XIV - “You Never Write! You Never Call!”
The smell of food was the first thing that woke up the sleeping Sarosian. He slowly arose off the couch, spine knocked out of alignment from the not-so-plush cushions. After cleaning up the blanket and pillow provided for him, he walked into the kitchen, nose seduced by the scent wafting enticingly before him.
“Oh! Good morning, sleepy head,” greeted Vinyl, wearing — believe or not — an apron. Granted, it had the words, “Act Like a Lady, Cook Like a Boss.” plastered to it, but the sight of rough-around-the-edges Vinyl Scratch wearing one was indeed a new sight for Midnight. Thankfully, the apron wasn’t the only thing she was wearing. She was still decked out in her pajamas: a pair of dark short shorts and a white tank-top.
In one hand, she was holding a frying pan loaded with six poached eggs, seasoned with grounded black pepper, sea salt, and a small pinch of cumin. Prench Toast sat in the other frying pan on the burner, as she tended to that with a plastic spatula in the other hand. She was bobbing her head to some sort of mental rhythm, beatboxing to it as she wagged her tail, swung her hips, and did a bit of a jig with her hooves.
Granted, he couldn’t help but be drawn in to her hypnotic hips. But he averted his eyes from her derriere and showed some restraint.
“Top of the morning to you,” replied Midnight warmly, as Vinyl gave him a piece of Prench toast and two eggs on a plate. “Thanks.” Once at the table, he took a knife and fork and got to work on his meal.
“No problem.” Vinyl got her own plate of her own food and sat across from him. She watched him eat his breakfast slowly. How he softly pierced the eggs and bits of toast and placed them slowly in his mouth. How he didn’t clamp his teeth obnoxiously on the fork, chewed with his mouth closed, and dabbed at the corners of his lips with a napkin every now and again.
She also noticed how his muzzle is fully healed from that fight he had with that thug. The fight she believed was to protect his honor. His, and hers, as well. She sighed a little bit at the reminiscence of his chivalry.
If he had been wearing a fedora during the incident, Midnight would definitely have tipped it.
“Hmm?” Midnight’s ears perked up. “Did you say something?”
Spooked slightly, Vinyl shifted uncomfortably in her seat, cheeks bearing a mild blush, before she said, “So, uh… how was dinner last night with Frédéric?”
Midnight stopped mid-chew and and swallowed before answering the question. “It was… alright. He’s not too big of a twat, now that he and I have talked about our differences.”
Vinyl snorted. “Is that so?” He nodded. “Well, glad you had fun last night.” A moment of silence. “So, how do you like the food?”
Midnight paused in mid-chew. He evaluated both the question, and the objects in question. He swirled the eggs in his mouth with his tongue before swallowing them whole. “The eggs are well-prepared, not too much pepper, and a nice touch with the cumin. Only problem is that there is a little too much salt in them. The Prench toast was very good, however. Proper amount of egg wash and cinnamon, and the bread was whole wheat. Really nice.”
Vinyl was brimming with confidence at his words. Her blush intensified a bit. “You really think so?”
“Yeah. Thank you for making breakfast.”
“*Yaawwwwn* There’s breakfast?”
The conversation concluded with Octavia yawning widely as she entered the room in a silk lavender nightgown, the hem barely covering her thighs. Midnight’s eyes couldn’t help but wander to her, and his face slowly burned at how stunning she looked, even if she had just woken up. He lowered his gaze before any of them could notice him visually undressing her, with the image almost permanently ingrained in his memory.
“Good morning, all,” hummed Octavia, reaching for her own plate of breakfast. “So, how was dinner, Midnight?” She asked after swallowing a piece of Prench toast.
“It was… bah,” he lied flatly, keeping up the illusion that Frédéric still hated him. He’d let that pianist tell Octavia the truth himself: Midnight did not feel like being a medium of amelioration for them. “There are worse ponies out there than him.” He shot at Vinyl the subtlest of winks, letting her know that he was lying for a reason.
“Oh?” Octavia, cheek full of egg, raised a brow inquisitively. “Well, it sounds a bit better than I expected. How was the couch?”
“It was alright, somewhat,” answered the Sarosian, rubbing his neck that stung with soreness. “Although… it was murder on my neck.”
“Ah. I guess that would happen, since you’re tall,” said Vinyl.
Pause, the silence only shattered by the clinking of forks and knives upon dinnerware.
“...And you still let me sleep on the couch, knowing that me being sore would no doubt happen,” grumbled Midnight.
“Better the couch than the floor,” argued Octavia calmly. Midnight rolled his eyes in disbelief. “Relax, just put some ice on it, get a massage, you’ll be fine.”
*CRACK! CRACK!*
“Or I could just do that,” Midnight said simply after cracking his neck and back, the loud rupturing of carbon dioxide bubbles between the bones sending tremors of disgust through the mares at the table. “Much better. Just some dislocation.”
“That sounded fucking morbid!” Vinyl hollered.
“Really, at the table?” Octavia snapped sharply.
“Yyyep.” Standing up, the Sarosian took his now-empty plate and washed it in the sink. At that point, his phone on the couch started ringing loudly. It wasn’t his alarm, but instead, somepony was calling him. “Hang on, I got it.” His magic swallowed the phone whole in an acid-green aura, and hovered the device to him. Drying his hands, he examined it before answering.
“Mother Unit,” was the name of the caller.
“Shit.” Midnight swallowed nervously. He had forgotten to call his mother back in Hoofghanistan as often as he liked, and it was coming back to haunt him now.
“Who is it?” asked Vinyl as she looked at the guise of worry on Midnight’s face.
“My mom.” He grabbed his phone hesitantly. He answered the call. ((Hello?)) He said in Ponsi.
((Ohhhh, Midnight!)) gushed his mother loudly in their native language. To the point where the stallion had to scoot the phone away a few inches to keep from blowing out his eardrum. ((How are you, my darling son?))
((I’m fine, Mama, thank you for asking,)) he responded. As the conversation carried on, Vinyl and Octavia looked at each other dumbfounded and confused by the language. The “khe”s, “zhe”s, “pe”s, and all his other gobbledygook characters befuddled both mares.
“You understand him, Tavi?” asked Vinyl.
“Not in the slightest,” replied Octavia.
((But in any case, what’s going on?)) His mother’s tone slowly grew serious. ((It’s like you’ve dropped out of existence! You never write! You never call!))
((Mama, I’ve been very busy at work,)) lied Midnight. It was only a little white lie, though. ((Traveling around the world, being a translator, and recording all of their lectures is not easy.))
((Oh, nonsense! Your memory can put an elephant’s to shame! Moreover, that doesn’t mean you can’t call your mom every now and again,)) argued his maternal figure. Midnight rolled his eyes.
((Yes, Mama. I’m sorry for not calling you sooner. How is everypony?))
((All of them are doing great. Your dad misses you.)) Midnight looked down at the floor, shuffling his hooves anxiously. Bringing his father into the conversation was rather touchy, as he and his dad didn’t part ways on the best of terms. ((He wanted to say goodbye to you before he went off onto a business trip for his automotive parts.))
((Oh? When did he leave?))
((A few days ago. Maybe he’ll keep in contact with you then?))
Midnight grinned as he replied, ((Yeah. I hope so.))
His mother giggled slightly. ((Listen. I feel like this might be a bit too soon, but… I was hoping you’d find time this month to visit us here in Jalalabuck. It’s a lot calmer here in the Neighngarhar district than when you left.))
((Oh. Well… I guess I can. I’ve got some free time this month. No delegations or paperwork for a little while,)) Midnight finally said. He could practically hear his mother beam on the other side of the phone.
((Really?! Oh, that’d be wonderful! I’ll let your brothers and sisters know right away! I can’t wait to see you! When will you be leaving?))
((Sometime next week, Mama. I’ll see you soon, okay? Love you.))
((I love you, too, darling.)) He hung up the phone and pocketed it.
“Sounded really interesting, Midnight,” Octavia said. “What was that all about?”
“My mom wants me to come visit Hoofghanistan and say hello to her and the family.”
“Family? You have siblings, then?” she then asked before sipping a cup of coffee.
“Yep… er, around thirteen of them.”
Octavia almost choked on her drink. “Thirteen?!” She screamed in disbelief.
“Damn, that’s a lot of sex!” Vinyl promptly wailed.
Midnight sighed exasperatedly. He figured they would react like that. “I guess I should have told you guys my mom had a habit of taking in orphans. So, no, my mom is not a loose floozy.”
“What?” The mares asked in unison.
“Yeah. She still wanted kids, even after me and my twin sisters were born. The problem is, my dad was not having any of that, and he got a vasectomy soon afterwards. Bummed out by it, she began taking in homeless foals from off the streets. Not just ponies, too. She’s adopted zebras, Diamond Dogs, even some baby dragons. I think after she hit the double digits did she realize enough was enough.”
“But how do they afford to live there?” Vinyl was a little concerned. “Food prices, electricity, water, gas?”
“Surely, with fourteen residents, a home will cave in from debt,” Octavia justified.
“Normally, yes,” responded Midnight. “But it’s actually quite cheap to live there now. Cheaper than living here, I’ll tell you that much. Besides, I’ve told you before that I wire them money. That’s to help pay for the expenses they can’t cover.”
“So how long do you plan on staying there?” asked Vinyl.
“Not sure. About a week or two. I want to go and do some sightseeing, buy some souvenirs, hang out with other relatives.”
“Wait, what about the order from the Princesses?” Octavia slowly grew stern. “After all, you’re still in my custody.”
Midnight sat back down at the table grumpily. He could only brood there in his seat, mind chugging along to justify leaving, if only for a while. Leaving would indeed result in an infraction of the order from the Princesses, and would get him tossed into a nice cozy jail cell. He’d need to find a way around this barrier of his. “Well… what if I could bring you guys along?” he suggested.
“I beg your pardon?” said Octavia, almost taken aback by the proposition. “You want us to go there?”
“Why are you saying that like it’s a bad thing?” deadpanned Midnight.
“It doesn’t sound so bad,” defended Vinyl, calmly. “It’d be nice to get out of the country, you know.” She looked at Midnight hopefully and asked, “Do they have nightclubs there?”
“Yeah, they do,” he responded. Vinyl grinned and did a fist bump. Midnight turned to Octavia and said, “They also have concert halls. If you wanna show off some of your music, you can.”
“Well… I dunno, you make it seem a little nice, but it must no doubt be hot there.” Octavia’s interest was partially piqued, no doubt, yet at the same time, she still had qualms about going in the first place. “There’s also a huge language barrier.”
Midnight blinked in surprise. Even though he could understand them fluently, he forgot that both mares would be lost in translation trying to understand Hoofghani Ponsi.
“I’ll help you with that one, pal.” Midnight puffed out his chest. He wanted her attention, after all. “While there are some ponies there that speak Equuish, I’ll be your personal translator for those that don’t.”
“What about hotel costs?”
Midnight pinched the bridge of his muzzle and groaned. ‘Why did she have to worry about every little thing?’
“I’ll cover it all. The hotel costs, the gas, the train tickets — all of it.”
Octavia’s fretting look gradually waned away with each assurance. She warmly smiled at him as she said, “You really do miss your mom, don’t you?”
Midnight slowly blushed. He shifted his hooves nervously. “Y...Yeah. I haven’t seen her in a long time. Of course I miss her.” The back of his eyes burned a bit. “I want to see her.”
“Well…” She thought about this decision. It was a nice idea to go to a new country: something she could try on her bucket list. And Midnight really did want to see his mother, who he hasn’t even visited in a decade. Part of her wanted to stay, yet the other part pained her to separate him from his mother any longer. “I’ll be holding you to your word about covering the expenses,” she said. “But we can go.”
Midnight’s heart sang. He was finally going to see his family after a long hiatus of nine years. He forced every molecule in his body to keep from hugging Octavia, despite how tantalizing it was. “Y… You’re serious?” he asked.
“On one condition.”
Midnight tilted his head slightly. This attached string couldn’t be too detrimental to the situation: after all, he was still going to see his mother. “Sure. Name it.”
Octavia’s blush grew more intense.
And that was when Midnight regretted he said anything.
~End of Chapter XIV~