Episode 23
Crunch.
The sound of chewing a chocolate chip cookie resonated through the quiet laboratory. In the end, unable to hold it back, laughter burst out of me.
“Is it delicious?”
“…As if a lump of sugar like this could be delicious. Eating too much sugar is bad for the body, you see.”
Even while speaking like that, the fingers snatching up the next cookie right away were fast.
“You know you’re already eating your second one, right?”
“Cough, ahem. Ahem, ahem.”
Aidan, who had been coughing as if it had gone down the wrong pipe, only settled down and opened his mouth after gulping down the black tea placed beside him.
“Come to think of it, I feel a bit hungry. Let’s have a meal.”
“Earlier you said eating until full makes one sleepy, so we shouldn’t.”
“Even if one is hungry, efficiency drops, doesn’t it?”
Earlier he claimed tea with sugar added was enough. Is liking cookies that embarrassing?
I pulled out a cat-shaped cookie from inside the bag. Well, although it was a somewhat cute shape for a boy to like. He could like sweet things a bit.
It didn’t seem like there was any need to hide it like that.
Crunch.
The moment I bit into it, the rich taste of chocolate and butter stimulated my tongue. Of course, to my taste, it was a very sweet cookie. It would actually have been a bit better without these chocolate chips.
…Wait a minute.
I stared at the cookie’s chocolate chips.
“Black, burnt…”
“What. Black doesn’t mean it’s burnt. This bakery uses chocolate made using top-grade cacao.”
“It’s not that, it’s carbon!”
“Carbon?”
At my words, Aidan answered with one eyebrow raised.
“Carbon has already failed, hasn’t it? It emits only far too strong a light briefly and wears out quickly, so it’s meaningless.”
“But that was a carbon rod!”
At my words, Aidan too seemed to think of something, then opened both eyes wide. And he began writing down calculation formulas on the blackboard with chalk.
“Carbon would certainly have the greatest possibility compared to ordinary metals.”
“Right? How about making carbon like thread? That is to say, making carbon fiber like a metal wire!”
The speed of the formulas Aidan wrote down grew faster.
“Carbon has a high melting point. In a vacuum state, oxidation is suppressed. The finer it is made, the required electric current will decrease.”
“That’s right!”
Picking up another piece of chalk, I too set out to calculate formulas beside him.
“So we use thread. Carbonizing the thread. So when we pass an electric current through it?”
At the same time as the formula calculations ended, the chalk I was holding scraped against the blackboard and fell to the floor.
To the extent that the sound of the chalk rolling across the floor sounded unnatural, silence swept over the interior. Aidan’s pupils, which had been staring briefly at the white formulas filling the blackboard, turned toward me.
“…Cynthia Violeta.”
Soon, a deeply sunken voice called my name.
“What are you doing.”
“…Pardon?”
“We should test it right now, shouldn’t we?”
“Don’t tell me right now?”
“You must know as well that we don’t have much time.”
Of course that was true, but… weren’t we supposed to have a meal starting now?
“I’ll go right now to every fabric factory in the capital and procure thread by the type. The moment I bring them, let’s start the carbonization experiment.”
“…Alright.”
Though it was a blunt tone as always, still, frankly, I didn’t dislike it. My heart began to pound violently at the thought that if this hypothesis succeeded, the Paper of the Year Award was honestly as good as secured.
***
All night long, we burned every single thread obtainable in the capital, but the results were all failures.
“Yaaawwn.”
“Are you sleepy?”
“A-Ah, no? I’m fine.”
In truth, I was sleepy, but if I answered that I was sleepy, Aidan’s face scolding me, asking if I was sleepy before even succeeding, was obvious.
Pressing firmly on the back of my hand with my fingernails, I chased away sleep.
“Saying you’re fine—does that mean you aren’t sleepy, or that you’re sleepy but it’s bearable?”
Disliking my answer, deep wrinkles carved into his smooth forehead.
“I’m sleepy, but it’s bearable.”
In truth, I feel like I’m going to die.
“Drink some more tea, then.”
In truth, when sleepy, drinking awakening tea once wakes you up completely, though.
However, the tea Aidan had prepared here was nothing but top-grade black tea.
“Th-That’s fine.”
“Why, you said you were sleepy. Black tea has caffeine, too.”
I know that too, but.
“Black tea isn’t to my taste.”
“Ha, weren’t you someone who drank anything as long as it woke you up?”
“I-I have a palate too, you know?”
“Seeing you pour awakening tea down your throat every day at the library during exam periods, I thought you had no tongue.”
“That’s because that was the best for waking up!”
Of course, looking at me drinking awakening tea brewed full of cheap spices, nobles mocked me, saying my taste was terrible, but that was the cheapest tea.
Black tea, frankly, didn’t suit my taste.
“Black tea?”
“Yeah, I want to try drinking black tea!”
How old I was was hazy, but as a birthday gift, I had once asked Dad that I wanted to try drinking black tea.
A teahouse that nobles reportedly enjoyed had opened in the village. Among commoners, saying that even if we didn’t know about other things, let’s try drinking what we drink like nobles, everyone used that teahouse following the trend, and wanting to try drinking it once too, I had pestered Dad.
“Mm, frankly, I couldn’t understand why they drink that for that money. Because it just tastes like chewing and eating grass and flowers.”
However, listening to Dad’s words flatly cutting it off, I ultimately gave up on black tea. Because at that time, those words sounded to me like it was a waste of money to buy me a cup of black tea.
“Ugh.”
And coming to the academy, drinking the black tea a professor held out to me, I understood the meaning of Dad’s words in a single moment. It really tasted like chewing and eating some kind of flowers.
To the point where I couldn’t understand at all why on earth people bought and drank this for that price.
“By the way, Dad. Do you remember that?”
So that day, I made a phone call to Dad.
“When I was young, I said I wanted to try drinking black tea.”
-“Of course, I remember. How much I broke into a cold sweat back then.”
“Broke into a cold sweat? Why?”
-“In truth, it’s an embarrassing story, but Dad was treated to a cup of black tea and vomited right then and there. I was only thinking about what to do if you happened to eat it and throw up.”
“Really? I thought it was because you felt it was a waste of money for Dad to buy me a cup of black tea.”
-“What? There’s no way Dad would be like that! Of course, we were a bit very poor back then, though.”
“Ha-ha-ha, when have we ever been rich?”
-“Daughter, Dad is truly hurt right now. Just you wait, this mercenary job is a job that makes quite a lot of money.”
“Aww, forget it. The money is fine, so just don’t get hurt.”
Right, there was a time I shared a conversation like that with Dad, too. Come to think of it, Dad and I weren’t even biological father and daughter, yet our palates were truly similar. Because Dad too, like me, had said awakening tea was rather easier to drink than black tea.
“By the way, Young Lord Aidan.”
“What.”
Though he had sleepy eyes, he held his teacup without his posture wavering in the slightest. Savoring the scent of the black tea in the cup, his appearance drinking elegantly was like a picture.
“How did you know that I drank awakening tea at the library every exam period?”
“Cough! Cough, cough!”
“Are you alright?”
Spilling the hot tea directly onto his thighs, Aidan hurriedly stood up.
Steam was rising from it; will he be alright? For now, I pressed firmly on his thighs with a handkerchief that was beside us to wipe away the tea water.
“Uwaa, won’t this cause a burn? It must have been extremely hot.”
“I-It’s fine!”
“What do you mean fine? This will definitely leave a scar! Take it off quickly and put cold water…”
“I-I said it’s fine, didn’t I?”
Freaking out, Aidan shook off my hand and suddenly walked outside.
“No, why is he abhorring it so much?”
It was something my dad had even embroidered for me as an academy entrance gift, though.
Awkwardly withdrawing my hand suspended in midair, I looked out the window. Before I knew it, the sun was up. It meant we had stayed up the entire night right from the first day.
“Where on earth did he go?”
I intended to wait, but my eyelids kept closing.
Just a little bit. I should close my eyes for just a moment and then wake up.
