Nicole looked a little nervous, wondering if Kairos was at all mad because of her strange actions. She found that his emotions could be quite hard to read at times, considering that his facial muscles hardly respond to what he felt.
After a second of hesitation, she gingerly retracted the hands that were holding onto his chest. From how Nicole looked, she was clearly quite reluctant, and also looked like she could suddenly reach out at any moment.
Kairos smiled bitterly when he saw this.
There was a part of him that wanted to reprimand her, but he just couldn’t bring himself to do so. Instead, he gently brought Nicole into an embrace, like she was incomparably fragile.
Nicole’s eyes widened when he did that. For a few seconds, she didn’t even really understand what was going on. Because this was the first time she felt that Kairos hugged her because he actually wanted to.
Though, he did end up pulling back soon after.
There was a small smile on his face as he looked at her.
Nicole looked back for a few moments, but then she pulled up the bedsheets and looked downwards with the expression of a troublemaker. Then, she pulled her gaze back up and looked at Kairos with a bit of despondance.
“Um… do you not find me attractive?”
Kairos let out a small chuckle.
“What are you on about?”
Nicole coughed.
“Erm… I just want to know, and please be honest!”
Kairos rolled his eyes.
“I do find you attractive. If you mean by how you look physically, then my opinion might be a little invalid.”
Nicole blinked rapidly.
“Eh? W-Why?”
Kairos sighed.
“I’ve never really had an eye for what makes things look good. To be honest, I think you look a bit pretty, but I can’t really give you any specifics about it. From what I’ve heard from others, you are apparently beautiful.”
He shrugged his shoulders.
“I don’t really understand it, I guess.”
Nicole squirmed slightly, thinking about other things.
“Is it… possible you… um, like guys?”
Kairos’ eyebrow twitched.
“How did you get to that conclusion?”
Nicole pulled up the covers once more and peeked downward like a kid peeking into a cookie jar.
“Well… you don’t seem very excited.”
Kairos blinked a few times.
“…You really are a pervert.”
Nicole blushed and frowned at the same time.
“But… the things I did should’ve made you feel excited, right?”
Kairos sighed.
“Under normal circumstances, yes, that physical stimulation would generate a certain level of arousal due to how humans are biologically programmed.”
Nicole pouted.
“You didn’t have to put it like that…”
Kairos ignored her complaint.
“…Anyway, the human body generally is not excitable if it deems that there is some greater priority, such as being in danger, such as being on the verge of starvation.”
Nicole blinked a few times.
“Then you’re just hungry?”
Kairos sighed.
“Well, I do feel quite hungry, but that’s not the point I’m trying to make here. If you feel like you’re in danger, in most cases you won’t feel that sort of thing. That is going to be the case most of the time during an apocalypse.”
Nicole scratched the side of her cheek.
“So you feel like you’re in danger right now?”
Kairos smiled bitterly.
“I guess you could put it that way.”
Nicole grabbed onto his arm with both hands.
“So… you don’t feel safe even now, with me right next to you?”
Kairos let out a soft sigh.
“It’s not your fault, or something like that. If I had to say, then I guess I feel the safest when I’m with you.”
Nicole bit the bottom of her lip.
“But… you still don’t feel safe?”
Kairos shrugged his shoulders.
“Relatively speaking, I do.”
Nicole gave him a concerned look.
“Does that mean you never feel safe?”
She said that, but was honestly quite confused on how that was even possible. And that was a very reasonable thing to be confused about.
Because even in the apocalypse, it wasn’t as though they were always afraid. Even those with paranoia will have it settle down at certain points in time, even if they weren’t frequent.
However, what Nicole didn’t know about was Kairos’ future vision. The excessive amounts of information forced his brain to process more than usual. Although his brain had adapted to it to a certain extent, it wasn’t made to experience such things in the first place.
And so, that constant pain made it so that his body was always in a constant state of tension. It could be likened to people that had anxiety issues.
Kairos wondered if he should explain all of that. But he felt a little too tired. Instead, he pulled Nicole in for another hug before speaking softly.
“I guess it does mean I never feel safe. But… it’s been getting better.”
Even after he pulled back, Nicole still had a concerned expression, almost like she was told that Kairos had incurable cancer. In fact, she was unable to even properly process that she had been hugged.
“T-Then… then…”
Kairos held onto her hand.
“You don’t have to worry so much about me. I’ve lived my entire life like this, so it’s not that big of a deal now.”
Nicole pressed her lips together, seemingly still not satisfied with the answer she had been given.
“Maybe if I… if I…”
She directly pulled off her shirt, unabashedly exposing herself. Right after, she even reached towards her pants. However, Kairos grabbed onto her arms before she reached them.
He spoke calmly.
“There are many problems out there that you can’t fix immediately. You need time to slowly mend the cracks.”
Nicole bit the bottom of her lip.
“But… but…”
Kairos softly pressed his forehead against hers.
“Nicole, can you trust me on what I’m going to say next?”
Nicole slowly nodded.
“O-Ok…”
Kairos took a deep breath.
“You’ve done more than you could possibly imagine for me, even if you didn’t really try to.”
Nicole’s face became bright red.
“R-Really?”
Kairos nodded.
“That’s why you don’t have to try so hard. Just by being you, you’ve done more than enough.”
Nicole gradually relaxed.
“I-I see…”
With that, Kairos let her go and got out of bed. As for Nicole, she put her shirt back on and also got out, though she was curling her hair with the tip of her finger.
Kairos stretched a little.
“I’m going to go and help out with the city’s management. I guess you should continue practicing your control over your spells.”
Nicole scratched her cheek.
“Alright.”
Kairos began walking out. Though, he stopped once he crossed by the fridge. He really was quite hungry, and thus decided it was better to eat something first. One thing he noticed was that there were quite a few things stacked up around the fridge, and they were all different kinds of food.
Upon opening the fridge, he found that it was completely filled up with even more food.
It seemed that Tiana had gotten food sent to his place at a steady rate, and it had built up to this state by now. His eyes surveyed everything that there was, and he gave a good guess on which ones would go bad the quickest and pulled out all of those.
It turned out to be an assortment of various mismatching foods, but Kairos didn’t really care about that right now.
As he was setting them down on a nearby table, Nicole walked by.
She was about to leave, but then stopped by.
“Um, could we eat together?”
Kairos turned to her. Though a part of him felt like she was reaching out for excuses to stay next to him, it wasn’t that big of a deal, nor was it a waste of time. As such, he accepted it rather readily.
“Sure.”
The things that Kairos had brought out were all ones that didn’t need to be cooked before eating, which consisted of quite a few dairy products like milk and yogurt.
After a bit of rummaging around, he found where some plates, spoons, and cups were and set those down as well.
Nicole sat down on the opposite side, and didn’t start to do anything immediately. As for Kairos, he opened up the milk carton and poured himself a glass of milk. Then, he opened up the packaging of the other foods.
Nicole scratched her cheek sheepishly.
“I’ve eaten so much cheese and milk, that my stomach feels a little sick at the sight of them.”
Kairos shrugged his shoulders.
“That may be so, but soon you won’t be able to eat anything dairy-related for a long time. If you do get sick of it, that will probably only be beneficial for later, so that you don’t begin wanting it any time soon.”
Nicole chuckled.
“That’s a really weird way to put it, but I guess it makes sense.”
She also began drinking some milk and eating the things that Kairos had set down on the table.
It did not take too long for the both of them to finish everything that Kairos had put down on the table. He had felt full for a brief moment. However, his stomach acids worked quickly in breaking down the food, making him feel hungry once more.
As such, he went back to get some more stuff.
There were still a little more in terms of dairy-related things, but he knew it wouldn’t be enough to make him full. After searching through the various things he had, he then pulled out the vegetables.
After a bit of searching, he got out a frying pan, set it on the stove, and reached out to turn the knob. However, he froze soon after.
“…Say, where is the electricity coming from?”
Nicole put a finger on her chin.
“I remember that Tiana said there was a really big backup generator that should be enough to power mostly everything. But she also said that there wasn’t too much gas, so we should only use the power for keeping the fridge running.”
Kairos nodded.
“That makes sense.”
He pulled the frying pan away and began thinking more about the general sustainability of the city. The fact that the place had a backup generator was a huge boon, especially because it could refrigerate large amounts of food.
However, it wouldn’t be able to run forever, meaning that they had to find some other way to preserve their food.
Salt was one of the first things that came to mind, but in the end, that was also quite limited in supply. Kairos honestly didn’t know any good way of acquiring salt. Though, Quinn might know something.
Remembering how that guy seemingly knew everything, he decided to postpone these thoughts until he got to meet with him.
Kairos looked around the place and eventually settled on snapping a few of the chair legs off to act as makeshift supports. Then, he got a metal tray and propped it on top of the supports he made earlier.
After that, he quickly left to get some rubble outside, and put the various stones in a circle underneath the tray, making a tiny fire pit.
Finally, he took parts of the now broken chairs to use as burning material, then set it on fire by channeling a tiny bit of mana into the fire spell.
Kairos rubbed his chin.
“This… should probably work.”
It was a makeshift stove. He wasn’t entirely sure if it would work that well, but he could just consult Quinn later.
Nicole was next to him, observing. She let out a soft gasp when it all came together.
“You are so resourceful!”
Kairos looked at it awkwardly.
“…I’m not sure if it even works.”
From there, he set the frying pan on top, poured in some oil, then tried to fry the vegetables.
Though he definitely felt it was a little weird because he didn’t know how hot it was, it more or less worked.
Nicole tilted her head to the side as he worked at it.
“Hey, how about we gather everyone together to eat?”