Me After Meeting You

Amber didn’t force him and walked slowly forward alone. From Ian’s viewpoint, she seemed like a strange auntie. She was waving around a piece of ham sausage and twisting and turning around, sometimes drawing close to one or two lone children. She knew to pick out the older children, but she still had little luck in her endeavors.

When most of the crowd had dispersed, she walked back toward him, expressiond ejected.

Ian raised his eyebrows.

Amber said, “No luck. Most of the children don’t remember her, or even if they have heard of her name, they only have a superficial impression of her. Either she’s a murderer or a crazy person.”

As expected. “Are you going to keep trying?”

“Yes, we have to at least try.” She didn’t have much vacation time accrued, so given that the hospital had given her a small ‘vacation,’ she had to make the most of it before going back and facing Elly. “Staying here for a night is just like a vacation, even if we’re not able to find anything out.”

‘At least she’s very mentally healthy’. Ian didn’t say anything, his gaze stopping on the remaining ham sausage in her hand.

The ham sausage looked somewhat evil, but it also smelled surprisingly good.

Amber immediately realized what was on his mind. “Are you hungry?” Her palm lightly touched the ham sausage. “It isn’t tasty if it’s cold. Since everyone’s about to have dinner, we can’t investigate right now either. Why don’t we find a place to eat too?”

As she said this, she threw the ham sausage away and took out her phone. She asked some friends, “I’m at … does anyone know if there’s a clean, sanitary, decent place to eat around here?”Nôvel(D)ra/ma.Org exclusive © material.

It turned out that one of her classmates did know a good place nearby; he had been a safety engineer who had worked in the region for a decent amount of time, and was relatively familiar with the place.

He sent over the name of a restaurant, which Amber searched up on her phone. It was a small agricultural restaurant, not too far from Elly’s home.

“What do you think?” she asked as she held out her phone to Ian’s face.

Ian glanced at it for a moment, seemingly uncaring. “Do as you like.”

That was the most annoying answer to give when two people were trying to decide where to eat, because those who said they were fine with anything were usually the hardest to satisfy. Amber sighed, deciding that she needed another person to deal with Ian. She then said, “Let’s call Mr. Charlie over as well.”

Mr. Charlie was Ian’s chauffeur.

And Ian said, “No, he already has plans.”

So it’ll only be the two of them, and she would have to pamper him? Amber very much wanted to refuse, but after thinking about how he had come so far accompanying her, she relented. Fine, she would pamper him in order to understand him better as a patient.

Amber quickly dispelled her mental block, and the two drove over to that restaurant. Honestly, the scale of the place was larger than Amber expected, and the service they received was surprisingly good. Ian requested a new, never-before-used plate, which they procured rapidly.

It was just that the dishes them selves

weren’t great. Ian clearly didn’t enjoy the food very much, and only ate a small portion of each dish. Amber was quite embarrassed, resolving once again to finish her investigations early so that they could return by nightfall.

After having dinner, they went back to the newly renovated plaza. Apparently, it was very crowded at night: parents brought their children out here to have fun, some people danced, and others played ball.

Amber didn’t know whether to call her luck good or bad, because even though the plaza wasn’t particularly big nor particularly small, she still managed to run into someone she recognized-Elly’s middleschool math teacher.

And the math teacher even recognized her first, running over to greet her. “Ah, Lawyer Camille? You’re still here?”

Amber hesitated for a moment before recovering with a smile, and then pointed at Ian, who was by her side. “Yes, I saw that the environment here seemed pretty nice, so I’ve been staying in the area with my boyfriend.”

Ian looked at them coolly, without any intention of playing along. Amber started sweating.

Luckily, the math teacher seemed to believe her, and even started pointing out the scenic areas around to her.

As they were talking, a four or five year old girl ran over and hugged his leg. “Daddy! I want to play with that.” As she spoke, she pointed at a thing that was jumping into the sky like a falling star.

There were also toy stalls at the plaza, and Amber guessed that the little girl wanted to play with some kind of toy.

Following behind the little girl was a woman about the same age as Mr. Stanley. Seeing the child behave the way she did, she stated somewhat angrily, “Ignore her. She wants everything that she sees. It won’t do for us to indulge her too much.”

Upon hearing this, the little girl began to cry and make a fuss, kicking and tearing at Mr. Stanley’s feet.

Mr. Stanley and his wife were unable to deal with their child’s fuss. Neither harsh words nor scolding seemed to be effective.

Amber couldn’t stand to watch anyfurther, and helped them coax the little girl into calming down. “If you stop crying, this auntie will give you some candy, alright?” She retrieved a handful of sweets from her bag, holding it up in front of her.

The candies were wrapped beautifully invibrant colors, and were quite eye-catching when she held them in her hand. The girl didn’t seem all that pacified, but she still quickly grabbed them from Amber’s palm.

Her small hands couldn’t grab all of them, and a few dropped onto the ground. Amber helped the girl pick them up and put them inher clothes’ pockets, and even placed one into her mouth.

This sort of candy was cloyingly sweet, but the child seemed to like it, finally quieting down as she patted her pocket.

Mr. and Mrs. Stanley were grateful for her assistance, and Amber waved her hands in embarrassment. “It was nothing.”

The little girl’s mother saw that she was pretty young, and asked, “Is your child in middle school?”

She thought that Amber was the parent of some kid from her husband’s class.

Amber shook her head. “No.” She then repeated what she had said in the morning. “I’m the court-appointed lawyer for Elly Brown’s case. Originally, I came here to investigate a few matters pertaining to the case, but after seeing that this place was pretty nice, I stayed for a few extra days to look around.”

“Oh, Elly’s lawyer ….” The little girl’s mother glanced at her husband….