Chapter 43: CH 43

The next morning, I awoke suddenly, but there wasn’t a perversity mushroom in sight. It was just Fikar. Anyone would wake up after being nudged and shaken and lifted.

“I’ve told you a thousand times, knock when you enter someone’s room…”

I heaved myself out of bed with a fwah~ and covered a yawn with my hands. The window was open, so the perversity mushrooms must’ve already been thrown out.

Looking outside, it was raining beautifully today, too, and something red was visible beneath the window.

The windows on the second floor were at a height where Su could reach them if she stood up tall. I reached my hand out and she rose to meet me, letting me stroke the tip of her snout. Her amber eyes relaxed, closing slightly, and she let out little gurgling noises. As I continued petting that cute girl’s wet snout, I felt a tug on the hem of my shirt. Turning around, I saw the ever-expressionless Fikar holding a towel out for me.

“Ah, the anemone… or something like an anemone. It’s about to bloom.”

Fikar was pointing at the flower we’d received the night before. The bud in the middle was beginning to unravel, its dark blue petals shining like silk. Fikar stared at it for a while, then cocked his head.

“It’s the same color as your eyes, Fikar. I wonder, did Kontos-san think so too?”

Fikar’s eyes, which turned to me with a puzzled look, were deep blue like the sky just after sunset. Such a shade of blue was rare for flowers both in this world and the other, so he might’ve chosen this one because it reminded him of Fikar.

“I have today off, so maybe I’ll be able to see it bloom.”

Saying that, I pushed Fikar out of my room so I could change. I heard footsteps going down the stairs – probably him going to start preparing breakfast. I still wasn’t good at starting a fire and it was very helpful to have him get the water boiling for us.

I put on a comfortable one-piece dress and glanced at the table beside my bed.

“Nn?!”

No, it wasn’t a perversity mushroom growing before my eyes that caused my surprise. Only a few minutes had passed, but the anemone was already looking different. I walked up to it and got a closer look while sitting on the bed, and it was obvious to me that the bud’s petals were looser than before.

In just a few minutes. Was it a fast-blooming type?

Screaming and eating people, other plants in this world had rather aggressive lifestyles. This one was cute by comparison. While I was thinking, the petals unfurled themselves in no time at all. It felt like I was watching a fast-forward from a fixed-point camera.

“So pretty…”

The green leaves, rounded petals, and black stigma at its center, the things I’d known about it for the past 17 years, were all so pretty. It was a gift that was too good to be true as a thank-you in exchange for the perversity mushrooms, but I was happy. Maybe the stress of being stalked was a tad bit worth it after all.

Hopefully, today will be a peaceful day.

When I poked at the tip of one of its leaves, it shook slightly, soft and tender.

After a few seconds, the shaking stopped… and it bent sharply over the edge of its vase.

“Nnn?!”

Both leaves, not only the one I’d poked, suddenly slouched over onto the vase’s rim as if the plant were dying of thirst.

From there, the anemone pressed down onto the vase with great force and its roots, previously submerged in water, came out.

The way it was resting on the rim, it looked like someone who’d gotten out of a swimming pool with a half-hearted “heave-ho”.

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“Eh… wh, wha…”

Its two chunky roots were pale and evenly split, making them look like legs.

The anemone leaned back and, with a few shakes this way and that, it shook the water droplets off of its legs one at a time. Then, it hopped off the edge and onto the table 5cm below, and began running around with its little root-feet.

“EEEHHHHH?!”

As soon as I cried out in amazement, Fikar blew through the doorway with the hemp bag in his hands. He shoved the perversity mushroom growing next to me into the bag, then tilted his head.

“Fi– Fi– This–”

He pointed at the anemone, which was still running around… and grabbed it by the stem. Lifted into the air, its roots flailed around wildly.

Is it okay to touch it?

“P, Poison… there’s no problem? Do you recognize this one?”

Shaking his head, Fikar opened the window and held the flower out in the rain. Curious, Su approached it with her nose and gave it a sniff with her big nostrils. She suddenly opened her mouth, and the flower’s thrashing became even more frantic.

The fact that Su tried to eat it meant that it wasn’t particularly poisonous. Fikar swiftly swapped the flower for a perversity mushroom and closed the window, though the anemone in his grasp was limp and exhausted.

“Uh… for now, let it go.”

When Fikar opened his hand above my nightstand, the anemone-like plant fell out and rose up and down a few times as if it were breathing heavily. Its leaves touched its surroundings to make sure it was safe.

Eventually, it stood back up on its roots and shuffled closer to me. It lowered its flower, like someone bowing their head in greeting.

“H, Hello…”

Then it turned to Fikar and bowed in the same way. The expressionless Fikar reached out his hand to grab it again, but the anemone fled in a panic and ran over to me. It jumped off the table, onto my bed, and tried to hide behind me, but its feet got caught in the fabric.

… I wondered what it was. It was a flower, yet it was still one of those plants.

It was somehow endearing.

“C’mere, Fikar isn’t scary~”

I gently held out my palm, and the flower’s dark blue head looked down as if to peer into my palm, then looked up at me. It climbed onto my hand. Its white roots, swinging around because they weren’t quite long enough, made me smile.

I raised it to eye level and, when I spun it around atop my palm to face Fikar, it shook both of its leaves in a sort of dance. Fikar extended a finger towards the anemone, and it fearfully met his finger with a leaf.

So cuuute!

While we were playing around with this precious child and watching it run around, we completely missed the time for breakfast.

Towards the end, it began to get tired, but as it insisted with various gestures, it recovered as soon as it was put back in the vase of water. The flower absorbed water through its roots by taking such a bath, just like any ordinary plant.

I tried not to look at the perversity mushrooms, who were giving off a somewhat bitter presence, and Fikar and I devoted ourselves to playing with our new friend.

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