4.2 KiB
You’re lucky he hasn’t spotted you, otherwise you might’ve had to talk to the man in the moustache. It’s not that you’re intimidated by his moustache, but adults — probably Mesa’s father — are just hard to talk to. Especially if they have a glorious moustache like that. You rub the skin above your upper lip longingly. Only the tiniest of hairs there.
You nod politely in return, standing up straight to make use of your 162 (nearly 163) centimetres of height as best as possible.
How educated this man must be, to have such an open mind that he would even read the truth! And what courage to hide the forbidden book in such a copy!
Your respect for his moustache increases tenfold.
Chopsticks? Your eyes search for but fail to find a spoon, let alone a fork or knife. The two Baccaloreans in front of you are nomming away contentedly. Savan glances up first but returns to eating, your acting skills easily passing off your ignorance of the useless and convoluted sticks as genuine admiration of the dish.
Of course something is wrong, you’re going to make a fool of yourself by not knowing how to use two sticks to pick up food! What’s the point of sticks over straight-up using your own hands? At least refined utensils like the spoon provide extra functionality that you weren’t naturally born with. How is he picking up that rice with those things!
Both of their eyes are on you now as you reach for the chopsticks. You can’t lose face now. The handbook on Baccalorean included a section on using chopsticks, but you’ve never had any practical experience with them. You check that you’re picking up the right side — why are they also unidirectional — and clutch them with your left hand, then deftly moving them so that they become clamped between your right thumb and index finger.
Success!
Ah. You’d forgotten he was asking for your opinion for the salmon. As your eyes flick to the block, your mind runs through calculations in the fraction of a second it takes for them to get there. The salmon block is too big to fit in your mouth. Your chopsticks wouldn’t be able to grip a block of that size, anyway. There is no way you can orient the block or your chopsticks to change the above two facts.
It’s impossible. You have only one option.
You subtly stare at Mesa’s chopsticks as they squeeze around her salmon block, forcing it into two, then elegantly twist to surround the smaller chunk and raise it to her mouth. It may be a technique you will never master.
But it will be enough for the current situation. Your chopsticks descend once more to your plate, squeezing the salmon pip until it nearly bursts, several tiny pieces that you are certain you will not be able to recover falling to your plate. A small sacrifice for the greater good. The chopsticks raise once more, this time precariously balancing a mutilated piece of salmon between their tips.
And they slide perfectly into your mouth, securing your prize once and for all, thereby ending the chopstick saga forever.
You keep your praise minimal so as not to inflate Savan’s ego and to keep him humble.
“A benevolent dictatorship,” Savan corrects you. “Our goddess has a moderating effect on society so that no one gets into really heated debates because she’s the ultimate mediator. She prevents problems before they get worse. That’s compared to Constu, where you guys break things halfway through and revert to normalcy.”
“Nonsense. We call that ‘agile’ development. It’s the fastest way of finding out which things stick and which don’t. My teachers always said that taking risks is an important life skill to have. Your goddess never takes risks and so you guys are all stuck in your small little bubble of stagnation.”
“Hey, kid!”
You keep walking. They must be talking about someone else. Not only are you not a child, you’re doing very well collecting strawberries and nothing anyone can say is going to change your mind.
“Kid standing up with the funky hair!”
You whirl around to face the perpetrator of the grave insult, sending your sharpest glare his way. “Excuse me?” Your hair is immaculately styled, not funky.