The chain-link shifts with his steps, slinking over his shoulders and glittering in the flimsy torchlight. The soft light catches on the strong cut of his jawline, the natural shadow slashing downhis cheek. But it’s the softness of his pale green eyes and the gentle pink of his mouth that holds my attention.
And that swell in me grows.
Clearing my throat, I turn my back to him and eye the shelves in front of me.
It’s packed full of long-life milks, teas and coffees, open packets of biscuits and a few condiments.
But on the bottom shelf, light cascades over some flimsy plastic packaging.
I crouch down to be eye-level with the shelf. Disappointment greets me.
I’m ungrateful.
Pasta is food. There is a fire in the hearth. I can cook it. But it’s a pain. And while there are sachets of seasoning, that’s a whole other chore to tackle.
I miss takeaway.
I miss deliveries to my door.
I miss Bee cooking when she’s home.
The hunger and fatigue and overall mental exhaustion of survival is getting to me—and I just can’t be bothered cooking.
I pluck out a sachet of seasoning.
Turning it over in my hand, I aim the instructions printed on the back to the faint beams of torchlight.
It’s hard to read with Samick standing over me.
He flattens his hand on the edge of the pantry and considers the sparse shelves.
I toss aside the seasoning. It skitters over the pasta packets before I snare out the spaghetti.
Still crouched, I lift it above my head. “I’ll make this.”
Plain spaghetti.
Above me, there’s a scoff. A faint sound catching in the back of Samick’s throat.
Then the side of his boot nudges into me.
My knees creak as I get to my feet.
The withering glance Samick spares me doesn’t go unnoticed, and I don’t know if it’s because I chose plain old pasta, or because my knees creaked from just standing up.
Either way, he’s quick to return his attention to the pantry—and for a long moment, he considers the items sprinkled through it.
He reaches into the shelves and plucks out a few things, starting with an open tin of gravy granules, left exposed to the air too long, so I’m sure it’s just a stale rock now.
“You cannot cook,” he says, and he says it so plainly that I can’t tell if it’s a question or a statement.
I answer as though it was a question, “Not really.”
He brushes past me, but as he does, he drops a look of blatant judgement down at me.
My face hardens.
I chase him to the island counter, where the beams of my torchlight emerge from. “What, and you can?”
