Secret Admirer; In The Land Of Fairies
07. Companions

My reunion with Zoe in the back garden created a funny grunt from Zoe. I don't stop begging for forgiveness even though Zoe's nagging at me is still heard. Along the way to the schoolyard, Zoe kept holding my hand. Dara Borsche reasoned, so that I would not disappear as suddenly as before. I just obeyed, and I returned his hand. We who walk together so like a pair of friends who do not want to be separated from each other.

Maybe thanks to this warm grasp, I no longer worry about the gaze of the students who are still on me.

In the end, we got back in the car. Along with the resumption of our little journey, I turned my head back. I stared at the school building with the fairy statue pool that was getting away. The school gates passed and the trees on the side of the road covered the building.

I returned my gaze to the front, and there was already a sea that had amazed me on the way to school. Zoe offered me to come down, just enjoy the view up close. I am glad to accept that offer.

"That's so lovely!" I said, unable to resist admiration.

I was very enthusiastic when my feet had stepped on the edge of the road wide enough. The fence stretched into a boundary, vines whose flowers are still budding also decorate it. I held carefully the handle of the fence that bound the land and sea down there. When I tried to look down, I quickly realized that I was standing at the top of a cliff. Instantly, I also shuddered in horror. The shadow that flashed through my mind instantly flashed.

"Fucking muram. If I fall, I will die immediately" I said, taking a step back.

"A good place to kill yourself, right?" Zoe was clearly a very good partner to reconstruct the terrible shadow that I was trying to eliminate with great difficulty.

"Zoe!"

"I heard someone killed themselves in a breakup here. His spirit was floating around the people visiting this place."

"Zoe! Stop it!"

Zoe couldn't hide her laughter from seeing my frightened self.

"Are you afraid of ghosts, Kim?" Zoe Goda.

"Of course not!" I tried to dodge it, but from my expression and voice alone, my lies were clearly visible.

Zoe then took me through a special pedestrian descent that became part of the cliff so that I could see the sea level closer. At first I did not want to, but because the place was fairly safe and the surrounding conditions were not windy, I agreed.

Of course I walked behind Zoe by tightly holding her hand!

"Just get here" said Zoe as she led me to stop beside her.

Unlike at the top, what I saw this time was much more amazing. The flickering of golden light on the sea surface was becoming clearer. I've never seen the sea this close. McReych has no landscapes, while Fairille has forests and the sea. The tingling aroma that came from the sea was no less astounding to me. I just first smelled a unique smell like this.

"It's really amazing...."

"I'm glad to see you happy like this, Kim."

I looked at Zoe, then smiled at her.

"Of course it's thanks to you, Zoe. If you weren't by my side, I don't know what I'd do in Fairille. Thank you Zoe!"

"No need to be confused. We are friends."

Zoe's words made me wail. Companions. After spending years with Marsha, Felly, and Sophi at McReych, they no longer consider me. I thought we were friends. But apparently there is someone who cares about me and thinks of me as his best friend.

Emotionally, I hugged Zoe who then returned my embrace. I couldn't hold back my tears behind Zoe's back, but I brushed off the trail of tears a few times so Zoe wouldn't notice. When I was done, I took off the hug and put on a sweet smile.

"Oh, yes." Suddenly I remembered something when I saw Zoe's smiling eyes. "You never told me you had a brother!"

Presumably Zoe was surprised by my sudden protest. "Because it's not important? Because what matters is our friendship."

I'm pouting. Deliberately putting on such a face, indeed, because I tried so hard not to cry anymore. My heart is touched of course. For me now, Zoe Borsche is one of the most important people I have.

"Your face why is it like that? Don't you like having friends like me?"

Hearing such a question, I immediately shook my head. I don't want Zoe to misunderstand me. "N-not like that!"

"Or-You have a crush on Max, huh?" But it looks like Zoe's misunderstanding is getting worse and mentioning Max. Zoe used to blink one eye of all. "That's why you're mad because I didn't introduce Max to you."

Zoe laughed amusedly. "I'm just kidding, Kim. Why are your cheeks so red?"

"Uh... It's not about Max." I'm trying to clarify. "I just feel like you know a lot about me, but I don't know much about you."

Zoe just smiled at me. I don't know why I still feel like there's something Zoe's been hiding from me.

"Why are you looking at me like that?" manyaku.

"I'm not looking at you" said Zoe, facing the sea. Both of his hands then stretched upwards. The next speech seemed to deliberately change the topic of our conversation. "Ah~ If only I had wings like a fairy, I would have crossed this ocean."

But this topic, I really can't ignore it. "Peri.... Zoe, do you believe in fairies?"

"Why suddenly ask? Do you believe in fairies, Kim?"

"I'm not really a person who believes such a thing."

At McReych, such fantasy is believed to exist only in books, movies, or video games, which are limited to entertainment. If anyone believes it, society will consider him crazy or addicted to drugs. Rather than that, the McReych people are more obsessed with technology and modernization.

"But you're afraid of ghosts."

"That's something different!" my sergeant. I clasped my hands at each other, nervous. "I'm just curious. Because in our school there is a fairy statue, even two. It's impossible if it doesn't have meaning."

"Uhm. Did you know there's a legend in town, Kim?"

"Legend?"

I don't know why I feel blood on my body whirring strangely.

"Yes. A very famous legend among the inhabitants of this city. Even though most of them just consider it nonsense."

"What is that, anyway?" manya curious.

"The legend that tells of the city we live in was once the land of the fairies - where the fairies lived, part of a vast forest."

Land fairy? Did I not hear wrong?

I immediately raised my face and looked behind Zoe's back. In the distance, on top of the other side of the cliff, there is a forest that I guess access can be passed from the back garden of the school.

"You mean, that forest is the forest left over from where the fairies used to be?"

My pointer that led to the forest I was referring to had come to our attention. Zoe nodded, then asked.

"Do you believe it?"

"That's..just superstition right? There really isn't."

"Eitherway. Although many disagree, but a few believe it." Zoe's voice sounded sincere and gentle, like a gentle breeze through us. "Include me."

Not likely. Zoe believed?

"You... really believe it, Zoe?"

"Yes, I believe."

In Zoe's final sentence, I was no longer able to say. There was an inner turmoil within me that was fighting each other: a part of me wanted to believe, but more than that was reluctant to accept it. Though I had gotten carried away and wanted to help the fairy prince to find his daughter. But if it is logical, where could the fairy exist, right? I don't understand why I think so.

If only the fairies had actually been here, would their existence still exist today? And, what figures of the prince and the fairy princess are there as well?

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