"I'm asking you, why?"

"Why can't I stop thinking about it?" Noah struggled to say these words, but he still spat them out in the end.

​​

He asked himself that very question too, just as much as he was asking Emilin.

It wasn't rushed, his voice didn't seem particularly agitated, as if he wasn't really in need of an answer, but his tone betrayed him.

He sounded down in the dumps, desperate for something, for Emilin to give him a reason, despite having an inkling of what it was.

Noah found it absurd.

He was never one to believe in the love at first sight bullshit, it was the most superficial thing he could conjure up, and yet somehow, that bs was being fed to little kids who didn't know any better.

Letting children believe that there was a happily ever after just because you are a pretty pink princess.

He had always believed that only the shallowest of people would fall for this crap.

Now it seemed like he was exactly that type of person because he was completely mesmerized by this stranger, acquaintance at best.

He knew near nothing about her personality, habits, much less her morals and everything else, yet he couldn't help but be captivated by her appearance alone.

How despicable.

As a prideful man in his teens, Noah felt somewhat disgusted at his own thoughts and his current situation.

Though it wasn't as if he could help himself on this matter, in fact, if he could, he wouldn't be in this situation at all.

Still, looking at the young lady in front of him, who seemed ordinary at first glance and then anything but, at second, Noah knew that he had already been firmly trapped.

The longer he looked, the less he felt like he would have the willpower to turn away.

Then, a small voice came from the person in front of Noah.

"I'm sorry," Emilin looked up at Noah, who was significantly taller than her. Though he didn't reach Emilin's brother Theo's staggering height, Noah wasn't too far off.

He was at least around her Big Brother Nathen's height.

And from Noah's point of view, looking at Emilin from above, he couldn't help but sigh, feeling almost out of it as he inhaled after losing his breath.

Emilin looked like the most adorable doe.

She looked up at hunter Noah innocently not knowing that he was a big bad wolf who had approached her as a predator.

Looking up at him with those clear glasslike hazel eyes, that didn't allow for Noah to take another step.

Any other hunter trying to hunt this adorable doe might have already shot her to add her fur to their collection, but Noah wouldn't be able to do that for as long as she looked at him like that.

"What are you sorry for?" He asked impatiently as if Emilin owed him a million bucks.

There was a short pause before Emilin spoke up once again.

"Are you angry about the photoshoot? I didn't mean anything by it I swear! It was too impulsive of me," Emilin voice seemed to become smaller with each passing second.

It had at least been as loud as a mouse at first, but now it sounded much more like a lone cicada.

But as the surroundings were rather silent, Noah was able to hear every word, after all, Emilin wasn't mumbling.

Noah suddenly covered his face with one of his hands, while that looked to be an annoying gesture to Emilin, only Noah knew that it was to cover up the blush that he believed to be creeping up his neck.

It wasn't his first time, after all, it still happened once in a while when the photoshoot was brought up.

"Did you cast some spell on me or something?" Noah asked, even more, frustrated than before, which Emilin duly noted.

Her face became even more pitifully looking as she thought about how she was doing everything wrong.

This happened with every single conversation she had, Emilin really had no other choice other than to believe that she was no good at this.

"I didn't use any spell though..." Emilin mumbled a little and slurred her words at the end.

'If I had something as magical as that, I would have friends already.' She inwardly thought.

It had never, not once, crossed Emilin's mind to hypnotize or manipulate, much less trick other people so that she could get friends.

After all, she had already been feeling slightly guilty with her parents being stuck with someone as broken as her, there was no way that she would force someone else into the same situation.

However, that didn't mean that she wasn't serious about this matter.

If one day, she did indeed find an unlucky soul who would be willing to be her friend, she wouldn't let them go, no matter what.

"Then how do you explain how you look like?" Noah asked with gritted teeth, this simply didn't make any sense to him.

He also made it a point to be somewhat vague in order to probe Emilin for a satisfactory response.

Emilin subconsciously touched her bare face, ignoring everything else at the moment.

"Wh-what d-do you mean?" Emilin hesitantly asked.

She herself wouldn't know when someone snapped out of the hypnosis that hid her face from other's memories, though she did recognize it to be possible.

Emilin used this skill purely for convenience purposes, but now there seemed to be some problems.

Seeing Emilin touch her face subconsciously, Noah was sure that there was something up with her.

He wasn't going crazy, or so he hoped.

"I think you know exactly what I mean, your face, your aura, your everything. It simply changed just like that in an instant."

"I don't understand. Do you have a twin sister or something? What about why you came here?" Noah suddenly burst. All of his questions simply flying around everywhere.

Once again, Emilin hadn't been completely prepared for such specific questions, thus having trouble answering.

However, she had gained an essential clue.

Noah, the boy in front of her, had indeed been able to see her real face. That explained quite a bit, but not everything, Emilin thought.

She didn't know when exactly that had happened, but Emilin had a guess or two.

It was most likely when she had been distracted looking at Noah's familiar expression, one similar to her own, thus failing to control herself perfectly.

In hindsight, this was most likely not the best idea, to use hypnosis as a shield that is, after all, this could very well be a double-edged sword.

There were a few loopholes, one being that once you realized you were being sent subconscious signals, they would become much. much less potent.

The second point was the need for an explanation after being discovered, and the third, also the most pressing one, her skills may very well be leaked, something she wanted to avoid at all costs, and so, due to her flustered nature, she responded in haste to change the topic.

"I'm sorry I tricked you, it wasn't my attention to approach you at all," Emilin honestly responded, but she didn't know that her words were in fact doing more harm than good.

It was true, Emilin didn't have the intention to have approached Noah in such a manner, it just happened like that.

This had nothing to do with approaching him as a potential friend.

It wasn't as if she didn't want to approach this boy, who was close to her in age. It was just that the way it happened wasn't to her liking at all.

Not one bit.

As for Noah, he felt a hit to both his ego and to his heart whenever Emilin denied wanting to have anything to do with him in such a sincere manner.

But at the same time, a part of him wanted her to be even harsher, more ruthless. Hoping that Emilin had a disgusting and intolerable personality so that maybe, just maybe he would be able to wake himself up from this illusion.

This delusional feeling, this so-called love at first sight.

Noah had this hope that maybe if she was terrible enough to him, he could stop his heart from skipping a beat every time he heard Emilin open her mouth.

A small hope that could be overshadowed by the sound of his beating heart at any moment.

Everything felt out of place.

Noah felt like he was having thoughts and emotions that he never would have imagined to stem from a person he had just met.

Of course, he imagined falling in love one day or another and being in a relationship with someone, but this wasn't right at all.

This wasn't the way he wanted to fall in love.

Not in this shallow disgusting way.

Noah felt like his thoughts were sickening, but maybe it was he who was the disgusting one.

Either way, he couldn't stop anymore.

He could only struggle. There was no more fighting, he needed Emilin to be the one to push him away, or he seriously doubted that he would be able to accomplish such a feat by himself.

'I need to be ruder,' he thought.

Another thought that he never thought he would have until today. Until he met Emilin.

"Then what was your intention?" Noah wanted answers, he wanted a clarification and he felt like he deserved one at that.

"I don't know either..." Emilin responded in doubt.

But in fact, what she really wanted to say was: 'My intention. I want to be your friend.'

Yet just as Emilin was about to voice her thoughts, struggling internally, Noah's words went on to crush that idea.

"If you don't know, then just stay further away from me," Noah said through gritted teeth.