The Food

The headmistress was reluctant to let me take Sebastian because of my appearance. I may have looked like I'd just had a fight with someone, never mind that it was true, but she saw my medium ID and she had to let him go with me for a few hours. The boy was sitting in front of the office looking through the folder I had given him earlier.

"Any allergies? The food you hate?" I asked.

"No," he muttered embarrassed.

"Let's go!" I said in a slightly happier voice. "Burgers should match.“

I took a brisk step forward. Sebastian got up after a long time and caught up with me.

"Where did you get all this from?" he asked curiously.

"Now you're nice, aren't you? I'm not supposed to get lost anymore?"

"No," he replied. "I'm sorry I said that." He walked beside me with his head down. "And thank you for your help."

"You're welcome." I smiled warmly at him and heard his stomach growl as well. "Let's hurry up so we can get something to eat. I bet we'll talk better with full bellies. And I'm Camilla by the way."

Sebastian nodded uncertainly and tried to keep up with me. Already on the train, I looked through the city map in search of a suitable place and, guided by the navigation, I wanted to be there as soon as possible. From time to time I glanced at the boy, making sure he was still with me. Although at first, he seemed menacing and unapproachable, now he seemed frightened. He clutched the file to him, perhaps surprised that someone cared enough about him to collect this information.

We got there and I ordered a classic burger with fries and a shake, strawberry for me, and Sebastian chose chocolate for himself. He looked around uneasily, and I wondered where that cheeky boy had gone. Was that attitude just a form of defense against those spirits, or maybe he was protecting others in this way? The spirits were threatening to hurt me, so they could also do it again every time someone got close to the boy.

"Sebastian," I turned to him in a slightly more serious tone, watching him sip the chocolate drink that the waitress had meanwhile served us. "Let's start with the fact that we were both born as media 2.0. As you probably noticed, I also see ghosts and I can enter into," I thought for a moment, "all kinds of interactions with them."

"Mhm," he just murmured. "It's nice to know I'm not the only crazy in the world."

I felt a vein started to throb in my forehead, expecting a little more excitement. After all, I was going to tell him about the Association and many other things. And suddenly he lost all the enthusiasm he had shown on the way here.

"There's exactly a thousand of us if you want to know, but we're spread all over the world. In addition, we are divided into two types, ordinary mediums who can see and communicate with spirits. And 2.0, well, we kind of can exist in the real and spiritual worlds at the same time, so we can, for example, fight with them. And we all belong to the Association."

"Me too?" Sebastian was surprised. “I didn't agree to anything like that."

"Me neither, but membership is automatic. Yours started with 904's death when you took over his number. You work for the Association, you get good money from it, and sometimes life is uphill."

"Do I have to?" He folded his arms over his chest. I laughed inwardly, I must have awakened his rebellious teenage nature.

"You must," I confirmed. "It's not that bad after all."

"What about you?" he asked. "What number do you have, what do they mean, and how long have you been working for them?"

"942 and in official situations, we have to call each other by numbers. We are divided into groups of one hundred people, each led by one coordinator, in our case number ten. It's just an administrative issue." I shrugged and thought for a moment. "It'll be ten years."

Sebastian looked up a little shocked, I know I looked young, so he guessed that I started much earlier than he did. The waitress had just served us our food and we focused on that, both of us enjoying our burgers.

"Do you have a phone?" I asked after the meal.

The boy nodded but reluctantly took the old model out of his pocket. I was sure that it would not be able to handle the application used by the Association. So I decided to go buy him a new phone. He did not want to agree and said that he would not accept such an expensive gift from a stranger.

"How am I a stranger?" I said in an offended voice. "After all, we work together, and the Association will give me the money back.“ I winked at him. "So you can get a little crazy with the price."