The twins led them down the hall, through a door, and outside the school building. Guy blinked at this and asked the same question he’d been voicing over and over.
“Outside? What kinda tea party is this?”
“You’ll find out,” Lélia told him. “See, they’re in sight.”
Her eyes were on the gardens up ahead. A red cloth was laid out on the grass, and the invited guests were sitting directly on it. At the far end was a friend of Guy’s—dressed in a Yamatsu kimono, boiling water in an iron kettle. She looked up with a smile.
“Oh, Guy! You’ve availed us of your presence?”
“Nanao…?! You’re in on this? What’s going on?”
He blinked, and his gaze shifted to the girl seated opposite Nanao. The girl’s back was to him, and her head alone turned, shooting him a grumpy side-eye. There were very few students in his year quite as consistently hostile as this one. The combat league finales had certainly ensured he’d remember her face forever.
“Valois?!”
“…What? Am I not allowed to be here?”
The pure Koutz practitioner Ursule Valois, already bracing for a fight. Guy just blinked at her, and the Barthés offered supplemental information.
“It’s an Azian-style tea party. A nice change of pace, yes?”
“She’s been inviting Lady Ursule from time to time, and we’re tagging along. Since Hibiya’s the host, we can rope you in without triggering Reston.”
“…You sure are tenacious. I mean, I’m in, but…”
Caught up with their scheme, Guy settled down. Sitting on a cloth without chairs made it seem less like a tea party and more like a mid-hike picnic, but he’d always been the outdoorsy type and felt right at home. Sweet treats on a pottery plate were deposited before him; it seemed Nanao was personally preparing each cup of tea. Figuring that would be worth waiting for, he turned his gaze from Lélia to Gui to Mackley.
“Guess I’d better say sorry. A friend of mine went off on you a bit—my bad. I went down first thing, didn’t manage to stop him.”
“Don’t worry about it. We were careless,” Lélia replied. “We bear no grudge against Reston. It’s entirely true that, out of context, what we said sounded like we were trying to pry you away.”
“Easy for you to say. His damn golem stabbed me in the back of the neck!” Mackley griped.
“Let it go,” said Gui. “We healed you up. And that could easily have been me or my sister. You just had the bad luck to be standing against the wall.”
“Show me one person who’d be convinced by that argument!” Mackley fumed, her cry echoing across the blue sky, loud enough that Nanao and Valois heard her.
“I can’t settle down with you yelliiing? The wind keeps bringing in bits of grass. Whyyy can’t we do this inside?”
“We certainly could, but a change of scene will do us wonders. There are pleasures in a boisterous assembly as well as a quiet one.”
As she answered, Nanao busied herself with the tea, putting leaves in a prewarmed cup, adding water heated to the ideal temperature, and stirring it with a kind of dampened whisk.
Valois took a seat, watching this process unfold. Despite her barbed words, she was sitting bolt upright on her knees—not a posture present in Union culture, so this showed she’d arrived with prior knowledge. Grateful for that, Nanao put the thought into words.
“Your seiza is elegant and beautiful. I appreciate the effort to match the occasion. But pray, relax and enjoy yourself. Tea can be a ceremonial occasion, but I barely remember the manners myself. I will spare not one word to what is proper, and you need not concern yourself with errors.”
This just served to deepen Valois’s frown. Her grandmother had drilled the importance of etiquette into her from an early age; attempting to emulate the formalities of the occasion was now unconscious, instinctive. Yet, this girl claimed that was of no importance—and that left Valois unsure how to comport herself.
Nanao finished the tea and placed it softly before Valois.
“Enjoy. Do not let the involved process stay your tongue. If you like it, splendid; if you do not, so be it. Give me your unvarnished opinion.”
Valois gingerly lifted the cup with both hands. It was perhaps a third full of a frothing green liquid. Remembering the manners she’d read about beforehand, she made to turn the cup three times but soon realized Nanao had no interest in such formalities. For that reason, she moved it directly to her lips. The foreign flavors spread across her tongue, and she slowly drank.
After allowing herself some time to process it, she spoke.
“…It’s very…bitter…? Buuut it goes down easier than I thought. Does adding air to it aid with the mouthfeel? I suppooose that would serve the same function as our milk?”
“Ah, you picked up on that? I was quite surprised by the local custom of adding cow’s milk to tea. Once I adjusted to that, I realized the similarities. Perhaps adding milk is even more expedient.”
Nanao was preparing cups for the other guests as she spoke. The process seemed far too inefficient given each was the same—it would have been much quicker if she had used a spell or prepared some magic tool. But Nanao deliberately brewed one cup at a time, carrying each to their seats on her own two feet. When everyone was served, she returned to Valois, facing her once more.
“Yet, I believe there is meaning in these procedures, too. I see you have noticed that yourself.”
“…Weeell, I guess? If I watch you painstakingly make it, I am naturally inclined to savor the taaaste… These are tea sweets?”
“Indeed. You may slice them with a pick or grasp them in your hands—eat however you wish.”
Valois reached for the little treat on the tray. Theodore had brought some red beans back for Nanao, which she had used to make her own paste for kintsuba. Valois prodded her kintsuba with the pick and found it soft and yielding; she sliced a quarter off it, poked it with the pick, and carried it to her mouth.
It had a richer sweetness than she’d expected; it was almost too much for her, but then she blinked and took another sip of tea. The bitterness of the beverage balanced out the sweetness lingering on her tongue—and felt like a revelation. This was a flavor experience that required both tea and sweets to be complete.