"Eat slower, Ethan-kun, no one is fighting you for it~"
Mrs. Manami Maxwell watched Ethan wolf down his food. A look of satisfaction appeared on her mature, beautiful face, and she gently chided him.
The emptiness and loneliness of over a decade were soothed after meeting this young man. Her body and soul were now completely tied to him. Even though she hadn't devoured him yet, seeing his addiction to her cooking skills made her heart happy.
"Wuh~ Mrs. Maxwell's cooking is incredible! I truly love it!"
Ethan gave high praise to Mrs. Maxwell's culinary skills.
"If you weren't already a landlady, Mrs. Maxwell, you'd be a wealthy woman just by selling this Eel Rice!"
"Oh, stop it, you~"
"Hmph." x2
Lyla Maxwell and Rumi Maxwell instantly felt that the food in front of them had lost its flavor. Their stomachs felt full, and a sour odor (the smell of jealousy) seemed to permeate the air. The two girls simultaneously let out a disgruntled sound in protest.
Ethan ignored the two vinegar jars (jealous girls) and quietly enjoyed his Eel Rice.
Seeing this, the two beautiful girls exchanged a knowing glance, nodding slightly in unspoken agreement, as if they had just struck a pact.
Just as Ethan finished the last sip of his seaweed egg drop soup and was about to burp, he suddenly felt two small feet, different in size, slowly sliding up his calf. They crossed his thigh and settled near his Magma Dragon, wiggling as if feeling for something.
He gave the two girls a strange look. He found them staring right back at him. However, the moment their eyes met his, both girls immediately averted their gaze, fiddling with their chopsticks or playing with their phones, as if nothing had happened.
The two small feet on his thigh still hadn't left. After their initial exploration, they had found the lair of the Magma Dragon and began a fierce attack. However, the Magma Dragon had been summoned twice without success earlier and was now uninterested. Despite the two small feet performing their eighteen styles of foot-play, it only slightly stiffened, showing respect for their efforts.
The meal lasted about half an hour. Only the plates in front of Ethan and Mrs. Maxwell were completely clean. Lyla and Rumi, however, still had about half their food left, looking like they would need a while longer to finish.
"What's wrong, Lyla-chan, Rumi-chan? Is Mom's cooking not good today? Or are you just not hungry?"
Mrs. Maxwell looked at her two daughters with confusion. They were slowly picking up their food, bite by slow bite, eating too delicately, completely unlike their usual behavior. She was puzzled.
Normally, they would have finished eating by now and would either be on the sofa watching TV or back in their bedrooms on their phones. Why were they all so sluggish today?
"N-no, Mom. It's precisely because your cooking is so delicious that we are savoring every bite. Right, Lyla-chan?"
"Right, my thoughts are the same as Sis's."
If Ethan hadn't been feeling the two small feet massaging his Magma Dragon, he would have almost believed their lies.
Rumi and Lyla exchanged a glance at an angle Mrs. Maxwell couldn't see, subtly complimenting each other on their cleverness.
Ethan saw the entire exchange, or rather, they didn't bother to hide it from him.
As if an amusing idea had struck him, a wicked smile appeared on Ethan's face.
His two hands slowly disappeared from the tabletop and moved beneath the dining table. Using the position of his Magma Dragon as a guide, he swiftly grabbed both girls' feet.
When he first grabbed them, the two small feet struggled slightly. They only stopped squirming when Ethan began to gently stroke their tender arches.
The small, soft, and delicate foot in his left hand belonged to Lyla-chan. It felt like jade, cool and smooth. The one in his right hand must be Rumi-sis's. It was slightly larger than Lyla's, though not by much, probably due to her age. The texture was equally silky smooth.
He meticulously explored their small feet, his hand following the faintly raised veins on the instep, tracing all the way down to the five small, bud-like toes before stopping.
After careful exploration, he found that their toes were slender and delicate, just like their mother's. His ten fingers slowly intertwined along the gaps between their toes, gently massaging them.
Ethan shifted his attention from his hands and looked at the two girls' faces. He saw both their cheeks were flushed, their bodies trembling slightly, their jaws clenched tight, as if enduring something intense.
The time is ripe!
Ethan quickly pulled his fingers out from between their toes and moved down to their soles. He started with slow, gentle strokes, but after assessing the change in the girls' expressions, he noticed no difference from before. Suddenly, his five fingers began rapidly circling the center of their soles at a frequency of three times per second.
"Pfft!" x2 "Haha~ Phew, stop it~ Haha~"
The two girls were eating while experiencing the strange itchiness on their feet. The sensation was odd but within their tolerance range, allowing Ethan's actions to continue. But the sudden, intense tickling on their soles—like a feather rapidly tracing the skin—made them completely lose it. They burst into loud laughter. Poor Lyla-chan had just taken a mouthful of rice and hadn't swallowed it yet, causing her to spray it out. Fortunately, she was looking down, or Rumi-sis across from her would have been splattered. Both girls tried to pull their feet free from Ethan's grasp, but his hands were like vices, locking their feet firmly in place. They couldn't move an inch.
"What is it now?"
Mrs. Maxwell had already found her daughters' behavior unusual today, and now their sudden burst of laughter confirmed her suspicion. She carefully looked at the two girls and noticed that Ethan's hands hadn't been on the table since earlier. A guess instantly formed in her mind. Her beautiful eyes held a trace of a smile, but she spoke with an air of confusion.
"Phew! Phew, n-nothing." Rumi Maxwell said, her face flushed and her breath coming in ragged gasps.
"I-it's n-nothing either. A bug... just crawled on my foot." Lyla Maxwell covered her mouth, her face equally flushed and showing embarrassment, clearly ashamed that she had just spit out her rice.
"Heh heh, well, since nothing's wrong, I'll go back to my room and rest." "It smelled so good. I'll make sure to savor it next time."
The perpetrator now stood up, smiling innocently, feigning total lack of involvement. He didn't seem to notice the shame and fury in the girls' eyes. He even sniffed the hand that had just been touching their feet right under their noses. His words were ambiguous, leaving doubt as to whether he meant the meal smelled good and he wanted to eat it slowly next time, or if something else smelled good, and he wanted to savor that slowly next time.