What Comes After

What Comes After: Ease

"I can't do anything because I'm angry at you, Aeron" the little girl paced back and forth with an apron wrapped around her neck,

Backwards.

"What did I do?" Aeron laughed, they were baking a cake.. Or that's what they had planned. Apparently, his little sister wanted to participate in the annual kid's cooking competition.
"Look at the batter," she ordered, placing her hands on her hips, "Tell me, what is the color that you see?" She tapped her foot on the ground. He was getting nervous.. Was there a correct answer? And why did she sound like their father? It was creepy if he were to be completely honest with himself.
"Pink?" He squinted, he decided to go with the truth. Nothing can go wrong with the truth, right? Or so he had thought. The little girl's tapping stopped.
"It's supposed to be a rainbow cake." She sighed and stepped down her small stool with careful steps, "it wasn't supposed to be pink.." She said in a small voice while taking her misworn apron off. "It was supposed to be red."

Blue hues, whooshing sounds..
"Aeron"
Too far..

"Pink isn't a rainbow color," she pointed and shook her head, as if he'd said the most ridiculous thing she'd ever heard,
"Why can't it be just a normal pink cake?" He asked, he scooped a bit of the batter with his spoon to get a taste, "I'm sure they 'd like it either way." He hummed in appreciation of the taste and sat back on his chair, watching her as she folded the apron messily, "Plus, it's easy."

"Hold it together, kid! Don't die on me like that.."
Die?

"Easy?" She wasn't really asking, just tasting the word in her mouth, "remember what mom said about things being easy?" The mention of their mother stabbed him with painful memories.. She wasn't mentioned at all around their house.
He hummed, took a shaky breath and looked around, as if to check for her presence.. And their father's. He wasn't sure how his father would feel if he 'd heard his daughter mentioning their mother. She died a year ago and it still feels like yesterday. He wondered how his sister felt about it. They never really talked about it beyond the funeral.

As if sensing his thoughts, she furrowed her brows and clicked her tongue in a silent, 'I don't want to talk about it' their father's teachings. She was too young to know better.

She cleared her throat and straightened her back, as if to give the most inspirational speech to her growing nation,
"Easy makes them wonder, hard makes them certain."

"You leave me no choice, kid.."