Alexithymia

'warm meals...'

❝ᴡᴀʀᴍ ᴍᴇᴀʟꜱ ᴀʀᴇ ᴍᴀᴅᴇ ꜰᴏʀ Qᴜɪᴇᴛ ɴɪɢʜᴛꜱ.❞

|Coast City

|December 1, 20:24 PDT

The gravel underneath Aurora's shoes crunched with every step. And if it didn't, she made sure to step on any particularly dried up leaf scattered about the sidewalks. There was plenty to go around with how bare the trees lining the streets were. 

Her right hand tightly gripped the brown paper bag. Every blinking flash of the yellow traffic light illuminated her young face as she blankly stared off at a random spot in the dark sky. At least being bundled up in her coat and gloves kept the night air from nipping at her skin. Well, except for her nose.

The crosswalk sign flicked on, and the automated voice broke her out of those wandering thoughts. She still looked both ways before trudging across the street. The rumbling motors from the patiently waiting cars urged her to quicken her steps across the wide street.

Maybe not so patiently waiting cause the moment her foot pressed against the curb, they were speeding off. Aurora merely settled her sight on the warmly lit sidewalk ahead.

Every so often, another person would pass by. Each in their rush or leisure to get to wherever they need to be. Her own tired eyes didn't focus on anyone for too long. Only enough to assure that she wouldn't bump into someone.

Her homework was done for the week, so there wasn't anything that needed her immediate attention. Meaning she could splurge her time on a drawing tutorial or two. 

She blinked. Thinking back to exactly how long ago she had been able to sit down and spend on her hobby. In all honesty, she couldn't really remember. Understandably there just wasn't any time for her to spend on leisure activities. Her young world revolved around school, training, team missions, and her small family. 

Without much thought to it, her body went up the four steps to get to her front door. She fished out the jingling keys from her pocket and unlocked the front door.

A soft glow lit up the hallway, and she hurriedly shut the door on the cold seeping in from outside. Aurora took off her coat, neatly hanging it in the small closet off to the side before double-checking that the door was locked. While she lived in a nice neighborhood with her uncle, something that was grateful for even without visiting Gotham those few times, it was a bit of a habit.

She can't really remember where she once lived with her parents, but it probably wasn't such a good place. Mainly images of concrete or really white tiled floors spotted her memories from time to time if she concentrated hard enough. Then again, it possibly was an entirely different random place she maybe once visited.

"Uncle, I'm home." As to be expected, there was no response. There hadn't been one when she left to pick up their meal. And there most likely wouldn't be one when she would leave early the following morning.

It wasn't odd. And she didn't ever really think about it anymore. Her uncle was just always busy with work, and now she was normally busy with school and any sidekick work. Lately Hal needed to be off planet often, which was somewhere she obviously couldn't tag along to. Intergalactic missions were ones she could definitely wait until having to go. 

So it was normally just her in the two-story house.

Her stomach let out a soft grumble, and she remembered why she had left her warm home in the first place. The young teen stuck her face in the brown bag, double-checking that all the items were inside. Even if something weren't there she wouldn't have done anything anyway. After all it was her fault for not looking before she left the diner.