The brief date ended in a slightly awkward silence.
By now, the sun was starting to set, and we still had to buy ingredients for dinner, so there was no helping it.
"Ahem. Let’s go buy dinner ingredients."
"R-right. Dinner is important. Yeah."
It hadn’t usually been this awkward with Mayuri, but after what happened at the cafe, we’d both become way too conscious of each other.
That wasn’t necessarily a bad thing, but I hadn’t expected it to get this awkward.
"Hmm. Mayuri, do you have any menu in mind?"
No matter how awkward things got, we couldn’t keep standing around like this forever, so I decided to speak first and break the tension.
"A menu I want to eat...? Hmm...."
Mayuri rested her chin on her hand and furrowed her brow, thinking hard.
Yeah, what to eat for dinner was a very important issue.
After a little while, as if she’d finally thought of something, Mayuri snapped her fingers and spoke up.
"I’ve got it. How about hot pot? It’s good for eating together."
Hot pot was actually a pretty solid choice.
Like Mayuri said, it was great for eating together, and we could put in whatever ingredients we wanted.
"That’s a good idea. Then let’s go with hot pot, and I’ll ask the others what they want in it."
After saying that, I asked everyone through LINE what ingredients they wanted in the hot pot.
Then a ridiculous number of ingredients came back, and after cutting out the weird ones that definitely didn’t belong, I narrowed it down to a few.
"Huh? Soft-serve ice cream? What is that supposed to be...?"
"Ahaha, obviously that’s out."
That one had come from Kaguya, but honestly, if you put soft-serve ice cream in hot pot, I didn’t think you could even call it hot pot anymore, so I excluded it.
There were also things like Yuzuru’s snacks and all sorts of other bizarre suggestions, but I left them all out.
By the time we got to the mansion and started cooking, I figured there’d probably be people asking why their ingredients weren’t in there, but I’d just have to talk my way through that somehow.
"Ah, we’re at the supermarket already."
"Let’s start with the vegetables."
"Understood."
As soon as we entered the supermarket, I pushed the cart straight toward the produce section without any hesitation.
What we needed here was green onions, napa cabbage, bok choy, and the like.
No matter how much I hated vegetables, they were essential for a broth-based dish like hot pot, so I always made sure to include them.
Besides, the vegetables that went in ended up tasting better than I expected, so I ate them anyway.
"Looks like we’ve got most of it, right?"
"Yeah. This should be enough for the vegetables."
After loading all the vegetables into the cart, we picked out some mushrooms.
Shiitake and enoki mushrooms were enough.
After that, we headed to the meat section.
If you asked me what hot pot absolutely couldn’t do without, I’d say meat. There was no way we could skip this place.
"Hm?"
"Oh?"
And there, we ran into someone familiar: black, glossy hair, twin tails braided forward, and an outfit that somehow looked expensive.
Tokisaki Kurumi, the worst spirit in history and the master of the angel that controlled time, was casually doing her grocery shopping at the supermarket.
"Kurumi?"
"My, my. It’s been a while, Mayuri, Hieta."
"Ah, what brings you here, miss?"
"Isn’t the reason one goes to a supermarket obvious? To buy groceries, of course."
That was definitely true.
It was definitely true, but....
"It’s just hard to picture...."
That girl, who looked like she’d make a living off human vitality, was here shopping like a normal person?
At the very least, it didn’t match the image I had of her at all.
If I had to pick one exception, I had once seen her hanging out at a cat cafe when we first met, but that was before I knew who she was.
After learning her identity and fighting her once, I couldn’t imagine her doing something like this at all.
"My, my, what do you mean by that? It sounds as though you’re saying there’s no way I’d ever be seen grocery shopping."
"...No, not at all, yes."
She’d read me perfectly, but if I admitted it here, it felt like a disaster would happen, so I denied it.
Kurumi stared at me suspiciously for a moment, then turned her head toward Mayuri.
"Still, the two of you are out together this late. Are you perhaps on a secret date?"
"W-what are you talking about? Of course not."
Mayuri crossed her arms and turned her head away as she denied it, but that very gesture made it obvious she was lying.
‘Oh, Mayuri....’
"Fufu, let’s go with that, then. In that case, here goes."
"...!"
Kurumi suddenly stepped up to me, hooked her arm through mine, and flashed a mischievous smile, making me freeze for a second.
Mayuri glared at her as if asking what the hell she thought she was doing, and I looked down at Kurumi with a faint frown, but she spoke confidently anyway.
"If you say this isn’t a date, then I should be allowed to join, shouldn’t I?"
"...What?"
"I do get lonely being alone, you know~? So I’m just borrowing Hieta for a little while."
"......"
I had a strong feeling the correct move here was to stay absolutely still.
For some reason, it felt like sparks were flying between the two of them.
Kurumi was probably just joking, but that didn’t seem very important to Mayuri.
What mattered was that she’d been provoked.
"Borrowing, my ass. Is Hii some kind of object? And this isn’t a ‘secret’ date. We’re having a perfectly open date, thank you very much."
With that, Mayuri grabbed my arm and yanked me over.
Because of that, my view shifted for a moment, and I caught sight of the tips of Mayuri’s ears, which were bright red. She was clearly embarrassed.
Apparently she did realize she’d said something she should be ashamed of.
"Kihihit. I was only joking, you know? Please don’t get too angry. And as for being lonely, I meant that part sincerely, so you’re always welcome to come to me, Hieta."
After saying that, Kurumi winked and walked past us toward the register.
It had been a slightly awkward encounter, but we still had to finish shopping, so I started to move when the pressure on my arm increased.
"...Mayuri?"
Mayuri was gripping my arm tightly with a face that said she absolutely would not let go.
The tight grip itself wasn’t the problem. The problem was the soft sensation pressing against my arm.
Apparently Mayuri’s body wasn’t as flat as the commander’s, so even if I didn’t want to feel it, I couldn’t help it.
"Um, Mayuri?"
"...What. You want to go to Kurumi?"
"No, it’s just, I can feeeel it...."
"Feel what...."
Mayuri still looked completely baffled, so I pointed at a certain part of her body with my finger.
Her eyes followed my fingertip, and the moment she realized what I was pointing at, her face turned bright red and she smacked my back.
"W-where are you pointing!"
"Gah!"
That was when I learned Mayuri’s hand was pretty damn sharp.
Somehow, even though my body shouldn’t have been able to feel pain anymore, it felt pain anyway.
It probably wasn’t just because it was painful, but even so, that kind of pain made me feel alive, so I didn’t hate it.
"You’re such a pervert."
"No, I mean, isn’t it a bit much to just brand me a pervert...?"
"You touched Natsumi’s chest too, didn’t you?"
"That was an accident...."
Touching Natsumi’s chest had been a clear accident, so I couldn’t accept being called a pervert.
How many gentlemanly people like me did she think there were, saying things like that?
"Anyway, you’re not going to Kurumi, right?"
As Mayuri twirled a lock of hair around her finger and said that, I couldn’t help but snort.
"Why would I go to the miss? The spirit mansion is my home, and everyone’s there."
What Kurumi had said was probably just a joke, and in truth, I did think of the spirit mansion as my home.
After being dropped into this world alone and having no idea what to do next, it had become a place of rest for me thanks to the commander’s help. How could I not think of it as home?
And since almost all my connections were at the spirit mansion, there was no way I’d leave it.
...It’s a secret that I also didn’t want to go because Kurumi scared me.
"Then that’s fine."
Apparently satisfied with my answer, Mayuri said that and started looking for the meat we’d put in the hot pot.
While she did that, I grabbed some store-bought broth and put it in the cart.
Broth is something you buy ready-made.
If you try to make it yourself, you’ll end up suffering for no good reason.
"Let’s buy this and this."
"Sounds good."
Mayuri picked out some chuck and shoulder cuts, then put them in the cart.
After that, we pulled the cart full of ingredients to the register, paid, and came back out, only to find the sky already turning orange.
"Whoa, it’s already that late."
"The others are probably starving. Let’s hurry."
"Yes. Let’s."
By now, they were probably all collapsing and clutching their stomachs, so we headed back to the mansion as fast as we could.
Crash
"K-kyaaa...!"
"Sa, Sachi! What have you made!"
"Run away! I’m getting out of here!"
"...What is going on?"
When we got back to the spirit mansion, I saw the Fire Keeper chasing everyone else around while holding some kind of bizarre creature.
And Yuzuru was even trying to smash a window and escape. What kind of chaos was this?
"Why is everyone running away from my Ku-chan!"
From the way she said Ku-chan, was it a cookie...?
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