“…….”
Princess Rosaria sat there without a word, looking at me.
Her eyes shone a lovely green, yet for some reason they felt hollow.
“People do not give up food and drink for no reason.”
I continued, watching the teacup I had served her grow cold.
“If a person suddenly stops eating and drinking, it means either their body is suffering that badly, or there is a psychological issue. You are certainly gaunt, Princess, but you do not look so ill that you cannot put anything in your mouth at all. So I believe it is the latter.”
“……What are you trying to say?”
“I am the chef of a restaurant that makes whatever food its guests desire. But in your current state, Princess…… no matter how extraordinary a dish I prepare for you, you will not be able to enjoy it properly.”
In truth, whether the princess refused all food and drink, or starved herself to death, was none of my business.
But she, too, was still a guest who had visited my restaurant.
Whether of her own will or someone else’s, if she had come to my restaurant as a guest,
I wanted to awaken in her the joy of eating.
Not food as something that merely entered the mouth, was chewed, swallowed, and used to fill the stomach.
I wanted my guests to eat my food and feel satisfied not only in body, but also in heart.
I had retired from being an adventurer because I wanted to cook that kind of food,
and I had come to run this peculiar restaurant in order to cook that kind of food.
I did not know exactly what was causing the princess stress,
or what thoughts were driving her to refuse meals.
But at the very least, now that she had stepped into my restaurant,
I wanted to give her a choice.
“I do not wish to serve a dish my guest cannot be satisfied with. And right now, Princess, you have come here as my guest.”
“…….”
“You may leave as you are, without ordering anything. But as long as you are my guest, if you so desire, I will do my utmost to find a way to bring back the appetite you have lost.”
Princess Rosaria gave no answer, merely lowering her gaze toward the cooling teacup.
I briefly glanced at Lord Hairel, who was watching from outside the window,
then carefully opened my mouth.
“This may be presumptuous of me…… but may I tell you, just a little, what I have seen and felt?”
“……Yes.”
Princess Rosaria sat calmly and looked up at me.
Even seeing her again, I truly could not think of her as someone from the same family as Hairel.
Unlike Lord Hairel, who was quick to anger and seemed to have no patience whatsoever,
Princess Rosaria had the proper appearance of a noble: quiet and dignified.
But if I had to talk to someone in order to draw something out,
Hairel would have been far easier to handle than Princess Rosaria.
This doll princess showed no emotion on her face, making it impossible to tell what she was thinking.
Even so, in order to determine what sort of illness of the heart she carried,
I began to probe her slowly.
“Nothing said here will ever leak outside. I cannot ask you to blindly trust someone you have just met, but what I am about to say would trouble me as well if it got out. So you may think of you and me, Princess, as being in the same boat at this moment.”
“…….”
“The nickname Doll Princess…… I can certainly understand the reason for it. But dolls can mean many things, can they not? Princess, could it be that you do not particularly like that nickname?”
Everything was conjecture.
But it was conjecture with grounds.
Back when I had been an adventurer, I had seen more than enough of the lives and habits of lofty noble houses.
The more renowned a noble house was, the more it rotted from within while obsessing over how it appeared to others.
The women of such families were like flowers raised to marry into good households.
The Doll Princess, too, must have been cherished and raised by her family thanks to her outstanding beauty.
But the princess raised in that manner was now on the verge of marriage, the very moment when that purpose could be said to be fulfilled.
And at the same time came stress-induced anorexia.
But no one would have dared point out the reason directly.
“Learning etiquette in order to marry into a good family, disciplining both body and mind…… and as a result, a marriage discussion with another house is settled…… It is something that happens routinely in other families as well, but for some reason, I thought it overlapped with the timing of when you became unable to eat, Princess.”
“……You must not speak so carelessly. I have simply lost my appetite recently.”
“Even if the timing does not match exactly, it could still be the cause. I saw it in the newspaper as well. Hildenburg’s Doll Princess finally has a marriage partner. I heard the other party is someone from the Enstark family. How long remains until that wedding?”
“……One month.”
“And you do not want that marriage.”
“……!”
If I had been completely wrong, she would have gotten angry or refused to answer,
but seeing as she did neither, it seemed I had hit somewhere near the mark.
But marriages between houses were not the sort of thing where such complaints were permitted, so she must have been under stress.
Whether it was simply that she disliked the other party,
or whether there was some other reason, I could not know.
But it was certain that as the date of the marriage she did not want drew closer and closer, the stress had grown more and more severe.
Princess Rosaria probably had not developed anorexia from the very beginning.
But as the wedding gradually became a reality, the anorexia must have crept in as well, slowly tightening around her throat.
In truth, even the lower servants of the family should have been able to notice to some extent.
It was just that no one could say, “It seems the princess has lost her appetite because she does not wish to marry.”
As for me, I did not care about status and simply said what I thought, so it did not matter,
but if the other people belonging to the family carelessly put such words in their mouths, their heads might very well fly.
“The reason you lost your appetite and became unable to eat, Princess, is likely because you feel pressured as the wedding date draws nearer. From now on, those symptoms will worsen the closer the date comes, and as a result, your health may be greatly damaged before the wedding day even arrives.”
“No…….”
Princess Rosaria shook her head weakly.
But there was no will in her words at all.
“To put it simply, your heart is breaking because you do not want to enter an unwanted marriage. If I am wrong, please tell me clearly. Then, since I cannot identify the cause or make food for you, Princess, I will give up here.”
“…….”
Princess Rosaria was trembling slightly.
She herself must know.
She simply did not want to acknowledge it.
No one had ever spoken to her so directly,
and she was likely not in a position to say she disliked a marriage between houses.
But this was my restaurant.
I was not a member of her house, and I merely did my utmost so the guest before my eyes could have a satisfying meal.
Princess Rosaria was not yet ready to eat my food.
Unless this problem of the heart was somehow resolved,
I had no intention of cooking for her.
“Why…….”
After a long silence, Princess Rosaria parted her lips.
“You are merely running a restaurant, so why would you go so far as to say such things to me?”
It was a question containing many meanings.
It was also a roundabout way of saying that this was her family’s affair and not something I should involve myself in,
and she was likely also purely curious as to why I, who was merely the owner of a restaurant, would dig so deeply and speak to her like this.
But there was no other special reason.
From the beginning, my stance had been the same.
“Because you came here as my guest, Princess, and I want to satisfy my guests.”
* * *
As my conversation with the Doll Princess grew somewhat long,
Lord Hairel, who had been waiting outside, was gradually losing his patience.
Looking through the window at Lord Hairel’s eyes, which seemed ready to spit sparks,
I sensed that there was little time left for me to speak with Princess Rosaria.
“……Will you place an order?”
“Even if you say that…….”
Princess Rosaria shook her head with a pale face.
“I do not know what to order. It is obvious I will not be able to eat anything anyway.”
The survival instinct.
When people eat and drink, the survival instinct is involved.
To give up eating and drinking
is also proof that one has lost the will to live to that extent.
In my previous life, I too had once met a woman.
We dated normally, and after seeing each other for about two years, we broke up,
but because it had been my first relationship and I could not bear the emotional wound, I spent three days unable to eat anything or sleep.
After those three days passed,
I truly felt that I might die if I kept going like that, so though I had no appetite, I opened the refrigerator at random, thinking I should try to eat something.
Then I took out every side dish in the refrigerator,
mixed them roughly with two bowls of rice, and made a bibimbap closer to dog food than anything else.
When I scooped up a spoonful and put it in my mouth, to my surprise, tears came out.
And they were not tears shed from the pain of heartbreak.
I cried because it was so delicious that even I was shocked.
Having regained my appetite like that, I ate all that huge amount of bibimbap in one sitting,
and the next day I suffered terrible indigestion and ended up in the hospital.
After that day, my appetite returned completely,
and the sorrow of heartbreak dulled as well, allowing me to naturally overcome it and live on.
“At least in this restaurant, choose of your own will, Princess. My restaurant respects the choices of its guests. How you can eat deliciously and pleasantly again…… you yourself should know that better than anyone, Princess.”
Through the window, I could see Lord Hairel shouting something at his subordinates.
Mm, he would probably storm back inside soon.
“In that case…….”
Princess Rosaria was pondering something.
I had already given her all the answers.
All that remained was her choice.
“I will order freedom, like that of an adventurer. No, is that difficult because it is not food? As expected……”
The order that came from Princess Rosaria’s mouth was not the name of a dish.
But I answered without flinching.
“Order received. Next time, please come to this restaurant alone, without telling anyone. Then I will let you taste the food you ordered.”
Jingle— jingle—
“You bastard! Are you trying some petty trick on my sister?”
At that moment, the shop door burst open, and Lord Hairel, his eyes bloodshot, stormed in and shouted.
“We were just finishing our conversation.”
I said this to the huffing Lord Hairel with an unbothered expression.
Princess Rosaria also rose from her seat and approached Lord Hairel.
“I have finished ordering. Shall we go back?”
“You ordered? What food did you order?”
At Lord Hairel’s question, Rosaria answered calmly.
“I ordered the finest dish, one I have never once tasted in my entire life.”
After saying that, Rosaria stepped lightly out of the shop first.
Lord Hairel glared at me for a long while,
then tilted his head once and hurriedly left the shop to follow Rosaria.
The sound of the carriage departing could be heard,
and soon the inside of the restaurant became quiet, as if nothing had happened.
“……Will it be all right? Manager?”
Aris asked as she carefully cleared away the teacup that had not been touched even once.
“A dish she has never once tasted in her entire life…… the finest dish……”
I chewed over Rosaria’s final words.
I had not told her in particular what she should do or how she should do it.
But somehow, I sensed that Princess Rosaria had made up her mind about something.
* * *