Forest of Secrets (CoQ)

Finally, Some Fuel for My Tank!

"You're a grown man and you don't know how to eat? That must be embarrassing. Wait, you're so stupid you don't know what embarrassment is!" -Akira Eliza

And the vampires can come up with outlandish remedies of utmost quality to help the sick and injured.

Noroi

We were almost done with my boring errands. We returned to the laundromat to put my clothes in the dryer and go to the diner. A string of restaurants crowded in a tight area of the Japanese town. Dear Diane's Delight wasn't really popular, but it was my favorite in general. But in Japan town, my favorite was, ironically, the ramen shop. But I decided to not go there tonight. The dryads eyes widened in wonder as he looked at the flashy inn lights and took in deep breaths filled with the smell of different food.

"Have you seen a restaurant before?" I had asked. I reached out a hand to tap his shoulder, making him screech and dart off a little ways away, before cautiously crawling back.

"I promise I won't make any sudden moments." I soothed. He glared at me the whole time, but eventually shook his head no when I asked again if he had seen a restaurant before. I noticed that despite my promise, he still kept an eye on me the whole time I let him look around freely. For the most part, I let him do his own thing. He was hardly my "slave." at this point. I'll just make sure to keep my hands to myself. I finally pointed to Dear Diane's Delight. He must have now recognized the string of garbage in my poor Bessu because he picked up a stray burger wrapper and tried opening Bessu to stuff it in.

"No no no, you don't understand. I don't pick up the trash. I eat the food that comes in the wrapper then stuff the wrapper in my bag. I've got a habit of not throwing stuff away, cue my poor Bessu from being so dirty. I love my backpack, I swear. But the poor girl is the only thing to stuff the trash in." His head cocked to the side and he seemed genuinely confused.

"Lets . . . Just go inside." We made out way inside. The familiar greasy yellow lights hung from the ceiling, and the blue and orange tables obnoxiously dotted the place. Arranged chairs were pushed in on the blue floor. The dryad sat down and swung his legs back and forth. I followed in his lead and stood behind him.

"What are you doing?" I chirped. He looked equally confused as me. He pointed at the pictures of food that hung on triple D's walls.

"Yeah, we have to order it. You know, tell 'em what we want and pay for it?"

" . . . Huh?" That was the first sound I had ever heard from him that wasn't a growl. Despite all that, it still didn't say anything about his voice. Oh, who cares what his voice sounds like. I didn't care at all.

"The hell?! I knew you could speak!" Yeah, I did.

"I . . . "

"What, was I too chatty for you or something? I spent all god damn day trying to get you to speak, you damn brat!"

"Um . . . " His mouth refused to open, and he wouldn't look at me.

"Oh, whatever. Can we just order the food? I'm starving." He shook his head, his cheeks a dusty pink. He scooted out of the chair and walked up to the counter without pushing it back in. I pushed the chair in and stood next to him. He went right back to keeping an eye on me. Remind me to never do so much as wave a hand around him again. The elf girl who's at the counter was picking at her pink fingernails. Her eyes looked up at me and she flipped back her mousy brown hair at the sight of me.

"Welcome to Dear Diane's Delight. What can I get you?" Her tone was bored, but her eyes were unusually bright and attentive. I forgot to think this out.

"What do you want?" I asked. His head snapped up towards me, before picking the item with the lowest cost number. although he didn't fully know how yari worked or what the menu consisted of, he still figured out what "cheap." meant. He ended up picking an unsweetened tea.

"That's a drink. I'm talking about food. Do you want me to pick for you?" I said the last sentence with a bit of annoyance. He nodded his head enough to rattle and scampered to the table he was at the first time. He looked like a five year old, drumming his hands and looking at everything with interest.

"Two signature burgers, please. Can we get mashed potatoes with that? I'm too lazy for french fries."

"On it." she lazily pecked into the type writer and repeated the order.

"Four copper yari and three wooden yari." I paid up and sat down with the dryad. While waiting, I tried once again to get this guy to talk.

"You got a name?" I asked and looked at him. As soon as our eyes met, he looked away.

"Well you're chatty." I sarcastically quipped. His mouth opened, and shaped to form a word that, from what I saw, resembled the word "sorry." Strangely enough, I didn't catch the sight of a pink tongue.

"Can you speak?" He shook his head yes.

"At least tell me your name. What else am I supposed to call you?" He glanced around for a second, before picking up a pen. He scribbled on a napkin and held it up. I could hardly tell that he wrote down letters, much less make out what he wrote.

"I can't read that." He grabbed another napkin and took his time, carefully making out each letter. He held up the second napkin. This time, I could identify most of the letters without much strain.

Itori Sakamiya.

"Sakamiya . . . " I let the letters roll off my tongue. it sounded like a rough stone in a pretty body of water. or like a cherry blossom in Gorinbara, the land of volcanoes and heat.

"It's . . . Pretty." I finished. The food later came on a tray that we shared between us. I almost soared as I bit into my burger. Sakamiya watched me, then copied me. This also meant he accidentally bit off more than he could chew. He gasped for air, then proceeded to cough. The girl with the pink nails didn't seem to notice as she was too interested in playing with her charm bracelet. I didn't want to pat his back, mostly because he hates touching, but I was about to. Soon his cough dulled down to a repeated, quick retch. Finally, he stopped. He learned from that mighty quick, because he took tiny bites from then on. I demolished my burger in six huge bites, baffling him to no end. I noticed as tears escaped his eyes as he bit into it. When was the last time he didn't have mold as a seasoning? I'll make sure he'll never go hungry or be scared again. When there was only the mashed potatoes between us, I pawed it towards him. His showing ribs and legs that are as thin as his wrist needed it more than I did. He tore off the plastic lid and stuck his spoon in the container, only to catapult it in my hair. His face turned white and he froze. His eyes widened with terror and his hands shook.

"You look like you've seen a ghost." He opened his mouth, then shut it. Project Peach is down. I repeat. Project Peach is down. Oh, wait, we're functioning. He grabbed a fistful of napkins and scurried over to me like a beaten dog. I shooed his hand away.

"It's no big deal. Jeesh. Come off it." I picked the mush out of my hair. While he sat back down. I mostly ended up sliming it everywhere else, but its not like it mattered. I walked to the bathroom (begrudgingly) and rinsed it out. What a pain. When I walked back, Another customer was squawking at him angrily.

"I'm terribly sorry. He got drunk last night. Forgive him." Once I defused the situation, I watched as Sakamiya tried for the third time. I put my hand on his, making him freeze. He slowly lifted his chin to look at me. His eyes were murderous enough to make a regular guy piss his pants.

"Why don't we prevent you from making an even angrier guy yell at you for flinging mashed potatoes on him?" He might as well have not heard me, so instead I took the spoon from his fingers. I held it like a pencil and showed him how to use it. The look in his eyes only dulled a little, and he never took them off of me while I showed him. He ignored most of my lesson and gripped the spoon handle with all four fingers wrapped around it and the thumb under it. It worked, so I never said anything about it. The whole time, his fingers were clenched tightly around the spoon and he looked like he was about to massacre all of humanity. Yep, a blind person could tell that he was angry. Best to keep my distance and avoid my eyes turning into dart boards. It would take a lot of patience to function normally around this guy, but I was willing to wait.