Chapter 43: Volume 2: Chapter 39: The Taste of Death

Edited by: Waning_Crescents

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As soon as the sun rose above the horizon, birds started to chirp away as if they wanted to greet the whole city, telling it to wake up. The ‘concert’ of these little creatures had been especially bad in summer; they even started pretty early, causing disturbance to every sleeping citizen. Sigal, who peacefully slumbered in his bed, stirred slightly as these noises filtered into the room. He grumbled as he opened his eyes in annoyance, cursing under his breath. “I hate these birds.”

Sigal lay there and stared at the ceiling for a minute. He took a deep breath to push his anger aside before he gave into the temptation to end the little songbirds’ lives. In all his morning rage, he didn’t even notice that the person he fell asleep with wasn’t in his arms anymore. He glanced to his right, assuming that Cal had rolled to the other side of the bed during the night, but beside the wrinkled bed sheets, no one lay there.

His blood ran cold, and he jerked forward in panic as he stared at the empty side of the bed. Where is he? The fear that Cal might have changed his mind and snuck out in the middle of the night crossed his mind, causing him to jump out of bed in the next second.

Suddenly, a loud clang echoed through the apartment. Sigal halted his movements, and his muscles tensed up. Normally, no one, beside authorized people, should be able to enter this complex, let alone break in unnoticed, but current circumstances could prove him wrong. Not taking any chances, he swiftly fished out his gun from the nightstand and left the bedroom. He crept along the hallway leading to the living room with his gun pointed forward.

Right before he entered the room in question, he pressed his back against the wall and peeked carefully around the corner, where his eyes met an unsightly scene.

What the hell is this? He lowered his gun, while his jaw dropped in shock.

“Good morning!” Cal stood in the kitchen, surrounded by all kinds of utensils, and the counter was almost wholly covered in flour mixed with all kinds of other ingredients. It looked as if a tornado raged through the whole kitchen, leaving an unimaginable mess behind. “I hope I didn’t wake you.”

“No…” Sigal let out a sigh of relief, put his gun away, and approached the ‘perpetrator.’ “What is this?”

“I am making breakfast,” Cal replied, while he washed the pan he had dropped before, which had produced the loud noise that put Sigal on edge. “But it is harder than I thought.”

“I can see that.” Sigal brushed off the flour in Cal’s hair. “You don't have to—“

“No!” Cal cut him off. “I want to. You have been taking care of me all this time.” He turned around and gazed at him with a look full of eagerness. “Let me take care of you as well.”

When looking at the mess he had produced, Sigal didn’t know whether to laugh or cry, but in the end, he surrendered. “Fine.” Then he leaned forward. “Also...” He pressed a fleeting kiss on Cal’s lips. “Good morning.”

The heat rushed to Cal’s cheek as he tasted Sigal’s soft lips, and he lost himself once again in his compelling aura. However, in the next second, he came back to his senses and shoved Sigal out. “Don’t distract me. Leave the kitchen and wait until I am done.”

“As you wish.” Sigal remarked, amused, and left Cal to his little ‘making breakfast’ project.

 

When Cal finished, he proudly put the finalized product on the table. Sigal scrutinized the abstract-looking something in front of him, unsure of what Cal actually cooked there. “What’s this?”

“Pancakes, obviously.”

Obviously, he says… The dish was half burned, and the form resembled something that got run over before being put back together. ”Ah, right.”

With hope shimmering in his eyes, Cal waited for Sigal to take the first bite.

Sigal hesitated for a moment, but then put a piece of the ‘pancake’ into his mouth. The flavor that coursed through his taste buds was indescribable. The strong, burned tang, mixed with too much sugar, salt, and other unidentifiable ingredients, along with pieces of eggshell in between, made Sigal’s eyes water. This might actually kill me.

When Cal noticed the stiff posture of Sigal, as well as the little paleness that creeped up on his face, he tilted his head. “Is it not good?”

“I-it’s…” Sigal pressed out between his lips after he gulped down the catastrophe of a pancake. “Interesting.”

Cal frowned, but then took a bite himself. “Hmm…maybe a bit too much salt, but aside from that, it’s not that bad.”

That’s what he thinks is wrong?

“I am sorry. I will try harder next time.” Cal sighed in disappointment. “And here I thought I didn’t do that bad.”

Sigal coughed a few times from the aftertaste and shook his head. “Don’t worry about it.” His voice sounded hoarse, as if he had something stuck in his throat or was trying not to let the food return to the surface.

Cal quickly grabbed a glass, filled it with water, and handed it to him. “Are you alright?”

He quickly snatched the glass out of Cal’s hand, and in one go, he washed the unpleasant taste away. The cool liquid calmed his revolting stomach, and the color returned to his face. “I am fine.”

Cal let out a sad sigh. When he had woken up this morning in Sigal’s arms, a fervorous feeling washed over him, and he wanted nothing more than to return the favor for all Sigal had done and gone through for his sake. He had been determined to surprise him, so he sneaked out of the bedroom to get to work. However, in the end, his effort caused more harm than any good, which left him quite despondent. “I’ll put it away.”

Sigal seized his wrist and stared into his dejected, ice-blue eyes with a smile on his lips. “I really appreciate what you did. But if you really want to learn how to cook, I will teach you.”

“Mn. I want to learn. I didn’t think it was so hard. You made it look so easy.”

“Lots of blood and sweat.”

“Huh?”

Sigal loosened his grip, wandered off to the couch, plopped on it, and sprawled his arms over the back pillows, while an exasperated sigh escaped his lips. “I have an annoying older sister. She forced me to learn.”

“Oh?” Cal’s ears perked up. “I didn’t know you had a sister.”

Sigal creased his forehead and nodded. “An endlessly nagging woman.”

Not able to hold back, Cal chuckled at how Sigal described his sibling.

Sigal raised an eyebrow as he leaned forward. “What’s so funny?”

“Nothing.” Cal reassured him with a subtle shake of his head. “I just think she must care a lot about you.”

This answer left Sigal dumbfounded, and his ears took on a light shade of red. “Whatever.”

This caused Cal to chuckle even more. All the while he strolled around the city alone, searching for what he had lost, he never thought that he would return to this place once more, let alone that their relationship would change like that. However, the intrusive thoughts about what he had discovered about himself never left him. He pushed them aside and rather let himself get swept away by strong emotions—giving in to his desires—but reality wasn’t that easy.

“Sigal.” Cal’s soft laughter stopped. He turned around, facing the kitchen cabin, with concern flickering in his eyes. “There was something I wanted to ask you.”

“Hm?

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“When I told you yesterday that I may have lied to all of you, you didn’t seem fazed at all.” He fumbled around with some utensils in his hands. “Did you already know?”

A short silence filled the room, and Cal’s heart thumbed rapidly against his chest as he waited for an answer.

“Yeah, I knew.”

Cal tensed up as he received the answer he expected, and he tightened his grip around the items in his hands. “How much did I lie?”

“Cal…”

“Please tell me!” Cal raised his voice.

Sigal’s eyebrows lowered in concern as he glanced over to him, noticing his tense posture. He contemplated for a moment what he should tell him, but then went with the truth. “Your name, and your background.”

Cal bit his lower lip, and his head started to spin. He still couldn’t understand why he had lied to them. He feared it had served a certain purpose…a purpose to hurt the Conciliators or, even worse, hurt Sigal.  The thought of it alone caused his stomach to turn. What if he had ulterior motives?

“Are you sure…” His voice quivered. “Are you sure my lie wasn’t meant to cause harm?”

“Yes.”

Cal spun around, bursting with anxious rage. “How can you be so sure? How can you—“

Sigal, who had walked over, grabbed Cal’s shoulders as soon as he turned around and fixed him with his gaze. “Look at me!”

Cal froze up. The items he held in his hands slipped out and plummeted, clattering noisily on the ground.

“Do you trust me?”

“Yes.”

“Then believe me when I say that I am sure you had no ulterior motives. Don’t even think that!”

“I just don’t understand. What other reason could there be?”

“All I can tell you is that you did all this for your own safety.”

My own safety? Cal frowned, but then thought of what he had recalled and the fear that had gripped him at the moment he saw his father.

“Tell me what exactly you remembered.”

Cal snapped out of his stupor and nodded. “I remembered my mother. Not her face, but her voice, her warm touch, her caring smile. I could feel her love and kindness, but I got irritated when she called me by another name.” Cal glanced at Sigal as he continued, “She called me Rhys…”

“I see.”

“That’s when I knew something must have caused me to change it, but the reason is still clouded.”

Sigal retracted his hands. “Did you remember something else?”

“Yeah…” Cal walked to the kitchen counter and sat down on one of the bar stools. “I also remembered my father.”

“Your father?”

“Mn.” When he recounted the events, Cal visibly tensed up. When his voice started to crack, he cleared his throat and continued as if telling a story until the end. Sigal, however, noticed the change in his demeanor, and he gnashed his teeth.

Could it be that this started already with his father?

However, he tried to stay calm for Cal’s sake and asked, “What about your mother? You said a woman was there as well, was it not her?”

“No. If it is true what they said then…” Cal paused. “She is dead.”

Sigal’s eyes twitched. Dead? He crossed his arms in front of his chest with a frown on his face. I guess after his mother died, his father most likely got custody of him. The other woman must have been his stepmother, and Axis’s real mother. Could it be that all of them were involved? Just how did it start?

“Do you maybe remember or guess how old you were at that time?”

Cal thought about it for a moment, trying to get a clearer picture of his younger self. “I am not sure, but very young…maybe nine or ten.”

Sigal dug his nails into one of his arms, restraining his pained anger as best as he could, and put the pieces together as far as possible. Axis was most likely a teenager by that time. That means something must have changed later. He said he raised him, so at some point, custody must have been passed on to him. Just what happened to his father and his wife?”

Noticing Sigal’s thoughtful expression as if he were trying to work something out, Cal said, “You know more about this, don’t you?”

“Not much.” Sigal shook his head. Anything he knew, Cal hadn’t even recalled himself, and everything he did recall, Sigal had no knowledge of, so what was he supposed to say? “I don’t know what to tell you, your incident—“

“Don’t.” Cal stopped him. “I don’t want to know…not yet at least. After I obtained these memory fragments, I understood your hesitation. Because it’s tough, rather draining, and painful.” He exhaled a long breath. “That’s why I decided to find the missing pieces myself, step by step.”

While Sigal understood what Cal was saying, he still couldn’t help but worry about how he would react when he found out the entire truth. Sigal wanted to believe that Cal could handle it, but at the same time he was afraid that it could send him straight into the abyss. “Are you sure you are ready for whatever you may find on that path?”

Cal nodded with determination reflecting in his eyes. “Yes. I have to. I need to know, or I will feel forever incomplete, as if a part of me is missing.”

“Alright.” Sigal relaxed his tense stance, giving in to Cal’s wishes. He asked to be a part of it after all, so he wanted to see it through with him, and if Cal should fall, he would be there to catch him. “Just promise me that you won’t go on any solo trips again.”

Cal helplessly looked at Sigal’s furrowed gaze, as if he had sent a warning along with it. “Don’t worry, I won’t. I promise.”

Before Sigal could say anything more, his phone, which lay on top of the drawer on the other side of the room, buzzed vigorously.

 

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