Free Web NovelChapter 1043: Chapter 1043 - Taming Normalcy
Mayo was at the open door at the angle she had when she was waiting for someone to suffer some fun scenario and wanted to see it but didn’t want it to be apparent that she had been waiting long enough that the wait merited mention.
"Good morning, Lord Ren," said Mayo.
"Good morning, Mayo."
"Matilda wants to know whether Lord Ren prefers the juice before or after breakfast." A pause of exactly the correct duration. "Maria also wants to know whether Lord Ren slept well. And whether he has plans for this morning."
"Juice after," said Ren. "Slept well... And yes I’ll let her know."
He already knew the way to avoid her jokes or further questions.
"Perfect." Mayo wrote something in the small notebook she carried. "Matilda and Maria will be very pleased to know."
Matilda, from the side corridor, manifested in her face none of the emotion Mayo had just attributed to her. She simply made the gesture of someone confirming the information had been received.
María appeared from the other corridor with the tray of morning cloths and the expression of someone who had learned that in this house the order of things was more suggested than established, and that the best strategy was to be available for whatever order arrived rather than preparing for a particular one.
The kitchen smelled the way the kitchen smelled when Anuar was in it. Experimental.
It was a different smell from when Ren’s parents cooked, they had the technique of decades in the trade and the knowledge of people who knew exactly how they liked each thing to be, but who took the occasional break at Ren’s request, content in the slower pace that retirement allowed.
Anuar worked differently. He had the enthusiasm of someone who learned fast and compensated with energy what he still lacked knowledge, the forward-leaning quality of a person always a step ahead of their own skill level, reaching for things they hadn’t quite locked in yet.
The result was sufficiently good.
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"Lord Ren!" said Anuar, with the energy of someone who had been waiting for this specific moment to confirm something that mattered to him. "Breakfast has been ready for five minutes. Li said you’d be down in ten, so I calculated exactly when to take things off the heat so they’d be perfect by the time you arrived and..."
"It was fine ten minutes ago too," said Li, leaning out from the end of the kitchen where he was sitting on the edge of the counter with the informality he had in all the spaces he considered his in some sense, which was basically any space where he had been for more than five minutes.
"It isn’t the same," said Anuar, with the dignity of someone defending something that mattered to him.
"It is the same."
"The temperature of the..."
"It’s fine, Anuar, Li, let’s take our seats."
Tao, sitting in the most comfortable chair in the kitchen with the bored posture of someone who had been there since before anyone else came down, touched his chin and said without looking at either of them: "Cold food it’s good too."
Ren closed the argument.
Anuar collected his dignity in an orderly manner and served the plates, Ren’s in particular with the precision of someone who had decided that if the argument couldn’t be won, at least the execution of this moment could be impeccable.
♢♢♢♢
The long dining room table had required someone to add the two extensions that normally lived in the storage room at the back corridor, because the number of people about to occupy it comfortably exceeded what the standard version could accommodate. The extensions had been retrieved without comment, which was itself a kind of comment about how things worked in this house.
Taro occupied one end with the stoic yet correct posture of someone who sat where he sat well and had no further considerations beyond that.
Liu occupied the center section with the energy of someone who had been in a chair for two minutes and had already converted it into his natural territory. He was nineteen, one year older than most of the group, which in practice changed nothing except that Liu mentioned it occasionally in the tone of someone mentioning something that supposedly gave him random authority in situations where no system established that a one-year age difference produced any authority.
Min was by the window with the angle he had when he had decided the garden view was interesting enough to not be fully oriented toward the normal and not so fun conversation, but with the attention of someone following everything happening in both directions simultaneously in case some fun comment presented itself.
Lin came from the corridor with the face of someone who had slept well and had not obligated anyone to train, which made her look strangely different to the eyes of Ren’s dormitory group, the version of Lin that existed when she had decided to be off duty, which was a version the four members of the group had seen rarely enough to still find slightly disorienting.
Larissa entered two minutes later with the methodical step she had when she had done something before coming down, probably checking on her beasts with the discipline she maintained even on days when discipline could reasonably take a break. She sat next to Ren.
Luna was already seated next to Ren. When had that happened? At the same moment Ren sat down, somehow.
Liora appeared last, which surprised nobody, because Liora arrived last to most things in the same flashy way, not late, but with the timing of someone who had calculated exactly when their arrival would have maximum narrative impact. She sat across from Ren.
The girls had distributed the spaces they had decided on before most of the others came down, with the naturalness of people who had reached agreements about these things without anyone having needed to verbalize them.
Ren’s parents looked at their son surrounded by friends, and for a moment his mother took his father’s hand and squeezed it, and his father squeezed back, and neither of them said anything because there wasn’t anything else to say.
