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Being on this train was kinda weird.
Well maybe she was exaggerating, but being frozen in ice and not knowing who she was or anything about herself wasn’t very nice. Plus, it had only been about a week since the nice people had freed her from the ice. It was very rude of the ice to take her memory. Was it the ice that took her memory? The lady with the red hair said they weren’t sure.
But there was one thing that she did like quite a bit.
The other boy on the train.
He was a little quiet, which sometimes confused her. Why be quiet when you could talk? But he was also smart, so maybe that’s why he was quiet. Because the brown haired man with the cane also seemed smart and he was quiet too.
Sometimes she forgot the boy's name. But then he’d notice her looking a little confused and frustrated when they’re talking and he’d say:
“Can you get me something from my wallet?”
Just so she could look at his identification and remember his name. It was Dan Heng, but she always forgot. She thought it was nice. And he’d answer all of her questions no matter what they were.
“What’s that?” She’d always ask, tilting her head with curious eyes.
Dan Heng (Yes! She remembered this time!) would always smile a little before answering, “A coffee machine. It’s what Himeko uses to make her coffee…although I don’t recommend trying it.”
“...Why not?”
“...Her coffee doesn’t taste very good.” He’d answer with a little laugh, as if laughing was somehow embarrassing. She didn’t think it was embarrassing. She thought it looked nice. Really nice.
So she thought she was doing pretty well, considering that the nice people found her trapped inside a block of ice. She wondered how she’d ended up there. Had someone frozen her? Had she frozen herself? Where was she from?
She had a lot of questions. But she wasn’t sure that anyone had the answers. At least not the nice people. They did try though! At least for a while. But they stopped. She thought it was because none of them could find any answers, and that the ice itself wasn’t being very helpful.
But that was okay, she supposed. After all, she had these new people to be with!
She forgot their names a lot. But they always remind her, and sometimes, the brown haired man with the cane told her ways to remember their names!
The only one she never forgot was Pom-Pom. But that’s because they’re a bunny and very tiny. Also a little bossy, but in a caring way!
Miss Himeko was the pretty lady with the red hair, she had flowers on her dress and the big coat (the black-haired boy said adding “Miss” was respectful, so she did).
Mr. Yang (his full name was Welt Yang but the black-haired boy said she should call him Mr. Yang instead, she only did it because he asked her to) was the one with the cool cane and the glasses, and the grey streak in his hair.
Dan Heng was the black haired boy with the red eyeliner and pretty eyes. At least, that’s what she thought. Miss Himeko said that most people considered the stars pretty. And she thought that Dan Heng’s eyes looked a little like stars sometimes. So maybe they were pretty too.
But something else that happened a lot was forgetting her own name. Which might’ve sounded kinda crazy, but it was hard when half the time she didn’t know who she was. But she thought everyone else understood, because they used her name whenever they could.
Miss Himeko was helping her learn how to read and write, Mr. Yang was teaching her normal stuff, like how the coffee machine worked and how to cook. And Dan Heng was teaching her how to fight!
Kinda.
She was learning how to use a bow and arrow because of her ice powers. Which was really cool. Maybe the giant ice chunk wasn’t so bad if it gave her ice powers. If it was the ice block that gave her powers. Man, she was a little weird. But Mr. Yang had also said everyone on the train was a little weird too, so maybe it wasn’t that bad.
Something she still had to get used to is food. Which is kinda weird. She had to eat at least twice a day, and food itself was even weirder. There were different flavors and textures and a lot of other stuff to figure out.
So when Dan Heng dragged her into the train’s kitchen, she was a little confused. Especially because she had already had lunch that day. And she wasn’t hungry anymore.
Once she sat down and Dan Heng stopped in front of her, the main reason he’d brought her there became a little more obvious. At least it seemed obvious to Dan Heng. She was still very confused. Maybe more confused than she probably should’ve been.
“March. What’s your favorite food, or maybe your favorite drink?” Dan Heng asked, staring at her.
Oh! Right! Her name was March 7th.
But the question made her a little confused. “...I don’t know? What is a favorite food?”
Dan Heng sighed, “A favorite food is…a food you like so much that you’ll eat it whenever you get the chance, like Miss Himeko’s favorite drink is coffee.”
“...Oh.” She shrugged. “I don’t think I have one…everything Pom-Pom makes is really good.”
“Well, I think you need a favorite food. So I’m gonna make you try some foods that Pom-Pom hasn’t made yet to see if you like any of them.” He said with a small smile, moving to the counter to turn on the stove. “If you want, I can teach you while we make it.”
“Uh, okay,” she said, standing up and immediately climbing onto the counter beside him.
“This is something Mr. Yang taught me to make. It’s sushi, but Mr. Yang calls it a California roll” Dan Heng starts explaining as he starts laying out the seaweed on the mat and putting the rice on it. “I’m not sure what California is. Mr. Yang refuses to explain it when I ask.” He shrugged.
March isn’t sure what it was either. What she did like was listening to Dan Heng’s voice. And maybe he could tell. Because whenever he stopped talking, she always found herself frowning. And whenever he noticed her sad look, he’d start talking again. She thought that was nice, because sometimes she still didn’t know what to say. And she’d much rather listen to him talk while she figured out what to say.
“...Maybe it's a planet?” She suggested, before looking at the bowl of…white stuff sitting on the counter. It doesn’t look like anything she’s ever seen before. But, she’s pretty sure she hasn’t seen much anyway. “...What’s that?” She asks, leaning across Dan Heng’s workspace to grab it.
Dan Heng looked mildly offended for about a second before sighing. “It's imitation crab. I told Mr. Yang we could use real ones but he says it doesn’t taste the same. I’m not sure what he means. It’s literally called imitation crab.”
“...Maybe he secretly doesn’t want to eat crabs because he doesn’t like them getting killed?” March then suggests. She thinks it sounds right. She liked animals too. Maybe Mr. Yang just liked them a lot.
Dan Heng shrugged as he finished the sushi by adding in the imitation crab, cucumber, and avocado before rolling it up and cutting it into little circles. “I’m not sure. And if I’m being honest he scares me too much to ask.” He muttered under his breath before handing a piece to March. “Here, try it.”
March took the piece, popped it into her mouth, and immediately made a face. “...Why does it taste like that?”
Dan Heng raised an eyebrow in response. “Taste like what?”
“...Icky.”
“Icky. That’s the best word you could come up with. Icky?”
“Yes. Icky.”
Dan Heng huffed and muttered something under his breath that she couldn’t quite hear, before getting out some new ingredients. “I’ll make something else. I have a feeling you’ll like this one more.”
Dan Heng started making something March didn’t recognize. “What is it?” she asked, staring at what seemed like an egg, some white powder, and a bowl of brown stuff. In her curiosity, she immediately stuck a finger into the brown substance to taste it.
Dan Heng sighed, but didn’t stop her. “It’s called peanut butter cookies. It’s mostly sugar, peanut butter, and eggs so they keep their shape. Here,” he said, sliding an empty big bowl and some smaller bowls, one with the sugar and the other with the eggs, “mix them together using this,” before handing her a whisk.
“I’ll try,” March mumbled, dumping everything into the bowl at once and starting to mix it. It turned out to be harder than she expected. It was probably a mix of needing to regain some basic strength, because one simply does not become an ice cube without consequences, and her still-questionable fine motor skills. Again, she had been an ice cube.
Once March finished mixing the sugar and eggs, Dan Heng took the bowl from her and mixed in the peanut butter as March watched. She didn’t know how the ingredients would make cookies, but she watched as he then shaped the dough into small balls and placed it onto the sheet that she somehow didn’t notice earlier.
“What do we do now?” She asked as Dan Heng put the cookie sheet into the oven. Had he turned it on before dragging into the kitchen? Maybe. March wasn’t sure. Also she wasn’t paying much attention, mostly because she was focused on Dan Heng.
Dan Heng shrugged. “We wait for the cookies to bake.”
She stared at him.
“Really?”
“Yes.”
“That’s boring.”
“I’m aware.”
…
“Booooo!” She whined.
“You can be patient.” Dan Heng groaned, though she could tell he was more amused than annoyed.
“No I can’t. I’ll die. I’ll die here looking at your pretty eyes.”
“...What?”
“What?”
Dan Heng very clearly decided to ignore that, although his face immediately turned red and he quickly looked away, avoiding her eyes. And March couldn’t help but grin. He was almost as red as his eyeliner. And it was pretty too, just like his eyes. Maybe this wouldn’t be as boring as she thought.
“Would you like to scrape off some of the batter left in the bowl?” He asked, but the slight shakiness in his voice was impossible to miss, and he slid the bowl over to March without making any eye contact whatsoever.
“Mhm!” She grinned, almost snatching the bowl from the counter as well as a spoon. “...Did I do something wrong?” March then asked, mouth full of the peanut butter mixture.
The question made Dan Heng pause. And he didn’t talk for what felt like Amber Eras, until he finally managed to find the words “...No? I think? It’s just…you can’t just say things like that, March.” He mumbled, while staring at the floor like it had suddenly become fascinating.
“Why not?”
“You just…you just can’t, alright?”
March pouted in response, “Fine, fine. But I still think your eyes are pretty.”
“...Whatever.” Dan Heng muttered as the red slowly returned to his cheeks.
By the time the cookies were done baking, neither of them really cared. Mostly because Dan Heng was still stuck on the fact that March had called his eyes pretty, while March herself was busy feasting on the leftover cookie batter.
Of course she made sure that Dan Heng took the cookies out of the oven as soon as they were ready and helped cool them quicker so they could eat them. Well…by they, she meant her.
She ate all the cookies.
And Dan Heng apparently didn’t care, because all he did was stand there staring at the floor like he was trying to solve a complicated math problem.
As Dan Heng started cleaning up the mess from baking, March had decided on one thing.
She would make it her mission to see Dan Heng’s face go red again.
Because it was the prettiest thing ever, obviously.