In Aid

27. Coen

I ended up taking a nap in the tub and only realized how dangerous that was when I was getting out and almost slipped. I could have sunk into the water of the deep tub and drowned in my sleep, but I had been tired. It must have been because I hardly went out anymore, but having a busy day took more out of me than it used to. The high temperature had sapped my energy. Even though the country didn't get hot enough to require domes to protect residents from the heat, it still got really hot for a good deal of the year.

I wasn't the only one who took a nap. When I went out into the kitchen to find a snack, Milan was already there eating the leftovers from lunch and admitted to just waking up. Apparently, too much heat tired him out and made him sleepy.

With Milan's permission, I took one of his honey chips and some kind of sparkling fruit drink and we settled down in the living room to eat. It wasn't a spoken rule, but something I observed and followed. Food was usually eaten at the table, but when food was brought into the living room, we sat on the floor and had it on the coffee table. The only exception was before my ribs healed. I didn't have the mobility to sit on the floor and get up as I liked.

After a few hours of watching a game show, we got up to clean, and then we got to work on making dinner. Milan found a recipe for a similar noodle bowl, and we got to cooking. He did most of the work since I wouldn't try cutting vegetables with my left hand. I was tasked with stirring, adding in ingredients, and stir-frying while Milan prepped everything.

"How's English reading going?" I asked, noticing that Milan had gotten through the recipe easily without my help.

"Fine. I just need help with recognizing the words because some of them don't look like how they are pronounced. The bus app that we used today had too many long words."

"I guess some street names can be harder to pronounce than everyday words."

"I never thought I'd ever need to learn to read. There were no books around when I was growing up."

Everything Milan had ever said about his past was strange, but it was almost as if he didn't know how strange it was. "Your... uh, your master never had books?"

"Not for me, no. He only had books for his work. Those were the only books I was around and since I still didn't know the alphabet back then, it wasn't of any interest to me."

I wanted to ask more questions, but I also didn't want to seem too nosy. "Oh."

"You can ask, you know. As long as you don't tell Sang that I told you. He gets angry whenever my life before him gets brought up."

"I'll keep my mouth shut then. Did your master raise you?" I asked.

"Indirectly. He had people who worked for him that raised me and my siblings."

"How many of you were there?"

"I don't know. I never met everyone because we were always moving around to different houses every few months. But there were only twelve of us allowed to stay in each house at once. Twelve of us, four inner guards, I-don't-know-how-many outer guards, and Master would visit us every now and again to make sure we were alright."

This sounded strangely familiar. "That sounds sketchy. How were you living before you lived with that man?"

Milan leaned against the counter. "I grew up with that man." His tone suggested he hadn't liked how I had phrased my question. "I don't remember a life without him. I don't even know if I had one. As far as I know, I was born and raised with Master. It might sound strange to you, but I was happy there. I had food, shelter, clothes and company. We went to school, learned to swim and cook, had board games to play-"