Chapter 53: Her Room
After that, Armand brought up the topic of the ketchup again. He still hadn’t had time to deal with the box of ketchup, so it was temporarily stored in his office.
To answer Armand’s question, Evelia decided to take him to her room. Even though it wasn’t very polite to enter a lady’s living space casually, since Evelia invited him, Armand didn’t refuse and followed her to the dorm where she was staying.
“You mean… you didn’t take my box of ketchup because you didn’t have space for it?”
“Yes.”
“Haa… Who would’ve thought you’d buy that much...”
Armand looked around Evelia’s room and saw a large pile of ketchup boxes. For a moment, he didn’t even know how to describe how shocked he felt.
Each ketchup box had its own label, clearly marked with the date, amount, how salty or sweet it was, and what it was best used for. Evelia even made a chart and hung it on the wall, so she could easily find the exact ketchup she wanted.
Evelia’s room was completely filled with red, except for the window that let the sunlight in.
Right below the window, Armand saw some blue roses. Most of them had already wilted, but it was obvious that Evelia had taken good care of them and even tried to save them.
“They’re not all dead yet.”
Armand walked over and gently peeled away the dried petals, showing a few remaining blue ones. Though they looked weak, it felt like a small rebirth from under the ashes.
“Can they still be saved?”
Evelia followed him curiously and used her fingers to crush some of the dead leaves one by one.
“If you cut and replant them the right way, maybe they could live. But these ones clearly have no chance.”
Armand checked the cut on the bottom of the rose stems. Just like what he had seen in the rose bush, the cuts were very clean, clearly made by someone good with a blade. The knife used was sharp enough to cut through a human throat without much effort.
Evelia noticed the pause in Armand’s expression when he saw the cuts. She didn’t say anything that would make him suspicious. Instead, she acted like a good host and made him some tea, placing the cup in front of him.
“Thank you.”
Armand took the cup filled with red tea. He thought it was regular black tea, so he didn’t think too much about it. Besides, he was immune to poison, so even if it was poisoned, he could easily handle it—
“Pffft—?!”
But as soon as he took a sip, he immediately spat it out.
What kind of tea was this?!
Wait, no, it did have a bit of tea flavor…
But it mostly tasted like… ketchup.
The sour and sweet of the ketchup mixed with the bitterness of the tea. The flavors came together in a way that completely confused Armand’s brain.
“What’s wrong, Mr. Armand?”
Evelia, sitting beside him, calmly sipped from a cup of the same ketchup-flavored tea. From the look on her face, she didn’t seem to think there was anything weird about the taste.
“Uh… this is…”
“Ketchup tea.”
“It is ketchup, huh…”
“Of course,” Evelia replied casually. “Ketchup and black tea, don’t you think they make a great pair?”
“It’s definitely… something. But where’s the great part?”
“Don’t you think it tastes good?”
Evelia’s question made Armand look down again at the red-glowing ketchup tea in his hand. He swallowed, not because he wanted to drink more, but because he was scared. Just that one sip had convinced him to never drink this again for the rest of his life.
“Is something wrong with your drink?”
Seeing that Armand still hadn’t touched the tea she proudly made, Evelia moved closer to him. She placed her small hand on his wrist, lifted his hand holding the cup, and took two big sips straight from it.
“Isn’t it tasty?”
“Huh?”
For the first time, even though Evelia was so close to him that her body was almost touching his, Armand wasn’t focused on that at all. All he could think about was how her taste buds actually worked.
“Eve… is something wrong with your tongue?”
Why did she always come up with such strange ketchup-based foods? He still remembered the time she made him tomato egg soup. It was literally just one perfectly peeled egg floating in a thick pot of ketchup.
“My tongue?” Evelia asked, then opened her mouth and stuck out her tongue at him. Because of that, her next words came out a little unclear.
“Isff ders sangtheng wong wif if? (Is there something wrong with it?)”
“N-no… that’s not what I meant…”
Watching Evelia stick out her tongue at him, Armand suddenly felt that the mood had gotten strange again. Her small, flexible tongue even curled playfully a few times so that he could see both sides clearly. The tip of her tongue moved slightly, and it made Armand feel a bit itchy inside.
“My tongue should be perfectly fine,” Evelia said as she pulled her tongue back. “Do you want to try it?”
“W-what do you mean, ‘try it’?”
“What else would it be?”
“To see if it’s good?”
“So do you want to look at it?” Evelia asked, then stuck out her tongue again.
“Why would I want to look at that!?”
“Why won’t you just accept it? Tomato ketchup is clearly delicious.”
Evelia had already finished her cup of tomato ketchup tea, so she poured herself another one. She sipped it happily, making Armand start to feel tempted to try it again. But when he looked at the half-finished cup of red tomato tea sitting on the table, he shook his head and pushed that dangerous curiosity away.
While Evelia was busy preparing more tea, Armand took the chance to look around her room. Even though Evelia was a personal maid and had a high status in the manor, her room was still much simpler than Armand's.
It was smaller and plainly decorated, but compared to the other maids’ small dorms, this place felt more like a proper home. It wasn’t large, but it was just right for Evelia to live in alone.
He looked at the wall. Aside from that tomato ketchup chart, there was nothing else hanging up. Her obsessive neatness made the room extremely tidy, everything had a specific place with labels and markings.
Armand had been the one to assign and arrange this room for her in the first place, so if anything had changed, he would notice. Evelia hadn’t moved much around, most things were still in their original places. The only adjustment seemed to be that she modified some of the cabinets to better store her ketchup collection.
No hidden mechanisms or strange traps...
Although he acted like he was reluctantly accepting Evelia’s invitation, the real reason Armand came here was to check if she had made any “unauthorized modifications.”
“Mr. Armand.”
Just as he was about to examine more details, Evelia walked over, holding a squished ketchup packet in her hand.
“Hm? What is it, Eve?”
Armand looked away from the room’s corners and turned toward her. She walked up and handed him the ketchup.
“Try this.”
“Huh?” Armand took the packet and examined it. It looked totally ordinary. So normal, in fact, that it didn’t seem like something Evelia would offer.
“This is...?”
“Ketchup, but it uses tomatoes from the south. It’s one of my favorite flavors.”
The moment she said it was her favorite, Armand instinctively held it farther away.
“Just try it. The taste is pretty good. This is what I had left after making tomato-ketchup candy apples. Throwing it away would be such a waste. Give it a try.”
...Tomato ketchup candy apples?
As soon as Armand heard that strange-sounding dish, his brain painted a weird image. Was it like biting into a sugar-coated apple, only to find it filled with ketchup inside?
That sounds... kind of terrifying.
While Armand was lost in this bizarre mental picture, Evelia, still expressionless, was staring at him with an extremely sincere look in her eyes. It made Armand's heart soften. In the end, he gave in, raised the squished packet to his mouth, and squeezed out a little to taste.
“Ugh... so sour...”
The shockingly sour taste made Armand shiver. He usually preferred mild flavors, so this sharp taste was too much for him. He stuck out his tongue and quickly pushed the packet back to Evelia.
“......”
Evelia looked at the returned ketchup, then glanced at Armand, who was frowning from the sourness. She sighed and took it back.
She really seemed unwilling to waste the leftover ketchup. So, after Armand gave up, she simply squeezed the rest into her mouth and finished it all.
Armand watched with an odd expression as Evelia, completely unbothered, licked the spot he had just bitten, determined to get every last bit of ketchup. She even sucked it clean.
“Um... Eve, you don’t mind?”
“Mind?” Evelia looked at him with the ketchup still in her mouth. “Mind what?”
“...I just bit that part.”
“So what?”
As she spoke, she gave one last big slurp and swallowed the final drop of ketchup. With a gulp, it was all gone.
Then she licked her lips and fingers and said to Armand, “I mean, I’ve always drunk straight from this packet anyway. You never seemed to mind before. It was mine to begin with.”
After saying that, Evelia turned around to look for the trash bin. Meanwhile, Armand stood there even more awkwardly, rubbing his ears without realizing it.
“Eve... you really are something else...”