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He remembered the day he began to lose his sense of taste.
At first he thought it was a cold coming on, something stupid Leyley gave him. Yet he never got sick. Not even a sniffle or shiver. It kept getting worse. During meals what was once a shake of salt and pepper became a blanket of seasoning.
Even then the problem kept worsening. It became harder and harder for him to stomach the bland food he kept getting served. The heaps and mountains of spices got replaced with copious amounts of hot sauce and chilis. At the very least, the heat was enough to make the slop before him interesting. Pain was better than nothing…
…Right?
After a certain point he gave up.
There wasn’t a point in eating if he couldn’t taste it.
Hell, even the pain from the peppers became dull.
And so… he stopped.
He’d make sure to force something down in front of his parents or his teachers but otherwise…
Water quickly became his new friend. Water didn’t have much of a taste in the first place, so its absence wasn’t mourned quite as much as other things. Water stopped the pain. He was tired of the pain, so he drank instead.
He began to crave salt. Lots of salt. So began his daily routine.
Get up and get dressed.
Eat toast or whatever breakfast in front of mom.
Get a bag of salt once Mom leaves for work.
Put the salt in his backpack.
Get on the bus with Leyley and go to school.
Go to class.
Every bathroom break is time for eating a spoonful of salt and drinking at the water fountain.
Do it again at recess.
Eat something small at lunch, then do it again.
Go back to class.
Take a bathroom break.
Do it again.
Get back home.
Do it again.
Ignore the frozen meal in the freezer and refill the cup.
Do it again.
Hide everything before bed so Mom doesn’t find it.
Sleep.
Repeat.
Leyley noticed immediately but he brushed her off.
Again.
And again.
And again.
Yet she kept insisting.
She stood in front of him in their room, hands on her hips.
"You need to eat, dumbass!"
Andy startled, getting up off of his bed.
"W-What are you talking about?"
"You haven't eaten anything, Andy!" Leyley said, brow furrowing.
"I am eating, stupid! I had breakfast with you today!"
Her face scrunched up then fell, eyes beginning to pool with tears.
"You know what I mean Andy…"
The anger on his face dissipated when he saw her face.
"Come on, don't cry! Why are you-"
Her words came out in hiccuppy shouts, "You barely eat at breakfast, you barely eat at lunch, you skip dinner, you keep stealing Mom's salt- what's wrong with you!" Her hiccups turned into a full-body sob as she collapsed to the ground.
She smells…sweet.
Andy gingerly wiped away her tears, pushing aside the fact that he could smell again.
He got down on the carpet with her.
"It's gonna be okay, Leyley…"
She shot up in anger. "It's not, Andy! Tell me the truth! You're hiding something from me! Is it another girl? Are you doing this for her?" She pushed him.
He stumbled, his back hitting his bedframe. "No! It's just-"
"Just what Andy? Stop lying to me! You can tell me!"
Andy shrunk away from her.
"You'll just squeal on me…"
"I won't, I promise!"
He eyed her bitterly. "You always say one thing then do another…".
Leyley's eyes filled with resolve. "I swear I won't tell anyone ! No one! Not even Mom and Dad!"
He paused…and sat up.
"Promise?"
She extended her pinkie.
"Pinkie promise."
He rolled his eyes at the childish gesture but still hooked his pinkie onto hers and shook it.
"Pinkie promise."
"... … .. … …"
"... … .. … …"
Leyley raised an eyebrow at her brother. "So, why are you doing all of this?"
Andy shuffled his feet and fiddled with his hands a moment before he looked at her.
"I've lost my sense of taste and smell." He said, flatly ignoring the floral aroma wafting from his sister.
Her eyes widened. "When did that start?"
"About a month ago. I tried to cope by just adding spices or hot sauce on whatever I was eating but after a while it all stopped working. I figured if I couldn't taste anything, I might as well stop eating all together."
Leyley stared unblinkingly at her brother.
"Andy, that's fucking stupid."
"Wha-"
"Andy, you need to eat! You're going to starve doing that to yourself!"
"Well, I might as well starve considering I can't even enjoy foo-"
- S L A P -
His words got cut off with Leyley's hand slapping him hard across his face. It immediately began to sting.
" OW- WHAT THE FUCK DID YOU DO THAT FOR-". He promptly cut himself off when he saw the hot angry tears once again running down Leyley's face, filling the room with that sickly sweet scent again.
"If you die, who the fuck is going to be friends with me? I don't want to be left alone…please." She grabbed his shirt and laid her head against his chest. "P-please don't leave me alone…" She sobbed into his chest. "I wo-wouldn't have anyone else…e-even Mom hates me-"
Andy hesitantly stroked her back while her body wracked with sobs.
"Mom doesn't hate you-"
"Yes, she does!" She sniffled and wiped her face. "She never spends time with me and never looks at me the way she does with you-"
Andy held his tongue; even he couldn't deny that his Mom avoided her.
Ashley continued. " I just want to have ONE person who will still be friends with me, ONE. So don't you fucking die on me."
"... .. …"
Should I tell her about what she smells like?
He weighed the options and after a moment of deliberation he spoke.
"I won't."
"You won't…what?
"I won't starve myself."
"And? "
"And I won't leave you alone."
"Good."
He brought her in for a hug, a long one that felt like time had stopped for this moment. It was nice. It was also maddening.
Surrounded by the wafting sweetness coming from his sister, he buried his face in her neck. When he felt eternity had stilled, he took a taste. A small lick.
Bright and floral. Sweet and familiar. Honeysuckle.
Why couldn't he place it before?
The sweet nectar-like taste of Leyley permeated his tongue and shocked some life back into him. At the same time the sudden wetness of Andy's tongue against her neck caused her to flinch.
"Andy, ew! What the fuck? Why did you lick my neck?!"
"Sorry, I-"
"Don't do that! That's gross!" She began rubbing at her neck with her sleeve, attempting to blot away the dampness.
"You just-"
"What Andy?" Leyley looked exasperated.
"...you tasted good…"
"What?" She looked bewildered.
"You tasted good! I haven't been able to taste or smell an-"
"WHAT THE FUCK?"
"I'm sorry, I won't do that again, I just-"
Leyley breathed for a moment then a lightbulb went off. "Do we still have a computer?"
"No, Mom got rid of it when she stopped paying the internet bill. No sense in having it. Why?"
"What you're going through sounds familiar but I can't remember the name of it. Can you take me to the library?"
"Why?"
"Because they have computers there, dumbass!"
He sighed. "Fine, only if you behave though-"
"Alright…deal." She grumbled as she hunted for a jacket in her messy half of the room.
As he put on his jacket, his face still stung.
After taking a bus, the two made it to the library and sat in front of an open computer.
Leyley jacked the keyboard away from him (with Andy huffing and telling her to be careful) and began frantically searching for what was plaguing her brother.
Before long, they had their answer.
Andy was a Fork and Leyley was a Cake.
The rabbit hole of information kept them glued to the screen until the lights were dimmed and the library closed. On the ride home, the new facts about their situation churned away.
He was a Fork. Someone who could only taste and smell Cakes. Like his sister. Extremely rare, a random mutation that didn't have anything to do with genetics. The numbers given said that the rate of Forks ranged anywhere between 1:17000 to 1:20000.
On the other hand, his sister turned out to be a Cake. A person who had no other oddities besides smelling and tasting good to Forks. Still an odd genetic mutation and still rare but statistically much more common. Around .1% of the population or 1:1000.
What were the odds that a Fork and a Cake were born into the same family?
Andy watched for their stop, freely catching whiffs of Leyley next to him. Smelling her reminded him about the supposed dangers of Forks to Cakes.
Some Forks were born without their sense of both taste and smell, secretly making Andy happy that he got to taste so much before he lost it. He read that those Forks, so called Prime Forks (or Virgin Forks, which made Andy turn red) were typically much more violent and possessive since they haven't been previously exposed to prior scents and tastes. They were much more likely to go insane, murdering and cannibalizing Cakes. He shuddered. He wouldn't do that. He cared about his sister too much to do something that horrific to her.
He put his head on her shoulder, enjoying her scent the entire ride home; it was comforting.
They never told their parents. It crossed their minds but it was deemed better to just simply keep the issue under wraps. So they began to care for each other in this new alien way.
It started small. Once their parents went to sleep, they would share a bed. It was the only time that he could drink in her scent without any prying eyes or uncontrollable rumors. Being surrounded by her particular brand of honeysuckle was intoxicating after spending the entire day merely existing.
Leyley loved the fact that he was growing closer to her and seeing others less and less. She'd thought about trying to find other Forks to serve as friends but the thought was quickly banished as she only needed Andy in her life. Everybody else could go fuck themselves for all she cared. She just needed her brother.
The nights they spent together were perfect but the contrast made day-to-day life worse. He was still barely eating and the weight loss was becoming even more obvious on his already thin frame. Someone would notice soon if they hadn't already; Andy needed to eat.
After a bit of trial and error, they came up with a system. Around others, Andy could use a Leyley-infused bottle of hot sauce. No one would have to know that his sister's saliva was diluted and mixed in to make the perfect concoction. All that they would see is a kid who likes spicy food. The heat and pain mixed with her sweetness made meals feel alive once more.
He didn't realize how much he had starved himself until his sense of hunger came back. With his new coping mechanism, he gorged himself.
When they were alone, he could use a diluted spray bottle of her essence (saliva) either directly (into his mouth, like stealing whip cream from the can) or onto his food (the coating made it delicious). His favorite was straight from the source, asking (begging) for Leyley to spit in his food. She usually did, at the cost of promising something petty for later.
Leyley started her own unusual routine to help her brother out. She would drink copious amounts of water, eating salt so she wouldn't overhydrate herself, then eating sour candy. Warheads and Zots were best as the intensity of their sourness turned Leyley's mouth into a waterfall. The saliva was caught in baggies and tupperware then either mixed into water (for his spray bottle), hot sauce (for his meals) or consumed directly (to make him happy).
At first there were doubts and hang ups between them; as siblings should they be doing this together? But whether it was the longer they were doing it, or how much good it did for Andy, it became the new normal. Leyley loved seeing her brother flourish directly because of her; it helped reaffirm his place in her life. Andy felt more conflicted but he knew his health would fare much worse if they stopped now. His weight would drop, his body would crumble and he would-
He shook away the last thought. He didn't need to think like that because his sister was in his life. With her, he could live again.
The saliva and cuddling kept him alive but at times he needed more. He'd pick purposefully sad movies in an attempt to get his sister to cry. Andy had tasted his hands after that fateful day, the usual sweetness taking on a note of acidity; a hint of clementine. Tears were hard to get out of his sister unless he picked on her which he kept as a last resort option. Instead, he'd move furniture by an inch or two in the hopes she'd stub her toe and cry from the pain. It worked. He would only do it once a month, making sure to put the furniture back so as not to arouse suspicion.
Blood was another treat. Even rarer than her tears, he'd never go out of his way to ask. If his sister got into a fight or accidentally cut herself on something, Andy would ask to see her cuts. If any were still fresh, he'd asked if he could taste them. She let him every time; It was always worth it to her.
The taste of her blood was sweeter and richer than anything he had tasted from her prior and it was intoxicating. Layers of complexity melded and folded onto each other like butter pressed in the layers of a croissant. Beyond the honeysuckle and nectar flavor, it would take on different notes based on location and freshness.
Active bleeding from an extremity like a cut on a finger was hot and light. Marshmallow and candy fluff. A honey that soothed his throat and made his mind go blank; it tasted golden.
Older blood, the kind that has darkened and had begun to clot, reminded Andy of orange peels. Specifically the pith. The longer the blood is left to dry, the more bitter it becomes. It reminded him of the sips of plum wine Leyley pressured him into trying before he lost his sense of taste. That specific twist of tart combined with nectar was burnt into his taste buds thanks to this new complication of his.
Scabs were dark. She had only given it to him to gross him out, flicking it at him while they were watching a show that they only half-cared about. A dumb dare only siblings and bullies who pretended to be your friends would do. He didn't have anything left to lose so he chewed it, taking in its odd flavor. The pretense of sweetness was gone, only to be left with bitterness and darkness. Like unsweetened cocoa powder with a sour blood orange. The texture was easily the worst part, leaving Andy to picture chewing on an aglet…
These treats and this system made Andy feel alive once again, owing it all to Leyley. She was always glad to oblige, as this was the perfect way to keep Andy in her orbit. By doing this, he was always in debt to her and it made the embers of jealousy die down in her heart. No one could replace the role she had in his life and she wouldn't have it any other way.
The sweetness creeped along Andy's tongue just the same.