"Ikki, can I ask something?"
Finally, she starts to speak again.
"Sure, what is it?"
"If you find the cave you looking for, are you going back to your country?"
"Yes, of course. Why?"
"Um …um…." She looks hesitate to speak
"Just say what's on your mind Silvie"
"Um … can I visit your country with you?"
Last night when her father asks me, I reply it by asking for time to think about. Now she asks it herself, how am I supposed to reply?
"No problem. As long as I can find the cave", finally I can answer it. Well, I hope with this promise at least she will help me looking the cave heart fully.
She's smiling when hearing that answer. Oh my, what a beautiful smile on that red lips. Her blue eyes also glimmer with excitement. Too bad, this view is not forever, after few moments she returns to her usual appearance.
"Ikki, can I ask one more question?"
"Sure, what is it?"
"If you can't find that cave, what will you do?"
I become silenced. Frankly speaking, I don't know what to do if I can't find that cave, and I still hope I can find the cave and return to Japan. I sighed before answer it
"Frankly, I don't know. I still hope I can find it"
"Sorry, I didn't mean to make you sad"
"It's okay. I'm not sad, I just worried about my family"
Huh? Why she suddenly look gloomy when I mention my family?
"Ikki ….are you …married?"
Eh? Me married? Is she …..
"Hahaha … I'm not married … yet. But I still have parents, grandfather and little sister, that's my family"
Her gloomy face suddenly changed into joyful ones, like the sun that shines brightly after heavy rains.
"Sorry, I thought you already married and worried about your wife. In here almost all boys and girls in our ages already married"
She said that while smile wryly. I just scratch my head don't know what to say when suddenly a growl can be heard from her belly. She makes a shy scream and covers her face with both her hands. I'm sure that behind those hands, her face must be very red. I'm chuckled when seeing her cute reaction.
So I'm searching my backpack, looking for something to eat, and find some chocolate there. I take two bars of chocolate and handed one to her.
"You must be hungry after walking so far, here, take and eat this. You'll be like it"
"Ikki … you…you're not going to despise me?" she asks timidly
"Why should I despise you?"
"Because … because I'm such embarrassing girl"
"Huh? What are you talking about? Everyone can feel hungry right? Just take this and eat it"
"Can … can I eat it?" she still shyly to accept it.
"Of course you can. Look! I also eat this" since she looks so hesitate, I open one chocolate bar, break into two pieces and put one piece on my mouth while handed the other piece to her.
Seeing I'm eating the chocolate, she no longer hesitate and willing to accept and eat it. She chews it slowly like trying to learn the taste of something that she just eats for the first time. I watch her eating the chocolate secretly, I want to know her reaction to this kind of food.
I'm so shocked when suddenly her eyes open wide and also her mouth. I thought she was choked by the chocolate she just eats. But one moment after that, she exclaimed with full admiration.
"Ikki, what is this thing? The taste is so sweet. I never taste something so good like this!"
Geez girl, you almost make me get a heart attack.
"That's called chocolate. Girls in my country also like it very much"
"What is this made of?" Silvie looks very interested with this chocolate.
Although she maybe didn't know the ingredient that used for making chocolate, I still explained to her
"The main ingredient called cocoa bean, with sugar and milk. The ripe cocoa bean will store and fermented for few days after that washed and dried under the sun. After the cocoa bean dried, it grilled to remove the water content on the bean. After being grilled and change its color, the bean is processed by grinding it to make cocoa powder. After changed into powder, this cocoa can be processed by the chocolate bars like you've just eaten or made for a drink"
She titled her head hearing my explanation. Like just what I thought before, it is impossible for her to understand the ingredient.
"This cocoa bean….what it looks like?"
"It's a long and rounds fruit with length about 15-25 cm and width around 7-10 cm"
To make my explanation clearer, I use my hand to describe the length and width of the cocoa bean because I don't know the metric system that used in this world.
"it's a big bean!"
"Yeah, you can say that hahaha"
"Is that bean color is green when unripe, and when it's ripe the color change into yellow, red or purple? And the taste is bitter?"
Huh? What she just said just now? That is the morphological feature of the cocoa bean. Did she ever see this cocoa bean before? Cocoa beans do exist in this world?
"Eh, did you ever see this bean before?"
"Oh yeah, I guess somewhere in this forest. I don't know the name. Because of its bitter taste, no one ever consumes it"
"That's great. If I can get that bean maybe I can make chocolate in here"
"Really?"
"Yeah, but it also needs other ingredient and the processing the bean also take times, so I can't promise you to make that in short time"
"I can take you there next time we come to this forest"
She look so happy when she makes that invitation, I don't have the heart to refuse her. Besides if I found the cave, isn't that mean we'll never go to that place?
"Okay, I'll wait for that"
Although this is maybe an empty promise, at least I'm not spoiling her happiness.