Chapter Text
It wasn't that Bryon was ungrateful for the food. He really wasn't.
It just didn't look right.
The food on his plate was soft. The food was mixed together and he didn't see it being made. The food was wrong.
That last one was technically his fault, he knew Zeze was making the meal but he really wanted to keep playing Mecha and Warrior with Dorothea. But the other two reasons weren't really his fault.
They didn't get proper food often. When the soldiers came around with rations for the towns, those typically consisted of pale red nutrient bars. But Bryon liked those bars, they were the same everytime, their texture was the same everytime– that same crunch and difficult to eat texture that Bryon's sharp teeth could easily tear into, and even if he didn't see the bars be made, they were never cooked so he didn't need to worry about them being uncooked or raw and him getting ill.
But there were rare occasions when the soldiers came around and they had actual food to pass to the people unable to fight or not old enough to fight. Bryon hated those days
He was meant to be grateful for the food, Dorothea hated the bars so she adored the fruits, the veg, bread, ingredients, and even boiled meats and eggs they got, but Bryon didn't. He hated how easily his sharp teeth sunk into the fruits and veg, how the sickly wetness of the food sloshed around his mouth and how the mushy, chewed up, texture slid down his throat.
Bryon hated how Zeze mixed everything into different meals, and how long they made those meals last so they didn’t need to rely on the weekly nutritional bars. There were so many different textures and tastes and even if they were all mixed properly, Bryon could still taste each one.
But he wasn't meant to be ungrateful. Zeze told him he should be grateful for all the food he's getting as once he turned ten, he would be picked up by the soldiers, and soldiers never got food beyond the nutritional bars. But to Bryon, as he picked at the pasta mix of boiled eggs and weirdly soft jerky on his plate, those nutritional bars sounded so much better.
But Bryon shouldn't be ungrateful.
He looked over at his sister who was happily eating all of the food on her plate. Bryon knew there was something wrong with her, five years old and yet she was as small and a three year old and constantly hungry, stomach cramps that translated to severe hunger that would send her into crying fits often.
Bryon, out from the corner of his eye, look at Zeze who was at the counter, portioning the food they'd been given into containers that was meant to last them a month before they went to hide them, as, if you had leftovers you were meant to give them back to the soldiers. So whilst they were busy doing that, Bryon sneakily deposited his own food on– not only Dorothea's plate, but also Zeze.
Bryon wasn't meant to be ungrateful for the food, but he could show his gratefulness by giving his family the food so it could be truly appreciated.