I fought the urge to face palm. “Right, sorry, you said that.”
We passed a few shops in silence, and I noticed there were a lot of shaved ice desert places.
Eventually, Atticus cleared his throat. “So, how have you been since Wednesday?”
“I’ve been good. What about you?”
“Good.”
“Do you have any assignments?” I asked.
“I have some, but they’re not too difficult.” He pointed at a restaurant we were approaching. “That’s the place.”
Leo and Elena led us inside, and now I was close enough to hear their conversation.
“— must be super clever,” Leo was saying earnestly.
“I just study a lot.”
“You still must have brains,” Leo insisted. “So what’s the goal afterwards? Medicine?”
“That’s my first preference —” Elena caught sight of an approaching waiter. “Hi, we have a reservation under Sinclair.”
We were led to a table in the back of the restaurant with a circular opening in the middle where the soup would sit. Leo and I sat on one side, Elena and Atticus on the other side.
“Let’s see,” Elena said as she opened a menu. “What soup base should we get? Can you two handle spice?”
“Yeah, a medium amount,” I said.
“I think so?” Leo said.
“Maybe we’ll get two bases to start with,” Atticus said. “They have a dual option. Let’s get spicy and the pork bone broth. Neither of you have any dietary restrictions, do you?”
Leo and I answered we didn’t, and after we ordered the soup, we discussed what other things we wanted to order. Atticus and Elena told us the best value items were meat — rolls of lamb, pork, and beef. We also got noodles, rice cakes, and bok choy at Leo’s insistence that he needed to eat vegetables.
After we ordered the first set of things with the idea we could always order more later, we got up to browse the sauce counter. There were small bowls that we could add ingredients to in order to make a dipping sauce.
“What do you recommend?” Leo asked Elena.
“I like to add soy sauce, a dash of chilli…” she started, dictating a recipe to Leo in a business-like manner. Leo followed her instructions obediently.
“Wow, you’re an expert in this stuff, aren’t you?” he said, flashing her one of his heart-stopping grins. Despite Elena’s matter-of-fact demeanour, I was sure Leo would wear her down by the end of the night.
After we returned to our table, a waiter arrived with the bowl of soup, which was shaped like a yin-yang symbol, half milky white with a chunky piece of bone swimming in it, the other half deep red and full of chillis with an orange teddy bear sitting in the middle.
“Oh my god, it’s so cute,” I said.
“Too bad it’s dying,” Atticus said. He used a metal ladle to knock it over so it was properly submerged in the hot liquid.
“You’re murdering it!” I said, watching in horror as the orange teddy bear melted, its adorable face becoming a deformed monstrous thing.
“R.I.P. teddy bear,” Leo said.
“You guys are aware it’s not alive, right?” Elena asked.
Atticus gave her a look. “No, we’re not aware, Elena. We all thought the soup base bear was sentient.”
Elena gave him a withering look, and once again, if they didn’t look nothing alike, I’d have assumed they were siblings.
