A lack of common sense couldn’t explain something this flagrant. She couldn’t believe a betrothed woman would be sending this to someone with a fiancée of his own.
She mentally reproached the head of the Yagi family, fuzzy though her recollection of him was, for a little while until—
Hazuki abruptly realized.
This was very bad news. Since Miyo was unacquainted with social decorum, she hadn’t built up an immunity to these sorts of situations. Hazuki had to explain things to her somehow.
“M-Miyo, um, so—”
“I understand. Kiyoka is a wonderful man, so it makes sense women aren’t going to leave him alone.”
“Miyo—”
“The relationship between the Kudous and Yagis must be maintained. I would never complain about this at all.”
“L-listen, dear, the thing is…”
Miyo rose to her feet and headed into the kitchen, the gift from Yuriko still in her hands.
Though Miyo had hidden the look on her face to prevent Hazuki from seeing it, she was acting out of character. Perhaps she was brooding quite heavily over the card.
“Hey, Yurie. Maybe we should go check to see how she’s doing…”
“I-indeed. I’ve never seen Miss Miyo like that, either.”
Hazuki and Yurie, eyebrows furrowed with concern, nodded to each other and tiptoed toward the kitchen.
Quietly peeking from the kitchen entrance to avoid making any sound, they saw Miyo cooking something like normal. There didn’t appear to be anything out of the ordinary, which put them at ease for a moment.
But what on earth about their previous conversation had prompted Miyo to suddenly start cooking?
The two women held their breath as they tried to get a better look to prevent Miyo from discovering them.
She’s simmering something in a pot? That’s what it looks like, at least…
The box containing the catalyst to it all—Yuriko’s get-well gift—was already empty. That meant Miyo must have been simmering its contents.
“…Miss Hazuki, do you smell that?”
“It’s a very unique scent…”
Hazuki and Yurie glanced at each other with strange looks on their faces.
Kiyoka woke up covered by his blanket.
At this point, his body must have largely recovered. However, the doctor had insisted that as long as Kiyoka was fainting during the day, he hadn’t truly recovered, so he’d been getting a lot of rest as ordered.
I’ve definitely gotten rusty by now…
Kiyoka sat up, moping. Just then, he heard a voice from outside his room.
“Are you awake, Kiyoka?”
“Yeah.”
“May I come in?”
“Go ahead.”
“Pardon me,” Miyo said, opening the sliding door and entering. She was holding a serving tray, and she had a mysterious look on her face that made her emotions impossible to read.
“Um, it may be a bit early, but lunch is around the corner, so would you like some of this?”
“Oh sure, I’ll have some.”
The pot must have contained rice porridge.
He had begun to long for proper, hearty food to get his strength back, but he simply had to put up with things for now.
Miyo kneeled down to place the tray beside his pillow and raised the lid of the pot. Kiyoka couldn’t stop from cocking his head.
“…Does something about this smell strange to you?”
“You think so?”
“Oh, no, it might just be my imagination, but…”
It resembled a perfectly normal bowl of steaming hot, pure white, rice porridge. There wasn’t anything particularly off about it; in fact, with its glistening sheen, it looked delicious.
However, there was something extraordinarily off about the smell that wafted into Kiyoka’s nostrils from the rising steam.
Poison… Obviously that’s not what it is, but…
It reminded him of the breakfast when he had only just met Miyo.
Had that very misunderstanding actually become reality only a few months later? No, no, at this point, she couldn’t possibly be poisoning him. He knew very well that Miyo wasn’t the type of girl to do something like that.
Kiyoka thought in circles, at a loss to what this off smell could be, but he finally gave up and picked up the spoon.
No matter how Miyo had prepared the food, eating it would pose no problem as long as she had used edible ingredients.
“I-I’ll get started, then…”
“Go ahead.”
The moment he scooped up the porridge and placed the spoon in his mouth…
Kiyoka cupped his hand over his lips and fell back in agony.
It was awful. Absolutely horrid.
On first bite, his impression was simply that it was a bit more bitter than usual, but after that, a strange fishiness and medicinal herb scent passed through his nose.
The source of the smell appeared to be a white vegetable that was mixed in with the porridge, and every time Kiyoka bit one, he was assaulted by a powerful stench.
And then there was the texture of the vegetable, which was like hardened soil. He could only describe it as extremely unpleasant.
“K-Kiyoka, are you all right?”
“W-water…”
“Here.”
Drinking the water in the glass in one gulp, Kiyoka expelled all the air inside his lungs, before finally settling down.
“Um, was the flavor…not to your liking?”
When Miyo asked Kiyoka this, a thought occurred to him.
Honestly, it was dreadful…but is it really okay for me to say that here now? Miyo is a skilled cook, and this is bound to have an effect on her self-confidence down the line. If I tell her it’s disgusting, it’ll end up hurting her again.
If anything, it was incorrect for him to even complain about the flavor when she had made it out of concern for Kiyoka’s constitution.
Reaching his conclusion, Kiyoka gulped and mustered all the strength he could to smooth things over.
“E-er, no, I wouldn’t say that… I-it certainly tastes like it’ll be good for my body.”
“Do you think you’ll be able to eat it?”
“Y-yeah, I can eat it. I’ll eat it.”
Kiyoka’s lips twitched, and with a slightly trembling hand, he took the spoon and ate another bite of the porridge.
D-disgusting…! But I have to finish it all because of what I said.
Ever so slowly, he drank water to thin the taste of each bite he took and continued moving his spoon to his mouth. When he gulped down his fourth bite, Miyo revealed the outrageous truth to him.
“Oh, I’m so glad. I included one of the food items that was sent to you as a get-well gift.”
“…A get-well gift? From who?”
“A woman by the name of Yuriko Yagi.”
Yuriko Yagi, Yuriko Yagi…
The woman did not immediately spring to mind. After over a minute of deep thought, he finally arrived at a face.
Oh, her…
He remembered her as an extraordinarily beautiful woman.
However, she was also the type of woman Kiyoka had difficulty dealing with, and he’d only responded to her persistent invitations to dance together once, without having any further interaction beyond that.
“…What was this food item called?”
“Apparently, it’s an ingredient that has been used for a long time in foreign countries. It’s even used in Chinese medicine. As for the name…it was too difficult for me to read, but its appearance was similar to ginger root.”
Don’t just throw in some ingredient you don’t even know the name of! As this scream echoed inside his mind, a foreboding feeling came over Kiyoka.
“Apparently it’s supposed to energize you as soon as you eat it. Her note said it will ‘boost your vigor.’”
“Hrack!”
“M-Mr. Kudou?”
Unbelievable.
Well, sure, perhaps this vegetable would have given a weakened person an energy boost. But if Kiyoka was to hazard a guess, that mostly likely wasn’t this ingredient’s primary use…
He felt the urge to lambast Yuriko Yagi straight to her face for having sent him such an outrageous item.
A cold sweat beading on him, Kiyoka put down the spoon and moved the pot and tray very far away.
He must have eaten plenty by now. He was still technically sick. It wouldn’t be strange for him to leave some food on his plate. Not at all.
“…Sorry, but I’m full.”
“O-oh, I see…”
Guilt welled up in him as he looked at Miyo’s face.
Kiyoka understood. She hadn’t made this porridge to be mean. She was always giving everything she had for him. Even this time, she’d acted on nothing but good intentions.
He did everything he could to choose his words graciously, so as to not hurt Miyo’s feelings.
“…Also, you should only use medicinal ingredients after consulting a specialist on how much to use at once. It could cause a much stronger effect than expected.”
“I’m sorry.”
“No, it’s okay, you don’t need to apologize. It made me happy that you were so considerate.”
Upon seeing Miyo’s tiny nod, Kiyoka at last untensed his shoulders. The situation had made him more exhausted than any battle against Grotesqueries.
Regardless, he swore that as soon as he got better, he would have to air his grievances with the Yagis.
Watching the whole scene from the hallway with Yurie, Hazuki tried desperately to contain her laughter.
Th-that was too funny!
Naturally, it was inexcusable for Yuriko Yagi to send such a strange item, and this wasn’t a problem that should be dismissed with a chuckle. And she did feel sorry for Kiyoka.
“That was quite the spectacle, wasn’t it…? Hee-hee.”
Seeing Miyo unperturbed and Kiyoka hopelessly flustered—the complete opposite of the norm—was quite entertaining and amusing.
On that point alone, perhaps Hazuki should be giving high praise to the Fragrant Lily.
But still…
Though Hazuki had almost never thought of her younger brother as being cute, when he was with Miyo, he would seem quite endearing every now and then.
Since he’d been burdened with so many responsibilities from a young age, he had never behaved much like a child at home, and his reserved nature only became more prominent as he matured.
But now, this obstinate and unsociable sourpuss had grown so very expressive and had become so desperate to be considerate to his fiancée. In that regard…
Miyo really is outstanding.
At that moment, another thing clicked for Hazuki.
Miyo’s reaction when she’d looked at Yuriko Yagi’s card.
It had been as if all her emotions had vanished; she’d neither been despondent nor confused.
This surely suggested Miyo was stifling her emotions. In other words, it was evidence that she’d had a reaction that was intense enough to warrant suppressing.
Miyo probably wasn’t aware of this. Unfortunately, she still hadn’t matured enough to be able to pick up and on such subtleties.
However… Hazuki did get the feeling that Miyo and Kiyoka would get closer sooner rather than later.
She smiled, holding back an urge to shout, “My sister-in-law is just too cute!”