Ara takes the train back to Sander, which means an hour and a half of waiting. She spends the first ten minutes sorting her Google Drive and her local files, putting them all into the past folder and creating new ones for the next year.
She tries her hardest to not spend the rest of the ride reading through her texts with Add. It's very tempting, and at about the thirty-minute mark, she caves in and goes through her collection of photos of Dynamo.
Even though he's not her cat, Ara has saved every photo Add has ever sent her of him. She has pictures of Dynamo asleep, Dynamo being cradled in Ms. Grenore's arms, Dynamo eating spinach leaves (apparently he likes vegetables), even scraggly Dynamo from when they first adopted him from the shelter. She leafs through them, smiling as she gets through the entire album and goes through it again.
Her phone suddenly buzzes in her hand, and she nearly drops it when she sees the purple hearts pop up. Already?
Add Grenore: woah have you already left campus?
Ara Haan: yep
Ara Haan: had to catch the train back to Sander
Add Grenore: holy shit
Add Grenore: I didn't even get to ask you the important thing
This is a statement that makes Ara very, very worried.
Ara Haan: what important thing
Ara Haan: I am a genie I will answer your questions
Add Grenore: Elesis said you once played so much Tetris that you astral projected
Add Grenore: please teach me your ways
An old lady on the train actually nearly falls out of her seat when Ara shrieks in response.
Ara hears Eun before she sees her.
It's like the little vixen knows she's coming, and has decided to start whining and pawing at the door. She hears the scratching noises, the little yaps, and lets go of her suitcase in an attempt to protect her kneecaps.
Unfortunately, this attempt proves to be futile. The door swings open, and a blur of white leaps out and lunges, knocking Ara to the ground. "Woah, woah!" She laughs, trying to shield her face as Eun licks at her nose energetically, batting at her shoulders with her paws. "Eun, stop that!"
Then someone whistles, and Eun yips and scrambles off. Ara bounces to her feet and runs to crash into Aren, shutting her eyes to try and contain her smile. "You look terrible," Aren chuckles, patting her on the back. "But hey, you survived the semester. Congrats."
"Aw, shucks, thanks," Ara says sarcastically. The last time she saw her brother was over the winter break, and honestly? He looks much better—the dark circles under his eyes are still there, but more faded, he's shaved his face, and his hair is clipped cleanly just above his shoulders. "Are Mama and Baba home?"
"They're out shopping for groceries." Aren stops to flick her in the forehead. "You said you'd be home in time for dinner, so they decided to make a banquet." He laughs out loud, which is a sound like rain in a parched desert. "How'd you get home so quickly?"
"Took the first train back." Ara purposely omits the part where she left after only barely saying goodbye to her few acquaintances (and fewer friends) to catch said train. "I want to surprise Mama and Baba."
Aren only smirks. "The kitchen floor is yours."
In the thirty minutes before their parents return, Ara has raided the familiar and yet stranger fridge for the last package of bacon, and the sack of potatoes in the basement for the roundest potatoes. Aren watches as she pushes the potatoes across the slicer, over and over, and placates Eun with treats while she seasons the potatoes with olive oil and rosemary.
She rolls them up with the bacon into beautiful roses, and puts each one into a hole on the muffin pan. She has only just stuck the entire pan in the oven when the door bursts open again, and Mama drops her grocery bags on the floor to wrap Ara in a hug, screaming.
"Don't scare me like that," Mama babbles, smothering Ara in her embrace. Ara has to think about what she's saying for a moment before making the switch back to Chinese. "And give us some warning next time before you decide to surprise us!"
"But that'll break the surprise," Ara whines, before laughing and giving Mama a kiss on the cheek. "Yeah. I'm finally home for the summer."
"No co-op this year?" Baba asks. She can see his greying hair, not covered up with dye like Mama's, and feels a twinge of nostalgia. "That's great, I could use an extra hand with the garden."
When Ara pouts, he just laughs, ruffles her hair, and gives her a kiss on the cheek, all prickly from his stubble. "Just let us handle dinner this once. You go relax."
She sticks around in the kitchen anyways, just so she can pull the potato bacon roses out of the oven and watch her parents' reaction. Aren steals a slice of potato when no one is looking, burning his tongue in the process. They all laugh at his misfortune.
Eun spends the better part of the evening snuggled in Ara's lap, her claws digging slightly into her jeans. Ara takes out her phone, points it down at the sleeping fox, and takes enough photos to send to Add for the next three months.
Dinner isn't a grand affair, but it's colourful and delicious. Mama makes the spicy fish fillet in oily soup, and bakes Chinese cabbage with bacon and milk and mozzarella. Every bite is accompanied with peaceful chatter, about how Ara's doing in school, how exams were, if she's been eating well. Eun nips at their ankles until they let her have a few slices of stewed beef.
After dinner, Ara finally brings her suitcase up to her old room. It smells like her lavender and valerian sleep-aid potpourri, a little musky but not overbearing. The beige walls are still covered in certificates and awards from her short-lived piano playing career.
Eun comes up the stairs with her, and curls up in a perfect little ball on her pillow as she takes her clothes and electronics and whatnot from the suitcase. "I should send Add a photo of you," she muses, setting the last of her clothes in her old dresser. "Here, get off my pillow."
She hoists Eun up, lies down, and sets her on her stomach. The fox yawns, blinks at her as if to say "gee, what a scrub", sets her head on Ara's chest and promptly falls asleep.
Ara smiles, trying to contain her laughter as so to not wake up Eun. "Lemme take a photo of you now, and send it to Add," she says, reaching for her phone on her dresser.
She extends her arms high over her face, smiling gently and snapping an aerial selfie of Eun's white fur against her burgundy t-shirt. It turns out pretty okay, just concealing her eyes but including her smile, so she keeps it to send to Add.
Ara Haan: [IMAGE]
Ara Haan: #blessed
Add Grenore: aajlkfeoiruaslknfdhj
Add Grenore: great now I have to send one of me and Dynamo as payback
Add Grenore: [IMAGE]
Ara does, in fact, drop the phone on her own face out of shock this time. Eun stirs, but Ara stops moving for a bit, and soon the fox is back to gentle purring sleep.
Still a bit in disbelief, Ara picks up her phone, rubbing her sore nose with the other hand, and looks over the text again.
Add Grenore: [IMAGE]
(It's an image of Add and Dynamo composed in a similar fashion to Ara's photo. Only Add's mischievous smile can be seen of his face. Dynamo's beige and brown fur contrasts greatly against his dark purple shirt, which has ridden up his hip.)
Add Grenore: as cute as this photo may be, Dynamo is a literal fluffball and I am literally burning right now
Ara Haan: oh please
Ara Haan: you should see Sander at this time of the year
She wipes her forehead with the back of her hand, not realizing how much sweat has accumulated, and sends another of her good photos.
Ara Haan: [IMAGE]
(It's an image of the table covered in colourful food. At the head of the table is seated Ara and Aren's parents. They are smiling happily, clearly proud of their children and the food they've made.)
Ara Haan: god bless my parents
Add Grenore: oh my god that looks so good
Add Grenore: but is it as good as this
Add Grenore: [IMAGE]
(It's an image of a smiling woman with snowy white hair, not unlike Add's, and deep indigo eyes full of laughter. She's holding up a fork with a single piece of bowtie pasta on it. It's very clear that this is Add's mother.)
Ara Haan: oh my god is that your mom?
Ara Haan: she's so pretty?
Add Grenore: yeah! she says thanks btw
Add Grenore: she brought me to eat out at our favourite local Italian diner
Ara Haan: our parents are the real mvps here
Add Grenore: oh definitely
"Do you," Aren asks over breakfast, "have any new friends?"
It's a strange question, but Ara knows exactly why Aren is asking it. "Yes," she says truthfully, because Aisha is a new friend, and so is Eve, and Ciel, and Ain, and Add. "I've got lots of new friends."
Aren gives her a look, bitter and guilty all at once. "You don't have to lie to make me feel better, Ara. Tell me the truth."
"That is the truth, though," Ara insists, reaching into the pocket of her bathrobe and extracting her phone. She has texts from Add and Aisha, and pictures of their squad posing with Rena and Raven after graduation. "Here. Proof."
She shows him the texts with Add (along with her entire collection of Dynamo pictures), pictures of the last day of school, more pictures of Dynamo after trading some for more images of Eun. Aren actually cracks a smile when she counts out pictures of Eun to send. "Wow. Nice trading system you've got there. Like illegal contraband."
"We started doing this to survive midterms," Ara says, texting a quick thank you to Add. "Then it just became a permanent thing."
"So you've made one new friend," Aren says dryly. "That's better than I'd expected."
Ara smacks him in the back of the head. "Stop being so mopey," she says. "I have other friends. Besides, you know I wasn't much a social butterfly before college, either."
"Yeah, but now I've just made it harder for you to do anything," Aren sighs, poking at his soggy cereal with a fork. "Sasha's friends hate you too, don't they."
"On the contrary," Ara says, swallowing down cereal and milk and guilt all at once. "I think they forgave you long before you forgave yourself."
She drains the rest of her cereal and gets up to wash her bowl. "Walk with me to the grocery store," she requests/orders, clapping him on the shoulder. "I will literally bribe you with ice cream if that's what it takes to get you to stop projecting yourself onto my issues."
Mama requests a day off in the middle of July to drag Ara out to go shopping, which sets off warning bells immediately.
Ara knows for a fact that Mama has never volunteered to take her shopping unless she wants to just gossip. She packs a small handbag with her purse, tissues, her little bag of lady things (just in case of emergency), and a cherry red lip tint that Elesis bought her for Christmas. She changes out of the maxi dress she'd been wearing and puts on denim short shorts, and a black cut-out t-shirt she bought at Forever 21, and her old low-top Converse that are still decorated with mud stains.
"Where are we going?" She asks, as Mama stops the car at the subway station. "Downtown?"
"It's not a shopping trip unless I get to see you in all the pretty dresses," Mama insists, stopping in front of the hot dog cart that's always parked just outside the station. "You want a hot dog?"
She gets two for them. Ara puts a ton of pickled corn and bacon bits on hers, because you don't get these sorts of things on a sketchy campus hot dog cart. They eat their hot dogs in silence on the subway, as the train rattles through the city and into the core of downtown Sander.
The large shopping mall they arrive at is one of, if not the largest in Fluone. It spans the exact distance between two subway stations and has four storeys. They stop at the station closer to Ted Baker, which is where Ara got her grad dress. Sure, Mama doesn't really like the quality of their clothes, but she claps in delight when Ara comes out of the fitting room in a beautiful blue and white dress.
"The only good thing that college has done for you is to cut down on your middle," she teases, flicking Ara in the tummy. Ara instinctively curls in and pouts. "You know I'm right. Have you been working out?"
"Not particularly." Ara frowns. "Sometimes I forget to eat lunch because I'm running between classes."
"Are you eating breakfast everyday, at least?" Mama inquires. Ara nods, because unlike some people (eg. Aisha) she never skips breakfast, regardless of how packed her schedule is. "Good. Now try this one on."
They leave Ted Baker with no new purchases but many photos of Ara looking fabulous in dresses of all the colours of the rainbow, and instead go to "clothing stores for normal kids", like Aritzia, and Garage, and American Eagle. Ara puts on everything Mama picks for her to try on, just to humour her mother. She doesn't have much time to spend with just Mama, after all, because both her and Baba have work during the week.
"I think these jeans would look good with that t-shirt," Mama says as she slips into a pair of cropped jeans. "And this varsity jacket-looking thing! Yes, that looks interesting."
"That doesn't sound very inspiring," Ara mumbles, looking herself over in the mirror. Pale jeans and a black shirt, plus an orange and purple varsity jacket. It's definitely a look—maybe not Ara's look in particular, but it's a look.
"Nonsense, you look interesting in everything." Mama smiles. "I'm sure if you dressed a bit more colourfully, the other kids on campus would be more interested in you."
Ara groans. "Mama, no—" she starts, but it's too late, she's already started on a tangent that probably won't end anytime soon.
"Have you been seeing anyone?" Mama asks, shit-eating grin decorating her face. This is why Ara never invites Elesis over anymore—she's highkey scared of what could happen if her mother and her best friend teamed up to bully her. "More importantly, do you like anyone? Hmm?"
"No, Mama," Ara says, truthfully. "I told you when I dated and broke up with Steel, didn't I? You know I'd never just keep things in the dark from you like that."
Mama keeps her smile, but she seems to deflate ever so slightly. "Alright, if you say so." Her eyes light up again, and her eyebrows go flying. "But if you ever do—"
"Then you'll be the first to know." Ara thinks about it again. "Actually, no. Elesis would probably be the first to know, she figures things out about me before I can."
Mama laughs, and it's such a happy sound that Ara laughs, too.
Add sends her a link one day, and at first she's afraid that he's going to rickroll her or give her respiratory issues with another meme song, but then she realizes that it's just Tetris, formatted for competitive play.
Add Grenore: do you have discord
Add Grenore: we can voice call and play Tetris
Ara Haan: yeah
Ara Haan: I'm Ararararara #0701
Add Grenore: I'd tease you about your handle but it's not like mine is much better
She starts up Discord, and within seconds she gets a friend request from Grenouille #9999. It takes all her self control to not laugh out loud as she accepts the request.
Ararararara—oh my god
Grenouille—in my defense it was a suggestion from Ciel
She boots up the Tetris site, makes an account, and joins Add's game quickly before responding to his voice call.
"Hey," he says. "What's up?"
"Not much." Ara grins, even though she knows he can't see it. "Are you ready to be absolutely pulverized?"
"I'm not going down without a fight!"
Ara ends up beating him based on sheer speed alone—she hard drops Tetrominos exactly where she wants them, while Add sort of just waits for them to fall. By the time she's hit level 6, he's barely past level 2. "How are you going so fast?" He yelps, looking at the scoreboard. "Are you hacking the system or something?"
"If you click the place where you want to put a piece, you can hard drop it and make things faster," Ara supplies, still grinning. She's on level 8 now, with a virtually cleared board, while Add has half of his filled with holes.
She does end up winning—Add ends up losing by the time he gets to level 6, which is pretty impressive since he's barely ever played Tetris before. "Next time," he insists, "I will destroy you in this hell game."
"Keep dreaming," Ara laughs. "Alright. Bye for now!"
"See ya."
The voice call ends, and Ara drops her headphones, feeling a little dazed as she closes the tab for competitive Tetris.
Then she restores it, looks for a random challenger, and cracks her knuckles.
Aren wakes her up one day with the sound effect of an air horn from YouTube played on full volume. "Get up, Elesis is sitting on our deck and I don't know how she got there," he says, a little desperate-sounding.
So Ara rolls out of bed in her pyjamas and frizzy hair, and gets up to unlock the door to the deck for her idiot of a best friend. "I biked here," Elesis announces when the door opens, not that anyone asked. "Oh hey, Aren. Want a piece of bread?"
She's brought a loaf of her mom's freshly baked homemade bread, which is honestly a blessing. Ara washes up and gets changed quickly so that Aren and Elesis don't eat it all before she can snag a bite. "I know for a fact that you have the key to our front door," she says, tearing into the soft bread. "Why did you just sit on the deck and wait for one of us to open the door?"
"First of all, I don't have your key," Elesis lies, pointing at her with her mug of cold milk. "Second of all, I wanted to freak out Aren, and he was having breakfast in front of the window, so of course I couldn't just waltz in here."
"That's just more concerning," Aren mutters.
They sit around the table just chatting and eating until Elesis runs out of milk, at which point she gets up to get more, only to forget that she wanted milk in the first place and start braiding Aren's hair. Ara joins her promptly, and then they take all the little braids and braid it into a bigger braid.
"Voila," Elesis says, holding up her phone' on selfie mode. "How do you feel about your fabulous new hair, Monsieur?"
"I look hideous."
Ara glances at Elesis, and they both burst into laughter. Even Aren manages a small smile. It's immensely stupid, and they spend a grand total of one hour and twenty-six minutes untangling all the tiny braids (although a lot of that is just chatter, too).
Lunch for the three of them is Ara's favourite spicy instant vermicelli, along with some cheese sausages from the grocery store and baby carrots. Ara makes sure to sift through her bowl afterwards for the fried beans with just her chopsticks, mostly to spite Elesis, who drinks everything and regrets it instantly afterwards.
They spend the rest of the afternoon playing Mario Party on the Wii, until Baba comes home and doesn't even question things. Elesis just walking into their house was a common occurrence back in high school, and it still is. Elesis always greets Baba and Mama politely, and of course Ara's always free to crash at her place whenever she wants.
Add calls in the evening, and they set up a three-way Tetris competition. Elesis, who has trained against Ara but has not reached her level yet, is still perfectly capable of crushing Add, who falls far behind in comparison. "Absolutely unfair," he complains. "I'm being bullied here."
"Too bad you're just bad at Tetris," Elesis laughs, punching Ara in the shoulder. "Teach the poor boy someday, would you?"
Ara sticks her tongue out at her. Elesis just laughs some more while Add makes a deflating sound like he's pouting. "Tetris isn't everyone's thing," she amends. "Hey Ara, you ever think about taking up MMOs?"
"No thank you," Ara responds. "My computer is weak and cannot handle the stress of running MMOs."
"You are weak and natural selection is coming for you," Elesis informs her.
They laugh and joke a bit more, and then someone calls for Add on the other side—a lilting voice like a nightingale, soft and lyrical. "Edward, it's ten o'clock, aren't you going to go to sleep?"
"That's my mom," Add informs them, before taking off him headphones and yelling back "It's only ten, mom!"
"I should probably be getting home soon," Elesis realizes, looking at the clock. "Oh god it's nine fifty, it's gonna be pitch black by the time I get home."
"Did you even tell your parents you were coming over to my place?" Ara frets.
Elesis shrugs. "I told Elsword, but I think he was half-asleep," she admits, before grinning brightly in that Elesis way of hers. "They shouldn't be too worried if I call home now, right?"
She calls home right before she leaves. Apparently Elsword caught the end of whatever she said, and informed their parents that she was headed to Ara's house for the day. "Well, all's well that ends well," she says, slipping her phone back into her pocket as she stands in front of the screen door to the deck. "Bye, Ara. See ya around Aren."
"You can just take the door—" Ara sighs and gives up as her best friend grins and leaves through the deck. "Where'd she leave her bike?"
"That's the thing," Aren says. "I went outside while you guys were playing Tetris, and I couldn't find it."
Before Ara gets to sleep, though, she stays up waiting for Elesis to come back online so she can make sure her friend isn't dead.
Ararararara—are you alive
Ararararara—tell me when you get home
Elmo—yeah i'm alive dw
Ararararara—where'd you keep your bike when you were here?
Elmo—in your garage actually
Ararararara—?
Another message pops up while she's typing out the question marks. It's from Add. She opens it.
Grenouille—are you sleeping?
Ararararara—not yet
Ararararara—had to make sure elesis isn't dead
Ararararara—she biked to my house, put her bike in my garage, and then proceeded to camp out on the deck to freak out my brother even though she has a copy of my house key
Grenouille—sounds like something elesis would do
Ararararara—it is the Quintessential Elesis Power Move ™
Grenouille—wow
Grenouille—does she do this often?
Ararararara—usually she just lets herself in so i'm gonna say no
Grenouille—ah
Grenouille—well then good night
Ararararara—you do realize elesis is going to keep messaging me for the next three hours right
Grenouille—*good luck
Ara laughs out loud, and Aren pokes his head into the room to see if she's alright. "You sound happy," he says, a little bitterly, a little wistfully. "That's good."
"I told you I had friends," Ara says, a small smile dancing on her lips. "You'd be surprised at how amazing they are."
"Elesis doesn't count, she's practically family," Aren mutters before smiling. "Get some sleep before Mama comes in to yell at you."
The door closes. Ara lets out a little happy sigh.
A notification sound from her headphones snaps her back to reality, though. She looks at the banner. It's a message from Elesis, one of fourteen, and this one just says BITCH in all caps.
Nothing could possibly prepare her now. It's Elesis, after all. So Ara just fights a smirk and opens the app.
Mama and Baba insist on making a grand dinner the night before she has to leave for the next semester, and they task Aren with keeping Ara busy in the backyard so she can't interfere.
(That's all cool and good, but Ara hasn't the slightest idea as to how to put some light back in her brother's life. She knows how much he loved Sasha, how much better of a person she made him, and how her death caused him to drop into a personal hell that she's not sure she can pull him out of.)
"You're doing pretty good in school, aren't you," Aren comments while he skims through her Maitreya paper on her phone. "Wow. I can't even pronounce half these words."
"Me neither," Ara confesses, grimacing. "It took me three months to train myself to pronounce bodhisattva properly, and I think I've used that word upwards of a million times in papers."
Aren snorts. "The Chinese word is so much easier." He gestures at the document and all the instances where autocorrect doesn't even recognise the word. "Púsà is so much easier to pronounce." He smiles wistfully. "The Chinese language is truly beautiful."
"Sanskrit is beautiful too," Ara argues, pushing a fingertip into his cheek. It's bonier than she'd expected. "We get the English words candy and ginger from Sanskrit roots, you know."
"Maybe you're just biased because you're studying it," Aren teases.
Ara sticks her tongue out at him. "Maybe you're biased because you aren't."
There's suddenly a shout inside, followed by a loud stomping noise and something like glass or porcelain hitting the floor. Aren immediately shoves the phone back into Ara's hands and throws open the screen door. "What happened? Are you okay?"
Baba is standing over the crockpot, looking sheepish as he picks the lid up and sets it back on. "I tripped over the cord," he says, looking it over. "Hmm. I don't think I broke anything."
He plugs it back in, but the controls don't light up like they're supposed to. "Oh dear." Baba unplugs it again and plugs it back in, before unplugging it and moving the crockpot away from the wall socket entirely. "Well, it lived a good life. We've had this crockpot since we moved to Sander, haven't we?"
"Did you spill the pork belly?" Mama comes out of the kitchen wielding a spatula and a bottle of soy sauce in one hand and a wad of dish towel in the other. "There were twenty minutes left for cooking, so it should be fine. I'll just cook it on the stove the rest of the way."
Ara kneels by the crockpot while Baba scoops the stewed pork belly out into a smaller pot. "Can we please not throw it out?" She says, thinking of a friend with purple eyes and a ton of pliers. "I could get one of my engineering friends to fix it."
Baba thinks about it. "You could," he says cautiously, "just take it. Mama and I barely use the crockpot these days because we have the shaguo."
"You're not allowed gas stoves in your dorms, right?" Mama says. "As much as I love that Aisha is your only roommate, you could really use a kitchen. If you get the crockpot fixed, you could make stewed pork in your dorm."
"And if you can't get it fixed, I'll mail you one myself," Aren says, smiling. "Take the crockpot with you, Ara."
The pork belly is delicious anyways, if a little greasy. There's cabbage pickles, and shrimp stir-fried with salted black bean and breadcrumbs, and stir-fried bean shoots. Ara wonders between bites of rice and eggplants how much some of this food must have cost, because eggplants certainly aren't in season.
But dinner is happy, the happiest it's been since Ara got into her dream program. Aren laughs more often than not, and none of it is forced. He chugs an entire can of cream soda (much to Mama's horror) and nearly cries because of the fizz. "You're going to get fat," Mama complains, poking Ara's stomach with three fingers while she sips her own ginger ale.
"I am a grown, responsible woman," Ara snarks in reply, and gets a playful smack to the back of her head.
She goes to sleep content that night, but wakes up briefly when Mama and Baba steal into her room to kiss her forehead.
Her smile lasts through the night and well into the morning.
Mama and Baba have work when she leaves, so Ara gets up extra early to kiss them goodbye, then properly rolls out of bed to pack up the now cooled crockpot into a bag.
Aren walks with her to the train station, where they wait for both Elesis and the next train. "She's been like this since I met her," she snorts, pushing her suitcase handle down into the suitcase. "Knowing her, she's probably stopping for Starbucks or something."
"It's Elesis, she doesn't drink Starbucks," Aren says dryly.
"Hey, guys!"
"Speak of the devil, and she shall appear," Ara says, grinning, as Elesis runs into the station dragging her obnoxious red suitcase, peppered with stickers, behind her. She wields a cup of iced coffee from—wait for it—Starbucks. "Showing up late with Starbucks, I see."
"I have an aesthetic to maintain," Elesis quips, shaking the cup lightly to jostle the ice. "Only a cool kid would have coffee like this."
"The train is coming in six minutes," Ara says flatly, even though her chest is buckling with laughter. "Let's hurry. Do you have your ticket?"
They rush into the station just in time to catch the train as it plows into the station. "Don't do dumb things," Ara says hurriedly, smacking her brother upside the head. "And don't go about not eating things. Mama complains to me when you do and if I get another message about it, I swear I will bike all the way back to Sander and make you eat."
"Duly noted," Aren says, smiling. "And you too." He seems to hesitate for a moment. "Stay safe." He ruffles her hair and presses a kindly kiss to her hairline, before pulling away to give Elesis a fist bump and a pat on the back. "Watch my sister for me, would you?"
"Way ahead of you," Elesis tells him.
"Speaking of way ahead," Ara suddenly says, grabbing Elesis by the wrist, "our train is about to get way ahead of us, so we really have to run!"
They get on the train laughing and gasping for breath, waving goodbye to Aren through the window. He smiles and waves, but Ara catches his eyes glistening with tears even through the tinted glass. She lets her fingertips trail on the glass for just a second before the train pulls out of the station and thunders towards Sander.
"Thank you for choosing COBO transport systems," says an automated voice over the PA system. Ara and Elesis, who regularly take the train to and from school, have memorized the whole spiel, and Ara fights an undignified snort as Elesis takes to mimicking it. "You are now aboard the nine-thirty train from Sander Central Station to Hamel Downtown. At the current speed, you should arrive at your destination by ten-fifteen. To ensure your safety, please remain seated while the train is moving."
The train shuttles towards downtown Hamel at a hundred kilometers per hour, as Ara tucks her crockpot under her seat and shuffles her suitcase next to her. Elesis reaches into her backpack and pulls out two boxes of chocolate milk and two straws, handing one of each to Ara. "Stopped at a convenience store to get these."
"You just had an iced coffee three minutes ago," Ara gripes, though she accepts the chocolate milk gratefully. The top of a third straw pokes through Elesis's bag. "Wait a sec. Where's your brother?"
"He left last week," Elesis replies, rolling her eyes. "He's staying with Chung's family in Hamel for the week before school starts again." She makes a face. "I can't believe my own brother could one up me like this. I feel betrayed."
"I thought Elsword said they weren't dating," Ara ponders.
Elesis snorts. "That's because he didn't want Rena and Raven to give them the sex talk."
They chatter quietly in their seats over the sounds of the train running and the people around them. Elesis makes a run to the bathroom, but detours to the snack car, and brings back two cold sandwiches—ham for herself and tuna for Ara. They eat their sandwiches and drink their chocolate milk in peace as they recount their summer adventures.
"Mom and Dad took us to Feita to go hiking through the mountains," Elesis says excitedly. There are breadcrumbs stuck to her lips. "We were up on the mountain, there were tall flimsy trees all around us, and there were a pair of running shoes hanging from the highest branch of one of the trees."
"Wait," Ara says, suddenly confused. "If the trees are all flimsy, then how—"
"Exactly. Dad thinks someone threw them up, but Els and I tried with our own shoes and we could never get them that high." She shakes her head. "I mean, I know we've done dumb things as young adults, but at least we haven't achieved the impossible yet."
"Well, we're in our third year now," Ara says brightly. "It's time to make the impossible happen."
Elesis stares at her before bursting out in a huge grin. "Now that's the spirit."
A/N: new format, if the text messages start with the names in bold then they're speaking on discord! this will be used more in later chapters for whole new purposes (such as a group server)
Ara's initial discord handle was bakedpotato, while Add's was Mission Status: Sick. i decided on the new ones because they were easier to type
the thing about the running shoes on the tree is something that happened to me when i was in banff. we were coming down from the mountain in a gondola and i just happened to see a pair of shoes like 6 metres up in a tree. don't know how they got up there.
also full disclosure: i made the potato bacon roses and nearly sliced my thumb in half with the slicer. stay in school and don't play with sharp cooking utensils kids
it might seem like a lot of this is really random but that's really how my own summer felt. i've put a lot of guns on the stage and i gotta set them off later, though, so please look forward to the next chapter!
~Marg
