Every single stream of the air was read by her.
Warmth, joy, happiness, loveliness…
She couldn’t force anyone to see and feel all of it with their own eyes.
“…Okay. I’ll take it back. I’ll cancel it, so please grant my wish.”
Asha said that and looked up at Alexei with a desperate face. Alexei tilted his head.
“What is it?”
“The victory ball is so boring… Can we go back now? Even if I’m here, I think only strange people like Uncle Valery will come.”
Asha pointed to the garden. If you went all the way across it, you would find Taimir Palace. Alexei looked like he was thinking for a moment.
“Then I’ll call your maid.”
“That’s all right. Really I can go alone.”
Asha waved her hand. Valery glared, Maxim was shaking his head, and Karnov was pressuring her. Because of that, Asha hadn’t eaten anything so far. She was thinking of bouncing off into the kitchen right now.
“…Well, yes. Of course.”
She didn’t think he would allow her so willingly. Asha looked at Alexei with her eyes wide open, and then jumped hastily from the balcony toward the garden before his mind changed.
She waved her hand cheerfully and turned her back when she saw Alexei shaking his hand. Just as the little model of a girl was walking away, a person appeared out of nowhere in the shadows at the corner of the terrace.
“Karnov.”
“…”
“I heard you had a quarrel with the officers. Did it work out?”
“Is there anything else I can do other than get it resolved?”
Alexei smiled bitterly at Karnov’s words. Karnov’s spirit was the Spirit of Death. Everyone was afraid just to make eye contact.
Just his approach would have been enough. Those who were drunk would be sober at once, and those who had lost their reason would regain their reason in an instant.
“By the way, how was it? Our Asha. Did she cry?”
“…that’s true.”
Karnov replied after a moment of silence. He went and spoke to Asha because Alexei asked that, until he returned to the banquet hall, please make sure that strange people don’t approach Asha.
“I guess she doesn’t know about my spirit.”
Surely with the girl’s reaction, he couldn’t think that she knew about his spirit.
As Alexei smiled, Karnov frowned and stood holding the fence of the terrace. He seemed to be going back.
“You want to go back?”
“I have no interest in banquets.”
It would be difficult for him to have an interest with his temper. Alexei opened his mouth thinking inwardly.
“Then can you just see if Asha gets to her room well on the way?”
“…”
“I’m worried about her going alone without a maid.”
Karnov’s face was distorted. Due to his personality, he wouldn’t accept a request to be a babysitter twice, but since he made a mistake at the banquet just before – Asha being seized by the Marquis of Serenetev – it wasn’t easy to refuse.
Karnov eventually shot a look at Alexei and jumped over the terrace fence with one arm. And Alexei naturally returned to the banquet hall, as if he had been alone from the beginning.
━━━✦❘༻༺❘✦━━━
Not long after Asha left the banquet hall and glanced in the kitchen, the sleeve buttons, which had been decorated with regular patterns, turned into a new shape.
<Are you in the kitchen?>
‘Yeah, I’m hungry.’
But it was quiet in the kitchen.
‘The banquet must be prepared at the main palace hall. Did Pavel go there to help?’
It was when Asha thought that far.
“I… Ha!”
There was a person who called her in almost silent screams. Asha looked back with a welcoming smile. There was Pavel, whose face was a terrible mixture of crying, distrust, compromise, depression, and despair, looking at her.
“Pavel!”
“…Seriously? Seriously?”
It was obvious what he was asking so desperately. Asha turned awkward, smiled, and nodded.
“Yes, seriously.”
“…Why! Why didn’t you tell me? Why didn’t you tell me…”
“Didn’t I tell you? When I first met you? Anastasia Yurivena Kayeruth. Although the last name was cut because mister squealed.”
“Next time! You should’ve said it the next time! The last name! The whole name!”
“I told you.”
“Why didn’t you say it again after that?”
“Well, because I didn’t have time to talk?”
“How many times! You baked several scones! There were so many ginger cordials and pears!”
“All right, all right. I can see that Pavel is really sorry. That’s enough, the kitchen please.”
Pavel had an expression of almost bursting into tears. Asha stepped forward, patted him on the back, and went inside first. It wasn’t until a beat later that Pavel jumped inside.
Pavel was dressed in a strange way. He was wearing a neat tailcoat as if he were attending a party, and in his left hand was a basket. On the floor was a basket full of eggs with straw inside it.
“Why eggs? That much. You’re dressed in weird clothes, too.”
“…No, Your Highness. It wasn’t until now… No, no matter what I do, it’s strange… It’s strange…”
Pavel pulled on his tailcoat, sighed, and closed the kitchen door. He felt like giving up on everything.
“…I came out of boredom after stopping by the victory ball.”
“You too?”
“And you?”
Asha smiled and nodded, then hurriedly wrapped her stomach in her hands. The rumbling of the stomach resounded loudly in the quiet kitchen.
“Didn’t you eat?”
“…The table was too high.”
Asha answered with a slightly red face.
“Can I use that egg?”
“Yes. It’s from the banquet hall kitchen. I was going to use it for the victory ball, but I think it will be leftover.”
“Wow! Do you finally have a friend who also gives you eggs?”
“…”
Pavel changed the subject after muttering that he had friends and that he was just not friendly with them, but that didn’t mean they didn’t exist at all.
“What are you going to do with eggs?”
“I’m going to make a sandwich and eat it. With egg salad. There’s mayonnaise that I made the day before yesterday.”
“Egg salad?”
Asha nodded and rolled up her fluttering sleeves. When she said that she would start by boiling the eggs, Pavel didn’t ask anymore and did as she said, getting water in a pot.
“By the way, is it okay for the Imperial Princess to leave during the victory ball?”
“Since I have my cousin there, I don’t have to be there. Are you sure you don’t have to go to the banquet hall and work? So you don’t make any friends?”
“Cousin…”
Now, the cousin that Asha had always talked about – His Highness, the Crown Prince of the country! Pavel, who clearly realized, made an excuse with a pale face.
“…It’s a great career opportunity to be in charge of cooking dishes for such a big banquet. Everyone is going crazy over doing it.”
“Then you’re the only one who couldn’t get in there?”
“…”
Pavel sighed after putting eight eggs in a pot. If the egg had been a bit harder, he could have thrown it onto the countertop…
“Well, let’s see. A little sugar and salt. Pepper, cream cheese, and…”
In the meantime, Asha talked and pondered for a moment.
“And there is mayonnaise put in. After making the salad, I think I’m going to run out of what I’ve made, so should I make a little more mayonnaise? Since there are eggs.”
“Oh! I agree!”
“No condensed milk this time?”
“Yes!”
Pavel raised his hands and quickly brought the ingredients. Pavel fell in love with this soft, creamy, savory sauce he had made with her a few days ago.
The ingredients for mayonnaise were simple. Vinegar made from rapeseed oil and wine, and a generous amount of eggs. In the meantime, Asha found a cylindrical bowl in which she could whip her whisk quickly, and poured two egg yolks into it, sprinkled with a pinch of salt.
“The eggs are left at room temperature, so I can beat them quickly.”
It was Pavel who used the whisk on a moderately warm egg and started stirring.
The day before yesterday, she used the whisk herself, but Phoebe cried because she couldn’t see his pitiful expression, and in the end, Pavel helped her.
“I’m not the problem, the whisk is the problem.”
“This is a luxury brand.”
“This bunch of branches?”
“It’s all made by weaving and trimming the natural branches of the northern Sedvoyer estate.”
“That’s the problem.”
Pretending to hide her embarrassment, Asha vowed to turn that old bundle of branches into a new-style whisk woven with bent wire.
Pavel whipped the eggs vigorously with the old-fashioned whisk, while Asha stood beside him and dripped a cupful of oil little by little into the bowl.
She also added a few drops of vinegar made from wine. Pavel, who was stirring the whisk as hard as he could to Asha’s order by mixing it well from the bottom to the top, quickly accepted the word.
“Nice! It’s done!”
Perhaps because of the strong stirring power, the warm-colored mayonnaise was completed quickly.
“Since it’s done, leave it for a day, then use it!”
Just in time, the eggs in the pot were all cooked, so the boiled eggs were peeled and crushed with a dough blender. Since there were eight eggs, add one-third cup of mayonnaise. Asha put in the newly made mayonnaise today, and took out the mayonnaise she had made a few days ago.
‘Isn’t this a complete cooking show?’
<What is a cooking show?>
‘Hmm, so it’s like magic to cheat time.’
<Magic?>
‘I made something that takes a bit of work in advance, and voila~! I did it.’
Asha ignored Phoebe’s squeaks and focused on making the egg salad. Add the right amount of salt, sugar, and pepper, and finally four tablespoons of cream cheese.
“If you like cucumbers, I think it will be delicious if you salt the sliced cucumbers, wash them, and chop them. I’m really hungry today, so that’s it!”
Asha took a spoonful of the finished egg salad and pushed it into Pavel’s mouth. Pavel gulped over the salad and went into a somersault.
