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"He didn't seem to care, telling me I should calm down and that it was just a slow day. Slow days typically DON'T LAST FOR A MONTH STRAIGHT!" Benedict almost immediately regrets yelling, quickly breaking into a coughing fit. Vincent hands him a glass of water. "There, there."
You wait for a bit to let him recover before continuing your prodding. "So, you eventually had an argument, right?"
"Well, we had a few. He never really seemed to care, though. In retrospect, I think he cared about being able to work with me than treating the restaurant like...a restaurant." He shrugs.
"What happened to him, though? The restaurant closed from what I last heard after a pretty bad one."
Benedict looks away, his yellow eyes trying to avoid making eye contact. "I don't...remember. I just remember yelling at him, that he was insulting all of the work I was doing. Then he yelled back about how I was unrecognizable. It's fuzzy from there."
[BOUND BY DUTY] He's not lying, this might've been his breaking point before whatever happened to transform him.
[DYING LIGHT] Let's try to refresh his memory. Piece by piece, like we do to ourselves.
You grab the cleaver from your belt and hold it up. Benedict looks away even harder now while Vincent tries his best to not look at it either.
[HOPELESS WRECK] RIGHT, ISN'T IT SEEN AS A BAD OMEN? MAYBE THERE'S A REASON WHY.
"That...is mine?" Benedict mutters. "I don't get why it looks like that. I ke-keep my tools clean, perfectly clean."
"Anything else comes to mind when you look at it?" All you get is him shaking his head. Hm. You glance over at Ranger Zero, who's been distracting Cloud with some chit chat. You snap your fingers at her. "Bring out the meal."
"Alright." Zero nods, grabbing the boxed pile of meat seated next to her. She tosses it over to you, which you catch with ease. Seems like that little training session at the gym helped.
You opened the box, showing various hunks of still warm meat lingering inside. Like it was freshly cooked an hour ago. "Do you recognize this, Benedict?"
Now THAT gets a reaction. He pushes himself as far away from the box as he possibly can. His eyes have focused down into pinpricks. Vincent is slowly trying to get him to lay back down. "C-calm down, calm down, Benedict. W-what's wrong?" Vincent slowly gets his mentor back into the bed.
"I." A flash of recognition makes itself known on Benedict's face. "I...I thought, a new menu change was...was necessary! S-something no one has tried before! W-we tried everything and ap-apparently, my spark was gone!"
"I-I tried, r-really! I did! A-and we were almost bankrupt, so the only supplies we had were..." He pauses. Vincent's worried look is slowly growing into something a bit beyond worry. "Benedict? Please don't tell me..."
"...I can't get the taste of iron out of my mouth. I. I had to taste test it, s-see if it was perfect." His voice gets quieter and quieter until you can't even hear him anymore.
