It was around 11:30 when they had all started to pack up. Yamuraiha was convinced that the reason for their holdup was partially Sinbad's fault for getting over emotional and going on about 'the good old days'. He would start blathering about how much she had grown and how he had been feeling old. Jafar rolled his eyes and sympathetically patted his back whenever he would begin to whine.
Just before they left Priscilla came around smiling again with her perfect row of pearly white teeth. She handed each of them a fortune cookie.
"A fortune cookie in an artsy restaurant in the country?" Yamuraiha questioned. The small cookie certainly wasn't made anywhere nearby as the letters on the packaging were in Mandarin.
"It's a tradition my dad made up. The cookies always come true somehow." Priscilla explained. She wiped off lint off her black apron. "Read yours, maybe it'll be something good." she encouraged her.
Yamuraiha rustled the plastic open and cracked the cookie. "Stay away from water." she read. It was unique if nothing else. Usually fortunes had something along the lines of 'new people are going to come into your life' and have the lucky numbers at the bottom. This cookie had neither.
"Mine says be careful around vehicles." Sharrkan said. "Well that'll be easy enough since the roads here are usually empty."
"Mine says that love will come into my life in the form of red. These fortunes are always so weird. What did yours say Jafar?" Pisti asked. She crumpled up the paper and stuffed it in her pocket.
"I'll open mine at home, right now my main priority is getting this big lug home." Jafar was referring to the drunk mess which was Sinbad who had fallen asleep on his shoulder.
"Thank you for the food." Yamuraiha said.
"Come back sometimes, I always work late here since I'm homeschooled and my dad owns the place. We're actually open until 11:00, but I'll always make an exception for you guys." Priscilla squeezed Yamuraiha's hand. "It gets lonely sometimes so you can come anytime."
Yamuraiha reflected her smile. "I'll be sure to."
The ride back was much calmer than the ride there. Sharrkan didn't fidget much, if at all and Pisti didn't cause noise. Jafar gently hummed to the low volume of the radio and Sinbad snored quietly. And Masrur- well, he didn't say much in the first place.
Yamuraiha folded her hands in her lap and enjoyed the drive back. It wouldn't be long before they would reach her house.
"So," Sharrkan nudged her, breaking into her thoughts.
"So what?" she was almost whispering.
"Wasn't I right? Wasn't that place incredible?" he seemed to be gloating.
"I liked it. It was actually really fun. Priscilla is also really nice." Those words were easier to admit than she thought.
"I knew you'd like it." He looked like he was gleaming. "See what did I tell you salty, stick with us and you'll be going on more fun adventures."
She rolled her eyes at his forced attempt to get the lame nickname to stick. "Maybe I'll hang out with you a bit more, but only if you promise to stop with the nicknames, they make me feel like I'm in a badly written comedy."
"I will make no such promises."
"Then I take back what I said about the cafe."
"No take backs! That's a rule we established years ago, but it is still relevant." Just before she could get a word out he stuck out his tongue in a childish manner.
She was seriously conflicted in how she felt about him. He seemed kind enough sometimes, but at the same time a huge pile of arrogance. There was also the fact that he was probably just like a lot of the gross boys at her old school, with their bad habits of getting a new girlfriend every week or just someone they wanted to 'have fun' with. Then again, he seemed to want to hide the fact instead of boasting about it when Pisti mentioned it.
"Okay,"
"Okay?"
"Yeah, I am too tired to argue with you right now. So let's say that you won this round." She rested her head back. "How long until we reach my house Jafar?"
"Give it another three minutes." He made a turn. "The snow is really coming down."
"I don't know if I'll manage going to school tomorrow." Yamuraiha stretched out her arms.
"You're not going to go." Pisti said nonchalantly.
"What do you mean? I have to go at least to introduce myself, my dad already did my transfer papers a week back."
"School is still out for another week. There was a gas leakage. It wasn't a big deal or anything, they're just taking precautions until next week to make sure." Pisti explained to her.
"I guess that's a good thing," Yamuraiha shrugged. "Anyways, I almost see my house, do you guys want to exchange phone numbers? It's okay if you don't want to though-"
Pisti went through her tiny bejewelled purse and took out a fruity scented pink notepad. "I'll write down my number first, since it's the most important. " she teased. She wrote down her number within the span of two seconds and her writing seemed like calligraphy more than anything else. She ripped off the paper off the notepad. "Here, don't lose it!"
Yamuraiha took it from her hands. "I won't." She folded it and put it into her sweatpant pocket.
"Masrur next!" Pisti threw him the notepad which he perfectly caught with his bulky hand.
He nodded at Yamuraiha and began to scribble away. When he handed her his paper; Yamuraiha wasn't sure what she was looking at. The letters were all bunched together and she couldn't make out what they said. She nodded back trying not to offend her new, old friend.
"Pass it to me," Sharrkan said.
Yamuraiha looked at him with surprise.
"What, you don't think you'll need my number? It's just for convenience if nothing." He wrote down his number carefully and handed back completely normal looking numbers.
Yamuraiha also folded it and put it into her pocket . "Jafar, can you also write down your number? And Sinbad's too I guess."
"Pisti can probably text you my number once you text her. We're right at your house, I don't want to hold us up any longer." He pulled the car into a halt.
"Okay!" Yamuraiha agreed. "Thanks guys, I'll see you next week at school probably." She moved over and opened the door. "I'll text you if I need anything."
"Yeah see you later Yamu!" Pisti called out to her.
She waved goodbye to all of them and they drove off.
Yamuraiha tiptoed back into her house and locked the door behind her. The inside of the house was just as cold as the outside, due to their lack of a working heater. Yamuraiha could see her breath, which wasn't really something anyone wanted to see inside their house.
At least there's ten blankets I can lay under, she thought.
She shuffled back upstairs and was relieved to see her father still sleeping. She ran past his room into her own and got into her pajamas. Her baby blue nightgown was totally out of the question once she noticed how cold it had gotten the past hour and a half. She glanced at the clock. 12:07. Not too bad, she reassured herself. She slipped into bed after changing and fell asleep fast for once.
"Yamuraiha, Yamuraiha,"
"Wha- who's that yelling?" She rubbed her eyes to see her very displeased father. "Oh heeey," she yawned, "what's going on?"
"Don't you have school today? It's already 7:45! You're going to be late on the first day." he urged her.
"No- I mean, there's no school today. A gas leak happened and no one is allowed there for like another week."
"Well I certainly didn't get the memo, how did you figure that out?" He crossed his arms and impatiently waited for an answer.
Yamuraiha scratched the back of her head. How was she supposed to explain to her father that she was more or less pressured into sneaking out at approximately 10 at night? And that the people she snuck out with were probably terrible influences on her. Pisti and Sharrkan, the dynamic duo that were the literal definition of the kind of people your parents tell you to avoid, Sinbad the drunk and slightly creepy so called leader of the team with his own personal caretaker, Jafar- and last, but not least the bulky silent Hulk, Masrur.
"Uh I searched up the school's website before coming here to make sure of important dates and it was there- on the website I mean." she lied. Well she couldn't have told him the truth, that would be a one way ticket into trouble. And it was probably half true since the school should have some sort of social media which they would post whether or not it would be safe to go to school.
"Oh," his face softened. "I thought you were making up excuses to stay at home. Well, I'm glad to see that you are still the same responsible person."
"That's me, Missus Responsible!" she laughed sheepishly.
"Anyways, I'm going to head out into town to get some more furniture, I'll probably back in a few hours with some trucks, but in the meanwhile just set your room up- oh and don't touch any of the boxes downstairs."
Yamuraiha nodded. "Okay dad, I'll be sure not to knock over any of our paper weight and cardboard."
"I mean it Yamuraiha. Some of the boxes contain expensive stuff."
"Stuff like what?"
"Stuff like my new work computer, so don't touch anything until I get back. We both know how clumsy you are."
Yamuraiha crossed her arms and pretended to be mad. It wasn't that convincing though, as she herself knew better than anyone of the many 'incidents' she has had. "Okay, dad I get it. I won't even go into the living room."
"Alright. Great, well I better get going now before the snow gets even worse."
Yamuraiha dressed in 3 layers once again. She didn't believe that it could have gotten colder than it did last night, but somehow it did. She put a kettle on the stove and put on the radio in the living room connected to the kitchen.
She looked at the large amounts of dust scattered across the wooden floor. It won't hurt if I just clean the living room, she thought. It would give her something to do and warm her up. She got out an old broom out of the closet and began sweeping away to a song on the radio.
It must've been a groove that was too catchy since she found herself dancing while working- which wouldn't be a problem really, but she was clumsy, and clumsiness and dancing usually don't go together. So the one thing she promised not to do she did: knock over the boxes.
It wasn't that Beyonce's Drunk in Love was even that catchy a song to begin with, but for some reason she really felt like dancing. And unfortunately for her, her dancing involved moving her arms a lot which brought her to knocking over three boxes.
She internally screamed as she watched the boxes fall one by one in slow motion. Knowing that she was done when she heard something crash and shatter, she dropped her broom immediately.
"No,no, no." she softly whispered when she kneeled over and looked inside the boxes.
China plate in good condition? Check. Another box filled with books, also fine. She made her way over the last box. She opened it to reveal a laptop missing some of its keys. "Oh."
There was no number for her to call to repair this mess. No glue for her to do it herself. She couldn't have just gone outside in the middle of a snow storm and walked twenty minutes to the nearest store. She couldn't have just looked up a solution either since the Internet had been down since she woke up. She had officially screwed herself.
Is this punishment for me sneaking out, she thought. Her dad's shiny new work computer was destroyed by her terrible dancing accompanied by old Beyoncé music.
Suddenly, there was hope. She realized that her sneaking out yesterday did have an upside. The phone numbers! She darted upstairs and searched the pockets of her sweatpants.
Her first choice was Pisti's number. It wasn't that Masrur was that bad, but she was afraid that she would just be bothering him if she called. Pisti's number was nowhere to be found. The only pieces of paper in her pocket were Masrur's and Sharrkan's.
"Masrur it is," she said to herself. She took a good look at his number. It was impossible to read. She couldn't even decipher a single number. His writing was atrocious. "Please, I don't want to call him." she whined.
It took her a good three minutes to mentally prepare to talk to him. He was the only person she could ask for help. She dialled the number.
"Hello?" Sharrkan said. "Who is this?"
"It's Yamuraiha." she answered.
"Oh! Hey."
"I need your help."
"With what?"
And that's when she explained to him. All about the boxes and her dad, the lack of Internet and glue, and how she desperately needed help. And much to her contempt all about the dancing which caused the whole mess.
She could hear him laugh for a minute without stopping. "So you basically destroyed an expensive computer and its Beyonce's fault?"
"Yes! Haven't you been listening? Please just get here with some special glue or something and instructions on how to fix computer keys."
"Wait don't you have Pisti's number and Masrur's too?" he asked. "Not that I really have anything against it, but why call me first?"
"Because I lost Pisti's number and I can't even figure out what Masrur wrote."
"Ouch. Well I'll try to get there soon, but you owe me."
"Yeah, sure whatever you want."
By the time Sharrkan had arrived Yamuraiha had already made tea, had breakfast, collected the computer keys and put them into an organized pile on the coffee table in the middle of the living room, and make snacks for the both of them to eat.
"I took long because there's a lot of snow, and I'm not apologizing for taking an hour to get here." He was holding a sort gym bag which really didn't fit with his huge coat and wool hat with red leaves on it.
"Yeah, I know I know, you're just here because you need to blackmail me with something later on. So let's just fix the keyboard on the laptop and then you can insult me how much you want and I'll do anything you want- as long as it's not anything gross."
"Aw, well all the things on my list were gross." he sarcastically said. "Where can I throw my coat?"
"I'd leave it on if I were you," she led him into the living room. "It's really cold in my house since we don't have heating yet."
He threw down the bag beside the coffee table. "When is Matal coming back?"
"I'm not even sure myself, so help me fix this as soon as possible."
"You know I could just leave the glue here and I can leave. I'm pretty sure you could figure this out yourself."
"Oh, I definitely could." she agreed. "I do need an extra hand handing me the keys so I can glue them to the right membrane. Also if you could search up an image of what a regular computer keyboard looks like I would be super grateful."
He rolled his eyes. "An answer for everything huh," he crouched down around the coffee table. "I'm taking off my coat though, I don't care how cold it is- it's better than being uncomfortable."
"I'll bring you a blanket and some tea."
"Don't put milk in my tea- I'll throw it out."
Yamuraiha looked offended. "I wouldn't even give the person I hate tea with milk- what am I gross?"
Sharrkan nodded, silently approving her response.
She ran upstairs and took a few blankets off of her bed and rushed back downstairs and dropped them into his lap.
"Dolphin blankets?" he questioned. The soft fleece in his lap wasn't something he'd be expecting a teenager to have.
"You can laugh if you want. I don't care I like them."
"It isn't bad." he quietly admitted.
It was around when they were half finished with fixing the keys for the laptop that Yamuraiha's phone rang. She dropped the 'w' and 'm' from her hands when it did.
"It's dad!" she panicked.
Sharrkan, however didn't share her panic. He continued to arrange the keys and press glue down on the key membrane.
"Hi- dad, it's Yamuraiha." she nervously laughed, and Sharrkan shook his head silently judging her.
"I know it's you because I was the one that called."
"Oh right, so UHM- what's going on- when are you coming home?"
"I don't think I'll be coming home today." his voice sounded serious.
"What do you mean?!"
"Yamuraiha have you looked outside in the past few hours? There's a snowstorm. All roads are closed and the lady at the inn told me that they'll probably only go around to clearing it tomorrow."
"Lady at the inn?"
"I'm staying at a hotel. I was lucky that it was nearby. Anyways, I'll be home as soon as possible, I'm sorry you're stuck in the cold, but the hearing guy will come tomorrow."
"Uh- yeah." Yamuraiha didn't know how to respond. The upside to this was that she could fix the keys and let them dry and keep her 'good' reputation. The downside however, was that she had to spend hours with a person she was sure disliked her in an icebox of a house. "Okay, dad. I'll just tough it out."
"What did he say?" Sharrkan asked her, his eyes still fixated on the keys.
"We're stuck here until tomorrow, unless you want to walk home in the snow storm."
"What do you mean?"
"Roads are closed."
Sharrkan blinked twice. He was at a total loss for words.
I will do the next chapter in Sharrkan's POV. It will be focused on him and Yamu stuck in the house. What will happen ooooo. Lol, but if you liked it review and whatnot and suggest what things I should put in! I love suggestions and reviews. Thaaaank.