Chapter 232 – Attraction (2)

I gave the key to Grape… Did you give
It doesn’t matter if Grape has the key to my room… It doesn’t matter…
If you have a key I didn’t give you… Maybe it’s something strange

“… Would you like to take a look at the cooking?”
“Huh… ?”
“I’m going to do it according to Anger’s taste, wait a minute…”

Grape didn’t answer my question and brought me a little sticky-looking stew in a small bowl.
Tomatoes and meat, some curry… A red stew with a strong flavor of carrots and potatoes.
As Grape gave me, I held out my face and ate it, and the taste was pretty good.

“Delicious… What is this?”
“I thought Anger ate something strange again, so I bought some vegetables and tried them with the feeling Anger likes.”
“Natural?”
“Yes, it is all natural.”

Wild vegetables and wild meat would be quite expensive… No, the ingredients are vegetables that are easy to grow and come out a lot, such as potatoes and tomatoes.
Carrots and meat may be a bit expensive, but I think it’s a reasonable price.
By the way, what happened to my room key?

“Thank you for doing that, but my room key…”
“Is there anything else you want to eat?”
“Huh? No, it’s okay, but the key to my room…”
“… A key?”
“No… It’s not a big deal, I slept with the window closed, but I wondered where it came from… Did I give you the room key?”
“Ah…”

After repeating my question several times, Grape nodded his head very slowly, as if he finally understood what I was saying.
Grape suddenly knelt before me like a guilty man.

“Heat, iron… Ki, remember… Don’t you? Anger… You made me a key…”
“I?”
“No, Anger can make the key… So…”
“I… ?”
“Yes, yes!”

I… ?
He told Grape that he could make me a key to my room… ?
Was it… ?

“What happened?”
“Uh… Just, Anger asked me to make a key for him!”
“I?”
“Yes!”
“Okay… ? Hmm…”

What about grapes… It’s okay to come into my room at will.
Rather, it would be more convenient if you gave me the key to the room because I wouldn’t have to go to the front door to greet you.
But no matter how much I thought about it, it didn’t seem like I gave Grape the key.

“I don’t remember.”
“Ah! Having sex… Was it? Was it before sex? ? Anger says he can’t remember when we have sex sometimes…”
“That’s because Grape makes me feel so good, so my memories get mixed up…”
“Is that why you don’t remember?”

Is it… ?
If Grape asked me to make a room key while having sex, I think he would have told me to do whatever he wanted because he was so happy.
Is that why I don’t remember…

“What… It doesn’t matter, but…”
“Yes?”

I can’t remember, but it doesn’t matter if I gave it to you.
If you think about it, it seems more appropriate to give… It’s not wrong to give Grape the key to my room…
I said calmly to Grape, who had a stupid expression on his face.

“Are you listening to the key? The doorknob in my room is a bit worn out, so sometimes it doesn’t work.”
“Well… Listen.”
“Can I take a look at the key?”
“Uh… Yes.”

Grape turned his hand behind his back and pulled out a key from somewhere and held it out.
Well made… It’s so clean it can’t compare to my old key.
I returned the key to Grape.

“Well done.”
“… May I have the key?”
“That’s Grape… ?”
“Uh, uh…”

Grape asked a strange question as he took the key.
The key is Grape, so why are you asking me if you can keep it?
I looked at Grape’s key and thought of my old key.

“I’m envious that the keys are clean… I want to exchange it for mine.”
“Uh? Bar, would you like to change?”
“Huh… ? Uh… Could it be? There it is, on the wall hanging next to the sink.”

Just saying that, Grape handed me a newly made key.
If you want to exchange an old key that doesn’t work well with a new one that works well, of course I like it.
I wondered if it would be okay to receive this, and exchanged grapes and keys.

“Do you really change?”
“I’m fine… Grape is the old key I kept using. Are you okay?”
“Yes!!”

Grape ran to the sink and immediately put my key in the pocket of his short shorts.
I turn off the fire I put on the dish, stir with a wooden spatula, and shake my body gently as if I feel better.
It feels good to receive an old key… Grape’s taste is also difficult to understand.

“I got the key from Anger~ Oh, if you feel sleepy, would you like to sleep a little longer? I’ll wake you up before lunch!”
“Huh… Sleep better…”

I laid down the new key by my bedside and went back to bed.
I tried to go back to sleep… I can’t sleep because I woke up talking to Grape.
… But waking you up before lunch?

Today is Monday… Grape goes to work in the morning… How are you going to wake me up at lunch… ?
It’s not even lunchtime, isn’t it time to work in the middle of the day before lunchtime… ?
I got up again with my new question and said to Grape.

“Aren’t you going to work?”
“Ah~ I took a week off.”
“Uh? Why… ?”
“I have a little business… Haaa… I came early because I wanted to talk about it… Because of the magical girl… I think I’ll have to go to another city for a while…”

Didn’t you take a vacation to have sex with me for a week?
I let out a sigh of relief inside.
But to say that Grape has to go to another city, this bothers me as it is.

Being sent to another area…
Rapid also said this.
Recalling Rapid’s message, I questioned Grape with a bitter expression.

“… Are you going alone?”
“Yes? Yes… Alone… Shall we go? Go, do you want to go together? I’d love to, but it might be risky for Anger, and she’s fine with Anger as long as he’s only in the dorm… Anywhere else is dangerous…”
“What about the other magical girls?”
“Because you’re at the top level, additional support… Probably not… You don’t have to worry so much! I’m old too… And really, if anything happens, Rapid will come to support!”

Seeing my expression darken, Grape said with a somewhat happy expression.
I heard the name Rapid come out of Grape’s mouth and bit my lip in my mouth as I looked at Grape.
If Rapid comes to support… Where is Rapid?

“Are you going with Rapid?”
“Hmm… No, it should be safer if you come together, but if you do, City A will be empty… Rapid will be waiting in City A.”
“I’m not going… ?”
“Because Rapid can come my way at any time… Oh, before… You know the magic of Esther, right? In and out… You can pot it that way and show up next to it!”

Aren’t you going to Rapid? ?
Then too… Was what Rapid told me a lie…
I feel more and more certain that Rapid is deliberately avoiding me.

“Ha…”
“Anger? I don’t feel well… ?”
“Huh… A little bit… That’s right…”
“It’s okay if you don’t really have to worry… I’m not weak… I’ll be back without incident… ?”
“Huh…”

Grape will come back without incident…
Seeing that my demeanor wasn’t improving, Grape came over and sat down next to me with a complicated look on his face.

“Really… Anger is the only one who worries about the top magical girls.”
“Ah, yes…”
“I don’t want to go either, but I can’t help it… I’ll be back right after work… Yes?”
“Huh? Oh, ok, good job…”

I was immersed in other worries, and then I realized that Grape was mistaken about something.
I’m in a bad mood thinking about Rapid, but I think I’m in a bad mood because I’m worried about Grape.
However, she didn’t think it was necessary to correct Grape’s misunderstanding, so she just let it go.

“So… From Wednesday, I don’t think I’ll be able to come until next week…”
“From Wednesday until next week… For five days?”
“Yes… I don’t want to go either, but I have no choice but to go… Because the number of top ranks is not enough right now…”
“Hmm… Another side… Where? Why?”
“It’s D, I don’t know what it is… Because the middle-ranking magical girls were attacked by a group of tentacle snakes… It seems that almost all power has been taken to the nest now.”
“At D? Top rank? Rather, they were all attacked by tentacle snakes… ? Is it a hybrid mutant?”
“… I have to go for that.”

I asked again with a slightly surprised voice.
Except for city A, other cities are currently defending only the top and middle ranks without the top magical girls.
If all the middle and high ranks were dragged to the nest… Clearly, this is a problem that someone at the top has no choice but to go to.

Ash is higher than the National Guard, so he wouldn’t listen to such a dispatch order in the first place… Rather than defending City A, we focus more on eradicating negatives in the outer zone.
Rapid is virtually left alone, giving full force to the defense of City A… Since there is space teleportation magic, it is much safer.
What remains is naturally grapes… Grape has no choice but to go.

“I don’t want to go to D… There is no Anger there, the accommodation is a mess…”
“Hmm… It’s because the old mayor of D city went bankrupt while forcibly pushing ahead with the tourist city plan. Negatives keep appearing, but what kind of tourism are you going to do? .”
“I’ve been there once before, but the bed is messy…”
“Many of the factory-made mattresses were made incorrectly in the early stages, so it must be because they are somehow consuming them as accommodations… But do magical girls’ lodgings use mattresses like that? Didn’t know that…”
“Even meals…”
“In D city, the only natural food is canned food… ?”

Even though it’s edible, it’s salty canned food in the end… It is not a diet that Grape, who used to eat mainly natural food, would like.
Mattress too… I will use a sponge mattress made of a much worse quality than the broken mattress in my room, and the durability and quality of the building itself is not good enough to assemble the building with leftover junk parts after using it in City A.
Recalling the D poem in my memory, I explained the causes of Grape’s dissatisfaction one by one.

“… Do you know D poetry very well?”
“Because I lived there.”
“Yes… ?”