In the second floor loft, Zero and One were deep in their study of the Abyssal tomes, the air around them practically humming with concentration. Soma walked right over to them, a determined look on his face.
"I'm closing the café tomorrow," he announced.
Zero paused, his finger tracing a complex, glowing line of Abyssal thread in the air. "Expound," he said, not looking up.
Soma explained the situation with Marc, the memory-stew, and his repeated failures. "I just feel it," he said, his voice earnest. "There's something more to this. Sal told me to train my 'hearth,' to learn to control my cooking's power. To be honest, I have no idea how. But I feel like this... this is how I start. I need to crack this, not for him, but for me."
"Are you asking for permission, or are you telling me?" Zero asked, finally turning his full attention to his brother.
"The latter," Soma said, unflinching.
Zero sighed, a small smile playing on his lips. "Alright. But only one day."
"LETS GOO!" Soma cheered, pumping his fist.
From a corner of the room, where he was sketching out a design for Erwin's coat, Legolas looked up. "Wow," he said, his voice dry. "You're an unpaid laborer, and you're hyped just because you get one day off? Steve Jobs would have loved your business knowledge."
…
Morning came quickly in the Auch family's small apartment. Marc, his school uniform on and his bag slung over his shoulder, walked to the front door.
"Bye, Mom! Bye, Dad! Bye, Gran-gran!" he called out.
He opened the door and his words caught in his throat. Standing on the front pavement of his building was Chef Soma. He was wearing a simple coat and a hat, and he held a paper-wrapped food container in one hand. He waved.
"Can I come in?" Soma asked.
"Mom! Dad!" Marc yelled, his voice a mixture of panic and confusion. "There's a guest!"
Marc's father, Mace, and his mother, Annes, came to the door, their expressions wary. "What is it, dear?" Annes started to ask, but she stopped when she saw the red-haired human standing on their doorstep. They had seen humans before, but never one who looked so... out of place, yet so calm.
Soma, seeing the demon couple, immediately took off his hat as a sign of respect. This one simple gesture shocked them more than his appearance. A human, showing a demon family such basic courtesy, was a thing they had never witnessed.
"Good morning, sir, ma'am," Soma said, his voice polite. "I'm here in need of your help."
Marc, realizing his parents had no idea who this was, stammered, "This... this is Chef Soma. From the... the café."
Mace, his posture still guarded, nodded slowly. "What can we be of help?"
"Hopefully it's not too much," Soma said with a smile. "But I was wondering if I could... chat, and spend the day with Marc's grandma."
The Auch family was completely stunned.
Mace was the first to recover. He looked at his son, who was still standing frozen in the doorway. "Marc. Go to school. Hurry up, you can't be late."
"But–" Marc started.
"It's alright, dear," his mother said, her voice soft as she gently nudged him out the door. She then turned back to Soma. "Let's talk inside, Mr. Soma."
As Marc reluctantly headed off, Mace led Soma into their simple apartment. "Can I get you something?" Mace asked.
"That won't be necessary, sir," Soma said. "In fact, I brought you this." He handed the food container to Mace.
Mace took it, and as he peeked inside, a waft of the most incredible aroma he had ever encountered hit him. It was a smell so rich and flavorful you could almost taste it on the air, far more complex than any meal they had ever been able to afford. He wordlessly handed the bag to his wife, who took it to their small, simple dinner table, her eyes wide.
Mace then led Soma to the simple living room. They both sat.
"So," Mace said, his voice cautious but no longer hostile. "Can you explain what you meant by that statement, Mr. Soma?"
…
"...and that's why I've come this morning," Soma finished, having explained his culinary quest to Marc's parents.
Mace and Annes were stunned by the explanation. That this renowned human chef would go to such lengths for a small, mumbled request from their son was beyond their comprehension. Mace, overwhelmed, immediately stood and gave a deep, formal bow.
"I am so sorry, Chef," Mace said, his voice thick with humility. "My son has been a great inconvenience to you."
"Whoa, hey!" Soma said, quickly getting up and grabbing Mace's shoulders, physically straightening his bowing posture. "No need to do this, please!" He looked from Mace to Annes, his expression earnest. "I'll be more thankful if you stop bowing like this. To be honest, I'm here for my personal journey. In a way, I'm not deserving of your bow, so..."
Soma then returned the gesture, giving them a deep, respectful bow of his own. "Please, help me."
Now the situation was completely flipped. Mace and Annes, embarrassed to be bowed to by a human, rushed to make him stand up. "Yes, yes, of course, please don't bow," Mace said. "We... we would be thankful, honestly. She has been... out of it... more lately. She doesn't even recognize me as her son anymore. It would be better if she wasn't alone for the day."
"Thank you," Soma said, a look of profound relief on his face.
He saw the grandmother, a frail demoness in a wheelchair, looking blankly out the window. Soma smiled and walked over, crouching down to her eye level. "Hello, gran-gran," he said softly. "I'm Soma. I'll be spending the day with you, okay?"
…
Meanwhile, in the loft, a breakthrough. Zero and One, surrounded by a maelstrom of open books and floating, glowing diagrams, had found a match.
"This is it," One said, pointing to a passage in an old, leather-bound tome. "The descriptions of 'Harnessing the Sun's Heart' from the Sunstone Observatory. It's not runes, it's Weaving. They're describing the same fundamental strings we are, just... badly."
"And here," Zero countered, holding up another text. "The Watchtower of Edda. Their 'Songs of the Deep' to control ice and sea. It's the same Abyssal principles."
But their shared discovery immediately ran into a problem. A theoretical wall.
"It's obvious," Zero said, pacing the room. "The Abyssal Weaving is the stem. It's the root of it all. These mages, with their 'Elementalism,' they've just stumbled onto one tiny thread of this power and built their entire towers around it, calling it their own."
"No, you're wrong," One said, his analytical mind coming to a different conclusion. "Look at the complexity. The Weaving isn't the stem, it's the branch. It's a derived art. It's a way to manipulate the existing, raw elemental magic of the world, a universal tool to hack into different systems. It's not the source."
They stared at each other, two versions of the same stubborn mind. They would have to prove each other wrong. The research race had begun.
…
Time passed. Back at the Auch apartment, Soma was sitting with the grandmother. He had been talking to her for hours, trying to get a sense of who she was. As the mid-morning sun finally broke through the clouds, its warm light streamed through the window. Gran-gran seemed to lean towards it, a flicker of awareness in her eyes.
"Wanna go out and bathe in the sun?" Soma asked gently.
She turned to him, a polite, vacant smile on her face. "Oh, who are you? You seem like a good human."
Soma chuckled. She had said this exact line to him at least five times. He wheeled her out onto the small, sun-drenched landing in front of the building. He had cut up some soft fruits and was feeding them to her. She looked at him, her eyes suddenly sharp and focused.
"Orion... is that you?" she asked, her voice suddenly strong.
Soma smiled and, deciding to oblige the moment of lucidity, said, "Yes, gran. Are you okay?"
"Huuuph," she huffed, a flash of her old self returning. "Is that damned Captain still torturing you? Making you swim with the ship every morning? You just tell me when, I'll go down there and tell him to stop!"
Soma chuckled, a mental note firing in his head. 'Orion. A sailor. Grandpa?' "You tell 'em, gran."
Her eyes then followed a bird as it flew past. As it disappeared over a rooftop, the thread of her memory snapped. The light in her eyes faded. She looked back at Soma, her expression once again polite and blank.
"Oh, hi there, young man," she said. "Are you new around the neighborhood?"
Soma smiled, undeterred, and offered her another piece of fruit. "I am. How are you today?"
"I'm swell, dear," she said, eating the fruit. "I think today is my day off. You know, being a nanny is hard work."
Soma's mind filed that away. 'Nanny. Like Marc's mom. Or was she one too?' He needed to find the memory of the stew. He needed an emotional anchor. "Oh yeah?" he said, leaning in conspiratorially. "Can you tell me about it? Maybe... a gossip you can share? I swear, I'm a good secret keeper."
Gran-gran looked at Soma, a mischievous, conspiratorial glint suddenly appearing in her hazy eyes.
"Oh, it's hard work, raising the babies of these nobles," she whispered, leaning in as if sharing a great secret. "They want perfect, obedient little dolls, yet they never give the love those children deserve." She settled back into her wheelchair. "My first... my first noble baby... it was a baron's child. A little girl named Bona Claus. That was in 1385. I was just fifteen at the time."
Soma was taken aback by the date. '1385?' he thought. 'The current year is 1484. She's... much older than I thought.'
"She was so innocent," Gran-gran continued, a fond smile on her face. "No hate in her eyes. Not yet. Her mother... the Baroness... she barely held her. Always busy. 'Tea parties,' 'soirees.' Pah." She chuckled, a dry, wheezing sound, and her eyes lit up with a vivid memory. "One day, little Bona, she must have been four... she points right at my head and asks me, 'Nanny, why do you have horns?'"
Gran-gran started to laugh, a full, wheezing cackle that shook her frail body. "I told her," she gasped, "I told her it was because I ate too much goat meat! Hahaha!"
Soma, caught up in her genuine joy, laughed along with her.
"You should have seen her face!" Gran-gran wheezed, wiping a tear from her eye. "Hahaha... moments like those... they never seem important at the time. But they are. They're the whole world. And the Baroness... she missed so much of her daughter's life."
Soma's smile softened. "Did you... did you ever see the children you raised grow up?"
The light in Gran-gran's eyes dimmed, the joy replaced by a familiar, weary sadness. "You give your love to these children," she said, her voice a low murmur. "You pour your whole heart into them. But in the end... they see their parents, they see the world they live in... and they end up just like their mamas and papas."
Soma's face fell.
"Sometimes," she whispered, "I wanted to stay at their house. Be there all hours, especially at night. But they wouldn't let me. They can't have a demon around while they're sleeping, you see. It's not 'proper'."
"But they let you raise their children?" Soma asked, the hypocrisy stinging him.
"Oh, they don't care about what makes sense," Gran-gran said with a dismissive wave of her hand. "As long as we make their lives easy, they'll make up any rules they want for how we should live ours." Her gaze drifted, her focus turning inward, to a darker memory. "A baby... a baby will be wearing their potty pants all night. They don't get changed until I get there in the morning. Ten hours. Sometimes... sometimes I had an ache... a real ache in my heart... to just grab the baby and run. Run away and give them a better mama and papa. But no." She shook her head. "That would have endangered my son. My Mace."
"Does it get hard?" Soma asked gently. "Raising another's baby, while having a baby of your own?"
The question, too complex, too close to the present, seemed to break the thread of her memory. She went silent, her expression smoothing out, the painful lucidity fading. She turned her head, looked at Soma as if seeing him for the first time, and gave him that same, polite, vacant smile.
"Oh, hello, young man," she said. "You look like a nice human."
Soma's heart ached for her, for Marc, for all of them. He just smiled, picking up another piece of cut fruit. "I am," he said softly. "How are you today?"
"I'm swell, dear," she said, happily eating the fruit he offered.
…
Night fell, and a weary Soma returned to the café, his arms laden with bags of fresh, local ingredients from the Auchs' neighborhood.
"Oh, welcome back," Legolas called out from the loft. "I was about to burn the kitchen down myself if you came back any later."
Soma just walked past him, his eyes distant, his mind clearly a million miles away. "You can wait in the loft," he said, his voice quiet and focused. "Dinner will be ready in a minute."
Legolas watched him disappear into the kitchen, a thoughtful look on his face. 'He went out for that 'training,'' he mused. 'I guess now isn't the time for bothering him.'
He went back upstairs. Zero and One were still hunched over their respective books, lost in the world of Abyssal Weaving.
"Soma's back," Legolas announced. "But he's become... weird. Don't say anything if the food comes up tasting strange."
"Uh-huh," Zero replied mindlessly, not looking up. They were both too focused on their own theoretical battle.
Legolas sighed. He looked at the binder he'd just finished stitching. The rich, treated leather was finally dry and cured. "I guess the only one not weird around here is just me now."
A few minutes later, Soma came up the stairs carrying three plates. He wordlessly put them on the table. "Don't wait for me," he said. "Just eat." Then he turned and went straight back downstairs.
The three clones looked at each other over their plates. "What happened?" Zero finally asked, his concentration broken.
"At least it doesn't taste weird," Legolas said, already eating.
"Is it supposed to be weird?" One asked.
"I don't know," Legolas replied, finishing his bite. "Anyway, here's that binder you needed." He slid the finished, multi-paged leather binder across the table. "You can put the character cards in there."
"Thanks," Zero said, picking it up and admiring the craftsmanship.
…
Meanwhile, in the kitchen downstairs, Soma was in a trance. He stood before the two sets of ingredients: his, and hers. Even the ghost of Gusteu, usually so chatty and critical, was floating silently, observing with a rare intensity.
Soma had the path mapped out in his mind. He finally understood. He saw Gran-gran, a young nanny, buying her ingredients on the long walk home. She could only buy them late in the evening, after her work was done. The ingredients weren't fresh. They were the leftovers, the bruised vegetables, the tougher cuts of meat that the market vendors sold for cheap at the end of the day.
But she made them into a meal filled with love. A love she give to the noble babies who would one day forget her, a love she poured into her own son, her own family, to protect them. And now, the ironic reality: the universe, in its cruel, balancing way, was making her forget the very people she had cherished so much.
Just like the universe, her life wasn't perfect. And neither were her ingredients.
He looked at the ingredients he'd just bought from her neighborhood market and contrasted them with the flawless, perfect, almost magical ingredients from the café's storage—a gift from Cecil themselves. The stark difference was obvious. His food was technically perfect, but it was soulless. It lacked the history. It lacked the struggle.
A spark ignited in his mind. This was it. This was the path to improving his "hearth." Not by adding more power, but by adding more... reality. By embracing the imperfect.
He closed his eyes. He didn't just look at the bruised root vegetable; he listened to it, felt its journey, felt the way it wanted to be cooked to release its hidden, bitter sweetness.
"Hurry," Gusteu's voice whispered, the first time the ghost had spoken. "Start the cooking. Without your eyes. Let the ingredients guide you."
Soma didn't retort. He didn't question. He reached up, his movements slow and deliberate, and grabbed his white headband. He didn't tie it around his forehead to focus his vision.
He tied it firmly around his eyes, plunging himself into a world of pure sensation.
**A/N**
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**A/N**