As the lights embeded into the design of the domain's entrance changed from blue to red, Ryuzu picked up Carman and started moving back towards the city of Fontaine. They had been in the laboratory for quite some time, as they had entered in the afternoon and now the edge of the sun was kissing the horizon, painting the sky in hues of yellows, oranges, and purples as the stars and moon started to make themselves known in the sky.
The grassy fields danced as cool night breezes passed through their blades.
Ryuzu started picking up speed after making sure nobody would see them. She might not be the strongest in this world, but her ability to move at superhuman speeds would still easily stand out and draw more attention than they could afford at the moment.
As they left Chenyu Vale, Ryuzu headed towards a tall hill that was close enough to an Aquabus line that one could jump from the hill to the concrete sidewalk of the line.
Picking up more speed, Ryuzu jumped, leaving small indentations where she compressed the ground and landed on the sidewalk of the aquabus line.
Ryuzu's heels clicked rapidly against the concrete as she ran towards the city, the sunset behind them. As they neared the walls of the city, Ryuzu gradually slowed down to a normal person's running pace.
As the entered the station, the found nobody there. It seems that it was closed for the day.
Looking around to make sure there was nobody to see them, Ryuzu and Carman carefully climbed around the wall and into the city.
As they walked the streets of Fontaine, the last rays of sunlight made the glass and brass details of the buildings reflect a golden hue. Most of the stores were closing, but sounds of people could still be heard from bars and other "night life" establishments.
Thankfully there wasn't a red light district, at least not on the top half of Fontaine. If there was, he would likely have stumbled across something on the streets he would have spent all his system points to purchase eye bleach for. For someone with the mental age of an adult, he was rather inexperienced when it came to certain adult activities.
Carman and Ryuzu entered the apartment building and started to descend to the bottom floor where their apartment was.
While walking down the stairs Carman pondered out loud what he was thinking.
"I wonder what Livre is making for dinner. Probably something with onions, he seems to be fond of that flavor, since keeps taking us to that restaurant, you know the one with fresh onion soup." Said Carman.
"Indeed, I have also counted that of the 14 times he has taken us to eat out, 12 of those times he requested onions be added to an item that did not originally have them." Recounted Ryuzu.
Carman wasn't adverse to the taste of onions, but he also was tired of the smell, as Livre often took his time enjoying the smell and flavor of the French onion soup he would buy.
There was also a time Livre had packed a bowl of the soup for lunch only to accidentally spill it in the workshop. Thankfully it was in the workroom and not in the customer area, but working in a room with the smell of onions for a week, especially as the smell started to degrade would turn most people off of an ingredient.
As they got closer to the door, Carman could smell the scent of cooking seasoned beef, cheese, and... Eggs? He couldn't quite place the last one.
Unlocking the door, Carman and Ryuzu took off their shoes and walked into the apartment.
Following the scent, Carman, followed by Ryuzu walked into the kitchen, finding Livre humming while holding a pot and ladling something into three bowls. Moving the pot and ladle to the sink, he put on oven mits and pulled out a pan of steaming baguette slices as the smell of garlic filled the room. His humming came to a stop after he put the baguette slices into a platter and turned around and saw them in the doorway.
"Hmm, hmm, hummm 🎶.... Gear Grinding Gardemeks! You two are too quiet." Said Livre as he jumped, dropping the pan and clutching his chest. "Welcome home you two, please go clean up, I'll get dinner on the table."
"Sorry.." said Carman, he wasn't trying to be sneaky, but solid carpeted floors didn't really make much noise when a child was walking, and Ryuzu when she wasn't wearing shoes or talking was practically the closest thing to absolute silence one could find if one didn't have super hearing.
Carman and Ryuzu walked to the bathroom and cleaned their hands before walking to the dining area.
Livre was already there and had set up the table and taken a seat on one of the chairs.
Sitting down, Carman looked at the dish, Livre had made, it had odd shaped noodles and seems to have a cheese sauce with ground beef mixed into it. On toplivre had placed two green leaves as garnish, seemed to be basil leaves.
'i know that Fontaine is based off of France, but why does Livre's food make me think of that Italian place near my work in my past life?' Thought Carman
"I saw how much you enjoyed that pasta with cheese sauce, so I tried to recreate it, of course I took some liberties, such as adding some beef." Said Livre.
Carman nodded and took a bite. It was good, he didn't recognize what type of cheese it was, it tasted like something between Cheddar and Gouda.
"There isn't any Macaroni in this, so what do you call this dish?" Asked Carman.
"I was thinking of something a long the lines of "Boeuf et Fromage sur Engrenages" what do you think? Too basic?" Said Livre.
"No, no it's accurate. Better it be boring than misleading." Said Carman.
Livre laughed, "True, true, I was thinking something a long the lines of Beef and Cheese rounds, but that didn't feel right. So I used the shape of the noodles, as well as the noble dialect to give it a more fancy name. Glad it fit."
Carman, Livre and Ryuzu ate in peace. Carman and Livre, unaware that the other was also doing so, were pondering their connection. And how it would play out in the future. But that conversation shouldn't be done while one's mouth was full of food. They both decided independently to bring it up after dinner was over.
-To be continued
Hey everyone,
Sorry for the delay, and for cutting this chapter short. Had the drafts get regressed twice in me so I had to rewrite it multiple times. Not sure if I kept it coherent. So please feel free to point out any missing details.
Thank you for all the the support and advice so far. You all are blowing me away with mow many power stones this story got this week 37 (at the time of this writing). Holy cow.
Be prepared for action after the final part of this family dinner. It's time for Carman to form an actual plan for his future and start taking steps to engineer a path to the top. lol.
As the group finished dinner, Ryuzu picked up the plates and brought them to the kitchen to clean.
Sitting alone together, Carman and Libre Faced one another. Both wanted to discuss their current dynamic as adoptive parent and child, but neither knew where to start. Both were too focused on their thoughts to notice the other's facial expression.
"Carman.." "Livre."
They said each other's names at the same time, stopped in surprise, and motioned for the other to speak.
It took a couple of seconds to figure out who would go first, which was Livre.
Figuring he should lighten the mood a bit before getting into the heavy topic, livre asked.
"So how did you like the dinner? It was a bit heavy in my opinion, but quite filling." Said Livre.
Carman cracked a self deprecating smile as he looked at Livre. "It was good, you already know that I've eaten worse things than a cream heavy meal. But I have a feeling you wanted to discuss something else."
"Heh, yeah, just want sure how I should bring it up it feels like I'm always floundering with this stuff. But you know it feels like something a parent should do. Make sure their kid doesn't hate the food they make?" Said Livre.
Carman chucked, realizing that he and Livre were probably thinking of broaching the same topic earlier. "Well yes and no. It is typically the parents duty to make sure their kids are fed, but it doesn't necessarily have to be food the kid likes. Good parents make sure their kids aren't limited by their pallet. But that's some I've already learn the hard way. If you were going to ask me how I would like you to parent me. I honestly have no clue." Said Carman while shrugging at the end of his sentence.
Livre chucked a bit as he fiddled with a crumb from the Garlic Baguettes.
"I figured I'd get that kind of answer. I feel like most kids would have already spouted off a list of ways I should be parenting them better, but when I talk with you, half the time it's like I'm talking to someone older thsn me, smarter than me. I offered to adopt you since I saw a younger version of me in you and I wanted to help you, nurture you to be someone better than me. But with how quickly you pick everything up, I end up learning from you more than. I teach you now. Heck I'm not even the one making sure you are up in the morning and ready to go to school. It's more like you are my apprentice, or mentee rather than my kid."
Livre sighed. "Trying to figure out how to be a parent has been like trying to build a toy without blueprints and blindfolded."
Carman chuckled, "That's not really a good analogy, but I get what your meaning, but here is the thing. That's life. We are all stumbling around like blind fools, all we have is our past and goals to guide us. The role of a parent in my opinion is someone who uses the mistakes of their past to guide the next generation to avoid the pits that they themselves fell into."
Livre smiled, "Sometimes I wonder who is the real parent is here, a kid your age has no reason to be as wise as you are."
"Meh, parent and child, that's for other folks, but we are family. Sure I'm not your typical kid, I don't need reminders to brush my teeth and go to bed, but for what is worth, out of all of us, you are the one that feels like the parent in the family, I see and am thankfull for all the effort you put in." Said Carman his tone and expression lighthearted at first but becoming serious as he finished.
A light laugh could be heard from around the corner, as Livre and Carman looked towards the source they found Ryuzu, rounding the corner, having stopped laughing but was still holding her hand in front of her mouth her eyes slightly closed in mirth.
"Apologies, I didn't not mean to come across as mocking you two's discussion. I simply found humor in you two's description of your situation. Though I must say I am curious how you see me in this family of yours Carman." She said.
"Elder sister." Said Carman swiftly.
"Oh my, and after all I do to help you, you don't see me as one of your parents?" Asked Ryuzu teasingly.
"Nope. It's also the job of older siblings to look after the younger ones." Replied Carman.
Ryuzu took a moment to consider before nodding her head in acceptance. "Indeed, your point is logical, I did spend a lot of time cleaning up after my younger sisters when we were still together."
Livre sighed in relief as the conversation grew lighter once more. Most of his guilt over not helping take care of Carman had been relieved, though he resolved himself to earn more mora so he could move out of his current apartment sooner. He still wasn't sure entirely what Ryuzu was, as she looked and acted almost perfectly like a human being despite being built out of gears, but they did indeed act like siblings in his eyes.
The three discussed various topics ranging from projects to work and eventually everyone was yawning and ready to go to sleep. Ryuzu offered to let Livre sleep in the apartment with them, but Livre refused, not wanting to impose when his apartment was closed enough to walk to despite his current drowsiness.
Ryuzu insisted on walking him home though to make sure he was safe, and as an adventurer he couldn't argue he wouldn't be safer with her around so he agreed.
As Ryuzu left to get ready, walked over to Livre, and gave him a quick hug before stepping back and walking towards his room.
"Tonight was fun, we should do it again sometime. Have a good night Pop." Carman said as he walked into the hallway Ryuzu had disappeared into.
Livre, despite the cool night breeze was quite warm as he walked back home, and Ryuzu mentioned several times on a goofy expression on his face.
-To be continued
Hey everyone,
Sorry about the lack of chapters last week, my family is very serious when it comes to Thanksgiving, so there was a lot of last minute prep and travel going on. I hope everyone had a good holiday. I'll hopefully have time to finish and post another chapter this week to make up for it.
As always please comment on ways to improve this story, I was having trouble finding the right tone for this interaction. Any feedback, positive and negative is welcome.
bình luận đoạn văn
Tính năng bình luận đoạn văn hiện đã có trên Web! Di chuyển chuột qua bất kỳ đoạn nào và nhấp vào biểu tượng để thêm nhận xét của bạn.
Ngoài ra, bạn luôn có thể tắt / bật nó trong Cài đặt.
ĐÃ NHẬN ĐƯỢC