The two girls sat stiffly at the counter.
They rubbed their small hands and their cheeks, then let out long breaths, like people who had been tensed up for a very long time and could finally let go.
Only then did Yuto notice something was wrong with Chito and Yuuri.
There was hardly any color in their faces, and a chill seemed to hang on their whole bodies.
It was almost as if they'd spent so long inside a freezer that their bodies had gone icy too.
Yuto looked at them, worried. "Is it cold outside?"
By "outside" he meant their world, not the street past the restaurant door.
Chito and Yuuri both nodded.
Yuuri shook her head, and her blond hair swayed.
It should have been bright and pretty, but it looked a little dull now. From the look on her face, though, she didn't care in the least.
She grinned in her usual goofy way.
She was cheerful by nature and rarely worried about much of anything.
"Yeah, really cold! The wind is super strong, and there are loads of clouds in the sky. It's weird! Yesterday was completely sunny too." Yuuri spread her hands, a slightly troubled curve still on her lips.
"It's probably going to snow. I remember the weather being like this the last time it snowed." Chito said it seriously.
In their dying world, almost everything had already gone.
Even the huge, proud sweep of what people had once built was reaching its last days.
Whole systems of knowledge had disappeared, and only the practical things you needed to get through a day were any use anymore.
So Chito could only guess at the weather from her own memory.
"Ehhh, it's going to snow again? Snow is so boring." Yuuri slumped over the counter like a koala.
The silly smile on her face made her look especially cute — though she did seem to be missing some of her usual bounce.
"You've changed your mind again, Yuuri. Last time you said snow was fun. Now you're saying it's boring." Chito looked mildly put out.
Yuuri folded her arms on the counter and buried her face in them.
Even after hearing that, she didn't lift her head.
Her voice came out muffled, like something had been laid over her mouth.
"But it is. It was fun for a little while, but then it got really boring. Snow covered everything, so we couldn't see anything. Even the rocks disappeared, and we had to be careful with every step."
When she finally raised her head, a soft, lazy smile spread over her face.
She looked like a cat that had spent the whole afternoon lying in the sun. Her whole body seemed to give off laziness.
Chito could only sigh
She was used to how fast Yuuri lost interest in things, but it never stopped being a little maddening.
"We can talk about the rest later. First, why don't you tell me what you'd like to eat?" Yuto smiled at the girls.
The instant food came up, Yuuri came back to life.
The girl who'd been lying there like a lazy koala was suddenly full of energy!
"Oh! Food, food! Food is the most important thing! I want grilled fish again!" She waved her arms all over the place, joy all over her young face.
Her flailing arms caught Chito several times, knocking her head sideways with each hit.
It looked oddly adorable.
Chito didn't complain since she was used to it.
"No problem. I'll make you grilled fish in a moment. What about you, Chito?" Yuto smiled and looked at her.
A thoughtful look crossed her face, then turned into confusion.
What should she order? Other than grilled fish, she couldn't think of a single food.
She loved to read, and the books she'd found said the old world had once been full of good things to eat.
But she'd never tasted any of them.
Never even seen them.
Maybe she should order something she'd read about once.
The book had said a lot of people used to love it. Anything that many people liked had to taste good, right?
"I'd like a hamburger..." Her voice carried a trace of nerves.
She looked at Yuto with both hope and worry in her eyes.
Yuto sighed quietly to himself, but the gentle smile stayed on his face. "All right. Just a hamburger?"
His answer made Chito's eyes light up.
Then she shook her head. "I don't need anything else."
She didn't eat very much.
One hamburger should be plenty. If she ordered more, the food might go to waste, and wasting food was a terrible thing.
Chito hated doing that.
Yuto nodded.
Just as he was about to head into the kitchen, Jonathan said his goodbyes.
The gentleman from a faraway place was ready to go home.
Before he left, he said he'd bring his friends here to eat sometime, he'd bring his lover too.
Yuto found himself looking forward to it.
Once Jonathan was gone, he went into the kitchen and got started on Chito and Yuuri's food.
They'd only ordered grilled fish and a hamburger, and neither took long.
He made an extra pot of hot soup, though.
That one was just for the two of them. When the weather turned cold, a bowl of steaming soup could make all the difference.
When he carried it out, both girls stared.
"Mmm, it smells amazing!"
Yuuri was delighted.
Chito, though, looked at Yuto in confusion.
"Boss, Yuuri and I didn't order... this..." Chito said it carefully, though her eyes kept drifting toward the soup no matter how she tried.
She couldn't help it. It looked far too good!
"It's on the house. A little gift for you two." Yuto explained with a smile.
"Whoa! Thank you, Boss!"
"But... why...?"
Yuuri cheered while Chito kept asking.
Yuto took a quiet breath and smiled. "There doesn't need to be a reason for that."
The confusion in Chito's eyes slowly turned into something harder to name.
Beside her, Yuuri had already scooped up a spoonful and drunk it.
A faint flush came to the lively girl's cheeks, and a happy, blissful smile spread over her face.
'Ah. So warm.'
That was the only thought in Yuuri's head.
Smack
She slapped Chito on the head. "Chii-chan! Hurry and try it! It's really warm!"
Chito straightened her helmet — Yuuri's slap had knocked it crooked — and scooped up some soup of her own.
She blew on it gently and then she took a small sip.
Chito's mind went completely blank.
As the hot soup went into her mouth and down into her body, every other thought fell away.
Only one was left.
'Ah. So warm.'
By the time she came back to herself, a good while had passed.
Chito looked up in a daze at Yuto, who was smiling at her. All at once, she understood why he'd brought them the soup.
The more she thought about it, the more her eyes began to shine.
A light called gratitude rolled through those clear eyes, like sunlight coming off fresh white snow.
With a small sound, like a little animal breathing, Chito carefully poured the soup into her canteen.
It gurgled softly as it hit the sides.
The look on her face made it seem like she was carrying out some sacred rite.
It was almost as if the ladle in her hand weren't a ladle at all, but a golden spoon full of holy water.
Beside her, Yuuri was chewing on a fish bone with her usual goofy smile. It was one of the bigger bones, and she'd already gotten every scrap of meat off it.
But she had no plans to spit it out.
Keeping it in her mouth and sucking on it still tasted pretty good.
"Phew. All done! Now we can drink it after we go back." Chito had finally filled the canteen.
Relief and happiness showed on her face.
Once they went back to their world, bitter cold would be waiting for them. A full bottle of steaming soup could turn out to matter a great deal.
She tightened the lid with her small hands, then looked over at Yuuri.
A mix of annoyance and temper came over her face at once.
"Yuuri! Didn't I tell you to fill yours too? Why haven't you done anything?"
Chito curled her little hands into fists and knocked them against Yuuri's head.
Yuuri wasn't wearing her helmet, so the blows made dull thumping sounds.
But even after two hits, she didn't get mad.
She still had the same goofy smile.
"Ahh, did you? Oops. I forgot." She said it lazily, without a shred of guilt.
Chito let out a deep sigh. "Yuuri really is a hopeless idiot."
After muttering that, she took the other canteen from in front of her.
There was no helping it.
She'd have to fill this one too!
"I'm not! I'm not an idiot! The person who calls someone else an idiot is the real idiot. So that means Chii-chan is the idiot!" Yuuri grinned as she said it, and by the end she looked awfully pleased with herself.
Chito ignored her.
She was ladling soup into the canteen, careful about it. She couldn't talk carelessly right now, or she'd make a mistake.
Watching the two of them, Yuto couldn't keep the corners of his mouth from lifting.
The scene in front of him felt wonderfully warm.
It was enough to settle the heart.
"Oh, right! If Chii-chan can take the soup with us, then I can take food too!" Yuuri looked like she'd just turned up a priceless treasure.
Her eyes lit up as she stared at Yuto.
"Boss, can I take some grilled fish with me?!"
She looked at him, waiting, and the moment he nodded she was overjoyed!
She'd already finished her grilled fish, but he could always make more.
It was simple enough.
So Yuto grilled three more and sealed them up tight in a bag. To keep the fish warm, he had Tohru put a spell on the bag to hold the heat in.
When Yuuri took it, her little face opened up like a sunflower.
Her hair happened to be golden too, near enough the same yellow as the petals.
Chito and Yuuri hopped down from their seats, each carrying what they'd gathered.
Chito had two canteens strapped to her back, both filled to the brim with warm soup.
Yuuri hugged a bulging bag with three wonderfully fragrant grilled fish inside.
"Oh, right. Take these too."
Yuto's voice made the two girls look back.
Tohru came over carrying two thick blankets — he'd asked her to fetch them a moment ago.
There were plenty of unused rooms upstairs, which meant plenty of spare blankets.
Chito and Yuuri took them with blank faces at first, and then delight spread over both of them.
They'd never had blankets this thick and soft before!
"If it's cold, you should cover up with something warmer when you sleep." Yuto smiled gently.
It was only a small thing, and an easy one for him.
"Whoa, they're so thick! They're way better than ours!" Yuuri said it with obvious glee.
Chito, meanwhile, was the first to bow to him. "Thank you, Boss."
Her voice was soft and small, almost like the faint puff of air pressed out of a piece of sticky rice dough.
"Don't worry about it. It's nothing." Yuto shook his head.
"It might be nothing to you, Boss, but this really helps us a lot." After saying that, Chito gave Yuuri a light smack.
"Yuuri, hurry up and thank him too."
"Oh! Thank you, Boss!" Yuuri's thanks came out much livelier.
Yuto chuckled.
Then he added, "There's going to be a banquet tomorrow night. Would you two like to come?"
The girls looked confused.
'A banquet?'
Yuuri tilted her head. She'd never heard that word in her life.
Chito thought about it.
She remembered seeing it in a book, but she seemed to have forgotten what it meant.
"What's a banquet? Is it something tasty?" Yuuri asked cheerfully.
The innocent smile on her face was so pure that Yuto sighed inside.
Chito looked at him, curious too.
With a smile on his lips, Yuto gently explained what a banquet was.
The moment he mentioned there'd be lots of good food, Yuuri's eyes lit right up.
Chito, though, reacted when she heard there'd be a lot of people.
Her gaze wavered a little.