Playing With the Cats [Part 2]
“Ooomeoooooowwww!”
Kan-chan, the black cat, jumped high in the sky on the trampoline Emma had ordered from the Rothschild Company.
The custom-built giant trampoline was made using the skin of the armored boar that the family ate with relish in Imperial Japan and was durable enough for the cats to play with.
“Mew!”
“Meow!”
The thing that Carlos mistook as a seesaw turned out to be a ball-launching device. Its design pretty much looked like a seesaw, though.
When they put a ball on one edge of the board, Ryuu-chan would hit the opposite edge with great force, and the ball would shoot up high into the sky from the recoil.
These boards had increased durability because they were also coated with Over‘s fragments.
“Meow~” (I’ve been waiting for the ball to fly up~) Chou-chan caught the ball and played with it excitedly.
“Is it fun?”
“ “ “Meeeooowww♪” ” ”
“You haven’t had enough workouts since we returned from Imperial Japan, after all~”
“Oomeow!”
“Kan-chan, you can’t extend your claws while on the trampoline, okay?”
“Meow meow!”
Kan-chan nodded to Emma’s reminder while jumping.
He kept on jumping.
It seemed that he had taken a liking to it.
“……No, eh? Huh? Just what is this?”
Carlos couldn’t believe his own eyes. Both the seesaw and trampoline are custom-made using all the best technology under the Rothschild Company. And you’re going to use those as playground equipment… for cats…?
“Huh? Huhhh?”
Carlos had stuck himself to Joshua half forcibly, saying he wanted to meet Emma of House Stuart for the first time in a long while.
He would be meeting Emma for the first time in three years, so he had been pondering to himself,
‘I wonder if she has become more mature? I’m kinda looking forward to meeting her…’
…but that wasn’t the point. Upon meeting Emma, Carlos refreshed his opinion,
‘No, well, she has grown a little taller, become more able to hold a conversation than how she used to back then, and matured from the inside and the outside, but… that didn’t seem to be the case.
A Count’s daughter doing construction… It’s weird, right?
Four huge cats… It’s weird, right?
A huge purple spider… It’s weird, right?
And are those T-kuns she had been calling for a while the phantom wonder drug, tailless whip scorpions (giant version)? The medicinal insects that the Kingdom finally could import after pleading to the Empire so many times?
Is there a problem with my eyes? Is it my eyes that are weird?
Or did I suddenly turn mini?’
“Decide the order well and play in turns, okay? Don’t fight over the trampoline.”
“Meoww!”
*rustle rustle rustle!*
They could understand each other perfectly.
Isn’t asking humans to get used to this scene playing before me too much of an impossible request? Carlos sweated.
“…H-Hey. Emma-sama? What on earth is this?! And that?! And what’s going on with that over there?!”
“Fufufu, Carlos, what are you so agitated about? Look, the cats seem like they are having fun♪”
Carlos would usually give up on asking others to give him a satisfactory explanation because he knew that in his profession, few people would be willing to do so. That was why he was experienced in the ways of the world. Still, just today, only for today, he wanted someone to explain everything clearly from A to Z.
“Fufufu. Look, Carlos, T-kuns are also playing on the trampoline! T-kuns~! Be careful! You tend to lose your legs easily!”
*rustle rustle!*
“Fufufu, I’ll try jumping on the trampoline too♪”
“Meow?”
Koumei and Joshua watched over this lively scene from the side.
All of a sudden, Joshua rested his weight on Koumei’s back.
Feeling the weight, Koumei turned her head around and heard Joshua whisper in a shaky voice.
“Thank god. Emma-sama is smiling.”
Still leaning against Koumei, Joshua covered his face as if to hide the tears of relief streaking down his cheeks.
‘Thank god.
I have been so worried all this time.
I was so worried that I couldn’t sleep well.
I thought I would never be able to see that smile ever again.
It was that much of a huge crisis.’ Joshua sensed all that silently by himself.
“Thank you, Koumei-san. Thank you for protecting my precious Emma-sama‘s smile…”
“Oomeow!”
(That goes without saying, meow. I will protect Emma without needing Joshua to tell me that, meow!) The cat refuted.
“Meow?”
Perhaps it was because he was relieved, or because his brains sent a compulsory command due to his extreme sleep deprivation, or because he was lured in by Koumei’s fluffy body, Joshua fell asleep just like that in his current position as if he was being sucked into dreamland.
“Meow…”
(It can’t be helped, meow) Koumei wrapped Joshua with her body carefully to not wake him up while thinking, ‘It seems this fellow has also worked hard this time.’
“Eh? Joshua fell asleep?”
Emma noticed the silent Joshua and asked Koumei.
“Meooow.”
“I see. Then I will take a nap too!”
Saying that skipping school and taking a nap with a cat was the ultimate luxury, Emma smiled happily and dove into Koumei’s fluff right beside where Joshua was sleeping.
“Hmm, so fluffy♪ Who can resist sleeping on this, right?”
“Meow!”
After Joshua woke up, he fully believed that today was the best day of his life.
♠♠♠
Author’s words:
It feels like everything’s already solved when the accident hasn’t even started yet…
Oh? M-Mrs. Rom-Com finally rises from her chair!
Ah… Nvm, she sits back down.
