“Happy Birthday, kiddo.”

The greeting is somehow even more awkward as the smell of smoke fills the cramped apartment’s kitchen, Joel’s poor attempt at pancakes lying pitifully on a cracked plate in front of you. It is also, more notably, not your birthday.

To be fair, you don’t even remember when that is. You don’t remember much of your life before that wasn’t being shuffled between QZ’s. You barely even remember meeting Joel, and that had been a year ago. It was a miracle you remembered your own name sometimes. Still, the longer you stayed at Joel’s (and yours too, you guess) apartment, the more the gaps in your memory were slowly being filled. Blank spaces were scribbled over in clumsy yet meaningful attempts to fulfill your bleak childhood and the worn face of Joel on the rare occasions he was home.

You glance back down at the plate as he slides the nearly empty syrup bottle towards you. Joel had done the same last year, except then he had tried baking a cake, and that had caused an actual fire.

“Well? Now, I know it looks bad, but it’s just appearances. You can eat around the burnt parts here,” he continues, voice still light airy, a smile on his face as he points to a random spot on the pitiful pancake.