One day, as I was working at the bakery, arranging freshly baked bread on the shelves, a soldier, as big as a bear, strode towards me and stood right in front of me.
“Jessica! Marry me!”
Huh? Marry? And who even are you? How do you know my name?
“I refuse. I don’t have the hobby of marrying strangers.”
“You’ve got to be kidding... I never imagined being rejected…”
All expression vanished from the man’s face, and he stood there frozen.
Never imagined being rejected, huh? Either he’s super confident in himself, or he thinks I’m an easy woman who would fall for his advances just like that.
I forced him out of the store, as he was blocking business, despite his shrunken and deflated figure. Yet, the next day, he showed up again like nothing happened. What a persistent guy.
“My name is Max Samson. I’ve introduced myself. Now that we know each other, you’ll marry me, right?”
“If knowing someone’s name is all it takes to get married, I’d have to marry a hundred men. Your turn would be dead last.”
The man—Max—pursed his lips in a displeased manner.
Is he mad? I wondered, but instead, he said with utmost seriousness:
“Then, I’ll come here every day so you can get to know me. That way, my spot in line will move up, right?”
“Well, I suppose that’s how it would work.”
“I’ll be back tomorrow.”
He bought a large amount of bread, accepted the paper bag I handed him, and left the shop, carrying it under one arm.
What a strange person.
I had no memory of ever meeting Max before.
Sure, he could have asked around town to learn my name, but proposing marriage to a woman he hardly knows the moment he meets her? His head must be messed up.
What’s even more puzzling is that his words carried a strong sense of sincerity.
I have a gift.
That being said, as a commoner, my ability isn’t anything special.
Among the nobility, there are people blessed by the gods with extraordinary powers, such as healing injuries and illnesses, teleporting instantly to distant places, or repelling evil creatures.
In other words, they’re noble because they come from families that produce such rare and gifted individuals.
Occasionally, commoners like me are born with gifts, too. But they’re usually trivial things like being slightly better at rock-paper-scissors, predicting whether it will rain tomorrow, or being good at finding lost items—useful, but not essential.
My gift is that I can hear people’s inner voices.
That might sound impressive, but I can only hear the words that people think strongly in their hearts, which makes the ability rather limited in practicality.
Most people tend to say out loud whatever they’re thinking strongly in their hearts.
If a friend is thinking, “I’m having fun!” while we’re playing, they’ll naturally laugh and say, “This is fun!”
If someone strongly thinks, “This place brings back memories” when visiting an old spot, they’ll often mutter, “This brings back memories,” without realizing it.
What reaches my ears is a unison of the same words from both their heart and mouth.
The only advantage is that I can tell when the words spoken come from deep inside their heart.
Max’s proposal reached me in unison.
Words spoken in jest or on a whim don’t resonate like that.
I may not be modest, but I’m pretty good-looking, and as the face of a popular bakery, I get asked out by men all the time. I’m quite popular.
However, not once have I heard a warm and caring inner voice from those shallow, flighty guys.
As promised, Max started coming to the bakery every day and buying bread.
“I’m a guard stationed at the castle. I’m saving most of my salary for our future married life, Jessica.”
“That’s a stable job with a steady income, which is a good trait. Your ranking moves up one place to 99th.”
“To come to this shop, I’ve arranged with my colleagues to adjust my break times. I give the bread I buy here to them as a token of thanks.”
“You have good coworkers and a pleasant working environment. You’re thoughtful too, so you’ve earned another point. 98th place.”
“I love how manly Jessica is when she firmly scolds the children with care!”
“??? I have no idea what you’re talking about. Are you confusing me with someone else? You drop two ranks and go back to 100th place.”
He would rush into the store during his short breaks, breathless, exchange a few words with me, and then leave with a satisfied, slightly flushed expression. His behavior was noticed by many people in town, and I was frequently teased about it.
“That bear of a man comes charging in like an earthquake, as if he wants to reach the shop a second sooner.”
“I saw him buy a flower from a street vendor’s child, blushing as he did so. That flower in your hair is always from him, right?”
“He looks big and scary, but he seems like a decent guy. You should give him an answer soon.”
Even the bakery’s elderly owners said, “It would be nice if you could keep working here, even after getting married and having kids.”
Max was relentless in proposing to me whenever he had the chance, but since I could hear the sincerity in his heart with every word, my wariness of him gradually faded, and I started to realize that my feelings were leaning toward him.
And finally, when Max reached the top of the priority list for marriage:
“I did it! I’m number one! Jessica, you’re going to marry me now, right?”
“Not yet. Just because you’re number one doesn’t mean we’re getting married right away.”
“...Not yet…”
Max slumped over, visibly dejected. His expression was so easy to read that I couldn’t help but smile.
“…I’ve been imagining every day that Jessica might never accept my proposal, and it’s been crushing me.”
“Fufu. First, we’ll start by dating, Max. Let’s meet outside the shop. Will you go on a date with me?”
“A d-d-date…”
His face turned bright red, and he awkwardly shifted his gaze around. I laughed again, thinking how he had proposed so seriously, yet was now so flustered.
We matched our days off and went on picnics, shopping, and spent a lot of time talking about each other.
One day, I told him about my sister, who had passed away two years ago. She had died suddenly from a plague, and I still couldn’t believe it. Sometimes, I’d cry because I missed her so much and just wanted to see her again.
Max gently took my hand, as if handling something fragile, and said, “I know the pain of losing someone important. It must have been hard for you.”
“You’ve lost family too?”
“Yeah. When I was a kid, I lost my parents and siblings all at once in a fire.”
“That’s terrible... What happened after that?”
“I moved from house to house, staying with different acquaintances. Getting hit and going without food became a normal part of life.”
He spoke as if it were nothing.
“I’m sorry… I didn’t…”
“No, it’s all in the past. Maybe it was hard at the time, but I lived on, holding on to the dream of one day building a warm home, a place where I belonged. Now that I’ve met you, Jessica, I think that dream might finally come true.”
That was the decisive moment for me.
I thought, I want to make this kind, awkward man happy. I want to create a home where he can feel at peace, wrapping up his painful past with warmth.
If someone with the same gift as me were here, they would have heard two voices in unison at that moment.
“Max, please make me your wife!”
We were married with the blessings of many people. It turned out the townsfolk had been watching over us with concern, and they repeatedly warned Max, “Don’t ever make Jessica, the town’s favorite, cry.” Max wept like a baby, and the town’s children teased him, calling him “the crybaby uncle.”
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