Chapter 99

“I like scary things. And you’re the scariest thing in the world to me.”

“......”

“Now that I think of it, why don’t we watch one? There’s a movie theater over there.”

Erabelle forced her eyes toward the decrepit theater, trembling at the sight of the enormous horror-movie poster plastered across it.

Delighted, Dezeb slung an arm around her shoulders, pulled her close, and started walking.

Fortunately, horror films weren’t the only thing playing.

He handed the ticket clerk a banknote and received two paper tickets printed with a saccharine title. The amusement park’s theme seemed to be somewhere around 1998.

Inside the thickly carpeted theater, the rich smell of popcorn hung in the air. They bought an enormous tub and drinks, then took their seats. Perhaps because there were no other customers, they started the movie immediately despite there being plenty of time before the scheduled showing.

It was a bright, pretty romantic comedy. It seemed rather old, but it was a genre Erabelle liked, so she could enjoy it.

She watched for quite a while, stuffing popcorn into her mouth, before casually turning her head. Her eyes met Dezeb’s. He had been staring straight at her.

She remembered the bear she had encountered that morning.

Naturally, Dezeb was scarier than the bear.

Just as he had said, he was the person Erabelle feared most in the world. The fact that she didn’t merely fear him made him even more frightening. What could he be thinking? He smiled softly.

“Are you enjoying it?”

Her ear tickled at his quiet, almost whispered question as he tilted his head toward her.

“What? Yes.”

Was she imagining it?

He seemed a little... strange. Of course, he had always belonged firmly within the realm of the incomprehensible.

She had no time to dwell on it. The moment the movie ended, he dragged her from place to place again. They covered every corner of the ranch until just before closing and only returned to the car when the lights began going out.

The moment they got back, he pulled out a desert-tour pamphlet.

“......”

Something was definitely a little strange.

First the tundra snowfields, then a wasteland amusement park, and now a desert tour. Erabelle could almost hear this planet’s deity cursing them from the higher realm.

Driving through the desert in the decrepit camper van had been impossible. Then Dezeb went to a repair shop and did something, and suddenly it wasn’t. Her heart ached to imagine what the poor old thing had been subjected to.

After spending the night in the amusement park’s parking lot and making a brief stop at the repair shop, they had been driving through a sea of sand beneath the midday sun ever since.

......

They passed sand-colored buildings, locals leading camels, and several jeeps.

It would’ve been better if there were no one around....

Rattling along in the camper van while attracting everyone’s attention filled her heart with grandeur.

Dezeb continued driving toward the setting sun.

Every dune and canyon, every rising and falling slope... The desert was admittedly beautiful as the red glow of sunset slowly began to settle over it.

Once the sky had turned completely crimson, he stopped in a suitable spot and began preparing dinner as if it were the most natural thing in the world. When Erabelle tried to help, he told her not to get in his way and to sit down and choose their next destination if she was bored. Then he abruptly changed his mind.

“You know how to peel an onion, don’t you?”

“I did work in a bar for two years.”

“You only waited tables.”

True. How did he know that? But it was all Uncle Tom’s fault. Uncle Tom, who had said a child had no business cooking and made her do nothing but serve and clean, bore full responsibility for this....

“Peel off only the orange part, then chop it. About the size of dice. You’re good at this.”

She had always been rather dexterous. She simply couldn’t understand why anyone would bother cooking when they considered the time it took. Once the cost of the ingredients and the time invested were added together, buying food was a far better deal.

Food was meant to be bought.

The pinnacle of cutting-edge frozen preservation technology, which had survived the fierce competition of the great space age, could rightly be called the flower of human civilization. So why would anyone go out of their way to—

Erabelle pondered the question as she chopped the onion.

Next, he had her pour the chopped onion into a heated frying pan. Then he handed her a silicone spatula and told her to give it a try.

“You only need to cook the meat through.”

She accepted the salt and pepper he handed her, sprinkled them in, and finished the dish more or less adequately. Then he passed her prepared salad greens and dressing. She poured the dressing over the vegetables and diligently tossed them as well.

“Even if it’s a hassle, try cooking at least one meal a day.”

“Yes, understood....”

“You sound sad all of a sudden. I’ll set up the table, so bring the plates outside.”

The vivid red of the sky outside was gradually fading into darkness.

After unfolding the table, Dezeb returned with the remaining bowl of salad and their drinks, then switched on the camper van’s exterior light.

They were in the middle of an empty desert.

The small camper van’s yellow light felt cozy. As they ate their late dinner beneath it, he took several more pictures with the cheap Polaroid camera he had bought that afternoon.

“I’m going to check everything later, so keep it all together. Every single thing, including the stuffed toys I won for you. Ah, that’s what we should make. A box. One of those fan-collection boxes. Why didn’t I think of that before?”

Exactly. Why had he thought of it at all? It would have been nice if the idea had never occurred to him....

Having finished his meal first, Dezeb began spreading a blanket over the roof of the camper van. Erabelle stared at him blankly, her eyes unfocused.

“Come up.”

“Yes....”

She had hoped—prayed—that it wouldn’t be this.

Erabelle stuffed the last piece of meat into her mouth and climbed the ladder with trembling limbs.

“You really are a coward, Erabelle.”

Dezeb looked somewhat dumbfounded to see her trembling merely because the roof of the camper van was high off the ground.

“If I fall from here, I could break my neck....”

“You won’t fall.”

When she cautiously suggested that they spread the blanket on the ground instead, Dezeb replied that he didn’t like the sand. If he hated sand, why had he come to the desert in the first place?

“Lie down. Hurry.”

Her mind grew crowded with thoughts, but her body was already swiftly obeying him. Dezeb gave a quiet snort of amusement and stretched out beside her.

The stars seemed ready to pour down from the sky.

“Pretty, isn’t it?”

“Yees.”

To be honest... she wondered why they had come all the way to a place that was hot during the day and cold at night to look at stars she didn’t even bother noticing while traveling through space.

“Try sounding a little more impressed. It’s romantic.”

“Yes, um, it’s extraordinarily beautiful and mysterious....”

Erabelle wrung the admiration out of herself.

“That’s enough. You really are bleak.”

“I’m sorry.”

“You must have been a child once too. Try rediscovering some of your childhood wonder.”

Childhood wonder.... Erabelle, who at fifteen had been an innocent young girl voraciously reading novels restricted to adults, had little to say on the subject.

“Tell me about your first love.”

The atmosphere admittedly invited that sort of conversation.

They were lying atop a thick blanket on the roof of a camper van beneath a silent night sky awash with starlight. It was a subject with a high probability of coming up under such circumstances. Even in an otherworld where sex was a means of survival, first love was evidently still something special.

“When I was nine, there was a children’s drama on television, and the actor who played the friend of the protagonist’s younger brother—”

“...So it started all the way back then.”

“......”

“One day, I really am going to burn every last one of them.”

Dezeb ground out the words through clenched teeth.

“But why not the protagonist? Why the protagonist’s younger brother’s friend?”

“He was the most handsome.”

“You really are damn obsessed with faces. If someone’s the most handsome, that automatically makes him the best?”

“Well....”

Moonlight washed over Dezeb’s flawlessly sculpted, beautiful face as it curved into a spiteful smile.

“Then I must be your favorite, Erabelle. Not only am I the scariest, I’m also the most handsome.”

“That....”

“Why? Was that a lie?”

“It was true.”

Erabelle’s face turned scarlet as she lied. Dezeb leaned over her, trapping her between his arms, and snickered down at her.

“You really like me best that much?”

“Yes. I-I like you best....”

“What a relief, Erabelle.”

It was slightly unclear what, exactly, he found so relieving.

What was clear was that his beauty remained undiminished even from this angle. Moonlight shone white across his inhumanly perfect face.

“Remember what you just said.”

He tilted his head and kissed her. They had eaten only moments ago, so she found herself worrying about brushing her teeth again. Honestly... she thought she might have developed a slight trauma around kissing. Though even that concern soon blurred away.

Her soft breasts rose and fell as she panted for breath, pressed against the rock-hard plane of his chest. That made it even harder to breathe.

“How does it feel to kiss the man you like best?”

“B-brushing our teeth....”

“Just be quiet. Unless you want me to strip you and fuck you right here.”

Erabelle went pale.

“The roof will collapse.”

“I said be quiet.”

He tilted his head toward her again. Then he suddenly whispered,

“...Our first kiss?”

Considering that she had been kissed for hours only two days ago and had consequently been forced to give up one of her favorite things, Erabelle found the remark rather bewildering.

“Our first kiss in the desert.”

Was that normally something people categorized by location...?

In any case, it wasn’t nearly as romantic as it looked in the movies. The sand and dust made her back ache, she was worried the roof of the ancient vehicle might cave in, and above all, everything became slightly horrific whenever she was with him.

Even so, the desert night was beautiful even to the eyes of a cowardly Earthling, and the man beside her was more beautiful still.

And while the roof of the camper van was spared, the bedroom was not.