108. Cafe

108. Cafe

Rumble.

[Hngh, huck, ugh.]

Rumble.

[Mas-ter… Hieek.]

Rumble.

“Claire, Ur seems to be having a hard time.”

“… Let me touch her a little more.”

Inside a cafe at the academy.

We were sitting at a table, waiting for our orders.

Claire had taken Ur, who was in her sword form, from my waist and was idly fiddling with her. Every time she stroked the blade, Ur’s moans echoed in my mind, making it a bit noisy.

Meanwhile, Priscilla looked at my tail and said.

“Skadi, your tail is drooping. Is something wrong?”

“Ah, this is….”

There was a reason why we were all gathered at the cafe.

It was because I needed to heal my deeply depressed heart by eating something delicious, given the absurd news that the swordsmanship exam would be written.

Preferably, by eating ‘a lot’ of delicious things.

“I prefer written exams to practical ones, so I wouldn’t know, hehe… I’ve only used offensive magic, so I’m terrible at other magic.”

“I see.”

After hearing my situation, Priscilla raised her staff high into the air. Offended by her deception, I poked her cheek for no reason.

It was soft.

“Ueeeh….”

When I squeezed and kneaded her skin with my hand, it indented and then popped back out. While playing with Priscilla’s elastic cheeks, I opened my mouth and bit her cheek.

Nom nom.

“Ughik?!”

It didn’t taste good.

Why did Freya bite my cheek? I couldn’t understand.

Just in case, like Freya sometimes did, I pulled down Priscilla’s top to her shoulders and tried biting her shoulder, but again, I didn’t taste anything special.

It was just the common scent of shampoo and the soft touch of her skin.

“Oh… it left a mark.”

“Th-this is a public place, Skadi….”

“Public place?”

I tilted my head and looked around.

There were many girls in the cafe, and interestingly, most of them were blushing as they looked at each other.

They shyly held hands, ate drinks together while blushing, and then looked around, leaving little kisses on each other….

Hmm.

Slightly lowering one’s top seemed acceptable.

[Hieek?!]

“Skadi.”

“Yeah?”

As I was clinging to Priscilla for a long time, something was pulling at the hem of my uniform. It was Claire, holding Ur tightly and trembling.

She was smiling at me… but it didn’t feel like she was smiling.

Putting aside her cute hamster-like appearance, Ur, who was being stimulated, seemed to be having a hard time in many ways. She seemed to be gripping the sword blade too tightly.

“Ur, return to normal.”

“Hek.”

“So Claire, why?”

After placing Ur, who had transformed back into a human, down, Claire climbed onto my lap without a word. My posture had somehow become like a mother sitting with her young daughter on her lap.

After moving her body a few times, Claire pressed her back against me and said just one word.

“Balance.”

“Balance…?”

What balance?

Hmm….

I’ve felt this since I was a baby, but Imperial language is too difficult to learn. It has many irregular conjugations and frequent gender distinctions for words… As a Korean speaker, Imperial language is somehow very strange.

That’s why memorizing words is also very difficult. Still, now that I’ve been using Imperial language for 20 years, I think the cases where I misunderstand word meanings have decreased significantly, but cases that rely on context like this are still very confusing.

What does balance mean? What did Claire mean by leaving that one word?

Why is Claire making such a sullen face after looking at Priscilla’s shoulder, which has a lip-shaped mark on it?

After about a second of thought, I realized that my brain couldn’t come up with an answer. I decided to ignore it and instead ruffled Claire’s soft golden hair haphazardly.

“Ah, it’s here.”

With Priscilla on my right, Claire in front of me, and Ur on my left, the time passed quickly, and our orders arrived sooner than expected.

It was a famous cafe at the academy, so the aroma of the coffee alone was unusual. The desserts we ordered together also smelled very sweet and looked delicious.

My drooping tail regained its vitality.

Swish.

My tail wagged on its own.

Saliva also started to drip.

“Hieek! W-what, saliva?”

My saliva dripped onto Claire’s head.

I swallowed my saliva and looked at the food on the table.

There was one thing that looked like a cake, though I didn’t know its name, and one that looked like a cookie. These were ordered by Claire and Priscilla.

What I ordered was the pile of… well, many things that looked like snacks, half of which were also cookies and cakes.

Looks delicious.

My tail wagged and hit Ur and Priscilla on either side. Priscilla seemed to like it, and Ur, though looking displeased, remained still.

… Priscilla’s uniform and Ur’s maid outfit were covered in white fur.

Anyway, the first food to enter my mouth was an unknown cookie that looked like a mille-feuille. When I ordered it, the name seemed long, but it was easier to just call it mille-feuille.

I picked up a fork and poked the plate.

The square-cut cookie crumbled with a crisp sound as the fork pierced it. Crumbs scattered. The sweet aroma tickled my nose.

As I looked at the sacrificed piece I had lifted, the cookie seemed to beg me not to eat it, pleading for its life. It was so earnest that the cookie seemed to shed tears.

But there was no way. Letting go of prey caught in the harsh north was a useless luxury.

Wolves do not let go of their prey.

Hah!

Yum yum.

Munch munch.

“Skadi, you’re very serious when you eat.”

“Huh?”

“Yes. It’s cute.”

I swallowed the cookie that filled my mouth and sent it down my throat.

Priscilla was watching me, eating each cookie slowly and savoring it. She smelled the coffee, took a sip, and nibbled at the cookies.

Priscilla, who had been staring at me, quietly gave me a knowing smile.

“Priscilla.”

“Yes.”

A strangely languid and somewhat alluring voice.

I continued.

“Don’t you get hungry eating like that?”

“….”

Since she said nothing, perhaps not?

But if one eats like that, they would surely starve to death. I started to genuinely worry about Priscilla’s health.

“Skadi, this is a cafe, not a restaurant. And cookies aren’t meant to be gulped down like water.”

“Ah.”

I quietly placed the 10-tier cookie tower I was building with my fork back on the plate. Priscilla, who had ruined my meticulously crafted tower, giggled and smiled at me.

… Pouting, I wagged my tail and bothered Priscilla’s face. After receiving a barrage of tail hits, she trembled and then her face softened into a smile as she rested her head on the table.

Meanwhile, looking down, I saw the crown of a golden-haired little one eating a slice of cake with a sullen expression.

It was Claire.

Claire didn’t seem to notice me looking at her. She just mechanically moved her arm, cutting, picking up, and eating the cake.

… Looks delicious.

“Claire.”

“Uh, yeah?!”

Although I already had several slices of cake in front of me, it was unavoidable that someone else’s looked more tempting.

There’s the saying, ‘The grass is always greener on the other side,’ isn’t there?

Or is it not?

Anyway.

In any case, since the cakes I ordered were not the same type as Claire’s, there was plenty of reason for me to take Claire’s cake and eat it.

“Can I have a bite?”

“Th-this?”

Claire looked back and forth between the cake on her fork and my face. Then, as if she understood what I meant, she smiled and…

“Yum.”

“?!”

She popped the cake into her own mouth.

The slice of cake disappeared in an instant. My eyes widened, and my actively wagging tail froze. The frozen tail then expressed its sadness with its whole body and drooped.

If she didn’t want to give it to me, she didn’t have to….

There was no need to eat it so quickly.

I’m not a robber wearing a mask, demanding cake.

I remembered the time my father hit me on the head and I cried from the pain. It felt like tears were about to well up again, just like then. I was very sad.

… At that moment, Claire grabbed the back of my head and brought her mouth to mine.

“Mmph.”

The sweet taste of cake was conveyed to me through her fumbling movements.

Beyond the sound of my pounding heart and her warm breath, her golden eyes gazed at me intently. Her face was flushed bright red.

Like a baby bird receiving food from its mother, I received the cake from Claire and swallowed it down my throat.

“Pah….”

“Oh….”

The cake is delicious.

Should I buy more to take with me?

While contemplating this in my mind, my stopped tail began to wag again. It was a sign of joy from eating something delicious.

As I was devouring a large amount of dessert with my two friends.

My tail nudged something on my left.

A small maid with white hair. Ur, who had her finger to her lips and was quietly gazing at the snacks with anticipation.

“Ur, want to try some?”

“Yes?”

I picked up a slice of cake and brought it to Ur’s mouth.