A nap just sounded so fantastic right now. Izumi was ready and willing to crawl into bed and pass out for a bit. Nothing seemed like a better idea . . .

"Thanks . . ." replied Izumi, "See you in a bit . . ."

Izumi had provided a bit of an understatement. She claimed that she'd only be napping for an hour--possibly an hour and a half. In reality, she wound up snoozing for over two hours. Work, for her, must have seriously been hellish for her, and as soon as she had got home, she had to take care of Dyss for a bit--between that, she only had the time to relax for twenty minutes and get changed into something slightly more comfortable. The nap was well needed. It was not uncommon for her to do that, either.

Close to the third hour, Izumi finally made her way into Dyss's room. If Dyss hadn't heard her footsteps, the semi-high pitched yawn was more than enough to announce her presence. She walked heavily, drowsily, until it could only be assumed that she found her chair.

"H-hey . . ." Izumi said before stifling another yawn, "S-sorry about that--I . . . was a lot more tired than I thought I was."

After two hours, Dyss would still be awake, the board set up as though he had been playing with invisible pieces against a real opponent. Whether he actually knew what the board looked like was debatable, but the pieces were placed on squares correctly, and in a way that seemed to be a feasible game... In any case, Dyss had no clue how long she had actually been gone...

"Hello, Izumi... Did you sleep well?"

Dyss sounded distracted, his attention still mostly on the chess board and the pieces it held. If he stopped to talk, it was possible he'd lose everything about the game. However, as Izumi sat down, he would reach out to move one of the pieces, accidentally brushing away several pieces, which would rather loudly collide with other pieces, rendering almost the entire board useless... At the same time, Dyss would sigh, realizing he'd never get them fixed...

"Mm . . . yeah," Izumi sighed, "Maybe too much, though."

It had almost been three hours, after all. That was a pretty serious nap, but still a well deserved one. Hopefully, that wasn't going to be how the entire week played out--or the next few months or so. Izumi wasn't seriously thinking that far ahead or anything, but it was still something to potentially worry about in the future. It just depended on how Dyss was, and if his friends would be setting up a place where they all could live or something.

Seeing Dyss knock over the chess pieces that he was so adamantly concentrating on was disconcerting. He really was having a hard time . . . there was no way that he was going to be up for playing a game. At least not tonight. She didn't want to discourage him or anything, but she didn't want to frustrate him, either . . .

Izumi began to collect the pieces that had fallen. They couldn't be placed back on the spots they had been before, if only because neither her or Dyss knew those spots. Someday, he'd probably be able to play a game of chess even with his disability, but probably not tonight.

"A-ah-- a-are you sure you want to play tonight?" Izumi asked, trying her best to not sound insensitive, "I-I could just make some dinner for us now, and we could play some other night . . ."

Dyss had about enough of chess for the day. It was something he really wanted to do, but he couldn't concentrate on it any more, and wasn't yet able to play an actual game. He was more concerned about disappointing Izumi, but at least she didn't seem too upset. She'd have him around for a while, anyway, so there would be plenty of time to play before the others arrived. Dyss vaguely knew dinner was related to eating, but that brought up a question...

"You mean, we're going to eat again? I ate today, though..."

It just didn't make sense. He'd eaten already. The next time he was sick, he should eat again, right? Twice in one day just seemed ridiculous... That was no way to live. Why would a "real" body be so inefficient and have to waste so much time eating?

"You ate a few hours ago. F-four or five hours ago, actually," Izumi replied.

Dyss was really . . . off with these sorts of things. It was sort of confusing to Izumi; his memory loss was all over the map. He remembered some thing and couldn't remember others, but not things like people and dates--things like motor memories and logistics of generally living.

"Y-you're . . . usually supposed to eat three times a day, you know? Breakfast, lunch, and dinner," Izumi began, absentmindedly ranting again, "Eating breakfast is important, because it makes your brain work right in the morning because you fast when you sleep and your brain is slowed down until you break the, ummm, fasting process. Then lunch is sort of like an energy boost but neither lunch or breakfast is really all that big of a meal, they're mainly just, umm, little things like toast or eggs or a sandwich or something, but when you eat dinner you eat enough to hold yourself over when you, um, fast at night and sometimes have dessert if you feel like a sweet treat or something. Actually, I have a few desserts in my freezer. Hmm . . ."

Izumi went silent for a moment, caught in deliberation. The most sound she made was a hum, suggesting that she was in such deep thought that she had cut herself off from the rest of the world entirely. It was the kind of thing that Dyss would have to know where her eyes were so he could wave his hand before them and snap her out of it--not that she wasn't going to do it on her own.

". . . maybe . . . hmm," Izumi hummed as she thought aloud, ". . . I think I could probably eat ice cream tonight. Yeah. I haven't had any for a few days, so I should be fine . . ."

"Really!?"

Dyss was honestly surprised... Eating three times a day? With all the work it seemed to entail? What an annoying process. Of course, now that he thought about it, he felt a bit sick again... So, this was going to be routine... And he didn't have any access to food of his own... How could he have possibly survived on his own?

"Um... Sure..."

Dyss was pretty much lost when Izumi talked, not it wasn't a common occurrence. She seemed to be in her own world most of the time, and he wasn't really invited sometimes. Not that he wanted to be, necessarily. It seemed like it was probably a scary place...

"A-ah! S-sorry--!" Izumi exclaimed once she realized that she had gone into a tangent--not just about eating in general, but about herself. "I-I, um, a-actually, um, I-I'm on a diet--so, ummm, I try to pay attention to what I eat. I-I've been trying to slim down a little, and--"

From what Dyss had touched, though, it wouldn't feel, to him, like she really needed to slim down at all--but what he had touched on her was minimal. Just her chest last night, and her waist earlier today. Just judging by those vague physical sensations wouldn't be enough to get an image of Izumi in Dyss's mind, though.

"O-oh, ummm, s-sorry," Izumi apologized again, followed immediately thereafter by nervous laughter, "I-I . . . ummmmmmm, I think I'm going to go make something for dinner . . . I-I'll be back in a bit!"

She was anxious, nervous, and even a little embarrassed--so much that she had not even bothered to ask Dyss if he had any preferences for dinner. Izumi was going to wind up making him something small that his stomach would be able to handle, anyways; courtesy aside, though . . .

It was strange, nonetheless: Dyss was blind, and she was still able to feel embarrassed around him, and even express a certain degree of self-consciousness.

Dyss frowned a bit at her statement about thinning down. She seemed thin enough... Dyss, oddly enough, had memories of such thoughts... Girls who had been thin and always wanted to be thinner, and would abuse their bodies in order to do so... He didn't really want Izumi to suffer that fate, but from his time with his hand around her waist and his time the night before, she wasn't in danger of hurting herself, at least, even if she had no need to slim down...

"You don't need to worry, though... If you lost weight, then-"

Dyss was awfully honest at some times, and his tired brain almost went a step too far with that comment. If she lost weight, then her chest might well suffer for it... Not that he would know. Or be concerned with that. Once she had left, he would sit quietly, not returning to the fallen chessboard. That could come at a different time...

Fortunately, Dyss had managed to stop himself before he said too much, as such may have caused Izumi to consider the possibility that Dyss's actions last night had been on purpose, or that he would not have minded recreating the scenario on purpose. It also helped that Izumi had rushed out of the room by the time Dyss started speaking, too; even if his mind hadn't stopped him, he was safe . . .

Nearly a half an hour passed without any interaction from Izumi. The smell, though--that would wind up being all the interaction that Dyss would need. She was working on cooking food, that was for sure. The tantalizing smell would come over him within ten minutes of Izumi's departure--something to possibly make him feel "ill" again, but in only a good way--a pleasant, mouth watering way. There was a distant sound of sizzling, popping, frying--such odd sounds, and absolutely no smell of burning.

Having lived alone for so long, Izumi certainly had to know how to cook for herself. It could only be expected that she'd know what she was doing pretty decently, enough to not burn her food. Besides, if she couldn't eat it, then it was unlikely that anyone else was going to.

"O-okay! This should do . . ." Izumi announced her rearrival, "U-ummm, but first, um, could you scoot over a bit?"

Dyss would move towards the end of the bed in a sitting position when Izumi asked him, his nose for once possessing his most active sense. It was certainly odd. In Purgatory, his sight had overwhelmed everything else, even hearing merely providing a cue for him to see his subject. Here, he didn't have that luxury any more, and it made him appreciate his two previously underused senses. Of course, touch was very useful now, and he'd completely discovered a new sense in the past few hours...

"Sure... What did you make?"

Dyss was unlikely to actually have been exposed to whatever food she made, but it seemed like a polite thing to ask. She'd spent some time on it, after all, and mostly for his sake, it seemed. She wasn't much interested in the food herself, from the sound of things...

"Nothing too heavy. I figured that, um, since you could hold down soup and toast without any problems, that it wouldn't be a big issue with trying something a tiny bit heavier."

Once Dyss had moved over to the edge of the bed, he'd find a bit of pressure upon the mattress--something of decent sized, and flat, placed upon it, and close by. If he were to reach out and touch, he'd find that the bed had a new object upon it; the chess board was replaced by a much larger board of some sort, not necessarily a game board, but it did have something on it. Roughly the size of a person's lap, there was a hard, circular object just beside of Dyss, with contents upon it that could only be characterized as "warm," "soft," and "tender." A thicker object about the size of Dyss's hand, and mushier, but still somewhat hard, individual objects--which had such a bizarre texture to the touch that not even a word in the world beyond its real name could ever describe it. Next to the circular object and its contents were two more items: both thin, but long enough to be held in a person's hand, with one of the metal objects having four prods at the end, and the other having no prods at all, just a flat, straight object.

"S-so, ummm . . . it's chicken, just like what was in the soup I made earlier, but cooked different. I boiled it so its really tender and its the white meat anyways, so you shouldn't have any problems digesting it or anything--if I remember right it's the dark meat that's really heavy on the stomach. I think. Actually, I'd have to ask around at the diner. I'm pretty sure that's right, though. A-anyways! It's a chicken breast and broccoli--it's not a whole lot, and, um, kind of risky, because your stomach might not be up for it yet, but if it is, well, we should be well off soon! I-it, um, was also k-kind of the lightest meal I had on hand becauseIkindofranoutofsoupbrothandbreadearlierandshouldprobablypicksomeuptomorrowafterwork b-but, um, well, you know . . ."

Dyss wasn't repulsed by the smell of the food, but he didn't really understand it, either. A few things did start to make more sense... He knew what a chicken was, but he'd never understood why they were kept by humans... Apparently, they were kept for food...

"That's okay... You don't need to get special food for my sake..."

Dyss's stomach, while relatively new to the world, wasn't really having a problem with the food. It was too much of a novelty. He had no idea how to eat it, though, without using his hands. One of the metal things was a knife, but the other, he wasn't sure how to use. Instead, he would simply pick the broccoli up with his hand, bringing it to his mouth himself to eat. It wasn't exactly the civilized way to eat, but at least he was able to do it himself. His pace of biting would accelerate once he started to experience the sensation of receiving food...

"W-well, you're a guest, right? A-and if you might get sick or something--well, well, um, I should do things like that, you know?" replied Izumi between bites.

And that was just how she felt. Even though Dyss didn't feel as if she should burden herself by doing extra things for him, he was a guest in her house and she was taking care of him. It just made sense for her to do everything she could, within reason, to help. She couldn't necessarily afford to do certain things, though--such as take time off of work or anything. That would've cut into her food and rent budgets.

For a few minutes, there was only the sound of minuscule metal scraping against a plate. Izumi was an extremely quiet eater--and careful. Really, she took care of herself to the absolute best of her ability, which included chewing her food for longer times than most people did, and brushing her teeth after every meal. That part would come later, though, after she was finished eating.

The silence from her came to an abrupt end, however. It wasn't that she was joking or suddenly had company over, but that she was laughing--small laughter, not even close to hysterical, but still. It wouldn't take a genius to figure out why she was laughing, either . . .

"S-sorry!" Izumi caught herself, "It's just . . . y-you're eating really funny . . ."

Dyss would finish the bite he was taking, but would then set the food down, his face turning red. It was a bit hurtful... He hadn't ever done this before. He didn't know what he was supposed to be doing, and couldn't really see to do it, anyway... She wasn't trying to be mean or anything, so Dyss didn't blame her, but it was still embarrassing and sort of in bad taste...

"Sorry..."

Dyss' apology was mumbled somewhat, his face still turned sheepishly down. Blindness was certainly the most frustrating problem he'd ever faced, but at least he was alive, and in the real world... Even if he hadn't seen it yet. And he was with someone who was willing to spend her free time to take care of him... He couldn't really fault her for anything, as unfair as the situation seemed...

It was unfortunate--feeling badly for finding something humorous. Izumi had both a sense of humor and a sense of conscience, a pair of mental entities that often combated one another for control over her social actions. This unfortunate experience had her reeling . . .

Dyss had blushed and looked downcast, presumably upset or ashamed. Humor wasn't involved at all, though. He hadn't cracked a grin or smiled or anything. This had Izumi remarkably worried; Dyss's humorlessness had her humor efficiently executed. Izumi frantically tried to think something up--reassure him? Tell him she was super sorry and that it wouldn't happen again? She didn't want him feeling self conscious or anything like that--he was a guest, after all!--and here she was, treating him terribly . . .

"W-wai--um, um, ummm, I-I'm really sorry!" Izumi exclaimed, "I-I shouldn't have laughed . . ."

Her tone suggested the utmost regret. Izumi didn't have a lot of visitors like this, and even though Dyss couldn't really move around much or do anything at all without her, that didn't give her the right to treat him bad. She wouldn't have wanted that in the reverse situation--and she knew what it was like to be treated poorly . . .