Slime Evolution

Chapter 488 - Dessert

The dessert arrived in a small white ceramic bowl, so thin that the light from the window passed through its edges, and inside it rested a dark sphere, the size of a closed fist, surrounded by a silvery cream that gave off a cold, fragrant vapor.

"Dawn Bells," the waitress announced, in the same soft voice as before, and left two long spoons on the table, with thin handles and rounded tips. "The sphere should be broken with the spoon, from top to bottom. We recommend sharing it."

She withdrew without making any noise, and the door closed with the same soft click, and the two of them looked at the bowl, and then at each other, with ambiguous expressions.

"You break it, since it’s your first time," Isabella said, pushing the bowl a few centimeters toward him. "But do it slowly. If you hit it hard the inside splashes and I don’t want to ruin my dress."

"I’m being extremely careful today," Lohan replied, picking up one of the spoons like someone holding a scalpel. "I’ve already broken enough things for one morning."

He positioned the tip of the spoon on top of the sphere, and took a deep breath, and remembered the egg, the cold, fragile shell, and applied a pressure that increased one millimeter at a time.

The shell of the sphere gave way with a soft, satisfying crack, like thin ice over a puddle, and from inside it flowed a warm, golden syrup, which slowly blended into the silvery cream, forming spirals of light that swirled in the bowl.

"Perfect," Isabella whispered, her eyes shining. "Now, the first spoonful has to have a bit of each. Let me show you."

She dipped her own spoon into the bowl with great ease, clearly used to doing this many times, combined the hot syrup with the cold cream, and instead of bringing the spoon to her own mouth, held it out toward him, with her other hand cupped underneath, so it wouldn’t drip.

"Isabella, I can eat on my own."

"I know you can," she replied, without lowering the spoon. "But I want to see your reaction to a perfect bite."

There was something in her voice, a gentle firmness that left no room for argument, and Lohan, who had faced a corporate armored vehicle, fifty furious Players and the memory of several powerful dead monsters, discovered he had no defense against it.

He then opened his mouth, and she placed the spoon between his lips with the same delicacy as the root, and the flavor exploded.

It was hot and cold at the same time, sweet and slightly salty, with an undertone of vanilla and something floral, something that reminded him of the air after rain, and his Digestion, which insisted on cataloging everything, gave up halfway, like someone who stops counting the stars.

He closed his eyes without noticing.

When he opened them again, Isabella was looking at him with a different smile from the earlier ones, quieter, almost reverent, as if she had just witnessed something she hadn’t expected to see.

"What?" he asked.

"Nothing," she said, and took his spoon, and tasted the cream herself, and stayed silent for a moment. "It’s just that you make such a... sincere face when you eat something good. I’ve never seen anyone react to food like that. Everyone I know tries so hard to stay serious and indifferent even in front of something so delicious."

"I spent most of my life eating tasteless things," Lohan replied, and the words came out before he could weigh whether he wanted to say them. "When I taste something like this, I’m kind of... surprised it exists."

Even without specifying that he was talking about the hospital food from the other world, it also fit the reality of this world’s Lohan in the Low Zone.

Isabella stopped with the spoon halfway.

He had never spoken about that like this, with such simplicity, and he could tell from her silence that he had said something bigger than he’d intended.

But instead of backing off, of laughing or changing the subject, he stayed there, waiting, with a strange sense of lightness, like someone finally setting down a heavy suitcase.

"You never told me that properly," she said, softly.

"I don’t tell that to anyone."

"I know." She set the spoon on the rim of the bowl, and turned her body a little more toward him, and the silk of her dress slid gently against the cushion. "But I wanted you to tell me. If you want to."

Lohan looked out the window, at the small islands of grass spinning outside, and thought about how long he had spent staring at a white ceiling, and the endless hours, and the smell of antiseptic that the spider had torn out of him like an old wound.

Then he told her.

Sure, he did not specify the hospital, he just told everything in a somewhat vague and implicit way that could be mistaken for him talking about his experiences in the Low Zone, but which were actually experiences from his life in the other world.

He talked about being stuck in a room, about not being able to sleep because of the noise of the machines, about the people who changed every week and who, over time, stopped looking him in the eye.

He told how he learned to count the cracks in the ceiling, to memorize the rhythm of each machine, to imagine faces he would never see.

He told, without melodrama and without asking for pity, about the day he woke up in the other world, in a body that was still learning to breathe without pain, and about the first time he felt the sun on his skin, and how he cried without knowing why.

He didn’t notice when Isabella’s hand settled over his, on top of the low table.

He only noticed when he finished speaking, and the silence of the room turned warm, and he looked down and saw her slender fingers wrapped around his, firm and gentle, and thought suddenly, with an almost comical clarity, of the egg, of the pressure that increased one millimeter at a time, and forced himself to hold her hand back with a softness that demanded all the concentration he had.

"Thank you for telling me," Isabella said. Her voice was slightly trembling, and her golden eyes shone more than usual. "I know it wasn’t easy."

"It was easier than I expected," he admitted, and smiled, a small, sincere smile. "I think I was waiting for the right moment. And the right moment came, apparently, between a wind root and a sphere of cream."

She laughed, a damp laugh, and swept her free hand across the corner of her eye in a quick motion.

"I had prepared a speech," she confessed. "For today. I spent three days writing in my head something beautiful and balanced, that I was going to say between the main course and dessert to congratulate you on your growth and how that is also a great happiness for me. And now you’ve completely disarmed me, and I can’t remember a word."

"Then say it without a speech."

"Without a speech is worse."

"I’ll take the worse."

Isabella looked at him, and at their intertwined hands on the table, and took a deep breath, and her white ears, which were still there, swaying slightly above her hair, tilted forward, as if she herself were getting ready to jump.

"Do you remember the day I showed up at that bus stop, in the white Ferrari?" she asked.

"I remember you arrived twenty five minutes late," Lohan replied, with a half smile. "And that two police officers almost fainted when they saw the car. Apparently, arriving late has become a habit."

"I was terrified that day," she said, ignoring the teasing with a dignity that made him laugh. "I stayed several minutes inside the Ferrari unable to open the door, rehearsing what I was going to say, and even so I got out with my knees shaking. I had never gone to pick anyone up before. My whole life, people came to me, or sent someone in their place, and I waited, with the right face and the right words, without ever having to move."

She paused, and squeezed his fingers lightly.

"But that day I wanted to meet you so badly that I couldn’t wait."

Lohan felt his heart pound so hard that he was sure she could hear it, and it was at that exact moment that something strange happened on the table.

The spoon he had set down beside the bowl rose on its own, about three centimeters, and hovered in the air, trembling slightly.

The two of them stared at it.

"Halon," Isabella said, slowly.

"I’m not doing that."

"You’re doing that."

"I’m doing that without meaning to," he corrected, feeling his face heat up as the spoon swayed to the left, then to the right, and a very faint blue light appeared under the skin of his forehead, just above his eyebrows, pulsing in the exact rhythm of his racing heart. "It’s... I think it’s the emotion. It leaks through the telekinesis."

Isabella looked at the blue light on his forehead, and at the spoon floating between them, and her expression slowly changed, from astonishment to wonder, and then to something softer, which made Lohan forget to breathe.

"So you’re emotional," she said, and there was a delicate mischief in her voice. "Very emotional. Enough for the spoon to want to join the conversation."

"The spoon is very curious."

"The spoon is a gossip," she corrected, and laughed, and reached out her free hand to catch the spoon in midair, and it settled in her palm with a softness that made him realize, with a pleasant start, that he had controlled its descent without even thinking.

"I was saying," Isabella continued, still laughing, but with her voice a little lower, "that I wanted to meet you so badly, that day, that I couldn’t wait. And this whole time, I’ve been afraid to say so, because we have the guild, and the people who depend on us, and a friendship I don’t want to lose for anything in the world."

"I’m afraid of that too," he said.

"I know." She smiled, and her eyes grew misty again. "But today I’m tired of being afraid."

The silence that followed was nothing like uncomfortable.

It was full, warm, and suspended, like the air before a good storm, and the two of them stayed there, looking at each other, with their hands intertwined and her ears swaying slightly, while outside, in the hanging garden, one of the small islands of grass drifted toward the window, spun slowly, and moved away again, as if it too wanted to be closer.

"I need some air," Isabella said, suddenly, and laughed at her own sentence. "Not because I’m not okay. Because I’m too okay, and I need to do something with it. Do you want to see the garden?"

"I’d love to."

"The garden is private too," she explained, getting up with her usual grace and holding out her hand to help him, which he accepted, with the same gentleness as before. "I made sure of it."