I Wish You Well In Your Next Love, My Love - Chapter 69
“……”
“Why don’t you just let me win this once and get it over with? I have to leave early tomorrow.”
Because of my bandage, his bedtime was being delayed with no end in sight.
I grew anxious.
My leg had to get better before Foundation Day, or it would interfere with my part-time job.
“…Then, just for today, please help me. If you show me how, I’ll do it myself from next time.”
“Fine then. Leg.”
Keeping one leg bent by force was quite uncomfortable, but not unbearable.
But apparently Gerard didn’t feel the same way.
“Will you die if it touches me?”
“No. It’s just a little embarrassing.”
“Think of it as receiving deep contact purification.”
Gerard straightened the leg I had bent and placed it over his thigh.
The posture did feel a little arrogant somehow…
I was so focused on getting treated that I did as Gerard said, but now that both my feet were fully exposed, embarrassment washed over me.
Gerard himself looked completely unaffected, though.
His careful eyes slowly examined my ankle.
It was as if even a gaze had temperature, because heat gathered wherever his eyes passed over.
I could see the top of my foot turning red, but how did it look in Gerard’s eyes?
Even drawing breath felt awkward.
“Does it hurt?”
He lightly held below my ankle bone. Even though it was swollen badly, his hand was so large that my ankle fit well within it.
“It’s fine as long as you don’t squeeze hard.”
At my answer, Gerard smiled a little.
“That sounds like you’re saying I can keep holding it.”
“…That’s not what I meant.”
Instead of the bandage, he picked up the medicinal compress.
Starting at my heel and going up to my ankle, he began to massage it, pressing and lifting the compress with steady force.
It was definitely more professional than the way I had been rubbing it on carelessly.
I had heard that since he got injured often in the field, when medical staff couldn’t be dispatched right away, he handled simple first aid himself. He was quite skilled.
“I thought this from the first time I met you, but you’re too thin.”
The first time.
Which ‘first time’ did he remember?
Among the countless encounters left in my head, I tried quite hard to find the one he could be referring to as the first.
It was probably that time at the Odriann manor when he accused me of being a thief.
“I thought I was lifting a doll, not a person.”
“That’s an exaggeration.”
Gerard said it while recalling that day.
When you lift a person, naturally you expect a certain average weight.
If I use about this much strength, that should do it.
But compared to the force Gerard had used, I had fluttered up far too lightly and pathetically.
He told me the rest of the story from that day, that because of that, he had nearly stumbled instead.
I had lost a little weight compared to three years ago, but was it really that much.
“Are there even any organs inside that torso of yours?”
“I wouldn’t know. I’ve never cut it open.”
“There’s no need to see. They’re probably only the size of beans.”
“Arvina’s build is similar to mine too. Wasn’t it just that you were surprised because it was your first time lifting a woman?”
“I see. Then what about you. Have you ever been carried?”
I hadn’t expected him to answer with a question of his own.
Other than Gerard, I really had never been carried or piggybacked by anyone.
Scratching my forehead, I said,
“Well, by my ex.”
“Ah. The one you said wore those clothes many sizes too big for you.”
“Yes.”
I hadn’t expected Gerard to remember that excuse I had thrown out in passing.
After that, there was no more conversation between us.
All that remained was the sound of the medicinal compress moving back and forth in his large hand over my ankle, and the faint noise drifting in from outside.
Gerard had always been the one to lead our conversations.
Once he decided to keep his mouth shut, I didn’t say anything more either.
