Me After Meeting You

“Oh, Elly’s lawyer ….” The little girl’s mother glanced at her husband before asking, “Isn’t she crazy? Does a crazy murderer need a lawyer too?”

“Yes. The main purpose is to verify whether or not Elly’s mental illness is real.”

“It should be real. She was always running up that hill for some unknown reason, hiding in the grave yard at night. If she were normal, why would she do something like that?”

“Really? Did you know her?” Amber felt invigorated by the promising information. “Then do you know when Elly started exhibiting such behavior?”

“Probably a year or two ago.”

“And in these last two years, did she encounter anything unusual?”

“Something unusual … I’m not sure.”

“I know.” Before she could finish, the little girl eating candy by the side crisply replied, “She was bullied by her classmates, and then she went crazy.”

“What are you saying!” Both the Stanley reprimanded her at the same time. Mr. Stanley even for sook his kind demeanor, pulling at the little girl’s arm harshly.

The little girl, shocked and frightened, dropped all of her candy onto the ground and started to cry.

Amber wanted to go over and pacify the little girl, but Mr. Stanley blocked her. He quickly pushed the child behind him and said, “Sorry for the bother, our child was speaking non sense. If there isn’t anything else, then we’ll be leaving.”

“Mr. Stanley,” Amber said in an attempt to stop him. “Your behavior makes me suspect that you’re related to Elly’s bullying incident.”

Upon hearing this, Mr. Stanley, who had wanted to walk around Amber, stopped short, glanced at his wife to instruct her to leave with their child first, and stayed behind to look at Amber. “What do you mean, related? As a lawyer, aren’t you aware that libel is a crime?”

“Pardon me, but I’m not accusing you. I’m just saying that your actions could potentially spur misunderstandings.”

“Misunderstandings? What misunderstandings?” Mr. Stanley completely dropped his warm and caring demeanor, and spoke fiercely. “Just based on what a little child said?”

“Children’s words can indeed serve as evidence in court, as long as their words are logical.”

“Then why don’t you have her go to court? If we hide her away, what can you do?” And with those words, Mr. Stanley turned around and left in a hurry.

Amber chased after him for a few steps, but given that the light sources in the plaza were rather weak and how many people there were, she lost sight of him quickly.

Turning back, she found that Ian was still standing at their original location, completely non chalant as usual.

“Ah, you should have helped me stop him from leaving.” She wasn’t grumbling, just saying whatever popped into her mind.

But who would have expected Ian to reply, “How’s it my problem?”

Given that he had been so helpful this entire trip, his sudden question left Amber lurching in surprise. After she recovered, she joked, “Aren’t we friends? As friends, don’t you have a moral obligation to help me?”

Ian glanced at her deeply, until even Amber felt embarrassed. She touched her nose, and changed the topic. “Eh, shall we go then? It’s fine even if we didn’t stop him. He has a name and a position, and I can always find him later whenever I want.”

Amber had conscientiously found a wayout of her embarrassing situation. Ian didn’t say anything, but after the two got back into the car and had driven far away, he suddenly said, “I’ll try my best!”

At that point, Amber had been looking at Ruby’s chat. After he had finished his duties, he had seen her post, remembered her request, and asked, “You’re not on break today, so why are you travelling so far?”

Amber was just thinking about how to respond when she heard Ian’s statement. Her face clueless, she asked, “What?”

“I will do my best to treat you as my girlfriend.”

Amber blinked for a moment, before finally understanding that this was his response to her joke from earlier. She couldn’t help but go ‘ng’ from the shock. “It’s alright, you don’t have to force yourself ….”

Ian was even quite proud of his answer. “It’s no problem.”

Amber was speechless. Communicating with him was really unexpectedly difficult. She had planned to smooth things over with him and to understand him better, but was diverted from her plans by a call from Ruby. After the call ended, she noticed a problem. “Why aren’t we here yet?” Looking outside, the surroundings were pitch black, and the city lights were very far away. “Where are we going? Aren’t we returning to the hotel?”

Ian responded, “No.”

“Why? I still have the room card, and what about Mr. Charlie? Are we just leaving him on his own?”

She asked a whole slew of questions, but Ian answered them all with a single short sentence. “Mr. Charlie will handle it on his own.”

“….”

She had thought that, having finally received a breakthrough, that she could just go find the math teacher tomorrow and dig out the truth through an emotional appeal. “Alright.” Given how things had played out, she could only relent, jokingly shed a few tears, and understandingly say, “Going back is fine too. You haven’t eaten much today, though.”

Ian looked at her through the rearview mirror. “Your words don’t match your feelings.”

Amber’s face fell. “Even if you’ve realized that, you don’t have to say it out loud.”

Ian smiled, his usual, very light smile, but Amber could see that he wasn’t feeling bad today.

And so the happy Ian decided to try a bit harder. “Given the way those people were all hiding the truth from the outside world, you won’t be able to dig out more information without resorting to tricks. Don’t worry about these kinds of things. I’ll have Mr. Charlie handle it for you.”

“Is that fine?” Amber was worried.

“Money solves all problems.”

Amber was once again struck speechless by the behavior of the rich.

When they finally got back to the city, it was almost 11 PM. The two lived quite far apart, and Amber didn’t want to bother him too much, so she planned on having Ian to drop her off somewhere and taking a taxi back home.

But before she could get off, she received another call from the hospital. There had been another incident related to Elly. The residual effects of her repeated tranquilizer shots were finally manifesting, and she was even more rambunctious than usual tonight, going as far as to harm herself.Content from NôvelDr(a)ma.Org.

The nurse keeping watch didn’t dare to restrain her again and had to call Amber.

And now, even if she didn’t want to trouble Ian, she had to do so regardless. At the very least, Ian didn’t say anything upon hearing her story. He wordlessly directly drove her to the hospital.

Amber thanked him in a hurry before getting out of the car and running into the hospital.