[Edited Sept 3 2012: Minor change to include glasses for next chapter at the last part of this chapter. Also added much new content there. EditedSept 7 2012: Minor changes to fill in info gap when Parisa is asking John out. Edited Dec 18. Cleaned 'er up, I did.]
Whee, holidays! I finally get a few hours to write this. Only sad thing is that after this month long break we immediately have exams. Sigh. Now that I have recovered my files, I could finally get down to finishing this chapter. Well, just a thought, but I am starting to get the feeling that I am writing a plot for a light novel. Don't ask how I arrived at this conclusion, I have forgotten. Maybe. Its just that the way this flows, and my publishing chapter by chapter, introducing new characters in each one, is really not like how normal texts flow. Oh well. Can't be everything at the same time. In any case, enjoy this chapter!
NB: You may want to read chapter 5 again and see if can sense a more contained vibe from it, and 6 as well, as I have refined the story. Every sentence and word counts towards the unfurling of the plot! I was rather young and unclear when I wrote them (one year in school does make you older, laughs). For those who won't read, a point I added was that Parisa was actively participating in her school's astronomy club, and was partnered to a senior there. We'll see how Parisa's interest and that relationship pan out. Oh, and I got the time-line kinda screwed in between my words, so here it is laid bare: Parisa is born 3rd August in 2509, and John is born 17th January 2511. So yeah, since they both join school at around four, Parisa is in her 4th year at school, and is the youngest in class other than John because she was born just before the start of the school year. John on the other hand is in her class after being promoted 2 years, so he is Year 4 even though he had had only 2 years of school. But he is only less than a year and a half away in age from Parisa, therefore their mutual feeling that they are not very included in class (will be touched on) because they are the two youngest kids in class. And, if you did not catch on, Parisa hates swimming and being in water, though she can get on.
Also, in this chapter, a bustle is a bus and shuttle combined (smart coinage eh?). You know where it goes from there. Convologging would be a technology to automatically log discernible conversations in mike range of the Convolog device attached to the ear. Logs up to 5 tracks into text, so users can review workgroup conversations, or in a student's case, project work discussions or a teacher's instructions.
Chapter 9
March Twenty-sixth, Friday, 2517
Eridanus system. Elysium City, on Eridanus II. Swimming pool, ECPEF No. 119.
Splash.
It had been getting warmer in the past few days, and that had really helped Parisa loosen up in the water. Parisa dove under the water's surface to gain momentum, then broke through again to the left to receive a pass. Someone, a boy, came charging her, so she had to pass the ball away before she got far.
Splash!
"Good shot, Lin!"
The teacher blew the whistle and waved for the ball.
"Well, that's all for water polo, folks! Next module would be handball, and I don't want you wearing trunks and suits for that, though the boys might prefer otherwise." His crusty sun-baked face cracked into a rare smile as the boys moaned in mock protest, playing along with the well-liked Mr Emis.
"So bring your sweatshirts! But for now, play on if you want. The cams will tell me if something is wrong, and I will come running faster than... uh, faster than any of you! Thank you class!"
"Thank you sir," the students chorused raggedly but spritedly, the ones at the end not catching on until the ones nearer had already finished.
"Let's play on, Parisa!" Lin was still exuberant from her goal. A lucky shot. Parisa saw how that went in; It wasn't even supposed to go in, only it hit one of the other side's players' shoulder and it bounced the wrong way, into the goal. She went through the motion of lobbing the ball again, arching her arm backwards, then sprung it back as fast as she could. She felt a jab of pain as she overextended to give the ball more speed. It went straight into the unprotected goal.
Parisa stayed in the pool. About half the class had gotten out of the pool, but Parisa chose to continue playing. She was getting good at this. She had probably scored the most for her side in the past few weeks, just that the boys always took the limelight for scoring. For every single point scored, they had to celebrate and discuss the score for a full minute or more. Only when the girls started attacking their goal again did they shut up and play.
Lin, Emily, Sheela and Annabel were still playing for the girl's side; John, Raul, Jamil and Kenji were on the opposing team.
"Get another boy to play! It's not fair for us to win so easily!" Emily taunted as she lobbed the ball at the goal. It hit the crossbar and ricocheted back into her palm. Was that on purpose? Parisa had no doubt otherwise. Emily was the class' resident water polo player. The pool was probably more home to her than anywhere else in school. She also had such a tan that everyone in class called her 'the Indian' from the first day of class, though she was Oriental. I think. But it was not hard to guess, as Eridanus II mainly hosted peoples from the East Asian and African continents. For skin colour, it was usually either "you had it" or you didn't.
"You girls better watch out, else you wouldn't even know we scored!" Raul retorted. "Lets go!"
The girls lost. Only by a point, though. Parisa realised that the only reason she had scored more than the boys was because Emily was always at the back, guarding shots. The boys often got past quite easily and never missed a chance to launch a ball at the goal, but Emily saved them, no matter how ridiculous the angle.
Only when Emily asked for a change, which Parisa took on as a challenge, did she grasp how difficult the position actually was. It seemed easy, almost natural to take an incoming ball and push it away. That was how Parisa had felt, but only until before she was keeper. The first ball thrown at Parisa went in as smoothly as if she had not even been there. She had not anticipated the amount of force needed to push water water and herself upwards. She could not raise her arms up in time to block. It was truly depressing, seeing the first few balls sail past without a single bit of resistance on her part. Only till the fifth ball came flying straight over her did she manage to stop it, at the expense of her index finger ringing out in pain after it poked the ball out of play. Even after that, she could barely brush the ball away with her fingertips. Emily, on the other hand, was right in the mood, and she scored in five minutes what the rest of the team managed to score in fifteen.
John matched up to Emily's every shot, though, and the boys led the scoreboard the other half of the time the girls did not. On the last shot, Raul was right at the scoring line, but John had the ball a few paces back. Parisa heard Raul call for the ball, but John calmly aimed it at the goal. Before he let go, Parisa felt John's intense glare, which still managed to intimidate her even though she had seen it countless times when she played games with him. It always seemed as though everyone around John was pulling him down. Myself included. The ball came too fast to react to, and it was past her, swishing into the net.
The bell had rung at the twenty minute mark which signalled half a recess gone.
"Crap," Emily said as she climbed out of the pool. "Gotta run, food's waitin'!" And she ran off faster than anyone else to the canteen.
Parisa saw Lin, who had been marking John, turn to ask him if he were going to the canteen. He shook his head. Lin turned her gaze towards Parisa for an instant, then climbed out of the pool to change. Everyone else did so too, following Emily's lead.
Parisa changed back into her uniform quickly, not wanting to miss John. It was the perfect time to ask, with no one around the pool to be a busybody. I guess I could always ask him back in class, but... Parisa hesitated. If anyone hears that I asked my class partner out, that would be bad. Too bad to think about. Worse than asking my brother to marry... The last word got caught in her throat. She tried to cough it out. Definitely worse than marrying my brother. Definitely bad enough. Jesus.
Class partners were supposed to work best with each other, but somehow keep the most distant. At least that was how school life worked nowadays. How contradictory. Though, the seniors had their reasons for promoting this culture. Working relationships, they said, should be cultivated between partners, but not love-stuff. All that time in school spent sitting beside each other? You would fail your tests! Badly! So they said. She could not risk asking among so many people. If anyone nearby happens to have their wrist-com's convologging turned on, the whole batch would have a copy of their conversation in no time. Then they'd extract the most out-of-context phrase and use it as evidence against us. Parisa could imagine her own voice played out on the classroom recorder, "Please, let's go together." And then everyone would squeal and make a huge fuss about it. And Lin seems to have configured her device to specifically recognize John's voice and priority-record it. Somehow she keeps letting slip so many things about John that I thought only I knew. It could not be anything else other than on purpose. No, better ask him out here at the pool, where there's no one around.
After hastily stripping off her swimsuit, she rinsed, then towel-dried herself with a few swift swipes on her front and back. She pulled on her underwear before hurriedly buttoning up her shirt and zipping up her skirt, and got out of the showers in time to see John at raised seats packed up and already ready to leave. Whew. One problem solved.
"John!" Parisa called and waved.
John slung his clothes and towel over his shoulder and came over with his duffel bag.
"Hey, you free tonight?"
John gave her a squint-eyed look.
"It had better not be using me as a free cookie maker again. Or free anything else for that matter. I'm not going to fall for your 'Oh I just want to learn' excuse again."
Parisa sniggered. She knew John would not be able to resist helping anyway if she asked him again right there and then. He was that type of person who could not leave things undone. Simply say, "In that case, I won't try to make it then," and he would come begging you to allow him to.
But that was not what Parisa had in mind. She wanted to ask him out. No, it's not what you think it is, or what it would look like, Parisa had continuously told herself the past week before she was nearly half convinced, and gathered that she had to ask, now or never.
The Astronomy club – her core participation after-school activity in school, or CPASA, which was how most teachers and students wrote and called it – was organising a trip up to Taraquin, far up North of Elysium city, to see constellations and individual stars better. The air up North would definitely be colder and clearer, and the club was planning to catch the last days of winter for this expedition. Another plus point would be that they would be able to catch the magnetic flares that only happen up North, as well as Earth if they were especially lucky to catch a very cold and cloudless night.
Truthfully, the club had asked for members to bring family members down, but they did not say members could not bring a friend instead, so Parisa decided to skirt the sign-up form in which a line read: Register family member, and put down 'John' in that area.
Parisa explained the trip. It would only be for a night, and they would be back at a good time in the morning, taking a slower train back so that they could sleep on the way.
"Tomorrow is a Saturday too, so tonight would be the perfect day to go on an outing." Even if I did mention it a little late.
"So, want to join me? I know you only need yourself to say yes if you want to go."
"How about your brother, then?" John did not seem to have taken the request seriously. He continued packing. Sigh.
"He is an ass. Brushing his teeth and gelling his hair probably ranks higher on his priorities than going to my funeral. So come on, just come!"
"I wanted to work on a project today, you know."
Parisa was starting to get worried he would not agree to going with her. If so, maybe she could ask one of the girls?
"But I guess that would have to wait."
"Knew you wouldn't be able to resist," Parisa gloated, partly to hide her relief and glee that he took up the offer. Luckily for her, she did not have to use the "But I already signed you up!" card to force his hand. That would be shameless. John shrugged nonchalantly.
"How about eight at your house? We'll get a bustle to the train station from there. There's a stop near your house, right? The club got tickets for the nine o'clock train, and we would reach at about midnight, so we can get sleep in between. I think Corin booked cabins with the rotating double beds. That would be fun, eh?"
Parisa breathed in deeply after her explosive explanation.
"Yeah, that should do," John slowly chewed his words over while still studying a breathless Parisa who was grinning widely.
"Yes! See you there then!" She sprung away, but turned round to add, "Oh, and I will be bringing my telescope, so you will carrying that!" John's lips moved in protest, but she did not wait to see it. She ran off with a feeling of satisfaction that was hard to describe, yet so overwhelmingly blinding. Blindingly overwhelming. She almost knocked into a teacher as she ran towards the canteen to buy the best lunch she has had in a long time.
The club room was quiet when Parisa she entered. There were only a few seniors about, cleaning their gear. That was unusual, but to be expected before any big expeditions. On a regular Friday afternoon, the club room would be awash with activity, with seniors holding lessons on astrophysics or on the geography of space. Otherwise, there would be a run through on stargazing's various techniques. Today, the only person here Parisa knew by name was Corin, sitting in her favourite spot, a plush red sofa by the window overlooking the un-terraformed land their school was built beside. But she was almost always around anyway, and was more like a movable piece of furniture in the room than a member, so she did not count.
"Hey, Parisa!" Corin gestured enthusiastically for her to look at what she had in her hands. Parisa recognized it as one of the things her father had brought back home to demonstrate to her. It was an unfixed polarization film – the type the military used for visor shielding. It could change from one end of polarisation spectrum to the other in under a second. Either a small change in tilt or in charge could completely flip the screen's polarisation. Her father had said it was a real achievement from the scientists, and that was no small praise coming from her father, who regularly worked with top United Nations funded weapon development teams.
"Where on earth did that come from?"
"Trade secret, my dear girl," Corin answered her junior in a mystical tone she reserved just for galling her. Sometimes Parisa thought she would be a good match for her uncle.
"Wow. Like I could never guess," Parisa said, drawling out her words and rolling her eyes.
Corin made her 'fu-fu-fuuu' laugh. She was Parisa's mentor-buddy in the club, as well as the vice chairman. Vice chairwoman. Though that did sound a little off character, that was what Corin was. This year's Astronomy club's graduating batch member and mentor-buddy to Parisa, club vice chairwoman, secretary to all club members, keeper of the keys, as well as renown joker to her friends.
Parisa was one of the few lucky ones that had a mentor-buddy like Corin. She would have already been lucky to have Corin as a buddy, not to mention as a club mentor-buddy. She had been with Parisa personally for four years, had never missed a call from Parisa, and had club exec comm powers to boot. Most other seniors took two or even three juniors, and only for a couple of years, before they graduated and passed on buddy duties to another senior. Corin took Parisa as a junior just when she became a senior, so she took only one junior. Their senior-junior buddyship had not deteriorated over the years. That was why Parisa dreaded this year's end, when Corin would leave school, and they would split paths. But for now, enjoy what there is to enjoy. That her father told her whenever he could.
"Look." Corin tilted it with a minute twist of her wrists, and suddenly Parisa could see through it, though the image was still lined with a slight bluish-green tint. Another small turn of the lens, and the sheet became opaque again. "This is top of the line stuff, Parisa. Not cheap, this."
She then put it under a precision cutter to cut out a piece that fit her telescope's accessory lens holder.
"Well, this lens would be great for tonight if it is cold enough! Imagine the Auroras! I believe they are much prettier than what the holos can show. Photos would also be so much more dynamically saturated with this lens configuration. Good for underwater exploration too, if we have the correct scopes. Add a corrective sight and demagnifier to your astro lens, and there you go, you have made a DIY seascope. Customizable for both aerial and aqueous usage."
Parisa lost Corin when she started on the underwater bit. Still so much more to learn from her senior.I wonder if I will ever get as good as you at this, Corin.
"I expect you had a reason for dropping by while everyone else is packing?"
Parisa coughed, and straightened up. Don't let Corin suspect anything, just say my brother was out, and everyone else could not make it, and...
"Yeah, of course. Yeah," Parisa blurted out as she saw Corin look right into her, through her. Past her.
"Uh, I was just wondering, if," Parisa could not help averting her gaze, "I could only get a friend to come today, instead of family." Corin had not said anything. "He is my class partner, so that can almost be counted family, right?" Parisa laughed out shortly, and looked down again. She heard a loud guffaw from Corin. Parisa jerked up in astonishment.
"What?" Parisa asked, reprehension crept into the back of her mind for being laughed at by Corin.
"No," Corin said shortly, after recovering from emptying her lungs laughing at Parisa. "Don't get me wrong, Parisa. The Pres' and I did want to get this trip to be a "trap a girlfriend or boyfriend day, just that that snotty Mr Granch would not hear of it. 'Not on my watch', he said. If we went ahead, he swore on his honour that he would have to accompany us on the trip. That, my dear Parisa, is something you should never try, even in the face of death, torture and beyond."
Corin sighed like an old lady remembering age-old regrets. Parisa remembered the rarely-seen teacher-in-charge. Mr Granch looked like a hundred and acted twice that.
"So we had changed it to "bring a family member day". Our hand being forced by Mr Granch! What a way to lose an opportunity." Corin shook her head dramatically. Her fringe brushed across her face slowly, swaying left and right, entrancing Parisa.
"That calmed him down a bit, though, and he would stay back here, in school. Though far from our original goals, it is still much better than Grouchy Granch." Corin said, waving away the bad memories of Mr Granch.
"It would have been fun to see everyone bring their friends.You know, as seniors, we did want to do something for the club. Something big, we thought. Sadly, it did not make it through Granch. But we thought, maybe have a paired outing, just for a change? That would really be spicing things up, don't you think? Wanting to know more about our cute juniors notwithstanding." Corin's eyes blazed with passion as she said that. "It would have been nice if more people got the hint. I mean, shouldn't auroras, what a beautiful word," Corin's eyes twinkled, "give an inkling to what's up? Seriously, nowadays kids have no sense of romance. All the graduating seniors are bringing their dear bun buns, if you were wondering," Corin said without any hesitation, giving Parisa a small wink.
"Hmm, guess you were the only one smart enough to pick up on the clue. No one has come to me about it, in any case," Corin said, trailing off. "Maybe they would just bring em' anyway, huh. Fill up the form and keep quiet, don't breathe a word, then switch your younger sister for a senior boy."
Though in her case it was the other way round, Parisa began to feel a little guilty lying to a teacher. Not enough to put off the prospect of sharing a rotating cabin for two, though!
Corin gave Parisa a look. "I know, don't say it, that came out wrong. Though it actually makes more sense to do that. As long as no one asks the A.I. to check with biometrics, they're safe. Wonder how many would take the small risk, huh?" Corin asked no one in particular.
Parisa wiped her salty palms off her skirt. She only had to mention the word 'family', and Corin could rattle off 'her' life story. Each story was different, but all were equally bombastic in scale. Yet they were told so true that they could not be anything other than convincing. So overwhelmingly true that you had a hard time believing in the shallowness of your own sense of truth. The stories Corin told were undoubtedly lies. You could almost imagine Corin in those intricately detailed shoes, each and every one unquestionably imaginary. It scared Parisa. If Corin could tell stories with such precision to their outcome, making them so believable, yet never failing to hint at their paucity of truth, Parisa could not imagine what would happen if Corin stopped hinting at it. Maybe it had already happened, just that Parisa never realised. How much do I believe in what Corin tells me about herself anyway? Parisa would like to think that she reserved her judgement for when it is needed.
Did other people experience this with Corin? She could hide nothing, deliberately or not, from Corin. That was her scary side. She said she was just the average student, achieving regular grades and getting one or two awards a year in one thing or the other. An otherwise perfectly normal student, the records showed. But she had the habit of being all-knowing, almost omniscient. Parisa had never seen her surprised, nor had she ever had the need to be. In her time as Parisa's buddy, she had been the perfect mentor-buddy, like how she would know with uncanny accuracy what Parisa would forget to bring on expeditions like today's, and how she would teach her things she did not even know she would need until a week later, in a competition or Olympiad assignment. That's Corin.
She grinned at Parisa.
"If there's nothing else, you'd better get home and pack, and get some sleep. It's going to be a loooong night," Corin winked again.
"And pack some teabags. You won't want to be sleepy later, boyfriend or not. Trust me."
Parisa raised her eyebrows at Corin. Not that Parisa was confident she would not be sleepy when night time came. It was how Corin's simple advice usually turned out to be useful in incredulously warped ways that Parisa had to scratch her head to decipher meaning to the hint.
"I'll go look for my lens protector and I'll go," Parisa said before walking down the stairs to the club's workroom, leaving Corin on the sofa to finish her work on her lens.
By the time Parisa had found her lens protector, Corin had already disappeared from the club room. She may have been in the council room, but Parisa would not know. That was off limits to all but the Year Eights.
She messaged Corin using her wrist-com through the school net, "Talk to you later."
She replied almost instantly, "I'll be too busy. You will be as well."
Tsk. I know what you mean, but that only applies to you, Corin.
A mental image of Corin laughing as an anonymous boy tickled her sent a shiver down Parisa's spine. Too scary.
And now, home, nap, then packing.
Parisa knew she should not be fussing so much on what she would be bringing, but if she were to bring all that she wanted to, she would not be able to move the sack even with John helping.
Choosing what clothes to pack was a breeze compared to packing equipment. Weighted tripod, check. Astro-calculation tables and dope, check. Polarised lens, check. Soft toy – what? I hope that was my eyes playing tricks on me. Not Corin. Parisa could picture Corin's wide, innocent smile as she typed the list down. Whether or not she truly thought a soft toy was necessary was irrelavant. The list looked down at her from her desk, shivering ever so slightly, most probably from silent laughter. The list Corin had compiled was displayed on a vertical light display that her father installed onto her desk last year for her. The display worked by displaying lined lasers, projecting a two dimensional screen into thin air. It was such an expense, sheesh. She told her father not to get it, but he went to install it anyway, saying he forgot she said no, and to treat it like a birthday present. Really couldn't tell if he forgot. I just told him three days before that. Even a guppy would remember. Parisa enlarged the screen by a gesture with her fingertips. But it does come in useful. Parisa gave a reluctantly approving puff of acknowledgement to her father's decision to install the screen. She could scroll up and down with a wave of her hand while rummaging through the four by four grid of compartments fixed onto the wall. For the highest row, Parisa had to tiptoe on her chair to reach inside. None of them were anything less than fully occupied, and all of them held her equipment, packed tight into their respective categories.
Parisa scrolled down from where she stood to check to see if she saw right. There it was, soft toys listed conspicuously near the end of the list. Right below it was 'boyfriend/girlfriend'. Parisa cringed at Corin's bluntness as though she had been singed by one of Corin's repair lasers.
Though... Parisa thought about the bolster she used to hug. The one she had drooled on, strangle choked half the time she slept, wet herself on. No. Just, no. She did not spend more time thinking about it.
That should be about it. Corin would have anything she had missed out. If it were about stargazing, she would move her whole room for it. Parisa could, from three years worth of excursions with Corin, already picture vividly the scene: Corin with her two main lenses slung over her shoulder like a twin barrelled shotgun, with a bag-pack to rival any survival camper. And her shoes. They single-handedly burned through the layers of embalming that education had wrapped around her eccentricity. They would be the most ridiculous two things in the trip. It could have rained meteoroids, but the thing burned into everyone's memories would be her pair of shoes. And each trip it just got funkier. Parisa both anticipated and dreaded finding out what Corin would be wearing tonight.
Secretly, every girl admired Corin. At least Parisa thought so. And if not, the truth could not be far off. Corin's fashion was wacky, but what caught people's attention was something else altogether. Her skin was marble smooth and pure white. It was not that she had ghostly pale complexion, no. She looked as healthy as anyone, and probably was actually thrice so. The most fitting word Parisa could think of to describe her snowy white skin would have had to be 'royal', just as in the old books. Her hair could also merit blue blooded standards. It fell behind her back like a lazy waterfall, taking its time to flow down Corin's shoulders, glistening languidly in the sun, the silky ebony strands in direct contrast with her skin tone. Corin shone with that combined lustre, though she never did anything to show it. Instead, Parisa felt that most times Corin tried to hide it. Sometimes, Parisa speculated that all that fashion was just a show to divert people's attention from her ebullient skin, languorous hair and amazing figure. Come to think of it, she has always worn long, loose pants and long sleeves and a hat or cap whenever I have seen her outside. She wore long socks to compensate having to be seen with a skirt in school, but they were not enough. Just having the fine curves of her calves show through the socks already meant more salivating boys than could have been told off. Whenever with Corin, Parisa always lost count of the number of boys she catches staring.
There was also the matter of this large, conspicuous pair of rectangular glasses with thick obsidian frames which were permanently fitted to her face, obscuring her face. They were the singular thing constant about her, she having worn them since the day Parisa met her. Sadly, the glasses looked, and were, totally irrelevant. Boys still stared, and Corin only looked all the more like a character from the triple zeros. That was eons ago, when people still watched 2-Ds. Why on Eridanus was Corin still wearing glasses? Parisa had thought to herself many times. She had asked Corin herself, but as usual, she got the expected enigmatic response. Spectacles had all but disappeared when fully AI operated laser surgeries became mainstream, and the art of eye care perfected. They were practically part of history, only used for quirks. The only glasses worn now were for in-eye lens projections, and those tended to be quite an expensive tool for the slight benefits it gave. Its fragility was known to be top-tier despite best efforts to increases its durability. Though of course, as usual, you could not exactly blame the manufacturers for not being able to make something so exquisite more hardy. It would almost be like defeating the purpose of the glasses' existence. Of course, others would argue too that the glasses' lack of endurance is due to the historically well-used ploy of planned obsolescence. Product designers have to eat too, don't they.
Yet Corin still insisted on wearing them. Not the expensive projection-retaining types, but a pair of moulded concave silicon dioxide pieces that she must have made herself, since they have not been produced for mass use since two hundred years ago. They were now made only by lens hobbyists who most likely were from the Telephoto Camera Society. They were 2-D enthusiasts who abhorred the more recent dimensional light-capture technology which captured everything in an area perfectly. Originally, the argument was about the costs of such technology, but after a few decades and reductions in their costs due to mainstreaming, it gradually evolved into something like "The art of photography has been lost to technology, the challenge being lost, and the meaning and value of good photography perverted", "All the effects added on to the photographs are artificial, just for the sake of pleasing the eye" or even "They spoil the two-dimensional market. Do you want to collapse the profession of photography? To lose one of the few major modern arts that we have been building up since our age of enlightenment?" But Parisa suspected that these were just cover-ups, excuses for the main reason for their fight against improved technology. They were all too embarrassed to tell the truth; that it was nostalgia tugging at their hearts. Old loves live more lifetimes than the number it takes for old habits to die. Compared to the complicated lenses used in cameras, glasses were simple as pie to make, as long as the house had a fabricator.
As for fabricators, even for suburban households in a rim world such as Eridanus, there were few families who did not use fabricators. Even those who did not own one would borrow one regularly from their neighbours. They were too convenient to let go of, resistance from traditionalists or not. It was easy enough to use fabricators, as long as you invested enough time into getting the hang of it, and have some knowledge of material-science knowledge. Other than base element constructor materials and a little technical fabricator manipulation know-how, and where to look for working and crafting tips and templates, basically anything made of simple, common, stable compound materials could be created with little trouble.
So Corin had refused to undergo laser treatment, and instead made her own glasses. They seemed to work surprisingly well on her for something so antiquated. Corin's black rimmed glasses fit her style so well they might as well have been born with her. But no matter how many times Parisa saw them, she could not rid herself of the notion that they were the most eccentric things she had ever seen a person use. Those glasses were often conversation starters among the girls in school.
The boys on the other hand were never bothered for more than a few seconds, and most never missed a chance to stare at Corin through misted eyes.I guess she must be famous with them too.
Parisa looked to what she would be wearing later. Nothing as fancy as Corin, but hopefully I won't be a complete wipe-out. Parisa straightened up with a cough. What am I thinking. But the truth was that she had just as meticulously chosen what to wear as she had with selecting and arranging her equipment. And that she did before she went through the packing list. Not my normal modus operandi, huh. She dismissed the thought. Did not matter which came first anyway. Still a change to note. Parisa sighed at her soldier-minded inner voice.
But her feminine instinct had had her sift through her wardrobe for her best, but she found nothing that felt right. She rarely went shopping for wearables, as what she already had usually worked great anywhere. Usually. Today was an exception to the rule. But today was not special, was it? Just another trip up north to see the auroras. Why the fuss then? How should I describe the situation? It was more of an anticipation, an expectation; she wanted today to be special.
She went through the clothes on the hangars one by one. Too bright, this. Parisa flicked past a bright yellow polo, then a few others, before setting eyes on a black tee. She pulled it out. Ooh, this one was the one I got from Uncle! It was a short-sleeved turtle-neck that she got a year back from Uncle Hayato, who said something like, "Give it a few years. You will grow into it" when she first tried it out. It was probably the best for today. Classy but simple. Kneeling, she then drew out a pair of dark pants from the lower drawers to go with it.
There. All set. Just a quick shower, and off I go. Parisa rolled sideways onto the floor and stretched like a cat on the parquet.
I can't wait. She ended up admitting later on in the shower. She screened this totally random admission through the logical part of her mind, but the conclusion was the same. I can't wait at all. And she smiled at her inner voice's confession as she zipped her tee and pants together at the navel. For once, she could totally agree with herself.
That took a while to get up... Sigh. Exams. And then animu. (Last season was EPIC, and this one is shaping up nicely too). In any case, I was on Wallbase one day (a GREAT wallpaper site, and yes, I was slacking off and not studying) and I saw a few manga and RL pics that kinda' depicted what I have in my head for this lil' story here. They do not correspond to any specific scene (so I say) but I bet you can fit them into one. Some say some of these pics are spoilers! Hmph. The audacity. Hope you enjoyed the story. It really took *effort* on my part, and I think this was quite a good chapter. I really tried my best to describe how things would work in schools 500 years from now, which was supremely fun, I tell you. Corrupting traditions and students subcultures, heck yeah. Parisa was also so hypocritical towards Corin too. Though Corin is probably laughing at how this is all unfolding. Again, as I do not know much about girls and yet here I am, writing from the POV of one, please do give comments. Constructive ones are very welcome indeed. Here's hoping you enjoy the pics too /wallpaper/1983172, /wallpaper/1979585, /wallpaper/1985698 (I know this is Yui, but I liked the rural background, quite like the terraformed parts of Eridanus II), /wallpaper/1976106