“Just.”

“Hmm.”

He raised his arms on the ridge of the bathtub, his chin down as he stared at Shada.

She avoided his gaze as if she were watching something captivating.

Huey didn’t forcibly hold eyes with her.

Instead, it looked like he was observing a sheep locked in his cage and said:

“Sometimes, I want to open up that little head of yours to see what you’re thinking.”

“Oh, no.”

She was so nervous that she responded reflexively before she realized her reaction was silly. Immediately, her cheeks turned bright red.

Huey burst into laughter at her timid murmur. His clear, cheerful laughter echoed in the bathroom. Shada was so stunned her hands covered her heart. It was the first time she saw him laugh so openly and geninuely.

He chuckled and covered his mouth. His red lips were now in a smile.

“Ah, Miss Shada.”

Huey called her name like a daydreaming sigh. The man bent forward toward Shada and whispered:

“Why are you so cute and pretty? What have you done to me?”

His husky breath and strange laughter made her feel unusual, so Shada clung to the wall of the bathtub.

Usually, if his eyes changed like that, that meant they would have sex again. As if he was impatient, his overwhelmingly alluring pheromones would rush in; she couldn’t resist and would embrace him.

Invariably. And it seemed like it would always be like that in the future.

She swallowed a loud gulp.

Again? I already did it twice……. No, when I first slept with him, it seemed possible to do it once more, given his energy.

But this man shocked Shada in an entirely new way:

“I like Miss Shada.”

What did this person just say?

Her mouth opened in bewilderment and astonishment.

He calmly stared at her surprised face, reaching out and rubbing her soft lips. His callus thumb pressed gently like crushing a delicate fluffy petal.

“I like you.”

Slowly he pulled his hand away. However, her lips were burning. Huey was smiling.

Shada thought that she might look funny with her mouth open at the back of her mind, but her head couldn’t get out of the vacuum and shut her shocked mouth.

What did I hear?

Not stopping there, Huey continued. The thicker his smile, the greater her confusion.

“I like you a lot too. Sometimes I feel like I’m not sane. It didn’t happen suddenly. I watched you for a long time, and then from some point on, this feeling naturally grew, and it happened.”

Now he didn’t laugh.

Maybe he had been bewitched since he first saw her.

The blurred, buzzing voice, whether favorable or unfavorable, could not enter her ears.

***