3
As soon as Subaru entered the room, he said out of nowhere, “And so I have planned a flower-viewing party for us all—I hope to see you all there!”
“Flower-viewing?” Emilia craned her neck, repeating the unfamiliar turn of phrase. Her silver hair was in a ponytail that day, and she was wearing a long skirt. Her finger was pressed to her sakura-colored lips, but she didn’t seem all too started by the sudden proposal.
Since she had grown accustomed to Subaru’s sudden declarations, this was her default posture when receiving them.
“I’ve never heard of anyone doing anything like that before, but it sounds like fun. Flower-viewing… Ooh, flower-viewing…”
“Yup. It’s basically what it sounds like. Where I’m from, as soon as ice season ends, these trees called sakura bloom like crazy with pink blossoms. When they boom, we have picnics under the trees, drinking, eating, and singing… That’s a flower-viewing party!”
“Huh? But it sounds like you don’t get a very good view of the blossoms that way…”
“Yeah, that’s the dark irony of flower-viewing that people don’t like to talk about. Anyway, it’s basically an excuse to party.”
Smiling sheepishly over Emilia’s takedown of the flower-viewing tradition, Subaru proceeded to sum up his proposal. And the gist of his proposal was that everyone in the mansion take the secret liquor Subaru had been gifted to have a flower-viewing together—it was a roundabout way of asking them to a picnic usually focused on drinking in the park.
For Subaru, he was less interested in drinking and more interested in seeing everyone else’s reactions. Especially Emilia—she might suddenly become very sexy when drunk. And if that happened, well, her already dangerous charms would only get stronger.
“You bring a picnic of food and drinks and have a good time beneath a bower of beautiful blossoms. That is the main aim of our flower-viewing! It has nothing to do with watching Emilia get drunk and go crazy, I promise, okay?”
Then Emilia frowned. “Aha—now I get it. Goodness, Subaru, you’re a naughty boy.”
“Huh?! What?! My evil plot exposed so soon?! Inconceivable!”
“Children mustn’t drink alcohol,” Emilia explained. “It stunts their growth.”
“Wait, you said the same thing as my mom?! Also, hey, I’m not under the kingdom’s legal drinking age! I’m turning eighteen this year! And I’ve got Roswaal’s permission, too! I’m a grown-up, I swear!”
“I don’t think a grown-up would make such a big fuss like that. But, huh, I didn’t know you were eighteen. I’m really surprised… I thought you were much younger.”
Emilia smiled sheepishly as Subaru made a fuss over the little nugget of caution she had heard from somewhere. But she had added that jab about his age only because Subaru’s face lacked the calm composure expected of someone his age.
“Well, I have heard foreigners think Japanese people look young for their age. By the way, how old do I look to you?”
“Twelve…no, thirteen. About thirteen years old!”
“But that’s younger than Felt! Also, thirteen isn’t that much older than twelve!”
Rather, it wasn’t that much older than the children of Earlham Village. He would love to turn the tables and ask those children how old they thought Emilia looked, but then this conversation would reach a perpetual gridlock.
“Arrrgh, I need a nap. And hey, you keep saying I’m like a child, but what about you, Emilia-tan? Can you hold your liquor? Are you the type who can drink the whole wine list in one sitting?”
“Sorry, but I have no idea what you’re talking about.”
While Roswaal had the image of a heavy drinker, Emilia’s tolerance was beyond Subaru’s imagination. She might drink like a fish, and it was equally likely that she was an epic lightweight.
As Subaru squinted his eyes and assessed the possibilities, Emilia gave an awkward cough and said, “For all my posturing, I’ve actually never had alcohol before. Oh, but I am of legal drinking age. I’m not thirteen.”
“I don’t doubt you—and if you were thirteen, that’d make me a criminal, besides.”
“Why would you be a criminal, Subaru?”
“Because you’re so cute that you make me want to do something naughty, Emilia-tan…”
“So anyway, Puck told me I must never drink alcohol.”
“You’re just gonna ignore my answer?!”
Subaru was stunned by Emilia’s clever new ignoring technique, but Emilia showed no reaction. Instead, the pendant on her neck shined, and a third voice butted into the conversation.
“Of course you can’t drink—alcohol is the preferred drink of bad adults. And you’ll always be my sweet baby girl, Lia, so there’s no need for you to even touch such a vile drink.”
Along with the overprotective monologue emerged a swarm of light orbs taking the shape of a tiny cat. The summoned cat spirit sat on Emilia’s shoulder, poked her cheek with his paw, and said, “I won’t let you drag my baby girl down a dark path. Any party drinks that find their way near my Lia, I’m gulping them all down myself. I won’t let Lia have any! Shoo! Shoo!”
“Oh, so you’ll come to the party and drink, I see.”
As Puck conducted a spirited shadowboxing match and declared himself Emilia’s protector, it looked like he was just excited to drink himself. So it was a relief to Subaru—at least they would come to the flower-viewing.
“Emilia-tan, if Puck’s coming, you’re coming, too, right?”
“Huh? Yeah, I’m all right with that. I have a feeling Puck won’t let me drink, but I would love to eat good food under some blossoms. But is everyone else on board with it?”
“I planned the party with Roswaal to begin with, so he’s cool. And if Rozchi’s coming, Ram will too. We’ll have to ask Rem to cook the food and stuff, so I’ll ask her as sincerely as possible and get her to agree. I’ll help with the food, too.”
Subaru, who struggled with vegetable peeling in the beginning, had recently become quite the useful kitchen assistant, thanks to the hand dexterity he always had. To someone like Ram, whose growth was stunted from years of steamed sweet potatoes, his aspirations were on another level. (Also, the keenness of his instructor had something to do with it.)
“Oh, that Rem, she really enjoys cooking with you, Subaru. I know! Can I help with the cooking, too? I know you’ve doubted my culinary abilities in the past, Subaru.”
“Right, I did used to doubt you—well…that doubt still hasn’t cleared, actually.”
“Grrr! You’re so obstinate. Weren’t my rice balls just fine?”
“In flavor, yes. But you struggled a bit in the aesthetic department.”
The lunch Emilia gave to Subaru to take with him into the mountains contained simple rice balls. But shape aside, they were abnormally large in size. When a rice ball was as big as a child’s head, it took everything he had just to eat it.
It wasn’t an issue of flavor, but of balance. That was Subaru’s evaluation of Emilia’s culinary skills.
“Well, pooh! You don’t have to tell me twice. Just wait. My flower-viewing food will knock your socks off. And it’ll be too late to apologize to me then!”
As Emilia puffed herself up in anger, Subaru’s mouth slipped into an open smirk. While he had his concerns over Emilia wanting to get back at him, he still couldn’t help but be excited about it.
“Okay, so when are we having this little get-together?”
“Strike while the iron is hot! —Then again, we won’t be ready for it today. But we have to do it soon before the weather cools down. I was thinking we’d talk it over with the others and maybe do it the day after tomorrow.”
He wanted to schedule the picnic around Roswaal, since he had the fullest plate of anybody in the mansion. Any night when he wasn’t away from the mansion would be the day of the flower-viewing.
“If our main objective is to look at flowers, maybe the flower fields in the forest would be our best bet? Ideally, sakura would be awesome, but wrong season, wrong world,” Subaru mused.
Puck smiled. “Drinking alcohol while admiring lots of flowers…hmm, how idyllic.” Then his tail shot up and he interjected, “Oh, except if we’re going to look at the forest flowers, we might have a problem.”
“What problem is that?”
The tiny cat washed his face, lowered his voice, and explained, “If we leave the mansion, Betty won’t be able to join in the fun. She can’t leave the mansion. It’s her duty.”
“Whoa, really? I don’t really get it, but isn’t it okay for her to slip out just for a bit? After all, the master of the house is also attending.”
“I understand what you’re trying to say, Subaru, but Betty doesn’t stay in the Archive of Forbidden Books because Roswaal commanded her to or anything. She just can’t leave the mansion.”
Puck’s oddly assertive insistence confused Subaru into silence. Subaru wasn’t quite sure how to define his relationship with the Archive shut-in. But leaving her out just didn’t sit right with him. He knew he was not mistaken.
This was proud, hard-hearted Beatrice. If she found out that everyone else went on a picnic without her, she would carry that grudge with her until the end of time.
“Argh, why is Beako such a pain in the ass! But wait a minute…didn’t she come all the way to the village to heal my wound once? How did she do that?”
“That was a special exception. I asked her to do it, and I was sure surprised when she said yes.”
Perhaps Beatrice’s conscience was moved because it was an emergency. Regardless, a life-and-death situation and a fun picnic couldn’t be more different from each other in scope. Unable to come up with any other ideas, Subaru fell silent.
Emilia sadly looked down and said, “If Beatrice can’t go, then I guess the flower-viewing party is canceled…right?”
Seeing the lonely shadows her long eyelashes cast on her cheeks, Subaru’s heart burst into flames. Now he had to do something.
“Okay—I’ve got an idea!”
Subaru clapped his hands loudly, signaling he had come up with a way to bring their picnic plans back from the dead.
And seeing his spirited bounce-back, Emilia’s amethyst eyes glittered with hope.
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