"I'm home!" A crisp voice echoed from outside. A small girl, about ten years old, came skipping towards the entrance of the manor.
The girl had long, purplish-blue hair and wore a light blue Gothic Lolita-style dress. Her beautiful long hair was tied up with a small red bow, and a tiny red bow-shaped tie was pinned to the front of her dress bodice.
A few strands of purplish-blue bangs swayed slightly on either side of her forehead, and a pair of small, stylish glasses sat on her delicate face, making her look exceptionally cute!
However, her subsequent behavior was anything but cute. The girl, carrying a large bag of bread, skipped to the manor gate. With a simple wave of her hand, she giggled and softly chanted: "The gate of deep affection transcending the other shore—" The moment she finished speaking, a gigantic wooden scissor suddenly descended from the sky and snip-snip-snip—cut the perfectly good gate into pieces!
"The eternal final song followed for a thousand years—"
A flash of magic light appeared, and instantly, a brand-new gate sprang out of the ground, replacing the old one.
"Heh heh heh heh—" The girl giggled oddly, highly amused by her handiwork, which featured a carving of the young man drooling while sleeping. Humming an unknown tune, the girl happily pushed open the new gate and skipped inside.
"Huh?" Before she had run many steps, the girl instantly spotted the gigantic Man-Eating Flower lying on the ground, split into two. Seeing the green fluids covering the ground, it was obvious the Man-Eating Flower was dead beyond repair. Seeing this, the girl immediately pouted her cute lips and muttered in dissatisfaction: "My 'Most Beautiful Love' went to kiss God. Bad boy, bad boy! For stealing my 'Most Beautiful Love' without my permission! I won't forgive you, hmph hmph—"
As she spoke, the girl gently waved her fair, small hand. Instantly, a large wooden coffin silently emerged from the soil, encased the Man-Eating Flower's 'corpse,' and then burrowed back into the earth.
After completing all this, the girl immediately ran furiously to the small villa, pushed open the door, and prepared to rage.
"Hoo hoo—" A subtle, familiar snoring sound suddenly reached her ears. The girl paused for a moment but immediately reacted. She turned her head toward the source of the sound, spotting the young man sprawled on the sofa, making grand dreams while slightly drooling, a comfortable smile hanging on his lips.
I wonder what he's dreaming about? He's smiling so happily… A thought briefly crossed the girl's mind. No! Wrong! Don't think you can easily confuse me and earn my forgiveness!
The girl shook her head vigorously and thought determinedly: I must make you take full responsibility for secretly stealing my "Most Beautiful Love" without my permission!! Yes, full responsibility!!!
Thinking this, a mischievous, wicked smile flashed across the girl's face. She first set down the large bag of bread she was carrying, then tiptoed to the sofa where the young man was sleeping.
Heh heh, I'll start by adopting a few bastard children of the source of all evil! (Cough, meaning she would collect some interest first~) The girl smiled wickedly and bent slightly. Pinching a long strand of her hair, she aimed it at the young man's sleeping face and began gently tickling him with the strand.
"Mm~" The young man immediately frowned slightly. Deeply asleep, he naturally didn't know someone was playing a trick on him. He instinctively scratched his itchy face and returned to his nap.
Heh heh heh. Seeing this, the girl found it amusing and kept tickling the young man's face. Sure enough, the unaware young man only scratched his face again, then even turned over, continuing to sleep face-down with his butt up. Although his movements were slightly large, thankfully, he showed no signs of waking up…
Hmm? Seeing the young man sleeping like a dead pig, with no extra reaction, the girl didn't give up easily. Since he turned over, I'll tickle his ears! Thinking this, the girl didn't hesitate. She quietly moved closer to the young man. Still not close enough, the girl stopped bending over. She supported herself on the exposed parts of the sofa with her hands and carefully leaned down, practically lying on the young man's back.
The girl didn't care. She continued to lower her head until her long side bangs were nearly touching the young man's ear.
Although her heart was hammering wildly—thump, thump, thump—because this was the first time she had been this close to a person of the opposite sex, the girl was determined to see her grand trick through to the end!
Perhaps because it was her first time approaching an opposite-sex individual so stealthily, the girl felt a strange, inexplicable excitement mixed with nervousness. Fine beads of sweat even appeared on her palms and forehead, but she didn't notice.
She slowly lowered her head again. Finally, her hair made contact with the young man's ear and neck. The girl was delighted. She impatiently began to gently shake her small head. As she did so, her long purplish-blue hair slowly tickled the young man's ear and neck…
The young man was originally enjoying a fantastic sleep on the sofa. Although he often slept on the grass outside, that grass was nowhere near as comfortable as the soft sofa! To escape that strange person's nearly endless magic experiments, the young man usually came home very late and woke up very early to catch up on sleep on trees or grass outside!~
No choice, the principle remained: staying home was too dangerous! For the sake of his own life, sleeping outside was relatively safer.
As a result, the young man hadn't properly slept in a warm bed for a long time. Although it was just a sofa, to the young man, who was accustomed to sleeping on grass and tree branches, sleeping on a sofa was an unbelievably happy event!!!
Taking advantage of the fact that the strange person was fortunately out today, the young man finally got to relive his sofa dream. Since that strange person had gone out for once, she must have some important business to attend to, right? It was this thought that allowed the young man to relax and fall completely into a deep sleep, so much so that he didn't even hear the door opening!
He couldn't help it; he hadn't slept so comfortably in a very long time. Even if someone were to sing the infamous 'Tan Te' (Restless) right in his ear, he probably wouldn't react at all…
However, just as he was sleeping blissfully, he suddenly felt his face itch for some unknown reason. Most people have this experience: sometimes when you are sound asleep, you won't wake up no matter how much someone calls you, but you become more sensitive if someone tickles your ear or face with hair or other fine objects!
This was the young man's situation. Feeling an itch on his face, he instinctively reached out and scratched briefly, but his consciousness remained hazy; he didn't wake up. However, not long after, his face started itching again! This time, his reaction was stronger. He scratched, then turned over, still semi-conscious.
However, when the girl leaned over the sofa, semi-prone on his back, and her hair began attacking the young man's ear and neck simultaneously, he finally couldn't take it anymore! The combination of itching on his neck and ear caused his body to involuntarily flinch and jerk upwards!
"Thud—" With a dull sound of body collision, the young man's back of the head made intimate contact with the girl's nose.
"Yikes—" The girl cried out in pain and tumbled off the sofa. She squatted on the ground, tightly covering her nose, and whispered pitifully with tears in her eyes, "It hurts…"
"…" The young man looked with a dark expression at the bespectacled Loli squatting in front of him, and demanded fiercely, "Laki!!! What—were—you—trying—to—do?!" Looking at the girl's state, he knew immediately that his blissful sleep had been interrupted by something, and that something was clearly the handiwork of the person in front of him!
The girl's name was Laki Olietta! She was two years younger than the young man, eleven years old this year, and the lifesaver who had rescued him on the beach a year ago! And yes, she was also the "strange person" the young man referred to~
The young man was utterly helpless when dealing with Laki, this cute, bespectacled Loli. Whether it was her slight natural airhead (Tennen Bōke) demeanor or her inexplicable way of acting and speaking, it all left the young man completely exasperated…
"Anyway, where did you go today? Why are you back so soon?" the young man asked casually. In reality, he was complaining internally: Since you rarely go out, why didn't you stay out longer?! It would save me from not even getting a decent sleep…
"Heh heh, because I wanted your stomach to feel the warm rhythm of spring!" Laki said giggling. She bounced over to where she had left her things, picked up the large bag of bread, pulled one out, and waved it in front of the young man, saying proudly, "Well? Don't you think my 'Garden of Ideas' is magnificent?"
"It's just bread, though…" the young man mumbled dismissively. "Also, what the heck is the 'Garden of Ideas'? It makes absolutely no sense…"
"What did you say, Little White-White?" Laki asked curiously.
"Huh? Oh, uh… Nothing, never mind. Wait?! What did you just call me?!!" Hearing this, the young man instinctively replied, then seemed to realize something. He instantly widened his eyes, glaring intently at Laki, and demanded sharply through gritted teeth, "Little White-White?!! Who are you calling Little White-White?!!! I have a name!" Hearing her address for him, he felt a flock of black crows flying ostentatiously over his head…
"Eh?! You don't like that name?" Laki was momentarily stunned, then said troubledly, "You couldn't remember your old name, right? So I decided to give you a new one. I thought up 'Little White-White' after agonizing over it for an entire month! It's the name that best suits your image! I thought you would like it…" By the end, she looked at the young man with big, innocent, pitiful eyes, as if saying: I did my best, rest in peace…
"Only a ghost would like that name!!! Can you stop making decisions on your own, okay?!!!" The young man couldn't hold back anymore and roared loudly. "And what about me looks anything like the color white?!!"
"Your clothes?" Laki pointed carefully at the moon-white coat the young man was wearing.
"You forced me to wear that!!!" the young man yelled mercilessly.
"Um, your weapon?" Laki pointed at the single-edged longsword hanging at the young man's waist.
"I'll kill you…" The young man immediately stared at Laki with a murderous, fierce look.
"Then…" Stunned by the young man's 'fierce' gaze, Laki involuntarily shrunk her neck and stuck out her tongue. She then scanned his body again, trying to find anything else that might relate to white. Suddenly, when her eyes casually landed on his glossy black hair, her eyes immediately lit up. She pointed at the young man's hair and loudly declared, "Your hair!!!"
"I think it's black, though…" the young man said with a dark expression. He felt like he was about to choke from sheer frustration.
"That's right! It is black!" Laki confirmed, but then immediately changed the subject and elaborated: "But the extreme of hate is love, and dazzling black is also white! The romance between black and white will eventually reach the altar of happy endings!!!"
"What in the world is that supposed to mean…" The young man was speechless. He was truly speechless! Even though he had experienced countless strange pronouncements from her, he still found it utterly incomprehensible…
"I don't care about altars or endings! Just promise you won't ever call me 'Little White-White' again!!!" the young man threatened fiercely.
"Then how about 'Kennedy'?"
"I'm not Obama…"
"Then 'Miel'?"
"You're the one who's lost…" (A play on words in the original language)
"So what should I call you? You don't have a name, you know…" After arguing for a long time, Laki was a bit upset that all the names she thought of were rejected. But then, Laki suddenly had a flash of inspiration, as if she had thought of something! She immediately jumped up excitedly and said happily, "How about I just call you Unknown (Wú Míng)? What a profound name!! How about I call you Unknown from now on?!!"
"…" The young man suddenly rolled his eyes, nearly spitting up blood. But after arguing for so long, he was exhausted. He couldn't even bother to move, only weakly retorting, "Why don't you just call me Long Aotian?" (A Chinese term for an invincible, cliché protagonist)
"Oh? That name is great too! It sounds very dominant! Then I'll call you Long Aotian from now on!!" Laki's eyes lit up at this and she immediately agreed with both hands.
"…" The young man fell into complete silence. After a moment, he finally spoke: "You can call me Little White-White…"
"Yay!" Laki instantly cheered, giggling as she said, "You have a name! Your name from now on is—"
"Archille!" Suddenly, as if a piece of dormant memory had been touched in his mind, the young man involuntarily frowned slightly. He interrupted Laki mid-sentence without thinking, blurting out: "My name is Archille…"
The voice was filled with doubt, yet carried an undeniable certainty! As if he had suddenly remembered his own name…