Book One – Chapter 19

It was all he said. Yes, there was nothing explicitly bad in the words, neither too much anger nor condemnation. But there was also absolutely fucking nothing to validate any of that painstaking outburst of an effort Yu had just poured into his confession. And somehow, that nothing made everything ache with a new kind of emotion. Yu did not quite know which one it was, but, seeing Bubs’ dark eyes stare up at him without reflecting anything of him, he felt that it was very, very raw, and that he would not be able to handle it. So Yu smothered it. Before it could take shape, Yu chose to feel relief instead, which was the simplest lie available.

“Yes,” he said. “I won’t bring more. In the last half-hour, it was only water anyway.”

Bubs did not acknowledge this scrap of good sense either. He straight up threw out new orders: “Sort the kitchen so it’s ready for witchset.”

He turned away from Yu and picked up the metal casing he had retrieved from the fire earlier. It had visibly cooled. The glowing red had dulled to a tired, jaundiced yellow.

Yu just stared. “Sort?”

Surely he did not mean … actually … clean? Not the whole kitchen. Not after all Yu had done already. And most definitely not tonight. That was impossible, even for someone with hands.

“Yes, sort. Prepare. Put everything back first. Then wash the dishes. Then clean the surfaces and the floor. All the food on the floor and everything else you spilled goes into this pot.”

Bubs set a regular-sized cooking pot onto the centre workbench.

Yu stared at it. At the pot. At the idea. “I have to clean the whole kitchen?”

“First the kitchen.” Bubs stared back. “And then you do that bathroom on the first floor.”

And just like that, it was gone. The relief. All of it.