Don’t Ask, It’ll Hurt If You Know - Chapter 32

She had thought only men had wet dreams, but women did too.

Chloe was so ashamed to have just learned this fact and to have experienced it firsthand, that she covered her face with both hands. She had washed her underwear, which was wet with her fluid, but the dream that had soiled her mind wouldn’t disappear.

And the partner was Ian MacMilden, of all people.

She had known Ian for nearly eight years and had never once thought of him in that way, so the shock was amplified.

“……Wait a minute.”

That wasn’t my dream, was it Bianca’s?

The fact that the mirror showed Bianca instead of herself, and that the delusions the woman had written in her diary were manifested exactly in the dream, made it highly likely.

No, it’s certain. There’s no way I would suddenly have a dream like this otherwise.

With that thought, her feelings of bottomless shame were eased a little. Chloe let out a short sigh and glared at Bianca’s diary, the culprit of the damned wet dream.

“I wish something useful would show up.”

She didn’t expect to find a direct confession that she had learned or used dark magic. No matter how much of a lightweight Bianca was, she wouldn’t have been foolish enough to write such a thing in a diary someone might read.

What Chloe wanted was just a “mention.” Bianca was the type to write down every detail of her day, so she thought she would at least write a line if she met people related to dark magic, but no matter how much she read, she couldn’t find anything like that.

“Ugh, this is so frustrating.”

She had thought she would surely find something this time, but she had found nothing at all. Her disappointment was as great as her expectation.

Moreover, feeling completely mentally exhausted from having that weird dream, Chloe carelessly put the diary back in the box and lay still on the sofa.

She wanted to sleep, but she couldn’t, because she felt she would have another strange dream if she fell asleep.

How would she face Ian’s face now?

Every time she saw that guy, she felt like she’d remember that damned dream…….

“Why do things like this keep happening?”

Just like last time in Rumonie, Chloe felt extremely uneasy about being entangled with Ian in this way.

Someone’s saying that there’s no such thing as a friendship between a man and a woman, and that the relationship only persists because one of them has feelings for the other, kept coming to mind, making her feel even more repulsed.

“That guy and I are friends.”

Chloe muttered, covering her eyes with the back of her hand.

“We’re friends. That’s right. We’re friends.”

Thump.

Chloe, who was self-hypnotizing herself, frowned when the door suddenly burst open without a knock.

A servant still had such rude habits. Chloe thought she needed to use this opportunity to properly discipline the servants and stood up.

“……Huh?”

In front of the door, an unfamiliar girl was glaring at her with an angry face. It was the first time Chloe was seeing this girl, but from her flamboyant dress, she immediately knew who she was.

Ashley Lloyd’s daughter and Bianca’s stepsister, Maria Lloyd.

“Hey!”

As Chloe just stared blankly, Maria screamed. Her voice was thunderous, as if she had swallowed a train horn.

And “hey”? As far as Chloe knew, Maria was four years younger than Bianca. In other words, she was 16 this year.

Her physical development seemed better than Bianca’s, but it was so absurd that a child who hadn’t even had her coming-of-age ceremony was acting this way, and Chloe scoffed.

“Y-you just laughed at me?!”

Even though she had only scoffed, Maria’s face turned bright red and her body trembled as if she had suffered a great humiliation.

Just like Bianca, that girl isn’t normal, either.

Chloe clicked her tongue. Someone’s famous saying about how birds of a feather flock together suddenly came to mind.

“How dare you, you laugh at me?!”

A roar like a lion’s scream pierced her ears, and at the same time, she felt a hot sting on her cheek. It was so sudden and the first time it had ever happened to her that it took Chloe a moment to realize she had been slapped.

“……Ha.”

Her pride hurt more than the cheek Maria had hit. As Chloe looked up and glared at her threateningly, Maria seemed flustered and took a step back.

“W-what! What are you going to do if you glare like that!”

But that was only for a moment. Remembering how timid Bianca Lloyd was, Maria crossed her arms and sneered at her.

“Are you going to tell Dad when he gets back? Humph, go ahead and try. He won’t believe you anyway! You’ll be the only one who gets hurt!”

Judging by what she said, she seemed like a child, but her actions were more malicious than an adult’s. Of course, that was all she had ever seen, so it was understandable, but that didn’t mean Maria’s actions could be forgiven.

How should she punish this girl? As Chloe pondered, caressing her slightly reddened cheek, she suddenly remembered the phrase Bianca had written in red ink.

[Slap Maria’s cheek.]

For Chloe, who only felt satisfied by returning what she received twofold or more, just slapping her cheek was too weak.

But if that was what Bianca wanted, it seemed like a good idea to grant her wish, so Chloe raised her hand.

Smack! The sound of a slap echoed in the bedroom. She hit her so hard that Maria’s face spun around.

The servants watching from the bedroom entrance all gasped and their mouths fell open. Maria also froze, unable to believe that she had been slapped by the girl she always looked down on.

Just this much wouldn’t do. Chloe tilted the corner of her lips and raised her hand again.

It seemed one slap wasn’t enough, and just as she was about to slap her again, her vision suddenly went black, and all the strength drained from her body.

What’s happening? Chloe, flustered, tried to put strength into her collapsing legs, but she couldn’t. To make matters worse, her consciousness gradually faded until it completely disappeared.

* * *

This is what it would feel like to jump into a lake with heavy stones tied to your hands and feet.

Her body felt so heavy, and she felt like she was constantly sinking below the surface of the water. A terrible premonition came over her that if she stayed like this, she would cross the river of no return, so Chloe tried her best to move.

“Haa……!”

Fortunately, her efforts bore fruit. Chloe let out a rough breath and opened her eyes. As her blurry vision gradually cleared, she saw a familiar ceiling.

The ceiling of Chloe Elena’s bedroom, not Bianca Lloyd’s.

Wait a minute, my bedroom?

The moment she realized this obvious-yet-not-obvious fact, the lingering sleepiness vanished.

Chloe was startled and looked around. She couldn’t see everything because her head wouldn’t move as she wished, but she could be certain just by looking at the lace canopy, which reflected the Countess Elena’s taste.

This was Chloe Elena’s bedroom. Moreover, the hair stretching long beside her pillow was not curly pink, but straight golden.

Did I…… return to my original body?

She had to check. Chloe, who wanted to confirm with her own two eyes if she had truly returned, forced her body up from the bed, which was as heavy as a stone.

“Augh.”

But because her legs had no strength, Chloe couldn’t even take a proper step and just collapsed. Her b******s, which hit the floor hard, ached terribly, but her desire to check the mirror was even greater. The dressing table mirror in the distance felt like it was inviting her to come.

The saving grace was that her two arms were relatively free to move. Thanks to that, Chloe was able to crawl to the dressing table. The sight was somewhat comical, and the places she scraped on the floor stung slightly, but nothing could stop her, as she was determined to see herself in the mirror.

Chloe had never once in her life thought she disliked her bedroom for being too big, but today she did a little. She also disliked that there was only one mirror in the bedroom, the dressing table mirror.

“Phew.”

Chloe, who had with great difficulty sat on the dressing table chair, her chest rose and fell with short breaths. Her eyes were tightly shut. She wanted to quickly confirm her reflection, but she was also afraid.

She was afraid that when she looked in the mirror, she would see the pink-haired woman, Bianca Lloyd.

If you run away because you’re scared and it’s hard, you won’t solve the problem.

“Phew.”

Chloe took a deep breath and slowly pushed up her eyelids. The first thing she saw was the long blonde hair stretching over her shoulders. When she raised her gaze a little more, she saw her lips with almost no color, her hollowed-out cheeks with her cheekbones protruding, and her blue eyes.

“I…… can see myself.”

The hand that traced the mirror trembled. Chloe looked at the mirror with eyes that trembled even more. She closed her eyes tightly and opened them again, and no matter how many times she looked, it didn’t change.

The woman in the mirror was undoubtedly Chloe Elena.

It was ‘me.’