Blue and White - Levi Fanfiction

Ch. 03 - Still and Silent

"Goddesses help me," I muttered to myself, rubbing my weary eyes with the heels of my hands. "I need a day off."

It was probably a bad move, to be honest, to let my guard down like that for even a single moment. I was just about to close up shop at work, and as far as I had seen, no one had been around but one can never be too sure about these things around here. I blinked my tiredness away for now and packed up what I needed to. I emptied out the contents in the moneybox into my coin purse instead, and with that in tow, I left.

I stifled a yawn as I turned a corner. There'd been no leftovers to bring home but today had been so incredibly slow and boring and awful and while I told myself that I would leave at the normal time, we needed all the extra money we could get and so I stayed open until everything was gone and now, at long last, I'd sold my daily stock and earned for myself a respectable bit of money.

As far as I knew, there had been enough food in our pantry at home for a few days. By now, Caden would have been fed already even if El waited up for me to get home before he himself ate. He was just selfless like that.

Goodness, hopefully I was right in that we did have food. I was starving.

I stifled a yawn as I turned around a corner and headed down along another street. El knew I was staying late, for he'd stopped by on his way home from work, Caden with him. The walk home was quiet and uneventful, thankfully, and when at last I started up the dirt path towards the house, I was sure that I had never been happier to just get home.

It was a simple blessing to be sure, but it was just such a welcome sight that I couldn't help but sigh wistfully at the sight of it, of the golden light of the candles streaming through the breaks in the curtains.

I remarked for a moment on how quiet the neighborhood was tonight. Typically, our street - unlike many others in the city - would be quiet, even if it never was silent. Usually I would be able to hear talking, or perhaps singing from somewhere else, or a distant scuffle between early drinkers, and sometimes even the sound of a guitar found its way here. Sometimes there would be a small gathering on a porch between our neighbors, and occasionally we would join them.

But there was none of that. Not tonight - all was quiet.

It was strange, incredibly so. It felt almost as though the city was holding its collective breath, waiting for something, anything to happen.

Well, let it happen. So long as it happened far away from here, I didn't care about anything more than just relaxing with my family, decompressing from the day, and having a meal, meager though it might be.

I shrugged off the strange feeling and stepped through the door, entering the house and saying a quiet hello in greeting as I did. I smiled at Caden who was kneeling on the floor and drawing on a piece of paper set atop the table, but my smile faltered even as he excitedly answered my greeting.

To my surprise, the house smelled of nothing - not food, nor even the lingering remains of food. I knew what the house smelt like before, during, and after a meal. While our food was never especially aromatic, delicious, or typically requiring us to even warm it up and reinvigorate their scents, the air in here was dry and lifeless and I looked over at Caden.

"Cay," I said, setting my coin purse on the table, "did you eat yet?"

He shook his head in reply.

"Is El here?"

"Mm-hm."

Strange. Very strange.

And extremely irresponsible.

I did not let my frustration get to me right away, not yet. Rather, I made my way to the kitchen and started preparing whatever I could muster up for him. I had been right, we did have enough food in the pantry for a few more days. So why in the hell didn't El put something together for Caden?