Edible Enough
"Where does it hurt?"
Even as I asked, I thought it was a strange question. But what else could I say when a total stranger asked me why I was perfectly fine? I rubbed my cheek, wondering if something had gotten on my face, but my hand came away clean.
Ara watched my hand, then slowly shook her head.
"That's not what I meant. When you look at me, don't you feel something strange?"
"Strange how, miss?"
"Like you're having thoughts you don't usually have. Like you keep wanting to come closer."
I looked at her for a moment. The ears poking up through her red hair tilted slightly, and one of the tails behind her was swaying in a slow, lazy arc.
Honestly, I did want to touch it.
But I hadn't abandoned social norms to the point of asking whether I could pet a first-time customer's tail. Nor did I want to get reported by a guest on my first day of work.
"I did think you were pretty."
Ara's fingers stopped on the counter.
"And?"
"There has to be an 'and'?"
This time it was me who asked out of genuine curiosity. You see a beautiful person, you think they're beautiful. I didn't understand why some grand conclusion needed to follow from that.
Ara didn't answer. The gaze that had been studying my eyes slid down to my shoulders and hands, then climbed back up. I waited a little while, then gestured at the key sitting in front of her.
"Would you like to bring your luggage up first? And if you'd like dinner, I can prepare something."
"...What do you have?"
I glanced toward the kitchen. The potatoes were already out, and there was dried meat as well. But if someone asked whether I could turn those into a varied menu worthy of a guest's choosing, I'd have been hard-pressed to say yes.
"It'll be soup with potatoes and meat."
"What else?"
"There's bread."
"Any other soup?"
"No, miss."
Ara looked at me and let out a short breath. It might have been a laugh, but she turned her head away too quickly for me to see it properly.
"Then I'll take that."
I told her the meal price written in the ledger and headed into the kitchen. Instead of going upstairs, Ara sat down at the table along the wall. Without even removing her cloak, she pulled the chair out slightly and angled her body toward the door.
For someone supposedly waiting on a person, her expression as she watched the door was far too rigid.
* * *
I put a pot of water on to boil while I washed and peeled the potatoes. I cut the dried meat into bite-sized pieces, and sliced up an onion I'd dug out of the storeroom as well. Once my hands started moving through the order they remembered, the awkward conversation from a few minutes ago came drifting back to me.
Ara's words probably hadn't simply been a request to compliment her looks.
After all, even when I'd called her pretty, she hadn't been satisfied — if anything, she'd stared at me even more strangely. It felt closer to her checking what a person did after looking at her.
Come to think of it, the gumiho stories did include the part about them bewitching people.
I stopped slicing mid-potato and turned my eyes toward the dining room. Ara was cradling the water glass on the table in both hands. The moment I looked, her gaze met mine directly.
"What?"
"I forgot to ask if there's anything you can't eat. Is meat all right?"
"I eat it."
"Understood, miss."
I looked back down at the cutting board. I had no idea whether she was trying to bewitch me, or whether people simply fell under her spell of their own accord. I knew far too little to judge from a few exchanged sentences.
One thing I did know for certain: if I nicked a finger peeling potatoes, it would hurt. I decided to finish what was in front of me first.
The soup took longer to cook than I'd expected. When I ate alone at home, as long as it seemed vaguely done, it went down the hatch — but I couldn't treat food I was being paid for that way. I pressed a potato with the spoon and tasted the broth.
A little bland.
After adding more salt, the meat turned out too salty instead. Only then did I realize the dried meat had already been carrying its own saltiness, and I added a splash of water.
It took several rounds of that back-and-forth before I finally set the ladle down. Any more fiddling, and dinner would become tomorrow's breakfast.
"Sorry for the wait."
As I set down the soup and bread, Ara's hands left the water glass. I caught her inspecting the bowl before she picked up her spoon, so I pointed at the seat across from her.
"Would it be all right if I ate here too?"
Ara hesitated a moment, then nodded. I fetched my own portion, sat down, and took the first sip of soup. A scalding-hot potato hit the roof of my mouth and I gulped down water in a hurry — but mercifully, it never quite escalated to spitting food out in front of a guest.
Watching that, Ara finally moved her spoon.
I pointlessly tore at my bread, waiting for a reaction. When I ate alone, a full stomach was the only requirement — but the moment money changed hands, I found myself fretting all the way down to whether the other person would finish their bowl.
"How is it?"
"It's edible."
With that, Ara went back to her soup. Her expression wasn't the forced politeness of someone flattering, but it wasn't exactly a face of wonder, either.
I took another spoonful myself. The potatoes were cooked, the meat was chewable, the broth was hot, and there was salt in it. Beyond those facts, no particular selling points came to mind.
An accurate assessment, then.
"The potatoes would be better cut smaller. And this burns going down."
"I just found that out myself."
I answered as I set my glass down. Watching Ara split a potato with her spoon, I resolved to reduce the size next time.
Until now, the sole judge of my cooking had been me. I cooked, I ate, I even washed the dishes. Complaining would only be to myself, the person making the next meal, so I mostly just ate whatever came out.
But a guest was different. I had to think seriously about whether it was acceptable to keep serving merely-edible food to someone who could pay and choose where to eat.
"First time cooking for a living?"
"I've cooked for myself, but selling to a customer is a first, miss."
"Figured."
There was nothing to rebut. I nodded and dunked my bread into the broth.
"I'd better learn a few things."
First I needed to figure out what actually differed between home cooking and inn cooking. I'd check what ingredients were left in the storeroom, and next time I went out to shop, asking the vendors seemed like a good idea too.
Knowing the names of many dishes from my past life didn't mean I could cook them well. If I attempted a dish without even understanding its ingredients and botched it, at minimum I'd be eating every bit of that failure myself.
For now, better to master the humble potato.
Just then, a sound came from outside — a wheel catching on stone. Ara dropped her spoon at once and looked toward the door. I checked through the window and spotted a small handcart passing by.
"Just someone moving luggage, miss."
Ara said nothing, staring at the door before picking her spoon back up. But unlike before, she only took small sips of broth.
I set down my bread.
"If you'd be more comfortable, I can bring your meal to your room."
"Why?"
"You keep looking at the door. I wondered if sitting here was making you uneasy."
Ara's eyes swung back to me. Lips that had been parting to say something closed, then after a long pause opened again.
"You — you don't know what I am, do you?"
At the sudden question, I gave it some thought. Nine tails, so a gumiho — but in this world, she might well be called by an entirely different name.
"You're not a gumiho, miss?"
The spoon clinked against the rim of the bowl.
Ara stared at me without even correcting her grip on the nearly-dropped spoon. The tails that had been drifting behind her drew in close against her body.
"...You knew?"
"I suspected. Nine tails, miss."
"And you still gave me a room?"
I looked down at my half-finished soup, then back up at her. Same as the questions about my reactions to her looks — from the very beginning, she seemed to keep being surprised by the things I wasn't doing.
"That's about all I know about my guests, miss."
"That's plenty to know."
"Plenty to do what, exactly?"
Ara didn't answer right away. Her hand, dropped beneath the table, clenched the hem of her cloak. I half-thought she was about to stand and leaned back slightly in my chair, but Ara stayed exactly where she was.
"Throw me out. Or call people here."
Her voice was lower than before.
"That's what people usually do."
I took a moment to choose my words, then set down my glass. The gumiho stories I knew weren't exactly peaceful tales either. But that didn't mean I could pin the events of those stories on the Ara sitting in front of me.
"I've heard frightening stories, yes. So I was startled too, at first."
I had no intention of pretending I'd been unfazed from the start. Ara had seen my face, frozen stiff with all nine tails fanned out.
"But you asked whether there was a room, miss, and you paid for your lodging. You paid for your meal, too. You've done me no harm — so if I suddenly threw you out, wouldn't I be the strange one from where you're sitting?"
Ara held my gaze, then looked down. Her fingertips came to rest on the key lying on the table. Tracing the grooves of the key with the tips of her nails, she asked quietly.
"So I can just... stay?"
"I've already been paid for the room."
I pointed at the paper pinned to the wall.
"You only need to follow the rules, same as any other guest."
Ara read the notice again. Longer than when she'd first walked in, her eyes lingering on the final item. I didn't press her, and finished my meal instead.
Before long, Ara picked her spoon back up. As she dunked bread into the cooled soup, footsteps sounded outside — and she didn't turn her head. Her ears weren't quite so still, but at least it looked like she'd manage to finish eating.
I was getting up to clear the empty bowls when Ara called out to me.
"Grain."
It was the first time she'd used my name. I turned toward her, bowls still in hand. She was still toying with the key, but this time she wasn't hiding it in her palm like before.
"There are people coming to look for me."
The question she'd asked at the counter earlier came back to me. I set the bowls back down on the table.
"People you'd rather not see?"
"It's more than that. If they find out I'm here, it could become your problem too."
Ara glanced once at the door, then looked me dead in the eye. It was hard to tell whether she was gauging whether to send herself away, or trying to finish explaining before I could cut her off.
"Renting me a room doesn't settle anything. Telling them I don't want visitors won't work — those kinds don't just say 'understood' and leave."
Instead of answering, I pulled my chair back out and sat down again.
"Who's chasing you, miss?"
Ara's fingers slipped off the key.
"Humans."
She pressed her lips together for a moment before adding:
"And the beastfolk too. When it comes to catching me, both sides are exactly the same."