To Be the Perfect Childhood Friend - Chapter 97

Anita glanced sideways at Rutger, who was also looking down at her. Despite the silence, she could feel a reprimanding tone from his gaze.

“Well, it wasn’t unusable” 

“Oh, that’s what you say when you don’t know. Remember last year? A worker fell from that iron staircase. Thankfully, he survived, but he’s now confined to a wheelchair for life.”

Anita, trying to avoid Rutger’s piercing gaze, muttered her excuse.

“There were no warning signs.”

“Well, you should have seen it… Ugh, never mind.”

Was it really worth sighing over?

“And you, refusing to go to the hospital despite having a torn palm.”

“So, did they say I’d never use my hand again? I don’t think so.”

Grumbling and getting hit with a direct hit, Anita finally spoke up.

“Who said I’d fall and be in a wheelchair for the rest of my life?”

“Don’t you have to fall to understand that?”

Her mouth clamped shut like a shell. Anita didn’t consider herself a person who couldn’t speak, but she always felt that way with Rutger.

“Fine. I’ll take care of removing the iron stairs or putting up a sign, so just leave it at that…”

“It should have been done earlier. What’s the use of doing it after an accident has already happened?”

Liliana waved her hand with an annoyed expression.

“Why are you directing the blame at me? The worker fell while going down to demolish the stairs.”

Anita shivered as she heard this. The fact that she had just stood in the place where someone had fallen made her feel cold. It was a relief that it only ended in injury; if someone had died, Anita would have spent several nights awake in distress.

“Where are you going?”

After a while, Anita noticed that Liliana was wearing an outfit she had never seen before. It looked like white riding pants with a red jacket, quite different from the chiffon dresses she usually wore. Curious about the unusual attire, Anita asked Liliana:

“Oh, we were on our way to a fox hunt.”

“Hunting?”

“Anita, you can’t come along… never mind.”

Liliana, who had been chatting cheerfully, suddenly became serious.

“We can’t just take a beginner into the forest. That’s ridiculous. Go over to the shooting range and practice beforehand. I’ve seen your shooting skills, and they’re a mess.”

Under the pressure of Liliana’s insistence, Anita found herself nodding without realizing it. Liliana gave Anita’s shoulder a couple of encouraging pats before heading towards the forest.

Having the opportunity to learn and later regretting not taking it seemed worse than just giving it a try. So, Anita headed towards the practice shooting range.

“Is your shooting skill that bad?”

Feeling unjustly chastised, Anita stared fixedly at the stones on the ground.

“……”

“It’s not a bad thing to learn, though.”

Since Anita didn’t respond, Rutger changed the subject. He picked up a rifle from the stand and checked the chamber and magazine. As he examined the rifle, Anita watched him. It was still hard to believe that he was standing right in front of her.

Just the evening before, he had been in his hometown, Rohen. Without the phone call, she wouldn’t have heard his voice at all, considering how far away he was.

“Is it still far off?”

“No. It’s almost done.”

He approached Anita holding the rifle.

“We need to attach the magazine here.”

“I can load it myself.”

Not wanting to build a more incompetent image, Anita responded quickly.

“Really?”

He handed Anita the ammunition and the rifle. As she inspected the rifle to load it, she suddenly looked up, and their eyes met.

“There’s no need. You can watch like that…”

He crossed his arms and stared intently at her. Anita, feeling uncomfortable with his excessive attention, subtly asked him to look elsewhere, but it seemed he didn’t understand.

“Why?”

“……”

“What if something happens with the firearm?”

Realizing he had a point, Anita turned her focus back to the rifle. Before the semester ended, she had learned how to load ammunition at the shooting club. The rifles she had loaded before had worked perfectly. However, her hands seemed to slip over the barrel as if coated in oil, and the cartridges that were supposed to go into the chamber kept falling to the floor.

Anita glanced up. As expected, he was watching her with one eyebrow raised and a displeased expression.

She felt a sense of injustice. If he hadn’t been so persistently watching, she might not have made half of the mistakes she did today. However, Anita, who knew from years of experience that arguing wouldn’t change anything, just offered an awkward smile.

“You said you knew how to load it?”

“Yes, I did. I did, but…”

Rutger, who had been leisurely observing her foolish actions with his arms crossed, approached Anita. He then supported her right hand, which was holding the ammunition, from below.

“What are you doing?”

The moment his hand touched hers, Anita felt as if her soul had left her body and she barely returned to reality. The bullet that had fallen from her limp hand landed neatly in Rutger’s hand.

“……”

“I’m sorry.”

“There’s no need to apologize.”

He responded calmly, then placed the bullet back in Anita’s hand. His hand gently guided hers.

Click.

Without Anita realizing it, the bullet was loaded into the chamber by her own hand.

She should have said that she could do it on her own. Before she could even open her mouth, Rutger repeated the sequence of actions—placing the bullet in her hand and guiding it into the chamber. Anita found herself holding a loaded rifle without even realizing how it happened.

But… isn’t this a bit too close? The thought crossed her mind, but she quickly dismissed it. Following her new life motto, she decided not to dwell on it.