.

But no matter how slowly time flowed, it eventually passed.

Selassie tightly closed her eyes.

At the same time, she gripped Kallen’s arm strongly.

Back to the time when Kallen protected her.

It was an expression of her desire not to be abandoned again.

Kallen’s words, which came out a bit flustered,

“Can you make the drink again?”

were in a slightly different form than expected.

*

With her eyes tightly closed.

Selassie, who was holding Kallen’s arm tightly, slowly opened her eyes.

“What…?”

“Can you make the drink again?”

She clearly heard it, but she asked again, fearing her mind had changed it on its own.

Like, “I’m sorry, what have I done?”

The negative words that filled her mind, which had turned black for a moment, were not heard.

Kallen, with his usual indifferent expression,

was asking like that.

“Why…?”

What came out was a question.

It was an appropriate answer to Kallen’s question, and at the same time, a question about Kallen, who was beyond her expectations.

“Well, I wasn’t quite myself yesterday.”

Her nails must have been digging in and hurting.

Kallen continued speaking without paying attention to the arm that was being held tightly.

“It’s the only one in a lifetime, wouldn’t it be a waste to lose it like that? There will be a better time.”

Thinking that Selassie had hurried in her urgent mind because she had a hard time.

Handing her the bottle was out of such a heart.

Kallen thought that Selassie had momentarily confused her feelings because her gratitude was a bit overwhelming.

Craders also said.

A northern woman does not take a man from another place as a marriage partner.

Selassie’s drink, which had many misunderstandings, would not disappear so vainly.

Kallen thought so and spoke.

But Selassie, who heard Kallen’s words,

Tears fell.

Out of gratitude.

I was grateful for considering my selfish heart.

I was grateful for giving me the opportunity to properly make the shabby drink and hand it over again.

Blaming it on my insanity, putting the blame on me.

A more proper time means giving me the leisure to finish the unfinished business.

Those words were far more beautiful than the last gift tied with my selfish shackles.

It sounded like waiting until I handed over the drink again.

It sounded like saying that at least the heart would not leave me.

“…Yes.”

Selassie wiped her tears and smiled brightly.

“I’ll make it again.”

Kallen sighed lightly as if that was enough and turned his back.

“I apologize for this morning.”

“Kallen.”

It was Selassie’s question that stopped the foot that was about to leave the room.

“What do you mean by pretty, what is pretty?”

Kallen couldn’t help but gasp at those words.

A crazy person who says ‘your body is pretty’ to an unmarried woman.

Fortunately, because he wasn’t in his right mind, he omitted a lot.

His mind quickly turned, finding the most plausible answer.

Kallen, who doesn’t lose his composure in extreme situations, fortunately came up with the best answer.

“…Your eyes.”

Kallen left that one word and hurriedly left the room.

Thinking it was a good response for something he came up with in a hurry.

“But you know, Kal. Was that drink tasty?”

“The drink you gave me, miss.”

“Yes, that one.”

The room he hurriedly escaped to.

For some reason, Craders was still sitting in the same place.

Just when it seemed like he could calm his troubled mind, Kallen gladly became a companion.

The taste of the drink that Selassie handed over at that moment.

Perhaps because it was made with clean water and sweet snow grapes.

Northern liquor was always one of the best liquors mentioned.

Since it was such a drink, it was certainly sweet.

“It was sweeter than other drinks.”

“Really? Hahaha!”

What was incomprehensible was Cradus’s reaction.

The reason he could understand the hearty laughter was because of his following words.

“Do you know how northern women make this drink themselves?”

“No.”

“Of course, you wouldn’t. You’re still young, but I’ll tell you just this once. That drink…”

Young, young, always young.

Kallen, who was unnecessarily nervous at the sight of him hesitating, stiffened.

“That woman chewed the snow grapes herself and fermented them with her saliva.”

It was the moment he realized why Cradus found it amusing when he said it was sweeter than other drinks.