23. Everything for Your Sake
23. Everything for Your Sake
- This happens about half a year before the main story
“Lord Noel, it’s been a long time!”
When I rushed to Noel after saying that, he smiled like a gently blossoming flower.
Tears slowly overflowed from my eyes because that was my first timeseeing him in a month and twelve days. Recently, I had been busy working all night long. However, the moment I saw him, my tiredness was blown away in an instant.
It was a gathering that my father told me to participate in. At first, I was unwilling. However, I was really glad I had come.
“Sherry, it’s been awhile, did you cut your hair a little?”
“H, how did you know?”
“I can tell just by looking. It suits you.”
“…!”
In an instant, he noticed a change that not even my family, much else friends, noticed. To be honest, I didn’t want him to know. I vowed to never hire that beautician again, after all. I had almost sued her.
For Noel to have noticed such a small change… such keenness was necessary to become a knight, after all.
Noel was truly awesome.
“Actually, I haven’t attended any social gatherings since the previous evening party. During that party, we met, didn’t we? To meet Lord Noel again by chance is amazing. I’m truly happy!”
“Sure, it’d be great if it were a coincidence.”
I didn’t quite grasp the meaning of his words. But when I saw his dazzling smile, I no longer cared about such a triviality.
“Even though you’re busy working with the knights, you still have to attend a lot of gatherings… it must be tough.”
“No, not at all.”
Noel was truly humble. Now that I thought about it, he was at every party I had attended, even though I only participated once in a while.
In retrospect, it was probably because he attended all the gatherings.
“Thanks to talking to Lord Noel, I feel like I can do my best again.”
“That’s great. I will do my best, too.”
“Is that so?”
“Yes, after all, it’s only a little bit more.”
What did he mean by that? I was sure he was referring to some important business.
“Please do your best not to overdo it! I support my beloved Lord Noel more than anyone else!”
I said that while clenching both of my fists.
For some reason, Noel covered his face with one hand and quickly turned away from me.
“…Sherry is truly amazing.”
He muttered that for some reason.
But the one who was amazing was Noel, not me.
He eventually turned around and showed me a superb smile. “Thank you, Sherry.”
I was dizzy from the overwhelming love and joy I felt.
***
“Lord Noel, it’s been a long time!”
After having said that, she rushed towards me like a puppy. I felt a pain in my chest, as if she had squeezed it.
From the moment she entered the venue, I had been staring at her. The moment she actually looked at me, I could feel her intense love.
—That day, too, Sherry still loved me.
That fact made me feel relieved and happy above all else.
“Actually, I haven’t attended any social gatherings since the previous evening party. During that party, we met, didn’t we? To meet Lord Noel again by chance is amazing. I’m truly happy!”
“Even though you’re busy working with the knights, you still have to attend a lot of gatherings… it must be tough.”
The innocent her seemed to be convinced of that.
I was honestly not free. However, she never would’ve imagined that I especially attended the gatherings she participated in. In truth, I just wanted to see her, hence why I was there.
If she were to find out about that, how would she react? Would she be surprised? She might feel uncomfortable. That was why I only smiled and decided to hide everything until that day.
“Please do your best not to overdo it! I support my beloved Lord Noel more than anyone else!”
The words she said to me amidst our conversation made me tremble to the point that I wanted to cry.
“…Sherry is truly amazing.”
Her true feelings overflowed involuntarily, and I thought I was no match for her.
No matter how painful it might be, I could do my best with just one of her words.
***
Sherry tilted her head as she picked up the many invitations spread across the table in the hall.
“I used to participate in various activities. But recently, I’ve been staying in the mansion most of the time. I wonder if that’s alright? Oh, of course, I’ve been with Noel for a long time, so I can’t eat too much at them! I’m so happy!”
Her face as she said that was truly cute. Her myriads of expressions made me want to hug her.
“Please eat properly. Contrary to what you said before, I originally only participated occasionally.”
“Really?”
I suddenly remembered when I met her at those evening parties in the past.
When I thought about it now, I felt that I should have put in more effort in going to see her. Yet, at that time, I thought that was for the best. I ridiculed myself inwardly—thinking I was really stupid.
“Alright, then. In the future, I will occasionally participate with you, Lord Noel.”
…What would Sherry say if I told her I only participated to meet her? I smiled when I thought that she’d either cry or rejoice.
“I love you, Sherry.”
I gently dropped a kiss on her beloved cheek which gradually turned bright red.
***T/N: What’s the diff between Cliff and Noel, they both have tendencies to do scary things... I mean, I sympathize with Noel, but overall he’s still a mustard.
While reading I was very with the TL in bashing Noel but actually. Now that I think about it more, Noel and Cliff are VERY different. Noel is a little turd but he’s not Cliff, I think we’re doing him dirty comparing them, homeboy needs someone to defend him!
All of Noel’s actions are above the board and according to the regularly accepted social norms of the setting, with full knowledge that he and Sherry have mutual feelings for each other and the explicit approval of all their family and friends. All of Cliff’s actions are made behind the scenes in secret with full knowledge that Sherry doesn’t give a rat’s ass about him and has a lover already, and every action is deviant and universally frowned upon by all civilized societies.
Noel is a jealous long term boyfriend. Cliff is a psychotic murderous stalker. BIG difference.
Noel: Marries Sherry (through the proper culturally relevant process), Kisses her that one time, is jealous
Cliff: Stalks her, breaking and entering, sends creepy letters, murders a random girl, drugs, kidnaps and enslaves Sherry…
While Noel and Cliff are both often described violently, there’s a subtle but very important difference. Noel is violent towards people that try to harm Sherry, but never once even considers hurting her. He’s protective. But Cliff is violent indiscriminately and towards Sherry herself. He’s dangerous.
Noel threatens to be violent twice:
1) A girl is bullying Sherry in a dark corner. He gives a verbal threat, but does not follow through.
2) A kidnapper has taken Sherry and locked her in his dark cabin in the woods with the intention of making her his plaything. The kidnapper brutally beat Sherry with the intent of killing her, ripped out huge clumps of her hair, broke multiple limbs, ripped up her face and slammed her head into a wall repeatedly before blowing up the building with her inside. She was found on the verge of death collapsed in the middle of a demonic forest, after she desperately dragged herself away trying to escape the murderous kidnapper with the last of her strength.
Like bloody hell! If some bastard took my girlfriend/fiance and did that to her I’d want to rip him limb from limb too! She was moments away from dying in his arms, her last words would have been “Noel I love you” while he cried over her broken body! It was messy too, it would have been a closed casket funeral for sure!
I’d argue that unrestrained rage is the completely normal response! Anyone would feel the same way about the psychopath that did that to their loved ones!
Now contrast that with Cliff.
1) A girl is bullying Sherry in a dark corner. So Cliff attempts to murder the bully gruesomely, and very nearly succeeds
2) Sherry has found love and happiness. Cliff can’t accept this, so he murders a guard, injures four more, drugs Sherry and kidnaps her to his scary cabin in the demon woods
3) Kidnapped, Sherry still refuses to love Cliff. So he decides to beat her to death to relieve his sexual tension
Noel and Cliff are VERY different people. Noel is flawed, he’s selfish, he’s pushy, but he does all those things knowing that Sherry won’t be too mad at him, because they have strong mutual feelings and want to be together. He pushes the envelope but never farther than he thinks Sherry would be okay with (the way she acts normally anyway). He wants her to be happy and he wants to take care of her. He’s pushy in assuming that Sherry loves him and wants to do lovey dovey things with him… which is a fair assumption to make, because Sherry has been shouting as much for six years straight to literally anybody that would listen. Every other sentence out of her mouth is “Noel I love you!!!”.
She could not possibly have been any less subtle, you know? Even if she had written “SHERRY LOVES NOEL PLEASE MARRY ME” on the sky in rainbows and unicorn farts while carrying a giant Neon billboard that says “NOEL’S FUTURE WIFE HE’S MINE” on her back and wearing a sweater with flashing Christmas lights in the shape of a heart with “S+N” on the front, that’s her level of “subtle” here. If he still doesn’t know that she likes him at this point he’d have to be blind, deaf, and literally braindead…
Noel’s real flaw is that he’s awful at communication. But pushiness can be excused, only because Sherry made it so abundantly obvious that she is very very into him over such a long period of time. After asking for it for so long, I think Noel can be forgiven for assuming that she wants what she asked for. I would say, he shouldn’t have kissed her that one time when she wasn’t into it… read the room dude… but other than that, he never actually touched her?? He pushed her around with life decisions, but if she reallllly didn’t want to marry him or move in with him she could have just told her parents that at any time and the whole deal would be called off, he was only able to push her around because she implicitly allowed him to.
TBH if I were Noel what I’d be thinking is “OH crap my girlfriend is mad at me! She’s giving me the cold shoulder! How do I get her to calm down?” and not “Oh no she doesn’t love me anymore I should leave her alone and give up” like no, it’s way more likely that she’s just temporarily angry not that she wants to cut off your relationship entirely. You have a six year long romantic relationship with her leading the whole time. You wouldn’t immediately assume she wants to go totally nuclear right away, you know? That 180 would be whiplash inducing.
Beyond that there’s also the matter of the tracking necklace but frankly. I don’t think he would have given her that except that she had a scary stalker threatening to kidnap her. Which the stalker did. and then the stalker nearly killed her, except that she had that tracker and Noel was able to find her just in time… Noel was completely justified with the tracker thing. It saved her life, so it can be forgiven. Really he should have just told her about it from the start and gotten her permission but. He’s awful at communication! He likes to solve everything on his own and not trouble her with their problems! He needs to trust her more! He has one major flaw and that’s the flaw, and it comes up over and over again.
There’s a huge difference between being pushy-romantic with a girl that is clearly madly in love with you for the long haul and being violent-“romantic” with a girl that clearly hates you and already has a boyfriend. That difference is the difference between Noel and Cliff.
Noel’s actions are annoying but ultimately acceptable because Sherry is okay with it, while Cliff is a menace to society straight out of a true crime documentary and should get an appointment with a firing squad for the sake of public safety and morals. Like, if you took both MLs to court, Noel would be accused of sexual harassment at worst but would get away scott-free because Sherry wouldn’t press charges… and Cliff would get six life sentences as a serial-killer rapist (his body count is six attempted murders and one success by the end of it! plus resisting arrest and attacking the officers!).
See what I mean? Homeboy is annoying and I miss Walt but the comparison with Serial Killer Cliff is really doing Noel dirty. Also I think Walt would have just like. died. Walt would not survive dating Sherry. I pray that Walt finds a nice, normal, not crazy and non psycho-magnet girl. Walt’s too good for this mess. Maybe he can have a happy life with the little Villainess that ran headlong straight into her death flags? She should be fine by now, right? XD
I stand corrected.
I guess Noel asked for consent a few times so it’s okay? Not that I would buy that. Gosh, I don’t know the rules for yanderes, man.
It all boils down to how the other party feels about it and the intent. Sherry would be completely fine with whatever Noel does to her, especially since she clearly has some masochistic qualities. But Cliff is not Noel. Even is he hadn’t gone the insane stalker route, she would have hated it because it’s not Noel. Noel also does a lot of things for Sherry’s sake and not just his own selfish reasons. There is still a lot of selfishness to be sure, but that tracker for instance has her safety in mind… As well as probably tracking her move. But even so Sherry would probably be thrilled and have her heart flutter at the thought that Noel wants to know where she is because in her mind it means he’s always thinking about her and wanting to know where she is. She’s his focus. So for her the obscene amount of attention is a GOOD thing because that’s what she wants.
This is what makes this story actually very interesting because it takes traits that would be questionable in a real world setting and sets different foils with the characters to reflect how one bad thing is terrible to someone, but that same bad thing is acceptable for that person because of who it is. It also shows the extremes of both stalker and possessive and how to a certain degree it’s “okay” but once you cross a line it’s dangerous and corrupt.
Can I just say that I really appreciate your analysis!
+1, Same, me too.
+2