Getting under the covers was fine, but for some reason, I was wide awake, and the two of us simply stared blankly at the ceiling. Realizing that neither of them was breathing the slow breaths of sleep, Cynthia opened her mouth.
"I can't sleep."
"I see. At least I can be someone to talk to."
"Let's talk."
"I was talking to you this whole time."
Cynthia lay down with her pillow facing Kaim. She turned toward him, took his arm, and slipped it between her neck and the bedding.
"Hey, would you mind not taking someone else's arm as a pillow without asking?"
"What's wrong with it? I do something similar at home, too."
He had been forcibly made into an arm pillow, but since he slept in this position at home as well, Kaim said nothing more.
Taking Kaim's silence as surrender, Cynthia began to speak.
"Kaim, you've been teaching challengers as a Gym Leader, haven't you?"
Shirona had learned this from Suzuna. Kaim himself rarely talked about himself, so there was no helping that, but something else was even more surprising.
"Yes. Though I've been doing it for a while now, I didn't expect word to spread so quickly."
"When did you start?"
"After I first taught you how to make curry."
"Oh, so it was quite recent."
"Yeah."
Ever since teaching Cynthia to cook, Kaim had begun to find teaching others worthwhile. He had also grown accustomed to his work as a Gym Leader, so when he started casually teaching challengers, it had apparently proved unexpectedly popular.
"Why did you decide to teach?"
"I'm just an ordinary person who happened to get lucky. Without that luck, I could never have become a substitute Gym Leader like this. I don't know whether you haven't."
I could never have