Page 96 of Ghost Ribbon

He looked peaceful.

That was a dangerous word to apply to how I felt about him, but it was the accurate one. When Marco was peaceful, when his shoulders were loose and his breathing was even and his eyes were soft instead of guarded, something in me went quiet too.

I pulled out the food I had brought.

It was wrapped carefully in a cloth napkin, packed in a small container. I had made it that morning. Dimitri’s lessons had been adequate, at best. His instructions were clear enough, but his standards were clearly calibrated to Rei’s preferences rather than any objective quality, which made them unreliable as a teaching framework.

Still, I had followed them and produced this.

Marco looked at the container.

“Taste it,” I said.

He blinked, then reached for a piece of chicken with careful fingers. He took a small bite, chewed slowly.

“Is it shit?” I asked.

He shook his head quickly. “Um. A little bland. But it’s not bad.”

I stared at the container.

Bland.

Fuck me sideways.

Dimitri’s lessons were shit, then. Or my execution was shit. Or both. Possibly both. Possibly the entire endeavor was a waste of time and I had hauled myself out of bed at an unreasonable hour to produce food that was, in the most generous assessment possible, not bad.

I looked at Marco.

He must have seen something shift in my face. I didn’t know what, exactly, since I had long ago trained my features into neutrality, but Marco had an irritating ability to read past the mask when I wasn’t actively maintaining it. His eyes widened slightly and he immediately set the food down. “Where did you get this from?”

“I made it.”

“It’s good!” he said, voice pitching higher. “It’s really good. It’s the best, actually.”

He shook his hands frantically in front of himself, the gesture so earnest and so transparently desperate that I almost, almost found it amusing.

“It’s the best really,” he repeated, nodding too fast. “I mean it. Really. The best. Ten out of ten. I would eat it every day. Every meal. I’m not even kidding.”

“You’re lying,” I said flatly.

“I’m not.”

“You are.”

“Okay, I’m embellishing slightly, but—”

“Marco.”

He faltered, pressing his lips together and I exhaled slowly through my nose.

“No. I’ll improve. I’ll make sure I make you better food.”

“Why are you making me food?” he asked.

“So you won’t have to cook.”

Marco was no longer permitted to endanger his own hands. He didn’t need any of that. He only needed to eat.