‘Clean it up with my mouth?’
Beni looked at the table with trembling eyes before looking back at Ruan. His smiling face seemed to have no intention of taking back his words. Seeing the Demon King like that, Beni slowly walked to the table and stood in front of it.
“Sit comfortably.”
“……Yes.”
As Beni sat down in the chair, Ruan settled into the seat across from him with a satisfied expression. Somehow Beni’s face seemed pale, but since he was so fair-skinned to begin with, Ruan thought it might just be his imagination. Beni looked at the food filling the table and the fruit-like things, then looked down at the small empty plate right in front of him.
“However you want to eat, put it there……”
Thinking Beni seemed nervous, Ruan tried to explain, but soon had to hesitate. Because Beni had suddenly grabbed the plate and tried to put it in his mouth. Even Ruan was left speechless at this completely unexpected action.
Come to think of it, yesterday at the servants’ dining hall, they said he’d buried his face in the stew too. He thought it was because he’d been living as a rabbit…… Did he still not know proper dining etiquette?
Beni tried several times to put the plate in his mouth, but there was no way it would fit. After all, even though it was a personal plate, it wasn’t made to be put in one’s mouth. Having seemingly given up, Beni put the plate down and asked in a trembling voice.
“D-Demon King-nim…… Can I break the plate and put it in my mouth……? It won’t go in, so I don’t think I can clean it up with my mouth……”
“……What?”
For a moment Ruan wondered if Beni was joking, but that expression was absolutely not the face of someone playing around. No matter how scary he was, how could Beni interpret it as being told to put the plate in his mouth?
Ruan let out a low chuckle, feeling both absurd and finding Beni cute and somewhat pitiful for trying to do it without complaint. Completely unable to grasp why the Demon King was laughing, Beni just fidgeted restlessly while clutching the plate.
“I phrased it strangely.”
“……What?”
“Actually, I meant for you to eat this food instead, Beni.”
“This food……?”
Beni looked at the table with a confused expression and sniffed lightly a few times. He wondered if perhaps the food had gone bad, but instead there was only a delicious smell that made his mouth water. No matter how he looked at it, it was perfectly fine food, so why on earth was the Demon King telling him to eat it?
Keenly noticing Beni’s question, Ruan added,
“I don’t have much of an appetite. Besides, this fruit.”
He held out a plate with various fruits neatly prepared. Amber eyes fixed on it. The appearance was like berries, so he seemed to understand it was a type of fruit, but the shape was completely different from the fruits he’d seen so far.
In the Demon Realm, the land where one could farm or grow things was limited, so sweet and delicious fruits were the domain of wealthy demons.
Although Beni had lived in the Count’s household, he’d never eaten such high-quality fruit. What he could get his hands on was at most nearly rotten and tasteless fruits.
Even those were only at a level where they could be swallowed after being stewed very sweet with sugar. Though he couldn’t eat even those easily.
Because of that, as a child Beni had always been interested in the fresh-looking fruits that the Count and his family ate. The flesh entering their mouths seemed like it would be delicious with such rich and fragrant scents. However, there were no demons who would give such expensive things to Beni, so he didn’t even expect it.
Then one day, Trellou came to Beni’s room and munched away on a purple fruit dripping with juice, crunch crunch.
<Do you want some?>
If he said he wanted it, who knew what Trellou would make him do using it as leverage, but young Beni was so curious about what fruit tasted like that he eventually nodded.
Then Trellou grinned and threw the fruit he’d been eating onto the floor. Thud, as the juice soaked damply into the wooden floor, Trellou said,
<I’ll specially give it to you. Pick it up and eat it.>
Though it was a humiliating action, since childhood Beni had never been respected by anyone, so he didn’t think much of it and immediately picked it up and put it in his mouth.
And that day, Beni realized that fruit didn’t taste good when eaten raw.
Even that plump and fragrant fruit was sour enough to sting his tongue, and though it was sweet, it wasn’t as much as he’d expected. It even stung his tongue a little.
But now, the fruit Ruan held out had lighter colors and prettier shapes than what Beni had seen before. The fragrance seemed a bit lighter too.
Seeing Beni show great interest, Ruan said contentedly,
“It’s fruit that grows on the surface.”
“The surface?”
The surface—his mother had also been captured from the surface, she’d said. These came from the same place as his mother?
Beni’s interest surged sharply.
“That’s right. The fruit grew in a pleasant place to live where humans and other races live, so the flesh is very soft and sweet.”
Even the tasteless Demon Realm fruit, Trellou had smacked his lips over it as if it was good, so Beni couldn’t completely trust the Demon King’s words. However, even if he couldn’t trust them, he was curious since it came from the place his mother grew up, and it wasn’t like he could not eat it when the Demon King told him to.
Besides, on the table there was a whole large chocolate cake besides the fruit.
He said to eat this food instead, so that must be his portion too, right? Maybe he could just taste the fruit moderately and sneakily scoop up some chocolate cake? With his gaze fixed on the chocolate cake, Beni stabbed a fruit with his fork. The fork easily entered the flesh, which was softer than expected.
Somehow he felt resistance, but Beni squeezed his eyes shut and put it in his mouth.
Since the fruit piece was on the large side, one of Beni’s cheeks puffed up. Chewing slowly and carefully, Beni froze in place.
Ruan was also watching tensely, when Beni started moving his mouth rapidly while his eyes remained wide open.
After finishing it, his parted lips were wet with juice.
“Wh-what, what is this?”
Beni couldn’t believe it. This was really fruit? A ‘raw’ fruit?
The flesh that had been soft when stabbed with the fork not only melted smoothly in his mouth but also had a rich sweet fragrance he’d never smelled before in his life. The sweetness spreading across his tongue made him regret the flesh disappearing.
It was much more delicious than the pie with apple jam he’d eaten before.
Seeing Beni’s eyes go round, the Demon King felt relieved. He cut the fruit into small pieces with a knife, stabbed them with a fork, and handed them to Beni.
“It’s a fruit called peach. They say it’s a berry with a very nice fragrance and strong sweetness.”
“……Peach.”
Beni muttered the fruit’s name and picked up the fork Ruan held out. Thanks to it being cut into easy-to-eat pieces, it went right into his mouth with a pop.
Though he’d liked it when his mouth was full, this was much easier to chew, so Beni liked this better. When there was such delicious fruit in the world, why had Trellou so proudly eaten that kind of fruit?
When Beni suddenly wondered and reached his fork forward, all the fruit had already been neatly cut. Since the Demon King hadn’t eaten a single bite, he’d cut it all for him.
The fruit Trellou had thrown after eating overlapped with the fruit the Demon King had neatly cut.
Beni’s chest felt stuffy for some reason as he stayed still, when Ruan asked curiously,
“What’s wrong, Beni?”
“Ah……! Um, I mean, if it’s fruit from the surface, I thought it would be more…… expensive and precious!”
At Beni’s words, Ruan pondered for a moment.
“To be honest, it is quite precious.”
“Huk.”
The fork hesitated in midair.
“The surface and the Demon Realm have very different concentrations of magic power permeating the air, and the types are also subtly different, so surface fruits are difficult to preserve fresh in the Demon Realm for long. Even these will probably all soften and rot after about 2 hours.”
So it was precious to that degree. Beni immediately understood why Trellou hadn’t, no, couldn’t eat such fruit.
“Such precious fruit…… Is it okay for me to eat it? Shouldn’t Demon King-nim eat it?”
“I’m fine, so eat a lot, Beni.”
“But…… shouldn’t you give it to someone more precious than me?”
Not knowing it was this valuable, Beni felt burdened to eat it. Could he dare put his mouth to such good food? The Demon King said to clean it up, but if it’s this valuable, it would be good to bestow it on other more noble demons.
When Beni put down his fork, the Demon King tilted his head.
“Beni, where is this place?”
Though out of the blue, it was a question with too obvious an answer. Beni wondered if perhaps there was a hidden meaning, but no matter how much he thought, he couldn’t figure it out.
“……The Demon King’s Castle?”
“That’s right, Beni. It’s the Demon King’s Castle. In the Demon King’s Castle, I’m the most precious.”
“W-well of course, right? Since you’re the Demon King-nim.”
“And besides that, everyone else is the same.”
Beni blankly tried to understand the Demon King’s words for a moment before letting out an “Ah!” of exclamation.
So what the Demon King meant was, since he as the Demon King was the most precious anyway and the rest were all similar lowly things? So since they’re all similar, whether he ate this peach or another demon ate it, from the Demon King’s perspective they were all the same—that must be what it meant.
At those words, Beni felt something warm and fluffy in his heart. To think he was being treated the same as others…… And from the Demon King, at that.
