“It… It’s fine…” she managed to say.
Looking away in an attempt to calm the clamor in her chest, Agnes spotted Ciel batting the Calvatia nipponica mushroom’s cap around.
Oh, how adorable! Such fluffiness! It brought pure joy to her. The cat reached for the Amanita muscaria, toe beans outstretched, and it was so cute Agnes wanted to squeal. A kitten at play. Tiger at play? Sacred beast at play?
Now Agnes’s heart was thumping in her chest for another reason. Distracted, she carelessly looked down and met Claude’s gray eyes again. They seemed to have never left her face.
“I…I’ll do my best to be a pillow, but please don’t gaze at me like that!” she insisted.
“But you’re so adorable.”
Claude reached out to touch Agnes’s hair, but the softness of his voice and the implied intimacy of his touch was too much for her.
“No touching either!”
Unable to stand it any longer, Agnes reached down and covered Claude’s intense eyes with her hand.
“Ahhh. An Agnes eye pillow is pretty nice, too.”
She was only trying to mitigate the intensity of the situation. Claude was insane!
When she instinctively tried to pull her hand away, Claude grabbed her wrist. Ignoring her utter shock, Claude made eye contact as he deliberately kissed her palm.
He may have been a mushroom freak, but he had an intense sensuality all his own.
“If… If you’re not going to sleep, then please at least sit up!” she demanded.
“Aw, that makes me sad. Well, how about this?”
Claude sat up and wrapped his arm around her shoulder. It was easier on the heart than being stared at while Claude had his head in her lap, but it still felt embarrassingly intense.
“You can rest like this?” Agnes asked.
“Very much so.”
Agnes was skeptical, but if Claude insisted…
She thought for a moment, then plucked the Amanita muscaria and handed it to Claude.
“Wow, look at the cap on this. The stalk is exactly the right length and thickness. And the dispersal of the warts is exquisite. Not to mention that red hue!”
Agnes breathed a sigh of relief as Claude began to rhapsodize about the mushroom. Yep, he was as much a mushroom pervert as ever.
Agnes felt the tension drain from her face. Claude was right. Just being together like this was peaceful and joyful.
As Claude went on to discuss the even spacing of the mushroom’s gills, Agnes closed her eyes and smiled.
✦ ✦ ✦
🍄🍄🍄
Mushrooms of the Day
Helvella crispa
Grayish-white with a stalk like a bamboo stick. It has a nodule on it that looks like a little horse saddle. If you spotted it on a mountain hike and didn’t know what it was, you might go, “Hmm?”
It’s edible, but if not thoroughly cooked, it can be poisonous. It doesn’t really look edible from the shape though. It sprouted hopefully, but the atmosphere was kind of awkward.
Calvatia nipponica
It’s also known as the Giant Puffball. The name makes me imagine something really giant, but it’s just a fluffy, white, ball-shaped mushroom. Its dreamy white sphere is about 15 centimeters across and sprouts in one night. When it turns brown, its skin peels off and releases an ammonia-like scent. It’s edible while still white, but rather tasteless than delicious. Why do we eat it, then?
It wanted to be a pillow, but Ciel was playing with it more like it was a trampoline. Still, it didn’t really mind.
Amanita muscaria
Red caps with white polka dots. A poisonous mushroom. It may resemble the 1-Ups from a certain video game franchise you might have heard of, but you wouldn’t want to try eating a real one! It felt the red filament of fate and sprouted. The mushroom Claude fell in love with.
“How about a pillow with a polka dot pattern?” it suggested.