The flatfish was grilling outside Vaien's cavern. It was above a big ashen pit dug and bordered with reddish stones. Two big wooden supports were hammered into the ground on each side of it and the roasting stick placed through those. A well-made contraption considering the materials made to use it.
And he had to admit the flatfish smelled great. He didn't know what Vaien did to it, all the man seemed to do was throw black powder and green, odd leaves over it, and the fish picked up a scent that made his mouth water. He was still incredibly hungry after their hike today.
Zhang Han accidentally made eye-contact with Vaien, who cocked his eyebrows playfully.
"You won't take your eyes off the fish. Is it that you have a grudge against it, or is my cooking great?"
It would be a lie to say that Zhang Han wasn't interested, but another part of him hated complimenting Vaien. Feeding an arrogant person with more reasons to full of themselves felt inherently wrong.
Zhang Han coughed awkwardly. "Well, we didn't eat like this on Gaojun."
There was genuine bafflement on Vaien's expression as he turned over the fish. "...then what the hell did you eat?"
"Erm...nutrient bars." Zhang Han gestured vaguely to the furs in the cavern. "I have one in the pocket of my spacesuit."
Vaien, the curious feral creature that he is, went and dug it out. He peeled open the wrapper then sniffed the brownish colored bar with great distaste.
"Fuck. It seems awful." He took a bite, then spit it out. "Disgusting! This ain't food."
He was about to throw it into the fire, but then seemed to think twice, reasoning that it might pollute their dinner's flavor, and chucked it off the cliff side instead.
Zhang Han rubbed his temple. "Hey. That would have been useful in an emergency situation."
"What situation? One where there's a food shortage?" Vaien shrugged dismissively. "Look around you, Zhang Han. There are no shortages of food here, as long as I have the ability to catch it."
"It was wasteful."
Vaien ignored him and poked the fish with a stick. It was close to ready. The meat under the crispy brown skin was juicy and flaky white, simmering as he turned it over and the oily juices rolled down the other way. He couldn't help but ask,
"Is that why you were so caught up by the river, too?"
"That was the first river I'd seen."
Vaien almost dropped the fish meat he was shearing off onto a wood plate.
"...are you serious?!"
Zhang Han thought that Vaien was a bit chatty now, but obliged his curiousity.
"We got seven minutes of shower water every other day on Gaojun. As you can reason, water usage was heavily regulated. Pipelines, a way of channeling water, kept all the systems underground and guarded so they couldn't be stolen from."
Vaien was incredulous. "Sounds dumb. What's wrong with your planet?"
But Zhang Han just shook his head, staring into the fire as a yellow flame licked into the air and dispersed. "Water isn't an infinite resource. It was often sent out with war forces and never returned, so we had to get more from other planets or harvest ice asteroids."
Although, the government probably also figured it was a good idea to lessen the amount of time people would have for introspection in the shower. The less time for their citizens to think for themselves, the better. Creativity was not encouraged.
Zhang Han quickly lost interest in talking about that when he saw a massive chunk of flaky fish held in front of him. It was steaming and tender, crispy brown skin lifting off from meat that fell right off the bones.
There were no utensils to speak of, so he just picked up a chunk to stuff into his mouth.
Zhang Han's dulled taste buds were hit by a myriad of flavors instantly. It melded in his mouth, a strong fishy taste, then the pepper and salt and herbs of which he didn't even know the name of himself.
He silently began to scarf it down like he was a starved dog.
Hands down, it was the best food he'd eaten in his entire life. He stared down at his portion of flatfish and saw that what he was given was probably close to 10 pounds worth of meat.
Simply put, he couldn't eat more than one third of it. But he wanted to. Zhang Han stared with intensity at the fish, but it was to no avail. His stomach wouldn't magically increase in size to accompany it.
Vaien burst out laughing. He never expected to see such a dumb expression on Zhang Han and wondered what kind of drab, pathetic life he was living before.
"You're like a starved animal!" he said, slapping his thigh. "And I can see your eyes sparkling. Go ahead, praise my cooking."
"..." Zhang Han kept his eyes on the delectable fish with an air of solemnity. "...it's fine."
Now Vaien burst out laughing even harder, but eventually he shut himself up and ate his own food.
Why was he getting so out of control and amused by this man?
Sure they had a deal to be fuck buddies, but Vaien had never planned on getting closer to Zhang Han outside of that. If he was being realistic, there was a 90% chance this powerless other-worlder would end up dead within the coming months. That is unless Zhang Han stayed holed up in his cave 24/7...but even then he could still meet a gruesome end.
Vaien could only blame it on the fact he'd been living by himself for so long. Anything could have made him laugh that much at this point.
In the end, Vaien finished half the entire flatfish to the bones. This was, naturally, an inhuman amount to eat. He glanced at Zhang Han while wiping off his fingers.
"Heh. You don't eat much, either, but I guess that's good. Less pressure on me."
"I suppose so," Zhang Han said, unable to take his eyes off the fish despite his stomach bulging from overeating. "What are you doing with the leftovers?"
Vaien just shrugged. "No way to store it. I usually threw out this stuff for the ripper lizard to eat, but now it's fallen down the cliff. I don't know if it'll come back."
"..." 'Fallen' down the cliff, as though it were an accident.
"Whatever. I'll just throw this down the cliff, too, or it'll stink up everything by tomorrow."
Before Zhang Han could object, Vaien had lifted the wood poll with the fish and nonchalantly flung it off the cliff. It flew out into the air at least seven meters and landed in the middle of the grasslands far below.
Zhang Han thought that was a damn shame.
But there was no use lamenting over what was gone. Zhang Han had other ideas to mull over, and that included how he could increase his own worth to Vaien to some degree. He didn't want to be a complete dead-weight. If he could offer any kind of use, that was all the more reason Vaien had not to abandon him after getting bored with the sex.
After all, Zhang Han was expecting that to happen at some point.
To him it was just how the world worked. Flippant people would throw away those worthless to them sooner or later.
Zhang Han glanced up to Vaien who was dumping some water over the fire.
"I was thinking we could take a hike back up to my spaceship, if that's possible," he said. "There might be a few parts worth scavenging."
Even if the ship crashed and burned, it didn't come out of orbit badly enough that it turned to ashes. As long as some rubble was left there could be a number of valuable items that he could salvage.
"Hmm…" Vaien hummed, his eyes had a slight gleam of curiosity. "It's not hard to go there as long as you stick with me. Might as well. What kind of stuff does it have?"
"Supplies like food, toiletries, electronics, my laser gun."
Vaien snapped his head up, attention fully captured. "Laser gun?! We used to have those at the village, but they've all run out of power by now."
Zhang Han was almost amused. "You even know about weapons. Was this planet colonized recently?"
"Not really. People here tend to live above the three-hundreds. That means even if we colonized only three generations ago, that's hundreds of years passed, but the newer generations still know about stuff like guns, ships, and outer planets from our grandparents."
Zhang Han let out a breath in astonishment. "I never expected that. And yeah, you're right. People like me tend to live to one-hundred and thirty, max."
Vaien had a sort of languid demeanor as all the food in his stomach digested. He yawned exaggeratedly.
"What's the point of me helping you when you're just gonna die in the blink of an eye…"
Lips drawing taunt, Zhang Han just clenched one of his hands into a ball. See, this is what he was worried about, this guy ditching him after he had his fill.
"That's why I wanted to go back to my ship," he said eventually. "Besides regular luggage, there could be useful parts. Almost everyone on Gaojun learns basic programming and technical skills. So I can turn some of the parts on the ship into useful items, potentially."
Like his right blaster, for example. Or to say, even the metal on his ship hull is reinforced adamantium. That kind of metal works great for armor.
"Sure, all right! I already said I'd take you," said Vaien. "At the least I can start teaching you what to watch out for around here."