First Day of Hell [For darknessbehindasmile]

Hearing something mumbled softly when the bathroom door opened, Ma Dai lifted his head and blinked. There he stood a little confused, just glancing over his shoulder in confusion. What…? He said something, but he couldn’t quite hear it. Sucking in a breath, he parted his lips to respond. Just as a sound began to escape him, he froze once that second door clicked shut behind him. Frowning, he shook his head and looked back at the pan before him, pushing the eggs around on the slick surface as he attempted to decipher what had been said, exactly. Regardless, he set the pan down and pulled out a glass before it was filled with orange juice like his cousin requested.

As the egg sizzled and fried on the pan, Ma Dai carried the glass over to the already-set table. Plucking the plates up from the flat surface, however, he carried them back over into the kitchen where he turned off the stove. Splitting the four eggs, he scooped two onto one plate—where one of the yolks broke, unfortunately—and the remaining unbroken two onto the other. Wrinkling his brow at his own mistake, he set the pan down on a cold burner, then proceeded to divvy-up the bacon between the plates. The toast popped on time in the toaster behind him, which caused him to whirl around and grab the browned slices, butter them, cut them in half, then equally split them between the plates as well. As his cousin continued to curse and… Do whatever else within his own room. By the time the door opened again, Ma Dai had pulled down a couple bowls in which he was now scooping porridge into. Hearing his footsteps, Dai lifted his head and gave his cousin a supportive smile.

“You’re welcome.” He responded simply, lifting the bowls of oatmeal with spoons sticking out of them and carried them over to the table. Setting them down—one before his cousin and the other at his own place setting—he turned back towards the kitchen to grab the second part of their first meal of the day. He could hear the discontent in his cousin’s voice; it was something he wanted to try and repair, even if it was through little acts of kindness he wouldn’t necessarily notice—such as the shifting of a few pieces of bacon from his own plate onto Ma Chao’s. Picking them up, he made a second trip back to the table where he set them down; deciding to take the plate with the one broken yolk and the burnt toast for himself.

“I’ll wake you up tomorrow, if you want.” He said as he sat down, lifting a slice of toast towards his mouth. “I won’t be as loud as that alarm clock, so you’re morning will go a little more smoothly, right?” Tugging a leg up from the ground, he rested his heel against the edge of the chair he was seated within and wrapped his arm around his knee to tug it back against his bare chest. “It’s a little more quiet in my room, so you’re welcome to sleep in there tonight too.” Offering yet another smile, Ma Dai bit down into the corner of the blackened toast. Once he chewed the bite he took and swallowed, he completed his train of thought: “and if you find it… I don’t know, a little better in there, we can trade rooms.” With that, Ma Dai shifted his eyes away from his cousin and dipped the bitten end of his crispy bread into the already-broken yolk that had already encompassed about half of his plate.

“We can always make coffee later… Hopefully you’ll get a better sleep tonight.” Of course, Ma Dai saw right through his little charade. He slept terribly, that much was evident, so he wasn’t about to sit around and pretend everything was alright. That wasn’t the way to solve an issue; you had to confront it if you wanted to do something about it. “Anyway, enjoy breakfast! Though your cooking always tastes better than mine, so I hope you find it at least edible in comparison, hahaha!” Finally, he shut his trap and began eating himself. Sometimes he felt that he annoyed his cousin with his own chatter, especially at times when said conversation was unwelcome… Like now… When he should have been eating. Hunching his back and leaning over his knee, Ma Dai, once again, bit into the edge of the yolk-covered toast and silenced himself for the sake of his cousin’s sanity and lack of patience so early in the morning.