“Are you okay?”
“Pardon?”
I asked Charlotte, who tilted her head as if she genuinely didn’t understand what I was asking.
“I mean the Emperor and those kids. I guess they were the Emperor’s children, but to you, they might just be strangers.”
And yet, at the same time, they were opponents I battled with my life on the line.
From Charlotte’s perspective, they were not exactly agreeable company.
“That’s true. They’re not exactly someone you can just smile and accept.”
Charlotte lightly scooped some gelato with a spoon, took a moment to let it melt in her mouth, then spoke.
“But that doesn’t mean I’m going to ignore the situation of my friend.”
“……”
At that, I was momentarily at a loss for words.
The only thing I could muster after a bit of struggle was,
“Thank you.”
That was all I could say.
“Did you know?”
Charlotte said with a smile.
“Since I put so much effort into reading your expressionless face, your voice, which shows no acting at all, makes it too easy to feel your emotions?”
“Is that so?”
“Yes. I was quite wary of you.”
Ah, right.
I had bluntly said something like that to a king who had lived for decades, backed by the Emperor’s power.
“……Sorry.”
“You have nothing to apologize for.”
Charlotte replied.
“If I were in a similar situation, I would have acted the same way. What’s more dangerous than other countries forming alliances while leaving ours aside? In this case, the problem is that even if we form an alliance, we can’t easily defeat the Empire.”
“……”
“I can only hope the next Emperor thinks about peace.”
Charlotte said jokingly.
“Because we don’t want to fight either.”
I exhaled lightly and responded.
The only ones who would believe what I said were probably Charlotte and her friends. To everyone else, it would just look like I was gathering the closest aides of the Emperor again.
Still, it was a relief to have someone I could sincerely connect with.
I took a small breath and spooned some parfait into my mouth.
It had been a while since I tasted such a flavor.
I probably would keep coming here even after I graduated from the academy.
It’d be great if I could come with my friends then too.
*
“…So you figured out the recipe?”
“Don’t worry. I’m not planning to make ice cream just yet.”
Saying that, I dragged in a huge icebox.
Inside were loads of handmade ice cream I had received from that café.
The icebox was filled with ice cubes.
Of course, it wasn’t as perfect as a modern icebox. So, I even added Marmaros, which could use ice magic, to maintain the temperature.
Bella looked at me as if she found it utterly ridiculous that I had gone to such lengths just to have some ice cream.
“I brought fruits and ice cream, so it’s fine. Besides, I just need to stack them one by one, so it shouldn’t taste too weird.”
As I said that confidently, Bella placed her hand on her forehead.
“No… Haha, no.”
Bella said that and then sat down.
“Well, do as you please.”
“Alright!”
I rolled up my sleeves and said.
Then a few minutes later, what I created was—
“Here, give it a try.”
“It looks completely bizarre. At least from all the parfaits I’ve seen so far, this is the worst.”
Bella looked at the parfait with a face that seemed to question whether it was even safe to eat.
What stood before us was a ‘parfait’ that had completely failed at stacking ice cream and fruits. The fruits were even so overly peeled that the surface was quite bumpy.
“But it should taste good, right? It’s fruits and ice cream, whipped cream?”
“Whipped cream or ice cream, it’s all melted!”
I had confused the order of pulling things out, taking the ice cream out too early. The ice cream, which hadn’t been kept in a freezer for a while, was apparently nearing its limit.
Thanks to that, what was in the beautiful glass cup turned into a soup-like mass of sticky milk with a few pieces of fruit floating on top, rather than a parfait.
Its appearance was very far off from the original meaning of ‘parfait,’ which meant perfect.
“…I’ll eat it too.”
Not wanting to just watch someone enjoy a nice treat, I made myself a portion, but of course, mine looked the same.
“It’s not like you’ll examine it for poison.”
Well, I was confident in my cooking skills.
I had often cooked for myself during my time living alone.
Of course, there weren’t many occasions to peel fruits. I was never motivated to expend the effort to buy fruits when I could just buy ready-made ones.
Moreover, fresh fruits in my country were a bit pricey for someone living alone.
“……”
Still, when I picked up my spoon, Bella grabbed hers too.
I took a bite, and it actually tasted okay. It had the flavor of a salad without the vegetables, replaced by way too much dressing.
“It just tastes like thick milk.”
Exactly. That was the taste.
“But it’s sweet.”
Bella looked at me as if I was ridiculous at that.
Yet, she didn’t stop her spoon. Though she wasn’t eating it with enthusiasm, she didn’t seem to think it was garbage either. That was a relief.
“This is going to make you gain weight for sure.”
“……”
I had never thought about that while eating anything.
Now that I mentioned it, it was truly strange.
I had moved around a lot, but was it really possible for me not to gain weight like this? Even when I wore that bunny girl outfit, my figure had been okay.
“What’s with that dazed expression? Isn’t that kind of irrelevant?”
“I’ve never thought of purposely trying to lose weight.”
Bella’s mouth opened slightly.
“So, right now, you’re saying you have a ‘body that doesn’t gain weight from eating’?”
“…Is that so?”
“Are you challenging me?”
Bella turned her spoon upside down. Is she a spoon murderer or something?
“What about you?”
“I’m just like everyone else. If I don’t manage myself, my body goes completely haywire.”
She sighed deeply.
“Whether it’s due to youth or some special trait of yours, I don’t know. Since you were able to turn back time, I wonder if your body has something extraordinary about it?”
“Not now.”
“I know. If you could turn back time, there wouldn’t be a parfait like this in front of us.”
Bella scooped a fruit and some ice cream with her spoon, then let it fall back into the cup. The sight of fruit floating in the white, viscous liquid now closely resembled yogurt rather than ice cream.
“…So?”
Bella said.
“You came all the way here just to try one parfait?”
“Yup.”
When I nodded, Bella looked at me with a somewhat astonished expression.
“You?”
“What do you think of me?”
When I asked back, incredulous, Bella stared at me and said,
“A monster gazing ahead at a ne’er-do-well without knowing what’s in its head.”
“……”
Given that, you seemed quite relaxed in front of me all the time, right?
“What else do you expect to do? It’s useless to be scared of a monster.”
Besides, I guess that monster was… ‘our monster.’
That must be how the Emperor saw it.
Though signs of betrayal had been evident for a long time now.
“To be honest, I thought you had an impure character.”
“I’m not pure.”
“Are you sure?”
When someone else asked me that, I had no words to reply.
Am I pure?
“…What.”
Bella said with slightly softened eyes.
“Well, it’s true that if it wasn’t you, I wouldn’t be able to trust anyone else.”
Bella stirred the melted ice cream with her spoon. It was rapidly becoming close to ‘milk porridge’. I thought it couldn’t even be called a parfait anymore.
“Alice and you were the cutest, after all.”
I knew she thought of us as adorable to some extent.
And the term ‘adorable’ had a very literal meaning. It was in a way that made fun of us, but not in a malicious way like Lucas would do. At least, it was more like an older sister.
Though I didn’t get to see that side for very long.
“……”
I pondered for a moment, and ultimately opened my mouth.
“Actually, I had one more goal.”
“See? I told you. I knew you wouldn’t do anything without cooking up some scheme.”
No, where is that thought even coming from?
I was just someone capable of turning back time. Though I questioned if the word “just” applied to such a skill.
“I…”
Carefully choosing my words, I cautiously spoke.
“My goal is to gather the Emperor’s children again.”
“Are you planning for another war?”
“No, I’m not.”
Bella’s eyes slightly widened at my words.
Was she teasing me on purpose?
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