Seventh Meal - Gratin (4)

After sitting down, they sat there in silence for a few minutes as they enjoyed their water.

During this time, Kai's wife had been taking care of Elsie, helping her fix her clothes, dabbing her eyes with the ice, and giving her some honey lemon tea that Lin Fan had prepared.

When she was finally ready, Elsie said, "What should we talk about?"

Kai looked at her with the same awkward look that he had on his face the entire time, but he took a deep breath to calm down before saying, "Can you tell me why you liked me? I want to at least know everything so I know how to respond."

Elsie's heart trembled with pain when she heard the word "liked". It was almost as if he was implying that she didn't love him, but rather was just infatuated with the thought of reuniting with him.

But she was certain that this was never her intention.

From the first moment that they had met, she knew that she would be with him for the rest of her life.

So after taking a deep breath herself, she started describing everything, starting from the very first moment that they had met.

Kai's wife listened carefully on the side since this was a story that she had never heard about before. She had heard about Kai being from another world and the reason why he had been sent to this world, but she rarely got to hear about his past in the other world.

That was because he never talked about it with her and whenever she asked, he would always avoid the conversation.

So hearing about his childhood now, she was deeply invested.

Kai's eyes also revealed a strange look as he heard this because this time, he was hearing about these events from the other side. A side that he never imagined existed, so it was very strange for him.

It turned out that Elsie had indeed loved him from the beginning.

They were childhood friends, so they knew each other since they were young.

They had grown up together in the same village, but Elsie had left the village early on to learn magic at the capital when her talent for magic was discovered.

Kai had always thought that they had parted ways normally, but it turned out that the misunderstanding had even begun back then.

Before leaving for magic academy, Elsie had already confessed her love and had made a promise with him to meet again one day. However, Kai had been too dense to realize this and had agreed without understanding what she had meant.

As for how this had all begun, it had been when Kai had saved Elsie from the local bullies at the river. When he knocked them down, he had appeared as a shining hero in front of her, which had made her heart fall.

Of course, just this child infatuation wouldn't be enough to sustain her for all this time.

Their story continued afterwards when Kai's village had been destroyed by the demons. Elsie had heard about this tragedy and immediately went back to the village to see if there were any survivors.

After all, it wasn't just Kai's village, but also her village.

Her parents were still in that village.

However, when she arrived, she found the village completely destroyed. When she asked the soldiers that had come to take care of the demons, she had also heard that there were no survivors.

In the end, she had to bury her parents and that created a burning hatred for the demons in her heart.

Her parents, her childhood love, they were all dead because of the demons!

She vowed that she wouldn't rest until she eliminated the demons.

Luckily, she was a genius, so she had already qualified to graduate from her school. So she applied for early graduation and began wandering as an adventurer, fighting any demons that she could find.

What she didn't know was that Kai had survived and had also started wandering as an adventurer.

It wasn't until much later, several years after the incident that they met again. They had both grown and changed and no longer recognized each other.

However, the feelings that should come couldn't be suppressed.

As they travelled together and fought together, Elsie fell more and more in love with Kai. Kai also felt a more and more impressionable feeling towards Elsie, though it couldn't be considered love.

Later on, at the drawing of the Holy Sword Schral, both of them received the glowing symbols that marked them as heroes along with Angela and Gondor.

From that moment on, they were inseparable as the hero party.

They travelled deep into the demon's territory and fought many powerful demons, but they came out on top again and again.

There were many times that Kai saved Elsie and many times that Elsie saved Kai, which only furthered her feelings.

It all came to a climax when by accident, they found out that they were childhood friends.

During their journey, there were many times where they had to camp out. During one of these trips, they had accidentally entered the same lake at the same time for baths.

It was there that they found…

Each other's birthmarks.

Kai had a star shaped birthmark on his butt and Elsie had a heart shaped birthmark on her butt.

As kids, they had often taken baths together since they didn't know better, so they had often seen each other's birthmarks.

After discovering that they were indeed childhood friends, or rather that this man that she was falling in love with was her childhood lover who she had promised herself to one day, Elsie's feelings also reached a climax.

Star crossed lovers!

That was the only way to describe them!

They were fated to be together, there was no other possibility!

She hung even closer to him from that day forth, making it so clear what she felt about him that the other two members of their party felt like large third wheels.

But this story ended in tragedy.

Elsie made a promise and Kai couldn't keep it, so they were in their current situation.

When Elsie had finished her story, there were two people with two different reactions.

Kai's wife couldn't stop the tears from coming out of her eyes. She had always known that Kai's past must have been tragic since he never talked about it, but she never thought that it would be this tragic. At the same time, she couldn't help feeling sad for Elsie after everything that she had suffered.

Kai on other hand…had an awkward look on his face.

While Elsie had been telling her story, from time to time, he had been muttering to himself.

The things that he said were…

"That was what it meant?"

"Wait, so she was interested in that…?"

"Those two, why didn't they tell me about this?"

After Elsie finished with her story, she just sat there looking at Kai, waiting for him to say something. However, he was completely lost in his thoughts and didn't say a single thing as he kept muttering to himself.

Kai's wife saw this and wiped the tears from her eyes before nudging him with her elbow. She then said, "Dear, I think it's your time to say something."

Kai jolted as he was pulled out of his thoughts.

After taking a moment to come back to his senses, he gave a nod and started telling her the story of what happened after they defeated the demon king.

After sinking his blade into the demon king, she had used a special technique to run away. It was an ancient space and time spell from a god that would allow her to teleport to a random location, regardless of any restrictions that had been placed on her.

She had saved this for her final moment, just in case that the unthinkable happened and she was defeated by the heroes.

Kai, who had his sword plunged into the chest of the demon king at the time, was also caught up in this spell when it was used. The spell wrapped the two of them in spatial energy before sending them off.

Unfortunately, for both Kai and the demon king, they didn't know that this spell was actually a spell for sending people to other worlds.

That was how both Kai and the demon king had appeared on Earth.

They were thrown into the ocean together during a storm and after being tossed around by that storm, the two of them were thrown onto a beach. After being battered like that, neither of them had any strength and could only weakly lay there, waiting to die.

Luckily for them, Lin Fan had been passing by on his way to work.

Back then, Lin Fan was still a teenager and he had been working at a beach snack shack during the summer.

When he saw the two of them lying there like they were dead, he immediately ran over to help them. Then seeing their strange clothing and the way that they laid there without any strength, he decided to take the day off work to help these two.

Of course, since he couldn't find any documentation on the two of them and the fact that they looked like foreigners, he couldn't just bring them to a proper hospital. So he asked a doctor family friend to take a look at the two of them.

The doctor was surprised to find that the two of them were just hungry and out of energy.

Even though it was clear that they had undergone a stressful situation of being stranded at sea, they weren't injured at all. The only thing that was wrong with them was that their stomachs were empty.

The most important thing was that both the demon king and Kai had used their magic to keep themselves safe while they had been stranded at sea, which was why they hadn't been injured at all. But keeping that magic barrier up around them consumed a lot of energy, which was why they were now starving.

Lin Fan thanked the doctor friend before sending him off. Then he headed into the kitchen to prepare something for the two sleeping beauties.

When the two of them awakened, they woke up at the same time. Both of them were surprised by the strange environment that they woke up in since it was just as small as a dungeon…though this was just Lin Fan's bachelor apartment.

But the moment that they saw each other, they immediately put on a stance like they were about to fight.

It was just too bad that neither of them had the energy to actually fight since both of them were starving.

Lin Fan heard the commotion that they caused and came out of the kitchen to see what was happening.

However, seeing the two of them sitting there holding their stomachs with hungry looks on their faces, he couldn't help shaking his head with a smile. He then said, "Just stay there for a bit, the food's almost ready."

Both of them were surprised to see Lin Fan, but seeing that he didn't have any hostile intentions towards them, they just nodded in a daze.

They were just too hungry to care at this point.

When Lin Fan brought out the food, both Kai and Yami couldn't help saying, "This is…"