FEED ME NAO [...Makiguchi-san]

[Clement Evans]

Life had vastly improved since getting winter-appropriate clothing, however embarrassing that had been. With that, his studies not utterly failing, and having a job, Clement's life was looking decidedly up for once. Or at least not actively sucking. It was weird. He still got in fights and got detention for not doing homework (sometimes he just couldn't finish it all), but it wasn't every afternoon and he'd managed to not see Dr. N again. While he squirreled every bit of his work money away in the bank account Ms. Morgan had help him set up, the cold (cold, oh my fucking god cold) made him long for some comforts of home. A bus trip to the Asian grocer in Burlington and some judicious budgeting, and he came back with three jars of King's kimchi (not as good as homemade but beggars couldn't be choosers) and more importantly, two cases of Shin Ramyeon, classic spicy flavor. It had made his head spin, how much he'd spent, but the ramyeon wouldn't go bad and the kimchi would last him quite awhile too (and make meals more exciting). So he wouldn't have to make the trip and pay for the bus again for some time. Just to be sure though, he promised not to spend more than ten dollars a month till spring. He had to save. Clement had no illusions of going to college, even if he could afford it, but if he saved everything he could, by the time he graduated he wouldn't be homeless and could put a down payment on an apartment and a crappy car. Maybe even go back to California. But that was a long time from now, and he didn't like thinking about it.

Dinner had been good, all the food here was, if sort of bland for someone who liked the sinus-clearing spice of Korean cuisine. Adding a bit of kimchi helped, and Clement doled it out sparingly to make it last. He hadn't really been hungry then, but now that it was around seven at night he thought he might eat. More of those mysterious boxes had appeared, the ones with his name on them that came from the possessed fridge, but he was more used to them now and after seeing his roommates not die from stealing the contents he sometimes ate them too. The kimchi was all carefully labeled with his name and date and put in the back of the fridge where it would hopefully be safe.

But tonight he was feeling like he needed a little pick me up. A bit of a treat. He'd finished his homework, didn't have any chores to do, and Jesse was out doing... whatever. Clement eyeballed two and a half cups of water, and when it boiled he added the noodles and soup packet and watched the clock. A lovely smell emanated from the pot, and the broth was a satisfying red. Clement stood in front of it, warming his hands over the steam. Yes, he was still cold.

[Deleted]

Nao had little chance to interact with his roommates. The small, quiet boy mostly kept to himself while they were off doing whatever it was they were doing. It was fine, thought. He'd made friends outside of those he lived with and took to attaching himself to them cuddly koala....or maybe a parasite but that wasn't as cute.

The one other thing he couldn't really get around, however, was that he was perpetually hungry. And that wasn't just because of his ability, he didn't really use it that much....or did he? Maybe he used it subconsciously sometimes, but that couldn't have that much of an effect on his hunger, could it? But then again, if it did, then that might explain why he was always snacking on something. But then again, Nao was always snacking on something even before he manifested, food was his life. Food was delicious. Especially when you combined food with food. Speaking of food, was that food he smelled wafting under the doorway to his room.

Like Toucan Sam, Nao followed his nose all the way to the kitchen where something...something delicious was simmering on the stove. There might have been a person standing in front of it, but Nao's tunnel vision was pretty extreme sometimes. He crept up beside the figure and silently stared down at the boiling pot of noodles, wondering if he could get away with having some himself. It wasn't very much, but food was food. Anything was better than nothing.

His stomach growled.

[Clement Evans]

Kids were shuffled around a lot at the school, it seemed. Clement could've sworn he had different roommates when he'd come in June, but it wasn't like he paid much attention. Most of the boys in the boys' dorm were prison cases waiting to happen or social butterflies, nothing he was interested in. That, and even in Cali he'd been insular, minding his own business, period.

Okay, prison cases, social butterflies, or utter space cadets. Like the dude who'd just totally invaded his personal space and stood looking into his cooking ramyeon like it held the secrets to the universe. Clement flinched away when their shoulders touched, eyed the guy. It was... just ramyeon.

And then the kid's stomach started singing the song of its people.

Clement was not against sharing. He'd rarely gotten the opportunity to do so, but he understood the concept and what was involved. But this whole act the kid had going on was like... pressuring. It was his ramyeon, his special treat. But... well, he couldn't eat it all.

"Problems?" he asked, a single brown eyebrow raised, not quite sure how to handle this.

[Deleted]

Nao had always been a little absent, from the time he was very young. That was probably the reason why he was subjected to so much bullying in the past as well. He didn't really care, though, what other people thought. Nao for the most part just wanted to be left to live his life. Though…he was still particularly dense as to how his behavior came off to other people.

He might have been bothering his roommate, but Naozumi didn't recognize it. He was more interested in drooling over the cooking food, wishing how it might be his someday.

Nao only realized that there was a person next to him, or rather that he was hovering over the person who was cooking the food, after the boy spoke up. His eyes left the ramyeon for a moment, then flitted them right back. "No," he said simply, offering nothing else. He did take a small step back though. A very small step.

[Clement Evans]

Ooooookay. No problems, but apparently the kid had some sort of... ramyeon obsession that was not getting seen to. Or maybe he was just like a lot of the boys around here and had a Sarlacc pit instead of a stomach. Clement didn't have that problem - his was rather the opposite and he felt lucky for it. It had to be annoying, being hungry all the time. Jesse didn't seem to have that problem either, but he could snarf candy like it was oxygen and smoke like he was trying to turn his insides into jerky.

The kid was Asian, but Clement couldn't tell which variety he was, past that he was pretty sure he wasn't Filipino. So out of curiosity, he tried, "Annyoung."

'Hello' in Korean. He doubted he'd get a hit. Which was fine, because he'd used informal, and even if the odds were in his favor and the kid was younger, he was still a stranger and informal was inappropriate.

Then, by the clock, the time was up and the ramyeon was done. Clement turned off the burner, not caring that the kid was practically sitting on top of it, and gave the soup a stir with the metal chopsticks Ajima had packed in his going away doshirak. He hadn't included the little packet of dehydrated vegetables - they never seemed to soak up enough liquid or taste right even if they did. He saved them though. Never knew. Lifting some of the lightly red-tinted noodles out of the soup, they steamed nicely. He didn't have a lid to eat off of, but that was fine.

And that kid was still there. Jesus.

Maybe he was waiting for an offer? Clement didn't know, but he wasn't going to sit there and eat while being stared at by a pair of eye-lasers.

"You... want some?"

[Deleted]

Nao definitely had a bottomless pit of a stomach. He'd never met a meal he didn't like and he'd never met a dessert he couldn't finish. Hi parents had often joked that he had two stomachs, one for meals and one just for snacking. His little sister compared him to that Gluttony character from that Fullmetal Alchemist anime. Naozumi could say that it was neither and that he simply had a love for food. He ate when he was hungry and stopped when he wasn't, like any normal person. The latter circumstance was just one that rarely came to pass.

Nao lifted his head at the semi-familiar word, blinking a few times as his brain processed the sounds. Korean wasn't a language he was actively learning, but that didn't mean he hadn't learned a few basic greetings. He didn't dare try to pronounce it though, for fear of butchering the language. So he merely replied with, "Hello."

He continued to watch as the shorter boy prepared the finished ramyeon, his stomach responding to the scene with another low grumble. Nao wasn't expecting an offer(yeah right!) but his eyes brightened up when it was. He nodded with suppressed excitement. His mouth was already beginning to salivate…no it was already doing that a long time ago.

[Clement Evans]

The kid reacted the right way to the Korean, but he answered in English and Clement was pretty sure he didn't really know what had been said. Didn't matter.

As someone who had never really experienced peer pressure (as being pressured to do things he didn't want to do would require people who wanted to interact with him past fighting), it was curious that Clement put that name to what was happening now. He was right, but... it was certainly the weirdest form of peer pressure he'd ever seen. The kid didn't even talk. Clement had rarely run into anyone less communicative than he was.

Unsurprisingly, the kid accepted. It was... he hated to keep using the word, but weird. Kid still didn't say anything, making the whole thing look like a sort of come-to-life silent movie. "Go find a bowl," he said, a little unnerved.

When a proper receptacle was found, Clement used his chopsticks to dole out about half the noodles and poured in about a third of the broth. It was the soup he was interested in, something to warm him up, where all the flavor was. The noodles were good, yeah, but they'd fill him up faster, till he didn't have any room for the rest of the red, spicy liquid. From his back pocket he took the metal spoon from the same doshirak and savored his first few bites.

Looking over, he finally asked, "You got a name?" And in case the answer was just 'yes', "What is it?"

[Deleted]

That was curious. Enough to hold Nao's attention for a whole….ten seconds before he was right back to thinking about food. He should probably get something of his own, but this soup looked so goooooooooooood.

It was hypnotizing. The look, the smell, the darned ramyeon was seducing him on purpose, wasn't it?

But luckily this boy was willing to share his rations with Nao and Nao couldn't be more pleased or excited. He dashed off to go find a bowl, opening one of the cabinets and pulling one out while standing on his tippy-toes. Moments later, he was standing with said bowl in front of the shorter boy, holding it out like the poor orphan Oliver asking for some more. In this case, it was any at all.

Nao preferred sustenance to fluid so getting mostly noodles suited him just fine. He couldn't believe how generous his roommate was. How incredibly nice and selfless! This was definitely the highlight of Nao's day and it quickly put a bright smile on his face as he found his own pair of chopsticks and started to slowly devour the hot noodles.

He looked up and nodded, noodled dripping from his mouth like a cthulhu monster. "NnnnMnnnMnn…" he said incoherently and assuming that the boy understood.

[Clement Evans]

Well, telling the kid to go get a bowl finally saw some action that wasn't drooling or staring in utter rapture at... soup. Clement totally understood being hungry, he'd gone on nothing but a can of cheap vegetables and a piece of bread a day for years, but he'd never seen anything quite like this. He wondered if the kid was like this in the cafeteria.

The smile was nice, though. It wasn't exactly a thank you, but it was close enough, and given his already strange behavior Clement thought this good enough.

Unfortunately, Clement did not speak Gargle, and he was guessing a request for something resembling a name and not a noise a person made while sleeping wouldn't clear things up. So he left it.

As they ate, Clement rather slowly, savoring the taste of home, something else occurred to him. Nodding at the kid's bowl, he said, "I'm not washing that."

[Deleted]

A wise choice by his roommate, Nao was a little to distracted to realize that his first attempt at giving his name was unsuccessful and would not have understood why the other boy couldn't understand him. If Clement was lucky, then he would have repeated the question while Nao's mouth was free to articulate, but as it was...it was fine. Naozumi was content with how things were, not even asking his roommate for his name.

Besides, he was enjoying the soup. The noodles, the sparse amount of broth. Mmmm.....Nao wanted more.

More food.

With barely an acknowledging nod, Naozumi slurped up the remainder of the soup with gusto, faster than and scurried it over to the sink to rinse. Did he wash it? Nope.

Instead, he ran to his room real quick and grabbed his jacket and shoes. Nao was pulling it on as he returned to the common room and started to fumble his feet into his sneakers.

[Clement Evans]

The kid was completely done before Clement had even a third of his own gone. Clement had to just stand there, watching him. He'd never seen anyone eat that fast in his life. There was scarfing your food... and whatever this kid did. It was like he'd eaten it all in one prolonged swallow. Clement had been convinced he'd choke.

And then the bastard didn't even wash his bowl, just ran some water over it and left it. Asshole. Well, Clement wasn't washing it. The kid would have to get to it later. There was no 'thank you' either, though by this time Clement hadn't expected any.

When he left the common room, Clement thought that was it, and turned back to his own ramyeon. But no, seconds later Nameless was back, trying to get his shoes on. Where was he going? What was the rush?

Eh. Who cared. He was just some rude kid. Clement ignored him and continued eating.

[Deleted]

Naozumi had always been a particularly fast eater, especially at home where is was almost a necessity. If you wanted to eat, you had to do it before someone else stole your food right off your plate. While Nao had definitely noticed that such a thing was not common outside of his home, habits died hard. So he had grown accustomed to pretty near inhaling his food on a regular basis….the fact that his meta-ability was super speed only perpetuated and augmented this habit.

Nao said nothing to the other boy as he was putting on his shoes. He was also completely absent of the previous request for him to wash his bowl…that bowl would probably sit there until he was reminded again and towered over and forced to clean.

He stood up and headed for the door. However, as he opened it, he finally remembered his manners. Naozumi turned to his roommate and smiled. "Thank's for the food!" And then he left.