There was a delicious looking feast spread out in front of Ilvalino.
When he looked up from the feast laid out on a low table, he saw a handsome boy sitting on a sofa before him… It was Cain.
Ilvalino's legs were splinted and unable to bend, so he was propped upright on the sofa. Sitting opposite him was Cain, with all of this food in between them. Ilvalino furrowed his brow and wondered how he had gotten into such a strange situation.
"Come on, don't look so pissed off. Remember – Grandma Sakae always said that being alone and being hungry are unacceptable. Let's just dig in," said Cain.
"Who's Grandma Sakae?…" asked Ilvalino.
"Don't worry about manners or anything like that. You can just eat with your hands – I don't mind."
Ilvalino frowned at Cain's words.
He picked up a knife and fork from the cutlery laid out before him, politely cut into the sautéed chicken, and brought a piece of it to his mouth. His knife and fork didn't knock against the plate or any other dishes on the table, and he moved silently and elegantly.
Cain raised an eyebrow, and said "Oh," in admiration. He began to eat, as well.
"Were you taught to eat like that so that you could work undercover to assassinate a nobleman one day? Or, are you actually a nobleman's son or something?" asked Cain.
"…"
"Was there a plan to have you adopted somewhere?"
"…"
"Man, say something! Let's enjoy our meal, all right?"
"…"
Cain tried to get Ilvalino to talk in all sorts of ways, but Ilvalino ate in silence, refusing to respond.
"Hey, for now, we're planning to keep you in the house until you're all healed up," said Cain.
"What?!"
"If you wanna go home, you're gonna have to eat up and heal, first."
"…"
Cain couldn't risk having Ilvalino checking out before he was fully healed. He might end up running into the Protagonist despite all the trouble Cain had gone through to avoid that very situation. Once healthy, he probably wouldn't be falling over in front of the Protagonist, and would just go straight home when released.
Cain was thinking that, if possible, he wanted to get Ilvalino to quit the assassination business altogether.
Even if he went home in good health this time around, it was possible that he would get injured again on his next mission, and end up getting saved by the Protagonist. He didn't know if the game had a fatalistic force built into it, but he did know that he had ten years before the starting point of the game's timeline arrived. Cain didn't want the game's expository events to even occur during those ten years.
He wanted to cut off all of the events that would allow the bad Routes, if possible.
"Bwother!"
The door to the room was slammed open, and Diana came running in without knocking.
"What is the reason for you not having lunch with me?! Di is angry, you know!"
When she got to the sofa Cain was sitting on, Diana began to smack the armrest over and over with the palms of her little hands.[Read this novel and other amazing translated novels from the original source at the "Novel Multiverse dot com" website @ novelmultiverse.com]
"Sorry, Diana. Were you getting lonely? I actually wanted to eat lunch with you, too," said Cain, picking her up by her underarms and placing her on his legs.
He petted her hair gently and gave her a few light kisses on her ears and head. He put his face to the top of her head, shut his eyes, and mumbled, "Cutie pie, cutie pie."
Ilvalino watched this happen and recoiled in shock.
Up until this point, Cain had either been expressionless or cynically raising an eyebrow. This persona had crumbled before him, and Ilvalino felt as if he were sitting in front of a completely different person.
Even the tone of his voice had totally changed, and Cain was speaking in an impossibly sweet voice.
"Diana, do you want to eat some of what we're having?" asked Cain.
"I ate the same thing as Bwother," she said.
She flung her index finger at the vegetables alongside the sautéed chicken on the table and said, "I have even eaten the carrots!" She looked up at Cain with a triumphant look on her face.
He had thought it impossible, but Ilvalino watched Cain's demeanor melt even more from the cuteness.
Cain rustled Diana's hair about, and congratulated her, saying, "Good girl! You can eat the stuff you don't like and finish all your food? You're amazing!"
Ilvalino wondered what in the hell he was being forced to watch. He couldn't believe that this was the same person that had dislocated his shoulder, dragged him into this house, and even refused to let him go until he was fully healed.
He had been wondering how a nobleman's son raised in luxury could have such a cold disposition, and now he had to get his head around this completely different side of Cain.
Ilvalino shuddered, thinking that he might catch a cold from Cain's demeanor shifting so suddenly from frigid to bright and sunny.
Diana's eyes were darting about the desserts on the table, and Cain cupped her cheeks in his hand and lifted her face up to his. He smiled at her warmly.
"Diana, do you promise to brush your teeth again, afterward?" asked Cain.
"I'll brush my teeth!" said Diana.
"Can you keep it a secret that I gave you desserts?"
"It's a secret between me and Bwother!"
After saying, "All right! That's a good girl," Cain pinched her cheeks gently and picked up a plate of dessert.
He said, "Say, 'Ah'!" and then fed her the dessert with a spoon.
Seeing this, all of the malice and spite within Ilvalino seemed to dissolve away. He sighed and decided to concentrate on eating his own meal.
He must have been quite hungry, as he finished eating before he knew it. He reached out to pick up his dessert plate but felt a stare coming from in front of him. When he looked up, he inadvertently locked eyes with the little girl.
"…"
"…"
She was making it extremely difficult to eat. When Ilvalino brought the plate towards himself, Diana's watched it go.
"…"
"…You want it?"
Her voice bloomed into a smile with such vigor that it seemed like it should come with a sound effect of victorious trumpets. Still smiling, Diana looked up at Cain's face, directly above hers.
Cain frowned, pretending to be deep in conflicted thought, but it was obvious that he already knew how he would respond. He moved the plate before him aside to make room for her second dessert.
"Eat it slowly," said Cain.
"All right!" said Diana.
"What do you say?"
"Thank you, big bwother I don't know!"
"…"
After placing his dessert plate in front of Cain, he leaned back and relaxed.
Since Diana had been sitting on Cain's lap and eating her desserts all this time, Cain's meal had not progressed at all. Still, he looked plenty satisfied with just lovingly watching his little sister eat her dessert.
Ilvalino thought about what Cain seemed to know.
How did this guy know my name? Even if I was dressed suspiciously in all black, how did he come to the conclusion that I was an assassin? He seems like a kid around the same age as me, but even if I was injured, I'm a trained fighter, and he swept my feet, threw me down, and dislocated my arm like it was nothing. Where did he learn moves like that?… If I don't figure out where this guy is getting his information from before going back, the Boss will probably kill me…
Ilvalino decided to take the fact that he wasn't being released before healing up as an opportunity to track down where Cain was getting his information.
Of course, it was probably impossible for Ilvalino to figure out that Cain had gotten his information from his previous existence.
That evening, since Diana had eaten too much dessert and gotten sick, Mother scolded both Cain and Ilvalino for spoiling her.