I Need the True Ending to Graduate - Chapter 76

The look in his eyes was so earnest that he didn’t seem like the Evan Bell I knew.

‘The person who hates me and despises me, why… why is he looking at me with such sad eyes?’

At a loss for words, I blankly looked up at Evan Bell. In moments like this, I didn’t know what I was supposed to say. At the same time, I didn’t feel like dismissing it as the ramblings of a drunk.

I hesitated, my lips parting as I tried to respond, when all of a sudden Evan Bell’s body tilted to the side and then collapsed straight down.

“…?”

I immediately got up and checked Evan Bell’s condition. I wondered if something had suddenly gone wrong with his health, but he was simply asleep.

He’d drunk himself silly, made a drunken fuss, and then passed out.

“Haa.”

In an instant, all the tension drained out of me, and I let out a faint sigh as I looked at Evan Bell’s softly sleeping face.

I’d been called out at four thirty in the morning, worried enough to come all the way here, only for it to end with me just indulging his drunken rambling. It felt utterly anticlimactic.

‘If this was all, then why did he even call me? If he hadn’t sent that letter telling me to come, I could’ve slept a bit longer.’

I wasn’t pleased about being summoned by Evan Bell at this hour, but I did have some fault toward him, and there was also the attachment that had formed from us sharing bodies all this time.

Grunting, I moved Evan Bell’s body, propped his head on a pillow, and carefully covered him with a blanket so he wouldn’t catch a cold.

By the time I finished, I was completely drained. Trying to move a man who was easily a head taller than me was bound to be exhausting.

The arm muscles I hadn’t used in a while throbbed dully. Anyone seeing me would think I’d just moved a massive wardrobe.

…If you only went by size, it wasn’t that different from a wardrobe.

While dawn slowly broke and I stood there in the dim darkness, panting heavily for breath, Evan Bell slept with his face scrunched up into all sorts of expressions.

‘Come to think of it, this is the first time I’ve ever seen Evan Bell asleep.’

I gently perched myself by the side of the bed and watched Evan Bell as he slept.

‘He should sleep more comfortably. I even put a pillow under his head so he’d sleep well.’

Thinking that, without realizing it, I stroked his head.

With just a few absent-minded movements of my hand, Evan Bell’s crumpled expression smoothed out cleanly, as if it had been ironed.

‘…He’s got a surprisingly cute side to him.’

A smile crept onto my lips before I belatedly realized what I’d done. Startled, I quickly pulled my hand back.

‘What am I doing to a grown adult man…!’

Flustered by my own actions, I covered my mouth with my hand. It was the same hand that had been stroking his hair just moments ago.

From between my fingers, a faint shampoo scent that wasn’t mine, probably Evan Bell’s, drifted up.

I could feel the heat rushing to my face in real time.

Afraid that Evan Bell might somehow catch me in the act, I immediately got up and fled his bedroom as if running away.

…And after that, today was the first time I was meeting Evan Bell again.

Unlike last time, the handwriting in the letter was neat, and the sentences were written in polite, respectful language.

In other words, today was the first day I was meeting him in his right mind since the day I’d hurt him with my sharp words.

It wasn’t hard to guess that the many examples the employee had given about Evan Bell acting strangely were also because of the bombshell declaration I’d dropped.

But it was a personal matter between Evan Bell and me, and even more so, it wasn’t something I should spill in detail to someone who wasn’t family, just a restaurant employee.

The genuine concern gathered in the eyes looking at me made my heart uncomfortable, but there was nothing I could do.

I played dumb.

“Um… well. I don’t really know either.”

“Ah, even you don’t know, Secretary….”

The employee looked sullen and showed disappointment for a brief moment, then customers entered the restaurant.

“Welcome. This is Bell Restaurant.”

The employee quickly wiped away his expression, put on the mechanical yet polite smile unique to service staff, and left his seat.

It was a good thing, since I was already feeling uncomfortable.

As I finished eating the remaining pasta like that, I suddenly sensed someone else’s presence in the seat where the employee who had disappeared had been sitting.

“Ah.”

When I lifted my head, a female employee whose face I knew, even though I’d never spoken to her directly, was sitting there.

She smiled brightly at me and said, “Hello, Secretary.”

“Ah, hello.”

“Are you here to see the boss again today?”

“Yes. The boss called for me.”

“Mmm. I see.”

The woman nodded with a smile.

She was speaking naturally, but her attitude was oddly probing. She pretended not to, but she was watching my reactions and appearance. Her eyes held not a trace of a smile.

‘Every time I come here, she stares at me so openly, and now she’s staring even when she’s sitting right in front of me.’

That was precisely why I recognized her face even though I’d never spoken to her directly.

At some point, whenever I suddenly felt someone’s gaze in the restaurant and turned my head, she was always there.

At first, I wondered if she had something to say to me and tried to approach her first. But she avoided her seat the moment I tried to get closer.

After that, the woman’s strange observation continued. Whenever the back of my head felt prickly, whenever it felt like someone’s gaze was boring into me, it was always her.

Even so, she never once spoke to me. She only watched from afar.

‘It’s not like she’s using a telescope, so why does she stare so much? I don’t know why she’s staring so intently, what she even plans to do by observing me like that?’

Being unilaterally observed by someone didn’t feel very good, but I didn’t come to the restaurant often, and I rarely ate meals here, so I decided to ignore it.

I also wanted to avoid creating trouble and dealing with something bothersome.

And so, over the months I visited Bell Restaurant, the person who had been persistently observing me was now sitting directly across from me.

The woman, nodding her head coquettishly, almost humming, suddenly brought up a very unfamiliar and abrupt topic at the table.

“Our boss is nice, right?”

“…Yes?”

“I mean, Mr. Evan Bell. He treats you well, doesn’t he?”

I had no idea what she was thinking by suddenly bringing up Evan Bell, so I remained silent.

The woman continued speaking, as if she’d been waiting for my silence.

“Mr. Bell treats the employees very well, you know. The pay is better than other places, and the benefits are good too. He’s a bit blunt, but he never swears at or snaps at the staff.”

“….”

“I worked outside the academy before, and it was really horrible. Pointing fingers and talking down to you was the norm, and I was lucky I didn’t get hit just because I was a woman. Sometimes even that pitiful salary would be delayed, and I don’t even know how much I suffered.”

“Ah, I see.”

I responded appropriately to the story filled with the hardships of a weary worker that followed.

“Compared to that, the boss is very kind and gentle. And he’s also more handsome and impressive than any man I’ve ever seen.”

‘Well, he is handsome, that’s true.’

I nodded as I recalled Evan Bell’s appearance.

I knew one more person who was handsome enough to compare, but I didn’t bother mentioning it.

The woman continued, “I was curious what it feels like to work so closely with someone like that. You’re his secretary and work close to him, so he must take better care of you than us, right?”

I still couldn’t tell what the woman was getting at, so I gave the most neutral answer possible.

“I don’t know. He does take care of me, but I don’t feel like he treats me especially well. Aren’t we all just employees to the boss?”

“Still, you assist the boss up close. Aren’t you closer to him than the other employees who work here?”

The woman smiled brightly, her eyes carrying a subtle pressure, as if she wanted to hear a specific answer from me.

It seemed like she wanted confirmation that I was quite close with Evan Bell, but I couldn’t tell what her goal was.

‘It wouldn’t be right to say we’re close just because his affection is around 40%.’

All we’d done so far was have a relationship without penetration, and that alone couldn’t be called being close.

Besides, on the surface, I was a secretary employed by Evan Bell for “work.” Showing off any closeness with him would only make things more troublesome.

“I was hired as a secretary to handle the boss’s personal matters, so I do see him up close, but I don’t think it would be right to say we’re close.”

“….”

“I’m just an employee hired because the boss needs me, like the other employees who work here. The work I do is just different.”

The moment I finished speaking, the woman’s face brightened as she asked me, “Then you’re not in any kind of relationship with the boss?”

“Huh?”

“You’re not interested in the boss, and the boss isn’t interested in you either, right?”

The woman’s eyes, which had been watching me as if probing just moments ago, now filled with vitality, expectation, and joy.

Seeing my awkward expression, she seemed to become convinced that Evan Bell and I had no interest in each other. With visible relief, she began chattering away about why she’d approached me.

“That’s a relief. Secretary, you’re not interested in the boss. I was worried about what I’d do if you were interested in him, but I guess I was worrying over nothing.”

“….”

“The boss is such a famous person, after all. You know, right? The empire’s greatest curiosity is who will become the boss’s wife.”

I had heard about it before through a servant. I’d forgotten about it until now.

“I thought you were a noble since you wear an academy uniform, so I didn’t pay much attention. No matter how rich he is, there’s no reason for a noblewoman to marry a commoner. It’s not like nobles lack money.”

“….”

“But Secretary, you’re a commoner, right? The moment I heard that, I got so anxious. You’re bound to get entangled with the boss a lot as his secretary, and I was worried about what I’d do if feelings developed between you.”

‘Why is she the one worrying about that?’

I felt puzzled inwardly but kept quiet and listened to what the woman was saying.

“Besides, Secretary, you’re a beauty that catches the eye the moment someone sees you. It’s not to the point that men can’t function just from seeing you walk by, but you do stand out. You have that unique… that distinctive calm atmosphere.”

“….”

“And that seems to suit the boss really well. The boss too, I mean, it’s a bit awkward to say this, but he doesn’t exactly have a warm impression. And since you’re the boss’s secretary, you probably work close to him, face-to-face, quite often. When that happens, feelings between a man and a woman can ignite in an instant.”

“….”

“Still, up until now, the boss seemed no different from before, so I thought nothing was going on. But recently, his condition has gotten much worse.”

‘Ah, no way.’

“I thought it was because the boss had fallen for you, Secretary, and that’s why he couldn’t pull himself together. From what we just talked about, isn’t that exactly it?”

The woman sought my agreement, but I didn’t answer. Even so, she didn’t seem to mind at all.

“But since you yourself said it’s not like that, my heart is completely at ease now. I’m really relieved. So, about that….”

The way she slowly trailed off her words felt strangely ominous.

Given the flow of the conversation so far, there was only one thing she could possibly be about to say.

And finally, she said exactly what I had expected.

“Since you don’t seem interested in the boss, if it’s all right, could you put in a good word for me with him?”

“….”