From first glance the material of the purple door is solid, rigid, unmoving, unbending. Or at least that is the case until the entire door abruptly crumbles into fragments so miniscule that they appear no more than particles like light, purple light that disperses to gradually reveal the figure of a humanoid behind, one whose shape and texture is greater exposed as the particles fizzle into nothingness to fully feature the fatigued face of Kokei, her pink eyes usually electric with life instead dull, the dark eyebags beneath them dirtying her otherwise fair complexion.

Similarly her pink hair is in disarray, strands poking out like branches of a tree, some merging back into the main flow but others never able to return. In fact the only electrification of her appearance is the spiking of the hair on the top of her head as though static runs through her although in actuality it’s just a result of her own self neglect to focus on other matters she’s chosen to more highly prioritize.

She closes her eyes and releases a heavy yawn that she tries to cover with her hand but to little suppression, yet at least she begins strolling forward once her arm is dropped to her side, leaving the room behind her which is without light of its own, almost as if she was just sleeping inside even though that could be no further from the truth.

Well lit at least is the lobby that the bedroom branches off of, the whiteness of the room playing up its brightness with white sofa clusters surrounding samely colored tables, all of them hovering over a soft fur floor like clouds that are stepped on.

Each of the five doors are spaced out along the edges such that they reside at the vertices of a star, each vertex a different color with red, green, and two variants of blue other than the purple door that then materializes back once the current resident has left far enough.

Along the edges too are several ringed bridges to mark different stories of the rather tall lobby, each bridge giving a surface to more easily access the many closed doors that could be used for any number of purposes, almost overkill especially when in truth so few residents make use of the space.

In fact at the current moment there are merely two, the first one after having left the purple room approaching the center of the room where lies the second whose black pants, which are noticeably just a few hairs too short given the amount of the leg being exposed, is hung over one of the sofa’s back to let his own back rest on the cushion. His bald head lays on the very edge too, his yellow eyes staring up at the ceiling in wonder. His left hand further cushions the back of his head but his right clutches to a clear flask that’s filled with a purple liquid which at least doesn’t spill out.

The man’s head leans back upon the sense of the other resident despite the footsteps nearly silent with such a soft surface.

Facing the friend who's dressed in the white cupcake hoodie, Ekitai just casually greets with his head flipped upside down from the hanging, “Oh hey Kookie, nice makeup.”

Ambling at low battery mode, Kokei’s eyebrow raises to the strange remark which causes her perplexion that she expresses with a, “Huh…?” The realization while lagging does eventually reach her however, but without enough energy to express anger to the jab she just reverts to her exhausted face and mutters, “Oh, funny.”

“You can’t ask for an extension?” innocently suggests Ekitai, no apparent sarcasm in his tone but the approaching burnt stick of Kokei responds with a slightly sharp attitude, “That’s not how it works Ekitai,” before she then simply collapses on one of the other sofas headfirst, the cushion drowning her face and muffling her voice used to apologize, “Sorry that came off mean.”

Unfazed however Ekitai just smiles softly and assures, “No matter, yeah sorry I just figured you could do that since all the game companies have always been doing that. Man I can’t even tell if S.T Project Blue is still a thing; I feel like they’ve delayed that one game for decades now.”

Pulling her face off the cushion to speak more clearly, Kokei explains more calmly as even those couple seconds of the faceplant made great strides in revitalization, “I mean it’s my fault, I hardly did anything for the past couple months…I almost forgot I still have my own responsibilities. I’m just taking a short break…I’m probably going to have to go back and keep working for the rest of the night…. Anyways, what have you been doing?”

To avoid stressing himself too much Ekitai straightens his neck even if it means breaking eye contact, and facing the ceiling he recounts, “Well I found this crazy big room earlier, there was this huge capsule in the middle like some kinda battery but the room looked almost like a racetrack. It’s pretty cool though, probably the biggest room I’ve found so far.”

“That’s…,” lingers Kokei upon the reminder that her friend hasn’t many responsibilities of his own, a reminder that drops on her with the weight that plants her face back on the sofa, again muffling her voice, “...that’s cool Eki….”

She does manage to accumulate the energy to raise her head up once again to then more promptly ask, “Also do you know where Dana is? I feel like I should eat an actual meal but…healthy food doesn’t sound appetizing right now.”

To the question Ekitai does again lean his head back to lock eye contact to which he admits nonchalantly, “I have no idea, haven’t seen her all morning. Could ask the other guy though, I think I saw him go through the blue door, the dark one.”

He then takes in a deep breath before he throws his legs off of the sofa’s back, temporarily taking on a cradle position before he rolls around to drop his legs down which allows for the grounding of his feet.

Through grunts of a body toiling for every minor movement, Ekitai pulls himself off the heavenly comfort of the couch and stands upright, padding his coat before announcing, “I think I’m gonna go look for more rooms, you should join me sometime, it’s fun hunting. Some of them are like escape rooms, I’d get trapped in them for hours.”

Crawling back off the sofa too in order to stand upright, Kokei sighs melancholically and shakes her head to reject, “Sorry, maybe another time. I’ll let you know when I’m free.”

In a somewhat pained smirk from rejection Ekitai nods his head and begins walking backwards, taking one swig from his flask before wishing, “Suit yourself, good luck talking to him though I think he might be more brooding than the last.”

He then turns around to face forwards on his way towards the exit elevator of the lobby, stretching his back by leaning, starting his body up on the move.

A huff emits from Kokei in amusement to the jest before she shakes her head and turns her gaze towards the darker of the blue doors as guided, located between the brighter blue door and the green one.

A slight frown creeps up on Kokei’s face from the strangely nervous weight she feels now that she’s alone, but with one sigh to release that tension she pushes herself on a stroll towards the marking.

In sluggish steps Kokei advances to the blue door, dragging her legs with little energy to sustain herself. Upon reaching it she stops for a few seconds in a silent session of spacing out, struggling to conjoin thoughts together, her gaze lingering on the door but her eyes not seeming to be honing on anything specific within her frame.

While mentally drifting in a haze, Kokei lifts her fist up beside her head, and with one weak motion she brings it against the door to knock concurrently with the request: “Hey Medi-,”

Immediately upon the contact between the fist and the blue door, that door shatters like a window into shards that scatter away and vanish in a whoosh, instantly revealing the room with white walls that support a window screen exhibiting the forest in the noon’s setting, full body mirror, cabinets by shelves holding various contraptions like a hockey stick, and hardwood plaques that reside above aforementioned shelves. Underneath the window screen is a large white bed floating over the floor carpeted in white fur, but more interestingly that white bed is almost completely covered with a pile of strange small figurines which also litter the floor, figurines similar to the one that manifests from a blue flame emitted by the bare hands of the man seated by the corner desk which has its own shelf above to hold a few items like a ball and chain.

“Dammit just work!” bellows the man in frustration with clenched teeth, yet promptly the man’s expression shifts from irritated aggression glaring at the figurine to a sudden shock upon the entrance, his gaze darting to the open door and to the one standing between the frame.

After a moment of mental lag to the seemingly impossible event of intrusion, Meditat leaps into action as he hastily ignites the figurine in his hand back into azure flames with a panicked, “I thought I locked that!”

He then swivels in the chair to face the rest of the room, and upon the reminder of that room’s state his eyes expand in an instant from pure terror, glancing between the desk which also has several figurines laying down and then back at the bed and floor, struggling to make a decision in the heat of the moment.

Before he can decide on an action, Kokei just blinks twice in utter puzzlement, stepping inside the room and inquiring curiously, “Wait…is this-,” as Meditat clenches his teeth in agony from a clear inner conflict between potential actions, his hand closing into a fist. Most of his body is still indeed dawning the suit including the long cape and metal segments, but the black gauntlets on his forearms no longer lead into the gloves neither with the white padding underneath, as instead the pads just reach the edge of the sleeve. The transition between the suit and skin has little difference in thickness at least, as the suit is surprisingly slim fitted to his body despite the harder material.

Kokei suspends another step forward upon the realization that her foot is hovering over one of the figurines, and after catching herself with a step back she kneels down to pick it up with curiosity flooding over her former fatigue.

Holding the figurine up to her gaze, she inspects it to be a somewhat familiar model of a girl dressed in a casual formal uniform sporting a brown blazer over a buttoned shirt and a dark blue miniskirt. In fact the figurine is almost identical to one owned before, with the only slight differences being that the face of the figurine has strange obscurities such as its entire face being painted with little dimension somewhat cheaply, the pupils also missing any glint that would’ve provided it its charm.

Regardless, Kokei just observes in a tone still curious but with a growing hint of dubiousness, “Are you…trying to recreate my figures?”

Promptly standing up from the chair and manifesting a Pouch in each hand birthed from flames, Meditat aims one of the Pouches at the desk and another at another part of the littered floor, both of the Pouches casting blue light over the figures before absorbing them as he hastily beseeches, “Wait please don’t just ignore those they’re wrong but I was closer with the fabrics so I need that as reference just can you wait outside for a few seconds?”

After storing two batches of the figurines, he lazily tosses both Pouches on the desk before creating another two in his hand, walking up to the bed to aim them at the most concentrated pile only for Kokei to leap in his way, forcing him to lower his hand as she lets the figurine in her hand fall in the pile so she can pick up two more: one of them being a man with an exaggerated masculine body given the inhumanly large muscles which show from the mostly exposing medieval-inspired gladiator armor one part of which is a long metal sleeve whose hand wields a sword taller than himself, and another a girl in a pink tracksuit with similarly pink hair which two small cubes dangle, one yellow and the other blue. However the first figure’s body, while naturally of inhuman proportion, is almost monstrous in the arms being far too large compared to its head, and the figure of the girl had a strangely melted face as its form wasn’t all intact, smearing its paint including the mouth and eyes.

After analyzing the two models, Kokei’s eyebrow raises with even more questions from the additional observations, observations she verbalizes still in disorientation: “Wait…Frenzy and Batchy…I recognize these…they were in the house when it fell…,” to which she then gazes at the rest of the figurine pile.

All of the figurines are of not only different beings but beings of vastly different styles, with more realistic figurines of adults in short brown jackets and green capes wielding swords to unproportionally cartoonish children whose heads are twice the size of their torso, their limbs nothing beyond just sticks.

“Goho…Saroto…Eau…these are all figures I lost…although wait,” Kokei contemplates before pulling out one of the figurines whose hair is a tangled mess of strings like a hairball dressed in a black blazer completely missing the lapels which she notes, “Is this supposed to be….-”

All the sudden the entire pile of figurines are caught in a blue light which triggers Kokei to stumble back, forcing her to watch as that entire pile vanishes into another Pouch that Meditat holds which he then hastily tosses back to the other side of the room where his corner desk is.

Before he can emit another flame, Kokei turns her attention now to him, catching him in her sight which locks his body in a freeze, only able to move his eyes which are pulled by force into contact.

No longer even noticeably exhausted as her perplexity has taken full control over her body and attitude, Kokei just asks skeptically, “Wait why are you making all of these-?”

Unable to keep hiding, Meditat just drops both of his arms in a slump, his head lowering in shame as he mutters sheepishly, “I noticed that you brought a large supply of these figurines to my old house where you lost most of them…and I also noticed that you were attached enough to them that you brought some when you all had to flee the manor so…I was attempting a…restoration….”

After a defeated sigh he admits, “But none of them are accurate enough…all of them are mistakes whether it be faulty paint, stitchwork, or material choice. I tried to research their compositions but there is only so much data can provide…I figured this project would be seamless. I never anticipated it to be this...challenging….”

From apprehensive to flabbergasted, Kokei’s eyes just expand in speechlessness to the absurd confession, fully awake and energized as her cheeks redden in astonishment before she prods, “Wait…you did all this…for-,”

“Was there something you needed?” immediately interrupts Meditat in a suddenly stern voice, his fretful eyes sharpening to a hostile glare that he fires at Kokei, almost staggering her from the abrupt shift to aggression.

She raises both of her hands in desperate waves as she pleads, “Oh wait sorry I forgot, sorry uh wait what was it I was going to ask something uh….-”

An agonizing waiting period follows which only further puts Kokei in a state of embarrassment, her focus bouncing all over the room trying to search for the one thought that she had initially come in with, the one buried deep under the flood.

She does alas find the treasure beneath the rubble as she manages to reaffirm her gaze back on Meditat and confidently remember, “Oh wait yeah, I was going to ask if you knew where Dana was!”

Now his turn, Meditat’s expression morphs into a stunned bafflement from the absurdly simple prompt that led to this extent of embarrassment. His eyes expand and his lips part, but he’s able to return his expression to an apathetic formality which he carries to announce, “Oh yes, Dana had a..business trip to partake in, she left this morning. I believe she’ll be back later tonight, however I’d not expect her presence imminently.”

In disappointment Kokei drops her arms and head towards the ground, moaning disgruntledly: “Aw, I was going to ask her for food…I guess I’ll actually have to make something myself….”

In a subtle frown to the disappointed response, Meditat ponders with a sharpened gaze, glancing to the side while still dressed in the same azure battle uniform, the golden pauldrons over his shoulders and the bright pencil insignia branching streaks that dart across the body.

He raises his head up and brainstorms out loud but in a murmur hardly audible, “Hmm…she won’t be here anytime soon…I theoretically could try to help but….-”

“You could?” perks up the head of Kokei in instant excitement, promptly lowering Meditat’s head back to meet her gaze to clarify, “Ah in hindsight that wouldn’t-.”

It is when Meditat places his attention on Kokei that he notices her sparkling enthusiasm, her eyes lit cheerily same as her smile, for even her eyebags aren’t as prominent, her disorganized appearance no longer emitting the aura of lethargy but rather flipping it into a carefree bliss, one so precious that destruction of such would render any such offender a villainous monster.

Caught by the entrancement, but even self aware given the show of agitation towards his own boneless reactions, Meditat can’t find the strength to fight and after a defeated sigh he surrenders, “I…guess I can take an intermission from my…work.”

Flooded with such childlike excitement that it almost makes her eyes starry in shimmers, Kokei gleefully declares, “Great, let’s go now!” before she spins around and sprints out of the bedroom doorway without a second to lose, catching Meditat off guard from the precipitate venture and pushing him to scramble his way in a pursuing dash to keep close distance out the same doorway.

Later they enter through the similarly sized but arched doorway leading into the kitchen room, Kokei still just as ahead as Meditat, and after they stumble in Kokei continues on to the other end of the room past the long island table as Meditat stops to let out a few breaths from the chaos he’s being subjected to.

While Meditat reduces his breathing speeds to return to a normal pace, Kokei on the other side approaches the fridge and raises her hand towards it, summoning the holographic inventory menu which she swipes through, periodically pressing on certain entries to which a blue light is cast from the fridge to the table ahead first summoning two butter sticks on a plate and then a clear cup of granulated sugar during which she explains more seriously now that she’s focused, “So I know I probably should be eating something nutritious but I don’t feel like it today and nobody can stop me so I’m just going to make cupcakes instead.”

Perplexed by the strange decision for meals, Meditat raises an eyebrow and turns to face Kokei as now on the table there is also a bowl with three eggs, a small shot glass of vanilla extract, and a tall cup of flour before being joined with another shot glass of cornstarch.

“That…I take it any contentions I make have already been taken into account thus it won’t deviate your current conclusions,” understands Meditat disillusioned, shaking his head before approaching her and asking, “Also I see you already have your ingredients now so…what do you need help with?”

Joining the collection of ingredients on the table is a shot glass of baking powder and an another albeit substantially less full of its ingredient that being salt, and lastly a blue light projects from the fridge to materialize in a cup of white milk before Kokei finally presses a button on the edge of the screen which relinquishes it, her supply fulfilled to which she turns to face Meditat with a gentle smile before assuming, “Well you’re not just an ingredient generator, you have hands, which means you can help with the actual baking too right?”

Stunned by the incredibly simplistic point that somehow passed over his mind, Meditat just stared dumbfounded before sighing and admitting, “Good point,” before continuing his way to the table. By the mirror is where Kokei now stands, holding her hand out as a blue light projects onto it before leaving her a metallic bowl similar to the one used prior which she holds in her meet to Meditat where she then hands it off, leading him to awkwardly raise his own hands and pick it off from her, his confuddlement to what his task expressed adequately on his face.

Noticing that confusion, Kokei somewhat gets perplexed back from the misalignment of their thoughts before her eyes expand and she notes, “Oh ahah yeah I forgot to say, uh can you beat the butter and sugar together?”

She turns around to begin walking off before halting and glancing back to append, “Oh and beat in the eggs too, but like put one and then beat and then put the other and yeah yeah you got it and throw the vanilla in there at some point you got this,” before turning around again and continuing back to the mirror.

Glancing down at the metal bowl before sighing from the inanity of his task, a man who’d only weeks ago be deployed on missions throughout the hundred worlds to battle great beasts and oppressive armies now rendered to nothing more than a baker.

Despite the discontent, he pushes through and walks up to the table on the left side of the sink plate where he places the bowl down before then aiming both hands forward in the general direction of the butter sticks to which rather than grabbing the plate he projects blue cables onto each of the sticks, swiftly reeling them in his hands without needing to lean over, letting him simply then place the two sticks inside the bowl as beside him Kokei summons her own bowl which she takes to the other side of the table with the ingredients as another blue cable anchors onto the sugar cup to reel it in his hands, but rather than just mindlessly tossing it in he first shifts his attention up to Kokei to ask, “Just to confirm, this whole quantity should be used?”

Raising her head up while just nonchalantly dumping the entire tall cup of flour into the bowl with the shot glass of cornstarch in the other hand, she just shrugs her shoulders and casually mentions, “Well yeah dummy that’s the point of proportioning it like this,” before then placing both glasses on the table to pick up both the one of baking powder and the other of salt.

Opening his mouth to contend with the random insult, Meditat just freezes in awe from the sheer blithe before he finally comes to the conclusion of giving up by closing his mouth and cautiously pouring the cup of sugar into the bowl.

After placing the cup down beside the bowl he hovers his hand over it which projects its own screen although one much simpler as it’s only a single row of buttons which he presses one of, causing the bowl to begin vibrating seemingly as from above it can be seen that the contents of the bowl begin spinning as though in a washing machine but without any visible spinning of the actual bowl. The butter sticks do noticeably start losing shape as intended though, and upon the confirmation of the incremental success Meditat raises his hand to aim another cable at the egg only for it to be immediately held up to him by the aid of Kokei whose other hand is pouring in the baking powder before placing it down and picking up the salt to do the same, both actions executed before Meditat fully interprets the gesture and picks the egg off of her hand.

Holding it over the bowl he then simply snaps the egg shell in half without needing to tap it against any surface, perfectly opening it for the yellow yolk inside to pour into the bowl before he then places the two halves of the white shell at his side.

He then aims his hand again, but pauses for a few moments in rumination before he then extends his hand further with the straightening of his arm to naturally grab the next egg from the bowl with his hand while Kokei raises her hand up from under the table to reveal a whisk now in her right hand as she grabs the bowl with her left, tilting it towards her while bringing the whisk to the bowl before being interrupted by Meditat who, while cracking another egg in his hands, offers earnestly: “Do you want an automated one? We might have one and if not I can, you know.”

Despite the generous offer though Kokei shakes her head and resumes her motion of planting the whisk into the bowl and beginning to beat the ingredients together, explaining with her gaze centered on the bowl: “Thanks but it’s okay, I’ve tried those kinds before but to be honest I don’t really like their consistency, I think it’s better to just do it by hand.”

She however then rapidly raises her head up to snatch eye contact before recognizing, “Wait I just realized, this would go way better with tea! Actually yeah can you do that for me? Just brew some teal tea, the leaves should be in the fridge if you just check.”

After taking the last egg and bringing it over the bowl, Meditat just suspends his motion in the lag of processing the sudden task, tilting his head uncertainly before he then apprehensively asks, “You wish for me to do this…now? Should I first finish this process or…do you want me to-.”

Considering the inconsistent communication, Kokei smiles calmly and resumes the whisking process as she shakes her head before assuring, “Oh yeah, I can take over for you, I think you’re almost done anyways. Just leave it there,” to which Meditat nods his head and takes a step away before the appended request is tacked on, “But uh, it’d be nice if you could get that last egg in there~.”

Meditat freezes and blinks before familiarizing with the egg still in his hand, and in subtle embarrassment he nods his head and steps back in front of the bowl before denoting, “Right,” to which he cracks the last egg, allowing it to fall into the vibrating bowl. Afterwards he scoops up the remaining four shell halves along with the two already with him and he places them on the sink’s gray plate which casts a light to consume it, freeing Meditat’s hands to walk around the table in advancement to the fridge.

Once Meditat reaches the fridge, he raises his hand to request for the inventory hologram which he then begins swiping through as behind his back Kokei continues to whisk the ingredients in her own bowl as she wonders aimlessly out loud, “So like, do you cook a lot?”

While gazing at the options on the inventory indecisively, Meditat answers first with his focus still ahead: “Not really on my own, before I joined The Shield I majorly sustained off supplements. You said you wanted the leaves?”

Promptly even to no audience Kokei nods her head and confirms in a voice struggling from the toilsome motions, “Yeah they taste the best, I know people say it’s outdated and that the orbs make the flavor better or whatever but it’s just an excuse I’m pretty sure because I have no idea what makes them think that. But anyways huh so I guess that wasn’t a change…it’s just weird though is all.”

After pressing a button which then causes the fridge to emit a blue light that’s caught by Meditat’s hand to let him hold a cup full of strangely vibrant turquoise tea leaves, Meditat takes the cup over towards the oven while curiously wondering, “How so? It’s more efficient to take supplements, the time it takes for preparation, consumption, and cleanup deprives productivity time. I don’t see many drawbacks either personally. Also I take it you want to use a teapot. I’ll put these in the infuser and get the water which I figure you want boiled.”

A few more whisks are made to the bowl before Kokei gently places the bowl down and grabs the shot glass of vanilla extract before walking to the other side of the table to the vibrating mixer bowl whilst verifying, “Yes that’d do, so you do know how to prep tea.”

Once reaching the other side, she lifts her head up to find Meditat summoning a sleek clear pot from the cabinet, the pot sporting an elegant spout that just so subtly curves, the top rounding inwards. She then asks more warily, “Wait hold on, you weren’t inferring that you were just going to…grab boiled water…like pre-boiled water…right?”

Frozen yet again, Meditat only moves his head around to glance back at Kokei, apprehensive by the oddly hostile tone before innocently admitting, “Is…that problematic?”

Shaking her head with a satirically elitist “Tsk tsk,” she awakens her pink gaze straight on Meditat before reprimanding in the same tone, “Please don’t do that it always tastes weird and ruins the tea, just boil the water in a pot on the stove.”

Bewildered by the strange seemingly unnecessary request, Meditat first attempts to contend, “But they’re composed the-...never mind,” before he obliges unwillingly with the lowering of his head, first pouring the cup of leaves into the pot which oddly doesn’t sink all the way to the bottom but instead suspends closer to the middle, the leaves seemingly to be inhabiting a container of different dimensions given that they bunch up in more of a cylindrical shape despite the pot being more rounded as though there’s an invisible inner compartment that can’t be seen even with the clarity of the exterior.

After emptying out the cup, Meditat places it to the side of the pot and shakes his head before raising his hand up to summon another inventory grid for yet another piece of equipment for a product that could have been made straight from the fridge itself, but Kokei takes it upon herself to debate after pouring the vanilla extract in the mixer bowl and walking around to grab the bowl of whisked dry ingredients, “You know I have no idea how you have the power to literally create whatever you want and yet you’re not super big into cooking or baking or anything like that, I mean with powers like that why are you subjecting yourself to…supplements?”

Upon pressing down on an entry of the inventory grid which relinquishes said grid to cast a blue light that beams in a glassy clear rounded open kettle with a short sprout and curved handle, Meditat places said kettle over the black smooth stovetop to make his way freehanded to the fridge while vindicating for himself, “To be fair my abilities are majorly used for tools that I could use in tactical situations: the equipment in my old base or the weapons I operate during missions, I typically focus on technological creations and when I do develop more chemically complex tools they’re usually in the objective of serums rather than these commodities.”

“But like, why? I mean I get that tech is great but like there has to be more things to make than just gadgets, I mean for one like I don’t really understand how your powers work so like can you actually make anything you want? Like…if I asked you to make a dragon could you?” wonders Kokei with genuine curiosity as she raises the bowl of dry ingredients over the vibrating one with one hand while the other cautiously uses the whisk to slowly pour in the contents into the mixer.

Scrolling through the fridge inventory for a few moments before selecting one option, Meditat catches a large clear pitcher of equally clear water which lacks any bubbles inside, indicating it has not been artificially boiled. The pitcher is shaped akin to a pint bottle, taller and slimmer with a handle for simple gripping, given a visible spout but one that just subtly protrudes from the container in a minor nozzle. He carries the pitcher over to the stove and shakes his head to clarify, “I take it you’re not referring to a Komodo Dragon in which case my abilities wouldn’t have that application. The process of my abilities requires me to interpret its logic which has to be grounded in reality. For example I couldn’t just choose to make a time machine because time travel is theoretically impossible and there’s no precedent for the hardware needed to operate such a device. It’s not too limiting of a factor and…it does make sense given the paradoxes from creating something that disobeys physical laws, but overall it’s more rigid than you may believe.” Standing in front of the kettle and beginning to slowly pour the pitcher’s water through the short sprout into the kettle’s open top, the gentle waterfall runs soothingly behind his inquiry: “Should I offer the method I perceive to be correct or just ask you?”

After depleting half of the dry contents from her first bowl into the mixer, Kokei places the bowl down beside the other and walks around the table while answering after a brief giggle, “Yeah thanks for sparing me, uh yeah could you use the traditional mode? The fire really does make an impact, trust me.” Around the table she picks up the final ingredient remaining: the cup of milk, and with it she makes a returning trip and pours the full contents of the cup into the mix.

“I’ll just not dispute it,” simply decides Meditat as the waterfall thins out fully, the kettle now adequately filled with water that is then covered by the materialization of a knobless flat lid to which he places the pitcher beside the stove, more and more filling the countertop with kitchenware in a littering heap that he sighs in notice to. After shaking his head and murmuring in assessment to the sitting teapot, “I should’ve heated this first…,” he moves his hand over the edge of the stove which triggers another row of holographic options for him to choose from, these being a row of dials that his fingers linger over in inspection, each two segmented by a list of a few named blocks.

“But like, I mean I feel like the powers you have to create anything and for it to all be real, like all real,” emphasizes Kokei passionately, “should let you have one of the most fun lives ever, I mean even if you didn’t want to actually cook by hand which trust me is half the fun you could still give yourself a green bar meal whenever you want! Like okay maybe you can’t make dragons…which is a bit of a shame…but surely you can have more fun with it! I mean when you’re someone who can make it all, doesn’t that mean you have it all?” She also during this speech finishes pouring the milk but furthermore picks up the bowl of dry ingredients and scoops the remainder with the whisk into the bowl, merging the recipe altogether with careful strokes.

One of the lists along the interface is focused on by Meditat’s finger and particularly one of the blocks, and after pressing it a soft hum begins to emit from the stove itself right as the kettle oddly begins ascending up off the black surface, being lifted up a few inches before being suspended in place. Concurrently he somewhat somberly admits, “In theory perhaps…but…I guess I’ve just not thought about it that way…. I’ve mostly used my abilities as a generator for tactical gear rather than something to provide me free luxury…but I guess I’ve always felt it to be the best and most responsible application of these abilities. I guess I take some artistic liberty with my gadget forms…but I still usually stay grounded.”

Slowly Meditat’s uncovered hand moves over the dial to the left of the list he just interacted with, and after grabbing the knob he gradually twists it to the right timed simultaneously with the ignition of a blue flame from the flat black stove surface in a circle underneath the pot, first so minor it’s little more than a spark but the flame grows gradually the more the dial is turned.

After it reaches a climax resembling the medium heat setting of a truly traditional gas stove, Meditat lets go of the knob but doesn’t yet relinquish the hologram, instead first hearing Kokei behind him request, “Could you get a cupcake tray for me since you’re already there?”

Without needing to glance around Meditat just steps back and opens a new hologram of the inventory which after a few swipes through he presses an item of, swaying away the screen and instead being handed by the blue light a metal tray with a grid of indentations shaped specifically for cupcakes while simultaneously behind him a blue light emits from the island table to hand Kokei a clear bag full of black cupcake wrappers with red stripes.

At last in convergence Meditat approaches Kokei at the island table with the tray in hand, placing it beside the bowl as Kokei places the open bag between the two which she begins grabbing wrappers from and pushing into the tray.

After noticing the awkward standing pause, Kokei giggles and sarcastically jests, “You’re just going to watch me do this myself,” to which Meditat jolts in panic and immediately begins hastily grabbing wrappers from the bag and placing them in the tray while apologizing earnestly, “Sorry!”

Once every slot of the tray has a wrapper in place, Kokei picks up the bag and simply tosses it to the side before releasing a sigh of content relief, smiling warmly before setting the next objective: “Okay I’ll pour the batter in, you can uh,” as she picks up the metal bowl holding the complete batter and raises it over the corner of the tray with a gradual tilt that begins pouring the liquidity batter down, “Uh check if the water is bubbling or something.”

Very well aware of the blatantly fruitless nature of the task, Meditat just sighs and awkwardly complies, “Sure,” before turning around and heading towards the stove to which Kokei shakes her head to herself in self assessment, glaring blankly at the strangeness of her demand as she automatically tilts up the bowl after filling one slot to shift it slightly before tilting it back down to fill the next in an instinctual repetition.

Right in front of the stove, Meditat is able to get an easy glance at the kettle to find that the water is currently still with no visible bubbling, and upon noticing such he brings his hand to the same dial used before and slightly cranks it, causing the fire to subtly intensify beneath the kettle.

Lowering his arm back down, Meditat shifts his gaze to the side still facing the wall before awkwardly asking Kokei who behind him is continuing to fill up the pans, “I was curious…you do have a…history with Ekitai right?”

Continuing the filling process already half way down the pan, Kokei nods and casually confirms, “Yeah you could say that, I’ve known him for…most of my life.”

Eyes tightening into a peculiar stare, Meditat raises his head up but keeps his gaze to the wall while wondering more keenly, “So…how intertwined would you say your lives are? Or a better way to phrase it would be…how often have you interacted with him through the years?”

On the final few slots now, Kokei obliviously shrugs her shoulders and responds earnestly, “To be honest, not a whole lot. We mostly would just talk every couple years, I think I went fif- five years without talking to him before…or…yeah. I just know he doesn’t really have a normal job, mostly just goes out on little adventures. Sometimes I worry he gets tangled with the wrong kinds of people but..well I guess I’m a worrier. I trust him though, he has good heart.”

After filling the last slot, she places the bowl back down on the countertop before then picking up the tray only with the left hand and walking over to Meditat’s side, standing silently next to him awkwardly which Meditat notices with a perplexed expression to which Kokei nudges her head to the side and requests, “Could I…, you know,” before then raising the tray up just an inch. It’s enough though for Meditat’s perplexion to become embarrassment as he hastily steps to the side and apologizes, “Oh right, sorry,” while Kokei shuffles in front of the oven and extends her right hand out in front of a projected screen that she makes a few taps to before it vanishes and a blue light is cast onto the tray in her left hand, but rather than gifting her an item it instead consumes the one she has, absorbing the tray into the oven with a signifying beep followed then by a gentle passive hum.

She waits patiently in front of the oven for a few moments, beginning to hum in tune with the oven’s hum as Meditat just stiffly stands to the side, his left hand gripping his right arm in patience as he glances around at the wall again as though seeking anything to inspect, anything to occupy his mind.

He doesn’t need to for much longer though as Kokei’s eyes light up and she exclaims, “Ah shoot I knew it, I forgot the frosting!” before she turns around and dashes for the fridge, forcing Meditat to stumble back against the counter to give space without warning, his back bumping into the table’s edge completely untouched by the breezy bolt.

She stands in front of the fridge and again calls for the inventory screen to her hand, but before she begins swiping she instead moves her hand underneath her chin in a period of introspection which she then reveals out loud in murmurs: “Hmm…should I make it from scratch or…but there’s still some from a few days ago and if I don’t start using my leftovers I’m going to clutter this fridge…hmm…,” to which Meditat glances back to her and assures informatively, “If you require more storage space, there are additional units in the other rooms I can show you to.”

With her free hand Kokei waves off the offer and thanks, “Appreciate it but..I probably should know better..like you should see my house fridge because more than half of it is just leftovers from years ago I mean I’m lucky it’s even edible. I probably…should use it…because I’m a responsible adult…who doesn’t leave leftovers forever…yeah…yeah okay I’m going to do the responsible thing,” and with that mature decision made she swipes a few times on the inventory and taps on one option before closing out the screen, letting the fridge project a blue light over the countertop which transports in a rounded white bowl with a thick yet smooth bright pink cream partially engulfing a metal spoon, strokes of the cream smeared on the handle.

She casually grabs the spoon by the clean segments and pulls it out of the cream as Meditat turns around to broach, “Wait aren’t you eating this for lunch tho-,” only to find Kokei’s tongue sticking out only inches away from the spoon’s handle about to lick the frosting off like a dog, the act frozen as she instantly remembers the other presence in the room, her wide eyes slowly moving to Meditat with her face already directed to him.

Stiffly she slowly moves the spoon away from her tongue and moves her tongue back into her mouth, and the seconds becoming unbearable hours Meditat finally turns around again to save her the embarrassment or at least attempt to as behind him it’s clear his efforts are in vain by the agonized look.

“I’m going to…wash this off, yeah,” mutters Kokei under her breath as she passes behind Meditat on her way to the sink plate, yet Meditat’s attention is now trained onto the pot he’s watching over, frowning with no reaction to the comment, detached from the room.

Through the man’s sight is the transparent kettle levitating above the black stovetop, the blazing blue ring underneath it, the fires dancing and thrashing wildly even though they’re perfectly contained.

Strangely the man’s azure starry gaze shows some kind of infatuation with the sight, although there is a degree of uncomfortability in that face, a foreboding feeling creeping up his skin as his neck remains affixed to the one concentrated display.

That display isn’t actually of the water in the clear kettle that has started to bubble, but rather those raging flames underneath, the ferocious blue flames sprouting from the utter black void.

In the wide bright star the reflection of the flames begin to grow, the sounds of the fellow baker behind him subduing beneath the volume of the crackling fire, the hissing of the blaze.

Rise and fall, the flames copy the same dance over and over again, the same repetitions followed again and again. Rise and fall. Born and die. Those blue flames repeat an eternal cycle, the cycle of fusion that spurred the cyan flames, the ones so overwhelming when in front of, as they consume the entirety of his vision, becoming all that is as he fell inside, inside the burning gates that cracked and growled, the burning gates that thrashed and snagged, taking him away from his world, far away from his world, far away from all worlds.

Deeper through that cyan gild the flames grew brighter, blue to white, purity intensifying, the transition from the dark cosmos to the white void until the flames themselves had been surpassed.

That void was not a simple white sheet however, rather it’s a mobile network, an animated tunnel of white streaks that all soared in one direction: forward. Rays of pure energy –which formed a cylindrical passage– bolted at great speeds packed in such a dense legion that there was no edge that could be seen, no space beyond the white tunnel from within, nothing outside of the endless tunnel of infinity.

In echoes that reverberated a wall-less room a strange foreign and yet just subtly familiar voice with an authoritative presence spoke across the planes, “I do not blame you for your fallacies, for the whole of your memory you have lived only among humans, and for so long you have only had the reference of Exhumans to identify with.”

In glitches of distorted memories stood a being at the edge of a cliff, their silhouette blackened by the intense light of the white sky, one that lacked a sun but instead glowed from the white caustics that slither and wave. Beyond the cliff were ranges of many more mountains of varying sizes, all part of what seemed to be a forest. What’s off however was that rather than the mountains gradually shriveling towards the top from the base in the general shapes of triangles, they instead had a diamond shape as the entire base levitated off the ground to reveal the stone belly which has a faint glow on its own, as only about half of the actual mountain was the incline that’d be seen on one of typical origin.

Flashes of hallucinatory images depict huge crowds of silhouettes standing in an open field, many of them dressed in common casual attire but the front four in familiar suits with a lean man in a tracksuit, a studier man in heavier armor, a woman in a dress with a fragmented skirt and tall collar, and a shorter woman in a tight jumpsuit with a hoodie. Yet every single one of the silhouettes were similar in that rooted from the top of their heads was a vine, a branch, one that extended up to the sky, and traveling up that sky in tracking of the rain of branches some merged together into thicker limbs.

At the edge of the cliff the voice proclaimed, “In the microcosm you’ve resided in you have made the greatest impact you could with your abilities, you have become the hero to those worlds, you have done all you think you could.”

Higher up the plane the cluster of branches, substantially thicker than its children, consolidated together as they rose past the starry backdrop of the cosmos and continued further up, the material indiscernible.

“To think you were nothing more than perhaps a capable Exhuman, a human born from a womb, whose purpose was to be a hero. The irony of god amongst man, but the greater of one who believes himself to be any other mortal. To believe he was born from a mother,” reflected that echoing voice of the silhouette by the cliff, whose long hair waved gloriously, the obscurity of their face implying them to be facing the opposite direction.

Beyond the starry infinity was the utter dark void and yet even there the final few branches merged together into one singular stem, one that continued to ascend, ascending beyond the bounds of reality, the bounds of infinity.

“Not a man birthed from human mechanism, not a superbeing gifted the connection of the Exforce, but a Viatorem created in it,” the voice iterated as the white stem in the black void grew and splintered into dGhy two branches that ascended independently, each angled outwards away from their origin like the blossoming of a flower.

Within that branch was the network of rays all racing in one direction, and following that current through infinity eventually led to the outer shell of the cyan supersun that resided initially in an empty black void like its ancestral home, but further from the blazing edges appeared colossal white disks that drifted across space. Emerged from those disks were spheres, globes of green and blue with considerably smaller gray neighbors, each of them at varying distances from the origin. So plentiful they were, so many, from five to ten to twenty to fifty to a hundred, all of them pulled from the white disks that slid to reveal the whole bodies before dissipating entirely, amalgamating the solar system whose center burned that bright blue light, one whose light reached well beyond the Rim, whose rays stretched even greater than its own blue orb body, the starry presence perceivable from just about every edge of the cosmic sandbox.

Like the blue star against the gentle landscape of the iris, expanded to its full extent yet to intake no sight, for the eyes clearly were in a blank daze told not only by them but by the slightly hanging jaw in pure stupefaction.

That blank gaze remains on the man’s face as a voice gradually loudens, first a faint whisper but one whose echoes ring greater with every plea, a plea that initially is of incoherent sounds but clarifies eventually into the desperate shout, “HELLO?!?”

Upon the perfectly received exclamation, Meditat blinks twice and subtly shakes his head to snap back to the present, lowering his gaze to the source of an odd tingling sensation to find it from his right hand which in gruesome shock is severely burned, skin shaven to reveal a red layer that makes an uncomfortable sizzling sound, one that is only partially subdued from the half concealment as the palm is held by the brighter although much smaller hand of Kokei whose other hand grips his wrist, her fingers interlocked with his, her pink nails facing his way.

At his side she clenches on him after having averted his hand from the blue blaze over the black top in front of him beneath the clear kettle pot that contains water that’s visibly bubbling in a chaotic state.

Still in a state of disorientation, Meditat just perplexedly glances between his burnt hand and the fire as though struggling to put cause beside effect, leaving him in a strangely serene state opposed to Kokei’s hysteria as with wide eyes but peeled open in fright she exclaims again: “HELLO?? EARTH 50 TO MEDITAT?? ARE YOU WITH ME??!”

Upon the blaring shout Meditat winces and focuses his gaze on Kokei, who is staggered from the abrupt shift in focus, locking her gaze for a silent moment before she blinks twice and glances back at his burnt hand which she holds.

Instinctively Kokei unlocks and slips her own hand off his while apologizing, “Oh shoot wait that must be making it sting more I’m sorry, here wait let me get a towe-,” as Meditat just shifts his hazy gaze to the bubbling water before denoting, “Ah, I should get that,” and reaching for the knob with his burnt hand but not before it is completely engulfed in the sudden ignition of blue fire to Kokei’s heightened shock only for the flames to fizzle out the next second, revealing the hand to be completely unscathed as though it never even slid beneath the kettle.

With the restored hand, Meditat grabs the holographic knob and turns it simultaneously as the blue flames calm down until extinguishing altogether once the knob reaches its bound, and nonchalantly Meditat just grabs the short handle of the kettle and picks it off from its intangible podium. However he’s unable to move towards the teapot due to the obstruction he glances at, and upon being alerted that obstruction flared before stepping to the side in shame as she’s still flabbergasted by the inexplicable sequence of events.

Casual to that however Meditat just steps in front of the teapot and raises the clear kettle over it before beginning to cautiously tilt it just enough for the water to slip in through the spout and out into the center opening of the teapot where rather than being collected in the invisible can that restrains the leaves it instead reaches the bottom of the pot and starts filling it whole. Coincidentally though after passing through the leaves, the water never interacts with it again as it instead is repelled by the invisible barrier hoisting the leaves up, separating the pot from the infuser.

As the teapot is slowly filled up, Kokei just tilts her head to the side and is the first to suggest, “So I know I’m hypocritical for this…but maybe you should get more sleep~.”

Sighing smoothly in harmony to the pouring of the water which then thins out and stops altogether concurrently with the sigh’s tapering, Meditat maintains his focus on the teapot as he places the kettle on the side with the rest of the empty containers before deterring, “The tea should ready to drink in four minutes and thirty three seconds. Are the cupcakes done?”

Behind him Kokei just blinks in more astoundment to the tangent, and she only briefly humors: “They’re not yet, I usually let them bake a bit slower. But seriously, what was that? I mean I admit the other one had some strange behaviors but what kind of intrusive thoughts are you having?”

Most of the man’s body is armored, in fact everything from the neck down and under the wrists is reinforced with a suit that’s designed for combat against armies, superbeings, even titanic monsters. In fact from behind it’s almost as though he’s fully armored, as the black cape cloaks most of his figure, leaving only the back of the head easily reachable.

Although somehow against all odds one of the few parts of the body unprotected was the one subject to harm, and despite it having been healed fairly quickly there was a noticeable pain that the burning caused. Even now after freeing his hands there’s a subtle jittering to them, trying to fight off the echoes of the sensation even after the restored skin.

Patiently waiting behind for an answer, Kokei watches Meditat just softly sigh yet again with a lowering of his head. Only after an extended pause of silence does his words publicize vocally, “I…guess I’m still not all here…not really….”

Stunned somewhat by the vague yet oddly genuine answer, Kokei’s eyes contract in a curious stare, her face calmed more now that the mood’s sobered.

Staring now at the teapot as the once clear water begins to change color into a faint turquoise, Meditat faintly frowns while he reflects, “Just a couple weeks ago my schedule was a never ending stream of chores…juggling combat missions with the Shield along with post-analysis of previous missions and research for future ones at the same time as moderating X-Prints, but even before I joined them my life was no different. I’m…not complaining…I preferred it actually…every moment there was something for me to do…someone who needed me…no matter what happened I could always be assured that I was making the most of myself.”

Gradually the turquoise hue of the water intensifies, darkening, swallowing, and at the same time the voice contemplates outwardly, “But ever since…what happened…it’s all the opposite. Even though news spread a while back that I was alive, I’m still treated deceased. People look at me for my legacy as though I’m done…like they have to pick up where I left off. But that’s not even an incorrection, domestic crime has been handled well even before I joined The Shield, and for the past week I’ve been searching for any aberrations or greater threat and I cannot find a single one.”

Watching the steeping process through sober azure eyes, the man struggles to interpret in a sentimental tone, “And for X-Prints…I…I don’t want this to come off in the wrong manner…I’ve studied into the past ten years of keynotes and I’m impressed with what Dana has done…she gave the Superverse hope in a time where nobody else could…she took risks I myself would’ve been too apprehensive to. I’m proud of her…I really am…and I know that she was the best candidate to take over, I knew that the day I asked her to be my assistant. Even without my involvement I knew how far she’d reach…perhaps I asked her that day because I wanted to see that for myself…there was something inspiring about it, about her.”

In a deeper frown now mirroring the depth of his thoughts he follows, “And I’m not going to do anything to take that away from her, just because I’m here doesn’t mean she deserves to be knocked back down, because she’s earned her position. She deserves her spot and so does everyone else there…I know that…and I won’t change that…. But…it’s just that…I…I don’t have the words least not the ones that sound proper but…-.”

“She’s living the dream you had, and now there’s nowhere left for you,” answers the voice behind him, that being Kokei whose expression is now solemn, standing by the corner of the island table with her hands interlocked with each other.

After a brief pause from the statement, Meditat finally raises his head and turns around to face Kokei, the cape shuffling from the spin before quickly becoming still.

He gazes with slight astonishment at the simple response, his lips parted before he closes then and nods his head with the stunned verification, “I…yes I guess so-....”

Gently smiling from the validation before that smile sobers back with the mood of the room, Kokei nods and lowers her head before relating, “I get that…when you make a bombastic life for yourself…one that consumes you…one that may be full of sorrow and tragedy and yet one you can’t help but wanting to maintain. It’s just right…it’s your life…it’s the life you’re supposed to have and you couldn’t imagine it any other way. And it’s especially weird when someone else who isn’t part of that life comes along and you bring them for the ride, I mean they’re your close friend and you want them to be with you but at the same time you know they have their life and you have yours, they have their role and you have yours. But then everything gets shuffled and you lose your footing, and while you’re struggling to figure out where to go they’re the ones going on ahead and taking over for you. So while you’re stuck at the back, they’re just flying on having the crazy adventures themselves. And maybe they’re even doing things you never imagined doing…things in hindsight you wish you could’ve…but you can’t…because you’re not them…. They have their role…and you have yours…,” as she lifts her head back up to meet contact.

“I-....,” initially responds Meditat instinctively almost with excitement to the realization of how attuned the reflection is with his own thoughts, yet that excitement mellows the same with his frown and eyes.

From a hyper tone to one more melancholic, he resonates back with his gaze now to the floor, “-...I was struggling to word that eloquently.”

“Yeah well…I’ve had the time to meditate over it…,” murmurs Kokei under her breath with her head lowered back down.

Both of the two warriors just stare at the floor–bodies facing each other–, Meditat standing in front of the turquoise teapot whose tone doesn’t as drastically shift anymore, and Kokei standing beside the island countertop previously clean but now filled with different plates and cups from all the ingredients used in the baking process along with the white bowl filled with the buttery pink cream.

The entire room falls silent in absence of speech, all but for the gentle hum emitting from the oven beneath the stove, providing a synthetic baseline but one that isn’t given any instrumental fanfare.

In all directions they are the only two visible, for there is no one else in the kitchen, nor the dining room accessible by the open doorway along the wall to Kokei’s right, nor the lounge room far ahead of Meditat. It’s only them two, wallowing in their own spaces, spaces with walls.

That’s until the soft sigh exuded from Kokei before she raises her head and in a tone still somberly sincere yet grazed with a tint of sunniness, she offers earnestly: “But I mean…I used to think that I needed a chaotic life to be happy and…now I think I was a bit naive for thinking that. I had the chance to reset…and I chose a different path…the opposite actually. I just took the quiet life, chose one home to stay at, took up a normal job, had normal friends, nothing explosive. And you know what, just because they’re normal people doesn’t make them boring, I actually like them a lot…they’re pretty fun actually. I mean I call them normal but Casey is probably one of the most chaotic people I’ve met and Ember might act super quiet and reserved but that’s just because if you saw how she’s ACTUALLY like she’d probably have trouble navigating jobs and stuff. I mean even Alina who's probably the most normal of us all is weird, like I don’t think I told you this before but god she’s the one that's always introduce us to the weirdest things like I don’t know if you know what sim fanfics are but I-,”

Immediately Kokei’s face flares and she darts her gaze away before stammering, “Oh wait never mind no sorry I’m going on a tangent anyways uhm where were we at oh the normal life thing yeah that,” before being interrupted by a single yet genuine chuckle that she raises her head up to in shock.

Faintly yet still discernibly Meditat smiles, his gaze still at the floor as he aids in recovery, “I understand what you’re referring to, not the last part but the rest.”

Initially fretful in awkwardice to the exposure, Kokei just chuckles back nervously before gulping and shaking her head to reset herself before continuing on with her actual advice: “Sorry yeah anyways what I was meaning to say was that I used to think I needed a certain life to be fulfilled, and sure I admit there is that thrill in the adventure, I mean I’m kinda ashamed to say it but that’s what got me roped into this whole living situation so maybe I am relapsing but…it’s not because I’m unfulfilled with my new life…because in fact I’ve found so many things about myself that I never would have if I just tried taking the same path.”

Lowering her head again in a slight embarrassment or rather just an overflow of emotional thought, she murmurs more quietly yet audibly enough, “And…I think if there was another Kokei somewhere out there who did take the same path again…I’d prefer where I got over them…. But I don’t know what I’m saying…I’m just saying things….”

She lets out a gentle sigh through parted lips before again tilting her head back up and opening her mouth to speak just as an abrupt beep blares from in front of her, causing her to shutter almost in a leap as Meditat whose more calm and curious turns around to inspect the hologram emitted from below the stove that reaches his eyes first.

After a swift read of the hologram, Meditat turns his focus back to Kokei to alert more formally, “The cupcakes are done.”

Sighing from the harmless source of the jumpscare, Kokei just nods her head and acknowledges, “Yeah we were doing that, uh yeah if you could it’d be great if you could bring it over here thanks.”

Nodding his head back in affirmation but without needing a verbalization, Meditat just returns his gaze back to the screen where he presses a few buttons that ultimately relinquishes the hologram but instead projects a blue light over his hands which summons the tray they had fed into the oven prior, although now rather than the slots being filled with simple liquidy batter instead they all are occupied by perfectly golden cupcakes.

Carrying the tray from both ends carefully without any more jittering from the hands, Meditat walks over to the island countertop to the left of the sink plate where Kokei hastily grabs and displaces all the kitchenware from, freeing the surface for him to gently place it down.

She then runs behind Meditat towards the oven side as he just inspects the cupcakes, all of which have fluffed perfectly, and after confirming its quality he glances over at the frosting although there’s little to analyze beyond its consistency especially due to the fact that he had no part in its production.

Out from behind him suddenly emerges Kokei with each hand holding onto a traditional clear bag pipe, one that she quickly hands over to Meditat who after a puzzled pause grabs it off her hand, glancing at it perplexed before she answers the silent question, “Don’t worry, I’ll help you if you’re worried about messing it up.”

Opening his mouth promptly in defense to argue, Meditat just stares stunned before in defeat he closes it shut and inspects the pipe he’s been given as Kokei takes her free hand to grab the metal spoon and scoop up a chunk of the cream which she brings over to her own bag, dumping it inside and reaching in for another to gradually fill hers.

Silently and patiently Meditat just waits as Kokei dumps frosting in her bag, and as he waits he just glances aimlessly to the teapot sitting on the countertop next to the stove, steeped completely as now the deep turquoise liquid sits in the clear container, the leaves in the center hardly visible now from outside.

In fact from the opposite side of the pot it is hard to obtain definition of the two bakers through the liquid, for the dark turquoise shade soaks the whole room into a similar tone, obscuring most details once distinguishable.

Although even if staring through the teapot to the two, what can be seen is the shifting of the star gaze from the pot to the bag he’s offered in exchange for his own, and after the two exchange glances they then make the trade.