IT'S THE FINAL COUNTDOWN! *starts aggressively humming the rest of that song*

Yep, that's right, we're coming to the start of a very special relationship that we've all been waiting for! So, let's ask it again: ARE? YOU? READY?! xD

Thank you for reading!

Anora anxiously waited by the school gates. She didn't know what to expect as she waited. A part of her feared that she wouldn't even remember what he looked like. Anora looked back down at her phone, rereading the last message he had sent to her. It was almost noon. Where was he?

The sound of a taxi honking its horn made Anora jump when she heard it. She turned her attention to the sound to see it come up Daybreak Drive and around the cul-de-sac. A part of her expected a student to come out, the other part of her knew that this was who she was waiting for.

Out of the taxi stepped a young man that looked to be in his early 30s. It was quickly apparent that he was a good head taller than she was, but his overall body mass was about the same to hers. His feathered, dark turquoise hair reached to his shoulders and was partially tied back with a small ponytail. His round, dark brown eyes surveyed the area before they fell on Anora. His smile was exactly how she remembered it being three years ago.

"Hey Razzie." the young man greeted with a smile. Anora could feel her vision start to blur as her eyes welled with tears. Without a second guess, she wrapped her arms around his neck and held on for dear life.

"I missed you..." she mumbled into his shirt.

The young man smiled at her, holding her even closer. "I missed you too, cousin."

Kieran, Anora's only cousin, had decided to make a surprise visit.

The two were locked in their hug for several minutes before Kieran finally pulled them away. He still kept his hands on his cousin's arms- he looked like he was admiring how much she'd grown since they last met.

"So," he casually mused, "You've told me that there's a tourist trap of a town nearby, right? Mind showing it to me?"

Anora's face lit up before giving him a quick nod. But then a small frown appeared on her face as she asked, "The taxi left..."

Kieran smiled at her. He held up a set of roller skates that he had been holding in his hand. "Race ya."

The girl looked from her cousin, to the skates, and back again with widening eyes. With a wide grin, she signaled for her cousin to wait where he was so she could get her skates. Kieran laughed as he watched her dart back to the dorms. Some things just don't change.

. . .

"I hate boba tea." Kieran idly noted as he stirred his straw around his boba. "It's the tapioca pearls that get me. Like, what am I supposed to do with these? Choke on them? Have them get stuck in my straw so I can't actually drink the tea? Ridiculous."

Anora raised her eyebrow at her cousin- taking a very judgmental sip of her milkshake in doing so. Kieran was quick to pick up on it.

"Now, don't give me that look Razzie." he admonished. "'Why would you get a boba if you don't like it?' you might say. To which I rebut, because the tea itself is still fantastic! I mean, depending on who's making it, it's not like a smoothie or anything- but it's not actual tea either. It's just the little balls of potential choking hazard that turns me off. That's it."

With a little chuckle, Anora shook her head at her cousin before continuing to sip on her milkshake. Kieran was the face of normality after the weirdness from the summer. Just hearing her cousin's voice was enough to make her forget about Strelitzia's kiss, and seeing Ephemer react to it, and how Anora almost kissed him on his birthday, and...

"Something's eating you, cousin." Kieran noted, snapping her out of her thoughts. He pulled his straw out of his boba, gave a disgusted little look at the tapioca pearl stuck at the end, then sucked it off before sticking the straw back in the tea. "Wanna talk about it?"

She should have seen this coming. In fact, she should have known this was coming- Kieran's visit wasn't completely out of nowhere. She had asked him to come because she really needed someone to talk to. Well, she didn't directly ask him to visit. But the subtext was written all over their last email to each other, and since Kieran knew how to take a hint, he immediately made plans to travel over to Departure County.

Shrinking a little in her seat, Anora quietly said, "Remember in our emails I mentioned a boy named Ephemer?"

"How couldn't I?" Kieran snorted. "The first time you brought him up, you composed an entire essay on the way his hair bounced when he laughed."

Anora bashfully looked away for a moment. It hadn't had been that bad. Had it...? Was it even possible to have a silent crush on someone for that long?

"You also mentioned him in your last email too." Kieran added, his tone a bit more somber now. "You said he saw you kiss another girl. And in seeing him react, you thought you had developed feelings for him. Like, the kind where you dream about getting together and wake up a hot mess."

"He's always been a friend to me." Anora quietly agreed. "But now… I don't want to be just a friend anymore. I don't know how..."

Kieran studied Anora with interest. It really was bad, huh? The way she would blush when she thought about this dude. How badly you could see that she did want to make some sort of move, but was afraid on how to do it. Kieran himself had only a small amount of previous lovers to fall back on; in all but one relationship the girl had been the one to make the first move. And if he knew his cousin well, he was more than aware that she would write off her feelings as belonging to something more circumstantial. But this? This was different. It needed to be different.

"Hey, is there a library around here? I wanna see if they have something real quick."

Anora gave her cousin a funny look, but nodded her head. After the two finished their drinks, they started to make the short walk over the Cable Town's public library. The library was on a side road, so it was able to have a unique structure apart from the mixed-use buildings that tended to be on the main road. While matching the overall tudor aesthetic the rest of the town had, the library's exterior looked a lot more like a small castle.

Kieran led them both into the library- he made his way through as if he had been here a million times over. He went over to the kids' section and started to comb through the shelves for something in particular.

"Oh darn," he mumbled to himself, "They don't have it. But they do have..."

Anora could barely see what book he had pulled out. He wouldn't let her see it as he then went over to a small reading area. Since it was made for younger kids, the much larger Kieran almost didn't fit as he made himself comfortable under a canopy.

"Come Razzie," he cheekily told her, patting the spot beside him, "It's story time."

For a moment, Anora wondered if her cousin had gone insane. But she carefully started to humor him- it was a tight fit for the both of them to be under the canopy. Anora held her legs close to her chest before carefully leaning against Kieran. Her cousin smiled at her, gave her a little peck on the head, then opened the book up.

"Once upon a time," he started to read, "There was a princess who lived in a kingdom surrounded by raspberries. But there was one problem- the princess didn't like raspberries! So one day, an evil wizard came by and promised the princess that he could make all the raspberries go away."

Anora cuddled her cousin a little closer as he went on with the story. She missed having him read to her; his voice went into a slower cadence and worked to pronounce each word with purpose. When she was much younger, and he'd volunteer to read her a story, she'd almost always go to sleep during. It was comforting; relaxing. She had really missed this.

When Kieran was done reading, he carefully closed the book and let out a small sigh.

"Your problems aren't going to go away if you ignore them, Anora." Kieran told her. At the mention of her real name, Anora jumped and looked up at her cousin with wide eyes. He looked back at her thoughtfully. "While I'm no expert in love or anything," he went on, "You should definitely talk to Ephemer. Maybe he feels the same way, but since the summer was so eventful, he can't tell if you feel that way too. I mean, if I saw a girl that I liked kiss another girl, I'd immediately assume that she wasn't into dudes. And you don't like girls like that… Do you?"

Anora flinched.

"So you're bi then." Kieran casually deduced. "Or close enough to it- no big deal. But you do like him, right?"

For this, Anora could feel her face burn up as she looked down at the ground, nodding her head. Kieran put a comforting hand on his cousin's head.

"Tell him Razzie." he stressed. "I'd hate to think that one of the few times we meet, and you're this upset about a guy, of all things. And don't worry, if he breaks your heart, I know how to use a shotgun."

Anora laughed. "I love you Kieran." she giggled.

"Love you too Razzie." he replied before giving her another kiss on the forehead. "Now, go get him."