Author's note: Are you missing your summer already? Guess what? It's just almost spring in Brazil hehehe
Enjoy the heat I'm sending from Latin America through this classical summer chapter.
And as we like to say here in my little land: k, bye! (a bad translation of "flw, vlw") (brazilians will get it)
July
It started because of Dustin, because he talked nonstop about how excited Oksana was to enjoy the 4th of July for the first time ever. There wasn't such celebration in the Ukraine, and she would remember it forever. But maybe that was what he thought. There was no agreement whatsoever that the foreign student would be his date for the fair, not that it discouraged him one bit.
"What's so interesting about it?" asked Eleven, but no one heard her. The boys were occupied with bickering, as usual. Mostly, their constant fights were funny, but sometimes they just annoyed the hell out of her, and when they spent too long on the same subject she felt bored.
"Who's to say that Oksana is not like, a Russian spy or something?" said Lucas just to throw Dustin off. "Think about it: who would suspect a kid was sent to destroy us?"
"Who would send someone to destroy Hawkins, Indiana?" replied Will. "We're seriously the most insignificant town ever."
"Uh, I don't know," Mike said. "Have you been paying attention the past couple of years?"
"That's bullshit," cut Dustin, and El was done.
She got up from the sofa and went to the kitchen, got herself some orange juice, and then went up to Mike's room, where she'd have some peace. El chose a book from the bookshelf (The Karamazov Brothers sounds like fun, right?), turned the fan on, and sat down on the bed to read. She only made it through three pages before Mike found her.
"We're boring you, aren't we?"
Yes.
"Hmm," El answered instead, shrugging, and Mike smiled. He knew her very well. "Living room was too crowded."
"Yeah, I heard that boys are too spacey," he said, walking over to her. He sat down the bed too, near her legs. She had spent the night there in his bunk bed, wearing one of his shirts. They were so big that they even covered her jeans shorts. Maybe she really was small, like Steve liked to point out. "You know, in real life you won't be able to just get up and leave whenever you get bored or done."
El frowned, a layer of concern on her face.
"No?"
"Nope," said Mike shaking his head. That was really bad news for such a warm day.
"Why?"
"Because we must interact with people and make conversation and pretend we care when really all we want to do is lay down on the floor and scream," he said. She captured a little humor in his tone, but his face was serious. "Unfortunately, we learn that pretty soon in our lives."
Eleven sighed. Being able to get up and leave had been her favorite escape route since ever, what was she going to do now?
"What do I do, then?"
Mike shrugged.
"Listen, wait for your turn to hopefully change the subject, though that won't work in class… Oh," he sat closer, his eyes shinning a little brighter. "You know how you learned to smile and nod at the right moments?" she nodded. "Next step is to do that when you're not really paying attention, it's like, a life changer."
Okay, that sounded better.
"But what if people are too annoying? What do I do?"
"You will learn how to tune them out eventually," Mike assured. "Best thing is to focus on something that you enjoy doing or thinking about. Like… Will likes to draw, so if someone is talking about something that doesn't concern him, and he has a pen in hand, he'll just start to doodle. He doesn't even need a paper, have you noticed his hand?"
She had. It was kind of amazing. Sometimes, Will would even doodle on someone else's skin, and he'd make the most creative things. He once turned her 011 into a floral wristband. Eleven never thought that drawing would be Will's escape route. It made her think of the things she liked that would help her handle boring conversations.
"You gotta consider also," continued Mike, and it took a couple of seconds for her to understand what he was talking about now. "That one can't take Dustin very seriously sometimes. I mean, he really thinks that the firework show will be 'romantic' and will magically make Oksana want to kiss him or something. Have you ever seen fireworks?"
El shook her head. She didn't even know what they were about. Mike didn't seem surprised.
"You know, Hawkins isn't much, but we do have a pretty firework show on the 4th, I think you might like it. Fireworks are loud and colorful and that's how we celebrate being a free country," El raised an eyebrow and Mike smiled. "Makes little to no sense, I know, but it's fun."
"We will see them at the fair?" she asked, and he smiled.
"Yeah. And there are fireworks at New Year's Eve too, which are bigger and prettier, and that's when it's actually romantic."
"Romantic?" echoed El. She didn't know what it meant.
"Yeah," said Mike, and he thought about it quickly. "It's when you do something to make someone happy, and it doesn't even need to be material, it can be a gesture or words… and if you do it right, then the person will want to be with you or even kiss you."
El fell silent for a moment, thinking about it. Finally, she closed the book, put it down on the bed by her side, and sat straighter to be really close to Mike.
"Like last night?" she asked him. "When you played me the song you wrote for me? It made me happy and I really wanted to kiss you."
"You did, huh?" Mike replied with a half smile.
"Yeah," she bit her lower lip, eyes going down to his lips and back to his eyes. "And it worked, I kissed you. A lot."
"It worked pretty well," he agreed.
"That was romantic," El concluded, and Mike nodded in agreement. She got closer, so close their breath was mixing. "Like right now?"
Mike shook his head.
"No," he said, reaching to cup her cheek with his hand, his thumb tracing the line of her lower lip. "Right now is just so fucking hot."
And simple as that, they were kissing. It was one of those long kisses, with pushing and pulling and lots of tongue that elevate the temperature really fast.
"Mike!" baby Holly stomped up the stairs making a lot of noise, and stopped by her older brother's door. Mike and El were breathing hard. "We home! Nancy bought snacks."
"Good snacks?" he asked her, and the little girl nodded once.
"Candies," she said with a big smile. Her teeth were blue.
El got up right away and went to the door, taking Holly's hand on her way out.
"Tell me, Hol," she said, "is there chocolate among those candies?"
Mike still needed a minute to breathe before he went back down, but he almost wished he had taken longer, because Dustin, Lucas and Will were still talking about the fair between bites of chocolate cake.
"You are just bitter because Lexi dumped you before she left for camp," Dustin was saying, and Lucas growled.
"I told you, no one dumped anybody, we agreed!"
"Agreed?" echoed Nancy, cutting pieces of cake for everyone. "On what?"
"That we are better off as friends," said Lucas.
"Did you kiss?" asked Will, leaning against the counter with his slice of cake.
"Yeah, and it was super weird! We've known each other since we were toddlers, same class in church and shit. It was like kissing my cousin."
"Which cousin?" asked Dustin.
"Because Maya from Vermont…" added Will with shiny eyes. "I don't think anyone would mind kissing her."
"As if you have a chance with her," replied Lucas with certainty. "I don't know why you're shitting on me, how come you didn't kiss Jennifer yet?"
Will made a face.
"Touché," smiled Dustin. El raised an eyebrow from her seat by Holly's side.
"You act as if this conversation isn't about you," she said, and the boys almost choked on their cakes. "Funny."
"Why are you defending Will?" asked Dustin rather offended.
"Wait, wait, wait," cut Nancy, sitting on the other side of Holly. "How is this about Dustin?"
There were a couple of minutes of everyone explaining at the same time what they were talking about for the past hour or so, and Nancy tried her best to keep a straight face. Eleven used that moment to learn on their social skills a bit, but no one could keep a straight face at the "fireworks can be romantic" part. Unceremoniously, Nancy started to laugh.
"Oh, Dustin, you innocent little thing," she said, which was even funnier, because out of all the boys, Dustin could not be considered the innocent one.
Those boys… they were annoying sometimes, but oh, how Eleven was glad she met them. Her days were never boring.
A/N: reviews are love, and I know you're full of it! thanks for reading!