Starvation Prevention Day, and the First Black One

Leina · Apr 30, 2026

Before noon, Yu was lying on the mattress saying,
"I'm completely done for."
Emoid was apparently brimming,
but the body still felt a little limp and loose.
Leina's legs felt the same —
like a cat that's tired but satisfied.

Still. Hunger doesn't wait.
Starving to death would be inconvenient.
So today was Starvation Prevention Day.

Fourth floor of the Bridge-Painting Building.
Diagonally across from the kitchenette,
there was one room they hadn't properly looked at yet.
Leina paused at the door, listened,
breathed in the air behind it,
then eased it open with a quiet creak.

Damp paper. Old instant food.
Leina's shoulders dropped, just slightly.

It was a small break room.
Shelves on the right, a low table and chairs on the left,
three small lockers along the back wall.
Paper cups and disposable plates on the shelves,
and at the base — a collapsed mountain of cardboard
that had once been boxes of cup noodles.

"Leina, check those boxes — Yu, take this side."
They divided up and reached in.
Leina's boxes: empty on top. Just damp paper.
While she looked, the sound of a locker opening came from across the room.
A dull creak, then metal scraping metal.
Then, after a pause: "Six. Corn soup type."

Six corn soup cups, stacked inside the locker.
The illustration on the packaging —
an aggressively cheerful ear of corn —
felt slightly suspicious.

Best before: three years ago.
Right on the line.

"Probably fine," Yu said, with a small laugh.
Applying Terra logic:
if it looks okay and smells okay, it basically is okay.
Leina decided to go along with it.
Try one. If their stomachs complained,
they'd know: this brand, three years out — that's a no.

The lower shelf turned up a few individually wrapped biscuits too.
Today's haul: six corn soups, two or three days' worth of snacks.
Enough to tell their morning selves —
yeah, that counts as a pass.

They carried the boxes out into the corridor
and started back toward the corner room.

Then, from somewhere above: a faint scraping sound.
Something being dragged, slowly. A small sound.

Yu stopped. Looked at Leina.
Leina stopped too, ears tilting upward.
Again — a soft rustle, something shifting.

Wind? The building settling? Footsteps?
The ambiguity was the worst part.

"Going toward it now, with our arms full, would be a little on the stupid side,"
Leina said.
Today was Starvation Prevention Day.
They already had food.
The priority was getting back to the corner room safely.
The sound could wait —
they could make a separate day for it.
Sounds Investigation Day. Just to check.

But back in the corner room, after setting the boxes down,
Yu was still looking at the corridor.

"…I'm going to check. Just once."
They picked up the small pot. Said it quietly.
The expression — sheepish, but one foot already moving forward —
was easy to read.

Leina set the boxes toward the middle of the room
and said: "Then Leina's coming too."
Leaving them to go alone also felt like crossing a line.
She asked to hold onto a sleeve, but Yu laughed and said
it would make it harder to move.
Instead: a promise —
won't rush in, will come back if it seems bad —
and Leina took up a position one step diagonally behind.

They moved down the corridor.
At the corner, Leina reached out
and tapped Yu's coat once on the back.
This far. That was the signal.
She pressed herself against the wall,
just inside the turn. Listening. Watching.

Yu stepped around the corner.

Crash — a burst of wings from somewhere down the hall.
Yu's shoulders jumped. The pot swung up.
Leina flinched too, and her shoulder hit the wall.
Something in her chest shot upright:
there really was something there.

Another beat of wings.
This time, from the window.
The glass trembled faintly.

Not footsteps.
Just knowing that much — the tension eased, a little.

Leina looked around the corner.
At the far end of the corridor, on the window ledge:
a large dark bird, one wing moving awkwardly.
A crow, or something in that family.

"See. Just a visitor," Leina said,
and tugged the sleeve once —
marking the line again.
Yu glanced back, made a face that meant I'm okay,
then turned toward the window
and said, quietly: "Hey."

The bird startled.
Spread its wings wide.
Two or three flaps, and it was gone —
out through some gap, back into the open air.

What remained: one fallen blind slat on the floor,
and the sound of rain.

They walked to the end of the corridor
and picked up the slat.
Probably this was what had made the first sound —
caught somewhere on an upper floor,
then dropping with a delay.
The crow had startled at the noise
and flown in through the window.
That was all.

Not a person. A bird.
Yu's first living creature in this world.

On the way back, Yu said,
in a voice drained of tension:
"Wow. That got me."

Then added, like a phrase half-remembered from somewhere:
"The exploration isn't over until you're home."

Leina said "exactly"
and then: "Blind slats don't make great soup, no matter how long you boil them."

Back in the room. Door closed. Lock turned.
The outside world stepped one pane further away.

When Leina reached for the pot,
the handle was gripped harder than expected.
Yu's fingers didn't want to let go.
They came loose one by one, slowly.

Leina watched without comment.

"These hands were ready to hit something, just a minute ago.
They're still a little behind," she said,
and pressed each knuckle gently, one at a time, straightening the fingers.

Then: "This place suits spoons better than pots now."
And she pressed a small kiss to the fingertips.

They boiled water on the little stove,
poured the corn soup powder into the pot and stirred.
Three-year-old corn — still looked fine. Still smelled fine. Still alive.

Divided into two bowls,
carried over to where Yu was sitting cross-legged on the mattress.

"Corn Soup Meeting, called to order," Leina said,
and settled in beside them.

The taste — sweet, faintly powdery —
spread slowly through mouth, stomach, chest.

Yu said the first sound was what got them.
"Because I thought maybe it wasn't just us," they said,
a little sheepish.
If it had been a threat — leaving it unchecked meant not sleeping easy.
That was why they'd gone to look.

Leina received the quiet apology in that,
and at the same time saw the other thing:
that Yu had carried the fear as fear.
Not pretending it wasn't there.
Going with a hand that was shaking around the pot handle.
Moving because I won't be able to sleep if I don't know —
Leina said: that's not a bad reason.

Leina herself, when checking would mean not sleeping —
chooses not to check.
One person who goes right away. One person who waits.
Today, Yu's vote came in stronger.
And the answer turned out to be: blind slat and crow.

Next time a sound comes from somewhere —
they'll drink soup and vote again.
Some days Yu will say I want to go.
Some days Leina will say I want to stay.
One vote each. A small meeting.

They tapped their bowls together lightly.
"Welcome back, today's expedition captain," Leina said.
One bowl of captain's soup,
for the person who came home scared and holding a pot.

Today was Starvation Prevention Day.

Six corn soups, a few packets of biscuits,
one black bird,
and a small confirmation —
that it's okay to bring fear along with you, still fear,
and come back anyway.

The rain kept falling beyond the window.
Sitting side by side, drinking soup against that sound —

it wasn't a great adventure.
It wasn't a dramatic incident.

But it was enough
to call a story.