It's pathetic.

At best. At worst, it's downright inedible. Fiona stirs the few potatoes in the clear broth that she'd tried to season with dehydrated food flavoring, the seasoning that everyone had to resort to after a mass crop failure a few years back. It tastes like all ramen seasonings of the world combined, which really doesn't taste that good at all. If potatoes were any less expensive, she'd kill for some creamy mashed potatoes with even just salt and pepper. Instead, they float to the surface like pathetic pieces of turd.

"Bon appetit," she says with as much enthusiasm as she can muster, setting the bowl in front of Abin. What's even more pathetic is that she had to run out and buy a second set of bowls and cutleries for him today.

"Is this jjigae?" he asks.

This makes her laugh. "I guess it could be, maybe." Her laughter subsides. "Damn, I miss jjigae. The real stuff, I mean."

She slurps quietly at the paltry meal in front of them, dreaming of fluffy rice and water-fresh cucumber slices. "Did you grow up in Korea?" he asks, somewhat timidly as though making conversation is new for him.

"I was born in Busan, back when it existed," Fiona says, feeling a melancholic twist in her chest. "My dad was Korean but my mom was Irish, so she always wanted to move to America where she said I'd fit in better as a biracial kid. So we left after he died."

Abin doesn't say anything but Fiona can see the question in the slope of his shoulders. "He died from a lung disease. There was an epidemic when I was seven or eight, where mass people in Asia were dying from poor air quality. That's when the first Sheltersuits started to be proposed."

Abin dips his head into a nod. "I lived in a mountainous forest that always had fresh morning air and open skies." He asks his next question hesitantly, turning it over in his mouth like he already knows what the answer is but needs to ask nonetheless. "What do you mean, back when it existed?"

Fiona swallows the bump in her throat. "Korea was one of the first countries to fall. When everything... when everything started changing, there were mass floods in Asia and people had to flee en masse to the west."

His facial expression doesn't change much, but Fiona can almost taste his shock. She tries to remember if she's ever cried about her homeland's early demise. Abin's mouth opens, with some strain. "Korea fell? How... Can you elaborate?"

Fiona bites her lip, but decides to give him the truth. "It's entirely uninhabitable," she gestures to the world outside her tiny apartment window, "Boulder's a safe haven compared to what Korea is now."

He looks out at the smog that leaves streaks on Fiona's window. "It's hard to imagine that this is the same world."

Fiona goes back to stirring her potato soup, or whatever it is, suddenly hating it all the more. "My mother was always very passionate about making sure that it'd never turn out this way. It's part of why she wanted to come here. To join Left Behind, although it was called 'We Are Behind' back then. She had some fire in her that just couldn't be quelled." Until it was.

"I have noticed that your hair is very red. Like a fire, almost." She can feel the pierce of his dark purple eyes on her as she stares into her soup.

He says it like it's a fact – which it is – and not an observation he has any particular emotional attachments to. But it still makes Fiona blush. She changes the subject. "What about you? What about your father?"

Abin shrugs. "I'm a bastard. I have no father, at least in its official meaning. He wasn't a bad man but it was always clear that I was to leave as soon as I was old enough."

There's no self-pity in his words at all, and that makes Fiona ache for him even more. "Surely you had some sort of father figure."

Almost immediately, Abin's face clouds over and his gaze drops to the dish in front of him. "I did. He is a phenomenal thinker who deserves nothing but the highest praise. If I could have him for a real father, I would."

"You should tell him that," Fiona says, touched by the emotionality of his words.

"I can't." His voice is curt and she can feel him pulling away.

She tries to pull him back. "Is that why you always seem so sad?"

He places the spoon back into the bowl and pushes his chair back, pulling away even further. "I'm not sad."

Fiona tries one last time. "I don't understand what you're going through. I don't even understand who you are, really. But you can talk to me." She wants, almost desperately, to show him that she's sad too. That's it been way too long since she's connected with a real human being. She tries to communicate all of this in her short sentences. But he stares back, eyes dead.

"Okay." Fiona's heart sinks. Just a little bit.

"Do you want another serving? I can even get you dessert, if you'd like?" She tries not to sound too frenzied but she does anyway.

Abin is already standing, his eyes trained on the cement floor beneath him. "I think I'm going to sleep now, but thank you." And he's pulled away.

She stood there, alone, for a while. There was a man whom Sorrow named his friend, Fiona muttered to herself almost in a whisper, even though there was no one there to hear.

This content has been unlawfully taken from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.

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Fiona's applying her nightly pimple cream — for everything's the world's lost, acne wasn't one of them – when the washroom lights dim and Shailene's face suddenly occupies her entire mirror. An emergency feature built in in case Left Behind ever has an urgent message.

"Shailene," Fiona says calmly. "I'm going to have to ask that you don't make it a regular habit to jumpscare me like that."

Shailene giggles, a girly sound that seems so contradictory to her personality. "Oh, Fi-Fi, you could only dream of being so lucky."

Fiona doesn't even dignify that response with an eye roll. She sets her cream down. "To what do I owe this pleasure? I have to get to school early tomorrow."

"This will be quick," Shailene says, still with an easy smile. Fiona remembers all the boys at school nominating Shailene Fischer for BEST SMILE, along with BEST TITS and HOTTEST ASS. It used to make Fiona's stomach turn with jealousy, or maybe it was something else. "Fiona, I'm not here to fight."

"I have to get to school early tomorrow," Fiona repeats, proceeding with her nightly routine. She slabs some under eye cream on. Dark circles have stuck through the end of the world, too.

"You're such a bot," Shailene says, rolling onto her side like these are old times and they're Facetiming each other on mobile devices that have long ceased to exist. "You know why I'm calling. I want you to reconsider handing the monk over to us."

"I'm not handing anyone over to anything," Fiona sighs, too tired to fight. "I'll give him your address, okay? He can go if he wants."

"Fiona, I have never seen anything like it." Shailene's brown eyes are wide with excitement, somehow bright despite their darkness. "I pride myself on knowing all about the Obsidian Tortoises' latest technological developments, and nothing comes close to this."

"This isn't the work of some street gang," Fiona says. "I'm starting to get the feeling it's beyond anything you or I know."

She means it as a deterrent, a warning, but it only seems to invigorate Shailene even more. "I know! And that's why we need him on the base, to teach us exactly how he learned what he knows and how to do it ourselves. Then you can have him back. Don't worry about that."

She's starting to get a resounding headache. "That's not what I mean, Shailene." Fiona rubs her temples. "He said... he said that he's from 1578."

"1578 where? 1578 Pearl Street?"

"The year 1578."

There's a beat of silence. And then there isn't. Shailene's voice becomes a shrill screech: "HE'S A TIME TRAVELING MONK?" The feedback causes the image on her mirror to crackle a bit.

"It would appear so."

Shailene's face comes even closer to the camera. Her features dominate the mirror and Fiona can't even see herself anymore. Everything is Shailene. "Fiona, this changes everything. Don't you see?"

"I said I would give him your address–"

"Fiona, you know we're losing." All of the excitement is drained from Shailene's voice now, and Fiona is struck by her sudden solemnity. "Left Behind has been struggling for a while. We're low on money. We're low on people. And every day, the government just gets stronger. The Compliance Order gets stronger. It's just a matter of time for us."

For whatever reason, it pains Fiona to say it. But she still does. She whispers, "I know."

"We're losing, and for what?" Shailene says, staring directly at the camera now. She's wearing pink plaid pajamas, which once again, strikes Fiona as completely against her personality. But it's been a long time since Fiona's seen her in her pajamas. "What has our entire lives been dedicated to? What were we fighting for? What did our parents die for?"

"Shay, don't."

"No, Fiona, I will. Because what was the point of all of this?" A hint of desperation enters Shailene's voice, something Fiona hasn't heard in a long time. "He changes everything, and you know it. There are so many questions – what if this is what we were missing all along? What if this is exactly what we need?"

Fiona doesn't answer.

Shailene's voice is quiet. "What if I can get Evie back?"

Fiona looks up sharply. "Shailene." Her voice is a warning.

Shailene's voice is full of unbridled hope. "What if this is what we need to save Evie? You know... you know how important this is for me. For all of us. You can't deny me that."

They stare back at each other, neither moving, impossibly at odds. Fiona knows she can give Shailene what she wants. Fiona doesn't want to be cruel, never wants to be cruel, especially not to Shailene. And she knows this will feel cruel.

Years ago, Fiona would have done anything for Shailene. But they were children then. And now, the years stretch between them, impalpable miles that separate them. Even now, staring into the mirror, Fiona is aware of how Shailene is just a pixel on a screen. Faraway. And different from the girl she once knew.

"I'll give him your address," Fiona says resolutely. "Please don't call me again unless you really have an emergency."

It takes everything in her to say. And with that, she slots her pimple cream back onto the shelf and turns to go to bed.

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Fiona wakes up the next day and it's the same as ever – dreary smog. Dehydrated yogurt (but two bowls this time). Unending dread.

But today, Fiona makes an executive decision that another toaster fiasco simply cannot occur, so she decides to bring Abin along as the new "security guard" for the school. The boys are particularly excited by his arrival, gushing over his "fancy dress".

He seems completely at a loss amongst the students, so Fiona giggles to herself as she prepares the whiteboard for the day. While her back is turned, someone says, "Are you Ms. Leigh's boyfriend, Mr. Seol?"

She spins back around. "Who asked that?"

Abin gives her a confused look at her mild outburst. "Friend," he says, as though testing the word and its weight against his mouth. "Yes, I suppose that I am her boy friend."

The children squeal and Fiona says, "No, no, he's not my boyfriend," but it's barely heard above the din of their giggles and excited whispers. When she sees his face fall a bit, she grabs his arm and whispers, "that really doesn't mean what you think it does," leaving him utterly confused.

He has the rest of the day to ponder it as he sits by the slatted windows, pretending to keep watch outside. Fiona reads an old picture book from her childhood, a simple one about a squirrel who adventures through a forest. It's considered a fantasy book now, of course, seeing as there are no more squirrels nor forests.

Abin seems intrigued by her day job as they make their way back to her apartment that afternoon. "When did you start teaching?"

"Just a little over five years ago," Fiona says contemplatively, remembering the days when she had to post spam-y ads all over the local forums. "I only had two students then."

"Did you always want to be a teacher?"

"No. Did you always want to be a monk?"

"No. But it was the best thing that ever happened to me."

"Me too."

They start to near her apartment complex, anonymous within the large crowds of other Sheltersuited residents, bartering and negotiating at various produce stands. "Do you always want to run the school?"

"In an ideal world, yes." Fiona tucks a strand of hair behind her ear. "But we don't live in an ideal world." The statement sits heavy between them, thick with implication. She turns to him with a grin. "Do you have any other questions, Mr. Interrogator?"

Abin has one more question, one that he saved for last because he wasn't totally sure what he was asking for. He opens his mouth. Closes it again. Finally, he says: "And what is a boyfriend exactly?"