Recovery

"Dialogue"

'Thoughts'

-----

It was a cold autumn morning, the trees were shedding their leaves, birds migrating to the southern hemisphere of the planet and the fireplace keeping the homes warm.

It had been a few weeks since Zenith woke up in this new world and he had been able to figure out a few more bits and pieces about himself.

'For one, instead of just being transmigrated, I kind of merged with the original, memories mostly. My overall personality is still the same with very subtle changes, mostly the emotions the original cared a lot about, like my unconditional love and trust for my new mother and Grayfia. Though it seems to be changing under my influence to something thing more primal, if you get the gist of it.'

Another interesting titbit Zenith found, his mother Maya was a doctor. How did he know? She took a sample of his blood for testing and making sure the disease did not come back...and the bland garbage food she was making him eat regularly, which she had dubbed as a healthy diet plan.

But the food was so bad, he couldn't take it anymore.

"Mother! Can I have some sausage? or even an egg would do." Zenith whined, looking at the plates his mother and Grayfia were having.

Their plates were full of bacon, sausage, and eggs, with roasted cherry tomatoes and toasted bread with butter and jam on the sides. In comparison, he was given a bowl of oat porridge with sliced bananas and blueberries, the disparity was striking.

Maya kept eating her bite of toast until it was finished, dabbing the napkin to clean her lips of any crumbs, she replied, "I have told you multiple times by now Zenith, if you want to recover as fast as possible, you have to follow the diet plan," here she adopts an overly exaggerated sad expression, her hand wiping the fake tear on her cheek, "or are you saying you don't want to spend time with your lonely mother?"

Zenith felt his eyebrow twitch, he decided to play along, "But mother at least think about my tastebuds, what would I do if I can't taste anything but bland food in future?"

"Oh dear, you don't have to worry so much. I am already fixing your body, I'll find a cure for it too while at it." Maya waved off his concern, giving an eye smile.

Zenith felt the corner of his lips twitch and sighed. "There's no winning from you mother,"

"I don't know what you're talking about." Maya chose to ignore whatever Zenith said and turned to Grayfia. "What's on the schedule today, Grayfia?"

Finished with her breakfast, Grayfia put down her knife and fork, and recited the schedule for the day, "Today is the final testing of your personal project, Miss Maya, followed by the reports Lady Barhomeloi asked for, which I might add you are already 2 days late, and finally, according to the timetable you have given me, we should be starting young master's physical therapy from today."

"Oh no, I completely forgot about the reports again, Lorelei would be furious," Maya panicked, a shiver running through her spine, she turned and gave an apologetic smile to Zenith. "Sorry dear, look like I will be busy for the entire day"

Zenith shook his head while begrudgingly eating his oats porridge "It's fine mother. We can start tomorrow or when you are free."

Maya scoffed as her face scrunched up, "Why would we wait till tomorrow? I am busy, you are not. I will give the routine plan to Grayfia, she will make sure you will follow it."

Zenith shrugged, "I see no problem with it."

"Then should I ready your training clothes, young master?" Grayfia asked as she takes care of the dishes.

"That would be greatly appreciated, Grayfia," said Zenith, thankful for her help, but it turned into a groan by the end. "And please for the last time, call me by my name "

Gratfia shook her head, but the mischievous smile ruined her serious look "It is not proper for a maid to call their charge by their name," she repeated for the umpteenth time.

"But you call mother by her name." Zenith retorted as he shoved the last spoonful of his oats in his mouth.

"I don't know what you are talking about, young master."

"Uh-huh,"

-----

Grayfia and Zenith moved to what they had dubbed as the "Exercise" Room. Since it was cold and cloudy outside, multiple ceiling lamps were illuminating the room, a bathroom was attached to it and a couple of windows on the walls, though closed. The only sign that it was not just an empty room were the few weights, yoga mats and a yoga ball laying around in the corner.

"Here are your training clothes young master, go and get changed, I will be preparing the equipment till then," Grayfia instructed as she shoved a tracksuit to me and made her way toward the equipment.

Zenith nodded and walked to the bathroom for changing. Once inside, he turned on the lights, an old filament bulb, well not so old apparently.

It's one of the more important pieces of information Zenith found, he was in the 80s, 14 November 1980 to be exact. He jumped about five decades in the past, he was still not sure if he should consider it good or not.

'I can make a fortune from what I know about the future, if the knowledge is still valid that is. But on the other hand, I have to use toilet paper now, I miss my bidet so much.' Zenith felt like crying and decided it was bad to be in the past. 'I don't have access to modern technology and the holy grail of entertainment, Internet either, so there is that.'

As Zenith was contemplating which devices he missed most from the future, a voice called out.

"Are you done, young master?"

"Ah, yeah I'm done." Zenith changed as fast as he could and walked out.

"Are you so afraid of exercise that you holed up in the bathroom?"

"I wa-" Zenith was about to retort, but his breath hitched at the heavenly sight before him.

Grayfia was donning a set of blue and white themed bloomer and sports bra. And it was doing wonders, her breast moving hypnotically in up and down motion and her ass swaying from side to side.

While Zenith was 10 years old physically, he was mentally a healthy 25 years old hot-blooded male.

'Why wasn't I given an adult body!!!' Zenith screamed mentally in indignation.

"Grayfia what are you wearing?"

"I had already laid out the mat and weights we will be using and since you had not come back till then, I changed to appropriate clothing for the job." said Grayfia with a blank expression.

'Appropriate my ass, I'm pretty sure parents would riot if the teacher wore those clothes in the school...not the fathers maybe.' Zenith matched her expression, followed by a shrug. "Oh well, I'm the lucky one, I guess."

The corner of Grayfia's lips twitched, but she continued like she didn't hear him. "Then follow me please, Miss Maya has already given me the routine and list of exercises to make you do, first-"

And that was how the next hour for Zenith passed, he was a little clumsy at times as his hand kept slipping, though why it kept happening only when he was helping Grayfia do her sets or why only when his hand were near her ass or breast? He had completely absolutely no idea.

-----

The afternoon rolled around and with that a nice afternoon teatime.

A young black-haired boy and a grey-haired maid could be seen sitting comfortably inside a gazebo in the garden, enjoying the afternoon tea with a dessert stand filled with an assortment of sliced patisserie cakes.

Zenith hadn't had a good opinion of tea in general in his previous life, but Grayfia opened his mind to what an actual tea should taste and feel like, the filth he was drinking in his previous life could only be considered as piss after having a cup made by Grayfia herself.

Zenith exhaled as he savoured the sip, "You know Grayfia, although you raise me since the day I was born, I myself don't know much about you." he spoke, as he looked at her with a curious glimmer in his eyes.

"Mm-hmm," Grayfia hummed, taking a sip from her cup, she nodded and put it down to look at him. "What would you like to know?"

"Anything really, like where are you from? how did you meet mother? " Zenith asked, he was honestly curious about her since neither mother nor Grayfia talks about their past much.

Grayfia seems to contemplate on the questions asked, her eyebrows squinted.

"You can say I was an unwanted child who was to be sold at a lion's den to pay off the debt of the people who created me." said Grayfia, as her brows furrowed and eyes glaring at the cup. If looks could kill, that cup would have burned to cinders multiple times by now.

Zenith was surprised, aside from the time he woke up, this was the first time he was witnessing Grayfia show emotion so openly. But something she said sets him off.

'Selling children? This situation sounds eerily similar to my own previous life, looks like no matter if It's the 21st century, 20th century or the middle ages, there would always be such inhumane and barbaric people.' Zenith scoffed internally. He did notice the weird way she phrased that sentence but didn't think anything about it.

"But the Barthomeloi Family found me before that and Miss Maya took me in." Grayfia continued, giving a nostalgic smile.

"Though my problems didn't end there, that would had been too easy wouldn't it?" said Grayfia with a self-deprecating smile. "I didn't know at the time but I had an illness that was slowly destroying my body. At most I had 15 years to live."

"WHAT!" Zenith exclaimed, he stood up in shock, his eyes widen as he stares at her in horror. "Does that mean you only have less than five years now?

"While I am quite pleased to see you care about my health so much, you can sit down and relax. Miss Maya had already taken care of it and now I am back to normal."

"She did? That's good." Zenith sighed in relief. "But didn't you said it was an incurable condition?"

Grayfia shook her head, "Incurable for normal people, your mother is anything but normal."

It was one of the mysteries, the original was too naive to ask. "What kind of doctor is my mother, Grayfia?" He asked, tilting his head.

Rather than answer, Grayfia seems to observe him for an uncomfortably long time, making him squirm. Did he ask something wrong? A kid is normally curious about what their parents do for a living, right?

Evidently finding what she was looking for, she nodded to herself. "Miss Maya is not exactly a doctor, do you know what a researcher is?

Zenith nodded, "It came up a few times In a novel mother used to read me."

Grayfia took his word for it, "She is a researcher, genetic researcher to be specific, but she had experience in multiple fields, so although she is not an actual doctor, she more than qualified to be one."

Zenith agreed with her reluctantly, 'Do medical studies actually work that way? Then wouldn't a vet doctor be eligible to perform on humans?' He personally hadn't had any experience in the medical field, he was a world-famous thief/ex-assassin, he was used to making weapons, oddly specific contraptions and develop programs, not how to cure or heal stuff.

"You mentioned Barthomeloi family, are we from some big family?" Zenith asked with a curious look, it was another burning question he couldn't find an answer to. No matter how high paying job a doctor/researcher can be, it shouldn't be enough to maintain a big stone mansion on the outskirts of London with acres of open fields, right?

"Yes, you would be correct."

"..."

Lack of response from Grayfia was a clear sign, she was not going to divulge any more.

Zenith thought of asking Maya directly, but that would have been an awkward conversion, after all, why would a kid even ask 'how do you earn enough money to main this big ass mansion?'

But since Zenith was a kid anyway, he decided to take advantage of the one resource that children had abundant in, more than anyone else.

Time

Maya had told Zenith in the passing that, this manor was owned by the Barthomeloi family for five centuries now. From that he was able to figure out his family was old, but nothing else. So he decided to do the things old fashioned way, he scoured through the entire history section of the library in their manor to see if he can find any Barthomeloi name of significance, but he found a grand total of nothing.

'The only knowledge I have is the head of our family is Lorelei Barthomeloi and she is my aunt. Why does this feel like one of those trashy mystery/thriller movie plots? ' Zenith thought with an amused smile.

If only Zenith knew he was correct to some degree, he just got the genre wrong.