“Late on the very first day.”
I had arrived in flawless tardiness. I scratched the back of my head and slid into my seat.
“I’m sorry. I was rather busy today…”
I busied my hands unnecessarily with smoothing the skirt of my dress.
The mealtimes agreed upon with Kael were seven in the morning, noon, and six in the evening — breakfast, lunch, and dinner. The rule was that at least one of those three had to be shared together each day.
Since I had missed both breakfast and lunch, dinner was clearly the non-negotiable meal — yet here I was, having wandered back to the estate only to discover it was already past eight.
‘Not ten minutes late. Not even an hour. Two full hours.’
I felt the weight of his gaze quite acutely.
To make matters worse, it appeared Kael hadn’t touched a single bite. The food laid out across the table — a generous, abundant spread — had all gone cold.
It occurred to me that I should try, very gently, to redirect the fault in his direction.
‘I’ll word it with just a hint of: why didn’t you just eat without me and let the food go to waste like that.’
“You could have started without me… it’s all gone cold.”
Kael sat with his arms folded, still as a statue. He simply blinked at a slow, unhurried pace and watched me.
The weight of that gaze made me feel rather small. I rolled my eyes away and scratched the back of my head again.
It was only then that I noticed the hunger gnawing at me.
‘Now that I think about it, all I’ve eaten today is three chicken skewers.’
I had been so busy chasing extravagance that I hadn’t spared a thought for food.
‘…It all looks so good.’
I wanted very badly to stab my fork into a plump, glistening steak. The bright, refreshing fruit salad looked equally irresistible. And the charred, savory-sweet shell clams — the thought of that depth of flavor was enough to make my mouth ache.
I swallowed quietly where Kael couldn’t see, then ventured in a careful murmur:
“…Aren’t you going to eat?”
“Won’t you feed me?”
“Sorry?”
“The way I fed you last time.”
“What? No! Don’t bring that up!”
I yelped and leapt in my seat.
Not that, again.
The memory of my most humiliating moment rushed back to me, and heat flooded instantly to my face. I grabbed both my ears, which had begun to burn with spectacular enthusiasm.
“I’m hurt.”
He lifted his left hand with perfect composure.
I hadn’t noticed because he’d had his arms folded, but his left hand was wrapped in bandages.
“Oh — you’re hurt? What happened?”
I hopped down from my chair and ran around the table to his side.
“Nng!”
I tried to push his chair back, straining with both hands. It wouldn’t budge. It was too heavy.
“Ugh!”
I tried harder. The chair remained immovable.
Kael, apparently taking pity on me, pushed it back himself.
I gave his arm a sharp pat — the meaning was: now hold out your hand. Kael obligingly extended it. I settled myself between his knees, crouched down, and began to examine his hand in earnest.
“Is it bad? What happened? Were you training?”
The bandage was wound in multiple thick, firm layers. Whatever the wound was, it didn’t seem shallow.
“You should have been more careful! How could you let this happen — your beautiful hand—”
His fingers were long and elegant, yet solid and straight in the way of a man’s hand. And the tendons — remarkable things, those. The way they stood out under the skin, taut and prominent, was almost theatrical.
I rested my arm against his thigh and studied the hand carefully. I couldn’t remove the bandaging, which was frustrating. ‘What am I supposed to do?’
On a sudden worry that there might be injuries elsewhere, I lifted my gaze to Kael’s face. Fortunately, there were no visible wounds there.
He was simply looking down at me with wide eyes, blinking slowly.
“Don’t stare at me like that when you have nothing to be proud of!”
“A bit harsh toward an injured man.”
“You should have taken better care of yourself. You have nothing to complain about in the looks department — surely that alone is worth protecting.”
“Do you like that I’m handsome?”
“…W-well, of course, but — mm?”
‘Pfft.’
Kael raised his right hand to cover his mouth. As if to hold back a laugh.
‘What?’
I narrowed my eyes.
“Don’t make fun of someone who’s worried about you!”
I glowered at him with the expression of an angry little bulldog and slapped his thigh. That was meant to mean: ‘stop it.’
Though it must be said that his thigh was so rock solid that my own palm stung considerably more from the impact.
I had no intention of letting him see that, though. It would be annoying, and it would feel like losing.
In any case, Kael paid the slap no mind whatsoever. He didn’t even pretend to suppress his laughter. Those sharp, clear eyes curved into a gentle arc.
Something was off.
“You’re not actually hurt, are you?”
“I am.”
“Really?”
“Really.”
However I looked at it, this man did not seem hurt in the slightest.
‘He could have had the bandage changed multiple times, I suppose — but there’s not a single bloodstain anywhere…’
“EEK!”
Just then — while I was deep in thought — Kael reached out with his apparently uninjured hand and caught hold of mine. In one swift, smooth motion, I found myself enclosed against him, light and quick as a feather. Exactly as I had found myself during the wheedling operation, I ended up sitting on his lap.
“What are you doing!”
“I’m hungry.”
“……”
What could I say to that? He claimed to be injured.
I suspected foul play, but I had no proof. There was nothing concrete to argue with.
“Shall I have them bring fresh dishes?”
“Eek! That tickles—”
He had leaned in and murmured directly into my ear. When I was slow to answer, he nipped lightly at my earlobe to hurry me along.
“Quickly. What’ll it be?”
“Just eat as it is! You can’t leave food to waste!”
‘Has this man been drinking?’
Why was he behaving like this, when it wasn’t at all like him?
Not that Kael had never caught me off guard before — but today was different. Less like his usual provocations, and more like…
Was he being playful? Affectionate?
‘I have goosebumps. The dark mastermind, being coy? How does that even make sense?’
I rubbed at the goosebumps rising along my arm.
‘I need to eliminate all such absurd notions from my head…’
“Stop drifting.”
In the same instant, Kael wrapped his arm around my waist and pulled me flush against him. Hard enough that I could feel the solid, unyielding lines of his body even through the layers between us. And that wasn’t all.
He pressed his face into the curve of my neck and drew in a long, deep breath.
“Y-you’ve completely lost your mind! Ah — that tickles—”
He was dragging his nose slowly along the line of my neck, nuzzling and pressing close — behaving exactly like a dog reunited with its owner.
He pressed forward; I twisted and wriggled away. He followed the line of my neck; I squirmed and tried to put distance between us.
It was absolute chaos. And then—
“Ow! Don’t bite me!”
Kael bit my neck. I nearly convulsed. He tightened both arms around me to keep me from escaping, squeezing so firmly that breathing became an effort.
“Not here — you can’t, stop it—!”
“Everything’s ‘don’t do this.'”
A long, slow exhale against my nape.
Then soft, light kisses like a bird’s wing, moving in a trail gradually downward—
‘Was there a character note somewhere about the dark mastermind being a deviant?’
There was, actually — but he was considerably less restrained in practice than the description had implied.
‘I am not about to be undone right here!’
“I — I haven’t eaten all day!”
“……”
His lips stilled.
He ended on one long, lingering kiss, and then stopped.
“From this morning till now, I’ve barely had anything… I’ve been hungry for ages and still couldn’t eat…”
I drew out the sentence as pitifully as I could, letting my voice trail off in helpless, wavering syllables.
* * *
I had assumed the part about feeding him was a joke.
As it turned out, Kael was entirely in earnest.
“What shall I give you next?”
“The beef cutlet.”
I speared it dutifully and held it to Kael’s mouth. He closed his lips around the fork and chewed with unhurried composure. With that face of his, even eating was elegant and immaculately aristocratic, and so on and so forth.
“For someone who claimed his hand was too injured to manage anything, you still seem to have quite a firm grip—”
He had his arm coiled around my waist like a snake. I jabbed a finger at it and pointed this out.
It was a nerve-wracking position to be in, but it was worth saying clearly.
“Eating requires one to eat. This is something I want to do.”
“Ah……”
Perfect reasoning, perfectly delivered.
There was nothing left to argue.
And there was one thing that had to be endured with gritted teeth whenever we were seated like this.
When Kael and I were pressed together this way — quite thoroughly — a certain presence made itself known from somewhere below.
* * *
