8 Jealous Ruu~
[A/N: There is a time skip of four years to fasten the pace here]
It has been four years since the Kleine family moved to Sephra. Their new house is in the nearby neighborhood, not too far away from the place where Ren lives.
Marylin and Ren's parents were quite good friends and former colleagues, so they frequently visited each other. Because of this, Mary and Ren also became good friends.
--------------------------------------------------------------------
*Ding dong.*
A dark-haired boy stood outside the house, pressing the doorbell. He looked no more than ten years old, with his facial features not visible due to his long bangs covering his eyes down to the tip of his nose. He stood there, holding a bouquet of roses in his hand.
The house was no different from other houses in the neighborhood, but it had a dojo attached to it and a big backyard. However, this dojo was not for training martial arts or spiritual arts to students but only for personal use by one person.
The nameplate of the house read:
[Marilyn Kleine]
[Mary Kleine]
Yes, this was Mary's new house that she and her mother shifted to, and the dojo was also for her personal use.
Since a very young age, Mary idolized her father as her role model. Her father was a swordsman and martial artist. She always dreamt of becoming like her father one day, but her father died. From then on, this wasn't just a dream but an important goal of her life. It was her father's wish to become the strongest swordsman in the whole Kingdom of Grav. When he died, Mary decided to fulfill his last wish and trained hard to achieve her goal.
In front of the house, "Coming," Mrs. Marilyn's voice could be heard from the other side of the door, followed by the footsteps.
Step, step...
"Oh Ruu~ thank God you came. Mary isn't eating anything, please help me." The moment Marylin saw Ren standing in front of her, she immediately asked him for a favor. In these couple of years, the relationship between Marylin and Ren has also improved drastically.
Sigh...
"Good morning Mrs. Marilyn. I think she is training again," Ren sighed as he greeted Marylin and assumed that Mary was practicing in the dojo, and he was spot on.
"Yes, Mr. Ren Hilton~. I'd like to request you to ask my daughter to come out of that da*n dojo. Please, it's a request." Marylin, for some reason, started talking politely, as if she was talking to some government official, and her tone was a little grumpy as well.
"I'll do that, but why are you using honorifics?" Ren agreed to her request, tilting his head in confusion, and his long hair changed its position, revealing his unusual golden eyes.
Gulp...
'I can't get used to his eyes even after all these years.' Marilyn thought to herself. It's true that Ren's eyes are a little otherworldly, and they captivate anyone who stares into them. It's not a hypnosis magic; his eyes are just that beautiful.
"It's because of you," Marilyn said in a slightly sullen mood.
"Huh? Because of me?" Ren was perplexed by the situation. He didn't remember doing anything.
"Yes, because you still call me Mrs. Marilyn even after I told you to call me just Marilyn or... mom." Marylin was pouting like a five-year-old.
"I can't do that since you are an elder, so I must use honorifics while talking to you. And Mary told me not to call her mom." Ren was baffled by that kind of expression and tried to explain himself.
"You only listen
to her, hmph." Marilyn huffed a little. By 'her,' she meant Mary. Ren was lost in his thoughts as he tried to come up with any ideas to please Marylin.
Step...
"Hey Ruu~, why don't we do this?" Marylin's whole persona changed. She smiled seductively as she gazed into Ren with her toothy smile. Slowly, she took a step forward, and Ren was pushed back a little.
Gulp...
"D-do what, Mrs. Marilyn?" Ren asked as he gulped and saliva went down his throat. This seductive appearance of Marylin was too much for his little heart to handle.
Touch...
Marilyn placed her slender fingers on Ren's chin and made him look at her. Ren was one head smaller than her, so he had to look at her with his face upward.
"Why don't you call me mother-in-law?" Marylin brought her lip near Ren's ears and whispered these words to him.
"W-What? I-I-I can't do that." Ren was flustered to the point that his whole body was on fire, as if someone turned up the temperature. Ren heard Marilyn's suggestion, and his face flushed to his ears. He got flustered by her idea.
Pat, pat...
"Hahaha, I was just kidding. Come inside." Seeing his meek behavior was a good dose of sugar for Marilyn. She patted him on his head and invited the flustered boy inside the house.
Ren immediately got inside the house and walked into the dojo, as he didn't want to handle Marilyn's mischief. Inside the dojo, there stood an extremely beautiful girl. She was practicing swordsmanship techniques by herself. Ren watched the girl from the dojo's entrance.
Strike, strike...
Every time she moved, Mary's silver thread-like hair fluttered in the air, and whenever she made a strike, she wore a determined expression.
Silence...
She stopped for a second.
The girl spotted Ren watching her from the corner of the room. She only looked at him for a second and then turned in the opposite direction and strode toward the middle-aged man in the middle of the room who was observing her carefully.
"Sir Antonio, how was it?" Mary asked. This red-headed old man was Mary's sword instructor, and he had been teaching her the art of swords for almost two and a half years.
"That was damn great! Your progress is tremendous in these last two years. It has been unbelievable. You'll leave me behind in some years," Sir Antonio said.
"But sir, it's all thanks to you," Mary tried to give him his share of credit.
Sigh...
"That's not true, dear. It's because you worked hard to improve your sword arts," Sir Antonio patted her on the head, and Mary was delighted to be praised.
"Bye." Then Sir Antonio left the dojo, while he smiled subtly at little Ren and passed by him.
'Why is she so happy when Sir Antonio pats her?' Ren thought. He felt his heart ache whenever Mary smiled for someone who was not him.
Crumble...
"Sh*t." Due to excessive force applied to his hands, the flower bouquet crumbled. Ren swiftly threw them out the window, but it didn't go unnoticed by Mary.
"What did you throw out of the window?" Mary asked as she walked toward Ren.
"Nothing, just some garbage." Ren tried to cover it up by saying this with an emotionless tone while looking toward his own feet.
"Why are you grumpy now? Did something happen?" Mary asked. It's not very often that Ren talks like this to her.
"Nothing, I just came to tell you that your mom is worried since you didn
't come to eat," Ren responded to Mary, still trying hard not to make eye contact with her.
"Fine, I am coming there, so you can wait for me in the living room. First, let me take a bath since I am all sweaty from all that training." Mary also didn't pry deeper into it and told him to wait in the living room.
Nod...
"Fine." Ren just nodded while turning to leave when suddenly someone grabbed the hem of his shirt.
"Huh?" Then Ren turned his face towards Mary, waiting for her to say something. She had a little blush on her face as she said,
"You don't have to be so jealous of Sir Antonio. You know that you will always remain my most important friend." Mary then showed a toothy smile and expected some kind of response from Ren.
"That's good." Saying this, Ren left towards the hall, thinking something like, 'I don't want to be just a friend but something more than a friend because I love you.'
In these four years, Ren has found out the root of his disease, and that's 'love.' He knows that his feelings towards Mary are love.
--------------------------------------------------------------------
When Ren left the dojo...
Slump...
Mary slumped down on her spot like she lost all of her energy. Even if it looked fine on the outside, from the inside, she was a mess.
"Ruu~ is so cute when he is jealous." It's not like Mary isn't aware of how Ren feels about her, but what she isn't sure about are her own feelings.
"Ah yes, that thing he threw out of the window." Suddenly, she got up from her spot and jumped out of the window, looking for the thing that Ren threw when he was all pouty like that.
"Hmph, you should at least give it to me since you brought it for me." Mary pouted as she looked around and saw a crumbled bouquet of flowers on the ground.
Sigh...
Mary sighed after seeing the sorry state of the bouquet and picked it up. She then re-entered the dojo from the same window she came from and placed the crumbled bouquet on the nearby table.
"I'll keep it in the vase since some flowers remain intact." For her, these ruined flowers were something she wants to treasure. Thinking that, she entered the bath and after washing herself, she dipped inside the bathtub and let the fatigue wash away.
"I know that Ren likes me. No! I don't think he likes me, but he loves me." Mary spoke as she let herself merge under the water in the bathtub.
"Yes, he is madly in love with me." She knows that Ren is in love with her, and for some reason, she doesn't hate it at all. If anything, she likes it when Ren is fawning over her, and she also doesn't hate the idea of being Ren's girlfriend or marrying him.
"If he confessed to me, should I accept it or not?" But this was the biggest question that she could easily solve, but a single person is in the way. If he was not there, she would have accepted Ren a long time ago. But from the moment she met this boy, she's been thinking about him endlessly.
"What is he doing right now? I want to know." Mary always seeks answers to questions like these.
"Adam Stales, where are you?" Yes, this boy is the reason for her confusion.
--------------------------------------------------------------------
