here's how you bring someone back to life: you sit in a room or a garden or under the stars with anyone who remembers, anyone with a story, anyone who's life knitted around theirs and you paint the memories together, with your voices, and their ghost will linger there between you
-by Tiny Fairy Tales ( tinyfairytales on Twitter)
When Lidia's phone vibrated, she snatched it off of the counter and read the message with a grin, Quickly tapping out a reply, she then called out.
"Yew and Julka are here!"
"Oh good! That means we can get going soon."
Angela looked up from her phone as she said this and grinned. Lucy, standing behind the counter and making last minute arrangements before Room 777 opened up, shook her head and smiled at them.
"I can't believe that you lot are starting your weekend off from work by…coming to work."
"You say that as if you haven't done the exact same thing when you've gone with them." Gin called out from somewhere in the kitchen.
As the three bantered, Lidia went through the back, past the office and storerooms right up to their staff entrance, where Yew and Julka had arranged to meet her and Angela before they set off for this year's weekend retreat. Just as the retreats themselves had become a semi-regular tradition between all of the female former 'core group' members, so had the fact that if anyone from the Room 777 group were going, they and any others who lived nearby would all meet at Room 777 for a quick drink before car-pooling to wherever they were staying. This year, it would be at Jan's lakehouse.
She opened the door and Julka looked up from her phone. She tucked it into her pocket and asked.
"No dramatic changes in the last oh, I dunno, the past couple of hours?"
"Nope, none at all," Lidia joked as she ushered them in. "Though I'm mildly offended that Ria didn't seem even vaguely bothered that I was leaving. Then again, Erich spoils her so of course they'll be fine."
"Oh, Vita didn't seem bothered, but she kept trying to pull my shoes off me. Though, I'm not sure if that was because she didn't want me to go or if she just wanted to wear the shoes. It's never her own shoes she's interested in, only mine. "
"How on earth did the pair of us end up with such sassy babies, huh? Anyway, Yew, how are you?"
Yew had been looking at them bemusedly, fiddling with the magnolia blossoms pinned to her hair's tidy updo, but now she smiled politely.
"I'm fine, thank you. How's your daughter? She's almost one now, right?"
"Yep, that's right, and she's great. One day you'll have to meet her."
"Mhm."
Yew nodded politely, but Lidia couldn't tell whether she was just being polite or if she was actually interested in meeting Ria. She decided to change the subject, but as they entered the bar Yew looked up and stopped in her tracks.
"Wow….this is…"
Yew spun around in a small circle and fixed her gaze on the metal 'circle of friends' sculpture. Dropping the bag she had been carrying, she put a hand to her mouth. Julka, who had gone straight to the bar counter and was already sipping at a drink with Angela, glanced over.
"Oh yes, you haven't been in here since they've put the new stuff in, right?"
"No," Yew murmured. "But I saw the pictures in the article…"
Her words trailing off, Yew drifted over to the memorial wall and appeared to stare intently at it, standing utterly still. Lidia went to pick up the bag she'd just dropped and then went to the counter.
"Hey, it's strawberries that Yew likes, right?" Lucy asked.
"Yes, that's right."
"Cool. What do you want?"
"Ah, surprise me, yeah?"
Lucy nodded and then mixed the drinks while Lidia, Julka and Angela made small talk with some of the others who were working at the bar that evening. Once she was done, Lidia picked up her drink and Yew's and went over.
"Hey," she said gently, nudging Yew's shoulder. "Here."
"Huh? O-oh, thanks?"
Yew blinked a couple of times, and grasped the glass uncertainly, using both her hands to grip onto it tightly as if she didn't quite trust herself to hold it. Tentatively she sipped, and a smile flickered on her face before she turned her attention back to the wall. Lidia did the same, unsure of what to say. After Kawaakari, she'd really ended up getting to know a lot of the others from the 'core group' who hadn't been in her own group a lot better than she had even in their shared experiences. The retreats tradition had only helped her solidify some of those friendships, even though she didn't go on them every year. Still, she couldn't say that she knew Yew all that well, not in comparison with some of the others. Like Julka, who, in a twist of fate had even ended up related to her-Julka's husband Soren was her husband Erich's cousin. It was funny, how life went sometimes.
"You know, it's funny, when I can't sleep, it's not the collapse that keeps me up…it's remembering Lunar."
Lidia blinked and glanced at Yew, who turned to look at her. Lidia could see how under the carefully applied make-up there were dark circles under her eyes.
"You know, sometimes in my head, I mix it up. I see her as she was…you know, when I found her, but not there, not where it actually happened but in the rubble."
"Like…like a dream?"
Yew shook her head.
"That would mean I was actually sleeping. "
"Oh, Yew…"
"It haunts you too, right?"
All Lidia could do was nod. Of course it haunted her, every single day it haunted her. The difference was that she'd never lost sleep over it. Even over the past year as she and Erich had grappled with having a baby in the house, and all the disruptions to sleep that caused, she was still able to get her rest. All her nightmares waited until the day to come to her. It was hard to admit that though, even to the ones she was closest with.
Sipping at her drink, she studied the wall herself, her gaze drifting to Will's name, and Lunar's name next to it on the right.
"Was that on purpose?" Yew asked suddenly, pointing.
"Sorry?"
"I mean, because of the origami cranes, and the one that she gave to him."
"No, we only asked the artist to put Will's, Mica's, Kureha's and Wren's names in red. Where everyone's names were actually put, that was randomised."
"I see…do you know, I don't even know whether she had any specific, particular feelings for him. Romantic feelings. I was supposed to be her closest friend and I didn't even know that about her. Even though Amuri teased her about it, even though she always seemed a little brighter when she talked about him I don't know. Sometimes, I can't even remember what I knew of her as a person who once lived, just the girl who died. I don't suppose you know if Will….?"
"I don't know, I just think he had a soft spot for her. He always had a soft spot for people he wanted to help, which was almost everyone."
Lidia laughed, but the memory that came with it had spikes.
"No one at all?" Lily demanded. "Not even a teeny, tiny crush? I mean some of those seniors, man…"
Will shook his head earnestly.
"Nah, I mean, I see why you all like or are attracted to the ones you all mentioned but I really don't have any romantic feelings towards anyone else here. And truth is, I wouldn't want to."
"Why not? You not interested in people that way, then, or something?" Hiraga asked curiously.
"No, nothing like that. It's…how should I word this?"
Will frowned down at his drink, then absently picked up his fork as if to take a mouthful of the red velvet cake still left on his plate before changing his mind and putting it down on the plate with a soft 'clink'.
"It's like…if I was to love someone that way, no matter how strongly I felt that way and how hard I tried to do right by them it still wouldn't be enough. Now that I have all of you and all of this-"
Will gestured with his fork to the room they were in before continuing:
"Now that I have all this, anybody else would be second-best. That wouldn't be fair on that other person, especially if I was the one with feelings first and they were returning those feelings with the hope that we'd be the centre of each other's worlds. So, I don't want to have a romance. I don't need one, anyway. Not with you all."
There was a long silence after that. Safe to say, nobody had been expecting that as the answer.
"So no," Lidia told Yew, trying to sound casual about it. "He definitely didn't. I wish he had, though."
"I…you what?"
Lidia reddened. She hadn't meant to admit that. To avoid answering the question she quickly downed the rest of her drink and then gestured to Yew's own empty glass.
"Want to get another?"
"Um, no, that's okay."
"Cool."
Lidia grabbed Yew's glass with a little more vigour than was strictly necessary before heading over to the counter, where Julka and Angela also looked finished. She forced a smile on her face as she plonked the glasses on the counter and then asked:
"Shall we get going, then?"
…
Jan's lakehouse was an old, beautiful thing made of stone and red cedar with a sloping metal roof. It had been owned by her grandfather, Lowen, and until he had died a few years back usage of it had been shared between her, Lowen and their other relatives. When he'd died some years back, however, ownership had been passed to her rather than her aunts and uncles. This, Lidia gathered, had been the source of some friction between them but it hadn't stopped Jan from making full use of the lakehouse and its ability to house a large number of people.
When Lidia, Angela, Julka and Yew arrived, Jan was nowhere to be seen. However, Ani was sitting on the steps off to the side of the house, looking over at the lake while Rain stood right by the bank. Julka parked the car, and then they all got out.
"Hey, we're here!" Angela called over to Rain and Ani, waving before she went to get their bags out.
As Lidia and the others went to help, Ani looked up and grinned, sticking her hands in the pockets of her jeans as she got up. Rain remained staring at the water for a little longer before she also loped over.
"Jan's on the phone with one of the aunts from hell." Rain informed them immediately. "But hopefully she'll be done soon."
"That's good," Lidia replied "Have the others arrived yet?"
"Kay and Sera are on their way," Angela replied as she yanked her final bag out. "They messaged me on the way here."
"Michii is meeting Yuu and Seraph at the station, then Jan asked them to get pizza." Ani added.
"You weren't with Michii?" Lidia asked.
"No, I flew here." Ani said simply.
"They should be here soon, anyway," Rain said. "I hope they will. It's going to rain soon."
"It is?" Julka asked.
Rain nodded seriously and then closed her eyes for a moment, taking a deep breath. Then she opened her eyes again.
"Yeah, it's gonna rain soon. Heavy, too."
Lidia stared up at the sky for a moment. Though the sky was grey and not particularly cheerful, the clouds didn't look as if they were about to burst apart at any moment. Still, if Rain said it was going to rain it probably was, so she just shrugged.
"Guess we should get our stuff in, huh?"
"Want help?" Ani asked.
"Nah," Lidia said. "We're good."
"Thanks, though." Julka added.
Rain shrugged and headed back to her spot by the lake, this time kneeling by it. Ani glanced over for a moment but then followed the four inside. Jan came down the stairs almost immediately, still apparently on the phone. Her eyes lit up briefly when she saw them, and she mouthed an apology before returning her attention to the call.
"Look," she said. "I have no time for this now and nothing's going to change, so I'm ending this, alright?"
Her face creased, and after a few seconds she hung up and glared at her phone for a moment before tucking it into the pocket of her hoodie. Lidia could see how her hands clenched tightly even under the material of the hoodie pocket before she eventually shook her hands and let them rest by her side. She smiled at them, leaning against the banister.
"Hi, guys. Sorry about that. Let me show you to your rooms, yeah?"
Jan headed back up the stairs, and the four of them followed. Lidia, Julka and Yew had been given one bedroom, while Angela was to share with Kay, Sera and Seraph once they arrived.
"Oh, this is cool, the stairs to the top bunk are drawers!" Julka exclaimed. "That's so clever. And it all looks so cosy."
Indeed, the two sets of bunk beds that lined one wall of the room, covered in a mismatched, colourful array of blankets and cushions, the thick rugs against the polished floors and the beanbags were all very cosy looking. The lake couldn't be seen from their window, but the view of the glade and the forest beyond was also enchanting. Inside and out, the entire thing was a soothing sight and Lidia loved it
"I agree. I also totally bagsy one of the bottom bunks." She declared.
Just to make this clear, she moved away from the window and took one of her bags to place right by one of the bunks before fixing them with an exaggerated glare. Yew blinked and spluttered while Julka simply rolled her eyes.
"Don't worry, Yew, I'm happy with a top bunk."
Jan laughed at them, something easing in her expression.
"I'm so glad you all like it! Anyway, there are two bathrooms, yours is just next to this one, on the left. I hope that works?"
"Sure!" Lidia said.
"Yeah, that's fine." Yew agreed.
"Perfect. Then, I'm gonna go down and wait for the others, then maybe once we've freshened up and eaten we can have a grand tour or something?"
"Sounds good to me." Julka said.
Jan beamed.
"Great, then, I'll leave you to it!"
…
Rain made a prediction of rain approaching once the remaining guests had arrived and sure enough, at almost the exact moment that Jan locked the door behind Yuu, the final arrival, the skies seemed to just open up and the rain rushed down. It was for this reason that Jan decided that, rather than sit around her kitchen table that they'd have their pizzas in the living room. And so it was the food was spread out on the coffee table and the women either curled up on the various sofas or sprawled out on the thick blue rugs, while a fire roared comfortingly in the fireplace.
"I didn't realise this place was so big, you know?" Seraph commented. "It's a shame more of us weren't able to come this time."
"Yeah, I wish more of you could've come, "Jan said. "Still, life happens, doesn't it?"
"That it does-that's why Asuka had to back out at the last minute, what with Niwa getting sick and Sainty away for work." Yuu explained.
"Oh yeah, that's right-how is she?" Lidia asked. "Is it particularly bad this time?"
Yuu shrugged.
"Well enough, considering. It's not as bad as things could get back when we were all in school, since now we know about the things that can be done to make it less hard on her body but….well, she got through that and she literally survived a magical coma so, yeah. She'll be fine."
"I'm glad to hear it."
Yew said this through a mouthful of pizza, which promptly caused her to blush and swallow quickly before then asking:
"Was Sasi supposed to be coming as well, or wasn't she available in the first place?"
Michii was the one to answer this time:
"No, she's taken herself off to that cave of hers again."
"Again?" Lidia was horrified. "At this time of year? In this weather?"
"It's not raining in Fulbright." Rain put in as she picked up a mozzarella stick.
"Yeah, yeah, whatever, weather girl, but seriously?" Lidia asked. "Plus, wasn't she there just a couple months back now?"
Yuu and Michii looked at each other and then Yuu sighed, running a hand through her hair before saying:
"I think this year's been a harder one for her than usual. It…it just gets like that, sometimes."
"Yeah, I get that," Lidia acknowledged. "I really get that."
"So do I," Julka said. "You all know, that my daughter's name was one I picked with Elly in mind and…it's hard, isn't it, knowing you watched someone die?"
They all nodded at that, falling silent for a moment before Jan sighed. She picked up a breadstick and started stirring it in one of the sauces that had come with the pizza.
"My family, that is, the rest of them, one of the reasons they're so angry that I've got this place and not them…they think the fact that I don't have any memories of what happened to me to get me in the pool, or of my time there, means that it doesn't count? They think that now I'm rehabilitated I shouldn't have any problems because it's not like I can be haunted by flashbacks, that I'm just making up the pull of the water-"
"Making it up?" Rain demanded. "Making it up? The audacity of them, Jan, I'm so…"
Rain trailed off, spluttering before grabbing her can of soft drink and taking a huge sip of it. Lidia couldn't blame her for being angry-they all knew how, despite being cured, all four girls had retained a compulsion to be near or around bodies of water, that if they were too far from any it caused them unfathomable pain. From what she'd known Juu and Risu had even been homeless for stretches of time because of said difficulties.
"Yeah, but you know what the worse thing is?" Jan said. "They're also dismissing what we found out about Grandpa, about what happened to him when he was at Kawaakari…"
When Jan trailed off, there was yet another silence. There were so many things that had gone unanswered when the school had collapsed, but at the same time things had come to light. The letters that Professor Cinnabuns had written to his deceased friend Lowen about another child also called Lowen had turned out to be about the person who'd become Jan's grandfather. He'd still been alive when they'd come out, and Lidia couldn't imagine how that must have felt to realise that so much of the past had just been snatched away like that, to know that it involved one of the worst things that had ever happened. It didn't matter that no hurt had been intended, in the end it had been caused and the erasure of memory could not, in turn, erase that. It wouldn't.
Just as she was sure that even if her own memories were erased, it wouldn't stop hurting.
"Yeah, that royally sucks. I'm sorry." Kay said. "Your family are all a complete bag of cheese slices, I swear."
They all cracked up at Kay's choice of insult, the wackiness of it enough to dissipate the tension. Jan grinned at them all and said:
"Yeah, that they are. But anyway, tell me what's been going on with you all? Like you two-your babies! They're so cute from the pictures, do you have any new ones?"
Lidia was all too pleased to dig out her phone and find some recent pictures of Ria that she hadn't shared on any group chat or social media yet, and showed them off to much oohing and aahing, and Seraph's cheery declaration that 'she looks more like you than you do!' which set them all off again. Julka shared pictures of Vita, and Angela shared some pictures of Phaedra with her supplies all ready for elementary school the next year. Ani updated them a little about Ruby's pending adoption of two more baby girls and then the conversation circled around to their love lives.
"Yes, yes," Yuu's eyes sparkled. "Tell me everything –I want to know the full stories."
"Why," Seraph teased. "Gonna use them for your next books?"
"Only as inspiration."
"Well, sadly I'm in a dry spell, no story from me. But the café I drop into everyday has a cute new barista so maybe…."
"Does the cute barista know your name? Or your face?" Yuu wanted to know.
"Oh, I don't know," Seraph said. "Guess I'll find out when I'm back. But anyway, some of you must have stories-those of you who aren't all cozied-up with someone already!"
Kay, Ani and Jan all shook their heads ruefully, but to Lidia's surprise Yew blushed and after a few false starts said:
"Actually, I am seeing someone."
"So am I, actually…" Rain said.
"Not each other?" Sera asked drily.
"Now that'd be a twist." Lidia remarked, though she knew that this obviously wasn't the case.
"One of Risu's houseboating friends, we met when I visited her the last time." Rain said. "Malin's nice, but it's still early days and of course it's mostly long-distance. But she gets it, you know, the pull of the water. She really gets it and that makes things so much easier."
"It does, doesn't it?" Yuu sighed. "I mean, my luck seems to be going in the direction of poor Asuka's one and only attempt at romance. You'd think I'd find it easy to meet a decent person considering I know what to look for but no, all they see is the scandal and excitement of either dating a mirror sister or dating one of the Kawaakari 'Core Group'. Bleugh. But anyway, Yew, tell us about your new sweetheart."
"I, well, a friend set us up at a birthday party and we hit it off. It's funny, most of the time I don't really like the larger gatherings anymore, not unless it's with you guys. But with them, I didn't have to just put a brave face on it like I really do, I really enjoyed myself. Though we did sneak away to stand outside and just talk afterwards."
"Aww, that's so cute." Lidia said. "True love, then?"
Yew blushed.
"I mean, it's still…mostly we just talk or go out to eat but…"
"Oh, it's definitely true love. Or if not, it's getting there." Yuu declared. "I don't suppose you have pictures, either of you?"
This made Yew blush even more, but Rain seemed happy to show a few pictures of her new girlfriend Malin before Yuu turned her light-hearted interrogation to the rest of them, either married or in fairly well-established relationships. Not that Lidia had anything saucier to share than stories of life with a baby (including one that did, quite literally, include sauce-specifically applesauce and the very specific chaos that went hand-in-hand with mealtimes with an infant). Nonetheless, it was all good fun, which continued even through dessert. By the time they'd polished off the food and finished 'catching up', they were all both too stuffed and too exhausted to even think about traipsing around the house, so they all decided that Jan would show them around the next morning.
When Lidia climbed into her bunk, she fell asleep immediately, happy and contented. She was certainly looking forward to the rest of this weekend.
…
The next day, after their breakfast, Jan gave the house tour as she had promised before going out to fish despite the fact that it was still pouring. Ani and Rain both went to join her for a while, but the others all stayed inside, opting to get out one of the many card games that Jan had and attempt to play them.
"Ugh, I give up!" Angela groaned after what had been the fifth round of one particular game. "Let's play something else."
"I agree." Sera grumbled.
"Hey, thought you lot were meant to be good at games." Michii pointed out.
"That's computer games." Sera and Angela said, almost simultaneously.
"Though I bet we would have wiped the floor with you all back in high school." Angela said. "I don't play much of anything except stuff aimed at little kids these days."
"We need to fix that, stat." Sera grinned, grumpiness clearly forgotten for the moment. "Get all of us back together again for a games night."
"Sure, sure. If it's soon though, I'll need time to organise someone to look after Phaedra, so Tomie can have a night out or something herself."
"Oh, I can do that," Lidia said.
Angela looked over.
"Are you sure?"
"Why not? Phaedra likes Ria, doesn't she? She'll enjoy getting to be the 'big girl' for a night or so, won't she? That and we know her, so if anything comes up we can manage."
Angela grinned.
"Then, we'll fix something up but first-let's play something else."
"Truthfully, I'm getting a little bored. Should we watch a movie or something?"
"Ah, but that's what we're doing tonight, right?" Julka asked. "It'd be a bit unfair to start without them."
"True enough."
Yuu sighed, then to everyone's amusement flopped down on the carpet, looking up at the ceiling.
"This place is so nice. It feels like it's doing half the work, cementing these friendships. And I bet it'd make for a really romantic hideaway."
"Planning a new book already, are you?" Michii drawled.
"Girl, I'm always planning a new book and you know it. But seriously, I should give a new character a lakehouse like this."
"I'm sure Jan'll be flattered." Sera said drily.
"You think so?" Yuu asked, apparently completely earnest. "Like I said before, I don't directly lift things from real life into my stories, so it'd be a different lakehouse but this one is definitely the inspiration. And not just that, but the fact of being here with all of you. I kind of wish things had become different for us earlier, you know? So that we could have started getting to know you all sooner."
Lidia looked properly at Yuu, still star-fished out on the floor. She was tall as she'd always been (though not nearly as tall as Sasi), her hair was the same rich brown and medium-length and curled at the end and she still had the same taste in dresses-long, with swishy skirts and sweeping sleeves. But where the blue dress she had on right now was well-made and in good condition, the green dress that Lidia remembered Yuu wearing the most at Kawaakari had been worn out, mended over and over and over even though it should have been thrown away.
Yuu's hair had been different too, duller despite the colour of it, the split ends out of control. Her tallness had been off-set by the same gauntness all six of the mirror sisters had had and until after that dramatic day in the cafeteria, Lidia wasn't sure she'd ever seen Yuu smile, or even look peaceful. She'd either been viciously angry or fiercely protective-more than the fights they'd gotten into or the snarls that she'd given anyone who hadn't been one of her group, the one memory Lidia held of Yuu was the evening of the End-of-Summer dance where she'd seen her watching over Niwa in the courtyard. She hadn't understood the look on Yuu's face as she'd stared at Niwa and Koda messing around, but though it'd niggled at her it had been easy to dismiss it as part of their strangeness and just focus on the party.
She wondered if she would have done anything different if she'd had any idea what life had really been like for them back then. Surely she would have, she and her friends? Or tried, at least. Surely?
"It would have been nice to get to know you all better before then, yes." Julka agreed.
"Oh yeah, it would have." Lidia agreed.
"Still, at least we're doing so now, right?" Yew pointed out. "That's what I like about these."
"Oh, yes, for sure." Julka said. "It's always fun, coming here."
"Making new memories, right?" Sera drawled. "That's what it's about. Speaking of which-please can we switch games up? I sure don't want my memory of this retreat being that I lost every game we played."
Lidia grinned-it was a relief to not have to take her thoughts further down the road they'd been going on-and began to gather up everyone's cards.
"No, no, wouldn't want that. What shall we play instead?"
…
When Jan, Ani and Rain came back in with their haul, after a quick stop for lunch, the dinner preparations started. Lidia excused herself from gutting the fish, choosing to use that time to check in on Erich and even squeeze in a small video-call where Ria first stared confusedly at the phone and then attempted to eat it. However, once that was done, she did go down to help with the cooking.
Looking for herbs to marinate some of the fish with, Lidia began looking in the cupboards that Jan had pointed her to. She found some of the ones Jan had asked for, and then came across a clear packet, filled with what looked like tiny pink crystals. She frowned, not recognising what it was-there was no helpful label on the packet-and scrutinising it. She shook it, prodded the contents and then opened it and sniffed it.
"Wait, what are you putting in it?"
Kureha grinned and waved the packet.
"Popping candy, duh."
"You say that like it's perfectly standard to put popping candy in hot chocolate."
"Well, you get popping candy in chocolate you eat, right? So why not in the chocolate you drink?"
Lidia pulled a face, and Wren giggled at her.
"C'mon, as if this is the weirdest thing Kureha's come up with!"
Lidia sighed heavily, then held her hand out.
"Alright, come on, give it here. What are we doing, exactly?"
Kureha showed Lidia and Wren, and moments later they carried out the hot chocolate along with some of the cookies Professor Snow had given them that morning. Lidia sat at the bar counter with Lily, Lucy and Hiraga while the others sat at tables, and they all sipped their hot chocolate.
"You've done something different." Tate said immediately. "Raspberries and…"
He frowned and fell silent as he took more sips, trying to figure it out. The others also attempted to figure out what the new sensation was until Kureha clearly couldn't take the suspense anymore and told them:
"It's popping candy, you guys!"
"Oh!" Hiraga exclaimed. "Of course it is! That'd explain it, you know, popping."
"It's nice like this," Starri said. "Is the candy raspberry flavoured too?"
Kureha just shrugged at this:
"I mean, I do want to try it with different fruits too so I mean, next time I could see if there is any raspberry flavoured popping candy in the shops."
"Sure sounds like a plan to me." Lily said. "Right, guys?"
"Oh, definitely."
They all laughed.
Lidia took an extremely deep breath and then turned around to the others.
"Jan," she asked very slowly. "Why do you have a packet of popping candy with your spices?"
"I do?"
Jan looked up from her own task and frowned.
"Huh, I suppose I do. Ah, Yew, pass me the-"
Yew passed Jan the bowl she had been gesturing to, and then Julka handed over some vegetables before turning to Lidia.
"Are you alright?" she asked. "You look as if you're remembering something."
As Lidia was whisking the cream, Lily came in.
"I think they're almost done, but it's hard to tell-especially with Hira, he's really ranting."
"It must have been scarier for him, after all." Lidia pointed out. "Hey, mind taking the milk off the heat for me?"
"Sure."
Lily went to do just that, and then looked around. Spotting the chocolate powder next to the six glasses that already had the mashed raspberries in them, she took some and started to make the hot chocolate paste. She then passed it to Lidia to pour the rest of the milk in before then asking:
"Do you think that…that we're enough?"
Lidia blinked.
"What do you mean?"
"I mean, are we enough for him? Or each other? Even with everything else this year, I didn't think that it would get this bad. I've never seen so many of us so damn fragile before and…are we really enough for each other?"
"Sure we are!" Lidia said immediately.
Lily smiled at her and leant against the counter, but Lidia couldn't smile back. Instead, she poured the hot chocolate into the glasses, before then getting the whipped cream and folding the remaining mashed raspberries through it. It was only once she started to spoon it over the hot chocolate she felt that she could put a voice to her thoughts:
"I think that's the problem, though. Where Will is concerned anyway."
"It's a problem that we're…enough….?" Lily asked, sounding confused.
"Yeah. Not just enough, more than enough. In some ways, that's the problem, I think."
"Um…."
There were a few moments of silence. Lidia was pretty sure that Lily was just blinking at her, looking a little bit owl-in-the-daylight, but she concentrated on mixing in the popping candy and then garnishing the drinks with marshmallows and chocolate sprinkles before grabbing the nearest tray and arranging the mugs on them.
"Have they finished their telling-off, then?" Lidia eventually asked.
Finally looking at Lily, Lidia pulled a face and Lily pulled one right back, though it was easy to tell that she was still puzzled. However, she tilted her head and listened before saying:
"Yep, I think so."
"Good, then let's go."
Lidia nodded absently and then swung the packet about in her hands for a moment as the memory continued in her head. Despite what had happened on that night, and how they had all still been dealing with that in the morning, the hot chocolate had taken them right back to their happier times. Even though it hadn't been all twelve of them as it should have been, that moment sitting around and sipping their personalised concoctions had simply been a quiet moment. A perfect moment.
And as it turned out, it had been the last time they'd ever get to drink their own hot chocolate together. Over the years since then, she'd drunk and made plenty of hot chocolate, but none according to this recipe or any of the variants. Not even with Erich. Not even with Angela, Rena, Mist or Sado. Not even any of the others in the wider 'core group' she'd become closer to. Not even by herself-it felt too much like something that had only belonged to them, as they had been in what had literally been a different era. A them that no longer existed.
Maybe I should change that, she thought. Maybe I shouldn't hold onto it so tightly, despite everything. She tossed the packet once more, then called out to Jan:
"Hey, can I use this for something?"
"What, with the fish?"
"No, not with the fish!" Lidia spluttered, mock-outrage momentarily disrupting her own melancholia. "But later, for something else."
Jan seemed to pick up on her mood, because she turned and regarded Lidia for a long, long moment before her expression softened:
"Sure."
Lidia grinned, and then put the packet of popping candy back in the cupboard she'd found it in, so that she would know where it was.
…
'Later' came on the final evening, when the rain had cleared up enough that they could actually spend most of the day enjoying the outdoors, culminating in a large fire being built for them to all sit around and cook their dinner over. It was that moment that Lidia thought would be perfect for the hot chocolate, especially since Seraph and Angela were enthusiastically roasting marshmallows.
"Need any help?" Julka asked once Lidia announced her intention.
"Sure, why not?"
Yew decided to come too, and once they were back in the kitchen, they started to get everything out. Both Yew and Julka knew how to make hot chocolate from scratch (which was how Lidia had decided to do it this time around) and so she got them on that while she found the mugs, fruit and cream. Jan didn't have raspberries, but she did have blackberries and a couple of plums and so Lidia decided to just combine the two and see what happened. It was what Kureha would have done, after all. Quickly chopping up the plums, she put some to the side along with a few of the blackberries, then chucked the rest in a bowl and began to mash them together. It was only once she'd finished that and started to line the mugs with the resulting fruit mash that she remembered the popping candy was still in the cupboard.
Putting the bowl down, she quickly returned to the spice cupboard and pulled the popping candy out. She shook the packet experimentally and hesitated for a moment. She then turned to see that Julka was watching her.
"Is this what you wanted to use the popping candy for?" she asked.
"Yeah." She sighed back.
"That's…an interesting thing to do." Yew commented. "Was this one of Kureha's ideas?"
"Yep, pretty much."
"I've never seen it on the menu or anything, though?" Julka asked.
"No, you wouldn't have," Lidia explained. "It was just one of our own things…only for ourselves. The twelve of us, as we originally were."
"Oh, Lidia."
"What?"
Lidia pulled a face, tried to make light of it, but she could tell that neither Julka nor Yew were having it.
"You don't need to share everything that you had, you know," Julka said. "Some of it can just be yours. After all, they're your precious memories, right?"
Lidia again pulled a face, then beckoned them over to start pouring the hot chocolate into the mugs. But as they did so, she found herself saying:
"Oh, believe me, there's plenty that none of us are sharing because those'll always belong to us. But I don't know…I sometimes wonder if we could have shared more in the first place. I love what we had, I wasn't lying in the article, you know. I wouldn't change what we had for the world, not at all and yet at the same time…don't you ever wonder if certain things had happened differently, we could have saved the ones that we all lost?"
"All the time," Yew said. "All the time."
"Exactly!" Lidia exclaimed. "Exactly. And truth be told, although you might think we shared so much…truth is, we didn't. Not really. We were so…I don't know, we were us and the rest of you were the outside world, in a way. And it was truer for some of us than it was for others, but that was what it came down to really. In the end, we were all so closed off from the rest of you all and…I wonder sometimes, if that contributed to the way things turned out for us, you know?"
Julka frowned at this, but Yew was nodding slowly.
"What you said back at the bar, before we drove down here-that you wished that Will had liked Lunar…is that kind of the same thing?"
Lidia pulled a face. Yew was right, but somehow, hearing her sentiment in someone else's words made it seem so silly. She didn't feel as if she could brush off the question, either.
"I forget you're clever," she said. "But yes…I just wonder sometimes, if we weren't all so attached to each other, if we had actual bonds outside of the little unit we were…could that have saved us? I know it's not logical, that plenty of the others who died had like, all these varied connections, they didn't hitch their entire hearts to one person or one group the way we did with each other. Especially with Will, if he could have cared that deeply about someone who wasn't us, like Lunar, could that have changed the way things turned out? I mean, it doesn't make sense at all, because that would have also been a case of such a strong connection to one person, but even so I wonder if things would have been different if we had more that was meaningful than just us. If perhaps despite everything that was absolutely wonderful about what we were, it did also hurt us in the end."
There was a pause in which they all looked at each other, and then Lidia shrugged:
"Like I said, it sounds stupid."
"No, I get it," Julka said. "We kinda see it from the other side, don't we? The ones who…how did you just put it? Hitched their hearts to someone specific? The ones on the left-behind side, we see how they're still particularly struggling. Like Mist, I know she still finds it hard to really accept that she isn't to blame for Negi's death."
"And I feel the same, with Lunar, even though in my case I'm not a left-behind in that sense but…" Yew sighed. "I know that even being more connected, or more outspoken wouldn't have been enough necessarily to fight off Frost's intimidation and enchantments, because it wasn't enough for Amuri, was it? Or for Negi for that matter. But I do sometimes wish that she had had more people to be close to, even if not a romantic love specifically. If that could have been enough for her to be able to tell someone what was happening, or for someone to spot it then maybe that would have been enough to stop everything, you know?"
"In any case," Lidia said. "I think, in thinking about that…that's why I'm trying to share everything now, why I try to come to as many of these as possible. Because I want to keep as much of what I still have as possible but I don't want to be so closed off again. I want to be connected to the world as much as possible, make new bonds and memories and keep them."
Julka smiled and squeezed her shoulder.
"You're doing a good job of it. I'm glad of it."
Lidia smiled at her, and then grinned at Yew who smiled back and nodded, though she didn't say anything. She then turned to the half-done drinks:
"Right, let's complete these things then!"
They quickly finished the drinks, Lidia taking extra care with the final touches and then they carried the mugs outside on trays, passing them around. Once the three of them had settled back down by the fire with their own mugs, she watched the reactions carefully.
"Oh this is really…." Jan frowned. "Huh, it makes me think of like, black forest gateau but…a drink!"
"Yeah, it does, but there's definitely something else in here," Angela said. "A different flavour but I can't quite figure it out."
"Can't you?" Sera teased. "Aren't you meant to be the expert now?"
Angela made a rude hand gesture, and then the discussion went back and forth until finally, Lidia grinned at them all:
"You know, the rest of us had a tricky time figuring it out the first time Kureha made this hot chocolate for us, though her original recipe was with raspberries. But do you want to know?"
"Um, yes?" Michii said. "Obviously."
Lidia glanced at Yew and Julka, who both smiled gently at her, and then Lidia turned to face the others. There were so many things that would only ever belong to the twelve of them, even now they were fractured and gone, but this one thing she could share. Perhaps she hadn't known them as well as she could have had before, but it didn't matter. They knew each other now, cementing new bonds, and in sharing this drink and some of the stories, she could continue doing that. So she took a large sip of her own hot chocolate, savouring the flavours and sensations and memories, and then cradled the cup in her hands.
Then, she started to share the story with them.
The fun fact for this chapter is that the entire idea was inspired by the real-life recipe for the popping candy raspberry hot chocolate that Lidia makes in this. It's from Co-op magazine, and while I'm not 100% sure if it's possible to use the co-op website outside of the UK you could always search 'popping raspberry hot chocolate' and try looking for the recipe on coop dot co dot uk.