Is the Friend of a Friend a Stranger? - Chapter 44.2

Owen nodded without hesitation. Then he took a sip on the bottle again, and Sylvia still felt confused even though she had received a clear answer. Did Heston and this man really become friends? No matter how she looked at him, he didn’t seem to match Heston at all.

No, they were two people who seemed to accept even the weight of the word ‘friend’ differently.

To Heston, a friend was someone he could dedicate his life to. As for this man, it seemed more difficult to find someone he wasn’t friends with at this party.

‘How in the world did you become friends?’

Sylvia asked without realizing it. It was something she had originally wanted to say, but she had to admit that the loud noise of people’s conversations and the heat of the alcohol made it sound even more inappropriate than she intended.

It sounded more like she was asking how someone like him became friends with Heston. Of course, she would be lying if she said she hadn’t thought that in the slightest, but when she belatedly realized that she had spoken too blatantly to a person she was meeting for the first time, she looked stunned.

Owen looked at her, who was even more bewildered by what she had said than him, in amusement. His bright amber eyes sparkled with interest, making it difficult to properly face him. Sylvia cleared her throat and belatedly made an excuse.

‘I mean, you know? Heston has just returned from a mission with severe injuries. I think something big happened on the mission he was on with you, but Heston didn’t say anything, and I was wondering if I could get an answer if I asked you.’

When she asked for a favor, her tone became as docile as it was. In fact, that was the only way she had now. But the man in front of her was not easy. He shrugged his shoulders lightly.

‘I don’t know.’

She had received a similar answer when she saw Heston return with a bandage around his thigh and asked what had happened. ‘I don’t know.’

But the feelings underlying it were so different. In Heston’s case, it was embarrassment mixed with avoidance. In this man’s case, it was indifference, as if he really didn’t remember.

Sylvia frowned and scratched her cheek.

In fact, it wasn’t really a question of how Heston got hurt. She wanted to hear from others that Heston had been hurt while going on a mission alone without a partner.

No, even if someone told her it wasn’t like that, she wouldn’t change her mind. It was for the same reason that she came to a party she wouldn’t even come to in the first place and waited for her superior, Sir Woss.

‘Sir Woss disappeared with a woman. It’ll probably take two hours.’

Owen said, as if he had guessed why Sylvia had come.

Sylvia was startled by the fact that someone whom she had never seen before in her life seemed to have easily read her mind.

She wondered if he knew her feelings for Heston. And even the guilt she felt when she saw his wounds, and the anxiety of someone else becoming his partner.

No, that was impossible.

He just noticed her looking around noticeably for a while, and must have quickly singled out and pointed out who she might be looking for.

‘It’s fine. I can wait.’

‘Alright, then.’

She thought he would stop her, but Owen neatly nodded, took his drink, and went somewhere else.

It was as foolish an attitude as it was when he came to talk with her. Sylvia looked at his back in bewilderment, then waited for Sir Woss as she was left alone again.

However, Sir Woss did not return even after two hours, and Sylvia was forced to return home without being able to meet him and ask him to make her a supporter of Heston.

In conclusion, it was a good thing that she got drunk and showed up in class, instead of asking a favor to her superior, who spends the night with women at a party, and revealing her weakness.

It took a little longer, but Sylvia ended up becoming Heston’s partner in a legitimate way instead of using her father’s contact.

‘At that time, Heston was half unconscious because he was seriously injured. I can’t believe I was going to ask someone my father knew for a favor like that.’

Back to the present, Sylvia frowned as she drank the lukewarm fruit tea on the table with an uncomfortable expression. Then, she recalled if there was ever a rumor about Owen being promiscuous. She carefully considered the past five years, from the time she first saw him to just a few days ago, but she had no recollection of such a rumor following him.

‘I don’t understand.’

She was sure he wasn’t like Heston, who didn’t have any women. If that were the case, the rumors that followed Heston would have been attached to him as well. Rumors like his thing didn’t stand up, that he had a heart of stone, that he liked men, and so on.

But unlike him, the rumors surrounding Owen couldn’t be any cleaner, and Sylvia felt that was the strangest thing. Could someone like this exist?

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