Me After Meeting You

“What stuff?”

Amber really hadn’t noticed this, mainly because she had been so shocked at the time that she hadn’t been able to think about anything else.

Ian’s voice was ice cold as he replied, “The most identifiable objects that she flung out at you were potatoes, mushrooms, tomatoes, and noodles. Perhaps if there were only one type of food it would be a coincidence, but what about multiple types?”

Amber understood immediately. The items that Ian had mentioned were exactly what they had ordered for lunch. The left over vegetables and rice in a restaurant were usually poured into a bucket to be dealt with later.

Something like that could be sold for money; for example, some people would buy it specifically to feed their pigs, and people wouldn’t generally throw it away carelessly. If the old grandmother’s bucket of foul water had really come from the restaurant, then the behavior of the restaurant owner’s wife after wards was worth considering carefully.

“She truly seemed to be trying to help us, but it felt more like she wanted to quickly scareus away … Does this mean she doesn’t want us to keep investigating?”

Although Ian didn’t say anything, his face revealed an expression of disdain at how long it had taken her to figure it out.

Ignoring his facial expression, Amber merely sighed again as she said, “So the crux of the matter lies with the restaurant owner’s wife? Not only does she know Elly, but she also probably has some deeper connection with her.” Upon realizing this, she became agitated. In her excitement, her two hands extended into the car and grab bed hold of Ian’s wrist.

“Ah, what are you looking at?”

Ian slightly tilted his head, his gaze landing on her hand, her finger tips just like spring onions, as white as jade.

Unexpectedly, he didn’t find it dirty. Instead, an ache in his heart sprang out of nowhere. Her finger tips reminded him of the jade tea pet that he often played with in his office, which was the same shade of translucent, warm white.

But the tea cup was cold and hard. He idly wondered what her finger tips would feel like.

And, as he thought of this, Ian raised his left hand and lightly caressed Amber’s hand.

Amber’s hand was very warm. Warm and soft, a completely different feeling from his tea pet.

Ian grabbed his own hand and put it down. Through out the whole process, Amber didn’t even realize that Ian had ‘gently’ caressed her. She even felt somewhat bad that she had touched her patient like that, laughing awkwardly and saying, “Sorry to offend you. I didn’t mean anything by it.”

Ian answered suavely with a nonverbal grunt.

Amber asked Ian about his sincere thoughts. “I think that the townsfolkare acting very strangely. Elly hasn’t done anything particularly vicious or evil besides the incident with her grandmother, but from start to finish, I haven’t heard a single word of pity or regret for her.”

Ian wasn’t paying much attention to her question. He lowered his head to lookat his fingertips, which seemed to possess remnants of the softness and fineness that he had felt earlier. Lightly stroking them, he put his hand to his nose and sniffed. Upon raising his head, he found that Amber was staring at him, eyes wide.

Ian sat up straight, put down his hand, and with his face unflinching, said, “How smelly!”

She instantly understood the phrase she had heard on the Internet, ‘smiling on the outside and looking down disdainfully on the inside.’ Even though she knew that Ian couldn’t be understood through normal means and that he couldn’t be simply asked to behave like a regular person, but after she had washed her hair and bathed three times, almost rubbing an entire layer of skin off of her body, for her to still hear suchan evaluation, it really … made her heart clench!

She struggled to maintain her disposition, only able to awkwardly apologize again. “Sorry for disgusting you with my smell.”

Ian grunted once again.

“….”

His responses really made her want to hit him. She took a deep breath, firmly deciding not to make life difficult for herself. “Hm, I think that this will only be harder with three people. Given how busy you are, why don’t you go back first? I can take the car here myself tomorrow.”

Unfortunately, her suggestions to him were always viewed as useless words. Ian got out of the car and non chalantly said, “Let’s go.”

“Go? Go where?”

He turned his head around, expression grave and stern. “Didn’t you want to investigate some more?”

“I’m scared of disgusting you with my smell again.”

“No problem,” Ian said lightly. “Since you said that the nature of clean freaks is to like dirty things, I’ve decided to give it a try.”

“….”

It was often said that, when doctors had to treat intelligent patients, or when police encountered intelligent criminals, they often ended up scratching their heads. This was because, from just a moment of in attention, these intelligent people would entrap you in their routine.

But Ian’s words were much more problematic than that. Put in a different way, it sounded as if he were confessing to her that he would like to try her out.

Unintentional words often held a grain of truth in them, but at this moment, neither Amber nor Ian had realized it yet.

Amber was more or less an easy going person, so despite her suggestion being rejected by Ian, she wouldn’t stop him from coming along if he insisted.Material © of NôvelDrama.Org.

Thus, the two of them left the hotel and returned to the school. This time, Amber had prepared herself adequately; in order to avoid being drenched with foul water again, she was wearing a hat and a scarf now, covering herself up from head to toe. The little town’s resources were limited and her clothes were of average quality, so she seemed quite inconspicuous.

As for Ian, well, he simply decided to not walk with her. By the time they got there, the restaurant had already closed, and it was about when school was out. The trafficon the road and streets had increased suddenly, and little stalls had also popped up by the roadside near the school.

At once, the smell of food and the dust brought about by the traffic mingled through the air. Ian had stopped far from the scene and was frowning at the sight, almost as if he were watching a horror flickset in another dimension.