III. Legumes
Shinigami watched his son slowly count the peas on his plate, mouth working over each number. At three years old, he knew it wasn't practice; Kid was well beyond simple math skills and already into learning things done by children twice his age. Yet he was counting with intense concentration, a tiny inverted point between his brows. When he finished he shut his eyes tightly, a low moan escaping him. "What is it?" he said, moved by his son's obvious distress.
"There's... only... eighty-nine of them," Kid's voice hitched.
"Kid," the death god said reasonably. "You don't even like peas." Truth be told, he'd given Kid a smaller helping than usual tonight, because starting three weeks prior Kid had started refusing to eat kernel corn, which he loved. When pressed, Kid had declared that he wouldn't eat them because they weren't round. Peas therefore became the vegetable of choice, even though his son made a face at every mouthful and sometimes forgot to hide it.
Every day was a challenge to try and strike the right balance between parental and indulgent; he was, after all, new at this. The memories of his own parent - the previous Grim Reaper - were vague and punctuated by uneasy fear. His predecessor had been terrifying, almost gleeful in his duty. Shinigami had never wanted to be like that.
Kid's quavering voice pulled his attention back to the present. "I c-can't figure out how many piles there should be," he hiccupped. His fork chased the peas around the plate, but his vision was blurring with tears. "W-What's wrong with me? Why can't I even make a good pile? Father, I'm bad, aren't I?"
"No you're not," the god said swiftly, deeply and thoroughly unsettled. He transferred eleven of his own peas onto his son's plate. "I accidentally gave you wrong amount, Kid. It wasn't anything you did, it was my fault."
The child's face slowly brightened, as he began dividing the peas into two piles of fifty, followed by four piles of twenty-five, followed by ten piles of ten. By the time he was done they must've been colder than the grave, but Kid ate every one of them with a contented smile and looked to his father for praise. "Good boy," Shinigami said, patting the boy on the head and rewarding him with a perfectly square piece of brownie.