Mio Famiglia, Mio Scudo

Episode IX

Naoki came down to the kitchen, as he'd been woken up by rather concerning sounds. He wouldn't have been surprised to find his newest roomie, Kaname, attempting to self teach herself to cook again nor Cain trying to install some wacky defense system into the fridge. Heavens, he wouldn't have been surprised to find Haruka raiding his kitchen empty of edibles either taken in the fact that he was very much not appreciating his father's attitudes. Finding his Smoke Guardian Yui from there wouldn't have been that odd either, she loved to appear and disappear as she pleased, somehow managing to come into the house despite the doors and windows being firmly locked. But no.

Instead, he found the very same group that had broken into his house, sitting around the table while the flamboyant looking guy with rather colourful attire appeared to be assaulting something that looked like eggs and bacon.

If you squinted enough that was.

Naoki felt his stomach churn, he'd never been a fan of bacon or other pork based products. Something in them just made him feel sick in the stomach. Not to mention that the over all look of the thing was simply so unappetising that he chose to stick only to a cup of coffee. He sat down with the drink, an empty lunch box next to him and left overs from the previous evening in front of the box.

Xanxus looked up from his morning caffè latte and fette biscottate, his Red eyes following how the petite teenager filled the flower patterned box with exact precision, amber orbs concentrated fully on the mission, almost without blinking at all. Xanxus them looked at the fluffy haired boy's breakfast and frowned, he was sure that the boy was so small because of not eating properly. Two more boxes were filled, one light blue with strong purple hearts and one very classic looking brown that had yellow flowers on the right corner of the lid.

"Haruka usually forgets their lunch and Kaname is hopeless with cooking, so I need to make sure that they get to eat something during the day", the younger sky explained as matter of factly without lifting his head, he'd felt the question before it had been voiced. Xanxus grunted as an answer, at least the trash took good care of his own, he could respect that.

As the adult in teenager's body kept staring, he noticed that each of the lunches were slightly different; the pink box had an extra layer which had a tiny slice of cake on it, the one with hearts had a sweets compartment which held a note "Only after finishing" while the final one was very plain in looks, but it had extra meat in it. Naoki noticed the stare and flushed red from embarrassment. "I like meat", he mumbled shyly and cast his eyes onto the table as if ashamed of admitting it, "Also the doctor told me that I need to eat more iron so I figured..."

Without a word, Xanxus snatched one of the breads from Squalo and tossed it over to the teen who carried the face of his target with the loud "VOOOIIII" accompanying it's flight. Naoki caught the bread, staring at it wordlessly before looking up at the Varia that had mostly frozen in place. As confusion took over his being, Naoki tilted his head to the right like a child, earning a scoff from the bloodthirsty Varia leader.

"Eating more something won't do much help unless you up the consumption of everything else too", the red eyed assassin said as he looked away. But this didn't ease up Naoki's confusion. "Trash, you need to not skip meals and eat more so you can grow and develop better. Your training is only at the beginning and soon you'll need to start going for the strength". It was a little known fact that Xanxus was very passionate about food and health, he might've been strict and violent, but he too had a way of showing his people affection. And if it was just by him making sure that nobody would go hungry and had actually good food to eat, so be it.

Naoki silently came to the conclusion that it was a remain from the older teen's time as an orphan, he'd heard stories of orphanages not providing enough food for the children they sheltered. Had he known the truth, the boy might've combusted with sheer rage, sadness and sympathy for the older one.