4am Noodles | Zero Sanity Arknights One-shots

A Discovery

Kal'tsit yawned as she hit the light switch for the corridor. She wasn't expecting to hear complaints from some of the operators of missing instant noodle packs. It did make sense though, as Rhodes Island is an extremely large facility. It would take forever for someone to find something if they had lost it.

These complaints however, were quite strange. Operators have been complaining for nearly a month about someone taking packets of noodles from the many pantries in Rhodes Island. What for? Kal'tsit doesn't want to know. But, to put a stop to the stupid rumours such as 'the dead from the towns we passed by have found out about our noodles, so they stole them to give it a taste! They also don't want us to have much because they're angry they never got to try these types of food before!', she would do anything.

Leonhardt would also be given a temporary suspension from his pay to compensate for the rumours he had spread.

Sure, it was all to scare some of the younger operators out of good nature. But it was getting to the point where Kal'tsit would have five or more young people knocking on her door, asking her with tears in their eyes to investigate the ghost rumours.

So she finally decided to spend a night finding the culprit. Sadly, she had to solve the situation at 4am because she had been working overtime earlier. Plus, the sooner she found out who did it, the better it would be for everyone.

Kal'tsit stared down at the corridors, satisfied to see that there was no one present. Then she progressed to the main pantry. It was where most of these cases were taking place.

As she stepped closer, her ears could pick up the sound of rustling. Kal'tsit stopped and tried to be as quiet as possible to hear what was happening. Then, it was the telltale sound of a kettle boiling. It was stopped soon after with a soft click of a button.

Kal'tsit moved forward, making sure her footsteps were silent. This was not a case that she would need Mon3tr's help for, but she had a scalpel on her, just in case things got messy.

She reached the door to the pantry, and pried it open slowly, making sure the door makes close to zero noise. She heard the person inside stop whatever they were doing, so Kal'tsit decided to throw caution to the wind.

She slammed the door open and hit the lights, grabbing her scalpel with her right hand and brandishing it in front of the person.

"Stop whatever you're doing!" She said, her voice sounding as if she were commanding thousands of troops to lay down their lives for battle.

Her glare dropped in a millisecond. She could only stare at exasperation at the person she had nearly attacked.

It was the Doctor with their hood down, holding a kettle above his mouth, some of the water still dripping from the spout into his mouth. She could see some yellow in his mouth, so she assumed he had bits of broken up instant noodles in it. His left hand held an opened bag of seasoning, that looked ready to pour the contents of the tiny bag into the Doctor's mouth.

"... Doctor," Kal'tsit spoke, slowly lowering her hand with the scalpel. The man simply poured more water in his mouth, poured in some of the seasoning and closed it. He placed the kettle down on a table and immediately began dancing. Or... whatever spinning and walking around in circles meant.

The Doctor continued to do this for a few more moments, taking one big gulp to eat the finished noodles in his mouth.

"Kal'tsit!" He said, his voice slightly hoarse from the boiling water. "I wasn't expecting you here-"

"I should be the one saying that. What on earth are you doing? Stealing other's noodles? Not only that, eating them in such a barbaric way? You may have amnesia but you must certainly remember how to eat these correctly!" Kal'tsit exclaimed, moving closer to the Doctor and slammed her hands on the table.

"I know I know," the Doctor laughed, scratching his head. "I just got hungry, and a craving for noodles you know? Plus this way is pretty effective! And it's faster too!"

"... You will be the death of me one day, Doctor." Kal'tsit sighed. "You have no idea how many reports of missing instant noodles I've had people coming to me with. This has been going on for weeks! Weeks!"

"It's a very long craving. Having them at a time when you're undisturbed makes them even better!"

"Ridiculous."

Kal'tsit flicked the forehead of the man, turning off the switch used to power the kettle and threw the empty pack of instant noodles into the bin. She pulled him by his collar to leave the pantry, ignoring his cries of pain from the injury she had inflicted to his forehead.

While the mystery had been solved, at what cost?

Kalt'sit's sleep, and a little bit of her sanity.

(And this concludes the first chapter! I hope you'll enjoy what's to come for this book!

Just a heads up: not everything in here will be light-hearted. I may write in some angst fics if I ever feel like it in here.

If you're interested in this book and want to read more of my works, check out my other Arknights fic "The Misadventures of Leonhardt and Ayerscarpe" for one-shots focused on these two Cautus. It'll be much appreciated!

Thanks for reading this small author's note and I hope you have a great day/night!)