At seven o'clock the next morning, Kwon Minseong and Tillio came down to the dining room on the first floor.
Tillio chose a table tucked away in a corner to avoid attracting attention, but the Emperor's efforts were rendered completely meaningless after only five plates.
Minseong polished off five pancakes, a plate of omelet, a plate of sausage with herb potatoes, a plate of shell-shaped bread, and a plate of a fruit called banashe.
The breakfast Yvonne had been so proud of was easily among the best meals Minseong had eaten in recent memory.
The sight of an endless stream of food disappearing into the mouth of a man who looked like he barely ate one meal a day was so extraordinary that every guest in the dining room found themselves staring at their table.
"Yvonne! Another plate of shell bread over here!"
Minseong waved energetically.
"You're eating again?"
Looking utterly fed up, Tillio pushed his hand down.
While Minseong had emptied five plates, Tillio had not touched even a sip of water, looking like someone enrolled in a fasting retreat.
"Ah stih hafen't had da stew."
With his cheeks puffed out like a hamster's, Minseong mumbled through a mouthful of food.
"Don't talk with your mouth full. Uneducated fool."
Gulp.
After swallowing, Minseong poked a sausage with his fork.
"I still haven't had the stew."
The sausage burst with rich juices, releasing a savory aroma.
Smacking his lips, Minseong picked up his knife and cut it into bite-sized pieces.
Despite possessing an enormous appetite, he had a very small mouth.
That had always been a source of frustration.
He wanted to eat more, but his tiny mouth constantly held him back.
Unfortunately, there was now something else interfering with his eating.
He wasn't talking about Tillio, who sat across from him with his chin propped on one hand, silently urging him to hurry up and leave.
The sleeves of the shirt Yvonne had lent him fluttered dangerously close to the food.
Minseong hastily shoved the sausage into his mouth and rolled the sleeves up.
He had finally escaped the bathrobe, but the clothes Yvonne had lent him were hardly comfortable.
The sleeves of the white shirt were nearly as large as his face. Every slight movement threatened to knock over plates and utensils.
And that wasn't the worst part.
The biggest problem was the corset attached beneath the shirt.
The black corset wasn't worn underneath the shirt.
It was attached over it.
"I bought it because I wanted to wear it as soon as corset shirts became fashionable. I'll lend it to you specially. It even fits perfectly."
That was how Yvonne had explained it when he questioned the corset.
The material stretched enough that he wasn't in danger of collapsing from lack of oxygen, but a corset was still a corset.
He had barely finished five plates, and already he felt full.
Even so, as long as food remained, Kwon Minseong's fork would not stop.
After something salty, it was time for something sweet.
He piled whipped cream onto the last remaining pancake.
Then he generously drenched it with maple syrup.
The thick syrup melted into the fluffy cream, soaking the pancake completely.
"The train to the western border leaves only from this town. And only once a week. It departs at eight o'clock this morning..."
"Mmm. Mm! Wow, that's really good. Sweet and salty together truly is perfection."
"If Aswin intended to go to the border, he'll appear at the station today. If not today, there won't be another chance—"
"Yvonne! Is the shell bread ready yet? And another bowl of stew. No, make that three!"
Having finally reached the limit of his patience, Tillio poked Minseong's puffed-up cheek with the blunt end of his knife.
"Would you stop eating already? What are you, a bear? A squirrel? Preparing for hibernation?"
"Don't you know even dogs aren't disturbed while they're eating?" New chapters come out on g.com first.
Dodging the attack, Minseong popped the last sausage into his mouth.
"Are you a dog? Even dogs eat less than you."
"Can't help it. Because of a certain someone, I had to sleep on the floor last night. If I suffered that much, I at least deserve extra food."
"So that's what this is about? You're upset because you slept on the floor? Then should the Emperor—"
Tillio lowered his voice and glanced around.
Fortunately, the mask he wore prevented his voice from carrying beyond the table.
"Then should I have slept on the floor?"
Tillio wasn't the type to constantly invoke the authority of the Imperial Family the way Adelgius did.
If anything, people often thought he was far too easygoing for an Emperor.
As Crown Prince, he had fled to a remote military outpost to avoid Omega pheromones.
Even now, after becoming Emperor, his hobby was disguising himself as a Royal Mechanical Doll and wandering around the Empire.
Given that, the public's assessment wasn't entirely wrong.
Outside the Imperial Palace, he heard stories that nobles would never dare discuss in front of him.
One rumor claimed that Grand Duke Aswin, heir to the glorious bloodline of Elunem, was involved in a scandalous relationship with the Crown Prince of Debia.
Even someone as informal as Tillio, however, could not keep up with the sensibilities of this uncultured Omega.
"You think you're the only one who was raised like precious treasure? I was treasured too. My mom and dad sold tteokbokki, tempura, and sundae to raise me like I was made of gold..."
Ignoring Tillio entirely, Minseong began grumbling.
His parents had died in a traffic accident on the very day he was accepted into medical school.
Morning and night, they had stood before a blazing griddle selling spicy rice cakes, breathing in hot clouds of chili steam.
They burned their hands on deep fryers and worked themselves to exhaustion.
Then one day, excitedly calling it their first real trip since their honeymoon thirty years earlier, they had walked out the front door smiling.
And never returned.
It had been a five-car pileup.
A passenger bus failed to avoid a sedan driving the wrong way down the expressway.
Even if he wanted to hate the driver responsible, he couldn't.
The drunk driver had died instantly.
So had Minseong's parents.
The parents who had never sent him to expensive academies, yet proudly bragged that their only son had entered the best medical school in South Korea, vanished just like that.
"Hic...!"
Minseong covered his mouth and lowered his head.
"What are you doing? Do you think you're a Royal Mechanical Doll? Stop acting and get up."
"Hic...! Sniff...!"
Tillio grabbed his shoulders and shook him.
The puffed sleeves that had been rolled all the way above his shoulders slipped down, making him look even more pitiful.
Aware of the eyes on them, Tillio lightly kicked his foot.
"Hey. Are you actually crying?"
"What are you crying for? You're the one who goes around scamming people every chance you get."
"Are you really this upset about sleeping on the floor?"
"Hic... sniff..."
Minseong hunched his shoulders and sobbed even harder.
It wasn't because he was grieving his parents.
Nor was it because he had spent the night curled up on a hard floor instead of a bed.
The culprit was a whole peppercorn hidden inside the sausage.
Peppercorns in Elunem existed on an entirely different level from the ones he knew from Korea.
It was spicier than swallowing an entire chunk of wasabi the size of a finger joint.
More agonizing than choking on mala soup.
The bridge of his nose throbbed like a nosebleed was about to start.
His taste buds felt as though someone had scrubbed them with hot peppers.
His tongue burned and tingled so fiercely he could barely speak.
The tear ducts he had assumed broke after his parents' funeral abruptly burst back to life.
"Ha... this is unbelievable..."
Tillio pressed a hand to his forehead above the mask.
The moment Minseong started crying, everyone in the dining room openly began watching them.
Yvonne's gaze was especially intense.
Even while demonstrating the remarkable feat of carrying twelve empty plates at once, she couldn't take her eyes off their table.
She looked ready to rush over and interrogate them on the spot.
If they lingered any longer, getting dragged into something troublesome was inevitable.
"Stop crying."
Tillio stepped firmly on Minseong's foot.
"Hic..."
"I said stop."
He pressed harder.
Hard enough to deform the shoe.
"Waaah...!"
At last, Tillio stopped waiting.
Just as he had done when he practically kidnapped Minseong the night before, he hoisted him over his shoulder.
In the distance, Yvonne clapped both hands over her mouth.
She pointed at Tillio, then at Minseong.
Then she formed a tiny heart with her fingers, her cheeks twitching with excitement.
A blissful smile spread across her face as she made a circle with her fingers.
She nodded enthusiastically, clearly imagining a passionate romance between two Royal Mechanical Dolls.
Love between senior and junior performers! I'm rooting for you!
A warm blessing as gentle as sunlight descended upon them.
Leaving that thoroughly unwanted blessing behind, Tillio rose from the table.
Just before they left, Minseong snatched a banashe from the table.
Banashe looked similar to an orange, but its flesh tasted like strawberries.
It was Minseong's favorite fruit in the entire country.
The perfect oasis for a tongue that had just suffered a brutal assault from peppercorns.
"Huuuh...!"
But as Tillio adjusted him on his shoulder, the banashe slipped from his hand.
Freed at last, the fruit rolled merrily across the crowded dining room floor.
Tap.
A pair of leather shoes stopped its escape.
The shoes were dirty with grass and soil, yet they were clearly not the sort one would find on an ordinary traveler.
Decorated with blue gemstones, they were unmistakably expensive.
The owner bent down and picked up the banashe.
His eyes met Minseong's.
Holding the fruit aloft, the man smiled brightly and waved it in the air.