Persephone was genuinely surprised for the first time in a while.

‘Hades has been ruminating about me?’

Not only the fact that she occupied the mind of such a rigid-looking man, but also…

‘Does that mean he tried to restrain himself to think less of me?’

Persephone rolled her eyes with a vague feeling.

Ah, this is, how should I put it, a little…

“…It’s not that I was thinking about you, but about the cake.”

At that moment, Persephone’s thoughts, which were about to reach some conclusion, were abruptly cut off.

She blinked at Hades, who calmly corrected her misunderstanding. Her hand naturally touched her cheek.

“Ah, it was the cake, not me?”

Perhaps because of the alcohol, there was a slight warmth on her cheeks.

“You could have been thinking about me. After all, I’m the one who made you the cake.”

Persephone threw a sulky jab at Hades.

His lips parted and closed repeatedly.

“…Well, I suppose it’s not much different.”

Hades crossed his arms, avoiding Persephone’s gaze.

“I’ve always been curious about you, so I must have thought about you… a little this time too.”

Thinking Persephone was displeased, Hades softened his words appropriately. Bringing up old times.

“Even when you said you’d reveal the reason for using ‘the problematic word’ 60 hours later, I wondered what that reason might be.”

“No way, you still remember that?”

“How could I forget?”

Persephone’s lips opened and closed like a goldfish. She put her hands on her hips.

“If you say that, I’ll be at a loss for words again. What I said back then was pure nonsense.”

“…You spoke well, why do you say that?”

“Hmm…”

Persephone hummed and touched her lips.

‘Even I think I spoke well at the time, but Hades still believes it.’

She continued carefully.

“Hades, you should be careful when lending money to someone later, okay?”

A concerned look touched Hades.

“You’re quite naive, you know.”

“…”

“Staying only in the underworld, you don’t know how harsh the world is…”

Of course, she didn’t realize that it was like looking at the neighborhood fool, and that seeing that face made Hades somehow want to slap his forehead.

“Don’t tell me you see me as someone who needs to be taken care of?”

At Hades’ urgent question, Persephone rolled her eyes.

‘Someone who needs to be taken care of? …Well, I did experience a parent’s feelings seeing him enjoy the cake.’

From then on, Persephone felt close to Hades as a god himself, not as the lord of the underworld, and thus could plan to keep visiting his office.

Persephone, who had been silent, put her hands behind her back.

“So, do you dislike it?”

A bright smile appeared on her clear, white face.

Hades flinched for a moment seeing that face. It was a very confident look, as if to say, “How could you not accept it?”

Seeing that he couldn’t say anything more, Persephone smiled even more deeply.

As I thought, you don’t dislike me.

‘…Then it should be okay to introduce you to the ‘interesting thing’ I just discovered, right?’

That ‘interesting thing’ was in the kitchen Hades had just opened for her, so she really wanted to show it to him.

“Ah, that’s right!”

She clapped her hands softly while watching Hades’ reaction.

“I was going to move the wine amphora, but I almost forgot while talking with you.”

“What wine?”

Persephone pointed to the amphora inside.

“I was drinking wine until just now. I was planning to move it all to the kitchen this time.”

“Can’t you just leave it in the room? It looks heavy.”

“There’s something interesting in the kitchen.”

As Persephone hugged the amphora, Hades supported its base with the power of darkness.

She grinned at Hades gratefully, then jerked her chin towards the end of the corridor.

“Want to check it out together?”

“A refrigerator?”

“Yes!”

The place Persephone brought Hades to was the basement used as a cold storage in the kitchen.

“Is this the ‘interesting thing’ you mentioned?”

“That’s right!”

A refrigerator, huh.

‘It’s certainly cool, just as the name suggests.’

The temperature in the place where neat gray bricks were stacked was noticeably lower compared to the outside.

Although the underworld itself was less hot than the surface, this place felt even cooler than the underworld.

“I didn’t know there was a place like this, did you know about it, Hades?”

“No, I’m just now vaguely remembering its structure. I’ve hardly ever entered the kitchen directly.”

When Plutus was alive, he consistently ordered meals from the chef’s spirit.

He had rarely held a knife in the kitchen himself, so how could he have known exactly what the kitchen looked like?

‘I should have paid a little more attention.’

Then he could have told Persephone what the old kitchen was like, this and that.

Regretting this, he looked around more carefully.

The basement of the kitchen, lit only by minimal candles, was so low that Hades himself could touch the ceiling with his arm outstretched and still have room to spare.

The width was not very spacious either, making it look like a prison at first glance.

But on one side of the wall, four pipes were diagonally pierced, allowing a hint of light to enter through those passages.

Hades put his hand into the entrance of a pipe. A tickling sensation touched the tip of his arm stretched out slightly upward.

‘The wind is flowing.’

It was evidence that the temperature was being regulated as air from inside and outside passed through.

“Is this the ventilation?”

“Yes, it seems so.”

Persephone, who had put down the amphora in a corner on the floor, patted her hands to remove the dust.

“Um, actually, I was originally planning to make a storage by stacking two jars.”

“What’s that? Is it similar to a refrigerator?”

Persephone pointed to a slightly larger jar.

“Yes, it’s a small refrigerator. You put a small jar inside a big jar and fill the space between the two jars with clay.”

“And after filling it?”

“You pour water into that clay, and when all the moisture in the clay dries up in the sunlight, the inside of the small jar becomes cold.”

“Ah…”

“But in the underworld, it’s less hot even in summer, so the water doesn’t dry that quickly. So it failed.”

He thought it was nonsense, but it seemed to use the principle of water taking away surrounding heat as it evaporates.

But as Persephone said, it would be difficult to do evaporative cooling in the underworld.

It’s not like there’s intense sunlight beating down day and night like in desert regions or Hellas (*Greece) summers.

“You did well to figure out this was a refrigerator. Was there a similar structure in Demeter’s house?”

“There was.”

Persephone nodded roughly.

“But it reminded me more of old times. I used to keep the jar refrigerator in the underground storage.”

On hot summer days, Persephone would not only go into the underground, but even bury herself in the jar inside.

‘Mom spent all day looking for me because of that.’

At that moment, Hades gave her a doubtful look.

“Why, did you get scolded for being inside that jar?”

Persephone, startled, unconsciously avoided his eyes.

“…”

At that moment, Hades thought.

It seems that, whether it’s getting close to a beehive to collect herbs or this, she’s always been the same when it comes to doing dangerous things…

‘Is this why I can’t take my eyes off her?’

Somehow, there was a reason why he kept thinking about her.

She always shows unexpected behavior in unexpected places, so from his perspective, every moment is new.

Hades watched as Persephone bustled about, pretending to be busy.

She was opening wooden boxes one by one, which seemed to have been moved in advance, besides the amphora she had brought.

Pickle jars, bags of powder, bottles of cow’s milk that were obviously brought from the living world by Hermes, and fresh fruits and vegetables that seemed to have been picked from the Elysian Fields emerged from the boxes one after another.

The shelves were quickly filled with ingredients.

The variety of ingredients all played a part in making the kitchen basement feel less like a cubbyhole.

It was also a perfect coincidence that the one handling these ingredients had the rarest color in the underworld.

It was around the time he was watching to make sure Persephone didn’t drop any jars.

A pale yellow bottle caught the edge of his vision.

‘Is it honey?’

Hades took out the glass bottle and examined it carefully.

But the color was too opaque to be honey, and strangely white. As if mold had grown.

Unable to bear it any longer, Hades called out to Persephone.

“Persephone.”

“Yes, what is it!”

“This honey seems to have gone bad. Shouldn’t we throw it away?”

“The honey went bad?”

Persephone, who had hurriedly put down an empty box, hopped towards Hades.

“Oh my, that can’t be…!”

Just as she snatched the bottle from him and frowned deeply.

An undeniable hint of laughter seeped into her harsh expression.

“…Pfft.”

“What’s the matter?”

“Ahaha!”

Persephone laughed as heartily as before.

“Hehe… You think this has gone bad?”