I'm Starving For You

Knock. Knock. Knock.

“Who is it?”

“It's your brother.”

Shuffling was heard within the room and the door soon opened.

“Hey,” Robert said, smiling at the sight of Voidborn. “What's up?”

“Have you had dinner?” Voidborn asked, lifting a plastic bag filled with food. “I bought some mochi on the way back earlier for Jimin, so I bought some extra for you.”

“Jeez, you didn't have to,” Robert said, taking the bag from him. He peered inside, nodding his head subtly at the different coloured rice cakes inside. “What flavours?”

“Assorted. I didn't know what you guys would like, so I bought the set which had all the flavours.”

“Thankssss~”

“Did you only buy it for me?”

“I got enough for everyone. I included Chaewon’s share with yours, so you can pass it to her personally.”

Robert looked at him blankly, then broke out into a grin.

“I know I already said thanks, but thanks a lot,” Robert said, lightly bumping his fist against Voidborn's shoulder.

Voidborn nodded.

“Oh, that reminds me. I was just finishing up what you asked from me the other day. Lemme grab it.”

He ran back into his room, shifting some stuff around, digging through his belongings noisily. After a few short moments, he came back to the door with a small rectangular box in his grasp.

“Take it. It's something of mine that I made when I was still a Rebirth 1, but I made some slight modifications so that it’ll automatically adjust based on what you're looking at.”

Voidborn took the box from him and opened it, taking the item out. It was a pair of glasses with no lens, and its frame was coloured with a slightly glossy amber gold. A small stone was embedded in the side of the frame, which Robert pointed out that it was a Rebirth 1 Scholar stone.

“Put it on, I made sure to recolour it to make it look better.”

Voidborn slid the glasses on, the large, oversized frame resting nicely in front of his eyes. In an instant, the space around the area where the lens should have been rippled and thickened, forming a thin lens made out of air that felt weightless.

“Damn, you look fucking handsome,” Robert whistled. “Even I feel charmed.”

“How much is it?”

“Huh?”

“How much?”

“Nothing? Just take it. I don't really need it anyway. I usually just cast my own spells if I need to look far or zoom in.”

“I can't keep taking things from you, brother.”

“Why not? You called me brother, and brothers don't need things like paying or anything. Besides, you gave me the mochi. Are you going to let me pay for it?”

“…No,” Voidborn muttered.

“See?” Robert shrugged. “Same logic. If you're going to keep asking me for prices and whatnot, then we can't be brothers anymore.”

Voidborn looked at Robert silently before he nodded gently.

“Thank—”

“Nuh uh. No need for any thanking too. Stop being so formal with me, you little shit.”

Robert hooked an arm around Voidborn's neck and playfully ground his knuckle against his head.

“It's just how I talk,” Voidborn mumbled softly. “But still, thank you.”

“Got it, got it. Now shoo. Go. I’m going to find Chaewon,” Robert chuckled, lightly shaking the bag of mochi. “Go be busy with your stuff. We’ll be quite busy tomorrow as well, since the Wordwraiths are part of the events’ security.”

Robert waved Voidborn off and closed his door, leaving him with the glasses. Voidborn looked at the box in his hand, smiling subtly at the warm feeling that his brother made him feel, before walking towards Jimin’s room.

He keyed the code to her room’s lock and pushed the door open, walking in. Her room was the same as how it looked like when he last went in. The interior was in a layout that was similar to his room, but it had been wholly transformed into something that felt like her.

The makeup kit that sat on the desk. Her neatly folded clothes that lay on the side of her bed. The opened book that she had borrowed from Spellbound.

It was lying on the small table in the room, and to its side was a notepad filled with copied cooking techniques and recipes, dense annotations and notes scribbled over every crammed page. Elian pulled the chair and sat down, looking at her small little notes written at the bottom of each page. There was one on a page with a recipe for beef stew saying ‘Elian will love this~❤️’, another having the instructions to making a lemon lime cheesecake saying ‘Elian and I can bake this together!🍰’.

Elian traced his fingers across her writing, his mouth unknowingly blooming out into a small, gentle smile. He took the pen that was left on the table beside the notepad and flipped to the page that was last written on. Jimin had half-copied a recipe for deep fried pork cutlet, with a small doodle at the top saying ‘I love eating this~ nom nom 🤤’. He flipped open the book and searched for the recipe, slowly and carefully copying the rest of it. At the end of the page, he scribbled his own note:

I’ll make this one for you lots — Elian

He looked at his note and flipped a few pages back, comparing it with what Jimin scribbled. Too boring. He thought silently for a bit before finishing his own note with a 💕 doodle.

Satisfied, he set down the pen and closed her notepad, pushing it and the book to the side. He took out the books he brought from his room and put them on the table, looking carefully at the titles.

A Brief History of Eras Leading Up to The Revolutionary Era, and
A Theory: Divine Rebirths to Godhood.

He picked up the first book and flipped through it, a headache already forming from squinting at the miniscule letters tinier than grains of salt. In an instant, the stone embedded in the glasses he had still on shimmered faintly, and the lens covering his eyes slightly wobbled. He could see the black salt written on the book getting bigger, enlarging as the letters automatically zoomed to readability.

Gibberish.

Strings of random letters continued on and on for every single line, forming a text wall of mumbo jumbo that made no sense. There was no space, no punctuation, and no indication of the beginning of any formable sentence as everything was capitalised.

Elian frowned.

He flipped to the next page and was met with the same thing. The only consolation was the the book was thin, being only about six pages long. However, on the opposite sides of the front and back cover were extremely gorgeous hand-drawn pictures. The one at the front was an image of a night sky, decorated with countless stars that sparkled with the pastel shine of watercolour.

The picture at the back was a grassland that had marigold flowers scattered across the plains. Each flower had a vibrant yellow shade, blooming under the pale blue sky.