Chapter 487.<h4><b>Chapter 487. Heading to the Peak: The Descent. (2/3)</b></h4>


    <span style="font-weight:400">My right leg moved forward in a sh and my foot nted down heavily on the corner of the cliff at a forty-five-degree angle.


    <span style="font-weight:400">I lowered my center of gravity, tensed all the muscles in my right leg, and grit my teeth.


    <span style="font-weight:400">“Just waiting for the leap of faith!” The sound of the world returned as Rosa sang out the lyrics jubntly in sync with crazedughter.


    <span style="font-weight:400">Through my back, I felt her heart pounding just as hard as mine as I pushed off the cliff with all my strength into the air.


    <span style="font-weight:400">“Hahaha! I love you, Ran!” She didn’t sound scared at all.


    <span style="font-weight:400">After thatst lyric, the beat dropped the instant we reached the furthest distance from the cliff and began to fall. It was right then that Rosa deployed the chute.


    <span style="font-weight:400">Our bodies jerked in the air as the parachute slowed our descent.


    <span style="font-weight:400">“Hah… hah… hah…” I was out of breath from just that. My heartbeat was through the roof as I looked down. I could make out the ground below thanks to the moonlight and Rosa’s soul.


    <span style="font-weight:400">We were pretty close at first but we gained some ground when a gust of wind blew us forward.


    <span style="font-weight:400">“You’re already out of breath? You really need to work out more.” Rosa teased.


    <span style="font-weight:400">The parachute pping in the wind above us was rather noisy.


    <span style="font-weight:400">It was scary looking down as the ground grew more distant.


    <span style="font-weight:400">“Rather than me working out more, maybe you should lose some weight.”


    <span style="font-weight:400">“What? Did you just say you want me to cut the straps with my nails?”


    <span style="font-weight:400">“... wow, you’re so light Rosa! Have you lost weight recently?”


    <span style="font-weight:400">“Hehehe, have I? I haven’t checked.”


    <span style="font-weight:400">Scary.


    <span style="font-weight:400">Rosa rested her chin on my left shoulder and nuzzled her right cheek up against my left cheek.


    <span style="font-weight:400">“It wasn’t so scary, was it?”


    <span style="font-weight:400">“Yes it was. Please don’t joke about cutting the straps.”


    <span style="font-weight:400">“I meant jumping, dummy.”


    <span style="font-weight:400">“I’d be lying if I said that wasn’t scary.”


    <span style="font-weight:400">“What? You doubted me?”


    <span style="font-weight:400">“No. But you never know for certain what will happen. What if the chute failed to deploy? What if the line snapped because it couldn’t hold our weight?”


    <span style="font-weight:400">“I checked and inspected it all beforehand.”


    <span style="font-weight:400">“Where did you even get a parachute? Aren’t they really expensive? Like 10k or something?”


    <span style="font-weight:400">“I saw itying around at Dawn’s ce and asked her about it. Apparently, Dawn’s parents used to go skydiving and base jumping together back in their university days. Dawn’s mother received it as a gift.”


    <span style="font-weight:400">“A gift from who?”


    <span style="font-weight:400">“Who do you think? The very same target who’s in love with her. He initially used it together with her before gifting it away, only for her to start using it together with Dawn’s fatherter on. Dawn’s mother didn’t take it with her when she left.”


    <span style="font-weight:400">“So it had that sort of story behind it...”


    <span style="font-weight:400">“Yeah.”


    <span style="font-weight:400">“But if it was a gift from his enemy, why’d he keep it?”


    <span style="font-weight:400">“When I asked him if I could borrow it he said he’d actually been wanting to get rid of it for a while but couldn’t bring himself to do so all these years. He told me I could have it.”


    <span style="font-weight:400">“I see. Though it was something from his enemy, it was still something he shared a lot of fond memories together with his wife.”


    <span style="font-weight:400">“Yeah. That left him with mixed feelings.”


    <span style="font-weight:400">“I wonder if they’ve made up by now or if Aurelia’s still hesitating.”


    <span style="font-weight:400">“We’ll find out soon enough, won’t we?”


    <span style="font-weight:400">“Yeah.”


    <span style="font-weight:400">“Hey Rosa, was the reason you wanted your first time to be on top of a mountain under a full moon as simple as you let on?”


    <span style="font-weight:400">“Where’s thising from all of a sudden?”


    <span style="font-weight:400">“It’s been on my mind since I didn’t get the chance to ask before because of how quickly you changed the topic back then.”


    <span style="font-weight:400">“Ugh, why’d you have to remember?”


    <span style="font-weight:400">“Was there really more of a reason?”


    <span style="font-weight:400">“It’s not like there wasn’t any reason…”


    <span style="font-weight:400">“What was it?”


    <span style="font-weight:400">“It’s embarrassing.”


    <span style="font-weight:400">“Just tell me.”


    <span style="font-weight:400">“... the reason was… because I couldn’t have your first time.”


    <span style="font-weight:400">“What do you mean?”


    <span style="font-weight:400">“I… wanted it to be a first for both of us, and since I couldn’t be your first time… I at least wanted it to be an experience that you’d almost definitely never share with another girl in the future... so I picked somewhere hard to reach where you’d likely never do it with anyone else.”


    <span style="font-weight:400">“So that was why.”


    <span style="font-weight:400">“Yeah…”


    <span style="font-weight:400">“Hah. You have an unexpectedly cute side to you sometimes.”


    <span style="font-weight:400">“Shut up, jerk. And what do you mean sometimes? I’m always the cutest.”


    <span style="font-weight:400">Together, having a nice long chat, we soared through the starry night sky illuminated by the moonlight through the mountains and headed for theke we camped out the night before.


    <span style="font-weight:400">We might have been the first stupid couple to have pillow talk while falling from the sky.


    <span style="font-weight:400">It wasn’t a bad experience at all.


    <span style="font-weight:400">I felt strangely at peace.


    <span style="font-weight:400">Rosa aimed for the shallow part of theke near where we left behind some of our stuff in a bush. We cushioned ournding in the water and retrieved everything we left.


    <span style="font-weight:400">The journey up the mountain had taken about forty minutes while the journey back down had been much shorter thanks to the parachute. Rosa really nned things out well. With how well it went, it was questionable which would have been more dangerous, trying to traverse the mountain during the dark or parachuting back to the ground.


    <span style="font-weight:400">In the end, it worked out well, but I’d definitely not want to take such a gamble again anytime soon. I definitely wouldn’t rmend anyone trying to replicate it either. Especially not when you were an inexperienced noob like me. It only worked out this time because Rosa had prior experience and could judge where it was safe to jump off from.


    <span style="font-weight:400">“Hey, now that you have some experience jumping off a mountain, want to try out a wingsuit next time?”


    <span style="font-weight:400">When Rosa asked me that while hugging my left arm on our way back to the lot I parked my motorcycle, I nearly tripped and fell over.


    <span style="font-weight:400">“Like hell there’s going to be a next time!”


    <span style="font-weight:400">“What? Why not? It feels even more liberating than just leisurely coasting along with a parachute.”


    <span style="font-weight:400">“Rosa… are you trying to get me killed? Did you take out a life insurance policy for me without my knowledge or something?”


    <span style="font-weight:400">“Hehehehe, no, but maybe I should.”


    <span style="font-weight:400">“Considering the things I’ve been up totely… maybe it would be a good idea to take one out.”


    <span style="font-weight:400">“That’d be a waste of money. I’m not letting you die any time in the near future.”


    <span style="font-weight:400">“So you’ll let me die in the far-off future?”


    <span style="font-weight:400">“No.”


    <span style="font-weight:400">“Then when do you n on letting me die?”


    <span style="font-weight:400">“I’ll torture you to death with love for eternity.”


    <span style="font-weight:400">“That sounds pretty scary. Like I won’t even be permitted to die.”


    <span style="font-weight:400">“It is scary.”


    <span style="font-weight:400">“Oh, I almost forgot something.”


    <span style="font-weight:400">“What?”


    <span style="font-weight:400">“I love you too.”


    <span style="font-weight:400">“Sote~”


    <span style="font-weight:400">“I forgot to say it back when you said it because of the whole… you know… jumping off a mountain thing we had going on at the time.”


    <span style="font-weight:400">“Hehehe.”


    <span style="font-weight:400">…