Divine Milking System

Chapter 455: 455 | Good Taste in Content

The cafeteria hit different when people knew your name.

I’d spent the first three weeks at San Nicolas as a ghost. The fat lottery kid in the too-tight uniform who got lost six times on orientation day and ate alone until Belle Fox decided I was worth sitting across from. Nobody looked at me. Nobody high-fived me in hallways. Nobody whispered when I passed or nudged their friend’s elbow and pointed.

Now I couldn’t get through the front doors of the Apex Dining Hall without someone touching me.

"Monroe! Yo, Monroe!"

A second-year Obsidian guy I’d never spoken to in my life grabbed my hand as I passed his table and shook it with both of his. He had the build of someone who’d been training since childhood and the grin of someone who’d placed a winning bet on my survival. His buddy, a stocky kid with a buzz cut and a Ruby transfer patch on his shoulder, leaned back in his chair and saluted with a fork.

"Bro. The clip. You coming out of the gate saying you needed a burger. Forty-one million views. My mom sent it to me."

"Your mom has good taste in content."

"She wants to know if you’re single."

"Tell her I’m complicated."

Buzz Cut laughed so hard orange juice came out of his nose, and the second-year released my hand with the reluctant energy of someone letting go of a winning lottery ticket. The irony of that comparison was not lost on me.

I kept walking.

Three more people stopped me before I reached the food line. A third-year Sapphire girl whose name I didn’t know told me she’d cried watching the footage and asked if my scars hurt, then blushed when I said only when I breathed. A first-year Amber kid who looked about fourteen asked me to sign his notebook, and I signed it because saying no felt worse than the weirdness of the request. An Emerald second-year with wire-frame glasses and an oversized blazer stopped me to ask a detailed question about mana corruption tissue scarring that suggested he was either pre-med or writing a paper about my near-death experience, and I answered as best I could before his friend pulled him away with an apologetic grimace.

Every table I passed, someone looked up.

Not everyone stared. Some did the quick-glance thing where they checked to confirm the rumor, filed the information, and returned to their eggs. Others watched longer, the way you watch someone you’re still deciding about, someone who might be worth something or might flame out by Christmas. A few watched with open hostility, mostly guild kids who’d spent their whole lives being told they were special and didn’t love the idea of a lottery nobody climbing the ladder faster than their family money could carry them.

I loaded my tray with eggs, bacon, sausage, toast, a banana, two glasses of orange juice, and a protein shake. My body burned through calories like a furnace since the C-rank upgrade, and the Silver essence from Addison’s hospital visit had accelerated my metabolism into something that required feeding every few hours or my hands would start shaking. The cafeteria staff had gotten used to my portions. The woman working the egg station, a heavy-set woman with reading glasses and a kind face, gave me an extra scoop of scrambled without my asking and winked.

I found our usual table by the windows. The Pacific was doing its thing outside, blue and cold and indifferent to the fact that I’d been dead four days ago and was now being treated like a minor celebrity for asking for ground beef on national television.

Naomi was already there.

She sat in her usual spot, the one to the right of my chair that she’d claimed during our second week and never surrendered. Her pink and black hair was braided, the work neater than mine, which meant she’d done it herself this morning rather than waiting for me. The shell necklace from her mother sat against her collarbone, catching the early light. She wore the standard Obsidian uniform buttoned to regulation, her blazer straight and her tie properly knotted, because Naomi Love followed rules the way other people followed religion. The only modification was a small purple bruise just visible above her collar that she’d made zero effort to hide.

Her pink eyes found mine across the cafeteria the instant I cleared the food line. Her whole face opened up, the tension in her jaw releasing and her shoulders dropping half an inch, and she lifted one hand in a wave that was more reflex than choice. The wave of someone who’d spent three days not knowing if the person she loved was alive and had decided she would never take a morning for granted again.

I sat down beside her and she immediately scooted her chair closer until our arms touched. Her hand found my thigh under the table. She didn’t say anything. She just pressed her palm flat against my leg and left it there, warm and solid and real, and something behind my sternum that I’d been ignoring since the hospital finally unclenched.

"You look better." Her voice was soft. Not shy. Just careful in the way she got when she’d been thinking too hard about something and hadn’t finished processing it.

"I feel better. Vale only tried to kill me twice this morning."

"That’s improvement."

"I told him I’d file a union grievance and he said he didn’t recognize my union."

Naomi’s mouth twitched. She stole a piece of my bacon without asking, which was new. Three weeks ago she would have asked permission and then apologized for wanting it. The Gold buff had faded, but something else hadn’t. Something about watching me die on camera and then carrying my unconscious body through a collapsing dimension had rewired her operating system in ways I was still mapping.

Jordan arrived looking like he’d slept in his uniform and possibly in a dumpster. His tie hung at an angle that suggested he’d been attacked by the knot rather than the reverse. Dark circles lived under his grey eyes like permanent residents with a thirty-year lease. He dropped into the chair across from me, folded both arms on the table, and placed his forehead on his forearms.

"Morning," I said.

"Is it." Not a question.

"You want food?"

"I want the sweet release of unconsciousness. The food is a consolation prize." He lifted his head just enough to show me one bloodshot eye. "You know they’re calling you Burger Guy on the campus forums."

"I’ve heard."

"There’s a poll. Burger Guy versus Void Walker versus Golden Boy. Burger Guy is winning by three hundred votes."

"I’m honored."

"You should be. I voted four times from different accounts." Jordan’s head dropped back to his arms. "Where’s Belle?"

"Not here yet."

"Concerning. Belle is never not here yet."

Naomi’s hand tightened on my leg. "She’s coming."

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