Chapter Text
Hero hated the colour pink.
Unfortunate for him, then, that there didn’t seem to be anything that wasn’t some hideous shade of Pepto-Bismol nightmare for as far as the eye could see.
“Don’t expect this kind of service every day.”
The Sprout Mole set a tray in front of him; dainty china teacups and a plate of sandwiches oozing something (surprise, surprise) pink onto the plate below them.
Hero smiled at him. The Sprout Mole didn’t smile back; just wrinkled his nose at him like Hero was a piece of gum he’d just found stuck to the bottom of his suit of armour.
“Um… Harold, is it?”
“Hm,” the Sprout Mole said, which Hero thought was probably Sprout Mole for yes.
Time to turn on the old charm. “It’s good to meet you! I’m Hero.”
Harold harrumphed. “I hardly have the time to remember the names of every one-minute wonder Sweetheart gets engaged to.”
“There’s been that many?”
“…Well, three,” Harold said, clearing his throat awkwardly. “But that’s three too many, if you ask me.”
“…Right,” Hero said, not really sure which of the many questions about that he had he should ask first.
His stomach answered for him with a particularly pitiful growl. Harold scowled at the sound like Hero’s stomach had just sworn at him in several different languages, and Hero smiled apologetically as he reached across for a pink goo sandwich.
It felt… strange.
Hero wasn’t sure they were actually even edible, particularly after he’d peeled back the bread to find half a ping pong ball smeared in jam, but the leaves poking out of Harold’s armour twitched indignantly when he saw Hero hesitate, so he picked it back up and took a bite anyway.
It was crunchy.
In all the worst ways.
“I wouldn’t get too comfortable here, if I were you,” Harold said, looking him up and down with a pointed sniff.
Hero held back a grimace as he swallowed a chunk of ping pong ball.
I wasn’t planning on it.
“You won’t even know I’m here,” Hero said instead, doing his best to make his smile look warm.
“That isn’t remotely what I meant,” Harold said, and Hero thought he must not have got that smile quite up to temperature, because Harold sounded frostier than ever. “A man like you may think he has everything, but that’s of no use to you here. When it comes to Sweetheart, ‘everything’ is never enough!”
“Um.” Hero wasn’t really sure what any of that meant. “Right. Okay.”
He couldn’t be sure, but he thought he could just make out Harold rolling his eyes through the gap in his helmet.
“Bit of a feeble thing, aren’t you?” Harold asked, and Hero was so surprised by the question he choked on a piece of stale crust. Hero thought that was a bit rich coming from someone like Harold, who looked like he could probably lose a fight with a feather duster, but Hero didn’t say so.
“I, um, can’t say I’ve been told that before,” Hero said instead.
“Well, buck up, boy!” Harold said, with an impatient sort of wiggle that had his armour rattling like old tin cans. He looked entirely ridiculous, and Hero swallowed down a laugh with a hearty bite of ping pong sandwich.
Harold seemed to take that as his cue to leave, although Hero swore he heard him muttering something on his way out about Sweetheart eating men like him for breakfast.
Is that a threat or a promise? Hero wanted to say – not because he meant it, but because he was sure it would make Harold do another one of those wiggles that made him look like a little dancing tin can.
“Thanks for the tea, Harold,” Hero said instead.
The door banged shut.
Harold’s a bit of a prick, Hero thought.
At least he wasn’t pink.
Hero had no idea what he was doing.
Well, in the literal sense, he was dusting. He was standing in the hallway with Sprout Mole Mike and a feather duster the same shade of pink as gone-off shrimp. Why he was dusting, he wasn’t really sure. He was asleep, and then he wasn’t, and then he was here.
“Hey, um, Mike—”
“That’s Sprout Mole Mike to you, kid.”
Hero could already tell this was going to be a long day.
“Right! Sorry. Um. Sprout Mole Mike. I was wondering… could you take me to the dungeon today? I really need to make sure my friends are okay.”
“Oh, they’re definitely not.”
Hero paused with his duster still stuck up statue-Sweetheart’s nostril. “…What?”
“Kid, what exactly do you think happens in a dungeon? It ain’t exactly all-you-can-eat Chinese food and strolls along the beach.”
“I know, but—”
“But nothin’. If they ain’t dead yet, they’ll be wishing they were.”
Hero felt something turn in his stomach that had nothing to do with last night’s ping pong ball sandwich. He felt it tangle round his stomach like an overgrown weed; felt it push its way up through his diaphragm and twine itself round his lungs.
He pushed his back against the wall and hoped a deep breath might loosen its hold.
“I know it’s a lot to ask, but if I could just see them—"
“Look,” Mike said, pulling down his sunglasses to shoot Hero his best pitying look. “Sweetheart’s jailbird policy is real simple: no one in, no one out. And I hate to break this to you, kid, but you ain’t special. That rule goes for you as well.”
Hero’s chest tightened. He could feel something forcing the air from his lungs; vines that wrapped round him and squeezed, and squeezed, and squeezed.
“I—I know that. It’s just… there are lives at stake - my best friends, and… my little brother. I can tell you’re a good guy, Mi— uh, Sprout Mole Mike. I know you wouldn’t just leave people to die.”
Sprout Mole Mike shrugged. “I’ve done it before, I’ll do it again.”
With that, he turned back round and resumed his dusting like he’d said nothing more exciting than nice weather we’re having.
Hero didn’t move.
He pushed his back into the wall like he hoped he might sink into it; like he might fall straight through to the other side and wind up in the dungeon with a key to the cell and a few choice words for the local Sprout Moles. The weeds in his chest grew and spread and tugged on his windpipe; they wrapped tight around it and wouldn’t let go.
He felt weak.
He felt useless.
And Hero had half a mind to put that theory about Sprout Moles losing a fight with a feather duster to the test.
“I—I don’t want to fight you, sir. But if you won’t let me help my friends, then… I’ll have no choice!”
Sprout Mole Mike turned back to face him.
“Is that right?” His eyes flashed dangerously behind his sunglasses. “Kid, a puny thing like you – I could serve you up like boiled tofu.”
Hero swallowed hard.
Suddenly, he sort of believed it.
“You will do no such thing!”
Hero whipped his head towards the sound of the voice. There was a loud bang as the far-wall doorway banged shut, then the click-click of heels on marble came pattering across the hallway. Harold tottered along at her side, his armour jingling as he jogged to keep up with her.
“That’s no way to talk to my darling husband-to-be!”
Hero sighed. Being turned into tofu would probably be better than another conversation with the world’s most narcissistic meringue.
“I—I’m sorry, my princess,” Mike stuttered. “I didn’t mean—"
“Hero is here to serve me! How on earth do you expect him to perform his husbandly duties when he’s being harassed by a bunch of radishes!”
Hero watched the leaves poking out of Harold’s armour do their indignant little wiggle. “My lady, we Sprout Moles are an honourable species! We are no mere radishes—”
“Ugh. Don’t you have some soil you have to go roll around in or something?”
Harold spluttered indignantly. “That’s— Not until tomorrow!”
Sweetheart huffed, and before Hero could really process what was happening, she’d linked their arms together and pulled him down the hallway in a whirl of strawberry-scented perfume.
The next thing he knew, he was perched stiffly on the edge of a very pink bed and eyeing up the doorway like he hoped it might suck him back through.
“It’s very bold of you to invite yourself into my chambers like this,” Sweetheart said, leaning closer to the mirror to dab something sparkly on her cheeks. “We’ve only just met, after all.”
Sweetheart giggled, but Hero barely heard the sound over his own spluttering.
“What? I—You brought me in here!”
Sweetheart laughed, and the sound was bright and sweet; it gave Hero the same nauseous feeling he got when he ate too much sugar. He got the distinct impression she was laughing at him.
Sweetheart clocked the blush in his cheeks with a quirk of one perfectly plucked eyebrow.
“How adorable. Are you shy?”
Hero felt some strange half-protest tumble out of his throat, but it faded into silence when he caught her eye in the dressing table mirror. She smiled at him, devilish, and he quickly looked away.
The heat in his face burnt hotter than ever.
“I suppose it’s to be expected,” she continued. “It’s not everyday a man finds himself in the presence of someone so frightfully pulchritudinous.”
Hero looked at her blankly. He wasn’t really sure what pulchritudinous meant, but frightful definitely seemed about right.
“Well, it will take a few weeks to plan the wedding. Plenty of time for you to get over your, ah… stage fright?”
Her dress rustled as she swivelled on her stool to look at him directly.
“What’s the matter, Hero? Do I make you nervous?”
Hero swallowed hard. The way she looked at him suggested she already knew the answer and was very much enjoying it, but she kept looking, waiting, fluttering her lashes and swinging her feet and willing him to say it out loud.
“Um,” Hero said. “…A little.”
“Oh-hoh-hoh-hoh!”
Hero felt something like embarrassment burn hot in his chest. He dropped his gaze to the floor and squeezed his eyes shut and fisted his hands in the candyfloss bedspread.
A pause.
A deep breath.
“Sweetheart, I’m really sorry, but… I already told you I can’t marry you. I don’t even know you.” He looked up to meet her eyes. Her eyeshadow was the same shade of pink as the geraniums in the wallpaper. “Don’t you want to marry someone who really loves you?”
Sweetheart turned back round. She smiled at him in the mirror.
“You’ll fall in love with me soon enough,” she said. “Everyone always does.”
The world around him was nothing but dainty florals and bubblegum pink, and Hero wasn’t sure whether it was that that was making his stomach hurt, or the fact he probably ate at least three ping pong balls last night. He made a mental note to let Kel know when he saw him – Kel always had had a morbid fascination with eating the inedible.
For now, he flopped back onto the fuchsia bedspread and curled around the ache in his stomach. He wondered if those mangled pieces of ping pong ball he swallowed could have knitted themselves back together, because it certainly felt like his stomach was full of them, rattling around inside him each time he turned over in his too-small bed.
Hero threw the covers off with a heavy sigh.
There was no one in the hallways and no one in the kitchen. It was a relief as much as it wasn’t; the rooms here were big and the ceilings were high, and Hero felt small in the vast open space. He filled up the kettle and turned on the oven and told himself there was music in the way that they hummed.
Breakfast was quiet.
Or, it was quiet until Hero had taken his first bite of scrambled tofu and suddenly found himself with some sleepy-looking Sprout Moles gazing hopefully at him across the table.
“You! Boy!” Harold said, clambering into a chair and slamming his sword down on the table. “Something smells… strange. Almost… good?”
Hero got the impression that didn’t happen often round here, if last night’s dinner were anything to go by.
“Would you like some?” Hero asked. “I always wind up making too much. Help yourselves.”
“Goodness me, I thought you’d never ask!” A Sprout Mole in a hat twice its own height pulled a plate towards itself, then turned to shoot Harold a disdainful look. “And Harold, do take your sword off the table. I would hate to imagine where that dreadful thing has been.”
“Do be quiet, Lucius,” Harold replied. “My sword is state-of-the-art and incredibly valuable. One can hardly say the same thing about you.”
“Why, I have half a mind to—”
Lucius paused mid-sentence.
The room fell silent.
Hero watched with a vague apprehension churning in his stomach as the Sprout Moles chewed, slow and silent, their eyes catching across the table.
“You.” Harold locked eyes with Hero.
He sighed. “My name is Hero, sir—”
“Did you make this?”
Hero rubbed the back of his neck. “I know it’s not much, but there weren’t too many ingredients here to work with—”
“Not much?” Lucius leant forwards in his chair, his eyes wide. “My boy, this is the most exquisite tofu I have ever had the honour of tasting. Why, the textures… The flavours…”
“The way it’s cooked all the way through!”
“Yes, Marsha! The way it’s cooked all the way through! In all my years, I have never known tofu like this.”
Hero shot him an uneasy little smile. “Uh, wow, thanks! That means a lot.”
“Boy!” Harold barked. “I command that you cook us your tofu tomorrow! That’s an order!”
“Oh. Really? That’s—That would be an honour, sir!” Hero smiled again, and this one felt bright, easy—
“On two conditions.”
—And just a little bit smug.
“The first condition: You learn my name, Harold—”
Harold harrumphed loudly.
“—And two: You let me see my friends. Every day.”
Silence settled round the table.
The Sprout Moles looked at each other in turn, the sprigs on their heads wiggling like twitching antennae. Hero watched, waited; stirred the dish in the centre of the table so the smell of spiced tofu hung strong in the air.
Hero was sure Lucius was about to relent.
Then the door to the kitchen swung open with a bang.
“You! Earthly scum!”
…And Hero was no expert, but he was pretty sure this guy was no Sprout Mole.
Captain Spaceboy swept into the room, his clothes creased and crooked and lying awkwardly on his body. Something about him felt frantic, wild; his cloak flapped behind him like it was fighting to be free, his one uncovered eye red, ablaze, boring into Hero like he hoped it might kill him.
“You there! Sprout Mole!” he barked, flicking a hand towards Marsha. “Seize him at once!”
“Ugh,” Marsha muttered. “This guy again.”
Lucius snickered quietly into his beard.
“How—How dare you! How dare you show such insolence towards the Prince of the Universe!”
“You aren’t the prince anymore,” Harold said, with a sniff of great distaste. “Sweetheart has made it quite clear we no longer take orders from the likes of you.”
Captain Spaceboy faltered, just for a moment. He dropped his hand to his side and stared at the wall, and for just a few seconds, Hero sort of felt sorry for him. He looked like a man with a brand new body; one with limbs too big for him to hold on his own, one that heard all his orders but couldn’t understand them.
It didn’t last for long.
Only seconds had passed by the time he’d turned back to Hero and balled his fists up at his sides.
“I heard about you everywhere I went,” he spat. “In Otherworld, and Vast Forest, and—and Sprout Mole Village, of all places! Everywhere I went, they spoke of Sweetheart’s new suitor. But I never, never believed them when they said that it was you.” Spaceboy slumped where he stood. “…I thought we were friends.”
Hero scrambled up from the kitchen table, his hands making frantic gestures that even he wasn’t sure the meaning of.
“I’m not her, uh… suitor!” Hero protested. “She asked me to marry her, but I don’t want to, I promise. It’s all just… a horrible misunderstanding.”
Captain Spaceboy bristled. “What do you mean, you don’t want to marry her? What’s wrong with her?”
“N-nothing! I just—”
“What’s wrong with you?”
Hero swallowed hard.
Now really wasn’t the time to open that can of worms.
“I—I don’t know—”
“You don’t know?” Anger flashed across his face like lightning. “Is that what this is? You think you can take whatever you please because you’re so— so perfect?”
“No, that’s not what I—”
“Take her, then,” Spaceboy spat, eyes big and black and burning like coals set alight. “Let’s see how perfect you are by the time that she’s done with you.”
Hero felt panic well up in his chest. “But I don’t want—”
Spaceboy had already turned on his heel, cape flouncing behind him as he made for the door. He yanked it open and stepped through the threshold, but turned to shoot Hero one last dark look before he slammed it shut behind him.
“I’m sure you don’t care for the opinions of inferior beings,” Spaceboy said. “But for what it’s worth, I don’t think you’re perfect at all.”
Sir Maximus nodded at him curtly as he stepped to the side of the gate.
There was a jangle of keys and the creak of old metal and then all that stood between him and his friends was a long and cobwebbed tunnel.
He found them at the very end of it.
They were all in a circle when he got there; huddled together in the middle of the room with a pile of old sweet wrappers between them. There was ramen, too – the cheap stuff, lying unopened but for the one half-empty sitting on Kel’s crossed legs.
“Kel, that’s gross,” Aubrey muttered, glaring daggers as he shovelled dry noodles in with both hands. “No one wants to watch you eat you like a slobbery old bulldog.”
“Then don’t watch,” Kel said, and his next bite was so noisy Hero was sure he was doing it on purpose. “If—”
“Hero.”
Sunny’s smile was warm and comforting and maybe the best thing Hero had seen since he’d stepped foot in this place.
“What? Oh!”
Kel jumped up at the sight of him, and Hero grinned through the bars on the door.
“It’s so good to see you,” Aubrey said. “We were getting worried.”
“Aubrey was getting worried. I knew you could handle it.” Kel grinned at him a moment, then suddenly, his smile turned wicked. “Anyway,” Kel said, his eyebrows wiggling. “How’s your giiiirlfriend?”
“Kel, knock it off!” Aubrey hissed, her hands fists at her sides. “This is serious!”
Hero felt his face heat up. He hoped it was dark enough here no one would notice.
“She’s not my girlfriend,” he said, crossing his arms. “You’re gonna hurt Mari’s feelings if she hears you saying stuff like that.”
The room stilled.
The sound of her name seemed to shift something in the air. Hero didn’t know what it was, or why it was there, but it hung between them like a thick layer of treacle; sticky and slimy and hard to wash off.
“Um… Where is Mari?” Aubrey asked.
There was silence for a moment as they all exchanged blank looks.
“I… don’t know.”
Hero felt the heat drain from his face, just as quick as it had come. He felt cold, suddenly; felt strange and uncomfortable and altogether wrong.
“Hero?” Aubrey’s voice was small, tentative. “Are you okay?”
Hero shook off the feeling with a deep breath and a hand run roughly through his hair.
“Yeah! I’m fine, guys. You don’t have to worry about me – you’re the ones locked in a dungeon.” Hero smiled at them through the bars in the door; rubbed the back of his neck like he was embarrassed he wasn’t on the other side of them.
Kel scrunched his nose up. “Then why do you look so horrible?”
“Kel!”
Aubrey elbowed him – hard, if the way Kel yelped was anything to go by.
“What the hell, Aubrey?” Kel yelled, shooting her an incredulous look and a jab in the ribs right back.
Aubrey scowled at him, giving him another elbow in return, and within seconds they were on the floor, all elbows and knees and any sense of rationality thrown straight through the bars on the window.
“Guys, we don’t have time for this,” Hero said, shuffling closer to the door and wrapping his hands around the bars. “Could you stop? Please?”
Kel and Aubrey either didn’t hear or didn’t care. It wasn’t until Sunny moved over and gently pulled Kel back by the shoulders that they seemed to remember the others were there; they shuffled apart and settled cross-legged by opposite walls, content to scowl at each other from across the room.
Sunny shot Hero a pleading look.
Hero got the sense that was far from the first time Sunny had had to do that.
“I’m right, though,” Kel grumbled, arms crossed tight across his chest. “You do look… Uh…” He shot Aubrey a pointed look. “…under the weather?”
Hero shrugged. “Guess I didn’t sleep well last night. Everything here is really… pink.”
Aubrey snickered. “And that’s a problem?”
“It’s like trying to sleep in a dollhouse! I keep thinking someone’s gonna open it up and yank me out.”
“At least they feed you up there,” Kel muttered, picking half-heartedly at the empty ramen packet by his side. “I’m hungry.”
“I’m sorry.” Hero felt the vines creep up around his lungs again. “I’ll cook for you tomorrow. I’ll bring you dinner.”
Kel’s stomach growled in response. “I think that means thanks,” Kel said, smiling sheepishly.
Hero’s smile back was wobbly at best. There was something about this that felt off, uncomfortable; something that settled in his stomach like he’d swallowed gravel. It felt like the time he was twelve and Kel was eight and he was meant to make lunch when mom went out; when just one more go at level ten turned into four more hours of growling stomachs. Guilt pulled at his chest. It had pulled at him back then, too. He half-expected mom to turn up now – to come round the corner, shopping bags in hand, and scold him for not looking after his little brother like he’d promised her, sworn that he would.
“If it’s any consolation, I don’t think you’d really want what they’re feeding me,” Hero said, the wobble in his smile fading a little. “The Sprout Moles have an… interesting… diet. They made me ping pong ball sandwiches last night.”
Kel leant forward, eyes lit up. “And you ate them?”
Hero crossed his arms, suddenly a little self-conscious. “Well, they went to all that trouble… It would’ve been rude not to.”
“Whoa! Cool! What did they taste like?”
“Kel, shut up!” Aubrey said, and Hero was pretty sure if they weren’t sitting on opposite sides of the room, she’d have elbowed him in the ribs again. “Hero, that’s stupid. No wonder you’re feeling sick.”
Hero rubbed the back of his neck again. “I’m fine.”
Aubrey opened her mouth to protest, but she was cut off by the tell-tale jangling of Harold and his tin-can armour. Hero turned around to find him hopping off the last of the steps and panting a little with the exertion.
“That’s quite enough of that for one day! Let’s not give Sweetheart reason to be suspicious, hm?” Harold said, straining to be heard over the sound of his own armour.
Hero stood back up, but couldn’t quite bring himself to take a step forward.
“Get a move on, then! If there’s one thing I can’t abide, it’s lollygagging. Sharpen up, boy!”
Hero glanced back through the bars on the door; to Kel, Aubrey and Sunny, huddled into themselves on the floor of the cell and gazing up at him with eyes big and faces drawn.
“I’ll come back tomorrow,” he said.
He hoped tomorrow came fast.
Hero didn’t know where else to look.
He was sure he’d searched this part of the castle already, but he’d come back, again and again, because there was nothing else to do and nowhere else to go.
Something felt off.
Off in the way that the dark had made him feel when he was a kid; like there was something beside him, something terrible, and if it reached out to grab him he wouldn’t know until it was far, far too late.
Off in the way that the news had made him feel when he got older; like there was something out there, something terrible, but that something was too big and too many and Hero was far too small to stop it.
Hero wasn’t sure which of the two it was. All he knew was that something was wrong, and Mari was gone, and he could never forgive himself if the evils in the dark ever found their way towards her.
No sign in the kitchen.
No sign in the gallery.
No picnic blanket laid out in the elevators.
The hallways were empty and the stairwells abandoned and he knocked on every last one of the doors in the castle but it was never Mari that answered.
He could feel her; he could feel her warmth and her smile and the way she looked when said she said his name. He could see her, but only in his mind’s eye; he wandered the hallways and tumbled through memories of her he didn’t know what to do with. He missed her, deeply and terribly, and he didn’t quite know why when he only saw her yesterday morning.
It felt suffocating.
The castle was too big, too pink, and it bore down on him like he’d been sucked into a marshmallow and had someone squish it down with the palm of their hand.
Hero wandered back to the kitchen. It seemed the only place that might ease his nerves. He pulled open cupboard doors and emptied the contents onto the worktops; cracked eggs and weighed flour and tried to find some comfort in the familiarity of the routine.
It sort of worked. It worked until it didn’t; until Hero filled a teaspoon with sweet vanilla essence and caught the scent as he poured it into the bowl.
It smelt like Mari.
Hero dropped the spoon onto the counter. He wasn’t sure why it made him feel so awful, but the thought of her wrapped him up like ropes around his bones. His chest was tight, too tight, like his ribs were too big to fit under his skin and it was stretching, stretching, pulling apart, the threads of it snapping cell by tiny cell—
Hero gulped in a breath. He clutched at his hair, twisting his fingers in it till it pulled, till it hurt, and he didn’t really know what was happening, only knew he had to get to the sink and lean over it, gasping, because he was pretty sure he was about to throw up.
Hero swallowed hard.
He could see his face reflected in the metal, blurred and distorted from the curve of the sink, and he shut his eyes so he wouldn’t have to watch the memory of Mari swallow him whole. He missed her, missed her deep in his bones like she’d hollowed him out and taken them with her, and he didn’t know why he missed her quite so hard, but he knew that it hurt, it hurt, it hurt.
His elbows dug into the counter. It hurt, but it helped; helped him remember his bones were still tucked away safely inside of him. He felt his ribs shrink back inside his chest, and slowly, tentatively, he opened his eyes once again.
The reflection in the bottom of the sink was terrified.
Hero was pretty sure it was somebody else.
He turned away from it, but he didn’t think he was recovered quite enough yet to do anything but stare morosely at the wall. He leant his elbows on the counter again, twisted his fingers in his hair. The smell of the cake mix was strong, nauseating. Something was wrong with it. He didn’t know what.
“…Am I interrupting something?”
Hero was pretty sure he jumped a solid six feet in the air.
“No!” he said, too quick and too loud. He turned around and laughed nervously, running a hand through his messy hair.
Captain Spaceboy watched him closely, leaning in the doorway with arms crossed tight across his chest. “You’re really quite strange, aren’t you?”
“…No one in this castle is particularly complimentary, are they?” Hero countered, deadpan.
Captain Spaceboy smiled, just a little. “Not the first time you’ve been called strange?” There was a glint in his eye. “I suppose it must be true, then.”
“I’m not strange,” Hero muttered, picking up the spatula again and beating the cake mix just for something to do with his hands. “A Sprout Mole did call me feeble yesterday though, which did feel a little rich coming from something I could blow away with a straw.”
Captain Spaceboy hummed. Hero felt very watched. His arm ached, but he felt too self-conscious to stop moving.
“Sounds like compliments are something you’re used to,” Captain Spaceboy mused, pushing himself up off the doorway. “What’s the matter? Is the king missing his crown?”
Hero breathed out a half-laugh. “What? No, that’s not what I meant. I just— Um.”
Hero suddenly realised he wasn’t sure what he meant. He was used to compliments, but it wasn’t that he missed them. Honestly, it was sort of a relief to find somewhere where the expectations placed on him didn’t feel impossible to live up to.
“If you’re pausing for effect, I’m afraid the moment is over,” Captain Spaceboy said, breaking a silence Hero hadn’t realised had fallen. He smiled again. “I suppose we can add inarticulate to your list of character flaws.”
“No one’s ever said that to me before, either,” Hero said, smiling a little despite himself.
“Earth standards must truly be in the gutter,” Captain Spaceboy said.
With that, he left.
Hero jolts awake and takes half his textbook with him. There’s a page stuck to his cheek, and the sudden movement pulls it from his skin and sends it clattering to the floor. The room is quiet – too quiet; the fluttering of the pages sounds like fireworks let off in the dead of night. The girl sat opposite shoots him a dirty look, and Hero scrapes together enough energy to smile apologetically across the table. She looks tired. He reckons he probably looks worse.
He pushes back from the table and makes for the stairs. His joints pop as he moves, and his eyes feel gritty and sore no matter how much he rubs the sleep out of them. There aren’t many windows in this part of the library, but the ones he passes don’t have much to show him; a dark sky and a half-moon and the orange glow of streetlights that sway a little in the wind. The coffee shop on the bottom floor is similarly desolate; it’s empty bar the barista and a pale man in a too-big t-shirt staring morosely at the coffee stains on the table.
The barista smiles softly at him when she sees him coming. “The usual?”
Hero smiles back, much tighter. “Thanks.”
He leans against the counter while the coffee machine whirs to life. The man in the corner hasn’t looked up once. He’s pale and thin and looks a little like he's trying not to cry, and Hero wants to ask him if he’s alright, but he’s so exhausted himself he doesn’t think he can actually string a sentence together.
The coffee burns on its way down.
Hero downs half his coffee while it’s hot and drinks the rest cold two hours later. He goes home at lunchtime but doesn’t eat lunch; gets an hour of dreamless sleep at the kitchen table with the bread still unopened in front of him.
He wakes up to the phone in his bedroom ringing proudly and answers it not entirely sure he’s not still asleep.
“Hero! Finals are over now, right? When are you coming home?”
“…Who is this?”
There’s a frustrated huff from the other end of the phone. “It’s Kel! Jeez, Hero, did you forget about me already?”
“I—No! No, of course I didn’t. How—How are you doing?”
“I’m bored! When are you coming home?”
“Oh. I, uh. I don’t know.”
The world seems to move around him in waves. His stomach aches. He thinks he’s hungry, but the thought of food makes him feel a little sick.
“…Are you okay?”
“Yeah.” Hero tries to laugh. “I’m fine. I’m just, uh. Hungry. I think.”
“Then eat something, stupid.”
“…Yeah.”
There’s a strange pause that Hero can’t explain. Kel has never been much for peace and quiet; it feels eerie and dream-like and altogether wrong.
“…Mom! Hero’s being weird!”
Hero suddenly feels much more awake than he did before. He grunts in surprise, clutching the handset closer to his ear.
“Kel! What—I’m not being weird!”
Before Kel can respond, the phone line fills with rustling and clatter and muffled conversation, and then his mother’s voice filters through the handset.
“Hero? What’s going on?”
“Nothing!” Hero protests.
“Well, what have you being saying to Kel?”
“Nothing!” Hero repeats.
Mom hums like she doesn’t quite believe him.
“Are you getting enough sleep?”
Hero sighs. “Yes, mom.”
“Are you eating properly?”
“Yes, mom.”
“Are you sure?”
“Yes, mom.”
The line clicks off when mom runs out of questions and Hero runs out of ways to avoid them.
He grabs two slices of bread from the packet on the table and eats them on the way back to the library.