First and foremost, Happy New Year to all those following this blog~!
After a long wait for Kurofune ZERO, we got one volume (as Michii long ago has noted) without Aki cover and in larger size (B4). The chapter of A*D was surprisingly short, but after checking the first page, it makes sense: this time the chapter was a special one, outside of the main storyline. Which means we’ll be still waiting for chapter 14. Well, anyhow, this cute story was something that I liked very much~~
From Kurofune ZERO Special Edition 2012…
Rikuto’s smiling face, cubed sugar and Force’s feelings…
Summary:
The chapter starts with Eiri and Yoneda seeing Rikuto, who is immersed in something he has found in a shop window. They note he is looking at cubed sugar, which Yoneda thinks is rather pricey for ordinary sugar (so he concludes it must a special product).
The scene shifts to Rikuto opening one box of the sugar with a glow around him. Eiri asks whether Jiz knows what it is with the sugar. He says that they use the brand at Force’s manor (too small of a brand to be used at the main manor, it seems). When Eiri admits that to him it looks just plain old sugar, Jiz adds that it has to do with adding a cube into tea. As Eiri tries it, Rikuto jumps near and announces cheerfully that he should wait 10 seconds. When it passes, a small flower surfaces to float on the tea. Rikuto says that if one adds many, it becomes a field of flowers. Eiri wonders whether it’d be too sweet, but at that same moment Force throws a whole fistful in his cup – and a flower field it becomes.
A pretty box of sugar cubes.
Jiz shouts at them not to use them for vain, and starts to slowly realize what a pricey goods those sugar cubes are. He connects it to Eiri, who is pleasantly smiling next to him and gives a beating to Rikuto for making the noble man buy some for him. Eiri interrupts saying that he bought on his own, but Jiz, knowing Rikuto, guesses right that the kid was drooling at the shop’s window with puppy eyes…
Eiri wonders what it is that makes Rikuto so interested in these small fake flowers. Even if they are well made, they are simple and Rikuto could make much more realistic ones. The boy answers that only these are fine, because “they were the most beautiful”.
Later, when Yoneda agrees with Eiri as to the flowers not being as good as Rikuto’s, it makes the latter think if there’s something more in the cubes to the boy, perhaps sentimental value. All Eiri can come up with, is that it has something to do with Force…
…and when Force pickers with Jiz regarding the former not knowing where the sugar cubes were made, he remembers that “back then you didn’t laugh”. Rikuto answers that “neither did Force”, and he is wondering whether is really was so.
Then we are shown a piece from the past from the viewpoint of Rikuto. Force offered him sugar for his tea, while the clearly injured and poor boy thought of him as black and scary. After taking one cube of sugar, Rikuto got a word from Force, “10 seconds”.
After 10 seconds…
And in that time there was a flower in his tea. Seeing his face, Force asked him if he liked flowers to which the boy nodded. Force noted that that was good and smiled a little. Rikuto was hit by that smile and realizes that he is a beautiful person (although he is very much black, taciturn and unsocial). He notes the older boy’s golden eyes for the first time, having thought of them as black before that. Rikuto wondered why Force was always in dark places as if hiding from something, being afraid of something – and why he had saved a boy like him…? It comes to Rikuto that probably since then he’s wanted to save this beautiful person…
“Well, that is good then.”
¤ ¤ ¤
…and that was this time’s extra chapter. Q___Q I am so moved… Somehow… /cries in a corner
I hope this was an okay summary and that you enjoyed it~!
