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Chapter 12. Swanhaden’s Pink Book

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Swanhaden carried around a strange pink book these days.

Before, he carried around self-help books focusing on personality improvement like ‘The Ethics of Man’ or ‘How to Be Called a Good Person’, but he was reading a weird pink book these days. I was curious about the title, but Swan piled on stickers where the title would go so I couldn’t tell. I thought I had seen it before, but I couldn’t remember it completely.

Swan came over to me often holding that pink book.

He always had that pink book of his in one hand with an uncomfortable-looking expression. After seeing Swan aggressively slam his hand on the wall at Hylli, I had unknowingly gotten scared of him. I couldn’t help but get nervous when he approached me. Thankfully, Swan hadn’t tried that wall slam on me. Oh, he tried something similar, but he muttered something about how he couldn’t do such a thing to me and left.

After that, instead of hitting the wall, he smiled at me as he crushed an apple with his fist, held up someone passing by with one arm, and ended up showing off his strength whenever he saw me. Then, he sighed as if he was embarrassed by the whole thing and disappeared.

It wasn’t an immediate threat towards me, but it felt…passively threatening. I wondered if I did something for him to get angry at me, but he never spoke of such a thing.

During break, I was sitting in class staring blankly at the chalkboard when a classmate tapped me and called for me.

“Shushu, Swanhaden is waiting outside. Go over there.”

I wondered what it was this time as I stood up. When I walked out the classroom, Swanhaden was standing right there. His glaringly attractive features shone in my eyes.

When I walked outside, Swanhaden walked towards me, eyes locked on the book. He seemed embarrassed about the situation for a moment as he rubbed the back of his neck. He began speaking.

“Hi. Baby bird.”

“What?”

He buried his face further into the book as he peered at the pages, then looked at me before speaking once more.

“Your eyes shine so brightly that the stars in the sky look dim in comparison.”

Swanhaden’s face began to crumble. So did mine.

What was he trying to say? I began thinking as I looked at Swan. He looked like he was forcing these words out of his mouth. He was speaking to me, but he sounded like he was reading a textbook with zero interest. I was confused if he was reading out loud or speaking to me.

Swan tousled his hair in annoyance as he continued to speak.

“Your clear, my name, see with your voic…..uh.”

“….what are you doing?”

“Damn it, I messed up the phrase.”

Swanhaden scowled as he clenched his hand into a fist. Then, he sighed again. I watched at Swan went through the stages of grief as I became more and more curious.

“What are you reading? What about a clear voice?”

At my question, Swanhaden’s face stiffened as he avoided my gaze. He quickly shut his book.

“…..It’s Hylli’s journal.”

“…..?”

“Never mind. Good luck in class.”