Casted

Chapter 3: You'll Be Back

"Watch where you're fucking going!" J.P. snapped at the bird who bumped into him. His eyes widened as he realised it was actually someone he knew.

"Pasensya na po, Bodhi. I didn't realise that was you," J.P. said with a sigh. It had been a stressful day and all the stress was finally getting to him, even the ones he kept putting down all the other days, thinking that he was still doing alright and needs to keep his top position.

   He held out his wing and helped the other stork to his feet. He stood there for a few seconds as he watched Bodhi walk away with slow and calculated steps, almost as if it was taking a lot of will to take each one. He was also repeatedly tapping his feathers.

    J.P. had already known that stork for ten years and counting so he had picked up on his nervous ticks and stims. He given up debating and walked over to the other stork, following him.

   "Hey, are you alright?" J.P. asked the stork, trying to maintain eye contact because he had read on some article that eye contact could be very useful for these kinds of things, but Bodhi seemed to not really be willing to return it. The French stork wondered what had been going on.

"好。我好。很好。請離開了," Bodhi said, and his walking slowed down by a lot, but now he was looking everywhere. J.P. sighed. He knew he probably shouldn't be butting into these kinds of stuff, but he felt like he should be helping him with it.

"No, you're not 好. I can tell. I have no idea what else you said, but you're definitely not okay. What's bothering you?" J.P. asked, deciding that if the other stork was still hesistant to answer him, he was going to finally leave him alone. Maybe. If he felt like doing that.

   "I— 沒有... It's not important... Please..." Bodhi said as he started walking again. This time, it was a lot of small steps. J.P. sighed. He supposed he shouldn't be pushong any more. It wasn't like he had revealed everything neither, he thought, his brain drifting towards the mirror in his bathroom.

   "If you need anything, I'll be here— Eh... In my room," J.P. said with a reassuring smile as he continued the rest of the journey back to his room, taking out his Fly Pad and scrolling through the schedules for the day. He had only one delivery daily and the rest of the day was spent preparing for the next one.

His room was the last place he was planning to go to but he knew that Bodhi was probably going to the Common Room, the place all of them went to relax, and he knew that the anxious stork liked being alone whenever something was troubling him, just like the rest of them.

J.P. opened the door to his room complex and no more than three seconds did Lucky come running out the door. He sighed. That young pup didn't want to be anywhere near him. He wasn't bothered by it too much. His fils was just an additional weight to all the stress he had, so he was glad to be rid of him.

  The noon sun streamed through the window of the room complex. J.P. had spent so much time ignoring Lucky's room on the left that he had forgotten it even existed on most days, and those days were spend on his office table, which was right next to the door of his fils.

He took out his Fly Pad and walked over to the refrigerator on the rights side of the living/office room, and to the left of his door. He opened the fridge and frowned as he saw at least a dozen carton of Nestle milk staring back at him. He knew at once that this was Lucky's.

He frowned and started shuffling through the fridge, wondering where Lucky had even gotten the milk. Probably from the dining hall. It was a wild a guess as any. He frantically shoved past more cartons of milk, looking desperately for his collection of jams and wondered where they went.