Silence. Quiet.
Caroline's sudden bout of pettiness had slightly altered the previously harmonious dining atmosphere.
Unable to endure the current awkwardness, Jing Liuli mustered the courage to be the crucial 'wall-breaker.'
"Um... why don't you two introduce yourselves?"
Though Liuli's voice was small, it was like a pebble tossed into a still lake, shattering the strange silence.
Tendo smiled and took over the conversation, his eyes fixed on Caroline across the table, who was pretending to study the menu.
"For a certain someone, I certainly should introduce myself now."
With that, Tendo took off his sunglasses and smiled. "Hello, my name is Tendo. I am your former partner."
Caroline put down her menu and looked up at Tendo. Although she was a renowned Rational-Mechanist, her heart inexplicably skipped half a beat.
She quickly suppressed the strange feeling, nodded, and replied, "Hello."
After speaking, Caroline put the menu down and began to elegantly eat the food in front of her. This wasn't because she was deliberately acting cold, but because she was afraid that if she spoke any more, Tendo would see through her pretense.
Calm down. Don't panic. Caroline repeated internally.
Just as Tendo understood her well, she understood Tendo just as well. Tendo might not be a Mechanist and often acted 'randomly' based on instinct, but that didn't mean he was just a crude guy who only played with 'numbers.' If her emotions or other details revealed anything unusual, he would certainly notice immediately.
Caroline even suspected that Tendo might already know she was deliberately faking 'amnesia' and was only playing along out of guilt and a desire to make amends.
But regardless of the truth, she had to make Tendo understand the cost of 'abandoning' her. Only then would he not 'abandon' her again in the future.
Thinking this, Caroline elegantly sliced the fish steak in front of her and asked deliberately, "You said you knew me before. Could you tell me what I was like?"
Oho! An easy question!
On Station 13 (China forum), the Tendo-Caroline shippers, seeing Caroline's sudden 'offensive,' grew excited and began offering Tendo advice in the comments.
'I know this one! The Heavens just need to praise her! (Hands on hips)'
'Is Meow Meow really suffering from amnesia? I feel like she's faking it.'
'Whether she's faking or it's real, I know that if the Heavens' answer doesn't satisfy Meow Meow and us, he's going to suffer greatly!'
'Gossip, gossip! This is exactly why I'm watching this special episode!'
'Hey, you in the front, where's your manners? Look at the title of this special episode, The Magnificent Sea Concert Hall. This is Liuli's special episode!'
'Liuli's expression: Who am I? Where am I? Why am I here?'
'Gossip committee is in position, waiting for the Heavens to speak!'
What was obvious to the dimension audience was certainly clear to Tendo. Was this a question? This was a warning!
Therefore, while Tendo maintained a smile, his mind raced.
Tendo pretended to ponder for a moment, then spoke about the 'Caroline' he remembered in a tone laced with nostalgia.
"The old you? If I had to describe it, the old you was actually pretty boring."
Jing Liuli: "???"
Liuli snapped her head up, staring wide-eyed at Tendo. The bread she had just managed to get into her mouth nearly fell out again from the vigorous movement.
Has Tendo gone mad? At a time like this, not only was he not saying anything nice, but he was calling Caroline boring?
Thinking this, Liuli felt she needed to cover for Tendo, lest this blockhead allow the situation to worsen.
But when she saw Caroline's expression, Liuli froze. Caroline was not angry; instead, she had a rare, slight smile.
Wait, what's going on? Could it be that Caroline seemed like an 'S' on the surface but was slightly an 'M' inside, enjoying being criticized? That couldn't be right; if it were, she would have noticed long ago.
Or... were the two of them speaking a secret language she didn't understand?
Liuli wasn't wrong. Tendo was indeed referring to things only he and Caroline knew, such as Caroline's original appearance before the Stars Project officially began, an appearance only he had seen.
Ignoring Liuli's bewilderment, Tendo continued with a smile, "Because back then, you always liked to sit alone in the corner with your tactical tablet, the screen full of data code, from morning to night."
"I thought at the time, how much this person must love studying. She was definitely going to be a bookworm when she grew up."
Hearing Tendo talk about these childhood details, Caroline's ears secretly flushed red, and even the hand slicing the fish steak slowed down. Back then, she truly was like a precisely operating Mechanist tool, with only data and formulas in her eyes, indifferent to everything around her.
This scene left the nearby Liuli completely dumbfounded. Her intuition told her that if anyone else spoke to Caroline like this, Caroline would have long ago ensured that person couldn't speak for the rest of their life.
But when Tendo said it, Caroline wasn't angry at all; she seemed even a little happy!
What Liuli didn't know was that the content of the apology was sometimes irrelevant; the attitude of the apology was what truly mattered.
Although Tendo seemed to be teasing Caroline, he was actually saying, I remember everything about you.
But attitude alone wasn't enough...
Hearing Tendo's words, Caroline's heart pounded faster. She had thought that with Tendo's casual personality, he would only remember the grand battles. She never expected him to remember these trivial everyday details so clearly.
So, he was quietly watching her even when she was buried in data.
However, the 'warning' wasn't over yet. She couldn't let him off the hook just yet.
Caroline placed her hands on her thighs beneath the tablecloth, quickly calming herself. After a moment, she spoke again, "Is that so? Then I really sounded quite boring when I was little."
"Quite the opposite..."
Caroline looked at Tendo quizzically, clearly not understanding what he was about to say.
Under her gaze, Tendo suddenly smiled and spoke words that would have ordinarily never come from his mouth.
"...Because the look of you concentrating on analysis was much prettier than all that cold data."
"..."
Overload. Overload!
At these words, Caroline felt her mind instantly flood with various redundant emotional data, and the logic module in her database nearly crashed.
She abruptly lowered her head, pretending to focus on the fish steak on her plate, her ears flushed so red they looked ready to bleed.
This guy... why is he suddenly saying things like that!
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