Chapter 23: Strawberry Macaron
by Meher“Hahh…”
At my touch, a small, hot breath escaped Luna’s lips.
Her reaction was a little more intense than Elice’s. I carefully removed my hand from her ear and took a step back.
Then I asked her, “I’m not entirely sure… if this is the right way to do it.”
With an awkward expression, I returned to my seat.
“I heard from Elice that this is a pleasant greeting among beast-humans. I wanted to honor your courage with the proper respect, in the beast-human way.”
At my words, the hardness in Luna’s red eyes softened.
“So that’s what it was… Elice…”
She nodded and continued, “That’s right… This greeting… among us beast-humans, it’s a compliment, and the second… most pleasant greeting.”
Then, with flushed cheeks, she looked up at me and added in a very small, yet clear voice, “From now on… please do it often, Sir.”
“I will,” I replied with a smile of my own.
Luna had said this was the second most pleasant greeting.
Unable to contain my curiosity about that strange ranking, I added, “Next time, I hope you’ll be the one to teach me the first most pleasant greeting.”
At my words, Luna gave me a deep, enigmatic smile.
“Ah… the first greeting…”
As if sharing a secret, she gently brought a white finger to her red lips and whispered softly, “That’s for later. A little later. I’ll… be sure to tell you.”
Luna replied with a smile.
“Understood. I’ll be looking forward to it.”
I smiled back, feeling pleased.
Good.
This would be a fine place to end today’s session. Honestly, it couldn’t have been more perfect.
I had mended her deep wound, planted the courage to face it—albeit in a limited way—and finally, convinced her to lift the veil herself.
It seemed right to stop here for today. I decided it was best to send her back while this positive experience was still fresh.
“In that case, would it be all right to conclude our session for today? You showed great courage, so I think it would be good for you to get some rest.”
With the satisfaction of having wrapped everything up perfectly, I asked her with a gentle smile.
But Luna, shattering my expectations, tilted her head.
“No…?” she asked back with an innocent smile, as if I’d said something absurd. “It’s been twenty-three minutes and twenty-three seconds… twenty-four seconds. My session is still a little shorter than… Elice’s.”
“…Pardon?”
For a moment, I doubted my own ears.
“And, since I showed you my ears… I need time to get used to this appearance, too.”
Luna turned the very reasons for counseling I had given her back on me, adding an extremely rational justification.
“Also, I’m curious about your impressions… of seeing my true form. It would be educational, helping me prepare for how others might react.”
I didn’t quite understand her first reason, but the ones that followed were convincing. It was only natural for Luna to be curious.
No, in fact, it was the most desirable request a client could make—one who was actively confronting her problems instead of avoiding them.
“Ah, yes. I hadn’t considered that. I appreciate your proactive attitude. The courage to face one’s situation directly is the most important part of any treatment.”
At my sincere praise, Luna’s cheeks faintly reddened once more.
The session wasn’t over yet.
*
The counselor didn’t know, but…
From the moment she had revealed her ears, Luna hadn’t taken her eyes off him for a single second.
Now that she had exposed her most shameful feature, she wanted to know exactly how he saw her. With the transcendent senses of a top-tier beast-human, she was scrutinizing every single place his gaze landed.
But as expected, the counselor was gentle and gentlemanly, befitting his profession. He was different from the nobles of the Empire and all the other men she had encountered in her life.
He looked her straight in the eye, focusing on their conversation. He merely offered a pleasant smile toward the rabbit ears she had considered a lifelong wound, his gaze holding no trace of curiosity, disgust, or any other unwanted emotion.
And his eyes never strayed to unnecessary places, like her chest or her legs.
Perfect respect for his client. An impeccable, gentlemanly attitude. Behavior more noble than any nobleman’s.
And yet, strangely, Luna felt no sense of relief.
Instead, a stifling, anxious feeling began to bubble up from a corner of her heart.
Why?
Hadn’t he said she was beautiful? If so, she wanted him to prove it.
It wasn’t just her ears. Her ears, her chest, her lips. She wanted him to look more at all the things he had praised as beautiful.
Luna found herself craving the counselor’s gaze.
In her impatience, her hand unconsciously slid up toward the top button of her black blouse. If she unbuttoned it like Elice, would he look at her then?
Ah?
The cold touch of the button startled her, and she looked down at her hand as if it wasn’t her own. She hastily brought it back to her lap.
What was I about to do…?
A single kernel of reason remained, just enough for Luna to control this new emotion.
It was then that the counselor’s gaze flickered to the clock on the wall for a brief moment before returning gently to her. It was a fleeting movement that only a beast-human like Luna could have noticed.
Then, he very naturally covered the index and middle fingers of his left hand with his right palm.
Ah…
That was the subconscious tic he displayed in every session, the tell that he was about to say it was time to end. If so, the words that would follow were obvious, but…
“…”
The counselor said nothing. He simply looked at Luna with a gentle smile.
He was being considerate again. Because she had been so stubborn earlier, insisting she wanted to continue the session, he had revised his plan and was waiting for her to say she was ready first.
Right. To continue any longer would be discourteous.
Luna spoke first. “Sir, thank you so much for the session today. This is enough.”
At her words, the counselor nodded, looking satisfied. He was smiling, but there was no trace of relief or annoyance that the session was finally over. Instead, he maintained a consistently praising attitude.
For a moment, that final act of consideration made her chest grow warm again…
No.
“Yes, it was a good time for me as well.”
With the counselor’s farewell, the day’s session came to an end.
He stood up and turned his gaze toward the door, as if to see her out. Then his eyes landed on his bag, which was sitting to his right. For a fleeting moment, his expression flashed with surprise before faintly contorting.
What’s wrong…?
But the counselor, acting as if nothing had happened, put on a gentle smile again and continued, “You worked hard in our session today. The next house call will be on Friday. I’ll see you then.”
“…Yes, thank you, Sir.”
With those words, Luna left the counseling office, simultaneously using Camouflage to make her ears disappear. She didn’t want anyone else to see them.
The door closed, and Luna, left alone in the hallway, immediately started walking. She turned a corner and leaned her back against a cold, empty wall.
Then, she stared blankly at her own two hands.
“What the…”
There was nothing in Luna’s hands. But she was sure, absolutely sure, that when she had run into Elice in front of the office earlier, her sister had been holding something.
A vanilla macaron that he had given her.
But Luna hadn’t received anything.
It wasn’t that she just wanted to eat a macaron. She wanted to eat a macaron given to her by the counselor. To receive it directly from his hand, to let it melt in her mouth, to savor its taste.
“Why… didn’t he give one to me…?”
A small, childish voice full of disappointment escaped her lips.
Did I do something wrong…?
Had she bothered him too much?
At the end, I was too stubborn…
I shouldn’t have done that…
With heavy, listless steps, Luna returned to the Union Guild’s lounge. Somehow, she felt even more drained than before the session.
She carefully opened the lounge door. Many people were still there. And in the center, on the most comfortable sofa, Elice was still holding her spot.
Next to Elice, who was engrossed in a game on her phone, lay the now-empty vanilla macaron wrapper from earlier.
‘…’
Luna cautiously approached. Elice seemed so focused on her game that she didn’t appear to notice her sister’s return.
However.
Sniff, sniff.
Elice’s nose twitched. Her fingers, tapping away at the game, stopped for a moment. Like a herbivore that had sensed a predator, she slowly whipped her head around.
And there stood Luna.
Elice’s red eyes widened. She, too, was taken aback. A scent was coming from her sister—one she had never smelled before, a scent so sweet it was maddening… and yet dangerous at the same time.
Elice hid her shocked expression and asked in a serious voice, “Sis… your session… did it go well…?”
“Yeah.”
But Luna showed little interest in her sister’s question. She just slumped down listlessly into the seat next to Elice.
Was I imagining it…?
Elice tilted her head and, with a confused heart, turned her attention back to her phone.
It was then that a man stood up from the nobles’ lounge area across the room.
“A citizen of the Empire should not neglect their mental fortitude.”
It was Ryan, the second son of an Imperial Count. The other nobles who usually flanked him seemed to be out on a group mission. Perhaps that was why he felt free from the judgment of others.
With an elegant gait, he approached Luna.
Luna knew. She knew this was the man who always stared at her with blazing eyes mixed with lust. It was the same now. His gaze was persistently raking over her from head to toe.
“Beast-human,” he called her by the derogatory term. “What could possibly change from listening to the ramblings of some lowborn marketplace clown who presumes to speak on matters of the mind?”
Ryan continued with a confident expression, “If you wish it, I myself can teach you a noble method of discipline to correct that unstable mind of yours.”
The usual Luna would have simply ignored him with a blank face and walked away. And Elice, who was next to her, would have snapped, “Fuck off, you asshole,” in her stead.
However.
However, right now, Luna was in a very bad mood.
Moreover, this time, his insults weren’t directed at her alone. There was the insult to herself, and the insult to her one and only counselor.
A sense of loss, a feeling of lack… and anger. All these chaotic emotions were swirling precariously within her.
And Ryan’s arrogant remark was like pouring oil on a fire.
Just as Elice was about to stand up as usual, Luna’s head rose, very slowly.
There was no resignation or sadness in her red eyes. Instead, the corners of her mouth were pulled up into a soft smile.
But her eyes weren’t smiling at all.
As if posing a question, Luna spoke softly, “In the Empire, the best way to distinguish between a commoner and a noble is the use of magic. Isn’t that right?”
Luna tilted her head and, as if genuinely curious, continued with her next question. “So, if you were to crush both of a noble’s hands so they could never use magic again…”
Her voice was utterly innocent.
“Would that make them a commoner from that day forward?”
A silence fell over the lounge, stopping all noise. The clinking of coffee cups, the murmur of conversations—everything vanished as if it were a lie.
Every hunter in the room was staring at Luna.
Ryan’s face turned deathly pale, drained of all color. Because her red eyes held not the gaze of the usual Luna, but the eyes of a predator, right before it sinks its teeth into a neck.
Unaware of his terror, or perhaps simply ignoring it, Luna added one last thing with clear eyes.
“I was just… suddenly curious.”
And Elice, watching the whole scene unfold, stared at her sister with an expression of utter astonishment.
*
Meanwhile.
In Yoo Seon-woo’s counseling office.
“How did this happen…”
Yoo Seon-woo was staring at the macaron in his hand.
The moment he’d opened his bag to give it to Luna, he had seen it.
The large crack running across the top of the macaron.
“I can’t… give her this.”
On a normal day, it might have been fine… but as a gift to commemorate the perfect first step she had taken in breaking through her trauma, it was far too imperfect.
His ego as a counselor wouldn’t allow it.
With a sigh of disappointment, Yoo Seon-woo tore open the macaron’s wrapper.
“I’ll just make her something better next time,” he muttered to himself and popped the macaron, with its strong strawberry scent, into his mouth.
A strawberry shortcake would be good, right?
She likes strawberries, after all, he thought to himself.
Translated By: Meher (RaidenTL)
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