Interlude 2.5

It was the morning of September 14th—the date that the group had set for Joshua’s surprise birthday party. Joshua’s actual birthday had passed five days ago—while everyone had still been trapped in Dimension X—but Lian had insisted that the group needed to celebrate something after escaping literal hell, and everyone had agreed.

To minimize Joshua’s suspicion that something was off, everyone had decided to go about their normal morning routines, with the exception of Joel, Auster, and Lian. Joel was off distracting Joshua, which left Auster and Lian to make the cake.

“Have you ever baked before?” Lian asked, turning to their assistant.

“Um, not really,” Auster replied. “Unless you count making pizza. I work at a pizza place.”

“Oh!” Lian tapped their chin in thought. “Well, baking is a little different from pizza-making, but I wouldn’t worry too much. There’s a first time for everything, right?”

“Right.” Auster looked at the whisk and bowl with apprehension in his eyes, and Lian couldn’t help but chuckle. Auster’s deer-in-the-headlights look was kind of cute.

“Auster, can you turn the oven on?” Lian asked. “Preheat to 350 degrees. Then you can spray the baking pans with nonstick spray—I think I saw a can of it near the stove.”

As Lian spoke, they started rifling through the pantry for dry ingredients. It was weird—though the pantry was much more full than the last time Lian had been here, they didn’t have to look hard at all to find what they needed. In fact, the cake flour, baking soda, cocoa powder, sugar, and salt were all sitting right next to each other. This fact, in and of itself, wasn’t too weird, but the vinegar, red food coloring, and vanilla extract that Lian needed were also sitting in the same area—as if someone had known exactly which cake recipe Lian was using.

Lian shook that particular thought away and gathered the necessary ingredients from the pantry. Next, they opened the fridge. The shelves were stocked with leftovers and meal prep packed into neat little stacks of tupperware. Sitting on the bottom shelf were all the ingredients Lian needed: cream cheese, eggs, and buttermilk. Lian set all the ingredients on the counter with a grin.

“Okay!” Lian exclaimed. “Auster, can you whisk the dry ingredients together? I sent you the recipe on your phone, so you can use that to measure everything out.” Auster stared blankly at the whisk in his hand, then at the measuring cups.

“Yeah, I can do that.” He did not sound confident in his abilities in the slightest, but he started scooping flour out of the bag. Lian smiled and turned to the butter and sugar with eager hands. They had set up the stand mixer ahead of time, so all they had to do was cube the softened butter, throw the butter and sugar into the bowl, and watch.

“So,” Lian said, raising their voice to be heard over the grinding of the electric mixer. “How did you meet Joshua?”

“Oh. Um, we were childhood friends,” Auster explained. “He used to come over to my place all the time.” He relaxed a little as he spoke of the memory. “After he moved away, we exchanged letters.”

“Like pen pals!” Lian said brightly. “Oh, that’s so cool—I’ve always wanted a pen pal. I bet Joshua is just as angry in his letters as he is in person.”

“I guess.” Auster shrugged. “I don’t know. I’ve never seen him as tense as he’s been this week.” For a second, the two were silent as Lian added the rest of the wet ingredients to the sugar and butter. Auster opened his mouth to speak, then closed it again. Lian frowned.

“You don’t have to be so careful around me, you know?” Lian pointed out. “You look like you have a question.” A red flush colored Auster’s cheeks.

“I—um, yeah, I guess I do.” Auster paused, staring miserably at the bowl in front of him. “I wanted to ask—what exactly is going on here? Joshua hasn’t told me much, but…” Auster swallowed. “I don’t even know where we are right now.”

“Oh,” Lian said gently. “I see.” Their frown deepened. “What do you know? Did Joshua at least tell you about what happened last month?”

“Yeah,” Auster said with a nod. “Something about breaking a bunch of immortals out of prison.” Auster looked like he wanted to say more, but he stayed silent. Lian took a deep breath.

“Some stuff has happened since then,” Lian explained. They started combining the dry and wet ingredients. “There was a mafia fighting tournament, and then we tried to wipe the Soul Stealers’ records of us to keep our friends and family safe. But then we got sent to a hell dimension instead, and we were stuck there for three days. And now the immortals are missing.”

“Oh.” A subtle frown crossed Auster’s face. “That sounds like a lot.” That was understating it, maybe, but Lian wasn’t going to give Auster a hard time about that. Instead, they poured the finished cake batter into the two cake pans.

“Joshua probably brought you and Joel here to keep you safe,” Lian explained. “At least until the immortals come back.”

The words seemed to stick in Lian’s mouth a little. Lian wanted to believe the immortals would be back, but they couldn’t help but think about what would happen if the immortals didn’t come back. They glanced at Auster—at his shifty brown eyes, his mousy brown hair, the black hoodie he always seemed to wear.

Lian must have been staring at Auster for too long, because he suddenly cleared his throat.

“Do we just, um, put these in the oven?” Auster asked, gesturing to the cake pans. Lian snapped to attention.

“Yes! Yes,” Lian said quickly. “Can you do that? I’m going to start making the icing.” As Auster opened the oven and slid the cake pans onto the middle rack, Lian started dumping the cream cheese and butter into yet another bowl.

“Um, hey, did you see this?” Auster asked, pointing to a small cardboard box on the counter. “It says it’s for you, Lian.” Lian cocked their head to the side in confusion as they approached the box. It was slightly larger than both of their fists put together, and there was a note taped to the top.

“To Lian. You’ll know what to do with this,” Lian read aloud. “Give Joshua my sincerest apologies for missing his birthday. Signed… Kai?”

Lian frowned. In the week they had trained in the pocket dimension, back before Dimension X, they hadn’t talked to Kai too much, but they had definitely eaten his cooking more than once. It seemed like the man was always in the kitchen—and the results were always amazing.

With more than a little curiosity, Lian carefully opened the box. Inside was a delicately sculpted chocolate hawk. The bird was perched atop a glass stand with its wings spread out behind it. Every single feather was lovingly carved into the wings with extreme attention to detail, and the expression on the hawk’s face was unmistakably fierce—Joshua-esque, even.

“Oh,” Lian said softly. “Oh, this is gorgeous.” They carefully removed the hawk from the box. “But why…?” They pondered the note again. It almost seemed like…

The realization hit Lian like a truck.

The leftovers in the fridge, the cake ingredients all grouped together, the note—it all seemed to point to the fact that Kai had known he wouldn’t be around for Joshua’s birthday. Which meant that all of the immortals had probably known they’d be… dead? Missing? Lian wasn’t sure where they were. They just knew they were going to punch Haku when they next saw the immortal.

“Is everything okay?” Auster asked, brow furrowed. His eyes shone with carefully concealed worry.

“Oh. I’m fine,” Lian said quickly. “Just… thinking.” They stared at the chocolate hawk in their hands. It really was a beautiful little sculpture.

“We’ll put this on top of the cake,” Lian decided, gently setting the chocolate hawk back in the box. They added the powdered sugar to the icing mix and glanced back at the oven. Twenty-five minutes to go.

Lian looked at Auster again. He really was a nice guy, and Lian found themself wanting to get to know him better. An idea popped into their head.

“Hey, Auster,” they said mischievously. “While we’re waiting for the cake to bake, do you want to play truth or dare?” The tips of Auster’s ears turned bright red as his gaze met Lian’s.

“Um, okay,” Auster said slowly. A crooked half-smile settled over his features. “Yeah, let’s do it.”

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