“I can see that.” Fei brings a hand up to ruffle his own hair, draws his palm over his left eye afterwards and looks at SARU through the gaps in his fingers. “How much did all of this cost, anyway?” He finds looking down at Amaryllis is easier than looking at SARU’s face right now, and lets his hand fall back down to his side.
“Nice of you to think of me and Meia,” as an afterthought, apparently; but it makes Fei grin— something which he tries to hide by further dipping his head. Whatever, right? He should relax. They were going to have to buy candy sooner or later.
“Yeah, definitely none for Amaryllis.”
; “Well, it was on sale - a ridiculous sale, actually. Buy one get two free or somethin’. So it wasn’t bad,” the white haired boy replied, stepping gingerly past the cat, careful not to accidentally step on her or drop something on her.
“Should we ask Meia where to put this?” he queried, balancing bags in his arms as he looked over to Fei. Hopefully, the older girl wouldn’t chastise them - him - about candy. Hopefully.
“Say, Fei - we’re going to go trick-or-treating, right?”
There’s no possible excuse SARU could come up with that’ll make this okay. Jesus, SARU, is that an entire month’s rent you spent there? Fei does look curious when he emerges from the kitchen, though; he’s pleased to see the other boy, but wasn’t expecting him to be bringing shopping home. The Rune boy has an inkling of hope that perhaps SARU had thought to pick some groceries up, so Fei didn’t have to later on in the week—
Of course not. Of. Course. Not.
That hope is crushed when Fei takes one of the bags from the other boy and sneaks a peek at what’s inside.
“Uh. What do you need all this candy for, SARU? Halloween isn’t until the thirty first,” he reminds him, looking a little cautious…quietly, he mutters to himself; “Three bags…”
; "Fei. It's candy.”
At that moment, the usually rather intimidating and apathetic teen sounded much more like a five year old child having just been told that his crude crayon sketch wasn’t a masterpiece. Or something.
“One bag’s for trick or treaters, so we have it now,” he narrated, “and the others are for me. And you. And Meia.”
He stole a glance at the cat still meowing at his ankles.
; Before he reentered the apartment, he had to come up with an excuse for the shopping bags in his hands.
Three shopping bags, labeled with some company brand or another, weighing quite a bit if the boy was to be honest with himself - but they were so worth it. Halloween candy, on sale? Of course he’d buy some. Maybe the amount he’d bought was a bit excessive, but….
“Fei! Help me with these!” SARU called into the potentially-empty apartment, closing the door behind him with his heel, praying the bags in his hands didn’t rip from the sheer weight of the candy within. While he’d never admit it, the monkey-like boy had a huge sweet tooth.
As if the world wanted to throw him off balance, Amaryllis padded over to him, curling her body around his heels - as if he wasn’t struggling to carry god-knows how many pounds of candy already.
“I’m busy,” he scolded the cat, although there was no real malice in his words.
Meia didn’t want to see SARU suffer but it almost felt like he needed some time alone judging by the tone of his voice.
However, part of her doesn’t want to leave him to suffer but she had to respect SARU’s wishes..as a friend..
Before long, she replied,”I understand and I apologize if I was too harsh on you. However, if you wish to talk to me again, I’ll be in the other room,”
..and just like that, she turned herself around and left the room.
; “…..”
Good job, SARU. He’d let his stress and anxiety get to him, and he’d snapped at a close friend. Admittedly, he wasn’t the kindest person, but he also didn’t want to really hurt the few people he let himself trust. Still, his own stubbornness prevented him from getting up and going into the other room.
He means no harm by it, he just….finds SARU’s attachment to the kitten strangely endearing. There’s no malice in his laughter, but he settles down, figuring SARU doesn’t want to be directly laughed at in the first place despite it all being in good nature. Pushing up from the tub, he rocks back on his heels and hums in thought. “I don’t think we’ll find much by raiding the cabinets, SARU.”
“But we could put something together! Do we have whole evaporated milk in?” It’s…a strange thing for teens to stock up on, but he hopes Meia maybe got some in while they were gone. If luck is on their side, they should have everything (including an envelope of Knox gelatin, which is something he recalls having read on the supplement formula list months ago) laying around. “I know we already have yogurt and mayo in.” He says it so casually— this mixture sounds appetizing already, wow. SARU wouldn’t make him try it to be sure it’s safe, would he? Fei isn’t exactly the biggest fan of mayo.
He’s already trotting off, but he comes to a stop not seconds after, on his way to the kitchen, heel turning to address the other boy once more.
“Has she warmed up? I don’t think we’re supposed to feed her if her body temperature isn’t high enough…” Thoughtful silence overcomes him for a second, broken by a click of his fingers mere seconds after it settles. “Warm her with your bare skin, don’t wrap her in blankets. She’ll be unable to generate her own body heat; that’s something she’ll rely on you for. Tucking her under your shirt again is a good idea. Don’t forget to toss that thing into the wash later, too; it’s filthy.” Wrinkling his nose at that. He’ll try to work the stains out tomorrow.
; He was relatively surprised that Fei knew what he was doing, to be quite honest. He wouldn’t have guessed that the green-haired boy had such knowledge - then again, he couldn’t come with a reason as to why Fei wouldn’t.
After stretching his legs for a moment, he settled himself back onto the edge of the bathtub, the kitten’s still-cold fur ruffling against his chest. Sure, his shirt would be a mess, but it was worth it; he’d rather make sure an animal was safe and sound than preserve his own clothing, anyway.
A surprisingly happy look was present on SARU’s face as he looked over to Fei, nodding in his general direction.
“You go to the kitchen. I’ll stay here with Amaryllis.”
The smile seemed almost out of place on the usually grouchy boy’s face - whether it was cute or creepy, well, that depended on who you asked.
Fei pulls a face at Statice, not too fond of that flower. The flowers he’s always come into contact with were rather papery in texture— Fei doesn’t think it suits the creature cradled against SARU’s chest in the slightest. He doesn’t voice that, of course, letting the other boy continue rolling names out— actually, the more names that SARU comes up with, the more the lopsided grin on the paler boy’s face grew.
“Amaryllis! I read in a book once— I think— that shyness is associated with that flower. I don’t know much about it, but I think it flowers sometime in late December to the end of June.” A shrug on Fei’s part before he continues. “Like I said, I don’t know how trustworthy my word is on this. I haven’t touched a flower book since I was eight.” The laugh that escapes his throat is humorless, but the grin remains.
“It suits her, doesn’t it?” Much better than Statice. Octopus Stinkhorn would’ve beaten Statice by a few points in Fei’s book.
; SARU decided, then, that he much preferred the grin on Fei’s face to the humorless look from earlier - although he’d rather not have it be at his expense, thank you very much. Now that a name had been decided on, he supposed they should feed her.
Shit. Um.
Generally he kept food around for the strays, but he’d ran out a little bit before they’d left and hadn’t bought any more; goodness knows Meia probably wouldn’t have picked anything up.
He didn’t even know how old this kitten was. Or what they should feed her.
Gingerly, he stood, still holding Amaryllis in his arms. The cat was really alarmingly thin, to the point where he wanted to get her food as soon as they could.
"Should we raid the cabinets?”
There had to be something they could feed the animal, right?
“Look at yourself!“ she replied as she placed her hands on her hips. "It’s serious because you are succumbing to your own past and this is what I don’t want to see from anyone ESPECIALLY when I was hoping to only sit back and be with my roommates after being alone for several days,”
; "Go away, Meia.”
The tone that entered his voice was defensive and dark, scarily so, pushing hard on his own heart at the bitterness and coldness that entered his tone. He was fine, of course he was, he didn’t need anyone's help - then why was he laughing, again? He cut himself off, but the damage had been done, throwing his mind into a more disheveled state than before.
Still quite shaken, the boy took a few deep breaths, steadying himself, his shaking fading to occasional twitches as the look in his eyes became a bit more clear. What was he doing? Who knew if any of that was real, anyway?
