Chapter 226
After thinking for a moment, Carmen suddenly leaned in and whispered.
“Wait, what? All of a sudden?”
“You need something even bigger to distract from it.”
“Um, okay… but isn’t that kind of out of nowhere?”
Ashtel’s face turned bright red. Carmen’s proposed solution was none other than a marriage proposal.
A normal person might have wondered why the topic of marriage was coming up now, and gotten angry.
But Ashtel was hardly what anyone would call a normal human.
“Is it really okay to propose?”
“Of course. You just witnessed something you weren’t supposed to, right? Take responsibility—hand him a bouquet and do it properly!”
“Hmm…”
“And humans are quick to get swept up in romantic situations.”
She has observed them for centuries. Nine times out of ten, the mood gets to them and they end up kissing, making love, and promising their future together. So even if he’s a priest, Payne is human. If Ashtel proposes, he’ll probably accept, and the awkwardness will be forgotten.
‘Is that so…’
Ashtel rubbed her chin, thinking it over. Carmen, the brains of the Asti sisters, made it sound convincing.
And the truth was, marriage had been on Ashtel’s mind anyway.
‘All the neighbors already assume Payne and I are married… Wouldn’t it be nice to make that rumor come true?’
She didn’t even consider that she and Payne hadn’t been living together for very long.
Already, a warm sense of hope filled her.
‘Right. I saw Payne at his most vulnerable, so I should take responsibility.’
In fact, maybe he’d be moved by her sense of duty. Responsibility and sincerity were things Payne valued highly.
Feeling suddenly resolved, Ashtel decided to consult her sisters for advice.
Luckily, half of them were still in the human world, so it was the perfect chance to ask what a heartfelt proposal should look like.
“Propose? Why would you do that? Isn’t the man supposed to do it?”
Hela, who was in a foul mood today, was the first to respond.
“By the way, where’s Pepe gone off to?”
“It’s not Pepe, it’s Payne. I left him alone for a bit. He’s pretty shaken up.”
After his embarrassing accident in front of Ashtel, Payne had retreated to his room, driven by a wave of lust.
Ashtel wanted to go comfort him, but all he’d do was tell her not to come in.
‘But with him gone, it’s the perfect chance to ask my sisters about proposing.’
After all, he’d rejected her for now, so she had no intention of bothering him further. She’d already put him through enough for one day.
‘Payne, I’m sorry. But everything I did was for you.’
Ashtel muttered an apology in her heart, one Payne would have found mortifying if he knew.
“Anyway, Hela, could you stop picking on Payne and try being nice to him for once? He’s gentle and soft-hearted, you know—he might even cry about this at night.”
Of course, that had never happened, but Ashtel genuinely thought it could.
“A grown man, crying over something like this?”
Hela looked at her in disbelief.
“Yeah! If Payne and I get married, we’ll be family, right? Is that how you want to treat family?”
“Good grief…”
“That’s right, Hela. Don’t be so mean to Sue’s hubby.”
Nluie added, waving her tiny hand in support.
With the mood shifting, even Hela couldn’t keep up her harsh attitude. She sighed, then suddenly brightened as if struck by a good idea.
‘Back in the day, there was that old custom where a man would live with his wife’s family after marriage…’
A few centuries ago, when women had more power, it was normal for a husband to live with his wife’s family for three years after the wedding.
‘Well, Ashtel’s human now—she should follow human traditions, right?’
Hela glanced at Carmen, who was still caught up in the fuss about proposing.
Not catching on at first, Carmen finally sighed and replied quietly.
“Still working on it.”
“How long will it take?”
“Just a bit longer.”
“Hurry up. Sue will be happy when it’s done.”
That way, they could put Payne through the traditional ‘live-with-the-in-laws’ routine—or at least, so Hela’s devilish mind hoped, lips quirking in a sly smile.
Discussion
0 CommentsReactions
No comments yet.