WonderFood

Closing the door behind the pair, we walked into the living room where Oliver was holding the bowl of ice cream and fruits in his hands. There was a little bit of cream on the side of his mouth.

Spotting the mother and daughter pair, Oliver paused in his steps and lowered the bowl of ice cream and fruits.

"Hello."

In a small voice, Oliver bowed his head in greeting. Then he escaped back into the kitchen.

"Excuse my brother Oliver. We just had breakfast."

Drawing their attention away from the running Oliver, I invited them to sit in the living room chairs.

"Sorry for disturbing you then. I just wanted to thank you for saving me yesterday, And I also wanted to talk to you about some things."

As Joyce talked, her hand wandered over to the top of Lily's head. Then, as she curled up Lily's long hair into her fingers, she spoke softly to Lilly.

"Why don't you go play with Oliver for a while. You need to thank him for helping us out yesterday."

With a little coaxing from Joyce, Lily stood up from her chair and dragged her feet to the kitchen.

"I'm sorry if she seems rude. She can't get over what happened yesterday, even though it was the right thing to do."

Joyce apologized once more from across the table.

"No, it's understandable. No child who loves their mother would be able to completely get over such a traumatic event in such a short time."

She smiled at my words and uttered another thanks.

"Thanks to you and your brother, I didn't suffer much damage. I'm sorry that you had to see such a sight yesterday. It's embarrassing, but usually nothing as serious as that happens. I was harvesting together with Lily, when I told her to stay still because I wanted to go to a slightly more dangerous area to pick some ingredients. It was there where I accidently scratched myself on the roots of the poisonous trees and got poisoned. Really, thank you so much for coming to the rescue!"

Joyce bowed her head again.

"There's really no need to apologize and thank us that much! We were just there at the right time, right place. Besides, it was Oliver who first noticed that Lily was standing there alone. It was thanks to him that we managed to find you on time."

Giving Joyce a short brief on how we found her that day, as well as what happened when she was unconscious, she apologized a couple more times.

"Putting that episode behind us, could I ask how it has been since I bought this bracelet from you?"

Bending my arm to show the bracelet, Joyce smiled kindly as she saw it.

"Business has been pretty decent, the same as usual. Thanks to you buying from Lily, she got more motivated to create her small trinkets and is a little less nervous selling them. Really, I can't seem to thank you enough."

Smiling back at Joyce, I couldn't help feel a strong sense of comradery with her.

"Please, you two helped me as well. During that time, I was searching for my brother. We were separated for various reasons, and I didn't know where he was. This bracelet reminded me of one that he bought for me himself. It was a bright reminder of my goal of finding him during dark times. Although unfortunately that original bracelet has perished."

Looking at the wood bracelet on my wrist, I then lifted my head to face Joyce once more.

"I understand how you feel. To me, my daughter is my everything. Although it is only the two of us right now, I can't even begin to fathom how heartbreaking it must be to be separated from someone who means so much to you."

The two of us smiled as we talked a little about the children. We exchanged some funny episodes about the children, and lamented how fast they matured.

"Recently, Lily has started wanting to travel into the forest to travel alone. And although at her age she should be able to explore the nearby area safely, I still worry that something might happen to her."

Joyce whispered as she shot a glance to the kitchen doorway, making sure Lily didn't enter and couldn't hear us.

"I feel you. Lately, Oliver has been planning his own daily agendas and is using his personal terminal to learn and study on his own."

Making an impressed face, Joyce then stood up from her seat. Following her, we temporarily stopped our talk of the children as we approached the kitchen.

It had already been a couple of minutes since Lily had entered. There should have been plenty of time for the children to make up between themselves.

Sneaking a peek into the kitchen, the two of us struggled to keep our chuckles under control as the two children stood in front of the table. Both of them had ice cream on their cheeks, and they were both quietly scooping food into their mouths.

"It seems that they have made up."

Whispering directly to my ear, Joyce smiled in happiness as she watched the two of them interact peacefully.

"Indeed."

We backed a little away from the kitchen, giving them space for a little longer, as we chuckled from the funny sight.

"It's good that they enjoy the food! Nevertheless, I didn't know you were a follower of the WonderFood blog."

Hearing the blog name from Joyce lips, I swerved my head and faced her with my sparkling eyes.

"You know about it too?! Honestly, that blog has been such a big help. The author is someone from Mors so it's pretty simple to get all the needed ingredients for all the dishes. Not only that, but the steps are easy to do and I can even involve Oliver in the cooking process!"

Praising the blog from the bottom of my heart, I looked expectantly at Joyce for a similar reaction. After all, we were both essentially single women with children. Surely she must share some similar opinions!

Looking at her face, I noticed that her cheeks were starting to turn red, and she was no longer looking me in the eyes. Instead, her gaze was redirected to a random part of the floor.

"That's...a lot of praise."

Don't tell me...

"That reaction. Are you the author of WonderFood?"

As if proving I hit the nail on the head, Joyce shrunk a little more before she gave a shallow nod.

"Honestly...I didn't think that it would be so well liked. It was just a site where I uploaded all the recipes I thought of that I could make together with Lily. To think it would impact you so much..."

Extremely shy, Joyce covered her face between her hands and I could hear her take deep breaths. Slowly, the redness started disappearing. When her face color returned to normal, she looked up to face me again.

"Thank you for reading my blog. Hearing you say so much, made me very happy!"

Cusping her hand between mine, I shook it lightly and replied that it was the same for me. I then pulled out my personal terminal and asked for her terminal ID.

Adding each other as friends, we both chuckled at such a huge coincidence before deciding that the children had enough time alone.

We entered the kitchen. Standing in front of the table, the two kids had already wiped the ice cream from their mouths. As seen by the dripping water coming from their faces. They had also washed up and kept the bowls.

Walking right behind Oliver, I thanked him as I reached out my hand and combed my fingers through his hair.

Latching one hand onto my pants, Oliver wiped his face on my clothes and glued himself onto me. Looking up at Lily, I saw that she did the same to Joyce.

"Alex, why don't you visit our house tomorrow? You aren't leaving the village immediately, and since we both like cooking, I was thinking we could cook together. Oliver and Lily could hang out together as well."

Breaking eye contact with me at the last sentence, Joyce bent down a little to wave at Oliver.

"That sounds great! I was troubled over what to do in the village. Usually, we aren't so 'free'."

Walking Joyce and Lily to the door, we verbally discussed the plans for tomorrow, with the children chiming in when they saw fit.

"See you tomorrow!"

Waving goodbye to the mother daughter pair, I closed the door behind me. We finally had something to do.

"Did you and Lily become friends?"

Heading into the living room, the both of us sat down on the chairs and pulled up our personal terminals.

"Yeah."

Answering slightly vaguely, I looked up and noticed that Oliver's face was slightly red. The tips of his ears seemed like they had a coating of red syrup on them.

Oh?

Thinking whether to pretend I didn't notice, or tease him a little, I was about to open my mouth when Sazzy appeared out of nowhere.

[I'm back!]

With fantastic timing as always, she shouted her return and flopped onto the living room chair.

"Welcome back Sazzy. So how is the progress?"

Making a happy smile, she rested her head onto the back of the chair.

[The police are incredibly efficient! They've already made some arrests, and have people tracking the others involved. It seems that the intruders this time were extremists from the pro-Colonizer faction. I suspect that in about 1 or 2 days they might be able to catch everyone. They're not alone either. I saw a familiar irritating face from Vastum hiding among those who managed to run from the police. With Kyle on the case, and by extension Liz and her group, that extremist group should be cleaned up incredibly soon.]

Lying lazily on the chair, Sazzy looked at me and asked what she had missed.

"The mother and the daughter from yesterday just came by. We hit it off quite well so tomorrow we are going over to their place."

Giving a brief summary of this morning, Sazzy nodded her head as she listened. Then, once I finished, she jumped for joy.

[So the mother is a good chef! If that's the case, then the food she cooks tomorrow will definitely look good! I can't wait!]

Having more energy than the two of us, Sazzy cheered loudly for a while before she calmed down.

[Hehe, food!]

The rest of the day after that eventful morning was peaceful. Since we already did the harvesting, there was nothing much to do. Sazzy, the genius, pointed out a board game we could all play together on our personal terminals, and we spent the rest of the day resting.

And at night right before bed, I heard the too excited voice of Sazzy mentioning food again. Smiling at Sazzy's happy voice, I closed my eyes and found myself looking forward to the next day.