Chapter 55: How Can You Sleep at Your Age
“Mr. Alman, are you feeling okay?”
Not sure how long it had been, perhaps only a few minutes, Alman raised his head. Evelia gently grasped his chin as he looked up at her and then down at the red mark on her chest. He touched his nose and pulled away from Evelia’s embrace.
Ah… I’m about to make a mistake.
Alman recalled the softness that enveloped him. Although he refrained from the next action, he couldn’t help but imagine something.
“I’m fine… thank you.”
He felt he almost said, “Thank you for your hospitality.”
“Then can Mr. Alman get a good night’s sleep?”
“…”
Alman hesitated, diverting his gaze, a crimson color staining his ears.
He had experienced a moment of peace between the two of them, and returning to solitude would likely feel somewhat lonely.
But he didn’t say such things; he just smiled and nodded:
“Much better, Evelia.”
“That’s good, Mr. Alman.”
After that, Evelia stood up and brought over Alman’s dinner. Perhaps their embrace didn’t last long; his meal was still warm. Evelia quietly stood next to him as he finished the steak, then glanced oddly at the plate of “Maid Special Fried Potato Cake.”
However, apart from the name, Alman couldn’t tell where the potato was.
That thing was completely red; Alman couldn’t see any part that resembled a potato. Could it just be shaped like a potato cake?
“Mr. Alman, why aren’t you eating?”
Evelia’s words felt almost like a death knell, urging Alman to quickly reach for the two fried potato cakes she had made.
Her gaze seemed to expect that Alman would try a bite, shining so brightly that it felt blinding, with some sparkly effect seemingly falling on his head and face.
“…Fine.”
Under Evelia’s eager gaze, Alman had no choice but to muster up his courage and reach for the fried potato cake.
“What is this…?”
His finger lightly poked the potato cake, only to have it sink right in. He even felt a strange suction, as if a swamp were trying to swallow his finger.
“…”
Alman looked at the pool of bright red potato cake with a strange expression. If one didn’t closely inspect it at first glance, they might mistake it for some oddly shaped flesh or internal organs. Combined with its feature of sucking in fingers, it could easily be mistaken for some sort of blood-demon creature.
After retracting his finger, oddly enough, although the potato cake was a limp mass, only a light layer of tomato sauce remained on his finger, without any of the cake’s contents coming away with it.
“Is this… slime?”
Alman voiced a question from deep within himself.
This thing that would suck you in when poked yet left no residue aside from a layer of liquid on the surface—wasn’t that slime?
Only, this slime looked a bit… bloody.
“It’s just a potato cake, Mr. Alman.”
Evelia replied that this was just an ordinary dish.
“Just… a potato cake?”
It really didn’t look easy to digest.
Alman felt that Evelia had hugged him earlier to lower his guard, and maybe this potato cake hid some mysterious spell. Once it entered his stomach, it might really turn into a slime sticking to his insides.
Even though the toxins naturally present in Alman’s body could possibly kill any living thing he swallowed, he really did not want to upset his stomach.
“Come, please open your mouth, ah——”
Seeing that Alman was unwilling to feed himself, Evelia decided to feed him herself as she had before. After wiping her hands with a towel, she picked up the bright red potato cake. As Evelia lifted it, it wobbled slightly, showing it had strong elasticity.
Although Evelia directly presented the potato cake to Alman, it indeed looked hard to swallow. Setting aside the taste, just by appearance, Alman felt that eating it would likely lead to a week of constipation.
“Mr. Alman, don’t you like my cooking? Are you disgusted by me?”
Evelia raised the oddly made potato cake in her hand, questioning Alman with a tone that suggested she was affected.
Though it was not her intention, she thought she appeared with that “pouting demeanor for sympathy,” but she hadn’t yet mastered such expression management, causing her to habitually “frown” and she would sometimes glare, making her furrowed brow and wide-eyed stare seem intimidating, leading Alman to feel that if he didn’t open his mouth to eat this potato cake, Evelia might just punch him in the mouth.
“Ah, no… it’s not that.” Alman swallowed nervously, “I’m not disgusted by you.”
“That’s good, Mr. Alman, ah——”
Reluctantly, Alman had to open his mouth, watching as Evelia fed him the potato cake.
However, to his surprise, this time the potato cake had a taste that was actually acceptable to humans.
The tomato flavor wasn’t strong; while it had a subtle sweetness and sourness, it wasn’t nearly as overpowering as the tomato sauce he had encountered before, which had been excessively tangy or sweet. This flavor was unexpectedly harmonious.
Although Alman didn’t particularly like tomato-flavored things, it seemed Evelia had conditioned his taste buds to avoid overly stimulating flavors; even though he usually wouldn’t have liked such a subtle tomato taste, he could manage to eat it.
And surprisingly, it was truly a potato cake.
This thing that looked like slime could be bitten into and genuinely tasted like potato, the potato flavor being quite strong, just as tomato sauce and fries made a perfect match; this tomato potato cake was surprisingly acceptable to Alman.
“Not bad, right, Mr. Alman?”
“Hmm…” Alman looked incredulously at the potato cake in Evelia’s hand, “Surprisingly delicious…”
“Then take another bite, Mr. Alman. Your portion for the main course is too small. Since you enjoy it, then eat a bit more.”
With that, Evelia raised her hand to feed him again. Alman paused for a moment and chose to take the potato cake himself. For a meal like this, he preferred to handle it himself; he wasn’t at the stage of needing someone to feed him.
While both potato cakes had that faint combination of tomato and potato flavor, the second one had a slightly harder and crispier shell, while the inside was more like a filling. As a result, when Alman bit into the second potato cake, he almost got splattered with tomato sauce.
“Ugh…”
Although Alman reacted quickly and avoided getting the sauce on his clothes, he couldn’t avoid getting it on his hands. Just as he raised his sauce-covered hand to grab a towel, he suddenly felt something soft and moist wrapping around his fingers, which was also quite warm.
“…?”
As that sensation occurred, Alman had an ominous premonition.
When he turned around, just as he had suspected, his fingers were already in Evelia’s mouth, her warm mouth and agile tongue unabashedly licking the tomato sauce off his fingers.
“This… cannot go to waste, Mr. Alman. This is a limited edition premium tomato sauce I waited in line to buy for a long time…”
Evelia mumbled, and due to the way her tongue was wrapped around his fingers, her words sounded a bit muffled and indistinct, punctuated by inaudible breaths.
The warm and soft mouth clung tightly to Alman’s fingers, the points of her teeth occasionally brushing against his fingertips. Evelia seemed unwilling to waste a single drop of tomato sauce, determined to clean his fingers thoroughly.
Alman’s hard nails were gently wrapped by Evelia, the contrast between soft and hard was stark, and her heated breath was exhaled onto the back of his hand.
At that moment, a strange thought popped into Alman’s mind—what if the tomato sauce splattered elsewhere?
What would Evelia—
“All done, Mr. Alman.”
Just as Alman’s mind began to wander, Evelia finished her cleanup, pulling his fingers from her mouth. When his fingertips reappeared in his line of sight, they still bore traces of her attention.
“Ah, Mr. Alman, you still have some on your cheek—”
“I can just wipe that off…!”
Seeing the tomato sauce on Alman’s cheek, Evelia immediately bent down. As she brushed aside her troublesome long hair, prepared to extend her tongue, Alman quickly turned his head and covered his face with a towel, avoiding giving Evelia a chance to do so.
But he could have pulled away when she was licking his fingers; it was just that Alman didn’t want to do that. After all… he was still a man with feelings.
“Well then, Mr. Alman, do you need me to help you sleep? If you can’t sleep, I can hold you until you do—”
“Ah ah— I don’t need that right now—!”
But such a thing was not necessary at the moment.
He wasn’t at that extent yet.
“Then, Mr. Alman, I wish you a peaceful night.”
Evelia obeyed Alman’s wishes, bowed, and left the bedroom with the plate. For some reason, even though only one person went out, Alman felt the temperature inside the room drop significantly.
“Sigh…”
Alman wiped his fingers and sighed deeply.
“How can anyone sleep now…”
