Chapter 46

Chapter 46

Bang.

The 25-point target fell.

“Damn it…”

As it continued, the man’s swearing grew longer. At some point, the whimpering heard from Leon’s side had turned into an exclamation.

“Wow, that’s really cool.”

Leon never thought the shooting skills he had honed so far would shine here.

He suddenly remembered what his father had said while teaching him how to shoot. It was not about hunting women, and it was not about killing rivals to claim possession. Perhaps, his father meant this when he said it would be helpful?

In the end, with 125 points, he even won a doll and a voucher for the candy stand.

“Here.”

Leon took the dolphin doll from the grumbling owner and placed it in Daisy’s arms.

“How amazing! Neither my brother nor Jimmy ever made it.”

When the girl looked up at him and admired him, he felt like a god.

At the candy stand, Daisy chose a candy apple. Then, she held out a stick with an apple dipped in red sugar syrup.

“You eat, too.”

“I don’t really like sweets…”

“Ah…”

When Daisy brought the apple back to her mouth, Leon couldn’t finish what he was saying. With a bright red candy apple in her mouth, the girl raised her round eyes and gazed up at him.

Enchanted by that appearance, Leon lowered his head.

Crunch.

He bit off the other side of the candy apple. The taste of fresh apple and sweet sugar entwined his tongue.

Did kisses taste like this?

Their eyes met with an apple the size of a fist between them. It was the first time Grace knew that light in the sky could be as hot as fireworks. Meanwhile, Leon was embarrassed and wanted to take off his lips, but he couldn’t. His lips had stuck to the sticky syrup and didn’t come off.

…Perhaps, it was a very deceptive excuse.

As he tilted his head, the gently closed eyelids lifted gently before he gazed at Grace again.

Leon reached out his hand to her cheek, who forgot to eat the apple and just stared blankly at him. The moment the silky soft skin touched her, Grace’s heart sank. She felt like she was about to pass out when all he did was take the hair off her cheek.

‘It feels like we’re kissing.’

The two shared the same idea and shared an apple with a face redder than the apple.

From then on, they held hands and walked with the excuse of losing each other because there were a lot of people. As they walked, they escaped the crowded carnival and entered a quiet shopping district, but the two did not let go of their hands.

Both of them snooped around a jewelry store that they wouldn’t normally go into. The girl’s eyes did not fall from the glass bead bracelet containing the refreshing sea light.

“I think it will suit you well.”

Daisy shook her hand as Leon pulled out his wallet.

“No. No.”

“Why? If you don’t like it, something else…”

“My mother told me not to dress pretty.”

Leon was bewildered.

Where in the world would a mother tell her daughter not to dress up pretty? As if it was not just an excuse, Daisy really looked plain without a necklace or hair bow. He thought it was because she was poor, but it was because she shouldn’t dress up?

“Why?”

“I don’t know. But my mother is really, really pretty.”

“You are really pretty, too. You have the sea in your eyes.”

Again, Grace’s heart thumped.

“There is a sea… in my eyes?”

The pretty boy spoke beautifully. The sea she saw for the first time in her life was so beautiful. However, the more beautiful scenery is in her eyes.

She kept wanting to smile like an idiot.

“Me… Pretty?”

Muttered the girl, raising her collar to hide her red face. Leon picked up the straw hat from the wall and put it on Daisy’s head, laughing.

“Then, we can do it with this.”

He didn’t want to part. Leon didn’t let go of Daisy’s hand all day, even though he knew it was polite to send her to her accommodation before it was too late.

‘I’m going to get scolded when I go back to the villa.’

…Even as he thought, his eyes did not leave Daisy’s red lips.

After watching the sunset on the beach, they had dinner at a seafood restaurant. As the children who entered puberty in the time of adulthood wandered around without a guardian, curious gazes followed them. However, the two children’s eyes did not see the eyes of others.

Jazz bars opened one by one, and jazz melodies mixed with the sound of the waves. The two walked along the blackened sea and returned to the carnival.

The carnival, which was about to close, was quiet.

One by one, the rides stopped, turning off the loud lights and music. The time for the two to part was also approaching. Leon, not wanting to part, led Daisy to the Ferris wheel, which was still lit.

“Today is over. Come back tomorrow.”

After paying five times the price of the ticket, the staff politely opened the door of the Ferris wheel like a servant opening a carriage door.

The Ferris wheel carrying only the two of them slowly began to turn.

“Wow…”

As the stark contrast of light and darkness unfolded beneath her feet, Grace marveled. Brilliantly lit shopping streets and dark beaches were separated along the coastal road.

While looking at the black sea dotted with a ray of moonlight and the lights of cruise ships, for some reason, the Ferris wheel that reached the top stopped. Even if it wasn’t, the faded jazz music started to be inaudible because of the sound of the sea breeze.

As the windowless Ferris wheel swayed in the wind, she was terrified.

Taking her eyes off the night view, Grace hugged Leon’s arm even tighter and looked up at him.

‘What’s wrong?’

Leon was staring at Grace.

Come to think of it, he had been like this for several hours. When he glanced at the sunset, he only stared at her face. Even at the restaurant, he didn’t touch the delicious lobster dish and kept looking at Grace.

For some reason, as nervous as when looking down, Grace unknowingly bit her lower lip.

“Daisy, you’re bleeding.”

“Oh…”

She bit her thin lips too hard.

“Ah, a handkerchief…”

Leon, who was rummaging through his pockets, looked puzzled. The strawberry-dyed handkerchief was already discarded during the day. He should have bought a new one.

“Wait.”

Daisy stuck out her tongue to lick her lower lip, but Leon grabbed the tip of her chin. As he ducked his head down the slanted brim of the straw hat, the tip of their noses hit.

The moment he tilted his head slightly, her lips parted.

It was something he had done before he even thought about whether it was okay or not. He could use an excuse that he was just doing what the nanny used to do as a child when he cut his hand. Of course, there was no excuse for doing this, even though he knew it was on the lips.

All day he wondered what her lips would feel like. Like Daisy, who wondered what his hair would feel like.

It was soft and warm. Leon gently pressed her soft flesh with his lips and carefully licked the bleeding wound with the tip of his tongue.

Daisy’s body shook.

He had done countless bad things that would get him scolded when caught, but his heart never beat as it did now. As he licked her wounds, their lips parted slightly, and the girl whispered in surprise.

“This is a kiss. My first kiss…”

Leon, who had expected Daisy to feel the same way, was quite taken aback.

“So you hate that…?”

“…Like it.”

Candid words escaped from between her lips in a shy smile. Leon liked her untainted honesty.

“Shall I… do it again?”

As soon as Daisy nodded, the smiling lips joined again.

It was not wrong to say that a kiss feels like flying.

The kiss secretly shared with the world at their feet in a Ferris wheel suspended high in the sky was thrilling. When a strong wind blew, Leon pressed Daisy’s face closer with one hand to the straw hat that was about to be blown away by the wind.

The Ferris wheel swayed in the wind again.

Fearing she might fall, Daisy hugged Leon’s arm even tighter. Their lips pressed more closer, and her body became hot—the refreshing scent of candy apple, the sticky texture of toffee, the mild taste of a milkshake, and blood oozed from her lips that tasted like a carnival.

Blood was sweet.

Leon thought while being immersed in a barrage of senses that stupefied his mind. He might start to like sweets from today.

Daisy’s villa was on a remote mountain.

It was good that he came out with a bike with an oil lamp. Leon climbed the dark mountain path, lit only by dim lamplight, holding Daisy in one hand and a bicycle in the other.

“It’s quite far from my villa here.”

Leon muttered with a sigh as he climbed the steep slope. By the side of the mountain road, he could hear the rough waves lapping against the coastal cliffs pretty close.

“Did you walk every day?”

Daisy nodded her head.

‘I should have talked to you earlier…’

The moment when both regret and sorry came together, Leon realized that he hadn’t asked a really important question yet.

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