Quote:
Taste of Memory (17) : A small pop-up food stall has appeared among the usual winter vendors. The menu offers simple, traditional dishes that seem to rotate daily. They're not always common dishes either--sometimes they're incredibly niche, and smell unmistakably like home--no matter where “home” is for you. The moment you take a bite, warmth floods through you, followed by an overwhelming wave of nostalgia so vivid it’s almost disorienting. For some, it’s the comfort of a childhood meal; for others, it’s the precise memory of sitting in a familiar kitchen, the echo of a loved one’s voice, or the feeling of being safe and held. The sensation is powerful but harmless, fading after a little while and leaving only a lingering warmth.
Tianyi hadn't known what to make of the smell when he first noticed it. It drew him in, towards the little food stall, and he couldn't resist coming closer. He'd gotten used to carrying a little Earth money around in his subspace, which was good, because he had to have whatever it was he was smelling.
It had probably been a mistake, wandering over powered up, but the lady at the stall just smiled and complimented his costume, and asked if he was cold, dressed like that. And even though he said no, she'd pressed a warm drink into his hand along with his order, and he'd accepted it without further protest, because just like the little vegetable dumplings, the light, floral tea in the cup smelled like...
Like home.
It made no sense at all, Tianyi knew. There was no way or reason that food on Earth sohuld remind him so strongly of warm family lunches in the gardens, drinking tea and eating dumplings like these, because everything that had gone into those teas and those dumplings had been lost for centuries. Dead with the world Tianyi came from.
But the scent was so familiar. And when he settled down on a park bench and took a sip of the tea, it filled him with a warmth he hadn't felt in years.
It was as if he was back there. Sipping from his cup, laughing as Junkai played some silly improvised melody instead of what he'd practiced, leaning against Hongyun's side and feeling safe. Warm.
Loved.
He let himself stay in that moment. Didn't rush through drinking his tea and eating those lovely dumplings--which, somehow, improbably, tasted like the ones from the palace kitchen, using a recipe the cook refused to share, but that Tianyi was sure contained several herbs that were native to a world light-years and light-years away, orbiting a foreign star. Herbs that likely didn't grow anymore, given the state of Tianyi the world.
Maybe it was just something similar, a flavor from a blend of Earth herbs that just so happened to mimic that taste. But it seemed so...right.
Even the dipping sauce tasted like memory, rather than like the imitations Tianyi had sought.
Many things had changed since his arrival on Earth; he'd made himself more comfortable with plenty of things he couldn't have even imagined in his time on Tianyi. And he knew, deep down, that things were better now. That those happy memories were just an illusion, a reflection of the bubble he had been so carefully kept in for his entire life, and yet.....
And yet he wanted to return there.
Wanted to go back to when things were better. When he had known joy and love, when he had felt like those days could go on forever.
It was all a lie, yes. But it was a beautiful lie.
As he sat and finished his dumplings, it began to snow. And yet, he could not make himself move. The feeling of warmth, of happiness,, of home felt too precious to risk dissipating.
Surely, he could sit for just a little longer. Surely, there was enough time for that.
[wc: 528 words]
