pro·pi·tious adjective
giving or indicating a good chance of success; favorably disposed toward someone


Chapter 3


A few days after he officially moves in to Alder's, they go to Aspertia.

Mostly he needs to get everything out his old apartment, but it's also partly an apology trip. It's difficult facing everyone at the gym. Alder stands back and lets him stumble his way through his "I'm sorry, so sorry" speech. He planned it in advance, but it doesn't come out quite the way he wanted. They forgive him though, so they say. Relief washes over him as he and Alder take their leave, and everyone insists that he come back to visit again soon.

Alder squeezes his shoulder once they're outside. "I'm proud of you," he says.

Cheren doesn't say anything, but he can feel the tips of his ears turn pink. Alder smiles down at him as they start the walk to his apartment.


Unsurprisingly, everything is exactly how he left it, only slightly dustier. He puts his bag down on the kitchen table and heads into his bedroom, emptying his closet and dresser drawers into the boxes they brought. It doesn't take long to pack all his stuff; he doesn't have much. The place came pre-furnished, so he owns little other than his clothes, some books, and a few random trinkets he's collected over the years. A lot of his stuff is still back at his parents'. He never did finish moving everything.

Somehow, even at the beginning, this place never seemed permanent.

"Need help?" Alder asks from the doorway.

Cheren shakes his head, back to him. "I'm almost done," he answers over his shoulder, taping the last box shut. He tries to pick up the one with his books and staggers under the weight of it.

Alder laughs. "Give me that," he says, quickly moving to grab it before Cheren drops it.

Cheren huffs but allows it, instead taking the lighter one with his clothes. He gives the place one last look on their way out. He'll never come back here, and somehow he isn't that sad about it.


The night they get back, he spends a while going through all his things and putting them away in exactly the right spot. Afterwards, he puts his hands on his hips and surveys his new room.

It almost feels like home now.

Alder politely raps on his door before pushing it open. "Looks good," he says.

Cheren nods in agreement, sitting down on his new bed. "Thanks again for-" he starts.

"Nope, none of that," Alder interrupts, holding his hand up. "You're helping me out here too, it's the least I can do."

Cheren sighs. "The small amount I've done is hardly worth this."

"Of course it is. And who else would be willing to live with me? This room would just sit empty, otherwise."

"True," Cheren agrees.

"Hey."

"Sorry," he says insincerely, lip twitching with amusement.

Alder makes a face and sits down next to him. The mattress squeaks under his weight. "I'm glad you decided to stay."

"Me too."


Cheren wakes the next morning and almost trips over Alder sitting in the middle of the hallway. He manages to catch himself with a hand against the wall.

"Hey," Alder says, looking up as Cheren carefully navigates around the piles of stuff he has strewn everywhere. "I thought I would finally get these boxes unpacked since someone else has to look at them now, but it's more effort than I thought it would be."

Cheren squats down next to him and raises an eyebrow. "I see that. Want help?"

He shrugs. "If you don't mind."

He doesn't particularly. "I'm guessing you want these in the living room?" Cheren asks, picking up a pile of books and standing up.

"Yeah, thanks."

He takes them into the next room, neatly putting them away on the nearly empty bookshelf, and comes back, peering into the box closest to him. He pulls out a small framed photo and studies it. It's a generic family-photo type picture of Alder, a much younger Benga, and some woman he doesn't recognize.

"Is this your wife?" Cheren asks curiously, flipping the picture around to show him. Despite all the years he's known Alder, he's never met her before. It's kind of strange now that he thinks about it.

He glances at it and makes a face. "Ex-wife," he corrects.

"What? Since when?" Cheren's surprised. He hasn't heard anything about this.

Alder leans backwards on his hands and thinks. "6 months or so now I guess?"

"Huh," Cheren comments. "Do you want to talk about it?"

He shrugs. "There isn't much to talk about. We hadn't really been together in years anyway. She just wanted to finally make it official so she could get remarried."

Cheren looks at it again. She's pretty, he notices. "How did I not know about any of this?"

"Don't take it personally," he says, shrugging. "Hardly anyone knows."

"Still," Cheren persists. "I can't believe it wasn't in the news or anything."

Alder laughs at that. "No one cares about me anymore. I'm glad, too. It makes life much easier."

Cheren raises his eyebrows and decides to just put the picture aside for now. Alder can decide what he wants to do with it later.

They don't end up going over to the school that day, but at least the apartment looks much nicer without boxes everywhere. When Cheren passes through the hallway to go to his room later, he notices the picture is gone.


The next couple weeks are busy. The opening date is just around the corner, and they're running out of time.

The painting and other easy fixes are done at this point, but there's still a lot to do. The building needs furnishing, for one, which they bicker over until Alder eventually gives up and just hands Cheren his credit card. It's not Cheren's fault he thinks orange and red is an acceptable color scheme for everything.

They plan out classes together, with Burgh occasionally stopping by to offer his input. He agrees to come by and help out whenever he can even though he's busy with the gym. Cheren pulls some stuff from what he taught at Aspertia, but mostly they come up with lesson content on their own.

There's also a ton of paperwork, which Cheren stays out of, and instead works on getting advertising going. He designs some fliers on his laptop and starts distributing them around the city. After thinking about it, he also emails them to Bianca. She has a lot of connections nowadays from her work with Professor Juniper. She emails him back, promising to get them out as soon as possible.


And then suddenly Cheren wakes up one day and realizes it's mid-December. How did that happen?

"What are you planning to do for Christmas?" Alder asks that night while they're watching tv.

"Uh." Cheren blinks. "Nothing?" Honestly, Christmas hasn't even crossed his mind. It's not like he ever does anything special anyway. Last year he spent the holiday alone in his apartment. He may have called home. He doesn't really remember.

It's just another day when you're alone.

"Why don't you invite your friends here?" he suggests. "You haven't seen them in a long time, right?"

He hasn't, but… "Really?"

"Yeah, why not?" Alder asks.

"Huh," Cheren says. That might be… really nice, actually. If they would even want to come. He isn't so sure. "I'll think about it."

He stares at his phone that night before he goes to bed and half types a message before deleting it. They probably have better things to do, he decides.


A couple days later they're sitting at the kitchen bar brainstorming ideas for a lesson. Cheren stares at the notebook in front of them and clicks his pen, trying to think of anything they missed.

"So, did you ask them?" Alder asks after a while, looking over at him.

"No…"

"Why not?"

"I don't know," he admits, twirling the pen in his hand. "Would they come? I haven't seen either of them in forever."

Alder raises his eyebrows. "That's what you're worried about? They love you. It doesn't matter how long it's been."

Cheren chews on his lip thoughtfully. "Alright," he says, sliding off the stool and going to his room to get his phone. He types out a text and sends it, sitting the phone on the counter and staring at it. He shakes his head and makes himself get back to work.

It vibrates twice in the next few minutes, and he picks it back up and checks his messages, feeling nervous.


FROM: Bianca
SUBJECT: YES!

OF COURSE I'LL BE THERE! : ) : ) : )


FROM: Black
SUBJECT: -

Sure. see you soon


He smiles down at his phone before setting it off to the side again.

"Yeah?" Alder asks.

"Yeah."


The problem with actually seeing other people on Christmas, Cheren decides, is that he has to buy them presents. He can't even remember the last time he went Christmas shopping for someone other than his parents. He hates picking out gifts; it's stressful. How is he supposed to know what they want?

Alder is out with Burgh doing… he isn't sure what, so he brings his laptop out to the living room and sits on the sofa. He scrolls through Amazon looking for ideas and finds nothing.

Cheren closes the lid to his laptop and sighs, letting himself fall sideways so he's half laying down. He's just going to have to go out and find something. Maybe Alder can show him to some stores later. They've been so busy that he's still unfamiliar with areas of the city. He pulls his phone out of the pocket he isn't laying on and texts him to ask.


"Cheren."

He's woken up by someone shaking his shoulder.

"Wha?" he asks, confused and still half asleep.

"Up," Alder tells him, nudging him again. "That can't be comfortable."

It's not, now that he's awake. Cheren sits up, back cracking as he does. "Ow." He finds his phone wedged in between the cushions and checks the time as Alder sits down next to him. "It's already this late?"

"Yeah, sorry. I'm later than I thought I'd be. Still want to go?"

"Sure," he says. He rubs his eyes, trying to wake up, and gets up to get his jacket out of his room.

Alder's waiting by the door when he comes back out. "Ready?"

"Uh huh." He grabs his wallet off the table by the door on their way out.

"So what were you thinking?" he asks, as they walk down the sidewalk. "You want to get something for your friends, right?"

"Yeah."

"Hm," Alder thinks aloud. "There're a couple places off Mode Street that might be good."

Cheren vaguely recognizes the area when they get there, though he hasn't been in years. He eyes the Casteliacones stand across the street. He can't help but notice it's not as busy as it used to be. They start to walk by a girls' accessories shop when something displayed in the window catches his eye.

"Just a sec," he tells Alder, stopping to go inside.

He picks up a pink scarf with tiny Munna printed on it that reminds him of Bianca. He quickly pays and meets back Alder outside.

Black is much easier to shop for, being the more practical of the two. He ends up getting him a new bag from a store a few blocks down. Surely he needs one after all these years, Cheren reasons.

"All done?" Alder asks.

"Yeah. That was less painful than I expected."

He still has to come up with something for Alder, but he can't exactly look when he's right there. Cheren sighs to himself. He's going to be the hardest.

It's gotten dark out while they were busy shopping, so they decide to get pretzels at a street cart and take the long way home to look at the Christmas lights. Cheren's never been in a big city during Christmas before; he's impressed with these peoples' enthusiasm for decorating.

"What do you usually get Benga?" Cheren asks curiously, bags swinging idly from his hand as they walk.

Alder laughs. "He's not into presents. I have to just send him money or he'll say, 'Dad, I can't buy TM's with this!'"

"That sounds like him."

"Well, it's not much fun, but it makes things easy at least."

Cheren nods in agreement. He almost wishes that were the standard, not that he has any money.

He pauses as they make their way through the plaza, stopping to stare at the giant tree that's been set up. He's seen it on tv, but it's much more impressive in person. They sure didn't have anything like that in Nuvema or Aspertia.

"Oh, that reminds me," Alder starts, interrupting his thoughts. "Do you want to get a tree?"

"Really?" Cheren asks. He hasn't had a Christmas tree since he left home 5 years ago. It was just too much effort to deal with it himself when he finally got his own place to put one. He finds himself kind of excited thinking about it.

"I'll take that as a yes," Alder says, sounding amused. "There's a place not far from here. Let's go pick one out before we go home."

He's right; it's only a small detour. Alder lets Cheren decide on one while he arranges to get it delivered. They agree to bring it by the next day.

Between the two of them, they have exactly zero decorations, so Cheren ends up buying some cheap ornaments the next time he goes out. It looks pretty sad, but it's better than nothing.


"I think we're done," Cheren says, amazed. He closes the notebook they've been scribbling lesson plans in for the past several weeks. They'll definitely have to do more later on, but they'll be set for a while with these.

Alder leans back on the couch and stretches. "Finally." He grabs the book off Cheren's lap and tosses it onto the coffee table. "We're officially on break."

"We can't go on break."

"Sure we can. It's almost Christmas."

Cheren sighs at him, exasperated. "I've got to type it up at least." He leans forward and picks the notebook and his laptop off the table. "Your handwriting is illegible," he grumbles.

Alder is quiet as he types. About halfway through, he looks over at him and realizes he's fallen asleep beside him. Cheren smiles and tugs down the blanket draped across the back of the couch to throw over him.

Once he finishes typing everything up, he saves it to print later, and closes his computer. He slumps back on the couch and closes his eyes. He's so tired. Maybe a break is a good idea.

His phone vibrates as he's about to nod off, and he picks it up off the couch next to him to check it.


FROM: Bianca
SUBJECT: hi!

I can't wait to see you tomorrow! : )


He grins and quickly types back a reply, telling her to travel safely. It's been a long time. He can't wait.

Cheren glances at the time and decides he better go to bed. "Night, Alder," he whispers, turning the living room light out as he leaves.