Chapter 108

Chapter 108

Surging Strength (2)

“As expected, clothes will have no meaning at all, right...?”

Looking at the clothes I had taken out of the closet, tried on, and thrown aside, I murmured that.

In Eisel’s case, she had been outside, so I could understand it. But in my case, this could be seen as a date just between the two of us, spending cozy time with Zeto inside my room.

“Right, let us leave the clothes for next time...”

I stared at the shorts so short they almost made it look as if I was not wearing pants, then soon turned my head.

In any case, clothes were not important to Zeto.

I hurriedly cleaned up the clothes and moved to the kitchen.

As I prepared everything so I could cook at any time, I recalled what had happened in the forest a while ago.

It had happened while I was deep in the forest, wondering what to say to Zeto when inviting him to eat.

“Of all times, for Zeto to come there...”

Even looking back on it now, it was a dizzying moment.

As I was practicing my lines while imagining Zeto was before me, he had suddenly appeared.

If it was Zeto, whose ears were sharp... there was a very high possibility he had heard everything I had been saying.

“Ha... I really must be crazy... What do I do...”

Having reached that conclusion, I stopped preparing the ingredients and stamped my feet.

“I am looking forward to your cooking. Then should I come to your room, Miss Yuri?”

Well, I had somehow managed to get past it... but there had been no romance.

In other words, there had been no romance.

At a time when even showing off my charms to the fullest might not have been enough, I had shown him only something lacking.

“Huu... Still, I have the food...”

Crouching in the kitchen, I took a deep breath and rose again.

More importantly, when would Zeto come?

He had said he would come on his own, but we had not set an exact meeting time.

When I asked how he would find my room, Zeto said he thought he could somehow manage it with Perception.

Apparently he could distinguish, to some degree, who was inside a room or something like that. The more I learned about his “Perception,” the more astonishing an ability it was.

Because of that, even though this was, in a way, the most important matter, Zeto passed it over so casually that I also let it pass.

Even after the sun set and the surroundings grew dark, Zeto had still not appeared.

Thanks to that, I was able to prepare at leisure, but I was slowly growing uneasy.

My heart grew impatient at the thought that I might meet Zeto soon, and the clock hands that normally would not have bothered me kept pressing on me.

“Was eating in my room too much...?”

I was seriously worried that perhaps Zeto had been caught by a guard while trying to enter the dormitory.

After finishing the food preparation that way, I decided to sit on the bed with my legs together and quietly wait for Zeto.

Had I ever waited so anxiously for someone in my life?

Zeto was the first.

Even so, I still wondered whether this could be called love.

It was not that I disliked him, but was it all right for my feelings toward him to change so suddenly like this?

He, whom I had encountered almost by chance, had soaked into me so naturally.

While staying close to him, I had not once felt uncomfortable around him.

I was confused as to whether I felt that way because, unlike the other men who were obsessed with my appearance, he could not see it, or simply because he was “Zeto.”

To think that his misfortune was an element that gave me comfort. It was truly ironic.

I had been thinking recently that even if Zeto could see, he probably would not make me uncomfortable.

I did not think I would feel any black-hearted intentions from him.

It simply felt that way.

Rather, if he had not been blind... what would it have been like?

Would he have approached me more actively?

Would he have looked at me not as a “friend,” but as a member of the opposite sex and approached me that way?

...It was a foolish thought.

“Phew...”

I was letting the air out of my cheeks as I hugged my knees.

—Knock, knock.

A knocking sound came.

The moment I heard it, I hurriedly leapt from the bed and opened the door.

—Clack.

Even as I opened the door, I was half in doubt.

I was worried whether Zeto had arrived properly without anything happening.

Soon, the door opened completely, and the figure of the person standing before it slowly entered my eyes.

Snow-white bandages... black hair...

There was no need to look further. It was Zeto.

He had arrived properly.

The moment I confirmed him, the corners of my lips rose.

“...”

I was about to call his name in joy, but Zeto put his index finger to his lips as if telling me to be quiet.

That was right. Zeto was a man, and this was the female dormitory.

He had come secretly, after all.

I quietly let Zeto in and quickly closed the door.

“...I am sorry for making you wait so long. I thought it would be better to come at a time when people were less likely to pass through the corridor.”

Zeto opened his mouth first and smiled.

“Ah, no, I was not really waiting? I was just sleeping...?”

Because his gentle voice and kind words made me embarrassed, nonsense burst from my mouth.

It was a “habit” that had formed lately because Zeto kept making me embarrassed.

“Haha, for that, the door opened extremely quickly.”

“That is... M-more importantly, how did you get here? You were not discovered on the way, right?”

“Mm... I was not discovered in particular. I was hiding inside the shadows.”

“Shadows...?”

At my question, Zeto shrugged.

...Well, it probably meant he had moved stealthily.

Though he was supposed to be a swordsman, Zeto was using expressions that sounded like something an Eastern “ninja” would say.

“Then, excuse me.”

Soon, Zeto fully entered my room.

“So this is Miss Yuri’s room. It is my first time in a girl’s room...”

As Zeto walked through the room, he leaned his sword against one side of the wall. Soon, he stood awkwardly in the middle of the room, head turned toward me, waiting quietly for something.

“...Ah, would you like to sit on the bed?”

While finding this strange, I hurriedly guided Zeto.

The guest was not me but Zeto, yet the thought that I was alone with him in this room, narrow if one wished to call it narrow, made it difficult to regain my senses.

—Soft.

Soon, Zeto, sitting on the bed, opened his mouth.

“I was surprised by the sudden mention of cooking. So you can cook personally, Miss Yuri?”

“Hm, hm... Cooking is nothing much.”

At Zeto’s question, I coughed once and bluffed.

...There was no need to tell him that I had practiced cooking all day.

I immediately headed to the kitchen and prepared the dish.

While preparing the food, I turned my head and took Zeto into my eyes. He was sitting quietly on the bed.

As always, Zeto gave off an atmosphere like a painting. He was merely sitting on the bed, yet he harmonized rather well with the night scenery, darkened outside the window behind him.

I wanted to bring up something to talk about, but it was not easy. Being like this in a room with just the two of us made me embarrassed, as if we were a “married couple.”

I tore my gaze away from Zeto and focused on cooking again.

The dish was completed quickly.

I had prepared things in advance, and since I had repeated the process many times, my hands had grown used to it.

Around the time the cooking was almost finished, Zeto’s voice came from over there.

“...It smells good? Is it a meat... dish?”

Zeto said, raising his head and sniffing.

“Yes. You have been bleeding at every chance lately, and your body seemed to have grown frail... so I specially prepared a nourishing dish passed down in our family.”

There was no need to tell him exactly what meat it was.

I thought it was better if he did not know.

“A nourishing dish of the Clementine family. I wonder if it is all right to feed such a precious dish to an outsider like me...”

“Pfft, do not worry. This is probably the first time it has been served to an outsider who is not family... but, well, I received Father’s permission.”

“From the family head?”

“Yes. By letter... Father gave me the ingredients too.”

I answered Zeto’s question that way and carefully placed the food in the bowl.

“Zeto, it is ready...”

I called him while placing the bowl on the table.

Soon, he rose from the bed, approached, and sat at the table.

There were two people, but only one bowl and one set of utensils.

Looking at Zeto as he tilted his head while sitting at the table, I opened my mouth.

“Th-this seems like it will be hard to eat because of the bones, so I was thinking of helping you...”

As I said that, I carved the meat from the bone with a knife.

“It is all right. I am grateful enough that you cooked for me.”

Zeto waved a hand, but my hands did not stop.

“With a frail body like yours... It is fine. Sit still and let me feed you.”

At my words, Zeto smiled faintly and gave up resisting.

“This is only for Zeto, whose eyes are impaired. It is absolutely not to satisfy my selfish desires...”

Repeating that thought, I slowly brought the fork with a piece of meat on it to his lips.

“Will you try saying ah...?”

Following my words, Zeto opened his mouth.

The meat entered his mouth like that, and his mouth immediately closed.

After he finally chewed the meat carefully and swallowed it, I asked cautiously.

“How is it...?”

When I tasted it in the middle, nothing had seemed especially strange.

When I fed it to Lucia after she woke up in the morning, her eyes had grown round as she said this one was fine... so perhaps it had been completed well. Even so, every person’s tongue had different preferences.

I could not let go of the thread of tension.

But unlike my worries, Zeto, who tilted his head, voiced a pleasant question.

“You were good at cooking, Miss Yuri...?”

“It is delicious...?”

“It would not be an exaggeration to say a skilled chef made it.”

As I listened to him, I felt as if I might jump inside.

The pride that my efforts had not gone to waste.

The sense of achievement that I had served him food according to plan.

And the fact that, entirely through my own strength, I had made his lips carry a smile had great meaning too.

“Ah.”

Once again, I held the meat to his lips.

“...”

As I watched Zeto chewing with his chin propped in one hand, the corners of my lips twitched upward.

“...Cute.”

Zeto obediently following my words was quite different from his usual self, so he felt cute.

I had never held great interest in cute things, but sometimes, this did not seem bad either.

“It really feels like we are a married couple...”

I had never experienced married life even once, but I wondered if this much could count as a special date.

Just as I was thinking that and bringing meat to him again...

“It seems only I have been eating for a while now...”

Zeto soon took my hand and gently took the fork with the meat from me.

“I made the food for you, Zeto, so what is wrong with only Zeto eating it?”

“...Food tastes better when eaten together, does it not? I cannot bring it exactly to your lips, but... Miss Yuri, say ah too.”

Then Zeto held the fork near my face and said that.

It seemed that my not eating had bothered him.

“...”

Because the situation had reversed in an instant, I was flustered and fidgeting.

Zeto was still holding out the meat and waiting for me.

“Being fed by someone... is terribly embarrassing...”

I squeezed my eyes shut and put the meat into my mouth.

In the quiet room, only the sound of me chewing could be heard. For some reason, that made it even more embarrassing.

After I finally swallowed the meat completely, Zeto smiled and asked me.

“How is it? It is delicious, right?”

“...Yes.”

After answering softly, I could not raise my head for some time because my face was burning.