I was startled by the sudden noise and shook my head. I looked around and made eye contact with the child who was staring at me.
âHi!â
ââŠâ
How long was I asleep for?
There was no natural light, so I couldnât tell whether it was morning, noon, or evening, so I couldnât gauge the passage of time. I gave a brief greeting and then flapped my wings to clear my mind.
Huh?
Where was I lying down?
The place where I was lying was on the palms of the childâs finely gathered hands. Did you see me sleeping soundly and made a hand bed for me? Excitement surged.
This! Cute! Boy!
âThank you! Thanks to you, I slept well!â
I smiled broadly and flew once, rubbing my face on the childâs finger. I flew here and there on purpose, and the child did not catch me, only chasing me with his eyes.
Great. Now I feel a bit relieved.
But what was that noise?
I looked around and looked towards the door to find a plate in the slot.
It was dinner time. Meals came in twice a day. The child would always go to the door and empty the dishes on the plate. Even when I was a pool of water or the plant, he didnât take his eyes off of meâŠ
Wait.
My memories, which had been completely forgotten, crept up from the bottom.
As soon as I was born, I was almost eaten by a child.
This guyâŠ
Did he ever see me as delicious food?
Could it be that he saw me as a side dish at every meal?
Maybe even now when I am a fairy?
ââŠâ
If itâs dinner time now, heâll be hungry, right?
Was it not that he was putting his palms together to put me to sleep, but he was contemplating whether or not to put me in his bowl and eat me? Read only at pm tl.
ââŠâ
No way. I quickly brushed off my wings, dispelling my uneasy suspicion. He wouldnât have protected me like that if he thought of me as a delicious meal. He probably tried to eat me just because he didnât know what to do.
I stopped thinking and flew towards the slot where the plate was placed. When I looked back, the boy was leaning against the wall with his hands hanging down on the floor, watching my actions.
Hmmm. How far can I go? Can I go out? I faced the child and moved a little closer to the entrance.
Slowly, slowly, slowly.
Cling!
âHey!â
I was snatched away. It happened as soon as I was about to get out of the reach of the child.
âYou were leaning against the wall over there. When did you get here? Do you know how to move in space? Why are you so fast?â
Startled, I calmed my beating heart and patted the childâs hand.
âIâm not going. Iâm not going.â
He wouldnât let me go even though I patted his hand.
I looked up in amazement and almost passed out.
ââŠâ
The child was staring at me blankly. It was the pure face I had always seen. But why? It felt very frightening, unlike usual.
A faint light flickered from above illuminated only half of the childâs face, and half was immersed in darkness as usual.
The side I was accustomed to was the dark face side, but it was also that side that now felt my fear. On the half-darkened face, the only thing that shined was the water-soaked eyes.
Fairies could glimpse emotions through the body fluids of creatures.
The child now⊠He looked at me and I felt his hunger.
The child slowly opened his mouth. The crooked teeth gleamed pale in the light. Transparent saliva was welling up on the corners of his mouth.
âUhâŠâ
Unknowingly, I was terrified by the ferocious hunger of a child I had encountered for the first time in my life. I was already caught up in the illusion of being eaten by a child.
âDonât eat me! Please!â
I pushed the childâs hand away and cried. Then the strength of the childâs hand was released.
âHah.â
I slumped to the floor and sighed.
âYou really tried to eat me. Itâs too much.â
Too much, too much, how could you try to eat me?
Do you really see me as food?
âŠOkay. Things like that happen too.
Even though I cried because it was too much, I was subtly convinced.
To be honest, I canât help it when he sees me as food, right? A puddle is drinkable water, and grass is an edible plant. I didnât speak or move back then.
To sum it up, the grass that turned into a fairy right in front of his eyes.
âMoving grass = fairyâ
âŠOf course he would be thinking that. So far, I was okay with that, because it was somewhat correct. The problem was that he goes beyond this perception.
âEat grass = Eat fairiesâ
âŠIt seems that he even thought of that. Even if Iâm the cutest fairy in the world.
He doesnât know how to speak, so maybe⊠Iâm sorry to think this way, but the probability of basic common sense lacking was 99%.
Maybe he didnât even realize that I was reborn as a different race called a fairy, so he was thinking of it as âgrass = fairyâ rather than âgrass â fairyâ.
As soon as I understood it, my heart calmed down and my crying stopped. I wiped away my tears, and a positive mind sprung up.
How about food? No matter how he sees me, he must have cherished me. To protect me, he was bruised.
It was also certain that I comforted the loneliness by being by his side. The emotion that awakened me as a fairy was not appetite, but solitude.
A brightly colored edible herb grown in the corner of the room.
âHow dare you look at this fairy as a herbâŠâ
Cute.
What scared me was that the child who had always treated me like an expensive ornamental plant would eat like a starving child for the rest of his life. When I was done grasping the situation, the childâs appetite no longer frightened me. Now he looked like a human kid who didnât know anything.
In the beginning, I was not afraid of Doom, but rather a powerful drop of water that ignited a fighting spirit.
âHey, cutie, you are mistaken.â
In the past, I was a nutritious grass that you could eat apart from not being born, but now that I have become a fairy, I canât be eaten.
âIf you donât know, just let me know. I mean, I am not a vegetable that will quickly become your meal, but that I am a pretty, cute, and precious fairy who wants to be your friend.â
Yes, there are piles of things I want to teach you, but letâs get this straight.
I shook my head. The child was looking at me like a strange thing.
âListen. I am not a meal.â
ââŠâ
âDonât eat me. Understand?â
His greedy eyes have already grasped everything. Iâll run away as soon as he shows any signs of eating me.
Okay. I can use Patares before he eats me to get out of there. I cried twice because I was afraid.
âIf you want to eat , Iâll give you a honey chestnut!â
Keep in mind Iâm not who I used to be!
He couldnât understand it, but I let go of the threat and bravely walked forward in front of the slot. I pointed at the plate fiercely.
âLook Carefully. Thatâs not me, this is what you eatâŠâ
Are you eating right?
Looking at the things on the plate, I blurted out the end of my words. The meal on the tray, where the dirty residue dried up, contained a dirty soup with unidentified ingredients floating around and black bread that looked hard.
It was said that humans boil and eat a warm soup with fresh vegetables and thick meat sliced in them. They kneaded wheat flour and baked bread in a blazing oven. They said it was fluffyâŠ
But this food was as poor as the treatment here.
I looked down at the tray with an uneasy feeling. The soup was not what I was expecting, but the bread might be surprisingly soft and delicious. I heard that there are many types of bread that are crispy on the outside and moist on the inside.
I sniffed and tried to tear the bread apart. But the surface was as hard as a stone, and it was difficult. Contemplating, I opened my mouth and bit the bread.
Ah.
Itâs hard enough to be used as a weapon, so I couldnât even taste it. If I chewed forcibly, my jaw may be crushed.
I grabbed my tingling chin and gently lowered my face into the dirty soup this time. I stuck out my tongue and licked the soup a little, then spat it out of the bowl.
ââŠâ
âIâm surprised.â
All of a sudden, the boy squatted next to me, put his face close to mine, and watched what I was doing. The shiny eyes with brightness contained only me, not the bread or the soup.
âHave you been eating like this?â
ââŠâ
âUgh. When I go out, I have to bring a bunch of delicious things.â
Itâs unbearable that the first person who will be my first friend eats like this. As I mumbled grimly, the child reached out to the bread without saying a word. He broke the loaf of bread in his hands and held out a piece to me.
âHuh?â
Startled by the childâs unexpected behavior, I flapped my wings.
âAre you giving it to me? Well⊠.â
Itâs okay to want to gain weight, but it wonât taste good. When I tasted the soup, I expected the taste of the bread to be the same as well.
A fairy can live by drinking only water. There was no need to forcefully eat something that didnât taste good, so if I had to eat something, I would choose to eat only delicious things. It should be said that hobby was built-in by default.
But even though I didnât want to eat it, I wanted to receive it because it was given to me by that child.
As I tilted my head and hesitated, the child followed me and tilted his head, and dipped his index finger into crumbly breadcrumbs from the slice of bread and held it out to me. He seemed to think that the bread piece was so big that I didnât want to eat it.
I will have to eat like this⊠I finally put my hands on the childâs index finger.
It was breadcrumbs for a child, but still a bit big for me. I grabbed the crumbs with both hands and carefully gnawed at the edges.
The bread I ate for the first time in my life was as cold as if it had been frozen and was dry and crumbly.
The child watched me eat breadcrumbs, sticking out my nose for a distance, and watching it come out. Are you curious about me eating breadcrumbs? Is it fun?
If youâre having fun, Iâll enjoy it too. Watch as much as you want.