"Tell me again why I agreed to do this."
"Because I told you to."
Kit looked up from the work he was doing. "Couldn't we at least use a little wizardry?"
Nita glanced towards her complaining partner, "No, there are two many people around."
Kit surveyed his surroundings. Counting Nita and himself, there were about twenty people picking up trash on the side of the road. Kit didn't truly understand what purpose he had here. It was a Saturday morning, and Kit was extremely tired from the combination of high school and wizardry that made up his entire week. He woke up that morning to the ringing of the phone. Nita was on the other end, informing him that he had signed up for a highway cleanup program. He had no recollection of signing up for any school related activities. When he finally reached the sight, Nita explained how she had taken the liberty of putting his name down for him.
"We could be summoning the element of wind to blow all this trash into one big pile. Or we could simply just teleport it all into the bag. Oh! I got it! Separate, parallel subspace pockets for each article of trash! All we would have to do then is merge those pockets together to make a compact cube of litter. We could use it as a paperweight. Doesn't that sound like fun, Neets?"
Nita didn't even bother to lift her head as gave a simple, "No."
Kit looked up at the sky with an exasperated expression. He still wasn't sure what was going on in Nita's head. She kept avoiding wizardry in her daily life. Sure, she'd still perform her duties as one of the universe's caretakers, but other than that, Nita had been doing things the hard way. She would use the phone instead of simply tapping into Kit's head or messaging through the manual. She took the bus to the cleanup, instead of an instant transport spell. The very fact that she was out here, the sun on her back, picking up other people's garbage, when she could just as easily banish the trash to some other universe, told Kit that something was up.
Looking back at her, Kit couldn't find any outside signs of what was happening inside. The only odd thing he noticed was the tiny smile that was apparent on her face. Kit hadn't seen her smile like that in a long time.
Picking up a half eaten burrito, he resigned himself to waiting the whole thing out. Seeing as how conversation was limited on the side of the road, he decided to find out what was happening with the burrito.
Hola muchacho. How's life as a leftover?
The burrito's reply came back in a bad Spanish accent. Mas-e-menos. Things could be worse. What's up with that chica of yours?
Concern swept through Kit's face. How do you know about her?
She's sending out tons of flavors, man. Tastes like chocolate and onions. A touch of something else. Could that be cinnamon?
The next look that crossed Kit's face was one of confusion. He tried to make sense of the burrito's message. Roughly translated into human concepts, the burrito had told him that Nita feeling a strong sense of content, but something else was plaguing her mind. He had no idea what the equivalent of cinnamon was to human emotions.
He was thrown out of his thoughts by Nita yelling at him. "Kit! Earth to Kit! Are you in there?"
Shaking his head, Kit replied with a stupid look and a, "Huh?"
Nita looked at him strangely, "Are you going to eat that or would you like to be alone with it for awhile?"
Kit looked down at his hand, still clutching the half-eaten burrito. He immediately dropped it to the ground, an expression of embarrassment obvious on his tanned skin.
"You spaced out on me for a minute. You sure you're ok?" said a concerned Nita.
"Sure, perfectly fine. I was just making small talk with the burrito."
Nita seemed to find this both intriguing and humorous. "Oh yeah, what were the two of you chatting about?"
Kit would have had to continue this uncomfortable line of conversation had it not been for the timely appearance of their science teacher, Ms. Jacobs.
"Christopher, Nita! We're moving further down the road. Hurry up!"
A sense of relief rushed through Kit's body as he began to pick up the full garbage bags and walked towards their new destination, another littered stretch of highway. The brief sense of relief that Kit had was suddenly flushed out of him as Nita started to speak.
"Kit, do you have feelings for me?"