Work Text:
The first thing I remember in this life was the cold.
The second thing I remember were the kindest eyes I’ve ever seen. A red-haired lady, a guy with glasses and his curious companion, and a strict-looking man. Plus the cutest bunny ever! But don’t tell the conductor I said that.
They gave me this bowl of soup to eat while I warmed up. It was really tasty. Comfort in a bowl! Just thinking about it is making me salivate.
So! I want to learn how to make it! Keep it a secret though. I can’t wait to see the surprise on their faces when they see!
March wished someone would have warned her about the dangers of accepting Himeko’s seemingly generous offer.
Sure, Himeko never steered her wrong before. She pushed her forward with a steady hand, her gentle voice accompanying her elegant figure. She could even be called March 7th’s very first role model!
Perhaps March should have listened to that saying of how there were never any perfect people. Everyone had that little nick in their heel.
Himeko looked so very happy, and it was so very hard to reject her. Her eyes were practically twinkling as she sieved the roasted grounds and swirled water into them. The hand-brewed drink dripped one drop after another into the fine china that the Astral Express owned, the one that looked just like Himeko’s personal one.
March was already watching the process closely, but even if she hadn’t, it wouldn’t be hard to notice the off-signs. The many spoonfuls of grounds she had added into the filter, the way she poured the used dregs back into the coffee for ‘extra flavour’, the sable murkiness of the brew that was dark enough to get lost in.
It was very, very hard to reject Himeko indeed. Even while the black hole called ‘coffee’ stared at her menacingly from the table.
Only a sip of it had nearly made March black out.
Still, this is what March remembered the most:
The coffee, with all its acrid bitterness and gritty sediment, was warm. The cup sat comfortably in March’s hands, nestled right in her palms. When she tilted it just slightly, what was fluid of the nut-brown brew followed her motion, tepid steam billowing towards her face in perpetual wafts.
Though the acerbic smell stung her nose with a newfound fear that would stick with her for years to come, it’s not exactly a bad moment. Maybe when the next victim comes to bear Himeko’s terrible gift, she’ll snap a picture.
“Thank you, Himeko.” March smiled.
The coffee was so warm.
I know we don’t have a recipe to follow but don’t you think this seems a little off? Actually, no. It’s a lot off. I don’t know why I listened to you. Adding trick snacks to the stock? Where did you even hear that from? It’s not like chocolate and curry!
Ugh, I’m all splattered with soup now. Those beans wouldn’t stop bouncing… Let’s give it to “Shush”. It can get rid of the evidence before anyone notices.
‘What was in the soup you had?’ Cabbage, bamboo, some kind of meatballs? Oh yeah, that’s a pretty good starting point! Hey. What are you laughing at.
Anyway, get a move on! Let’s go to the shops before they close! Hehe, the great March will treat you as thanks! How about something spicy?
“Don’t let Himeko near curry,” Welt said to her once after they had finished up the day’s chores—March had been complaining about the coffee incident. His tone was secretive and playful, the crow’s feet on his face plain to see.
“Why not?” March asked, a half-question made in both jest and curiosity.
Welt hung around by the bar as she hefted the new giftbox Asta had sent, a task she insisted she’d take on by herself. She hauled it up to the storage room before quickly making her way back to the party room, footsteps light against the stairs. It had been a casual scheduled rest. They’d soon have to decide on their next journey destination; March was thinking of voting for Taikiyan and put to album photos of their stadium.
“We can just give it to Dan Heng again.” Puffing up her chest, she deepened her voice and said with her mimicry of him, “It’s an excellent tool to test my grit.”
Welt laughed. “Trust me. You know how she is with her brews.” He laughed again and as he did so, he looked out the train’s window. “I wouldn’t mind eating it again though.” She could see his expression growing fonder, softer almost, but his smile was no less tender than when he’s around them. “Curry is best eaten hot, after all.”
He said that like one would an adopted expression, the way people pick up little habits from all around them. Like how Dan Heng archived old animation reels; like how Himeko had installed a nightly timer for the data bank’s lights to grow warm; like how Pom-Pom always had a new type of juice on hand; like how March pinned the Astral Express badge to the front of her vest every day.
March never had the mind for remembering all the small, inconspicuous decisions people made. But there was something about how Welt looked, how quietly that offhand comment was said.
What she didn’t remember encroached the edges of what she did. It bothered her a little less these days when she could fill up the space with what she held dear. So, this too, March committed to memory.
The next time the Astral Express stopped by a quaint restaurant that had curry on the menu, she added an extra note to the order: serve piping hot!
We’re getting close! The flavour is almost there!
What are we missing? I feel like the one I had was a bit thicker. Should we boil it for longer?
Ah, you’re right. That would just make the soup go all… ‘poof!’ wouldn’t it. Why is cooking so hard? Conductor Pom-Pom, please bestow upon us your wisdom!
…Should we try asking? The last time I cooked, all I did was decorations! Does baking even count as cooking? I don’t knoooow. Maybe Dan Heng knows some secret Xianzhou cooking techniques. His stuff always tastes really good.
Mm… No! I won’t! I gotta stick by my principles! This will be a surprise! A surprise!
Don’t you know? Surprises are the best seasoning for food!
“March. Wake up.”
Dan Heng had mercilessly barged into her room, tearing her away from the comforts of her bed. Her shut-eyed Pom-Pom plushie seemed so sad to see her go, she could almost imagine a tear.
“It’s too early!” March whined. “Just because you don’t ever go to bed doesn’t mean you should drag people away from it.”
“You sleep too much.”
“You sleep too little!”
Dan Heng sighed. “The food’s getting cold.”
March did feel a slight pang of guilt at that. Not because she’s super hungry or anything, but because she knows that Pom-Pom will be both angry and sad that their hard work was going to waste. “Alright, fine. I’m going.”
Yet, when March walked into the parlour room, it wasn’t a spread of sandwiches that greeted her. Neither did a slice of cake nor a cup of tea. Instead—
“Oh my god! They’re so cute!” March rushed forward and picked up Pom-Pom in her arms, hugging them tightly and spinning them around until they shakily tapped her hand with their paw in surrender.
Pom-Pom! In new clothes! Their conductor literally could not be any cuter than this. The giant red ribbons were perfect tied to their ears.
“I’m glad you like this, March. Dan Heng had spent so long deciding on the clothes,” Himeko said, before her eyes widened and she hid her mouth between a sheepish hand, quickly adding on an “oops.” Given the mischievous glint in her eyes though, that was very much an intentional slip.
Dan Heng, on the other hand, was avoiding March’s gaze.
“Aw, Dan Heng! You do love me!”
As expected, Dan Heng stayed quiet, though March was looking at him too closely to not notice the pink blush of his ears.
“There are a lot more clothes here,” Welt said, “if you’d like to give them a try.”
“Oh yes!” March giggled.
“Oh no,” Pom-Pom groaned. “Please… at least let me prepare food…”
Breakfast that morning was more noisy than usual. The camera-shutter became the perfect background noise to their chatter. The happiness of that moment was forever preserved in her photos.
This is it! This is the same soup as before!
We did it! I’m so happy I could just cry.
Come over here, sit down! I’ll give you the first bowl. I can’t wait to—huh…?
Wait, why is it freezing all of a sudden? Why do I feel so weak? Everything… hurts. Stelle, how’re you doing? …Stelle? W-where did you go?
Stelle? Dan Heng? Himeko, Welt? Anyone!
Don’t leave… don’t leave m—
‘Addendum to recipe, footnote at end of page: don’t leave it [cold], the soup’s all [burned] dry now.’
I really, really wanted you to have some.
(This isn’t a memory, but I did say: I know your past. What you love, what you despise. Your comforts, your fears, your—)
Awaken, dear sleeper. Leave that endless night.
Your journey isn’t over yet.
“Are you… me?”
March doesn’t know how she got here, in this terribly dark place where she couldn’t see anything or anyone beyond this tea party-esque setting. She’d awoke, alone and cold. Sat opposite a girl who in no way resembles her beyond appearance.
The ‘complete’ March.
“You’re such a delicious feast.” This incarnation of hers, yet unnamed, sorts through memory crystals, greedily eyeing them as if she were devouring them piece by piece, one and all without any reservation. March sees their reflected images: when March had first tried Himeko’s coffee, when Welt told her anecdotes from his past, when Dan Heng planned a surprise for her; all the times she made soup with Stelle. This incarnation hums. “I can see why you covet them so much.”
“Are you afraid?” Her blood-red eyes pin her to the spot. March can’t help but shudder.
“I feel like you’d know the truth no matter what I say.”
She only lets her smile grow in response, wide enough to split her face.
“What are you? Who are you?” March asks. Her question comes halting and tentative. Even when she’s faced with an answer, she’s no closer to the past than before. As ever, March trembles before it.
This incarnation gestures. A teacup comes sweeping in from somewhere beyond the void and settling in front of March. She peers in and sees many shards of memory, just as she has seen before the other girl: shimmering lights, twilit dreams, murmuring peals of laughter, and in the night, peaceful, horrible silence. Within it, something familiar. Within it, something alien.
If she answers, will that become March? If she gives only facts, will that subsume March?
March doesn’t know. That’s the scariest part of it all.
“I’m sure you have countless questions for me,” this incarnation says. “Those can wait. Treat me as you would someone you once knew.”
“I don’t want to wait. I want to know.”
“All the same, I want to help,” she says, almost motherly. March finds herself wanting to chase it, like a rabbit into its burrow, like a tapir to its meal. “Let me eat your dream.”
Part of March instinctively agrees. Almost ready to relent, to dive into another dream.
Another part of her vehemently disagrees. A shudder runs through March. She stands up, knocking the chair away. The teacup topples over, the memory crystals spilling out one by one.
“No.” She doesn’t know why she’s so rattled by that. “No.” She knows she has to refuse. “No!” It’s a rejection, a protest. March will not yield but still she wants—
Her nerves lapses like the ebb and flow of waves, her lungs yet breathing for how they feel like they’ll give up on her. She sobs. Oh, how she aches. But March heaves in an unsteady breath, the wound in her not scabbed over even with how she has lived long besides it. For however long she had wandered since she awoke, March bathed in warmth. That warmth lingers in her still, alongside the gentle, mumbling night.
It’s almost like coming home.
“Don’t let me feed then,” this incarnation whispers. “Tell me instead. Tell me: for all these years that I’ve slumbered, who are you? Who is ‘March 7th’?”
March hiccups, and nods. She knows this, a hundred times over. She worries and she wonders, she remembers and she forgets. She takes photos and makes memories and her past grows each day.
“I love the Astral Express!” March shouts, “I love how reliable Himeko and Welt are. I love how Dan Heng has opened up since the start. I love how Stelle is always there for me, and how she—all of them! They’re my family. These travels are the best thing I could have ever asked for!” Her tears build and and are left untouched as they spill over her cheeks. And yet, the smile—shaky and fragile it may be—shines bright and resolute, more dazzling than even the Aeons THEMselves.
“These memories with them are my greatest treasure.” March sniffles, smile unwavering. She walks forth, upright and straight, and though her knees quiver and her gait is wobbly, she never once turns back. She takes this incarnation’s hand in hers, nestled right in her palms.
“I’m scared! I’m terrified! Of you, of everything.” March says, “You’re not someone I hold dear, not right now. I can’t say that they won’t either. But I love every part of me that I built with them. That’s why I’m sure. I will love you too.”
This incarnation laughs, more affectionate than March ever expected, and March thinks, through all the fear, ‘that is a sound I could get used to’.
She doesn’t put her thoughts in concrete words. Doesn’t say ‘I love you’ back. It’s fine. March never does things in half-measures.
March wipes her tears and smiles happily enough for the two of them. “It’s nice to finally meet you.”
“My dear March,” this incarnation coos. “We were never apart.”
When I can stand by your side again, I hope that you’ll take a moment to eat this good ol’ soup I made! Oh, who am I kidding, you’d totally do that even if I didn’t ask. Ignore how I’ve been asking for your help all this time.
Indulge me a little though, ‘kay? I want to hear you say ‘I’m back’. I want to tell you ‘welcome home’.
I want you to see all the things I’ve done, the things I’ve made, and I want you to be even just that little bit happier.
This meal is my love for you.