Chapter 27: Tastes Like Home, Looks Like a Warning

Chapter 27: Chapter 27: Tastes Like Home, Looks Like a Warning

The food arrived roughly twenty minutes later, delivered by the same small hovering drone Ren had seen at the dining hall days earlier, and he stared down at the tray it deposited in front of him with an expression he suspected wasn’t entirely successful at hiding his alarm.

Whatever sat in the shallow bowl in front of him was, unmistakably, not anything he recognized. It was a pale, faintly luminescent gray, thick and glutinous in texture, dotted throughout with small, translucent orbs that pulsed faintly with a soft inner light, like someone had decided porridge needed to also double as ambient lighting. A separate, smaller dish beside it held what looked like chunks of something knobbly and violet, vaguely root-shaped but covered in a texture closer to fine, soft fur than any skin Ren had ever seen on a vegetable back home.

’Umm,’ he thought, staring down at the glowing porridge with real hesitation. ’Okay, this looks like something that would kill a person in a science fiction movie right before the third act twist. This looks like the food that turns out to be sentient. I have survived monsters, a rank test that broke military equipment, a berserk episode, and my own father’s open hostility, and now I am apparently going to die because Alouis ordered me recovery food that glows.’

He glanced toward the small comm panel on the wall, briefly considering calling the AI back for reassurance, then decided against it, mostly out of stubborn pride and the vague, nagging sense that questioning the food too openly would somehow make him look even more foreign to this world than he already felt on a near-daily basis. Instead he picked up the spoon left beside the tray, took a small, deliberately cautious bite, and braced himself.

It tasted like porridge. Actual, ordinary, faintly sweet porridge, warm and comforting in a way that caught him completely off guard given how alarming it looked, the glowing orbs bursting with a soft, mild sweetness against his tongue that reminded him, disorientingly, of tapioca pearls in bubble tea. He blinked, swallowed, and took another bite, and then another, and found himself, within the space of a few spoonfuls, genuinely enjoying it despite every visual instinct telling him this shouldn’t be edible at all.

He tried the violet, furry-looking chunks next, spearing one carefully with his fork and eating it whole before he could second-guess himself, and the texture gave way to something soft and starchy, unmistakably, almost comically similar to a well-cooked potato, mild and satisfying in exactly the way his body apparently needed after two days of unconsciousness.

’This tastes like actual comfort food,’ Ren thought, working through the rest of the bowl with growing enthusiasm now that his initial suspicion had faded into simple hunger. ’This tastes like the exact kind of thing my dad would have made on a bad day, mashed potatoes and some kind of warm, mushy side dish, nothing fancy, just something to fill you back up after a hard week.’ The thought arrived gentler this time than the raw grief from the dream, softened by the immediate physical comfort of a warm meal, and he let himself sit with it for a moment without pushing it away entirely.

The drone hovered near the doorway, apparently waiting to collect feedback or simply confirm the delivery had been successful, its small sensor array blinking patiently while Ren finished the meal in relative silence. He considered, briefly, saying something about how strange the food looked compared to how it actually tasted, some small comment to mark the moment, but ultimately said nothing at all, finishing the bowl in quiet, private contentment and setting the spoon down once it was empty.

’No need to make a thing of it,’ he decided, wiping his mouth with the small cloth that had come with the tray. ’It’s fine. It’s good, actually. Doesn’t need commentary. I’ve made enough of a spectacle of myself on this outpost this week without adding "confused by porridge" to the growing list of things people whisper about behind my back.’ He handed the empty tray back to the drone, which chirped a soft acknowledgment before whirring off down the corridor, and leaned back against his pillow, feeling marginally more human than he had upon first waking.

He’d barely settled into the quiet when the door chimed again, this time with the proper courtesy of an actual request for entry rather than Alouis’s earlier unceremonious barge-in, and Ren called out permission before he’d even fully processed who might be on the other side of it.

Reven stepped through first, and the moment his eyes found Ren sitting upright, awake, color returned to his face, something in his entire posture shifted, the carefully maintained composure he usually wore cracking visibly with open, unguarded relief before he caught himself and smoothed it back into something more controlled.

"You’re awake," he said, voice quieter than Ren had ever heard it, crossing the room in a few quick strides and stopping at the edge of the bunk, close enough that Ren could see, clearly now, the faint shadows beneath his pale eyes, evidence of exactly how little sleep he’d actually managed over the last two days.

"Apparently I caused quite a stir," Ren said, offering a small, tired smile. "Alouis mentioned you canceled all your other sessions."

"I didn’t see the point in training anyone else while you were unconscious and medical couldn’t explain why," Reven said, and something in the flat simplicity of the admission made it land harder than any dramatic declaration could have. He reached out, hesitating only briefly before brushing a loose strand of hair back from Ren’s face, the gesture careful and searching, like he needed the physical confirmation as much as the visual one. "Two days, Rafayal. You should have called for help the moment you started feeling unwell instead of simply going to sleep and hoping it would pass."

"I didn’t know I was going to sleep for two days," Ren said, a little defensively. "I thought I was just tired. Very tired, apparently, but I didn’t exactly plan this."

"I know," Reven said, softening slightly, though the tension in his shoulders didn’t fully ease. "I’m simply relieved you’re alright. Whatever caused it, medical found nothing conclusive, which means we’ll need to monitor you more closely going forward, but for now, at least, you’re awake and speaking and apparently arguing with me already, which I suppose is as good a sign as any that you’re recovering properly."

Before Ren could respond, the door chimed again, and this time it opened to reveal Yegard, and the sheer visible exhaustion carved into his features made Ren’s chest tighten uncomfortably at the sight of it. He looked like he hadn’t slept at all in the two days Ren had been unconscious, dark circles heavy beneath his eyes, his usually immaculate composure fraying visibly at the edges in a way Ren had genuinely never seen from him before.

Yegard stopped just inside the doorway, gaze immediately finding Ren, and something in his entire body seemed to sag slightly with relief before he caught himself, straightening back into something more composed, though his eyes never once left Ren’s face.

"You’re awake," he said, echoing Reven’s exact words from moments earlier, and Ren felt a strange, complicated warmth settle into his chest at the sight of both men standing in his small quarters at once, each of them clearly having spent the last two days in some private, personal state of dread over his continued unconsciousness.

"So I’ve been told, twice now," Ren said, attempting levity despite the sudden, thick tension now filling the room with Yegard and Reven standing on opposite sides of his bunk, both watching him with an intensity that made him feel distinctly like the last piece of contested territory in some ongoing negotiation neither of them had bothered including him in the terms of.

"I need to speak with him," Yegard said, directing the words toward Reven with a flatness that carried an unmistakable edge beneath it.

"He’s just woken up after two days unconscious," Reven said, not moving from his position beside the bunk, his tone matching Yegard’s flatness measure for measure. "Whatever you need to say can wait until he’s had proper time to recover."

"I don’t require your permission to speak with him," Yegard said, something sharper cutting through the exhaustion now.

"No," Reven agreed, entirely unbothered, "but you might require mine to remain in this room while you attempt it."

The air between them crackled with something tense and dangerous, and Ren, still propped up against his pillow, exhausted and full of glowing porridge and thoroughly unwilling to become the battleground for whatever standoff was currently unfolding, cleared his throat pointedly.

"I’m right here," he said, "and considerably more capable of deciding who I want in this room than either of you apparently believes I am." Both men turned toward him, and Ren met their gazes steadily despite the lingering exhaustion still weighing on him. "I appreciate that you’re both apparently worried, genuinely, that means more than either of you probably realizes right now. But I just woke up from two days of unconsciousness, I’ve eaten exactly one bowl of extremely strange-looking porridge, and I do not currently have the energy to referee whatever competition this has apparently become between the two of you."

Silence settled over the room, both men visibly recalibrating, and after a moment Yegard was the first to speak, his voice quieter now, some of the earlier sharpness folding back beneath something more careful. "You’re right," he said. "I apologize. I simply needed to see for myself that you were actually alright, after everything."

"I am," Ren said, softer now, some of his earlier irritation easing at the raw honesty in Yegard’s admission. "Alive, awake, apparently causing an outpost-wide crisis just by sleeping too long, but otherwise alright."

Reven’s mouth twitched at that, something almost like reluctant amusement breaking through his earlier tension, though his gaze flicked briefly toward Yegard with a wariness that hadn’t fully faded. "I should let medical know you’re conscious," he said finally, stepping back from the bunk with visible effort. "They’ll want to run another scan, given how inconclusive the first several were."

"I’ll walk with you," Yegard said, and something in the way he said it made it clear this wasn’t an offer so much as a deliberate refusal to leave Ren alone with Reven for even the length of a short walk down the corridor.

Reven’s expression flickered with something sharp at that, but he said nothing further, and the two of them left together, the tension between them palpable enough that Ren half expected to hear raised voices the moment the door sealed shut behind them.

Alone again, finally, Ren let his head fall back against the pillow, exhaustion and the strange, lingering warmth of the porridge pulling at him despite having only just woken from two full days of sleep. ’This is unsustainable,’ he thought, staring up at the plain metal ceiling, the same quiet, tired conclusion he seemed to keep arriving at no matter how many times circumstances forced the two of them into the same room together. ’Whatever this is turning into, whatever they both apparently feel entitled to fight over regarding my continued existence, I cannot keep functioning as the quiet, unconscious battlefield in the middle of it.’ He closed his eyes, exhaustion finally winning out despite his best efforts to stay alert. ’Tomorrow. I’ll figure out how to actually address this tomorrow. Today, apparently, all I have energy left for is glowing porridge and pretending I have any control at all over the mess my life has become.’