NOVEL SIMPLE Chapter 43. Temporary Peace
After she calmed down, Rina realized that her recent actions didn't exactly put her in a good light; although she had almost no experience in relationships, even she was quite clear that most people probably wouldn't choose to have a girlfriend who throws hysterical fits if they had more options.
However, acting first and thinking later was a fairly common reaction for Rina when she was in a stressful situation, as it was for most lionkins, so Rina didn't expect that such incidents wouldn't occur again in the future, especially since ever since she entered a relationship, she had all sorts of emotions completely foreign to her until then and didn't know how to manage them.
But not everything was so bad. Seeing how Lucy was very patient with her and did everything in her power to calm her down, Rina could be quite sure that she had already become someone important to Lucy and that their relationship wasn't a superficial one, that could be broken at the first obstacle, even if this first obstacle was a young woman who was interested in Lucy and who was superior to her both aesthetically and in terms of combat skills.
But Yara read the situation well and didn't make Lucy choose between them, her proposal that all three of them be in a relationship not directly contradicting the fact that Lucy didn't intend to replace her. But what would that mean for the relationship between her and Lucy? Is it possible that Lucy would love her just as much if she had another girlfriend as she would if it were just the two of them? Rina didn't know the answers to these questions, but she wasn't really willing to take risks to find out, because accepting Yara to join them wasn't a reversible thing, as Rina couldn't imagine anyone would be willing to give up a girlfriend as perfect as Lucy. Well, that was her opinion about Lucy, Rina being extremely satisfied with her.
As for being in a relationship with Yara, this wasn't seen in a good light by Rina. First of all, since she hadn't intended in the past to find a partner, Rina was quite emotionally overwhelmed just having one girlfriend. How could she cope with two? Secondly, Yara didn't seem like a suitable partner for her, but rather a person she should avoid. Rina couldn't deny that she also found Yara very attractive, her beauty and sensual movements making her gaze involuntarily drawn to her, but that wasn't enough to make her yield to Yara, who, just by her presence, put those around her in a position of inferiority, and even more so with her words, because for Rina being submissive was hard to accept, as she sought equality and understanding in a relationship.
That being said, it was quite obvious that Rina was still very hostile towards Yara at the moment she joined the picnic. However, since she was no longer stressed by the thought that Lucy might abandon her, it wasn't as difficult for her to keep her emotions under control.
Turning her gaze towards Yara, who was less than two meters away from her, to see what she was up to, Rina was surprised to see that she didn't seem to have any intention of teasing her and just gave her a friendly smile.
"See, Rina, Yara isn't a difficult person to interact with. She probably just got carried away because you're extremely cute when you blush...", Lucy interrupted the silence, believing that Rina hadn't formed a correct opinion about Yara because they hadn't had the chance to have a normal conversation, all their interactions being conflictual.
"Good for her...", said Rina, visibly uninterested in this topic. What did she care if Yara was sociable or not?
"...Yes...", Lucy had to swallow the rest of the words she had prepared to put Yara in a better light, fearing that if she insisted on this topic, Rina would lose her calm again.
"...Anyway, let's start eating. Be careful when opening the packages not to drop the crackers on the ground...", Lucy said, hoping that once they started eating, the situation wouldn't be so tense, Rina being in a much better mood when she had her mouth full of delicious food.
Looking at the bag of salty crackers in their hands, both Yara and Rina were very confused because they didn't know where to start pulling, as modern packaging didn't resemble at all the cloths in which people in that world wrapped their food when they went on a journey.
"Crack!", Lucy's bag sounded, the whole area being enveloped in the enticing smell of salty crackers.
Unlike Rina, who was convinced that Lucy had pulled out something very delicious again, Yara did not expect the contents of the bag in her hand to be so aromatic, as the airtight packaging did not allow any odor particles to pass through, so it didn't even seem like she was holding something edible.
"Mmm, it smells really good...", said Yara, watching Lucy start to munch, then she cut open the bag of salty crackers at one end with a knife and began to eat as well. "What kind of food is this? It's truly delicious...", she marveled, as not only the taste but also the texture of the crackers was completely different from any kind of food that had ever entered her mouth.
"I'm glad you like it. They are just some crackers made mainly from flour...", Lucy said, not intending to go into details. Since the packaging only said Ninja Salt Crackers, she couldn't say much about them either.
"Err, do you need help?", Lucy continued, seeing Rina struggling to open the package by biting a corner. Because Lucy had moved quickly and without warning when she opened the bag of crackers, Rina couldn't figure out what move she used, and since Rina didn't have any artifact or skill to store things and because she usually fought with her hands free, she often forgot to take a knife with her, so she had nothing at hand to open the bag of crackers as Yara did. Thus, Rina was the only one who hadn't eaten any crackers yet, even though her craving was the greatest, as she was trying to open the bag by pulling with her teeth or trying to bite it. Unfortunately, although her jaw was strong, the packaging slipped through her teeth, so her chances of succeeding using these methods were quite low.
"You can use my knife...", Yara added, extending the knife that had not yet disappeared from her hand to Rina.
Rina didn't intend to pay attention to Yara, but seeing that the cracker packaging in her hand was covered in saliva, she was a bit embarrassed to hand it to Lucy, so in the end, she reached out to Yara to take the knife.
"Thank you...", Rina said after taking the knife from Yara's hand. As long as Yara behaved normally, she had no choice but to act politely too, otherwise, she would seem immature.
Although Rina wasn't used to handling knives, it only took her one try to cut the top part of the cracker bag, her impatience to eat something delicious again stimulating her potential.
"Mmmm, very good...", Rina said after chewing a cracker. Although they weren't sweet like the other snacks Lucy had offered her until then, they had a crunchy texture that made each bite satisfying, and an extremely addictive taste, the salt enhancing the flavor of the ingredients and stimulating the taste buds, so once again Rina was captivated by Lucy's culinary skills.
"I'm glad you like it. You can eat without any worry, as I've prepared many bags...", Lucy said, thinking that a 100-gram bag might be too little for Rina.
"Lucy, are these biscuits made by you?", Yara asked, taking back the knife Rina handed her. Once it reached her hand, it disappeared without a trace. Lucy suspected that she didn't put it in her ring's storage space but used a skill.
"Yes...", Lucy replied between chews, finding it much easier to lie about the origin of her food than a day ago as she had managed to brainwash herself into thinking that even though she bought it from the Ninja Shop, technically the food was brought into existence by her own skill and bought with points she earned, so it couldn't be said that it was made by someone else. Just as when someone uses a skill to eliminate a person or a beast, it isn't said that they didn't deliver the final blow. "Why do you ask?", Lucy continued after finishing the crackers in her mouth.
"It's the first time I've seen such a type of food, so I'm a bit curious about how they were prepared. For example, how did you bake them so that they have the same texture on all sides?"
Since Yara didn't seem like the type of person interested in cooking, Lucy didn't believe that her intention was to exchange recipes; most likely, Yara, who had traveled more, found her salty crackers a bit suspicious. Maybe she suspected they were of divine origin, just as she initially did with the antidote Lucy had offered her. However, since Lucy had never visited a salty cracker factory, it was hard for her to describe the preparation process in such a way that it didn't sound like she was talking nonsense.
'Damn it, I was supposed to play the role of the judge. Why do I feel like the one being interrogated now? Maybe it would have been better if instead of a picnic we had a beach episode...', Lucy complained in her mind, tired of being put in all sorts of stressful situations.
