Chapter 11
After Tarmin suffered through the risotto's overpowering aroma, the two of them never did stroll through the festival streets as Renzo had hoped.
That was because Tarmin, who'd forced down food that didn't agree with him, eventually took to his bed.
He lay face-down on the table in his cabin, groaning.
“I feel like I'm dying. Seriously.”
“Are you okay? Does your stomach hurt?”
“No. My stomach's fine, but the smell gave me a headache... I struggled to force it down, so maybe my whole body hurts, too. It tasted like soap bubbles, but Mr. Renzo ate it just fine.”
“If you chew it slowly, it's more fragrant than you'd expect.”
Tarmin couldn't agree, since the smell still seemed to linger in his nose.
As he groaned with his cheek pressed against the tabletop, Enya brought over a damp towel and wiped the cold sweat from his face.
Enya sat beside him, unsure what to do after wiping him down.
Unable to wait any longer as she fidgeted, Tarmin asked,
“Is there something you want to say?”
“Taal.”
Enya flinched, then lowered her head, gripping the towel she'd used in both hands.
A moment later, Enya lifted her head, her cheeks slightly flushed.
“I'm sorry. For making you eat something you can't stomach. I apologize.”
Still lying face-down, Tarmin raised a hand and waved it dismissively.
“What are you apologizing for? It's fine.”
“I was trying to mess with you, but instead you even helped me out. I really don't know what to say.”
“You say you don't know what to say, but you're saying plenty. I said it's fine.”
“Still.”
“Enough.”
A flash of anger rose in Enya's drooping face.
“When someone apologizes, can't you just say you understand and accept it?”
“I said it's fine. It's partly my fault, too.”
“It was something I should've just gotten scolded for and left at that, so why are you going out of your way to make a big deal of it?”
Tarmin, who couldn't answer while lying down, staggered upright and sat.
“I'm the one who got you that job at the tavern.”
“That's true, but...”
“I don't know for sure, but weren't you mad because I disappeared? If you think of it that way, it's my fault.”
….”
Enya fell silent without answering.
He didn't like how she took her own mistake, folded his mistake into it, and then shouldered the whole thing herself.
Just because he'd done something worse, that didn't mean she didn't need to apologize?
Enya's mistake was of a lesser sort.
It was childish and petty.
It wasn't like keeping one of Sigona's secrets; it was simply an embarrassing feeling.
She didn't have to struggle by forcing down food she couldn't eat.
If he acted as though all the trouble she'd gone to, sweating cold, was nothing, what was she supposed to do?
How could she get the message across without apologizing?
Enya swallowed, then let out what she'd been keeping inside.
“Then, Taal, um...”
There was no need to weigh whose fault was greater or whose secret mattered more. They'd agreed not to ask.
All she had to do was tell him how she felt. That was the kind of relationship they had.
“Thanks?”
“Yeah. I'm the one who's more grateful.”
Despite the odd question in her voice, her friend, Tarmin, gave her a simple smile.
**
Tarmin had been complaining that the offending smell kept rising from his stomach, until he came up with a solution.
It was a little early, but he figured he could wash the taste away by putting something else in his stomach.
He thought about going to get some strong liquor, but remembered Enya had become a lightweight. He also remembered he'd brought her straight home after her morning shift.
“You haven't had lunch, right? Is there anything you'd like to eat?”
Enya rubbed her lips thoughtfully before answering.
“Then... cream stew. The kind you made before.”
“You want me to make it? Why?”
There were plenty of places to eat even without putting Tarmin's crude cooking skills to use.
In the middle of the festival, there should be plenty of decent places in the city besides Sigona's tavern.
Enya rolled her big eyes this way and that as she thought, then, apparently unable to come up with a suitable answer, simply smiled bashfully.
“Because I want to eat it. Is that not okay?”
“I don't mind, but you mean that stuff we made in the desert?”
“Yeah.”
“Was it good?”
“I liked it.”
The cream stew Enya meant wasn't the kind of stew a family made in a huge pot and simmered for days, nor one served on a plate at a decent restaurant.
She meant the makeshift stew they'd thrown together from leftover ingredients on an adventure back when they were heroes.
It was a slapdash dish made by tossing old preserved food into leftover milk and seasoning it with salted meat, but she seemed to have liked it quite a bit.
As for the others' reactions, the witch refused to taste it, while the prince gave it a brief review: “Avant-garde.”
“I'll try making it, but I can't promise it'll taste the same as it did back then.”
“Even if it turns out awful, I'll eat all of it.”
“No. If it tastes bad, don't eat it. You're not a beggar.”
“Hehe.”
He thought he heard a silly laugh.
“Then I'll go to the market, so bring out that stone and get a fire going.”
“Okay.”
Enya went to get the fire going, while Tarmin walked around the market, buying milk, vegetables, and preserved foods that seemed like they might go in a stew.
Relying on his fuzzy memories of the journey, he bought as much as he could, and the basket grew quite heavy.
He remembered putting in some kind of jerky, but couldn't quite recall what kind of meat it had been.
Had it been camel?
Back at the cabin, he set the basket down by the fire and took out the ingredients.
It wasn't a difficult dish anyway, so if he just threw everything together with milk and butter, it should be edible.
The only tricky part was reducing the milk and stirring it so it wouldn't stick.
He put the pan on first, then tossed the prepared vegetables onto it and sautéed them. Just then, he felt a strange gaze on him.
When he turned, Enya was watching him cook.
“What are you looking at?”
“Hehe.”
The odd sensation made Tarmin pause.
Thinking about what was causing it, he realized Enya had been smiling for no apparent reason for a while now.
Tarmin asked cautiously,
“Have you gone crazy?”
“No!”
“Then why do you keep grinning? Is watching me cook that fascinating? Want me to fix that?”
Enya didn't run away. After all, Tarmin was holding the pan and couldn't leave the hearth anyway.
Even after he provoked her by asking if she'd lost her mind, Enya just kept smiling.
“Just because I'm grateful?”
“You smiled because you were grateful?”
“Yeah.”
He set aside the sautéed vegetables and put the pork in this time.
In the desert, they'd only added dried jerky, but here he wanted to use proper meat.
As he watched the food, Tarmin said,
“Cut it out. It's creepy.”
“You said it was okay to be grateful.”
Tarmin wasn't sure how she'd interpreted their reconciliation, but Enya kept looking at him and grinning.
It was better than seeing her look miserable from being sick, but it was still awkward.
They said you couldn't spit in a smiling face, and although he'd called her creepy, his own expression seemed to soften, too.
Worried that her foolish expression might rub off on him, he quickly pulled himself together.
“Thanks, Taal.”
“Is that how you show gratitude?”
“Huh?”
“If you're that grateful, don't just leave it at a smile. Give me something. Show me some sincerity.”
“Hmm.”
Enya looked to the side, thinking.
He'd said it carelessly, just to get her to stop grinning so freely, but now she was really thinking it over.
She pondered it until the stew began to give off a rich aroma.
She was sure Tarmin would refuse if she offered him money or something.
In that case...
“Should I wear that collar again?”
“What?”
“You know, the dog collar.”
“H-huh?”
When Enya brought up the collar he'd forgotten about, he was startled.
“You like it when I wear the collar. I don't know why, though.”
“No, the collar, well, it's not that I liked it...”
He remembered the day he'd gone overboard, using his hurt feelings about Enya as an excuse.
It had been an impulsive prank, like a contest of wills meant to make her surrender.
Now that they'd decided not to ask, there was no reason for that prank anymore.
Tarmin felt his ears grow hot and managed to ask,
“Didn't you hate the collar?”
“I still hate it, but since Taal wants me to... I can even let you put a leash on me this time.”
“...No, I'm sorry. Forget I said anything about you showing sincerity.”
“Really? Then can I keep looking at you?”
“Do whatever you want.”
He sighed and decided to pretend not to notice Enya smiling.
Where had the Enya who'd been so embarrassed gone?
For some reason, Enya seemed strange today.
**
The only thing she could offer Tarmin was permission to put the collar back on her.
That sense of indebtedness was something Enya felt keenly.
“I think it's done. Want to try some?”
He scooped up a little stew with a ladle and held it out.
The cream stew, with its pleasingly thick consistency, looked delicious.
Her head was full of all sorts of thoughts, so without thinking she brought the ladle to her mouth.
It was much hotter than she'd expected.
“Mmf! Hot!”
“Ah, are you okay? Drink some water.”
Unable to do anything about the hot stew in her mouth, she fretted and made little gasping sounds until she accepted the glass of water Tarmin offered and drank.
Her mouth, tongue, and the area around her lips were all tingling.
Her sensitive skin was already sending pain signals to her.
As she became newly aware of the sensation of pain, she realized she'd carelessly touched something hot out of the habit she'd formed when she was a man.
Like when she'd drunk apple wine with him.
Though she now had the body of a frail woman, in Enya's original body she wouldn't have been bothered even if she bathed in boiling water.
Heat and cold couldn't harm a hero.
That was a blessing.
“Good grief, be careful.”
Tarmin reached a hand toward her lips.
He ran his fingertips over her lips, reddened by the hot stew.
“They're red.”
Tarmin's worried dark eyes were close, and so was his face.
She could smell him.
It was the scent of someone alive, unlike the medicinal scent of the witch's potion clinging to her.
Liking that scent, she moved closer, but Tarmin turned his head away.
Their faces were close enough to touch, and he seemed embarrassed.
Seeing him blush all the way to his ears, Enya thought of something that had never occurred to her before.
Could he be conscious of her?
As a woman?