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1.

“Sharon unnie! We’re gonna get some fresh air too!”

“Huh?”

Odile said before hurriedly dragging Odette’s hand—the latter barely able to lift her heavy eyelids.

They weren't trying to follow Siwoo.

It wasn’t time for that yet, as before anything else, they’d need to plan out everything perfectly.

“Odett! Wake up already!’

“Sorry…Sis…just put me on the sunbed…”

“This isn’t the time to mess around!”

“Hoaahm…”

Even after Odile practically yelled at her, Odette still couldn’t open her eyes properly.

Then again, it was understandable for her to act like this. The twins were up all night concocting their potion, then today, they played around all day long, ate to their fullest and drank a bunch of alcohol. Considering that Odette was weaker to alcohol than Odile, it wasn’t a wonder that she’d be wasted already.

“Haah… Take this!”

“Ow!”

Odile let out a deep sigh before pinching part of Odette’s buttocks that wasn’t covered by her swimsuit.

The tingling pain made Odette raise her head, tears welling up in her eyes.

Then, her cheeks were held by Odile as her sister stared deeply into her eyes.

“Odette! Wake up! This is the battlefield!”

“I knowww….”

Hearing Odile’s words that were filled with rage, Odette finally came to her senses.

Only after Odette answered with her protruding lips that Odile let the cheeks that she held tightly go.

“You knew what Mr. Assistant was about to tell us, right?”

“Sis, but…”

“...He wanted to end our secret relationship.”

“...I know.”

From Siwoo’s reaction when they asked him to apply some tanning oil on their bodies while making dirty jokes like usual…

They could feel what his hesitant eyes and half-opened mouth was about to say.

Even though he chickened out at the last second, they could clearly tell what it was about.

With this, their position in their battle against Sharon turned desperate.

If they couldn’t come up with anything, they’d be beaten just like that.

But, in such a moment, Odette seemed to have lost all her drives.

And Odile didn’t like that.

“Why are you like this? We’ve already made the potion, we only need to plan out the perfect time to use it!”

“Sis…”

“Why are your shoulders slumped? Straighten them up!”

“Sis, listen to me.”

Odile sat down on the chair nearby, trying to cool her heated head down.

After she had calmed down a little, she was finally ready to listen to her sister.

“What is it?”

“I’ve thought about it deeply. You know, we’re still apprentices. Compared to us, she…”

At that moment, Odile just lost it.

She jumped forward and started half-shouting at Odette.

Of course, she already knew what Odette was about to say.

It was because she knew that she became angry in the first place.

“So what?! Are you trying to say that we should just give up?! We still have the potion!”

The potion they were talking about was the potion who’d allow anyone who drank it to fall in love with another person for about a week, though the details of the effect usually varied between individuals.

If they were to get Siwoo to drink the potion and make him show off his affection for them in front of Sharon…

That would be a game changing move, no matter how one were to look at it.

“But Sis, you know the nature of that potion…”

“...”

“The feelings that he’ll show us after taking that potion won’t be his true feelings…”

That was when Odile realized why Odette had been looking so dispirited.

In fact, this was something that Odile was already painfully aware of.

Feeding Siwoo the forbidden potion and making him show off his affection towards them in front of Sharon…

That would be the equivalent of cheating.

A meaningless tantrum that wouldn’t improve their standings at all, and most of all, it also meant that they’d be ignoring what Siwoo really wanted.

“Even if Mr. Assistant was to drink the potion, does it even matter in the end?”

“Why are you saying something like that now? What, are you scared after going this far?”

But, Odile tried to avert her eyes from the truth and instead tried to provoke Odette.

Odette didn’t back down and instead, faced her sister with resolute eyes.

“Yes, I’m scared.”

“...”

“I’m scared of how disappointed he’ll be with us when the effect of the potion wears off. There’s no way he’d think of us the same way ever again after that.”

“T-Then, we can just keep feeding him the potion whenever the effect wears off!”

“Sis.”

Among the two, Odile was the one who was screaming, but it was her who seemed to be cornered.

Odette then hugged her sister.

“Let’s play it fairly, Sis. We can’t beat Sharon unnie right now, but that doesn’t mean we can’t still try to use our charm and skill to win.”

“...”

“Didn’t you tell me, Sis? We don’t know how to give up. Feeling scared, being dispirited, or giving up, none of them suit us.”

“...”

“There are still things that we can do by ourselves, so let’s just forget about the potion.”

“But… What if Mr. Assistant abandons us…?”

There was a faint light in Odette’s eyes.

“If that were to happen, we’ll just attack him at night.”

“Odette…”

Odile’s shoulders, which had been stiff, now began to relax.

She took a deep breath before placing her hands on her waists.

“Alright, it’s decided!”

From the start through the end, Odette’s words were right on the money.

As apprentice witches, the one thing they should do was to learn from their failures.

The moment they admitted that they had been beaten they managed to learn something important.

“We might have lost today, but the battle isn’t over yet as long as our fighting spirit still lasts! The will of the Gemini will never die down!”

“Yes! Yes!”

“From now on, we’ll fight fairly, without resorting to cowardly tricks! Odette, we’ll throw the potion away! Immediately!”

“You’re so cool, Sis!”

The twins shared another hug and decided to go back.

In the lead was Odile, while Odette was trailing behind her.

“By the way, Odette.”

“Hm? What is it, Sis?”

“Aren’t you curious about what would happen if Mr. Assistant were to drink the potion?”

“Why don’t we ask him to drink it later?”

“Alright, we’ll do that!”

Today, the twins matured a little. Just a little.

2.

“Fuck, it’s hot!”

When he came to his senses, the cigarette in Siwoo’s hand had already burned through its filter.

Almost burning his hand, he threw the cigarette’s butt away.

“What?”

The fuck was I in a daze about?

This cigarette’s burned to the butt. I must’ve been out for a good while.

Finding the situation absurd, he shrugged his shoulders.

“Too many things going on in my life to think about, I guess.”

He didn’t know exactly how much time passed, but he knew that it had been a while.

After returning to the villa, he was greeted by what seemed to be the aftermath of a drinking party.

Yeah, I’ve been gone for a good while.

The twins were lying on the sofa, their bodies were pressed against each other like a pair of small mammals hibernating.

It was around time for them to go to sleep, so this wasn’t anything surprising.

As for Sharon, she was sitting on the edge of the sofa, yawning while wiping her sleepy eyes.

“Why are you back so late?”

“Uh… I was thinking about…a lot of things. You look tired.”

“Hoahm… Yeah. I had a tad bit too much fun today, so I feel a little sleepy…”

“Go and sleep then if you’re tired. I’ll clean everything up.”

“No, I’ll help you out.”

Siwoo lifted the twins and carried them to their bed. They were sleeping so soundly that they didn’t even wake up after Siwoo had laid them down on the bed.

Of course, he also forcibly pushed Sharon to go to her bed and sleep since she looked too tired to help him clean up.

Even when she looked so tired, he couldn’t help but notice how pretty she was.

As he laid her down on her bed, he tried to kiss her ever so casually, but she blocked his lips with her palm.

“Hm?”

“T-The twins are here, s-so can we not…?”

“It’s just a kiss, though?”

“You know that it won’t end up with just a kiss… I won’t be able to hold myself… Besides, I’m too tired to… I’ll just go to sleep, okay…?”

This surprised Siwoo a little.

Because Sharon had never refused a kiss before.

Maybe the twins being here really bothers her…

He understood where she came from though.

After talking for a bit more, he went back to the living room.

“This place is so quiet now.”

As the commotion died down, the already messy place seemed even messier than before.

Still, as a guest, he didn’t complain and started cleaning up.

From empty bottles to various trash scattered around the floor, he cleaned everything.

Then, when he tidied up the twins' picnic basket, which was wide open, he found a thermos with some tea inside.

Since the thermos was transparent, he could see the pretty color of the tea.

“Perfect timing, I’m getting thirsty.”

Maybe because he had been smoking and drank a lot of alcohol before this, his mouth felt dry.

Without hesitation, he opened the lid and gulped the tea down.

Feeling refreshed by the cool and fragrant black tea, he continued to clean the room.

3.

At the beach, near the Blue Narrow Sea, Eloa was treading along the sand.

Her steps were heavy, just like the steps of a prisoner.

“Haa…”

At this point, she had lost count of the sighs she had let out today.

Her disgraceful act yesterday still lingered in her mind.

When Siwoo brought Sharon in and let her hear their voices as they started to have sex.

She had vowed to herself that she’d reprimand him firmly, but she was caught in the heat of the moment and ended up soaking the edge of that one table for three whole hours.

“I must have been out of my mind…”

After she mulled over what she had done for a bit, she found that it was ridiculous.

What kind of master would masturbate while listening to her disciple having sex next door?

I swear if someone were to find out about this, I’ll kill myself.

Completely ashamed of her own behavior, she lowered her head even further as she walked through the night breeze.

“Ah…”

She noticed the light in the distance, meaning that her destination wasn’t too far away from where she was at.

Now, how am I gonna explain everything to him…?

Her original plan was to severely reprimand him and make him promise so that the incident from last night wouldn’t happen again, but…

If she were to do that, due to her honest nature, she’d end up telling him everything that she had done.

Obviously, hiding her own dirt while pointing out other’s didn’t sit right with her, so doing that wasn’t an option for her.

And since that wasn’t an option…

She walked all this way from the Mansion not only to meet him face-to-face.

Her walk had a more symbolic gesture to it, like a pilgrimage for the sacrament of her confession.

This was also part of the reason why her steps were unusually heavy.

How should I say it to him, though?

“Siwoo, I know you have unique preferences, but that still doesn’t make it right. The act of making love between a man and a woman must be done in secret, not out in the open. You should not mix your body with a woman solely for peripheral pleasure, but you should treat it as a noble process to confirm your love towards each other…”

Eloa let out a sigh as she read the note that she had edited and modified several times.

Since it wasn’t really embarrassing, she could read this part out to him no problem.

Because she thought that it was a master’s job to guide her disciple to the proper way.

The problem was the latter part of the note…

“And there is something that I want to apologize to you for, but please don't misunderstand my words. I have committed a great sin against you.

“I listened in when you made love with Sharon Evergreen…and I was caught in the heat of the moment and ended up pleasuring myself from it…

“But, don’t misunderstand. This isn’t because I’m conscious of you as a man, but rather, it’s because of a physiological reaction…”

She rehearsed this multiple times already, but it still made her feel dizzy.

If she could return to the past and beat the living crap of Eloa from yesterday, she’d do it without hesitation.

Seriously, what on earth was I thinking when I decided to do such a…shameful act?!

“...Should I just…not mention it…?”

Can I just pretend that it didn’t happen?

Just play dumb and move on?

When she arrived at the villa, she was almost in tears.

As she carefully opened the door and entered, she found Siwoo, sitting by himself in the dimly lit room, drinking.

“Siwoo.”

She called out to him with a rather timid voice.

“Hm? Master? You’re here! It’s late already though?”

Hearing her voice, Siwoo turned his gaze to her.