Inclination

The next day started like any other. I woke up, showered, took my pill…everything was the same as it always was.

I sat down at the table for breakfast. Everyone had been served the standard meal of the day. A paste designed specifically to keep us healthy and full until lunch time. Each bowl took about twelve spoonful to finish off.

My first bite shoveled in, and I nearly spit it back out in a coughing fit.

A waxy, sour taste caused my body to reject the food. It was like it had spoiled and my stomach didn’t want this in me.

“Is something the matter?” father asked me.

For a moment I was too stunned to answer. Fear and confusion held my tongue. As my anxiety cleared, I realized there was a sandy taste in my mouth. Bitter, with a sharp sourness. It was like I’d just consumed vomit.

“I think something is wrong with the food today,” I concluded.

Everyone closely examined their meals. Mother and father saw no difference.

My sister took a small taste of my food as a test. “Father, it does appear that this food here has gone sour and spoiled.”

“Preposterous,” father replied, turning to mother. “Didn’t all of our meals come from the same package?”

Mother was a bit confused as well. She usually prepared the food early in the morning and couldn’t imagine one of our meals exclusively turning sour.

“I’ll go quickly prepare another bowl.” She ran off into the kitchen.

The bowl full she came out with looked exactly the same as any of the others.

As a test, my sister once more took a small sample of my meal.

“This is much better. It would do you good to finish it without any further conflict, seeing as we’re going to school soon.”

That was unusually sassy of her to say. 

I trusted her though, then took a spoonful.

Unfortunately, the taste was no different. Still sour. But before I could spit it back out, a strange feeling spawned in me.

If I were to spit it back out after my sister had told me that it was fine, then clearly something was wrong with me and not the food.

Lingering on that thought, I considered what would happen if my taste buds were changing due to some illness. People don’t get sick often. The few that do would have their family unit, plus anyone they’d come in contact with for at least a week, subject to a medical quarantine for an indefinite amount of time until given clearance otherwise.

Very rarely you'll hear on the news about it, but when it happens, a whole division of the city gets shut down in order to quarantine everyone the person had contact with. It's amazing how many people you'd meet in a day. The disturbance would send ripples across the country.

If I were to even hint at being sick, everyone would suffer for it.

I decided to grit and bear it. My face fought me to pucker up from the intense sourness, but I fought back. My stomach bubbled and gurgled as a last line of defense for rejection, but I put it in its place. This was my body, and all the organs would be subject to my will.

That being said, it didn’t stop them from protesting with horrendous aches and pains.

Having to overcome those distresses proved a challenge, but I made it look convincing enough to not draw attention.

***

Come lunch time at school, the food here also tasted sour.

“What is this?” I mumbled under my breath. “It can’t be a coincidence.”

“Is everything okay?” Ekko asked, sitting across from me at the lunch table.

Normally, I wouldn’t have said anything, since it could lead to being reported if she suspected I was sick. But for some reason, I felt like sharing my dilemma with her.

“The food tastes sour today. Not just here, but at home too.”

“Oh.” She worriedly stared down at her own meal. “You noticed that too, huh…?”

Was that a smirk creeping on her lips?

So, this wasn’t just my problem. Suddenly I wondered if maybe Ekko had gotten me sick, since I didn’t feel like this until we started talking.

All things considered, maybe that was the case. My sister also interacted with Ekko too, but she only said the first meal I ate today spoiled. The only reasonable outcome was that my sister was lying when she tasted the second bowl.

There's no question now as to her sassiness this morning. Whatever I was going through, she was going through it too. She must have realized that we needed to deal with it so our parents wouldn't find out.

So the common denominator had to be…

“Ekko. Are you sick?”

“Huh?!” She lowered her voice after that outburst. “No. Trust me. I’ve never felt healthier in my life.”

A strange statement, but it checks out. Ekko looked completely fine. Her skin was a light peach colour, almost radiating a shine from the overhead lights hitting it. Not a crevices or crack in its smoothness.

Her eyes were bright and clear, sparkling with a flicker of light in them. Her lips were soft and glossy, something I’d only seen in rare pictures of old depicting standards of beauty.

Her figure also seemed in good shape. I could only see from her bust up from this angle at the table, but her breasts were unusually firm in her uniform today.

I froze, noticing my eyes had locked onto her chest.

Shaking my head, I averted my gaze back to her eyes. She was blushing.

“Um…d-do you mind not looking at me like that? It’s really weird,” she shyly requested, covering her body with a book.

Just when I thought I’d apologize and move on, her posture and flush red cheeks gave her an alluring aura.

“I…” once more, I shook my head, reemerging into reality. “Sorry, Ekko. Did you change something about yourself today?”

“No.” she shook her head and slowly lowered the book. “I’m still the same as yesterday.”

Empirically, I couldn’t see a difference either. So my mind must have been playing tricks on me.

“I suppose your right,” I forced down more of this sour paste in my mouth. If I didn’t finish it before lunch ended, I’d be ill nourished for the rest of the day until dinner…where I’d have to eat more of this.

“Don’t let it touch your tongue.” Ekko said. “Just swallow it as soon as you take a bite.”

As instructed, I tried that. Minus the aftertaste, this method made it much more palatable. It also made me want to simply continue forcing it down as quickly as I could without choking.