So I sit in the corner with my arms crossed, pretending to read a menu I already know by heart, pretending I don’t feel like less of an outsider tonight.
Pretending I’m not waiting for his eyes to find me.
I don’t look up when I hear the kitchen door swing open.
But I feel him. The shift in the room. The low rumble of his voice somewhere behind me, speaking in that deep Vakutan register that rolls through bone before it hits the ear. He’s not calling my name—he doesn’t know it, not yet. But somehow I know he’s coming toward me.
A plate lands in front of me. Not too hard. Just enough to be deliberate.
I glance up.
Kenron is already walking away. No fanfare. No explanation. Just that same easy grin and a nod like we’re old friends who’ve done this a thousand times before. There’s no menu. No order taken. He just brought me something.
It’s not what I had yesterday.
This one looks like a challenge. Thick cuts of some kind of root-meat, blistered on the outside, dark red sauce poolingaround its base like molten sun. Crushed nuts. Scallion curls. A twist of something pickled and green on the edge of the plate. It smells like fire and salt and something sweet buried just underneath. I lean in, inhale, and immediately cough.
Spice. Gods, it’s aggressive. It climbs into my nose and burns behind my eyes. I blink twice, grab my water before I’ve even taken a bite.
He did this on purpose.
I don’t know why that makes me smirk.
I pick up the utensils, hesitating. I glance toward the kitchen. He’s not watching me—at least not openly—but I feel the pull of him anyway. He moves through the chaos of the kitchen like he belongs there, all firelight and muscle and that ridiculous, easy confidence that makes everything around him feel like a stage built just for him.
I take the first bite.
It hurts.
But it hurts good.
The heat blooms behind my teeth, down my throat, spreading warmth through my chest like someone lit a match inside my lungs. It’s savory and sweet, thick with depth, layered with a bitterness that lingers just long enough to make the next bite necessary.
I eat slowly, not because I’m afraid of the heat, but because I want to understand it. To dissect it. Every note. Every contrast. The textures shift with each forkful. Crisp, tender, a crunch here, a melt there.
It’s infuriating how good he is at this.
I glance up again. He’s near the back now, talking to one of the line cooks. A Vakutan woman—taller than him, somehow—with silver-tipped horns and a laugh that shakes the hanging lights. He grins at her like they’ve known each other forever.
And I don’t know why that stings.
I go back to eating.
But my ears are listening now. Not just for him. For everything. The languages I dismissed yesterday don’t sound quite so alien tonight. I pick up a few words in Vakutan. Something about fire. About celebration. About someone’s grandmother. I don’t understand the grammar, but I catch the tone.
Joy. Familiarity. Home.
None of it aimed at me, but none of it excluding me either.
A small hand tugs at my sleeve and I jolt so hard I nearly send the plate flying.
I look down.
It’s a child. Vakutan, barely knee-high, big golden eyes and tiny scaled fingers holding a folded napkin like it’s a holy offering.
She grins up at me with a gap in her front teeth and giggles before darting back toward her table, where two adults—her parents, maybe—watch her with indulgent smiles.
I stare at the napkin in my lap like it’s a live explosive.
