Without so much as a change in expression, he picked up the high heels she'd slipped off and placed them in the shoe cabinet. He straightened, met her gaze, and let his lips curl.
"You dressed up like this for me, didn't you? If I didn't look, all that effort would've gone to waste."
He wasn't the least bit ashamed. If anything, he doubled down, loud and proud with that shameless logic of his. Persephone stared at him, genuinely caught off guard.
But when her eyes met that burning, possessive gaze of his, a coy smile bloomed across her face. She stopped engaging entirely and padded off in her slippers toward Jeanne, Rose, and the others coming to greet her.
"Better lucky than early. Set me a place at the table... that's not a problem, is it?"
Laurier and Aura peeked at Persephone holding her own against all three of them, quietly awestruck.
She's... incredible! One against three and she's not even breaking a sweat. So this is what big-sister energy looks like!
As if reading Laurier's mind, Aura quickly smacked her on the arm, shot her a fierce glare, and pressed a finger to her lips in a shushing gesture.
At the entryway.
Leon finished tidying the shoe cabinet and straightened up.
The next second...
A wave of killing intent, sharp as a battlefield standoff, slammed into him like a wall. Every hair on his body stood on end.
In his eyes, Persephone, Jeanne, Rose, and Kureha all wore faint, gentle smiles. But the pressure radiating off each of them was unmistakably real, and it was crushing.
"..."
Leon opened his mouth, but the words died on his tongue.
What the hell...
His brain cycled through a hundred possible responses, discarding each one as fast as it came.
Both sides held their smiling-tiger poses, eyes narrowed, lips curved pleasantly.
Laurier and Aura shrank quietly into their chairs.
...
"Since it's Miss Persephone gracing us with her presence, we're more than happy to have you."
Rose stepped forward, naturally linking arms with Persephone and guiding her toward the dining room.
"Please."
Persephone's eyes swept over to Leon, who stood frozen in place. Her brow quirked, and a dazzling smile lit up her face.
"Well then, I'll just make myself at home."
"You don't mind, do you, Leon?"
"Not in the slightest." Leon's mouth curved, meeting her smile with one of his own.
Jeanne let out a derisive snort and turned toward the dining table.
"..."
Leon's eyes followed her, unbothered. Jeanne could keep that attitude for now. He'd handle it later.
Kureha, lingering behind the others as they headed for the dining table, quietly let out a breath of relief. Then she blinked at Leon, her eyes silently asking: You okay?
Leon caught the message immediately and shook his head slightly. He held her gaze a beat too long, the corner of his mouth tilting up, and Kureha's cheeks flushed. She shot him a glare and scurried after the others.
...
...
At the dining table.
Persephone sat across from Leon.
She elegantly speared a small piece of steak with her fork, took a delicate bite, and her eyes immediately lit up. The food had completely won her over in a single mouthful.
"This is amazing!"
Hearing the praise slip out, everyone exchanged smiles. Leon puffed out his chest proudly, sitting up ramrod straight.
"Hehe, Miss Persephone, bet you didn't expect Leon to be this good at cooking, right?"
"We were just as shocked as you when we first found out!"
"Wait, what?"
When Laurier proudly announced that Leon had made all of this, Persephone was stunned for the second time in the span of minutes.
"Leon made this?"
After all... when Leon first came to Orario, he'd been living at the Demeter Familia compound.
And as far as she knew, in all the time they'd lived together, this man had never once volunteered to cook.
The realization sharpened her gaze to a razor's edge.
Seeing this, Leon offered an awkward smile.
"Look... I can explain."
"You know how your Familia is. Maybe not the strongest in combat, but when it comes to farming and cooking? Absolute experts."
"From sourcing ingredients to culinary technique, your Familia's packed with talent."
"With that many amazing cooks around, one more or one less of me didn't make a difference!"
Listening to his flimsy, borderline laughable excuse, Persephone's eyes narrowed.
"So... that's your reason for never cooking a single time?"
Leon shrugged, palms up, the picture of wounded innocence.
"Captain, you know me. Back then, my head was completely in the Dungeon. I didn't have the bandwidth to think about stuff like that!"
Faced with his shameless, water-off-a-duck's-back attitude, Persephone took a deep breath. A thread of unmistakable reproach crept into her voice.
"Regardless... I did help you out quite a bit back then, didn't I?"
"And what did I get? Forget cooking me a meal as thanks... you never even said thank you. Not once."
Thank you?
Leon's eyes narrowed reflexively. Now he finally understood why Persephone had come all the way here through the rain.
A bold idea flickered through his mind. His eyes locked with hers.
...
After the lavish dinner, everyone was well-fed and in high spirits.
Leon cleared the table, wiping down the corners of the oak surface with a cloth, sneaking glances toward the living room every now and then.
In just the span of one meal, the women, who'd been subtly sizing each other up not long ago, had already warmed up to one another with startling speed.
They lounged on the sofas, nibbling on after-dinner treats, breaking into fits of giggles every few moments.
With nothing better to do, Leon half-listened to their chatter. As for what they were talking about...
The topics were all over the map: harrowing Dungeon expeditions, the joys of shopping, noble gossip, the Guild's latest announcements... as if they'd never run out of things to say.
"..."
The scene hit him with an overwhelming sense of déjà vu. Leon's eyes glazed over, his hand wiping the table on pure autopilot while his brain overheated.
How many times has this happened now!?
He just couldn't wrap his head around it. How did women become friends so fast?
Mysterious? Black magic? Absurdly efficient?
It was like the moment they found one shared interest or topic, they were instantly inseparable, acting like they'd been best friends for years.
Maybe it was Persephone's warmth rubbing off on everyone, because even the normally bubbly Laurier and the quiet Aura had, at some point, drifted into the older girls' chat circle.
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