"What condition is that?" I grabbed her finger that she held up and started to play with it in my hand.
"You have to say nice things to me from time to time...Like the things you said to me today, t-that made me really happy..." She said nervously, as she let me rub her fingers.
"Deal!" I immediately replied without hesitation and continued saying
"Then let's start from where we left off earlier. Let's talk about your ears that are so-"
"Stop!"
She pulled her finger away from me and waved her hand in a fluster.
"I said from time to time! Not right after your endless barrage of sweet words from earlier!"
"What a pity. I had so much I wanted to say to you." I sighed.
I then looked at her with a slightly solemn look and asked
"Is this really enough for you to forgive me for what I did?"
"It's enough! It's more then enough! I've already forgotten what happened long ago, so stop looking at me with those pityful eyes!...It makes it seem like I'm the one bullying you here!"
Astrid exclaimed in a distressed manner, and covered my face with her hands to stop herself from looking at it.
And then, all of a sudden, while I was still blinded by her hands, I heard her give a sorrowful sigh, as if she had lost all the breath in her body, and say with a hint of pity in her tone
"And it's mostly my fault for even assuming that you would even like me as a member of the opposite race. I was the stupid one who got my thoughts messed up and thought we could even be in a relationship."
"How foolish of me..."
Her words sounded like she was wondering why she even tried to do something, knowing that it could never possibly work out, even in her wildest dreams, and was feeling very regretful for even thinking about it.
When I grabbed Astrid's hands and pulled them away from my face, I saw her looking down with a dejected look on her face, which made her look really pityful in my eyes and made me want to pick her up and coddle her.
But before that, I wanted to know why she was saying such depressing words, even though she looked fine before.
"Hold up. Why do you think that we could never be in a relationship? Is it because I made a joke about your proposal earlier and indirectly rejected it? If it is, then your misunderstanding why I did so."
I asked as I looked at her dejected face and firmly held her hands against her thighs, which were now mostly on top of my legs.
"No, it's not because of that." She shook her head and then said with a self-depreciating chuckle
"It's because you can't see me as a member of the opposite sex, with whom you can have feelings for."
When those words came out of her mouth, my grip on her hand tightened a bit, which made her stop looking down and look at me.
When she did, her eyebrows shook in surprise when she saw me staring at her with a gloomy expression on my face, and a mocking look in my eyes.
"Which bastard in my class told you that stupid piece of information?..."
I asked while gritting my teeth in anger, towards the dumbfuck who was putting weird ideas in her head.
Astrid looked really shocked that I was angry about what she said, and the dejected look on her face was wiped away.
She looked like she was wondering why, all of a sudden, I was reacting in such a way when I was smiling brightly the entire time I was with her.
"Why do you look so angry? Did I say anytime wrong?" She asked in a hesitant manner, seeing an unfamiliar side of me she had never seen before.
"What do you mean, 'why do you look angry'? How am I supposed to not be angry after what you said?"
"What did I say? I don't remember saying anything that could make you mad?" She said with a clueless look on her face.
"Did you not just say that I could never look at you as a member of the opposite sex? How am I supposed to stay calm after saying that?"
I said through my teeth, which made Astrid realise what I was talking about. But she still looked confused.
"But isn't it true? There's no way you can look at me that way." Astrid said with doubt in her eyes.
"And why is that, Miss Astrid?..." I calmy looked at her without gritting my teeth like before, and said in cold voice
"Why is it that I can't look at you that way?.."
Astrid's eyes widened as her eyebrows fluttered, and she seemed to be a little frightened by my sudden change of expression and tone.
She seemed to be fine when I looked aggrieved and furious. But the moment I looked at her calmly, without a hint of unnecessary emotion, and asked her a question with a smile on my face, her body jerked up like a frightened cat.
But she quickly realized it was just me, and there was nothing to be afraid of, and calmed down, but still looked a little nervous.
She then hesitantly said, while looking at me, like she was hoping that I wouldn't react even more violently
"I-I mean...It's because both of us belong to a different race. You're a human, and I'm a minotaur. Normally, there's no way anything can happen between us."
Once those words left her mouth, she immediately closed her eyes and braced herself, as if she were scared I would react even more wierdly than before.
But seeing that I was silent and even let go of her hands, she opened her eyes and looked at me in surprise.
The person who she thought would get even more pissed with her words for some reason, actually had a look of relief on his face and was shaking his head, as if he were thinking how dumb it was to get worked up over a little misunderstanding.
This surprised her even more then when she saw me get angry, so she asked while giving me a peculiar look
"Why are you so relaxed? I thought you would get more worked up."
"Why should I get more worked?" I said with a relaxed look on my face.
"I thought that someone in my class specifically told you that we could never work out when you were asking around, and I was pissed off at that very person...But it turns out, it was just a misunderstanding and you simply said it because we belonged to a different race."
"So why should I get angry over a dumb reason like that?"
I said with a laugh, as if I never even considered our races a problem and didn't even put it in the same picture, and treated it as a joke.
"'Dumb reason? Isn't that 'dumb reason' the biggest barrier that comes in between any intimate relationship between members of any two races?" Astrid said with a dumbfounded look, as if it was common sense and continued to say
"How could you mention it like it's a joke?"
"Because it is a joke." I affirmed.
And then said, with a relaxed smile on my face
"Or at least in my eyes, it's a simple joke that I never even considered when it comes to how I look at members of the opposite sex."