For a moment, both boys' faces went pale. Between them, they could only manage two bowls of rice, and not even heaping ones. Tetsu no Sosuke had eaten a dinner of at least three full portions.
Wouldn't eating that much give him indigestion tonight?
Neither boy said it aloud, but concern showed faintly in their eyes.
Tetsu no Sosuke smiled sheepishly. That's nothing. If you saw that woman eat, you'd know what despair really means.
Her appetite shows no mercy!
After dinner, the night outside looked pleasant, so Tetsu no Sosuke took his things to the living room and kept working by the light of the fire pit.
Yuichiro came over to watch again. He paid far closer attention than Muichiro.
Muichiro had no interest in this sort of thing. Watching for a while made his eyes swim and left him wanting to sleep. Yuichiro, though, watched intently, as if he could make sense of how it all worked.
Sometimes Tetsu no Sosuke deliberately put a tiny mechanism in the wrong place. At least once or twice out of every ten times, Yuichiro spotted it and pointed it out.
That surprised Tetsu no Sosuke a little. He smiled. "Are you interested in this?"
Yuichiro blushed and glanced around the room. Muichiro had fallen asleep at some point without him noticing.
Eating until he was full and then falling asleep—there was something enviable about that life.
Then Yuichiro lowered his voice. "You were right. Living out here, the two of us need some way to protect ourselves. We have some strength, but it still wouldn't be enough if we faced real danger. You said this thing was powerful, so I thought if I could learn to make it, maybe I could protect Muichiro."
"Protect... Muichiro?" Tetsu no Sosuke glanced back and