Kairos slowly held out another piece of strawberry gum with his hand while softly chewing on the one in his mouth. Though this wasn’t really the time, he couldn’t help but think that it tasted pretty good.
In the end, though Sydney seemed scared, she reached out to take it.
There was a strong contrast between the smooth piece of gum and her wrinkled skin. But in the end, she wasn’t able to put it into her mouth.
Kairos thought this might be because he couldn’t normalize it, thus stood up and pulled another one out of the pack before handing it towards Nicole.
“Do you want one?”
Nicole blinked a few times before nodding.
“Um, yeah.”
She gently reached out and took it before slowly unwrapping the piece of gum. Kairos then looked towards Chase and Tori.
“What about you guys?”
Chase shrugged his shoulders.
“It’s a little weird you have gum in the apocalypse, but if we are going to be down here for a while… then it would be nice to have one.”
Kairos flicked one over towards Chase, who caught it promptly. He then looked over to Tori and gave her a look when it seemed like she didn’t really want one.
Tori seemed to catch on, nodding with a bit of hesitation.
“Sure.”
Kairos tossed another one towards her.
It did not take long for the room to be filled with various chewing noises. Sydney looked around her a few more times before looking back at the piece of strawberry gum. Then, she slowly put it in her mouth.
Almost immediately, she began violently chewing down on it, a show of how hungry she really was. In reality, it did startle Kairos slightly, but he made sure not to show it, pretending it was completely normal.
Sydney forced herself to stop and grabbed onto the side of her head, groaning slightly.
Kairos slowly asked a question.
“Is the flavor of gum bad? You seemed to like it at first.”
He purposely stayed on the word gum a little longer to more clearly show she wasn’t eating flesh, but rather a piece of gum, so there was nothing to be concerned about.
Sydney shivered slightly before shaking her head.
“N-No.”
She began chewing again, slow at first, but rapidly became quicker and quicker.
Kairos coughed a little when he saw this.
“Ah, I almost swallowed it, but you aren’t supposed to eat gum, haha.”
That was a lie, but it was supposed to wake up Sydney to make her realize she was just chewing on gum.
Thankfully, it seemed to work as she stopped chewing so obsessively on it. Kairos kept his eyes on her the entire time, trying to gauge any changes he saw.
And so, he was able to notice that Sydney was sneaking glances at the bag of bread Nicole was holding. She seemed to calm down considerably but was still a little jittery.
Kairos looked over to Nicole.
“Say, I’m a little tired of chewing on the gum.”
He then spat it out, letting it land to the side.
“Could I have a piece of bread? I’m feeling a little hungry.”
That wasn’t exactly a lie, because he was definitely hungry. Nicole nodded slowly.
“O-Ok.”
She seemed to catch on to what Kairos was doing, and also made her actions slow and gentle as she gave the piece of bread.
Kairos took it before slowly and deliberately chewing.
After taking a bite, he spoke up.
“Does anybody want one?”
Sydney practically instinctively raised her hand.
“A-Ah… I-I.”
Kairos tilted his head to the side.
“Oh, you want some?”
He turned to Nicole.
“Why don’t you give her the bag so she can take as many as she wants.”
In response, Nicole nodded hurriedly.
“Yes!”
Sydney grabbed onto the bag with both hands a little tightly. She reached in and anxiously took one, but before eating it, she let the piece of gum fall out of her mouth slowly.
Sydney slowly raised one bread up to her mouth, before taking a small bite. Then, she began eating ravenously, no longer holding back. She ate it quite messily, holding onto multiple pieces and clenching onto them tightly.
Considering that it did not even take a minute for her to finish the entire bag, it showed how hungry she was. By the end, she began panting slightly, but it seemed to be out of relief.
A few seconds later, she let out a gasp.
“Ah! I’m… I’m sorry…”
Kairos shrugged his shoulders.
“It’s fine. You were just a little hungry.”
That being said, he couldn’t help but feel a little jealous that she had eaten the whole bag when that was what he wanted to do. Nonetheless, he just continued to eat the piece that he was holding onto.
Kairos then walked back over to the others and looked over his shoulder, towards Sydney.
“Are you going to come back now?”
Sydney held onto the side of her head uncomfortably, but seemed to be more or less fine now.
“Ah… ok, ok.”
They went back together as a group back near the center. Upon reaching there, Chase ended up scratching the back of his head.
“Um… what now?”
Kairos scratched his head.
“I guess turn off the light and catch up on some sleep. We were trying to sleep before all of this, after all.”
Tori chuckled.
“Ah, that’s convenient. Now I won’t have to take watch.”
Kairos cracked his neck.
“Just don’t make too much sound, and we should be fine. Remember we are hiding, because of…”
He narrowed his eyes.
“The Red Priest we pissed off earlier.”
Sydney’s eyes widened slightly.
“Eh? What happened before?”
Kairos rolled his shoulder.
“There was a giant red eye that looked down at us. The reason we are hiding out here in the first place is in hopes that they don’t find us. If we stay down here long enough, they should stop looking and we can probably leave.”
Sydney seemed slightly taken aback.
“So… we shouldn’t be eating too much…”
Kairos sighed.
“We should be rationing food, but not starving ourselves to death. Eating when we really have to is natural.”
He massaged his temple.
“Anyway, we can talk about this later. I still didn’t get much sleep. Since we won’t have much to do, this is the best opportunity for us to take some rest. Who knows how long we will have to wait later on?”
With that, he laid down on the floor, shifting uncomfortably. His head was aching slightly, making him just want to lay down.
Chase seemed to more or less agree as he had turned off the flashlight and also laid down on the ground.
A few snoring sounds filled the air, coming from Tori and Sydney. It seemed that they were both quite tired.
A little while later, Chase had fallen asleep as well.
Kairos yawned and was about to drift off along with the rest of them, but Nicole grabbed onto his hand before he did so.
She whispered to him.
“Th-Thank you for helping my mom.”
Kairos closed his eyes with a slight grumble.
“No problem.”
He rested his head against one of the red veins that were on the floor and fell asleep before Nicole could say anything more.
…
Kairos saw himself walking home from school. At the time, he was walking home with Nicole, but there was a slight frown on his face, displeased about something.
On the other hand, Nicole had a really excited expression.
She hugged Kairos tightly and giggled.
“Let’s go to the park! We haven’t been there since last week!”
Kairos did not respond at first.
Nicole lowered her head and peeked at his face.
“Is that a yes? Or…”
Kairos shook his head.
“We still have to do our homework, don’t we?”
Nicole seemed taken aback.
“Ehhh? But we didn’t even get that much, and we haven’t been to the park in so long!”
Kairos clicked his tongue.
“We aren’t kids anymore. Instead of playing, we should be working.”
Nicole visibly recoiled before shaking Kairos a little.
“Earth to Kairos? Are you there? You must’ve been replaced by an alien!”
Kairos narrowed his eyes.
“I’m right here in front of you. It seems like you are the one that needs glasses.”
Nicole pouted slightly.
“Gah… Why are you being so uptight? It’s not like we are actually adults! When we grow older it’s going to be all boring all the time, we should play around while we have the chance!”
Kairos continued walking forward, not even sparing her a glance.
“Being a kid is more than just being young, and being an adult is more than just being over eighteen. It’s also about changing as a person. And I have changed to not wanting to go to the park anymore.”
Nicole let out an unsatisfied grumble.
“Then let’s just stay kids forever! I don’t want to grow up!”
Kairos lowered his head.
“Growing up isn’t a choice you get to make. It just happens.”
He frowned.
“Plus, it’s already too late. I said this before.”
Kairos adjusted his glasses.
“We aren’t kids anymore.”
…
Kairos woke up, feeling uncomfortable.
And soon enough, he found the source.
Someone’s leg was on his chest.
He furrowed his brows and pushed it off. Soon after, Tori let out a groan.
“Hmm…”
After the sound of rustling and a yawn, she spoke once more.
“Why are you pushing me around? That’s rude.”
Kairos clicked his tongue.
“Why did you think my chest was a good place to put your leg? It made it awkward to breathe.”
Tori grumbled.
“Hey, hey, I can’t help that I move around a lot in my sleep, but you didn’t have to push me.”
Kairos rolled his eyes.
“Just because you didn’t mean to do it, doesn’t change the fact that you did.”
Tori chuckled.
“Oh, so what if I told you that I meant to put my leg there? I’m sure that would change how you felt, no?”
The corner of Kairos’ lip twitched.
“…Fair enough.”
Their conversation ended up waking the others up. Nicole sat up and let out some satisfied grunting noises as she stretched.
“Good morning!”
Chase grumbled.
“Is it even morning?”
Kairos let out a soft hum.
“Our internal clocks are probably going to get really messed up by this.”
Sydney let out a random comment.
“My hands feel quite strange… My face feels a little strange as well.”
Kairos’ eyebrow twitched.
“Um… you lost a bit of weight when you fought earlier.”
Sydney gasped.
“I did?”
After a few rubbing noises, she exclaimed once more.
“Oh, dear… I did. But I’ve done exercise before and it hasn’t been that drastic.”
Kairos couldn’t help but open his mouth with the urge to ask, ‘Do you not remember what you did?’
However, he also thought that might trigger a bad memory, thus he shut his mouth.
Tori let out a dissatisfied sigh.
“It reeks of blood.”
Kairos raised an eyebrow.
“It always reeked of blood.”
Tori mumbled.
“But this is different… if we were in the middle of a battle then it would at least help pump up the adrenaline, but now it’s just stinky.”
Kairos rolled his eyes, not responding to it.
Sydney spoke up, but in the form of an embarrassed mumble.
“How will we decide when we eat?”
Chase responded fairly promptly.
“Considering that we have at least eaten somewhat regularly beforehand, we shouldn’t eat for quite a while.”
Kairos brushed off some dried blood that had formed on his knuckles.
“And why is that?”
Chase let out a soft hum.
“Well, right now our bodies expect a normal amount of food intake and are operating off that basis. If we continue to do so, they will also operate on the same capacity. If we want to make the most of our food, we first have to stop eating.”
Kairos nodded.
“For how long?”
Chase sighed.
“We shouldn’t think about how long. If all of our thoughts are about food, then it will quickly drain us and make us even more tired than before. The way I survived starvation before was distracting myself.”
Kairos put a finger on his chin.
“Fair enough. What should we talk about?”
Tori let out a soft gasp as though she had been enlightened.
“Oh, what about how to use our points?”