Everglow: Friend From Far Away

13 - Tastes Of Earth

"Hey Mira, you there?" he asked, holding the phone up to his ear. The familiar voice on the other end of the phone crackled to life as Mira spoke through it.

"Yea, what's up?"

"I'm really sorry, but I'm not going to be able to meet you on Saturday. There's. . . been a change of plans,"

"Oh really? Bummer. What happened? Work?"

Looking over at Ko who was sitting on the workbench playing with a hacksaw, his face contorted into a slight frown at Mira's question about work. It wasn't work, but there was no way he was going to tell her about Ko, even if he did trust her more than anyone else.

"Yea. . . I guess you could say that," he said hesitantly.

The stutter in his speech caught Mira's attention. Knowing him for his whole life, she had grown quite adept at interpreting his speech mannerisms and telling when something was wrong. Right now she knew something wasn't quite right.

"You guess? Fish, is everything alright? What's on your mind?"

"Nothing, I'm fine. I just can't make it then. Look I have to go, I'll call you back alright?" His words were quick and hurried.

"Fischer, hold on a second. What's going on-"

He quickly hung up the phone before Mira could finish her sentence. Cursing under his breath, he looked back over at Ko only to realise she was staring right at him. She didn't need to say anything for him to know what she was wondering.

"Mira's a friend. I had planned to go and see her in a few days but since you're here, I'm not leaving the house unless I absolutely have to. I just had to let her know that the catch up was cancelled."

Ko's eyes drooped slightly at the statement. "Because of me?" she asked hesitantly, knowing it was the truth. Because he found her, his life was now completely changed. He could never go back to what he had before, and it was all her fault.

"No no no, not at all. It's not your fault, don't say that. I just. . . I don't want to leave you alone in a place like this unless I know you're absolutely safe. Don't think this is your fault," He spluttered, almost tripping over his words. While yes, a little part of him knew that it was in fact her fault, there was no way in hell he was going to blame her for circumstances she had zero control over. Well as far as he knew she had zero control.

"It's ok to say yes. I know it's the truth. If you hadn't found me then you would've come home normally and everything would be fine for you-" she was cut off by Fischer who raised his voice slightly at her remarks.

"Ko, don't start. Now is not the time to be talking about this sort of thing ok? Doesn't matter who's fault it is, doesn't matter who puts the blame on who, point is, you're here and you're alive. And I intend to keep it that way ok? That last thing you should be doing right now is putting yourself down and blaming yourself for things you've got no control over," He insisted, trying his best to fester the blame away from her.

"Ok. If you say so," Ko muttered. She put the hacksaw back on the bench and hopped onto her feet.

"I'm going to go check to see when my mum is going out. Feel free to make this shed your own, tidy it up how you want. We hardly ever use it anyway."

"Alright," she quirked. Fischer picked himself off the bench and headed for the door. He swung it shut behind him with a wooden 'clank'.

"Laaan-."

Taking a few steps down to his house, he paused for a second. What was that? It sounded like a whisper of some sort, but he couldn't make it out. It wasn't the wind, it sounded too clear to be the wind. Turning back around to see if Ko was behind him, he only saw the shed and the trail that led from it, nothing out of the ordinary.

"-terrrnn."

"Lantern?" He said to himself, repeating what he thought he heard. But nothing eventful happened. Chalking it up to his imagination, he continued down to the house.

Opening the door inside, he could hear the sound of the TV playing. However he knew that his mum was often too lazy to even turn it off before leaving the house. Cautiously, he made his way to the living room and inspected it. Sure enough, the TV was on but the old woman was gone. Turning it off, a wave of relief washed over him as now his mother was out of the picture, at least for a few hours.

With little left he could do with Ko other than letting her inside, which he wasn't sure he wanted to do yet, he decided that she might be pretty hungry. He was, so that was an excuse enough to get some food. Taking a few slices of bread out of the pantry, he also grabbed some cheese and lettuce from the fridge and quickly whipped together two small sandwiches for them both. Taking a plate out and placing both the meals on, he headed back up to the shed.

"You really think she's going to like that shit?"

"Mira's going to be pissed with you now, she probably won't want to talk with you for a long time."

"You never should've found her, you should've kept driving you fucking idiot."

"How the hell do you plan on keeping her safe? You can't hide her forever."

"Eventually you'll get caught. Eventually you'll be found."

Try as he might, he couldn't stop the voices of anxiety from ripping apart his mind. They were constantly there, even if he couldn't always hear them.

The worst part was, he knew they were often true.

"Fuck you," he muttered to himself as he marched up to the shed. He didn't need this now. Trying his best to ignore them, he opened the door and walked inside. Ko immediately took note of his body language. He was tense, his shoulders raised slightly and his grip on the plates tight. His face had a frown painted over it, his eyes looking directly downwards as he walked in.

She could tell something was wrong, but for the moment chalked it up to still being slightly apprehensive about her staying with him. She also took note of the two plates he had in his hand, more specifically, the fact he was extending his hand out and offering one of them to her.

"Here, sandwiches. Thought you might be hungry after everything that's happened," his voice sounded weary, like he was trying to be happy, like his smile was just a masquerade, hiding something from her.

Taking the plate from his hand, she inspected the food that lay atop it. Two triangles of white bread, with various filler nutrients in the middle. "Thankyou," she said, smiling in his direction. She caught a glimpse of a quick smile back in her direction as she took a bite from the sandwich.

It wasn't long before their meals were downed, both of them quite hungry from the last few hours. "You like it?" Fischer asked, curious as to how she would react to human foods.

Ko nodded eagerly, swallowing the last chunk of food in her mouth. "Yea, it tastes nice, thankyou. I needed that,"

"Well that's good. I'm glad you like some of our food. Means you won't go hungry anymore," he said, still looking down at the floor. His behavior hadn't gone unnoticed by her, and she was beginning to grow curious as to why. It was almost like he was a different person now than he was ten minutes ago.

"Fischer?"

"Yea?" he looked upwards at her, ready to answer whatever she was about to ask.

"Are. . . are you alright?"