Shadow Things

XIV

To a passing onlooker the days that followed Felix's unexpected confession would seem vaguely entertaining, and perhaps even a little endearing. Felix, who had in a moment of weakness treaded upon the much-abandoned path of honesty was now sweating it between living up to his words and shamming partial amnesia. He no doubt wished he had stayed his tongue in time and not blurted his heart out like that. If he could take his words back now, he would, or maybe he'd word them differently, with a little more nuance and subtlety woven in so as to be able to save his lofty face now.

At least that was the impression Hansel got from Felix's erratic behaviour and self-contradictory spiels.

But even if he would have to swallow his pride Felix was determined to improve Hansel's life in ways he saw fit. First, he took it upon himself to cook and clean—his cooking was terrible and his shadow minions did the cleaning—and let Hansel rest up whenever they were at home. He gave Hansel his bed back—even though he still slept on one side of it because sharing was caring—and did the laundry for the both of them. He even offered to do Hansel's homework for him; but Hansel never did his homework anyway (Heart City teachers did not care either; because why should they?)

If he was not so utterly confounded by all these changes Hansel might have even appreciated his efforts. But as it was, Hansel had yet to build any amount of trust for Felix. He kept waiting for Felix to drop the act, for him to return to his older, crueller self. It wasn’t right, that all of a sudden, his life had gotten easier. It wasn’t right that suddenly there was someone who cared about him. There had to be some mistake.

"What's this supposed to be?" Hansel asked one day while peering suspiciously at the dubious materials floating through the dinner Felix had prepared him. Steam rose out of his bowl in copious amounts, warming his face, and the spoon burned his hand when he touched it.

"Roadkill," quipped Felix, standing to one end of the dining table, answering automatically. He paused, then fearing a rejection corrected himself quickly. "It's vegetable soup, actually."

Cautiously, Hansel stirred the bowl. He gave Felix a skeptical glance, trying to figure out if this was a trap. Felix gave him an encouraging smile, which only made him distrust him more. Slowly, Hansel spooned a bit of the soup into his mouth.

He tried not to spit it out.

It wasn't roadkill, thankfully, but it was the worst vegetable soup Hansel had ever tasted in his entire life.

Still there was something nostalgic about the horrible taste of the soup, like he had tasted it before and had earnestly hated it. And then he realized he had indeed had soup similar to this one before. It was one of those inedible recipes Felix brought to his sickbed after he had stopped him from killing himself. But if both of them tasted the same did it mean that Felix had cooked for him before? That when he brought all those dishes to him Felix wasn't trying to make him eat terrible food on purpose, but he'd simply lacked the culinary skills to bring him anything better?

However it still took an offhanded comment from Hansel about the taste of the food and Felix's subsequent question—what is taste?—for Hansel to correctly guess the root of the problem.

"Are you telling me you don't understand what taste is?"

"I have never eaten before, so of course I wouldn't know."

Hansel gazed at his with incredulity even though he knew Felix was speaking the truth. He had really never seen Felix eat anything in his presence. So was the reason he forced Hansel to throw away all the food he made because he couldn't eat in the first place? But then why would he make Hansel cook at all?

"I saw somewhere that vegetable soup is healthy for human beings," said Felix flatly. "So hurry and eat up. You are not leaving that table until you finish the whole bowl."