Early in the morning, Kolin slowly opened his eyes from his dreams. He didn’t get out of bed to wash up as usual, but instead turned his gaze toward Eleanor, who was by the bedside, lifting one side of the blanket as if trying to crawl in and sleep with him. To Eleanor, who had paused her movements due to his gaze, Kolin slowly asked.
“…Is there something you need?”
“I’m here to wake you up,” Eleanor said calmly.
“Then why do you look like you’re trying to crawl into bed?”
“Because I wanted to try a different approach.”
Facing Kolin’s question, Eleanor remained very calm, without any panic, as if it were an ordinary trivial matter.
But Kolin frowned slightly, showing some displeasure.
“Before you try that kind of approach, you should have asked for my consent first, shouldn’t you?”
With that, Kolin didn’t wait for Eleanor’s reply. He directly got out of bed, ignored Eleanor, and started washing up on his own.
In response, Eleanor’s fists clenched briefly, but quickly relaxed. She put on a gentle smile again, walked toward Kolin, and asked.
“Do you have any plans today? How about… going out for a walk with me again?”
Hearing Eleanor’s question, Kolin didn’t answer immediately. Only after finishing his wash did he reply under Eleanor’s gradually impatient gaze.
“Sure.”
Hearing this, Eleanor seemed surprised. She hadn’t expected Kolin to agree so easily to her suggestion. She thought he would have no interest at all. She had even prepared persuasive words, but now they were all useless.
Of course, Eleanor wouldn’t get angry because her prepared persuasion failed. On the contrary, she said happily.
“Really? That’s great! I’m looking forward to our date today!”
After saying that, Eleanor ignored Kolin and ran out of the room alone, as if she wanted to prepare before the official date began. But because of this, as Eleanor was happily lost in her own excitement, she didn’t notice that Kolin didn’t show any happy expression at all. Instead, he seemed somewhat… serious, as if he had made an important decision.
—
On the street, Eleanor fidgeted excitedly with her clothes while looking around expectantly. She was dressed very beautifully today, clearly putting in a lot of effort. The reason she was standing here was because she was waiting for Kolin’s arrival.
Eleanor hadn’t left the villa together with Kolin; instead, she came to the street first, slightly separating from him. Although Kolin didn’t understand why she wanted to do this, Eleanor convinced him by calling it a romantic gesture, and so this situation came about.
Eleanor had been waiting here for five minutes. Although it wasn’t very long, considering that today might be a very important day, she was both excited and anxious in addition to her anticipation. This made her feel that time was passing even more slowly, to the point where she even regretted arranging to meet separately like this.
Fortunately, Kolin didn’t keep her waiting long. Just as Eleanor started to feel a hint of regret, Kolin appeared in her field of vision wearing casual clothes.
This immediately made Eleanor cast aside all her previous thoughts, and she became extremely excited. But soon, Eleanor’s brow furrowed slightly again, because she noticed that although Kolin was wearing casual clothes, he looked no different from usual. Whether it was his attire or some details, it didn’t seem like he was going on a date, but rather just an ordinary shopping trip. This made Eleanor somewhat dissatisfied, but since it was a date, she didn’t say anything more. Still, this matter cooled her originally happy mood a few degrees.
Kolin didn’t notice the slight change in Eleanor’s mood. Perhaps he simply didn’t care. Anyway, Kolin showed no abnormality. After meeting up with Eleanor, he asked about the plan for this outing.
Since this outing was proposed by Eleanor, she was also the one making the plans. And she used the need to maintain an air of mystery as an excuse, unwilling to reveal too much to Kolin. So before meeting up, Kolin only knew that he had to come here first; he had no idea about what would happen afterward.
Facing Kolin’s question, Eleanor acted a bit mysteriously. First, she said.
“Don’t be so nervous, it’s just a casual stroll.”
Then she pulled Kolin toward a women’s clothing store.
Just as they were about to enter the store, Kolin forcibly stopped. He first looked at the situation inside the store, then looked at Eleanor, wanting to ask why they were here.
However, Eleanor shyly explained that because she was a Saintess, she didn’t have many elaborately decorated clothes to wear. This time she wanted to buy a few popular pretty clothes and hoped Kolin could give some advice.
Although Kolin was very skeptical of Eleanor’s reason, when he thought about what he was planning to do, he nodded and reluctantly agreed to Eleanor’s idea.
Eleanor was overjoyed, and as if afraid Kolin might change his mind, she quickly pulled him into the store.
Just after entering the store, Kolin noticed that most of the gazes inside were focused on him. This was normal, after all, it was a women’s clothing store, and no matter how you looked at him, he was not a woman.
Although Kolin didn’t care much about these gazes, facing such a vast array of women’s clothing in front of him, he still felt somewhat awkward. And at that moment, he could feel the gazes watching him grow more intense. This made him, who had been indifferent, feel a bit nervous.
Fortunately, after seeing Eleanor beside Kolin, those gazes seemed to understand something and all stopped looking their way. This made Kolin relax a bit.
Unlike Kolin, Eleanor was completely unaffected by these gazes. She was cheerfully pulling Kolin toward a pile of women’s underwear, as if she wanted to choose one she liked.
Seeing this, Kolin looked very embarrassed, but he didn’t know how to refuse Eleanor, so he just let her do whatever she wanted.
After a while, Kolin finally broke free from this terrifying state. But that didn’t mean he was safe. On the contrary, he faced another even more embarrassing situation.
The reason he was able to get out of this was not due to his own efforts, but because Eleanor had already picked out her clothes and gone into the fitting room, ready to change and show Kolin. This made Kolin, who had just escaped from hell, feel like he had stepped into an even more terrifying purgatory.
After an extremely agonizing period of time, Kolin finally waited for Eleanor to come out in her changed clothes. But the moment he looked at her, he quickly averted his gaze. Because Eleanor was only wearing underwear!
“How do I look? Is this set nice?” Eleanor said cheerfully. Seeing Kolin looking away, she stubbornly moved her body in front of his eyes.
Kolin remembered very clearly that although Eleanor had made a beeline for the underwear section as soon as they entered the store, she had also picked out many other clothes afterward. How could she come out only wearing underwear? This could only be intentional on Eleanor’s part!
Although Kolin was a bit angry inside, his face remained relatively normal, and he simply told Eleanor to put on her clothes quickly. As for her question, he directly chose to ignore it.
Faced with Kolin’s dismissal, Eleanor pouted slightly, as if a little angry, but in the end, she listened to Kolin and went back to the fitting room to change properly.