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When Anaxa awoke early in the morning, sunlight filtering through his curtains, he thought it would be a normal day.
That idea was immediately crushed when he began brushing his teeth, and the end of his toothbrush grazed the inside of his left cheek.
Searing, burning pain, like a lightning strike, stabbed through the side of his mouth. He hissed, pulling the toothbrush back, grimacing at the throbbing pain.
Then he moved to brush the other side of his mouth, and the exact same thing happened again as soon as the minty foam of his toothpaste touched the soft inner lining of his mouth.
Anaxa spat out his toothpaste, mouth watering unpleasantly at the stinging pain. He swirled a mouthful of water for a moment, before releasing that down the sink as well and leaning in to check exactly what was hurting that bad.
The moment he set his eyes on those agonizingly familiar whitish splotches lined with red, his will to live drained out of him.
Canker sores.
And to add insult to injury, there was one on the left side of his mouth, and two on the right. How was he supposed to eat now? Would he just have to chew with his front teeth like some kind of beaver??
Maybe he would have to live off a diet completely consisting of ice cubes.
Anaxa let out an aggravated sigh, absentmindedly cleaning off his toothbrush and taking a moment to fix his hair, before stepping out of the bathroom.
He went over to his kitchen, eyeing the bread he had put in the toaster before heading to the bathroom. It was obviously ready now, so he took it out and tried a bite.
Fire streaked through his mouth once more, and his eyes began to water.
Ow, ow ow ow—
It hurt. Worse than a slash from a creature of the black tide. Worse than a stab wound through the chest— not that he would ever experience that, anyways.
Anaxa threw the toast across the room to the open trash can in spite, before angrily pouring himself a glass of milk. He grabbed a paper straw and drank it from that, exhaling slightly in relief when nothing burned in agony again.
Then he dropped his head into his hands, cursing whichever Titan had invented canker sores, and why it had been necessary to make them last two weeks.
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The next three days were a blur of agony and the undignified application of Milk of Magnesia on his sores with a cotton swab. Anaxa had reached the point of alchemical desperation, mixing various concoctions with the fervor of a man trying to synthesize gold, only to achieve a temporary, chemical numbness that made his tongue feel like lead.
Then on the fourth day, at the peak of the ulceration stage, where every movement of the tongue felt like there was a wasp stinging his mouth, a letter arrived in the mail.
“I am required,” Anaxa read the letter out loud, lips curling in disgust, “to attend a lunch banquet of the Chrysos Heirs this evening.”
He debated walking out and giving Kephale’s statue a rude gesture with his hand, but eventually suppressed the more than blasphemous urge. Instead, he tore the letter to shreds, before heading to his closet to decide what to wear.
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“Welcome to the Hall of Respite!”
Anaxa gave the lady at the door a curt nod before walking straight past her. Normally, he would have at least considered showing a bit more respect, but the bright colors of Okhema were already grinding at his nerves. Not to mention the huge fucking ulcers in his mouth, of course.
When he arrived at the banquet hall, late by quite a bit (not because it was “fashionable”, but rather because he couldn’t care less), food was already being served. He just barely managed to keep his face composed as wine, a drink he knew to be highly acidic, was poured into the glass in front of him. It was fine, he had the foresight to bring a paper straw with him.
The unbearably salty olives, along with the main course of grilled octopus (seriously??), would be a different story.
Anaxa was sure to take very conservative amounts of the octopus and salad, deciding to fill his plate with mashed potatoes instead, ignoring the weird looks he got, especially when he pulled out his straw.
“Anaxa, what the fuck?” Phainon asked him loudly as he slipped the end of the straw into the wine glass. “Who drinks wine with a straw??”
Several pairs of eyes turned to see what the commotion was about, and Anaxa groaned internally.
“That’s Anaxagoras to you,” he corrected, taking a thankfully non-painful sip of wine. “And it's not your place to question my drinking methods.”
Phainon stared at him incredulously for a long second, before shrugging and going back to bothering Mydei, who was unfortunate enough to be seated next to him.
Anaxa sighed, running his hand through his hair. It was going to be a long evening.
── ⋅ ⋅ ── ✩ ── ⋅ ⋅ ──
In the end, he did not finish his plate, all because some dumbfuck had decided to season the mashed potatoes with black pepper, which had attacked Anaxa’s sores like a heat-seeking missile.
Instead, he decided to distract everyone by kicking Phainon’s leg under the table, which led to the white-headed man accusing Mydei. The two of them broke out into another one of their usual couple’s arguments, directing all the table’s attention to them, in which Anaxa took the chance to swiftly take his plate, scrape the remaining contents into the trash, and leave.
He found a quiet room not too far from the banquet, which had a bowl of fruit set on a nearby table. He carefully avoided the oranges and strawberries, deciding on a banana instead.
He sat there, in blissful silence, eating the only bearable thing in this entire building, for all of three minutes.
Then a blonde head and piercing green eyes came into view from the doorway.
“Anaxa,” Aglaea said.
“It's Anaxagoras,” he corrected.
A beat of silence. Two.
“...What,” he added, putting all his willpower into not squirming under Aglaea’s intense gaze.
The Goldweaver pursed her lips before asking, “what did you eat?”
Anaxa blinked at her, not expecting the question. “...I ate the food that was served.”
Aglaea gave him a flat look. “You very well know what I mean. How much did you eat?”
“I don’t see why that’s any of your business.”
Aglaea exhaled, dragging a hand down her face. “I will not play this game with you, Anaxagoras. Why did you not eat?” When Anaxa opened his mouth to refute her, she added sharply, “and do not lie. I saw you empty your entire plate into the trash.”
Anaxa scowled. “Why do you care?”
“Is it a curse?” Aglaea ignored his question completely. “Are you ill? I will have Hyacine look at you at once—”
“Slow down. It's not anything serious.”
She stared him down. “Do not downplay a major ailment of yours—”
“It's fucking canker sores, Aglaea.”
Another long moment of silence passed.
“How do I know you are telling the truth?” She challenged.
Anaxa let out a long, irritated exhale. “Why would I lie about mouth ulcers??”
Aglaea’s brow furrowed. “Let me see,” she said, taking several quick steps forward.”
“Wait, what—”
Before Anaxa could stop her, she was right in his face, hands reaching to grab his face (???) and pull his lip back with her thumb (?!!), diluted eyes peering at his mouth (!!!)
Suddenly, it felt awfully hot in the room. Anaxa swallowed, Adam’s apple bobbing with the motion.
“What are you…??”
“Hm. You were telling the truth,” Aglaea said calmly, almost conversationally. Still, even after confirming the existence of the canker sores that had been torturing Anaxa for days, her palm didn’t move from his face.
Her hand was warm… almost too warm…
Anaxa snapped himself out of those thoughts. He could not be thinking like that about Aglaea, of all people. “Of course I was,” he returned, willing his voice to remain stable. “There’s no reason for me to lie…”
He trailed off as Aglaea reached up and placed her hand on his forehead…??
“Are you sure it isn’t anything else?” She asked with a frown, searching his eyes for something; he didn’t know what. “Your face is flushed. Do you have a fever?”
“I— no, I’m quite sure,” Anaxa mumbled, slightly dazed from Aglaea’s sheer proximity to him (or rather, lack of it). How could she possibly ask him why his face was flushed when she had literally been touching his lips two seconds ago? Could she really not tell…?
Just then, the edge of the woman’s lips quirked upwards, and Anaxa gave her the dirtiest look he could muster. So she was doing all this on purpose.
“Oh, really? Then what is making you this… tense?”
Aglaea took a step forward, so Anaxa took one back. The former moved towards the latter again, but when he tried to make space, his back hit the wall.
“If it isn’t some sort of ailment, then…”
Anaxa stiffened, all blood rushing downwards, as Aglaea’s knee slid between his legs.
“...is it me?”
“How presumptuous of you to assume such a thing,” He countered valiantly, one last-ditch effort at retaining the last remaining vestiges of his composure, before they were shattered as Aglaea leaned in dangerously close.
“How presumptuous, indeed,” she whispered, breath ghosting over Anaxa’s lips.
He barely managed to muffle a small noise, and by the way Aglaea’s smile widened, she could clearly tell.
“It is getting late,” she murmured into his ear, and he shivered at the low tone of her voice. “Shall we head to bed together?”
“It is three in the afternoon,” Anaxa deflected, even though he was already beginning to follow her out of the room.
“Did I stutter?”