17 - Vegetable Soup on Heavy Rotation
My consciousness surfaced at the sensation of someone stirring nearby.
As my thoughts shifted toward wakefulness, I immediately recognized the light beyond my eyelids.
From the brightness visible through my eyelids, I understood that morning had come.
"Nnuh?"
The moment I woke up, a strange sound came out.
As I began to dazedly wonder if this was a kind of sleep-talking, I sensed someone's presence behind me.
"You can still sleep."
When I raised my body while still half-asleep, a large hand was placed on top of my head.
It was Leonardo's hand, which I had grown thoroughly accustomed to over these past few days.
"I'm gettin' up, yesh."
When I turned my face in the direction of the voice and answered, I heard Leonardo laugh quietly, as though something about it amused him.
He probably only intended to gently stroke my hair, but from my perspective it was like having my head vigorously shaken, so my drowsiness was completely blown away.
"...Good morning."
"Yeah, morning. I'll make breakfast, so Tina, you can still sleep."
"I'll help."
"Is that so? Then I'll go on ahead to the kitchen."
I saw Leonardo off as he left the bedroom, then got off the bed myself.
I stared intently down at the bed, feeling intensely dejected inside.
...That's right, there's only one bed. We slept together, me and Leonardo!!
With my inner self being a former adult woman, sleeping in one bed with an adult man was questionable.
That's what I thought, but since I was a little girl now, there was no helping it.
Children, when they run out of energy, fall asleep like a switch being turned off no matter where they are, and once they're asleep, you can't easily wake them.
Leonardo, too, probably slept in the same bed without any doubts because I had fallen asleep.
He treats me not as a young girl but as a young child.
I didn't know if it was because of a rough personality or if men were just like that, but he likely thought there was no need to distinguish between boys and girls with children.
Which is why he could say things like let's take a bath together.
...Even without being a special case like me, even if she's small, a girl is a "girl." I understand that we're different creatures from men! Just because I'm a little girl, taking a bath with a man is impossible!!
Even without being a special case like me, having reincarnated with knowledge from a previous life, girls pick up a sense of modesty from somewhere.
From early childhood, boys and girls truly are different creatures.
...If I'd been awake, I would have at least suggested sleeping on the floor! Of course, the floor would be me!!
Now then, where should I sleep starting tonight? I looked around, but the side building said to have been prepared for disciples had only one bedroom, and also only one bed.
...Seriously, the floor?
Leonardo was my guardian, but he was different from a family bound by blood ties that couldn't be completely severed.
I didn't know just how much indulgence and selfishness would be tolerated, so for the time being I should defer to him.
As the one being protected.
...No, in Leonardo's case, he'd probably say we should just sleep together from the start. And then if I said I wanted to sleep on the floor, he'd likely say he'd give me the bed and sleep on the floor himself.
And I could easily imagine that we would ultimately end up sleeping in the same bed.
...The cleanest resolution is probably for me to accept that I'm a little girl right now and play the part of a little girl.
My feelings about it were complicated.
But, with the appearance of a little girl, and the other party treating me as a little girl, it couldn't be helped that Leonardo would be confused if I, with an adult on the inside, demanded to be treated the same as an adult woman.
...First, breakfast.
If we didn't make breakfast ourselves before Aurelia made something, we would be facing another breakfast with the taste of another world just like last night.
That alone I wanted to avoid no matter what.
I'll fix my appearance, I thought, and reached for my hair.
Partly because Leonardo had ruffled it earlier, but also because I had slept with it still braided by Aurelia yesterday, a magnificent bird's nest had formed on my head.
...Leonardo, I would have at least liked you to undo my hair.
Though there was no point in complaining about it now.
I quickly fixed my hair, which had taken on the kinks, with my fingers as a comb and tied it together in the back.
It was an unadorned way of tying it, but it was better than leaving hair with braid kinks as is.
"What are you doing?"
When I moved to the kitchen, Leonardo was opening cupboards here and there.
Rather than looking for something, he seemed to be trying to grasp everything that was in the kitchen.
"...I don't get it. With this many seasonings and spices available, why was yesterday's soup that bad...?"
He opened and closed cupboards with a pattering sound, pulling out small bottles that seemed to be seasonings and tilting his head in puzzlement.
As for me, I was starting to find the various seasonings I was seeing for the first time in this life a little enjoyable.
...This is pepper. This one has a similar smell but is a different size, so is it like coarsely ground pepper? As for herbs, I have no idea what's what. Though I might recognize parsley or something.
When I tried again the red seasoning Aurelia had used yesterday, it was an excessively sour ketchup.
I also tried the yellow seasoning Leonardo had used, and that was something like a thin-flavored mustard, I suppose.
I opened lids and sniffed, and when I couldn't tell by smell, I put some on my finger and gave it a little lick.
"...There's shugar in here."
I found sugar among the seasonings I had licked, and I could feel my cheeks slowly loosening.
In our household it seemed to be a luxury and wasn't used frequently.
But it's a sweet thing that girls and children love.
...If there were eggs and milk, we could make French toast with that hard bread. With that, even approximate measurements would work out somehow.
That said, without eggs and milk, nothing could be done.
The ingredients I had seen since arriving here were just the vegetables from the small garden and the meat Leonardo had brought.
At best, that would only change the flavor of the soup.
Nothing different from last night's otherworldly soup.
...Is there anything else?
I sniffed several kinds of white powder and licked them, but I couldn't determine what kind of powder they were.
There were some differences in taste and texture, but in my previous life I hadn't done much cooking from flour.
What I could identify as something specific by looking and touching was probably just wheat flour.
...Well, even that wheat flour is a different color from what we used at home, so I'm not too confident.
The wheat flour that rich people ate was white, while what commoners normally ate was somewhat brownish.
Here, wheat flour with the germ and bran removed during milling was treated as white, high-grade flour, but for me, with memories of modern Japan where health-consciousness made whole wheat flour the premium product, a mysterious reversal phenomenon was occurring where the whole wheat flour that commoners ate was the luxury food.
...I like both kinds of wheat flour, though. Bread made with whole wheat flour is hard and rough, and I like that.
Perhaps having finished grasping the ingredients packed in the cupboards, Leonardo folded his arms and started thinking.
"...What's for breakfast?"
"Meat and vegetable soup."
...Same as yesterday.
My internal retort must have shown on my face, because Leonardo gave a wry smile.
"My vegetable soup has flavor, you know?"
"It has flavor."
But we had also eaten it on the journey before reaching the valley.
I was starting to miss a different taste.
"Leonyaldo, could it be... you can't cook...?"
"I can make vegetable soup, can't I. And I can grill meat."
"What else?"
"..."
His silence was the answer.
...So, if I had been a boy who didn't help with cooking, would being under Leonardo's protection have meant a life of meat and vegetable soup every day until adulthood...?
I felt strongly that raising a child isn't just about giving them a place to sleep and meals.
In this case, the child being raised in that precarious environment was me.
The way he had accepted his benefactor's request without hesitation was admirable, but Leonardo might do well to look at reality a bit more.
"I'll go look at the field."
I decided to pin my hopes on the small field in the garden, hoping there would be at least something different.
Come to think of it, yesterday we went into the forest to gather firewood, but I hadn't explored the house's grounds.
Wouldn't there be even one vegetable ready to eat?
"If you're going outside, there's a bit more food, you know."
"Why?"
"Because I put the cargo we brought into the storehouse. In that load, there's milk and cheese too."
"Cheese!?"
...There is something with a different flavor! You only took out the meat, so I thought there was only meat.
...The milk had become a dangerous situation.
Considering that it was originally blood, it would be better not to touch it.
When I shook the can with the milk in it, it made a sound that was hardly what you'd expect from a liquid.
If there were some processing method, it might be reborn as a different food, but I didn't know any such method.
Unfortunately, the only options for the milk were disposal or consulting Aurelia.
Inside the storehouse were several vegetables and fruits Leonardo had brought and a large amount of meat packed in.
Apart from that, there were shelves full of the red seasoning Aurelia had been eating last night and a small amount of the yellow seasoning.
...I get it. Aurelia is one of those. A person who makes food bland and then eats seasoning. A seasoning-my-love kind of person.
And when she occasionally got tired of the imitation ketchup, she'd eat the thin-flavored mustard.
That was probably the rotation.
I felt it was a bit too unbalanced of a diet, but since the main dish was a soup with several kinds of vegetables, I felt like it somehow worked out.
Though that was only what I felt.
I remembered the existence of the livestock shed after going outside, and peered inside.
Inside were three goats and six chickens.
...Aurelia's really living a completely self-sufficient life here.
Though I couldn't imagine Aurelia making the seasonings herself.
She probably procured them in large quantities somewhere, stored them, and consumed them along with her daily vegetable soup.
I found eggs in the chickens' bedding, and if we could get milk from the goats, we could make French toast.
Even without that, we might be able to drink milk for the first time in a while.
When I showed childlike delight at this, Leonardo enthusiastically began milking, so I moved to the field, which was my original objective.
...There's almost nothing that looks ready to eat right away.
There was some greenery, but in a field where winter had just ended, there were no vegetables that could be harvested immediately.
...Herbs, maybe? Lots of leaves.
I found a corner where grass clearly different from vegetables was growing and observed it.
If it was herbs, it could be used in cooking, but it could also just be inedible grass.
Now, as I was wondering whether these plants were herbs or weeds, I was suddenly pulled backward with strong force.
"Wahwah!?"
My back was caught with a soft thump, and I looked up at the person behind me.
There stood Aurelia, with wrinkles carved so deeply into her brow that they couldn't possibly get any closer together.
"Those leaves will give you a rash if they brush against you, so don't you be touching them."
"Ah, yes. Understood."
So she was warning me, I thought, and after fixing my collapsed posture, I suddenly realized.
...Huh? Did Aurelia just speak?
Not in English, but in the language of this world.
It wasn't my imagination, right? I looked up, and my head was held in place.
When I faced straight forward, my hair was smoothly undone.
...Does Aurelia like messing with other people's hair?
I stayed still in the posture from when my head was held, and my hair was carefully combed with a comb.
When I remained in that posture for a while, it was braided into a half-up style just like yesterday.
[Author's Note]
No update tomorrow.