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In the end, a simple salad with some home-printed tomatoes, questionable red slices of red meat that looked somewhat like beef and roasted sesame seeds he was gifted as a thanks by one of his colleagues.

It was tasteful, but nothing truly special. Basic, even for his standards.

Yme grabbed his phone, unlocking it to a streak of messages in a group chat made for the employees of the scientific company he was in. ‘Doctors of Ura,’ a very ambitious name given by the ego these colleagues of his had. Ura was their way of referring to their scientific dream world.

Did he like them? Well, he tolerated them.

His eyes read over the messages; most were complaining about their recent project having come to a halt or finding problems, while others complained about their clients.

He typed only once in a very, very blue moon, nearly navy blue with how rare it was.

‘Perhaps it is wiser to keep these thoughts to yourself. Or read over your contract of privacy.’

When he typed, the usually extremely lively chat became mouse silent and this time it wasn’t any different.

Did they like him? He did not care.

His colleagues are not his friends, nor his chosen family.

Family… 

Well, he did long for a natural one, somewhat.

Made from the same technical advancements as he was, something he could truly relate to. He had promised the old man never to think such thoughts, or at least not act out on them.

It’d be dangerous, he said, succumbing to the temptation of creating more beings like him; They’d simply be too superhuman with how he picked up on those around and his body altering to become stronger with each problem it comes to face.

Did he fear the overrunning of a new race in the future? He couldn’t understand why he wasn’t going to live until that old; Nor did he have any biological family to suffer through it if it were to happen.

The old man also complained lots about how the loss of compassion will become the fall of humanity more than it already has, so why would he be so against that idea?

Yme found himself lost in thought again, the fizz in his carbonated water sizzling against the glass, slowly sounding louder like that of white noise coming from an ancient television. 

These ancient televisions were already hundreds, if not thousands, of years old; no one could imagine having a television with an actual box and weight anymore.

All screens floated around you or on a surface.

Yme shook his head, then grabbed his glass to bring it to his lips, the jumping minuscule little drops of water wetting the philtrum of his face.

At first, he didn’t like the different taste of carbonated water, until he grew nerve endings on his tongue at the age of thirteen. The entire experience of consuming the tingling water had changed.

He finished it in a few big, impatient gulps.

Just the thought of the old man not having a family of his own besides him, his scientific creation of a son, irked him at times. If he could, why wouldn’t he?

He had been explained before and knew the concept of the social structure needing a specific route to get that far with another being… Not even going into the physical factor of perhaps being unable to even create life that way.

Well, that wasn’t something for him to worry about, as he wasn’t the old man; also, that topic had already been closed years ago: The old man had no time to truly think about family for his pursuit of science.

 Yme knew that was a lie, though. The old man always grew a bit red in his earlobes and nose whenever he’d tell a lie. He wouldn’t push on it, though; humans could get quite flustered.

It was time for him to get out of these uncomfortable, tight clothing. If there was one thing he wished he could reverse, it was the sensitivity of his nerves.

Certain fabrics and tightness could make him feel rather overwhelmed and irritated. He couldn’t just come to work in loose-fitted clothing; it didn’t fit the image he wanted to portray out in the open.

At home, he didn’t need to conform to that carefully curated image, however, as he immediately stripped himself out of the body-hugging turtleneck detailed with the strapped belt around his chest and dress pants held around neatly by a silver button engraved with his initials.

Stepping in front of a large mirror that covered an entire wall next to his large bed, he stared at himself for a moment.

Some spots on his skin didn’t grow any pores or natural blemishes yet. Some parts of his skin were a little too translucent, still making his strange, yellow colored veins that looked more like electrical cables shine through.

Yme turned to the side to watch his side profile.

At least his shapes were starting to look more and more natural. He had recently switched to a diet consisting of an old friend of his that he used to hike with.

He had started to take shape in his carefully curated body with years of work. He liked how it looked; he wanted it.

He took it.

He could, of course, have trained for years to obtain this body, but any other human would take a shortcut to have their desired bodies. If they said they wouldn’t, they’d simply be lying to themselves or attempting to look confident and different.

Humans have insecurities; they didn’t need to change them, as most of them were very uncalled for and entirely influenced by the enhanced things they see that weren’t even naturally capable of obtaining.

He was glad - to the extent he could feel that - he didn’t need any of this. He could simply adapt to what he liked or what he needed to fit.

Who knew what he would look like in a hundred years from now? He had grown quite accustomed to his current appearance; it’d be a shame to entirely change now.

There was only one thing he couldn’t change: his eyes.

His yellow-green eye was the only truly natural thing about him that wasn’t specifically altered to his taste and survival. 

His entirely black iris with a dark red cross was the metric clock feature he held, his own power. Just like the humans around him that possessed their own power, some were still born without, but they were in the minority.

The powers were still quite subtle, but there were some that jumped out. They were graded to different degrees upon their first discovery.

The old man never took him to get his power rated; he told everyone, and Yme, as a command, that his power was dormant and still had yet to truly come through.

That was another lie. 

The old man lied to everyone about his ability due to the sheer danger behind it, and how people may want to use him.

To Yme, it was more of a ‘do not tell, do not use’ lie. Dismissive.

He definitely used them.

What would be the fun of having a function and not even using it? 

Yme grew a little mischievous grin. It was quite useful to get out of certain situations, such as framing another and forming your own alibi.

He grabbed toward a neatly folded pile of clothing, taking out a light grey pair of sweatpants he had grown quite fond of.

The soft fabric on the inside felt nourishing and gentle, just like the black satin robe he slipped over his arms to hang loosely over his body.

It was 7 o’clock.

He had enough time to sit down behind one of his most prized possessions, his black-winged piano with inverted colored keys. The keys that are usually black, on this one being white, and the usual white keys are black.

When he sat down and looked at the reflection of himself on the ladder of black keys, he thought about that girl.

Miss Panza.

He hummed, then traced his fingertips over the grooves between keys. He pressed the key she had been mentioning for the past few sessions. 

B♭

He inhaled deeply. He had picked that note for her to hear constantly, as it was the tone of a flatlining machine within a hospital.

The tiles beneath her feet are like those piano keys beneath his fingertips. 

All for him to control.

He pressed the key a few more times, sometimes pressing his foot down on the right pedal below to prolong and blend the key as if he were sitting beside the actual machine that would drag the line of one’s heartbeat.

Eventually, he raised his hand from the B♭ key and began his free playing. His house would be filled with melodies ranging from many emotions.

Kaviar eventually waltzed up to jump onto his lap, his head and body bobbing up and down forcefully by the legs controlling the three pedals below.

His body was animated, flowing with a freedom his usual stiff and authority-demanding figure didn’t possess.