Pecorine fixed her wide, watery blue eyes on Jhin and pleaded, "Jhin... can't I brush my own teeth..?"
Jhin glanced at her hands, wrapped up like Doraemon's round little paws, and couldn't help being amused. "So you're not just a bottomless pit — you're the blue tanuki too?"
"I am not a tanuki, and I am not fat!" Even someone with her level of patience would bristle at being called chubby. She puffed out her cheeks and shot him a pouty glare.
"Then tell me — how exactly are you planning to brush your teeth with both hands wrapped up like that?"
"I-I'll figure something out..."
"Breakfast is in a little while. Do you really want to just sit there watching the rest of us eat?"
"...Fine. Please... brush my teeth for me..." Caught between the indignity of having a boy brush her teeth and the horror of missing breakfast, Pecorine chose the former — and immediately began giving herself an internal pep talk.
It's fine. It's completely fine. When Megumin helped me brush my teeth at the start it was only a tiny bit awkward, and then it was the same with Kokkoro. Switching to Jhin now won't be any different.
"Come on then — let's go brush your teeth."
"Y-yeah. Okay."
Pecorine lowered her head like an obedient little bride and let Jhin take her by the hand, leading her over to the washbasin.
Jhin snapped a small section off a slender branch and pressed the broken end against Pecorine's pink toothbrush, working the bright green semi-solid gel that oozed out across the bristles. This was what the continent of Astraea used in place of toothpaste — a cleansing twig, mint-flavored.
He filled a cup with water and had Pecorine rinse her mouth to moisten it, then wet the toothbrush and its load of gel. His left hand came up to cup her chin. "Alright — open wide."
"Ah... ahh~"
"That's barely a centimeter. Open wider."
Pecorine squeezed her eyes shut and did her utmost to open her mouth further — yet from Jhin's perspective, all she'd managed was to open it just a tiny sliver more. Her teeth were still nowhere near visible.
"Alright, guess I'll just have to handle this myself."
Jhin sighed, slid his hand up from her chin, and wrapped his broad palm around her cheek. One gentle squeeze, and the flat line of her mouth bloomed into a round O.
Her pearly white teeth were revealed at last — along with the soft pink tongue sheltering behind them, flustered and fidgeting and not quite sure where to go.
What did I eat last night again?
That sweet fruit? Those crispy potato chips?
Not the garlic bread — please not the garlic bread!
Ugh... if I'd known, I never would have let Jhin brush my teeth. There shouldn't be any weird smell in there... right?
The soft bristles grazed her teeth and Pecorine jolted as if struck by lightning. She had never in her life felt her teeth be this sensitive — every single bristle seemed to brush directly against her nerves, leaving her with absolutely no mental bandwidth left to worry about what she'd eaten the night before.
"What's wrong? Did I pinch you?"
"N-no, it's nothing..."
"Good."
Brushing someone else's teeth was something Jhin had plenty of experience with. He'd done it for Hitori Gotoh, Irisu Makina, Kazami Kazuki, and Nymph — every last one of them, and never a single complaint.
Pecorine was a dedicated gourmand, which meant her teeth were her most prized asset. Without a good set of chompers, how was she supposed to enjoy the endless parade of foods this world had to offer? Jhin put his full effort into the job.
The friction of bristles against enamel worked up a fine, snowy white lather that gradually filled her entire mouth, and a strange, indescribable sensation spread from her teeth out through the rest of Pecorine's body.
It was like sinking into a warm, comfortable hot spring — a gentle tide that made every cell in her body loosen and sigh with relief — and also like the tingling buzz of a numbing spice drifting to every corner of her being.
The strange sensation made her knees go a little weak. Her breathing deepened without her noticing, growing quicker and more uneven. The eyelids she'd been keeping so tightly shut eased open, just a sliver, and through the fine fringe of her lashes she found herself looking at Jhin's focused, intent expression.
Has he always been this tall?
As far as Pecorine could recall, this was the closest she had ever been to Jhin — and the first time she had ever really looked at him like this.
From the perspective of a guildmate: he filled multiple roles, able to fight at close range or provide support from a distance, with a Storage Space whose capacity seemed to have no visible ceiling. He handled things methodically, kept his head in a crisis, and cared about his companions without reservation. She'd heard that when she was knocked unconscious and gravely injured by the Sand Scorpion King, his roar of fury had been enough to rattle their other guildmates.
From the perspective of a friend: he never pried where he wasn't needed. Even at their very first meeting, he had maintained just enough comfortable distance that being around him felt easy and natural. Like her, he loved good food, and his cooking was beyond reproach. His sense of humor turned a bit wicked around Kyaru and Megumin, but neither of them had ever once said they were sick of him for it.
Pecorine traced the thread of it in her mind — how he had been caught up in one of Megumin's Explosion magic blasts and gone tumbling into the lake, which was how they'd met; how they had naturally become friends after that, formed a guild, and begun adventuring together. As if some invisible thread had been quietly weaving them toward each other all along.
Maybe that's what people call fate.
Jhin noticed Pecorine's eyes had suddenly opened wide and bright, looking straight at him with a smile in them, and he was a little at a loss. You were all flustered and couldn't even look at me a moment ago — what happened?
Puzzled as he was, his hand kept moving without pause. Once he'd carefully gone over every tooth, he lifted the cup to her lips. "That should do it — go ahead and rinse."
"Gurgle gurgle~ ptoo~"
After several rounds of rinsing, Jhin surveyed Pecorine's gleaming white teeth and gave a satisfied nod. "Nice. All clean. Now for your face."
He brushed the damp strands of hair away from her forehead, then brought a warm, slightly steaming towel up and gently wiped her face. Even through the cloth, the soft, springy, pudding-like give of her skin transmitted itself clearly to his fingertips.
Feeling how practiced his movements were, Pecorine found herself genuinely curious. "Jhin, have you looked after people often before?"
"Less 'looked after' and more 'supervised'," Jhin said, and the mere thought of that particular problem child gave him a headache. "If I don't keep an eye on her, she'd happily spend months without setting foot outside, living in a pile of garbage."
"Ahaha... it's that serious?"
Staying indoors for months wasn't so shocking in itself — Pecorine had heard that it was perfectly normal for mages to shut themselves in for years at a stretch. But living in an actual garbage pile was a whole different level of alarming.
"I'm telling you, she'd gladly hand everything over to me to deal with except for her gaming time," Jhin went on, grumbling about Gabriel like a fussy old housewife — yet his expression held not a trace of irritation. If anything, he looked like he was quietly enjoying it.
Pecorine tugged at his sleeve. "Um... until my injuries are fully healed, would it be alright if I asked you to be in charge of brushing my teeth and washing my face? Megumin and Kokkoro both have a bit of trouble with the height..."
"Fair enough. You're the tallest girl among us — if Kokkoro were doing it, she'd probably have to drag a stool over and stand on tiptoe."
"Mhm. So... is that okay?"
"No problem at all." Jhin accepted the task without a second thought.
____
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