Chapter 29
‘Hmm, this should be enough.’
Though I had made it myself, the sauce was so perfect that I couldn’t help admiring it. I set the bowl filled with gochujang sauce down on the table, feeling quite satisfied.
“Hehe, can I taste it too?”
“Go ahead.”
I had been wondering why she was being so quiet. As though she had been waiting for this moment, Ria made a beeline for the sauce, but I slipped past her and headed toward the rice cooker. As I drew closer, the savory, sweet scent of freshly cooked rice pleasantly filled the air.
“Mmm~! It’s delicious!”
“I’m glad.”
“But was spicy pork stir-fry always this sweet?”
“I deliberately made it a little sweet.”
“Deliberately?”
“Yeah. Kairos likes sweet things.”
Although he usually walked around pretending to be above worldly concerns with a mature expression, his pockets were always filled with cheap lemon candies.
“Hmm, so this is Kairos’s special sauce.”
“If we’re doing this, we might as well do it properly. If you’ve tasted the sauce, come over and try some rice, too.”
“Okay, okay.”
Ria approached without hesitation. I opened the rice cooker and stirred the steaming rice a few times with the rice paddle.
Standing beside me, Ria asked in a voice full of curiosity,
“But why rice all of a sudden? Didn’t people usually eat spicy pork stir-fry wrapped in bread?”
“Normally, yes. But Kairos seems to eat it with rice in particular.”
“Huh? With rice?”
“Yeah. He likes rice to an almost bizarre degree.”
Whenever I saw him in the dining hall, he would always pile rice onto his tray until it looked like a mountain. It was almost strange that he never gained weight despite eating that much.
“What an unusual preference.”
Ria shrugged and craned her neck toward the rice cooker. I held out the rice paddle with a little rice on it. Ria promptly bit down on it as though she had been waiting for me to do so.
“Hot…!”
“Of course it’s hot. It was just cooked.”
I sighed and handed her the glass of water sitting nearby.
Ria emptied the glass in an instant, then blew softly over her mouth.
“It still tastes good. Though it does seem a little undercooked.”
“I deliberately left it slightly undercooked.”
“Don’t tell me this is Kairos’s special rice, too?”
“Well, yes.”
After secretly analyzing his eating habits for the past three days, I had discovered that whenever the rice came out a little too soft, he always took less than usual. He probably liked his rice firm and chewy.
“Hmm… I see.”
Ria suddenly looked up at me with a peculiar expression.
“What’s with that expression?”
I set down the rice paddle and narrowed my eyes.
“Nothing~ It’s just that you seem to know Kairos way too well, Rene.”
“Of course I need to know him well. I have to turn Christina into exactly the kind of woman he likes.”
I shrugged as if it were nothing and closed the rice cooker’s lid.
“Anyway, this should be enough sauce and rice… Tomorrow, I’ll have to teach Christina how to make side dishes.”
“Side dishes, too?”
“A lunchbox needs at least three side dishes.”
One main dish and two sides. That was the basic rule of a lunchbox.
“Rene, you’re taking this really seriously….”
“When I do something, I do it properly.”
I untied my hair, which I had bound tightly for cooking, and took off my apron.
Then I pulled out a handkerchief and was about to wipe the sweat from my forehead when….
“Eek?!”
I suddenly noticed a small shadow standing in the kitchen doorway.
“Oh, it’s Eli.”
Ria greeted her familiarly. Sure enough, Eli was standing in the doorway. I calmed my startled heart and took a step toward her.
“What brings you here at this late hour?”
Eli’s private room was on the third floor, just like Kairos’s. Under normal circumstances, she had little reason to come all the way down here to the student kitchen on the first floor.
Eli, who had been staring intently at me, finally straightened up and opened her mouth.
“I heard a rumor that Miss Rene was cooking here.”
“The rumor has already spread?”
“Yes, apparently.”
Who on earth was spreading such rumors? As I tilted my head in puzzlement, Eli took another step toward me.
“So why have you suddenly started cooking?”
“C-cooking?”
Hmm, how should I explain this?
Of course, the correct answer was, ‘I’m developing lunchbox recipes perfectly suited to Kairos’s tastes for Christina’s romantic strategy.’ But even so, I felt that it would be wrong to reveal Christina’s rather embarrassing secret without permission.
Even if it was Eli, I was merely an assistant in this matter.
“I begged her to make it.”
Right then, Ria slipped into the conversation as naturally as could be.
“Huh?”
When I turned to her in confusion, Ria grinned and continued,
“I suddenly got a craving for sweet and spicy pork stir-fry.”
Then, from an angle Eli couldn’t see, Ria winked at me with her left eye.
“R-right. She kept begging me to make it.”
Nice save! I immediately backed up her story.
“Hmm, is that so?”
Eli nodded with an oddly inscrutable expression.
She turned back to me and asked,
“How unusual. I never expected you to cook for someone else, Miss Rene.”
“I-I just suddenly felt like cooking. The exams are over, and I was getting a little bored, too.”
Eli’s unwavering stare felt strangely burdensome, so I unconsciously looked away slightly.
Eli continued gazing at me without wavering, then shrugged and said,
“I thought you were making something for Miss Christina.”
“……?!”
Ch-Christina? I looked at Eli again, my eyes wide with surprise.
Eli gave me a meaningful smile and merely dipped her head, then turned toward the outside of the kitchen.
“Then you two have a good night.”
And without hesitation, she left the kitchen.
“Phew, that was close.”
The moment Eli left, Ria let out a sigh of relief and approached me.
I stared blankly at the door through which Eli had disappeared for a moment, then nodded with a dazed look.
“Yeah… I guess so.”
To be honest, I couldn’t read Eli’s thoughts at all just now.
The fact that she had brought up Christina’s name meant that Eli knew something and had come looking for me. And normally, the moment Eli realized I was lying, she would have made her displeasure obvious or started interrogating me.
‘What is she thinking?’
But Eli had shown neither irritation nor disappointment just now.
If I had to describe it… she had simply seemed strangely composed, as though she were watching everything unfold.
“Speaking of which, where did that rumor come from?”
“Who knows?”
Ria tilted her head as she asked, but I gave her an appropriately vague answer and racked my brain, trying to understand Eli’s behavior.
In the end, I failed to figure anything out and arrived at a simple conclusion.
‘I’ll have to meet her separately and talk to her later.’
Yes, Eli was a full-fledged young lady now. She was no longer the little girl who used to follow me around, saying, ‘Evan oppa~.’ I couldn’t possibly understand everything in her heart, being a man and all.
At times like this, the right answer was to have an honest conversation instead of indulging in pointless pride.
Having reached that conclusion, I neatly folded the apron and turned to Ria.
“Ria.”
“What?”
“Nice assist earlier.”
I held out my fist.
Ria stared down at my fist in bewilderment for a moment, then broke into a bright smile and lightly bumped her fist against mine.
※※
“G-good morning, Miss Rene.”
“Good morning, Christina.”
Christina turned around while tying her hair into a ponytail, and for some reason, she was wearing a strange expression unlike her usual one.
I finished tying my own hair and tilted my head as I asked,
“Is something wrong?”
“W-what? W-what do you mean, something’s wrong?”
“Don’t try to deny it. You’re fidgeting like a cat that broke a plate.”
Whenever she acted like that, there was only one possible reason. ‘She’s hiding something from me.’
I crossed my arms firmly and approached her.
“You definitely did something behind my back, didn’t you? Did you hurt your hand practicing with a sword by yourself yesterday?”
That would be a serious problem. The decisive day was the day after tomorrow.
As I approached her and reached for her hand, Christina hurriedly hid it behind her back and shook her head.
“I-it’s not that!”
“Then why are you acting like this?”
“I-I guess you could say I’m just nervous.”
“Nervous?”
“Yes! The decisive day is the day after tomorrow, after all!”
Christina nodded vigorously.
“You get nervous, too?”
Well, I could understand how she felt. To me, it was just a matter of passing a troublesome bomb off to someone else, but for Christina, her family’s honor and her entire life were at stake.
“Speaking of which, Christina, you’re quite something.”
“W-what brought that on all of a sudden?”
“Nothing. Even if it’s for your family’s sake, marrying someone you don’t even like isn’t an easy decision.”
If I were forced by circumstances dictated by adults to marry someone I didn’t want to marry—for example, a woman like Ria—then… yes, I would have abandoned my family and everything else and run away from home that very day.
“Besides, Christina, you’re still a young girl.”
“W-what’s that supposed to mean? You say it as though you aren’t a woman yourself….”
Perhaps she was nervous after all, because Christina took a deep breath before continuing.
“And Lord Kairos isn’t exactly someone I ‘dislike all that much,’ you know?”
“Huh? Didn’t you say your goal was his genes?”
“T-that’s only my final and ultimate goal! Just because I want Lord Kairos’s superior magical power doesn’t mean I have to dislike him as a person!”
Christina continued, her cheeks faintly flushed,
“The truth is, something happened between us on the first day of school.”
“Something happened?”
“Yes. I got lost and was wandering around the school gardens, and he personally escorted me to the auditorium where the opening ceremony was being held.”
Christina wore a faint smile, as though reminiscing about a distant memory.
“Huh? You fell for him over something that trivial?”
“I-I never said I fell for him!”
Christina cleared her throat with a couple of little coughs and composed herself before speaking again.
“There were several other memorable incidents between us, too.”
“Such as?”
“That’s a secret.”
Christina shook her head rather firmly.
“Oh, really?”
In that case, I had no intention of prying. Whatever that bastard got up to, it was none of my business.
‘Had that bastard been pretending to be well-behaved while going around hitting on women?’
Still, the fact that Kairos had made advances toward Christina was fairly useful information. When the time came to tear off that guy’s ugly mask in front of everyone, nothing would hit harder than the title of ‘womanizer.’
“Anyway, enough small talk. Let’s get straight to practice. Today is the only day I have left to properly teach you how to cook.”
Tomorrow, I planned to have her make everything herself without my help.
“Yes, I’m ready!”
Christina nodded energetically. I handed her a clean apron and a hair tie.
“Eek?!”
Then I gave her a playful tap on the back for no particular reason and said,
“You have to win Kairos over.”
For the sake of my peaceful future, too.
Christina glared at me sharply for a moment, then nodded as though it were only natural.
“Of course.”
It was a supremely confident answer, just like the Christina I had met at the very beginning.