The cabin in the woods.
After gathering firewood all morning, Lumberjack Isac returned to the warm cabin.
By now, Yukinoshita Yukino had already gotten out of bed and was sitting on a wooden stump near the wood stove.
The reason she was on a wooden stump rather than a chair was that the cabin’s one and only chair had been converted into a makeshift seated toilet.
Sure, you could still technically sit on the converted chair — but it just felt a little weird.
So Yukinoshita Yukino had ultimately gone with the thick wooden stump Isac had hauled in from outside.
Hearing the squeak of the door hinge turning, Yukinoshita Yukino set the book in her hand down, looked toward the entrance, and offered a soft greeting: “Welcome back.
That must’ve been hard work.”
Isac stacked the firewood he’d collected by the cabin door, then turned around and shut the wooden door.
Only after he was done did he reply:
“I’m back.
Take a look at what I found?”
As he spoke, he pulled a tangle of gray plant matter out of his coat pocket.
It looked uncannily like a tiny branch — the twigs were thin and dense, as fine as whiskers.
“Is that beard lichen?” Yukinoshita Yukino identified the species in Isac’s hand with practically no effort.
There was real surprise in her voice.
“There actually is some out there — where did you find it?”
“On the trees.
The stuff seems pretty rare — in the patch of woods to the left, only a few trees had any.” Isac replied.
Yukinoshita Yukino nodded.
The plant guide she’d been reading said the same thing — beard lichen typically grew on the branches of trees, so Isac had almost certainly identified it correctly.
“Want to give it a try?” Isac asked.
Yukinoshita Yukino didn’t hesitate for a second.
She nodded.
“Of course.
But before that — let’s deal with lunch first.”
With that, Yukinoshita Yukino, very matter-of-factly, set an already-warmed airline meal box in front of Isac, and handed him the plastic utensils that had come bundled with it.
Isac took the utensils and peeled off the foil lid.
The distinctive aroma of rice hit him in the face, and hunger surged up in him in an instant.
But he didn’t dig in right away.
Instead, he asked: “Have you eaten yet?”
Yukinoshita Yukino hesitated for a beat, turned her face slightly to the side, and said: “I’ve already eaten.”
“Really?”
“…”
When the questions get hard, the answer goes silent, huh.
Yukinoshita Yukino knew she wasn’t going to be able to keep up the cover, and started backpedaling:
“I had some bread this morning.
I’m not hungry right now.”
Only — that explanation was obviously not going to convince Isac.
It almost made him laugh out of sheer frustration.
That hunk of bread she’d had in the morning hadn’t even been as big as his palm — how was that supposed to tide a person over until lunchtime?
Yukinoshita Yukino had clearly decided that since their food stockpile at home wasn’t large, it should be prioritized for Isac — who was burning through a serious amount of energy. Visit novelping(.)com for the full chapter.
As for her, skipping one meal would be no big deal; she’d just tough it out.
Isac set down his chopsticks and let out a sigh.
“I’ve told you this before, haven’t I?
You’re injured.
You need to get enough nutrition in you if you want to recover quickly.”
Yukinoshita Yukino bit her lip and kept her face turned to the side, refusing to look at Isac — like a stubborn little fawn.
Isac, however, wasn’t about to indulge her on this.
He stood up, grabbed another airline meal box from the food-storage corner, and set it on top of the stove to thaw out and warm up.
Watching this, Yukinoshita Yukino’s lips moved a couple of times without sound.
In the end she couldn’t hold it back: “Some bread is fine for me.”
“Not happening.” Isac answered with just two words.
“I don’t like meal boxes.” Yukinoshita Yukino tried again.
“This is about survival.
Whether you like it or not doesn’t factor in.”
“Eating bread also counts as survival.”
“I like bread.
I don’t want to share it with you.
Does that explanation work for you?”
“…”
Yukinoshita Yukino was stopped cold.
A rare flash of annoyance surfaced in her pale-blue eyes, and her eyebrows knit together into a tight knot — as if that were her chosen vehicle for venting her displeasure.
Isac ignored the girl’s irritation, and pushed his own meal box back across in front of her.
“Eat.”
“That was for you.”
“Well, now it’s yours.
Hurry up.
Or do I have to spoon-feed you?”
Yukinoshita Yukino didn’t move.
She just stared at Isac, dead-on.
The moment she saw him pick the utensils back up — apparently genuinely about to feed her — her resolve cracked on the spot.
“I — I’ll do it myself.”
Resigning herself to it, the girl picked up the utensils and started ferrying small mouthfuls of rice into her mouth.
Each chew came down with quite a bit of force — as if what was in her mouth wasn’t rice but a certain someone.
Isac’s own meal had warmed up about enough by then.
He may have been a hardliner about shoving his portion onto Yukinoshita, but in reality he’d been starving for ages.
Gathering wood and hauling wood was real physical labor.
Never mind the fact that fighting off the cold itself burned way more energy than a normal day.
Isac chewed huge mouthfuls of food.
Compared with Yukinoshita Yukino next to him, you could pretty much say there were no table manners on display whatsoever.
Aw, look how starved the kid is.
Yukinoshita Yukino had started eating first, but by the time Isac had finished his meal, there was still half a meal box’s worth of food sitting untouched on Yukinoshita’s side.
Possibly worried Isac might misunderstand, she quickly tacked on: “I really can’t eat this much.
Before, I was always splitting one box across two meals.”
Isac knew Yukinoshita Yukino wasn’t lying.
Apart from that first day — when she’d gone into shock and urgently needed glucose, and put away an entire meal box in a single sitting — every box he’d given her since had been spread out across two meals.
On top of that, the airline meals Isac had scavenged were no small portions either.
Even for a guy like Isac, putting one of those boxes away was about enough to leave him pretty much full.
“I’m pretty much full too.” Isac said.
“If you can’t finish it, save the rest for dinner.
The airline meals… don’t go rationing them.
Even with the natural deep-freezer we’ve got out there, the shelf life isn’t going to be long.
We need to get through them as fast as we can.”
Counting the meals they’d eaten today, they had thirteen airline meal boxes left.
At a consumption rate of three boxes a day, the supply would last them another four and a half days.
Yeah — these were getting close to the expiration date too.
As for finding a new food source… Isac hadn’t worked that out yet.
But while collecting firewood today, he’d come across a game trail with tracks from small animals passing through.
Maybe setting some kind of trap was worth considering.
After all, with wolves living in the area, there definitely wouldn’t be a shortage of prey.
He’d scared off that old wolf for the time being.
So now, in the interest of not breaking the local ecological balance, he was going to have to figure out how to fill the vacant slot it had left behind.
Once he framed it that way, Isac’s shoulders suddenly felt a little heavier — as if he’d just taken on the grand mission of maintaining the ecological balance of this entire forest.
Once they’d finished eating, Isac set his meal box to one side, walked over to where Yukinoshita Yukino was, and crouched down in front of her.
“W-what are you doing?” Yukinoshita Yukino jumped at Isac’s sudden move.
Her voice came out a touch trembly, and she didn’t seem to know where to look.
Isac shot her a weird look in return, his tone making it sound like the answer should’ve been obvious.
“Helping you put medicine on, obviously.
And taking the chance to see whether that beard lichen really is as miraculous as the books make it out to be.”
“Oh…”
“Why, what did you think?”
Watching the deflated look on Yukinoshita Yukino’s face, Isac couldn’t keep a laugh in, and reached his hand toward the girl’s small foot.
“I — I’ll do it myself.” Yukinoshita Yukino said in a fluster.
“All right.” Isac wasn’t about to push it.
He watched as Yukinoshita Yukino slowly worked the sock down, revealing snow-white skin — and a violently purple-red bruise that was painful just to look at.
But just as Isac picked up the beard lichen and got ready to apply it to Yukinoshita Yukino, the unexpected happened.
There was a knock at their door.
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