Chapter 121
At that moment, a pitiful rumbling sound echoed through the cave. Parna looked around to see what it was and found Alice holding her stomach, her cheeks faintly flushed.
“...Oh, right. David left your lunch with me. You forgot it, didn’t you?”
“What! Parna-san, you brought it for me?”
At Parna’s words, Alice’s face lit up. She must have been really hungry; seeing how eagerly she reacted to the word “lunch,” Parna gave a wry smile and took a lunchbox out of her bag.
She handed the lunchbox to Alice, who eagerly removed the cloth wrapped around it, her eyes sparkling. Parna watched the whole sequence with a satisfied smile.
“Huh... Aren’t you going to eat, Parna-san?”
“I’m not hungry, so I’m fine. I’ll eat later when I get hungry.”
“...Hmm.”
Alice gave her a suspicious look and stared at her for a while. “Just hurry up and eat,” Parna urged, waving her hand. Alice speared a sausage from the lunchbox with her fork, then said, “Say ah,” and tried to bring it to Parna’s mouth.
“Like I said... I’m not hungry, remember?”
“You’re not fooling anyone... I can see right through you, Parna-san.”
As Alice stared at her with the sausage held out, Parna gradually looked away. There had only been one lunchbox to begin with; Parna had simply handed it to Alice. But Alice had seen through her in an instant. Parna’s bag wasn’t big enough to hold two lunchboxes, and she’d handed Alice the food right when her stomach growled. Given how Parna usually acted, it was easy to guess she was just looking out for her.
“I’m happy you care, but I don’t want to eat if it means taking your share, Parna-san.”
“Honestly... You’ve gotten even more perceptive lately. I wonder who you take after...”
“It’s not intuition. I just thought you’d do that, Parna-san.”
Once she confirmed her hunch was right, Alice brought the fork back toward Parna’s mouth. Perhaps feeling a little embarrassed, Parna checked that no one else was around, then reluctantly accepted the sausage and put it in her mouth.
“Okay, then I’ll eat the rest!”
“That leaves me with hardly anything!”
As they traded their usual banter, the two began eating, smiling the whole time. They were able to enjoy days like these thanks to Kagami, who had removed the deep-seated rift between demonkin and humans three years ago.
Ever since the battle three years ago, Parna—who had once hated demonkin—had made an even greater effort to interact with them than she had once made to avoid them. She had also kept the promise she’d made to Kagami, and continued to watch over Alice more devotedly than anyone. Sometimes, she and Menou even ended up in a contest to see who could be more overprotective.
Compared with three years ago, Alice had grown tremendously, not just physically but emotionally as well. At first, she’d wanted to surprise Kagami when he returned by showing him a world where humans and demonkin had become close and joined hands. With the help of those around her, she came up with ideas to bring the two peoples together and put them into practice. Whenever there was anything she could do to help, she took it on, whatever the conditions, and worked to build ties between humans and demonkin.
She had even been kidnapped once because of those efforts. But thanks to what she’d accomplished, humans and demonkin now joined tours together without giving a second thought to the fact that they belonged to different races. And in the city, it had become commonplace to see demonkin and humans sharing drinks.
All of it had started because Kagami had given them that first push. But Kagami himself—the person at the heart of it all—wasn’t here.
For three years, Alice had waited day after day for Kagami to come back.
‘I wonder when Kagami-san will be back. Maybe he’ll come home tomorrow?’
Alice remembered saying those words day after day throughout that first year.