"Slow down!" Nora groaned. "No one's going to steal your food."
He stopped mid-bite and looked at her with pure, primal seriousness.
"All mine?"
She blinked. "Yours? I paid for all of that."
As her hand moved toward a plate.
He hissed, almost like a snake.
Or some kind of food-possessive demon.
But It was a very clear "touch-my-food-and-die" kind of hiss.
Completely normal behavior.
Nora pulled her hand back slowly.
Very slowly.
Like she was trying not to startle a wild animal.
Which, to be fair, she kind of was.
He was still baring his teeth at her.
"…Okay. Okay. It's all yours."
"Yeah no touch"
"You act like you haven't eaten in years."
He paused. Just for a second.
Because she'd actually nailed it. Dead on. Without even trying.
He looked her in the eye, cheeks puffed out, and nodded.
"Yeah."
Nora stared at him. Her expression hovered somewhere between "he's joking" and "oh god, he's not joking," and she couldn't seem to pick one.
The table was a battlefield. Roast meat. Bread. Soup. More roast meat. Even some vegetables, though they clearly knew they weren't welcome.
He glared at each one, sizing them up, deciding who would meet their end first.
In this war, the rules were simple.
If it fit on a plate, it fit in his stomach.
This wasn't talent. This wasn't enthusiasm.
This was skill.
Years of eating nothing but snakes—raw snakes, uncooked snakes, snake soup without the soup.
And now he had the ability to eat an absolutely unreasonable amount of food at an absolutely unreasonable speed.
He shoved as much as he could into his mouth, barely pausing to breathe. Chewing was optional. Tasting was a luxury. He was less a person eating and more a human vacuum with legs.
"Do you even taste it?" Nora asked, horrified.
"Yeah!" Another plate gone.
Well—except for one tragic, devastating, absolutely unforgivable fact.
The island didn't have curry.
"We're missing some of the spices," the server had said when he'd asked.
Shiro had never felt more betrayed in his life.
He had mourned internally but managed to recover quickly. There was still food. So much food.
Across the table, Nora kept glancing at her purse. Her face got a little paler with each empty plate that stacked up.
"All my monthly allowance," she muttered, voice small. "Gone."
She sniffled like she might cry.
Shiro paused, meat halfway to his mouth.
"You okay?"
"NO." She gestured at the plates. "Do you know how long I saved for that?!"
"…Want me to stop?"
"IT'S TOO LATE NOW." Her voice cracked. She looked at the empty plates like they'd personally betrayed her. "But you're paying me back. Eventually. Somehow."
"Okay."
He nodded solemnly and kept eating.
He did felt bad. Not "stop eating" bad, obviously. That would be insane. More like "I shouldn't take advantage of her kindness" bad.
He looked at Nora. She kept glancing at her purse, then at the mountain of empty plates, then back at her purse like it had personally betrayed her.
He grabbed one of the bones—still had a good chunk of mystery monster meat on it—and held it up to her face.
"Here. Have some. It tastes like meat."
She stared at the bone. Then at him.
"…It IS meat, the expensive kind too. What else would it taste like? Vegetables?"
He laughed. "Fair point."
She grabbed the bone, taking a small bite while looking away. Still pouting.
It was kind of… cute? And for some odd reason it made his heart skip a bit.
Which was terrifying.
So naturally, his brain did what it always did when faced with an unfamiliar emotion.
Saying stupid stuff.
"You know, I heard eating more makes your chest bigger."
Her face went bright red. She swung the bone at his head.
But he caught it between his teeth mid-swing and bit down, tearing off a chunk of meat.
"Thanks," he said around the mouthful, grinning.
"You—I was—THAT WAS SUPPOSED TO HIT YOU!"
"It did. Right in the mouth. Worked out great."
"I HATE YOU."
"You're so annoying," she hissed.
Then she went quiet.
Not the angry quiet. Not the embarrassed quiet.
The distant kind.
Her eyes unfocused, staring at nothing. She didn't talk for a while, just sat there like her mind had wandered off somewhere else entirely.
He could tell she was in distress. Something was bothering her.
And he had a pretty good idea why.
"So," he said casually, taking a big bite of meat, "why'd my name make you go all crazy?"
She didn't answer right away. Just sat there, teeth clenched, eyes getting watery.
She took a deep breath, trying to pull herself together.
"He was a close friend," she said finally.
Her voice came out soft. Quiet. Fragile.
The words hit Shiro harder than he expected.
His chest felt heavy. Like something had dropped into it and was pulling everything down with it.
He froze.
The bone steak in his hand suddenly didn't look so great anymore. His stomach twisted. The food he'd already eaten suddenly wanted to come back up.
She was talking about him.
He already knew that.
They'd been close when they were young. Really close. The kind of close that only happens when two kids have nothing else to hold onto but each other.
He remembered it so vividly. Every detail. Too many details, honestly, for someone trying very hard to pretend he didn't care.
When his father locked him in the storage room for days—sometimes a week—Nora would sneak food from her house.
Bread wrapped in cloth. Fruit she'd hidden in her pockets.
She'd crouch by the door and slide it through the gap at the bottom, whispering that it would be okay.
She'd help him bandage his injuries. Her small hands working carefully, gently, even when his were shaking.
Sometimes, when his fingers were too broken to hold anything, she'd feed him herself. Piece by piece. Patient as anything.
She'd been there.
But that's the thing about happy stories.
They don't stay happy.
Her father didn't want her anywhere near him. And Every time she got close, he'd pull her away. With each meet the punishment got worse for him.
And eventually, the gap between them grew wider than any storage room door.
And he'd be alone again.
Isolated.
Like he'd always been.
He wanted to stop asking questions. Wanted to let it go. Wanted to change the subject.
But something in him wanted to know more.
"Oh." He forced his voice to stay light. Casual. "Nice. So where is he now? Why are you looking for him?"
But his voice broke halfway through.
'Smooth. Real smooth.'
"My father said he died on a mission." Her voice turned ice cold. "But, I don't believe it."
She leaned forward slightly, eyes dark.
"He better hope he had died. Because if I ever find him alive, I will choke him to death myself."
"COUGH—COUGH—"
Nora jumped up, shoving water at him and slapping his back hard enough to bruise.
"Are you okay?!"
'NO.'
'YOU JUST THREATENED TO MURDER ME.'
"Yeah—" Cough. "Yeah, I'm fine—"
He grabbed the water and chugged the entire glass. His throat burned. His eyes watered. His lungs hated him.
"What—" Another cough. "What did he even do to you?"
She slammed her fist on the table.
"THAT IDIOT!" Her voice rose sharply. "He threw our duel on PURPOSE! Like I was some joke to him! Like I wasn't even worth taking seriously!"
Heads turned at nearby tables. Someone told her to quiet down.
She ignored them.
Those words hit him like physical blows.
'Mocking you. All this time, you thought I was mocking you.'
'I did lose on purpose. You're right about that.' The duel that got him thrown in the well.
'But never to mock you. Never. I did it to save you.'
'Just tell her, Shiro. Spill it out, damn it.'
But he couldn't.
His throat closed up. The words wouldn't come.
'Tell her why.'
'Tell her—'
He took a deep breath.
"You were—"
Just as he was about to say it—about to tell her everything, every last stupid truth he'd been holding in—
A massive hand reached over and grabbed one of the bones off his plate.
His plate.
"What the—"