Trinkets

Roxy puts down some boxes on the entrance of the old building, walking with an older women with a shoulder brace.

"Thank you kid, your a life saver."

"You sure that's far enough?"

"Yeah, the volunteers will be here soon and help with the move."

"Take your time to heal and happy moving!"

"Thank you sweetie."

She picks up her bag of bread and goes back to the building, walking toward a door in the middle. Many buttons displaying each apartment numbers next to it. She pushes a button of her apartment '29' and brings her hexagonal shaped gadget near the door, which opens to a tiny room, bearly fitting two people, she enters and the door closes.

'Dude, my morning was nuked today, missed the stretching and the morning run.' She thoughts while stretching her back, almost doing a backbend.

' Ryuyu should be in a better mood now. Though having a mean volcano blow up in his face before the auction must be too much. Humans can be sensitive to such events.' She analyzed the situation. The door opens on it own. She is inside her apartment now.

'Well, with the secret element, the bread! He will be back to normal.' She grinned confidently, taking her jelly sandals off.

His side of the room looks suspiciously organized. The window glass was shining brightly, the sink was spotless and all of her three pots and his baking pas where all out, reflecting every photon of light, polished on the tiny kitchen counter.

'The order of my kitchenware!' She yells internally.

She pat one of her plants, getting told something.

'He scrubbed everything? ..I just went to fetch some bread. He and his weird stress response.'

He comes out of the bathroom, drying his wet black hair.

"Bread?" She offers when he walks into the tiny kitchen.

"Thank you." He says, voice lower than usual, taking the warm loaf then cutting a slice and eats it with some cheese, dozing off while chewing.

'B-bread isn't doing the trick?' She tilts her head in confusion.

She goes out while he takes a nap except he doesn't, after a while of restlessly turning around he gets up, looking around for a cleaning possibility.

'She must be mad I sneaked in yesterday.' He think to himself.

'I don't understand, we checked and the artwork is back. He doesn't have any injuries in his human body and his other body has regenerated. Well, humans do need more time to recover from mental anguish. The thing is, he isn't a full human. He shouldn't have a one hundred percent human psyche like this.'

She thought, walking aimlessly in the flea market, until something awakens her buying instinct.

'I smell a cool find.'

A stand filled with pots and pans called her, looking through the items she finds it! A pretzel shaped baking pan.

'Hehe, that will cure his sadness for sure! ' She walked out of the market with the rare find, proud of herself. Then it dawned on her.

'This might not be enough to make a dude happy right? I can't tell, I don't understand boys too!'

'What else does he like?'

In his way back home, Oliver sees a girl looking at something in the bushes on the side walk.

"Excuse me, have you lost something miss?"

Roxy spawns out of the pushes with a serious face.

"You're a boy right?" She asks.

"Former boy, inspiring man. Currently battling the agony of teenagerhood. How can I help you."

She stands up and hands him a rock, big, fits the palm and really smooth. Rhombus shaped.

"Is that what you people consider a cool rock?"

"Absolutely."

" So if you were sad and someone gave it to you, it'll make you happy?"

" Well, I would be happy that someone care about me enough to give it to me."

She nodded like she understood. Gave him a piece of candy and walked away.

" Thank you for your wisdom."

"No biggie."

'Must be nice, I wanna get married soon.' He thought, unwrapping the candy and eating it.

She puts the rare finds on the small dinner table and enters the bathroom to freshen up. In the sparkling scrubbed bathroom Roxy looks at the shower shelf.

'He ruined the order of my products with his cleaning..'

One ray of the noon harsh sunlight hits his eyes, causing him to wake up from his nap. He looks around, something feels off in the room, his side to be exact.

Clothes color coordination, books stacked neatly in the corner. Rocks collection in a box, pens in another.

"How does it feel?" She says in a low angry voice, fuming.

"What?" He says, sleep in his voice.

"How does it feel when someone moves your stuff?"

"Um... I don't mind? Oh got it. I'm sorry."

She lays down, letting out a relived sound. Not angry anymore. He looks at the drastic change, it gets him to laugh.

"What's so funny?" She sets back up, confused and lightly annoyed.

"Nothing, I just never saw you pissed off before." He says while chuckling.

"Your pans, left cabinet, my pot, right cabinet!"

"Come on, look how shiny they are." He says, moving his head to the pots on the counter.

"Ooooh yeah that's shiny." She says, impressed.

He serves lunch while she obsessively reorganized her bottles in the bathroom. When he puts the plate of dumpling on the kotatsu he sees the cool finds on it, he looks at them with the intrigued of a collator and a young boy at the same time. Also realizing that these weren't things his roommate's would buy to herself.

"These are for you." She says, washing her hand in the sink of the open bathroom.

"Really?"

"Well, I guess abusing my system is more fun than these trinkets." She says playfully, setting on the table and grabbing her plate. 

He takes the rock in his hand and lifts it up to get a better look. 

"Thank you." He says. 

After minutes of eating in silence he looks at her.

"You know, I know we made a deal but you don't need to go this far for me."

She continue eating like he said nothing, he took no offence in that knowing she doesn't do any talking while she eat. He just needed to say that.

"Well, you gonna give me a hefty favor, it's only natural to repay you well." 

Although he knew it is all a mutually beneficial relationship, a mutualism at its clearest. He couldn't help but sense the appreciation for the person or rather the creature at the other end of the tiny table. He looked at how close their plates were, edges touching.

"But seriously, don't go on your own in the orange zone, or even the end parts of the yellow zone. It could have gone way worse than last night."

"Really?" He says with a hint of disbelieve that things could actually get worse. 

"Yeah, especially since your human side can not regenerate, one wrong blow and it's over."

"Yeah." He looked at the small burns in his hand, realizing his own mortality. 

"Why did you throw the pack of matches there to begin with?" He asked, some worry in his eyes, they didn't understand or know each other equally, and there is stability in that, stability he feared shaking.

She drank her water, taking a moment to reply.

"Back in the day those pack of matches got misused and caused forest fires, so since I was the only plant who can move the elder trees asked me to eliminate them." 

She pauses, wiping the left dumpling sauce with a piece of bread in deep concentration and eating it.

"The pack of matches of last night, let's just say it was a desperate last minute plan." 

He listens to her carefully, his eyes moving with her moves.

"I wish you told me that before."

"You should've asked, you know I don't take things the wrong way like you humans do sometimes. Although I should have realized you were stressed about your artwork and the blond dude with the mole under his eyes."

He scrunched his nose at the mention of certain somebody like he heard a vile slur.

"Listen, I can't preserve or decode the complexity of you people's emotion so you have to say stuff from time to time."

He thinks about what she said, he lean backward, hands on the floor supporting him.

"Well yesterday... I thought that we will not make it if we went in the morning. The auction management will find out that my piece is missing and will cancel my spot or something, that's why a part of me assumed that.. you didn't care much about what happened and it's my own problem to deal with, like it was just another human homework that could be submitted late." 

He drank some water, slowly looking at her again, she was thinking hard, like she was doing calculus in her head. 

"Too much humans emotions huh?" He joked lightly, smiling in a thin relief after saying what's in his chest.

She finally looks at him, face a little stunned. 

"You should've said that you dingus... I would've figured something out."

He is the one with a stunned face now, after a moment he could not hold himself from laughing at himself, his own stupidity, and at how desperation makes humans act. 

"Oh laugh! It's funny! After you ruined the order of all my things!" She exclaimed.

He laid on the ground laughing, barely catching a breath.

"Sorry, I- I will bake-- you- cookies." He managed to say between laughers.

She pouted with crossed eyebrows.

"Come on, Huge chocolate chips cookies in a pretzel pan!" He said, wiping a tear and sitting down. She thought about the offer.

"Put raspberries in the batter!"