Black Hole for a Stomach (and a Soul) (Anz)

Hunger wasn't unfamiliar to the kid looking in through the restaurant window. Black holes were kind of notorious for always sucking in more food. Being contained by a film of impenetrable eldritch who-really-knows-what into the shape of a person didn't really change that endless need much. Divide infinity in half and you still have infinity.

This half-of-infinity was infinitely hungry, and sad, and kind of miserable even if their head tentacles were still steaming a bit from the earlier rain shower. They'd been in a park eating a tree one crunch at a time, and then people started yelling and then there was a lecture and a free burger.

That burger had lasted all of one second, and made exactly zero impact on their hunger level.

There was food on the other side of the window, but they had learned that food-places like that required the exchange of money-substances for that food. They did not have any money-substances, and they couldn't even sigh about it.

@"A M E N O"

@"A M E N O"

With their face pressed against the glass, it was hard to resist the crunchy food right there. Even if people were staring and it was really hard to dig their face into something smooth and flat.

The glass being enchanted against breaking helped, though. Their face and teeth just kind of bounced back with a very creepy magical vibration. They would have sighed if they could, but exhaling was a thing that black holes just didn't do. Things did not leave black holes. They only entered.

They did sort of droop even more in response to the voice behind them. "I'm hungry," they said sadly, resting their richly blue forehead against the glass and wistfully gnashing a few hundred needle teeth. "I'm always hungry."

They were, of course, a black hole. Being hungry was a racial attribute. It didn't make them feel any better about not having anything to eat at a given moment.

@"A M E N O"

The far-less-strange child's offer took a few moments to process. Then they peeked over their shoulder, and then they slowly started to smile. It was a crooked smile, if only because their mouth sort of ripped open unevenly whenever it was open (and yet was very much supposed to be that way, no damage or other bad things, just strangeness), but it was a smile.

"You'd do that?" It was a pretty valid question. Why did the other kid have the ability to buy food-food, and not them? Why would the other kid use that ability to buy food-food on them rather than themselves?

The black hole child slowly turned to face the much taller kid properly. "I'd like that," they said softly. Even if food never made them less hungry, no matter the quality or volume or frequency, they still felt better when they ate.

Wait? Odd as it might sound, waiting was actually a pretty solid black hole trait. Waiting for food to amble by, letting the rest of the universe spin by and throw away time the black hole simply sipped at.

That didn't make it particularly easy to stand and wait quietly. They could watch, though, and that helped. And then think about how nice it must be to be so tall. Three feet and change didn't give the greatest view, even if they were good at climbing and could just swarm up some things that gave humanoids a lot of trouble.

And then the tall kid was back and carrying food! The black hole child literally vibrated with excitement, tiny hands twisting and knotting in their little purple-grey dress as they tried in vain to stay calm. Their blue face was flushed with a tint of purple, just edging towards indigo really but still providing more depth and contrast.

"How do you get so much?" The breathy wonder in their voice was entirely legitimate, and knowing the secret to being able to so much (as in, more than thirty seconds' worth) food at once brought the child so much excitement that their knees would have gone weak if they actually had knees. Tentacles were a bit more reliable that way.

@"A M E N O"

@"A M E N O"

Money. Of course money. Money was looking like it might be the bane of the black hole child's existence. "I don't have money," they said sadly, "much less a lot of money." Everything they did have had been provided by the academy... or that other group... up to and including every scrap of clothing they had. Black holes didn't comprehend things like that, apparently; their mother had certainly never mentioned clothing as an Important Thing.

Now, the black hole child might have been tongueless but they weren't noseless - it was a silly little button-lump in the middle of their face - and even without a distinct sense of smell the warm air escaping the bags drew them in close. It took a little bit of a hop to get onto the bench, since tentacles were not quite as well suited to jumping as human legs, but they made it up and settled themself comfortably before taking the container in awe.

It was warm and wonderful on their hands, and they just held it for a moment before remembering that it was Food. They were about to simply place the entire container in their mouth at once, but then they blinked at how the taller kid was eating. Should they eat like that too? There was a moment of inner conflict, and then they made up their mind. They had to fiddle with the container's plastic-y foam-y clasp for a minute, eventually squeezing tiny boneless fingers between the layers and pushing them apart that way, and agreed with the earlier vague thought that the actual Food-Food was the stuff inside, rather than the entire package.

They were still more used to just dumping everything into their mouth and being done with it, though, so even attempting to scoop the food-food into their mouth like the other kid (yes, they kept watching to try to figure out the best way to go about this) was a bit awkward and the rice kept spilling back into the container because they kept trying to move too much at once.