Love Rides on a Scent
The communal kitchen's oven had split clean apart and lay sprawled on the ground, and the lawn—which had looked reasonably well kept—was a complete wreck.
The tent? One of the icicles Ailenna had fired in a fit of rage struck a support pole, and the whole thing came down.
Hiss—hiss!
Ailenna kept loosing icicles as if none of it concerned her, and Ruri, putting a cat beastkin's gifts to full use, slipped and wove out of the magic. Ailenna's specialty had never been combat magic, so some of the clumsiness was to be expected—but Ruri's ability to dodge was in a class of its own.
She's a biped, for crying out loud. I had no idea a body could move like an invertebrate.
People joke that cats are spineless. Turns out they aren't joking.
Ruri fled, using the wreckage of the communal kitchen as a shield.
"Eeeek...! Stop right there!"
"Jinwoo!! Do something about that crazy pointy-ear, nya!"
"Ah, damn it."
It was a movie unfolding in broad daylight. No—worse than anything a film's effects team could fake.
Adventurers who had been resting in their tents wandered over to see what the fuss was.
"Elf! Shoot better than that! There's no power in it at all."
"She was a cat beastkin? No wonder she always went around in a hat."
"She dodges well, though. Beastkin really are beastkin, huh?"
They were snickering as if it were a fire on the far bank of the river. Adventurers loving a good fight was famous enough that this was probably just more of the same.
But when the flames from the tent slowly caught the grass, their tune changed.
"Uh—uhhh?! Hey! Take the tents down, quick!!"
"Shit!"
If I left this as it was, it was going to be a real disaster. Let the guards get called out and festival business would be the least of it—we'd be lucky not to have our trade shut down.
"Lady Ailenna!! Stop! Please, stop!"
"I haven't even done it yet!! How dare a mere cat get to Jinwoo first...!"
"Done what! You crazy chicken-coop elf, nya!!"
"Wh-what? By short-lived standards I'm still in my prime!!"
Trash talk guaranteed to make a listener's head spin. If it had been someone else's mess I would have been ripping into popcorn and cackling, but once I was involved, I was simply at a loss.
Fwoosh—
And through all of it, the fire kept feeding itself and growing. Words were never going to reach Ailenna, so I had no choice. I caught the gap when her icicles paused and rushed her, seized her arm, and pulled.
Whump—!
"H-hiek! Ji... Jinwoo?"
I had only meant to grab her wrist and drag her clear, but I put more strength into it than I intended, and the result was that I had her fully in my arms. Only then did she seem to come back to herself. Her voice trembled as she looked up at me from within the embrace.
I opened my mouth in a hurry.
"You lunatic!! Water! Ailenna, shoot water! Water!!!"
"J-Jinwoo?! You're speaking casually to me now? And hugging me?"
"No, damn it, that's not the point—put that fire out!!!"
"O-oh. Okay!!"
And just like that, my chicken-skewer market research came to an absurd end.
"The communal kitchen will have to be torn out and rebuilt entirely, and the grass roots are dead, so the lawn will need replacing as well."
"I'm sorry..."
"On top of that, the campsite can't operate for a while... Add the lost business, materials, labor, and everything else, and it comes to fifty silver coins."
"H-hiek... fifty?"
The guild receptionist clicked the beads of an abacus and named the figure. Ailenna kept apologizing without once lifting her head, and Ruri, hearing the sum, flinched as if she'd been struck.
I tested the air, then spoke.
"Receptionist. I truly am reflecting on this. These two are also repenting deeply."
"And?"
"If you could reduce it just a little..."
"I'm sorry, but even accepting this amount, the guild takes a loss. We're only being considerate because you've filed so many requests these past few days, Sir Jinwoo. Ordinarily we would have called the guards without a second thought."
"Ah, thank you. Wanting anything more would have been shameless of me."
Hmph. Try to shave off a few coins and I nearly earn myself a red mark.
I accepted it quickly.
"I'll come pay tomorrow. I left my money behind."
"Installments would be fine as well."
"I'll just pay it in one go. It's not as if I don't have it."
It would be tight, but I could bear that much. Better this than interest piling up into a headache later. I finished the remaining small talk and stepped out of the guild.
Ailenna and Ruri quietly watched my mood. If one weighed fault, Ailenna's was far greater than Ruri's. Ruri had abbreviated things, but the facts were the facts, and Ailenna had overreacted and made a scene of it. Most of the devastation visited on the campsite and the kitchen was her handiwork.
Even if I paid the damages, the stall and the hardtack were bringing in plenty. Assume the life of a comfortably well-off commoner, and it was the sort of balance you could spend without checking. So the cost of the damage could more or less be covered by writing it off against Ailenna's wages. As for what remained... she was hardly a stranger. One of the few friends and companions I had in this world. I could hand it over without resentment.
Still, I wanted to hear why she had taken things this far.
Thinking back, Arthur had once told me to be careful of Ailenna. At the time I had decided it was only a misunderstanding, born when he stormed Nuardel to drag me there. But there was today's incident. And all the times until now that she had reacted so sharply to anything involving me. There were too many things that made no sense if I simply wrote them off as friendship.
I spoke to the two of them, both standing there awkward and hesitant.
"Ruri, you're fine. Most of the accident was Ailenna's doing."
"Is that so, nya...? Still, I said some harsh things too, nya. Elf, I'm sorry, nya..."
"Y-yeah. I'm sorry too. Even angry, I shouldn't have done that. I'm sorry for causing so much trouble..."
"Well... the apologies are done. Why did you do it, Ailenna? Oh—is it all right if I speak casually?"
"Yeah. Be comfortable. That's..."
I asked her the reason outright. She couldn't answer easily. Her lips fluttered again and again before she managed it.
"I came looking because I was worried about what you were getting up to, Jinwoo, and then... Ruri said something strange, so I lost my temper for a moment."
"That's exactly the part I want to hear. A friend wondering what I'm doing, worrying about me... I'll grant you that much. But there was no need to blow up over what Ruri said."
I hadn't meant to press her, but I couldn't help it. This wasn't the first time, or the second, and this time I wanted the reason clear. And honestly... there was a part of me that already guessed. Maybe this was only my selfishness, wanting to turn a guess into certainty.
"Ruri's wording was easy to misunderstand, but if we were just friends, it wasn't something to take that sensitively."
"Th-that's true..."
"You were oddly wary the first time you saw Ishilla. And the night I came back late from the tavern, you nagged me until all hours... Ailenna. What am I to you—"
"Aaah! Seriously. Jinwoo, why is a man's tongue so long!"
Thwap, thwap—!
While I was laying it out point by point, Ruri, who had been watching in silence at my side, cut in. Something clearly did not sit right with her. Her cat brows knotted hard, and her tail smacked the ground.
"Wh-what. A man can talk at length too."
"Aish, that's not the point, nya. You're human, so maybe you can't tell, but right now the smell is absolutely raging, nya."
"Smell? What smell?"
I had thought we were finally having a serious conversation. Ruri shoved herself in and started on about smells, saying things I couldn't follow. I was baffled, but I asked her what she meant anyway.
Ailenna's face went oh no in an instant. She startled and her mouth worked soundlessly.
"D-don't tell me. Ruri! Be quiet for a—"
But once Ruri's switch flipped, she did not stop for anything minor. She declared it as boldly as when she lunged at me in high spirits.
"Right now! Female scent is pouring off that elf like crazy, nya!"
"Wh-what?"
"Phew. You're a man and you can't even tell. At this level, it looks like it's been building for quite a while—"
"You crazy cat!!!!!"
"Nyaaaaaak!!!!"
At Ruri's blunt, shocking declaration, I simply froze. Ailenna screamed and struck Ruri hard across the back. The impact sent Ruri leaping, and the words stopped—but what had already spilled could not be gathered up again.
Pshhh—
Ailenna's face flushed red as a beet. Of every expression I had seen on her, this was the most deeply flushed. I suspected I was no different.
I had wondered, half doubting—but had she really thought of me that way?
It wasn't as if I had never caught a strange hint. Even so, there were many reasons I had never been sure. The difference in race. The difference in station. The difference in occupation. Among elves she was a woman of a powerful house, and through brewing and agriculture she properly spanned Nuardel's food trade. I, by contrast, was a black-haired human rarely seen in this world, a commoner, and on top of that a cook.
By now I understood that my ability carried considerable value. But whether in modern society or in this world, a cook was not a particularly good profession. I had grown used to that disregard, and my own mind had been pressed down to match the way society looked at me. That was where the needless sense of inadequacy had come from.
"I-I was going to say it slowly! What kind of insane thing are you saying!!!"
"Kyaaaak!! You two were being so frustrating that I did it, nya! If you'd been beastkin, you'd have booked an inn room and gone in ages ago, nya!!"
"Oh my, oh my my..."
Ailenna grabbed Ruri, meaning to give her a piece of her mind, and got struck in return by the scorching courtship customs of beastkin. As if the words were indecent, she covered half her face with both hands. Only her eyes peeked through, and those lake-blue irises were beautiful all the same.
Honestly, what man could dislike a woman who looked like this?
Of course, Ailenna was not a woman whose only excellence was her face. In Nuardel, a wasteland for fine food, she had stubbornly carried on her research alone—a worker. Their first meeting had been cold, but the moment she knew she had found someone she could talk to, she threw the door of her heart wide open—that purity. An elf who never shied from unpleasant work for my sake, and who helped me stoutly even when it was difficult. That was Ailenna.
To say I had never once looked at her as a woman would be a lie. Looking back now, she was a woman overflowing with loveliness.
Thump, thump—
Until now I had avoided it, out of the inadequacy and the embarrassment of believing she could never like me. Facing those feelings one by one, my heart suddenly pounded as if it might burst.
Without my even knowing it, I had been holding her in my heart as well.
In the movies, the man always confesses first, and if he doesn't, they paint him as a sorry excuse for a man. As a viewer I could never understand that psychology. Becoming the person involved, I understood it to the bone. Even I had a heart lurching like mad, and I wanted to writhe from the shame of it that very moment—how would she be any different? Noticing first, and easing that burden, was a man's part. To retreat without settling a situation like this would make me the sorriest excuse for a man among sorry excuses. People could curse me by the bucketful and I would have nothing to say for myself.
I drew a calm breath and opened my mouth.
"Hey, Ailenna."
"Y-yeah. Jinwoo."
Gulp—
I heard a dry swallow. Whether it was mine, or Ailenna's, or perhaps even Ruri's, I couldn't tell. The noise of the street no longer reached my ears at all.
"All I've ever learned is cooking, and it's the only thing I'm good at. From the moment I first met you until this one, I've been tactless and frustrating, just as you've seen. I might keep being that way."
"Ngh..."
Ailenna made a sound that never quite became words.
"Even so—even if I'm an oblivious fool—I can look after your three meals a day better than anyone else in the world."
"Hhk, s... so?"
Her voice caught, as if she might simply cry. Tears welled along her eyelids and made those sky-blue eyes even lovelier.
"So, ah. That's..."
It's cringeworthy. It's cloying. I feel like I could die of the embarrassment.
I hadn't even put the words in my mouth yet, and already I was like this. A confession really did have to come from the man. No man would want to lay a shame like this on the person he meant to stand beside. It felt as though only Ailenna and I existed in the world. Our surroundings were that full of silence.
I said it. In the end, I had gone and done it.
Thump, thump, thump—!
Was Ailenna saying something? I couldn't tell. My heartbeat was so loud I couldn't hear a thing. With trembling eyes I stared hard at her lips.
At last they parted, slowly, and she answered.
It felt as if fireworks were going off inside my head. My heart had already climbed past its limit and was still rising. A sincere question, and a sincere answer. To think so short an exchange could hold this much happiness, this much joy.
Softly—
I stepped in and drew her into my arms. Ailenna's slender arms came around my back as well, and she laced her fingers so the hold would not come undone.
We stayed like that for a long while, and then, all at once, I felt the surroundings growing noisy.
"Heh, hehh... Jinwoo, when you do it, you really do it, nya. Even so, to do this in the street..."
"Well now, I just watched a whole play. Chef's got skills!"
"Um... shall I shave the amount a little? Setting up a newlywed home must be hard..."
"Ah. Damn."
It wasn't that our surroundings had filled with silence, or grown quiet. They simply hadn't been reaching my ears.
There was Ruri, who had gone on about inn rooms and was now watching, more embarrassed than anyone. There were the adventurers who had naturally been watching us, since we were standing in front of the Adventurers' Guild—faces that had even eaten my chicken skewers. And there was the guild receptionist who had only just calculated the damages and delivered the notice...
"J-Jinwoo. Let's go back, quickly...!"
"Y-yeah. We should."
"Hahaha! Treat her well while you've got the chance!"
"Youth! Ah, youth!"
Youth, my freezing foot.
The people who had been watching us laughed and tossed out a word of congratulations each. We ran for the mansion in a hurry. Behind us the cheerful uproar kept coming: teasing that had a mean little edge, words that congratulated us in earnest, and words from people who had fallen into a romantic daze and decided the whole thing was terribly romantic.
"Huff, hehehe! Yes, Jinwoo!"
"Hahaha! I'm excited too, and I don't even know why!"
Anyway, it didn't feel half bad.