Hmmm welp ladies and gents. COLLEGE IS DONEEEE. I'M FREE FROM ZOOM UNIVERSITY, but now i just feel realllyyyy lost from like life in general bc i was driven to just do schoolwork. And now i don't have any summer employment like last year so its like reallyyyy weird. So look forward to faster updates and longer chapters and also better quality writing(hopefully) bc i can think the plot through better! :D though next month i am going to start some free online learning classes and also do some volunteering for covid families so we'll see wat happens
Andddd *drumroll* just wanted to thank everyone for answer the latest Q&A on names/nicknames and the origins behind them, it was super cool connecting with readers on that and learning more about you guys! :D
Also just wanted to take a moment to thank all the commenters in general!
Special thanks to Veira-Raven,Spoilerwayne316,Yuko Blue and Th3RedPyro for being part of the reviewer fam! (✿◠‿◠)
Also to the new follows/favorites folks that have recently joined! I didn't forget about you guys :D Brittany910,LilyKat57, Misatelle,tiblets66,topbacca,MTonks,HeartStarryNights. Hopefully I didn't miss anyone in the new/recent kudos fam
You guys really are the backbone of this fanfic ʕ•́ᴥ•̀ʔっ Just wanted to give shoutouts since was busy with zoom university in previous chapters
AND LETS GO BWAHAHAHHAHA
Hank woke up in the middle of the night again just like yesterday. This time, however, to use the restroom. And just like yesterday, he found a certain someone still up. Alina was in the kitchen mixing something on the countertop and when he stepped into the kitchen, the wafting smells of chocolate enticed him.
He silently walked up behind her and a smirk played across his lips as he found that she didn't notice him at all. He peeked over her shoulder and found her stirring a bowl of melted chocolate. Next to her is a dish full of fresh strawberries and parchment paper lined with chocolate-covered strawberries.
He purposely reached over her shoulder to one of the chocolate covered strawberries before plopping it into his mouth.
"It's good." He evaluated, while licking the chocolate off his fingers and chuckling at Alina's astonished face. Her eyes went round upon seeing him and it took her an extra second before she reacted to him.
"How-, wait." Alina's jaw slacked as she tripped over her own words. "Why are you still up?"
"I could say the same for you. What are you doing up at this hour, young lady?" He pointed to the clock that said 1:32am, while rinsing his hands.
Hank found Alina's jaw clenched as her eyes quickly darted to the floor, before facing him with a slightly guilty expression.
"Sorry," she replied back, rubbing her arm while continuing to dip the strawberries in the chocolate. "I couldn't sleep again."
"Did I wake you?" She looked up again from the strawberries, eyebrows furrowed together as her voice was laced with worry.
"Nah, kid," he said back. "This is just normal. Sometimes I just wake up in the middle of the night."
Hank gestured to the strawberries.
"What about you? Why are you making you chocolate strawberries?"
"Oh, I was preparing dessert for tomorrow's bento box." She grinned back.
"Bento, what the heck is that?" He went for another chocolate covered strawberry, but Alina quickly pulled back the parchment paper with a pout on her face.
"It means lunch box in Japanese." She pushed the chocolate bowl closer to her too and cast a suspicious glance at Hank's hand before working on more strawberries.
He took a sweep of the rest of the kitchen. There was a container of steaming hot rice sitting on the kitchen table, a recently cleaned pot sitting on the dish rack alongside three stackable plastic rectangular containers that he didn't recognize. I'm assuming those are the bento boxes? And sheesh, was she working on lunch in the middle of the night?
"You don't have to make tomorrow's lunch, you know?" He raised his eyebrows at her, but she was still focused on the last five strawberries. "Dinner was delicious already. You did good, kid." It was the second time that he complimented her on her cooking, but it was nice to see that she was still smiling back at the comment.
"I want to," she replied back while glancing at parchment paper strawberries. "Besides, I'm used to making lunch for my mother."
"You made lunch for your mother often?" He inquired as he leaned his back on the kitchen countertop.
"Yeah, all the time since she wasn't really home enough," she said back casually.
"And you were just used to it? Making lunch for your mother all the time?" Most teens wouldn't care, and usually wasn't it the other way around? Mothers are usually the ones packing lunches for their kids.
"Yeah, it's normal." She shrugged back.
Hank watched as she finished dipping the last strawberry with chocolate and put the remaining melted chocolate into a Ziploc bag. She then cut off the tip and started piping the chocolate into zig zag patterns onto hardened strawberry chocolates.
The strawberry chocolate looked like the ones you could order off the net. Within some of the zig zag patterns occasionally she'd put dots, hearts, or little stars. He found himself in awe at her technique as she didn't falter at all during the entire process.
Alina suddenly jumped up after finishing the last of her piping, "Oh yeah!" She quickly threw away her used Ziploc bag and then turned to him with eager eyes.
"Is it alright if I bleach your bathroom?"
That...was not a question Hank expected, "Ummm, why do you want to bleach my bathroom?"
Alina looked sheepishly at the ground while tapping her fingers together, "Uhhh, I-uh-not saying your bathroom is bad, but it could look better? I,um, just really wanna refurbish it." She gave him a pleading look while he just stared at her.
Hank looked at her, flabbergasted. Alina, noticing Hank's shock, quickly spoke up, "Your bathroom is really nice! Really! I just want to make it look shiny and new!"
He didn't respond right away, as his mind was still wrapping around the idea.
"I promise I won't make it look worse," she said, trying to persuade him. "I've done it before at my home all the time. I clean really well, I can prove it!"
He blinked a couple of times back at her, while he thought through everything. Well, my bathroom is already not in the best of shape. It can't be any worse, right? Wait. Is it really that bad looking? Of course it's a little shabby I guess? But not that bad right?
He snapped out of his train of thought, and found that Alina's pleading eyes were still trained on him. He finally mumbled out, "Sure, go at it kid."
She gleefully smiled , "You won't regret it."
As soon as he saw that smile, he thought, Oh, I kind of already do.
He then went to the restroom and just as he closed the door he heard her say something again.
"I'll clean and vacuum the living room too if that makes you feel better!" (dialogue coming from another person needs to be a space down)
Hank simply shut the door behind himself, rubbed his hand over his tired eyes and silently wondered about his fate. It was, what, 2 am in the morning? And already on the kid's second night here, she was doing so much. The fried rice was amazing, he hadn't had a good home-cooked meal in a while. Next thing he knew, she was working on lunch in the middle of the night and putting together mouthwatering chocolate strawberries.
Now she wants to clean his house? Hank chuckled to himself as he moved his hair away from the front of his face. He picked up one heck of a kid from the streets. Her parents were incredibly lucky to have raised such a diligent person. She was like a workaholic.
He wished he could say the same for himself. He sighed and stared at his reflection in the mirror. His hair was unruly, a coffee stain taking up the bottom right of his worn out grey T-shirt, and his old age was clearly not helping the bags underneath his eyes. The picture perfect image of a drunk ass with his life all over the place.
He was getting better though. Ever since Connor stepped into his life, he started to get to work on time, cut back on drinking a bit, and actually started to be nicer to his colleagues. But Hank always wondered if it would be enough, if he could really change himself around
-to that same man he once was in his prime years.
He hoped that Alina would stay the same way as she was right now, that she wouldn't face any more hardship that would have her turn out like him. Hopefully she'll get a nice family that adopts her. He would hate it if such a bright kid had to stay in the foster system, tossed around like a rag doll.
Alright, enough of this crappy talk.
He quickly splashed some water on his face, wiping the excess with a towel and then finally used the restroom When he stepped out of the bathroom, he found the kitchen neatly tidied up already. Connor did the same for him when the boy first moved it. The boy had rearranged his kitchen into a more 'efficient' formation, cleaned up the dishes quickly after every meal, and made everything look shiny new. It's always the kids, huh? The next generation that would make things better than the last.
Alina was now plopped on the sofabed and she had the TV turned on to the prerecorded Detroit Gears games.
She turned to him and asked, "Do you want to join me?"
Alina's eyes lit up when Hank took a seat next to her and they decided on watching a game that happened a week ago. Just like yesterday, Alina nodded off after about half an hour into a game. At this point he wasn't sure if she actually enjoyed watching basketball or found it boring enough to use to fall asleep.
Regardless, he was prepared for her sleep endeavors this time, propping up a pillow on his right shoulder in case she fell asleep on top of him. He also placed one on his lap on the chance that her head would roll off. After putting up a third pillow behind his neck, he turned off the television and eventually dozed off.
Hank woke up to the smell of eggs and coffee wafting around in the living room. He was currently sprawled on the living room couch with Alina nowhere to be seen. He assumed that it was her cooking, considering that he smelled seasoning dancing in the air instead of smoke.
"You did it!" He heard Alina say cheerfully. "Seeeee, it's only a little bit burnt. It only took a couple of tries."
"Five, you mean," Connor said back dejectedly.
"Sumo likes them though!" Alina enthusiastically replied, most likely in an attempt to cheer him up.
"Sumo likes almost anything."
"Woof!" The old St. Bernard barked excitedly, probably in response to the mention of his name.
"I'll eat it," Hank said, raising his arm up to volunteer as a tastetester. He got up to see two very flustered kids staring back at him from the kitchen. A smile erupted from Alina's face as soon as she saw Hank heave himself off the old couch.
"Good morning Hank!" Alina said, waving a hello with the spatula in her hand.
Connor on the other hand looked nervous and seemed fidgety when he handed over his fried eggs to Hank. He sucked in a breath before braving a bite into Connor's fried egg. He bit into the egg, and surprisingly...it was good. There was also a bit of seasoning on it and only the fringes of the eggs were burnt. He chowed down on the rest of it and gave Connor an approving thumbs up.
"Not bad son." Hank watched as the edges of Connor's mouth quirked up to a smile.
Alina quickly turned to Connor smiling brightly, "Good job!" She put her hands up as if to go into a 'high five' motion. Connor on the contrary, did not understand her actions and tilted his head in confusion when she tried to high five the android. She ended up gesturing for Connor to mimic her, to which he hesitantly put his hands up.
"High five!" Alina said, giggling as she gently slapped both their palms together. Albeit it was initially a bit awkward, but once the girl explained it was a way of expressing happiness, the android tried it a couple times more. To Hank, it was like watching a toddler learn something new and become slightly obsessed with a new skill under their disposal.
"I think I quite like high fives," Connor said, after doing it for a third time. "It's like a mini exhilaration." The two did one more set of high fives with a 'Yay!' at the end before Hank cut off their little culture lesson.
"Alright you two. Let's get breakfast moving along."
The pair finished cleaning up the kitchen and then Alina brought Hank what looked like a bowl of pudding.
"It's Korean Steamed Egg, give it a try." She placed on the dining table a bowl of her own and cut into the yellow custard-like material with her spoon.
Hank did the same and marveled at how easily he was able to cut into the yellow substance. He brought up the jiggly custard to his mouth and found the egg melting in his mouth. It had a mild savory taste with a tint of sweetness. This was good, even better than any normal boiled egg. He dived into the custard a second time and was astounded by how his spoon could bounce off of it.
"Do you like it?"
Hank looked up to Alina staring intensely at him.
"Of course," He responded. "It's really good. I don't have much culinary knowledge, but I would give it 5 out of 5 stars. Did you really just make it this morning?"
"Mmhmm!" She proudly hummed. "It's really simple though. All I needed was some eggs, soy sauce, salt, sugar and water. Then I mixed it all up and steamed it."
She then gently tapped the edge of her bowl, "The only tricky part is estimating the same amount of water as eggs mix to have a good consistency. That's how you get that nice texture from mixing all the ingredients together. I also added some seasoning on top."
Connor suddenly leaned forward and eagerly pointed to their bowls, "Can you teach me that too?"
She happily agreed and then started to spill out other egg recipes that she learned for the rest of breakfast. After breakfast, the trio got ready for Hank and Connor's work shift.
They later ended up clocking into the precinct just around 10:07 am, to Connor's disappointment, who wanted to arrive on time exactly at 10 am. The day went on like usual with looking over cases and analyzing them. The only slightly abnormal thing was probably Alina just sticking around their desk for the majority of the day. He trusted that she could look after herself, while Connor and him attended briefings and whatnot.
For the morning, they looked into Serendipity's and Eris's social media accounts, as well as those anyone related to them. They managed to contact Eris' family as well to tell them about the unfortunate news. Apparently they didn't keep in contact with her after Eris started college, but were still stunned by the sudden revelation of her death. The parents and younger sister agreed to an appointment to talk about Eris and any potential enemies she had. Hank and Connor also had to make several calls to set up interview appointments with several of Eris' other friends and acquaintances.
Hank considered the biggest pain in the neck: the community college that Eris went to. Sometimes killers ended up being those people that you only encounter briefly in some random setting. The victim wouldn't recognize the encounter as something big, but the killer could interpret it as otherwise. It could take days to screen the number of people Eris encountered at her college. Man, he couldn't wait to have to talk to all these people. He inwardly groaned just at the thought of the amount of notes and information he'll have to take in.
The one good thing so far that they had on this recent case was an idea of what happened. Hank and Connor pieced together that the intruder or intruders must have made several runs to Eris' house and potentially either managed to outline the house structure from those runs or have a blueprint of the house.
All of the ventilation shafts and majority of the house crevices that allowed natural air flow into the house were intentionally sealed with either rocks, dirt or moldy leaves. The fact that the house ran on an Exhaust-Only Ventilation System only heightened their suspicions. This type of ventilation system expelled stale air from the house without providing a specific source for replacement air. Make-up air usually infiltrated the house from leaks in the building shell and through intentional passive vents. Another concern that Hank had about Exhaust Ventilation Systems was that along with fresh air, they can also draw in pollutants such as fumes from an attached garage.
They knew.
That was the first thing that popped into Hank's head when he heard about all the major ventilation spots being covered up. These intruders knew about the layout of the house and its specific type of ventilation system. It would have been too much work for one person alone to handle all the research and preparation done on this house alone. But for the final act, it might have just been one person in the very end.
Another thing Hank and Connor pondered about was the extent of the research the intruders did on this household. Did they choose that specific day because they knew Eris' schedule? Was this a a stalker situation? How much did these intruders know about Eris' social network? Did they know that he and Connor were the ones on this case and would try to impede their investigation?
Hank took a deep breath and leaned back on the DPD chair while stroking his beard. What the hell, man.
The analysis of the metal used to pick the lock wasn't much help either. It was a common steel metal manufactured in Detroit, found even in the everyday paperclip.
Other than that, they knew that the intruders were very well-versed with engineering. They understood the mechanics of an Exhaust Ventilation System, the wiring behind a thermostat and the workings of a gas furnace. He and Connor were probably going to have to scout around Detroit for companies or shops that deal with thermal engineering. Maybe look into employee lists once they narrowed things down a bit more? Should they look into the ones near the community college first?
He racked his brain some more on the pile of stuff he'd have to look into with this one case alone before giving a tired sigh. All in a day's work.
"Why don't we take a lunch break?" Connor said to him, while placing a new cup of black coffee onto Hank's desk. "Taking a break is good for your mental health and it helps to have a fresh pair of eyes look over everything."
"Sure, why not?" He gruffed. "Let me show you the famous Chicken Feed, kid."
He slowly got up to go out, but noticed that the two kids didn't move.. Instead, Connor was helping Alina pull out something from the bag they brought from home. A 3 layered lunch box? She had two sets and pushed a blue set to Hank's desk.
"I made you lunch too!" Alina said smiling sweetly and opening her own purple lunch box. She opened the top compartment to reveal a previously hidden thin compartment set with a spoon, fork, and chopsticks. Then, the next one had small pieces of fried chicken, ketchup dip to the side, and some lettuce with cherry tomatoes. The following compartment had steaming white rice. Finally, the last large compartment had some cloudy soup with greens and cubes of tofu.
"Wow," Hank took a seat right back down and opened up his to reveal the same thing. The only difference was that his lunch box had yesterday's beef fried rice instead of white rice like Alina's. It must have been leftovers.
"Is this the bento box you were talking about yesterday?" He asked.
She nodded back enthusiastically and proceeded to talk about each dish compartment.
"The bite size fried chicken here is called 'karaage'. I had it paired with leftover fried rice from yesterday." Alina then pointed to the cloudy greens soup. "This is called miso soup. It's a bit towards the salty and savory end, so Connor kinda didn't want me feeding you this. But I managed to convince him otherwise with the greens. Don't worry! I made sure not to overwhelm it with leaves, they are really mushy and you won't even notice when you swallow them."
He simply raised an eyebrow at the cloudy and misty soup substance, but took a sip regardless.
He then quickly clasped his hand over his mouth in shock. It was good. He wished he had more words to describe it, but he couldn't. All he knew was that the more he drank of this 'miso soup', the more he craved it. True to her word, the soup was very smooth and slipped right through his mouth. It left this warm and fuzzy feeling in him too. Chicken Feed was nice and always had a place in his heart, but this was different. It felt like the food that a mother would give, with lots of love and care, even if it wasn't perfect.
Hank then took a bite of the 'karaage' fried chicken, and found that there was a light crispiness in its texture while the inside meat was incredibly tender. He peeked over to Alina eating hers and found that the ones in her boxes were slightly more darker and a bit burnt compared to his. Did she give the better batch to him? He quickly picked up two from his own batch and exchanged them with the burnt ones from Alina's.
She looked up from her meal in surprise from the sudden gesture and gave a confused look.
Hank on the other hand, stuffed his mouth with the newly acquired darker fried chicken pieces and huffed out, "These are better." He heard her give a light chuckle back and saw the edges of her mouth curl up slightly into a smile.
"The chocolate strawberries are in the fridge, you can have more of those."
"50-50," he said
She paused, maybe to consider Hank's suggestion, and later replied with a mere 'alright'. The smile of her face suggested she was amused by the idea.
Meanwhile as Hank and Alina were eating lunch, Connor was still meticulously looking over the recent case information. Hank had to remind the boy to take a sip of thriuim or take a breather even if Connor didn't need to eat.
When Connor pulled out the thirium packet though, the boy stared at the packet for a bit with his mouth agape. Connor looked to Hank in slight confusion, before revealing the other side of the thirium packet with a smiley face emoji.
"Ahhh, I added that to your packet." Alina explained after wiping her mouth with a napkin. "I didn't want you to feel left out at meal time. So I added an emoji sticky note."
"What do you think? Do you like it" She asked hesitantly with an earnest expression.
Connor suddenly straightened up, took a piece of tape from Hank's desk and tapped the bottom part of the sticky note down onto the thirium packet before giving a gleeful smile.
"I do, it's a neat touch to the standard packet." Connor then gently rested his fingers on his chin, "I wonder if Markus would like this idea for Jericho. I feel like it would make the packets look more friendly. Maybe Simon will like it too?"
Suddenly Tina peeked over the trio's shoulder on her tippy toes with a curious expression.
"Oh, what's this? It smells nice. Is that fried chicken?" Tina leaned forward some more to get a closer look. "It looks as good as it smells."
She then erupted in a series of follow-ups, "Oh! Is that star shaped tofu in miso soup? That's so cute! Pearson, come look! Who made these? They're different from your usual, Hank."
"Alina made them, she's a real talented cook," he said proudly.
Gavin then popped over right next to Tina, probably checking out all the commotion.
"What? Pipsqueak made that?" Gavin commented with a haughty look. "That's some classy ass food there, no need to lie old man."
Hank saw out of the corner of his eye Alina puffed up her cheek while casting an annoyed glare at Reed.
"Nope, I've witnessed the kid's cooking firsthand. She's a good home cook."
Tina nudged Gavin with her arm, a cocky smile on her face, "What, are you jealous that a kid cooks better than you?"
Pearson finally came over from her corner of the DPD, eyes brightening up at the sight of bento boxes. She instantly took out the camera function of her phone and excitedly asked if she could post them on her instagram while crediting Alina.
"These look amazing!" Pearson raved while taking a picture of the miso soup. "It's that cute bento box design that's designed to keep things warm, right? That's why you put the miso soup on the bottom and then rice and finally the chicken. The steam from the bottom ultimately affects the overall thermal temperature. Genius idea that I always loved with cute bento boxes!"
Pearson then snapped a picture with Alina and the rest of the bento boxes.
Alina then perked up, "Oh, I have chocolate strawberries too with some simple designs too if you wanna take a look!"
"Yes!" Pearson pumped her arms in excitement and the two headed to the side of the precinct where the kitchen fridge was.
Meanwhile, Tina was still teasing Gavin back at Hank and Connor's desk.
"Come on, admit it!" She playfully batted at him once more and Gavin swatted her away.
"Psh, whatever." Gavin grumbled back before going back to his desk. Tina simply rolled her eyes after seeing Gavin leave.
The three of them then stared in silence at Pearson's and Alina's direction who were feverishly talking in the kitchen. They were out of earshot, but you could see them laughing and smiling while taking pictures.
Tina finally broke the silence, "She sure is a great kid."
"She is. She already offered to help around the house." Hank chomped down on another piece of fried chicken. "She cooked yesterday's dinner, today's breakfast in addition to this lunch. And apparently she wants to vacuum my house too."
Tina stared wide eyed at Hank, clearly taken back from the long list of Alina's ambitions. Connor looked baffled as well and spoke up about his confusion.
"Wait, she wants to vacuum the house? When did she say that?"
"Last night?" Hank casually took another zip of miso soup, relishing the salty but mellow taste. Hank sees Connor's face pull into a sulk. The boy is pouting some more while leaning back and folding in his arms.
"It seems you guys have been bonding over late night sessions." Connor's expression turned even more mopey while furrowing his eyebrows, "I wanna join in too."
"No one's stopping you." Hank laughed back softly. "It's more like I sorta find her still awake after I wake up in the middle of the night."
Connor still narrowed his eyes and determinedly said, "I'm joining."
Hank shrugged back, "Whatever."
Tina pipes up as well, disbelief in her voice, "I can't believe she just offered to vacuum for you."
Connor's LED flashed bright yellow as he followed up, "I might have to tell her that I already vacuumed Sunday, it should help lighten her load though."
Hank picked up another spoonful of fried rice and put it into his mouth. "Yeah, she's a real good kid. Lucky you, get to have her next week."
"You sure about that?" Tina playfully said as her eyes glinted. Connor tilted his head in response while Hank stared at her.
"I don't know~" Tina grinned some more. "I feel like a lot of unexpected things can happen."
"What are you getting at?" Hank wiped his mouth with a napkin. "The kid can't stay with me. I'm a bad influence. She's doing a better job than me in the past 2 days."
Tina shrugged her shoulders and twirled the pen in her hand. "I'm just saying. She was awfully attached to you and Connor on the first day. She insisted on being with you two."
Hank pinched his nose with the tips of his fingers, "That's cause Connor said some random bullshit."
"Hey!" Connor defensively shouted.
Hank pointed two fingers over to Connor, "You're still not off the hook for randomly inviting someone to our house."
Connor was taken back, twisting his mouth into a pout again.
"I know, I know. You were doing the right thing, kid." Hank added on and watched as Connor's shoulder relaxed some.
Tina let out a huff after watching the exchange. "Welp, just appreciate her while you still have her right now."
Hank flicked his fingers back in a light hearted manner, "Will do."
Author Thoughts:
Soooo elllo! I started reading on Webnovels and they really helped with story inspiration and what I thought was really neat was tht at the end of every chapter was a Creator's Thoughts panel on the chapter so I thought I could do that too and you guys could react to it if you wanted to.
Uhhhh I regret deciding to write 10 pages for one chapter XD Man, i think my creative brain is like blahhh right now and like the quality went down i feel like after writing so much? XD hopefully not as much as I hoped, that last part was hard to write, the lunch scene. But i hope this gives some perspective on Alina's personality
Aiya, Hank. Even after being a month with Connor, he still got some self esteem issues. (T^T)/ Dont worry dear, we know you are working hard to get yourself together. And nooooo, u gotta be that fam to Alina, dont let her be in that foster system. (Done some research on foster systems, some foster families r amazing though. But more often than not, the kid usually gets settled in and then has to move families again and it affects their mental health. I would say there would be a high chance in tht situation with alina in detroit's situation rn)
Connor learned new skills!
Connor learned 'high five!' Lvl 1
Connor learned 'fried eggs' Lvl 1
Lol its like a video game setting thing where u acquire new skills
Why did i spend so much time on food? I think its cuz im craving good food during quarantine XD
Random fun fact: i spent a good couple of hrs googling wats a typical work day for a police detective, i swear imma start getting ads on the police academy
Q&A Session: Do you guys have a favorite fried chicken place? And which one and why? Very random, but I'm curious. If the q&a session is weird, XD feel free to just pop in the word 'kudos' or a smiley face :) that works too. Not sure if this slice of life with slight fluff is good or not lol