That following Saturday, just after lunchtime, they made their way to an old church building on the opposite side of town from where they usually spent time, to meet with Brady and as many others as he'd been able to gather there with them. "Are you sure this is the right place?" Yarne asked, not being the one driving for a change due to them going somewhere unfamiliar to him, although Kjelle swore up and down she knew the area well. "It doesn't look like anywhere we'd want to be."

"I helped when they cleaned this place out a few years back, I could never forget how to get over here," she replied, turning into the mostly empty parking lot outside the building, which looked run-down and like it hadn't been accessed since it would have been hypothetically cleaned out. But when she went around to the back side of the building and there were actual cars present, it seemed that perhaps she wasn't misled after all. They parked off to the side of things and got out, both of them looking around to see if there was anyone outside that would show them where to go. With no sign of a person directing guests in any way, they headed for the door to the church, filled with relatively new-looking glass compared to the quality of the building it was in.

Ever the gentleman, Yarne was the one to grab the door and hold it open for Kjelle to enter, and she walked straight inside like she belonged in the place, calling out for anyone to answer her. They were met with the sound of someone calling her name in return, and she turned to look at Yarne, who was closing the door gently, motioning for him to follow her wherever she was going. The lights in the hallway were dim, but as they went further down they passed by different activity rooms that had lights on, despite no one being inside. It wasn't until they made it to the very last room before the hallway forked that they saw anyone else, a tall, brown-haired man standing in the doorway with his back hunched, his eyes looking right at them. "You two made it!" Brady said once they were illuminated enough by the room that he could see who they were. "Here I was, startin' to think that everyone had just kind of blown off the idea."

"I'm the one who came up with the idea, if I'd blown it off I would've been kind of a jerk to even bring it up!" Yarne put a hand over his chest, feigning that he'd been wounded, until he got close enough to Brady to give him a hug.

"You know, if you stood up straight, you'd actually give Yarne a run for his money on being the tallest one in the group. Still wouldn't beat him, but you'd be close." Looking up at the two with a smile on her face, Kjelle watched as, despite being in the hug, Brady tried to straighten himself up but still came at least an inch too short to match Yarne's height. "Hey, I said you'd be close, I didn't expect you to actually do it."

"It's been a while since we last saw each other in person, I figured it would've been worth a check. Maybe I'd gotten taller since then, I don't know." Brady sniffled, like he'd been hurt with the comment, but the way he crouched down to hug Kjelle after finishing with Yarne showed that he didn't mind too much.
"So, you said everyone blew off the idea?" Yarne asked, trying to steer things back to where they'd been. "If I go in the room, is there going to be anyone in there?" Before Brady could answer, there was the distinct sound of someone shushing someone else from inside the room, giving away the answer Yarne was looking for. He looked at his friend, who gave a shrug, before going inside to see who it was in there anyway.

There were only two people in the room, seemingly in the process of moving chairs around to have a place put together for people to gather, and they were doing their best not to laugh as they were walked in on. "Good to see you, Yarne!" one of them called, her dragging a chair off of the stack and putting it into the messy arrangement. "Thanks for reaching out to get this all set up, this wasn't anything we would've missed for the world!"

"Glad to hear it," he replied, looking between the two as what had been said was sinking into his mind. When it struck him, he gasped and jumped back, nearly colliding into the two still in the doorway with how far he'd leapt. "Wait, did you say we, as in the two of you decided you'd come here together? When was anyone going to tell me you two were dating?"

"It's been pretty common knowledge, if you'd pay attention to things when I have people over you'd know this from Cynthia herself," Kjelle said from behind him, coming into the room as well and putting a supportive hand on Yarne's back. "Half the time, all she can talk about anymore is what things they're off doing together."

"I'm not that bad about it, please!" Cynthia gave a meek bow of her head before getting right back to moving another chair, her orange-ish hair bouncing as she went. "Besides, this was something that Inigo heard about first anyway and he just happened to tell me about, so I got this information from him. Really, we did decide we wouldn't miss it for the world, but we did decide together."

Sitting down in one of the chairs after putting it into its place, Inigo laughed before saying, "What she says is true, I can promise you that. On top of that, it's nice to see you both again. Been a while since I've seen anyone outside of the usual suspects, so it's good for the soul to have this opportunity."

"Yeah, the 'usual suspects' that aren't even here," Brady pointed out, grumbling as he did. "I can't believe they'll meet with you all the time but they can't even make the time for me. I've known 'em since we were kids, which is longer than you've known 'em, so why can't they be here?"

"Just because you've known each other for that long doesn't mean anything. I mean, I grew up with the three of you and they still only see me because they're spending time with Inigo." By that point, Cynthia had also stopped moving chairs and had come to give hugs of greeting to the newcomers, her energy in her hugs unmatched by anyone. "But it's really okay, I think the five of us will have a great time together!"

"This is why I've always liked you most," Kjelle said after Cynthia had hugged her. "Your enthusiasm can be a bit…much at times, but you're one of the best people I've ever known. Always looking on the bright side of things."

While Yarne was sure that wasn't a dig at him and his fearful demeanor, he also was sure that he was meant to take that into account and proceed accordingly. "Yeah, I think it's great that you think we're all going to have a good time, just the five of us." He gave a chuckle after speaking, while Kjelle side-eyed him to show that she had noticed that he'd framed his response based on hers, but she didn't call attention to it.

"I think I hear someone comin' down the hall," Brady said from still in the doorway, craning his neck to try and see further down into the darkness. "Maybe it's not gonna be just the five of us after all."

While he played lookout in the hallway, the others all waited to hear what he found out. "Personally, I think I'd prefer it if it were just us, it's a lot more intimate when it's just a handful of people," Inigo declared, leaning back in his chair with his arms crossed behind his head. "All of the socializing that comes with the large group gets a bit draining after a while, especially when certain people are here."

"Who, the people you prefer to hang out with all the time?" With a teasing tone in her voice, Kjelle waggled a finger in Inigo's direction. "I've heard about your weekly allotted time with them, you can't try to tell me that it doesn't happen."

Grimacing at being called out like he was, Inigo stumbled and sputtered words for a moment before pulling himself together to say, "There's a reason that I said it gets draining in the large group, because talking to everyone else and them? It's just too much for one man to handle all the time!"

"But you'll handle it anyway, won't you?" Cynthia asked, coming to sit in the chair directly next to his so that she could put a hand on his leg and give it a pat. "Because you're so strong and confident and capable of many things. We all know it."

Rather than watch whatever was about to happen between those two, Yarne decided to scope out the room and see what it had to offer. It was obvious that Brady had put everything together with the mindset that it was going to be a larger event, given how many cups he had for the dozen or so bottles of drinks and the sheer amount of snacks provided, but the fact that they were haphazardly thrown together showed that he hadn't known what to do with them. They were all clustered on a folding table against the side wall, drinks on one side and snacks on the other, and Yarne was just about to start reorganizing them when he heard a dramatic yell from outside of the room, followed by Brady's voice clearly cracking when he yelled for someone to watch out.

Everyone inside turned to look in the doorway right as someone literally flew into Brady, knocking him into the doorframe with a resounding thud. "Over the top as always," Inigo muttered under his breath, while Cynthia jumped to her feet and ran to see if everyone was okay, joining Kjelle there checking on Brady and not the person who'd caused the problem in the first place.

"Never fear, I may be fashionably late to the festivities, but Owain would never miss an occasion such as this one!" the man responsible for the chaos announced, picking himself up off the floor after his exciting entrance. "Plus, I brought a friend!"

"You also might've concussed the person we're all here to see," Kjelle snapped, helping Brady gather his bearings while also letting Owain know exactly how she felt about his behavior through her stern tone. "Seriously, next time think before you do something this stupid."

"I-I didn't think I could get that much speed, it was an honest mistake!" His hands raised as if to say not to attack him, Owain at least had the decency to make sure that he'd apologized to Brady for what he'd done before he came into the room, followed by a man none of them had met before. "Anyway, memorable entrance in the past, I brought someone with me who I hope you'll all get to know and become great friends with. Niles, meet a small number of the friends I've had since I was in school, if not longer."

Inigo gave the man a two-fingered wave, which he returned in kind, while neither Cynthia nor Kjelle seemed to be paying attention to the introduction and therefore didn't respond to it in any way. Yarne, however, took a moment to size the man up, looking at him from head to toe and feeling a sense of unease as he did. "Uh, hello there, Niles," he managed to say after convincing himself that there was no way Owain would bring someone to the gathering that would intentionally hurt others. "I'm Yarne, I've definitely known Owain the shortest amount of time out of everyone here but—"

"Nice hair," Niles interrupted, as if he'd been too shocked by the literal mane of reddish hair that hung down past Yarne's shoulders to not say something right away. "Has anyone ever told you that you'd make a great porn actor with those looks?"

"—I'm sorry, what?" Yarne certainly hoped that he'd heard wrong and that he hadn't just been told he'd be a good fit for adult films, but when he saw the deadly look that Kjelle shot at the newcomer, he knew that he'd heard right. "That's not, um, something that, well, you should say to someone you just met, you know…"

"Oh, don't mind him, he does things like that sometimes," Owain said, waving off the inappropriate comment and patting his friend on the back for it. "Niles is a good guy, and he needs some friends like the ones I've got, so I brought him here so that he can get a good start on making those friends!"

"Ew, who let that riffraff in here?" a new voice asked, as two more people came into the room, having to awkwardly step around the scene in the doorway to do so. Everyone who wasn't preoccupied with other things looked at the newcomers, and right away Yarne wished he hadn't, covering his face and taking in a deep breath to calm himself down. The comment hadn't been aimed at him, the woman who'd said it definitely saying it in Owain's direction and mostly in jest, but he knew that if she'd seen him first she might have said it to him. "Seriously, Brady? You didn't bother telling me that he'd be here?"

What she got in return was a grumble as Brady collected himself from his collision with the doorframe earlier. "You should've known he'd be here, I wouldn't have just invited everyone else without him bein' one of them, Severa!" His words were a lot more spiteful than he might have meant for them to be, partially because of how he was still recovering from his hit and partially because their history was well-known in their group. He then proceeded to do a double-take as he realized she'd brought someone with her, someone he hadn't invited, and then he saw the person Owain had dragged in with him too. "Whoa, where'd all these extras come from? Thought I said this was a gathering for all of our friend group, not all of your friends from elsewhere!"

"Beruka didn't have anywhere else to go today," Severa huffed, rolling her eyes. "So I did the 'good friend' thing I've been working so hard on and invited her to come with me and she was more than happy to join me."

"More like, I had nothing else to do and figured why not," her companion, who was assumed to be the Beruka she spoke of, said as she looked around at everyone already gathered there. "It's nice to meet you all, I suppose. Except for you, Niles."

"Same to be said to you, Beruka." Niles scrunched his face in her direction, before turning to properly look at Severa. "You know what, I take back what I said about the big guy over there having porn star hair, you really look like you'd fit the bill perfectly. Anyone ever tell you that they'd like to use those dark pigtails of yours as whips? Handlebars, perhaps?"

To react, Severa merely gave him a vulgar gesture before walking right past him and Owain to get to where Inigo was still sitting, choosing to speak to him over anyone else currently available. Beruka followed her as well, sitting down and looking immediately bored with the scene she'd just shown up in. "Some party this is becoming now," Yarne said to himself, his fingers beginning to fidget and clack against each other as he debated deciding to leave before anything else bad happened. "I don't know if I even want to stick around and see if anyone else shows up, it just seems that every time someone walks through that door things only get worse for the rest of us."

Within the next five minutes, everyone else they could have imagined showed up, turning that once-empty room into a buzzing place that was honestly even harder to stay in for Yarne and his spiking anxieties. Even when he was able to get Kjelle back from making sure Brady hadn't gotten hurt, he couldn't find it within himself to calm down, the trembling of his legs and arms combined with the tapping he'd start doing every now and then proof that he was very much out of his element. "Look, if you need to get out for some fresh air, I don't think anyone's going to mind," she told him in hushed tones, the two of them having moved some chairs over to the side of the room to give him some space; the only person close to them was Brady, and that was because he still insisted on being near the door despite everyone he'd invited being there (and then some).

"I'm not going to leave and cause a scene!" he replied, voice getting a bit too loud as he couldn't control his volume. "We're already probably getting all the attention for not being in the mix with everyone else, and you want those eyes to follow us on out the door? Are you crazy?"

Kjelle rolled her eyes for a sustained second or two before standing up, grabbing Yarne's arm, and tugging for him to get to his feet, something he resisted as long as he could but eventually gave in to. "I'm not crazy, but I know you need out of this place. Brady, don't mind us, we'll be back as soon as this one here figures out how to calm himself down."

The small salute that Brady gave was all the acceptance they needed in order to leave without feeling like they were making a bad decision, although as they walked down the hallway and could still hear the voices from the others in the room, Yarne kept looking over his shoulder as if he regretted being convinced to leave. They were most of the way down the hall back to the door out to the parking lot when they heard someone back down at the other end calling to ask if they were coming back, but before Yarne was able to come up with an answer and yell it back, Kjelle had tugged him further along and told him to not say anything at all.

Upon going outside and seeing just how many cars had gathered there in the lot, it was a reminder that getting the group together meant getting a whole bunch of people who'd grown up together in the same spot for just a little while. Yarne yanked his arm out of Kjelle's grasp, no easy task given how firmly she'd been holding it, and proceeded to sink down on the asphalt in the lot, grabbing the sides of his head. "Why did I suggest doing this in the first place?" he lamented, his voice nothing more than a whine. "It's so stressful having to be with everyone, especially people who shouldn't be here."

"Trust me, I'd rather not have had to deal with those new people either but that's the choice those two made, and it's not even worth it." Rather than join him down on the ground, Kjelle hopped up on top of the hood of the closest car to where Yarne had collapsed, laying down so that her head was against the windshield. "That's why we got out when we could, to give you a little space before you completely lost it in there with all that change. I know what you need, and that? That wasn't it."

"This is why I love you," he choked out, feeling very thankful that he'd managed to find someone in the world who was ready to adapt their plans to meeting his needs when he felt overwhelmed with things. "If I didn't have you, I don't know what I'd be doing."

"Shush up and calm down before you start saying things like that, you might say something you don't actually mean." Hearing him whimper some apology, Kjelle reacted by closing her eyes and bringing her feet up on the hood of the car as well, getting herself fairly comfortable where she'd chosen to sit. "I love you too, obviously, but—"

"Kjelle, why are you on my car?" The voice that came out of the door to the old church wasn't the one that had been asking where they were going when they'd been on their way out, and at hearing the question Kjelle popped one of her eyes open, giving the person now standing outside with them a sly smile. "Seriously, is this some sort of joke? Am I dreaming? Why is it my car, out of all of them?"

Yarne, having sort of picked up on where his girlfriend had been when they'd been talking, lifted himself off the ground to see the shadow of her legs over the hood of the very car in question. "Yeah, why are you on there?" he seconded, going from being a giant puddle of a man on the ground to one sitting with folded legs on the edge of the asphalt, looking at her with the same amount of confusion as the car owner had.

She remained where she was, going so far as to close her eye back up and sigh wistfully. "Honestly, seeing that it was a red car, I'd hoped that it belonged to Severa but figured that it didn't. I promise that I haven't dented it or anything, I do this to my car all the time during breaks to work." To prove her point, she carefully got herself off, showing no scuffs or scratches on the car's hood, the only proof someone had been on it some smudging of wintertime dirt. "If you get in and it's all screwed up because of me, I'll get it fixed for you, but I seriously didn't mean any harm."

The owner in question, pinching the bridge of her nose as she came to inspect the car for herself, ran her other hand over where she'd just seen Kjelle laying, before turning to the much shorter woman with her blue eyes shining. "If you damaged it, it's not the end of the world, it's just a loaner until Father figures out how to fix my actual car. You know, the one that was all over the news for getting stolen because he forgot to take the keys out when he went into the store using it."

Both ladies looked at the car, while Yarne stood up and came to join them, towering over them both as he always did. "I heard about that, but I didn't know that it was your car that was involved. How'd your dad manage to make that happen?"

"It's best not to get into the details, I don't think he's ever going to live it down, especially with how much this replacement cost him, and it's not even going to be kept once I get my car back." She looked at Yarne with a smile, her head tilted to properly look at his face. "I'm surprised you're up talking to me after how you had to get out of the room, I figured you'd need a while to overcome how stressed you got."

"It wasn't that big of a deal," he replied, suddenly feeling very small compared to his actual size, as he backed away from the two a little. "I mean, it was a big deal, but Kjelle helped me handle it pretty much right away and that's all I could ask for." He wanted to bring up how he didn't like that they'd been followed out, but that was when the woman went to the passenger side door of her car and popped it open, rifling through some trash at the foot of the seat and coming back past them with a paper in her hand.

"Sorry for the bad timing, but this is all I came to get. Laurent's in there asking something about legal this or illegal that and I had to come get the permit for…well, what he's asking about and how legal it actually is." She smiled at the two, before going back to the church's door and opening it. "Don't take me leaving as an excuse for getting back on the hood, though. I'll be trusting you on that, Kjelle."

Nodding slowly, her face contorting all sorts of ways, Kjelle eventually said, "Sure thing, Lucina, you can count on me," and that was all it took for the two of them to be outside by themselves again. The moment that door was closed and Lucina wasn't able to be seen or heard, Kjelle turned to Yarne and feigned strangling something for a second, before taking a deep breath and collecting herself. "Of all the cars I had to pick, huh? Seriously thought that because it's red it's probably Severa's, or maybe Owain's too, but I had to pick the car belonging to the person here with the most social influence out of everyone?"

"She didn't seem mad about it," he pointed out, taking a giant step away from the car so that it didn't look like they were contemplating doing anything to it. "Which I wouldn't have expected her to, she's always been a good sister figure to everyone and understands that sometimes we do weird things." His eyes flickered to the door, thinking about the sight of Lucina standing there just a bit before, and he was mentally taken back to seeing her standing in the doorway of one of their high school classes, her the upperclassman that all of the underclassmen looked to for guidance. She'd always been beyond kind to him, given that she ended up being the eldest of the friend group, as well as the only person who didn't logically belong there in the first place. "I don't know what your problem with her is."

"Problem with her?" Kjelle repeated, snorting after she said the words. "I don't have any sort of problem whatsoever with Lucina. She and I got into a lot of trouble when we did sports together, between her breaking things and me breaking people. Long history there."

Confused, Yarne looked back at Kjelle and asked, "But you literally just pretended to strangle her? That tells me you've got a problem."

"My problem is that she came out here when I was trying to say something to you, that I'm sure you've already forgotten." It was true, Yarne could remember that they'd been talking when Lucina had shown up, but he couldn't remember any specifics beyond where he'd been laying on the ground, and his chuckle told her all she needed. "Right, so, I said that I love you too, but—"

This time, the exact same statement was interrupted by someone else coming out the door, running out into the parking lot with a high-pitched cackle, followed by Lucina's reappearance, her paper disappeared from her hand. "Morgan, seriously? You need to bring that back in one piece!"

"—oh, forget about it," Kjelle grumbled, realizing that what she had to say wasn't going to happen while they were still anywhere remotely public. "We'll leave it at I love you, now excuse me while I go catch someone."

She took off in a sprint, going after the blue-haired blur that was dodging and weaving through the cars parked around. While that was happening, Lucina came down to stand beside Yarne, once again looking up at him to speak. "Since literally no one else in there gets this struggle…younger siblings, huh?"

"Don't I know it," he replied, thinking about how it was just as likely for Ribbon to do to him as Morgan, Lucina's younger brother, was doing to her currently. The only difference was that there was a twelve-year age gap between himself and Ribbon, while Lucina was four years older than Morgan and therefore was able to be in the same social group with him without too much issue. "You mentioned that Laurent wanted to see that paper or permit or whatever? What's it about?"

"Nothing important, just a building that his mother has been dreaming of for over a decade now that's finally getting its approval from the city to get built. He's been hounding me for any updates since I know the people in charge of them, and I had the paper to prove it out here in the car. Of course, Morgan decided he was going to have his fun with it instead, but that's how it goes sometimes." Lucina shook her head, listening carefully for any sign that her brother had been wrangled by someone smaller yet stronger than him; when she heard him screaming for her to come save him, she sighed. "And that's also how it goes, he plays dumb games and doesn't like the consequences of them."

"Go be his savior, I'm sure he'll remember it in the future." She thanked him for the encouragement and she headed off to locate where the other two had gone, while Yarne just stood in place, not sure what there was for him to do right then. He was mentally calmed down and ready to rejoin the party inside, but he certainly wasn't going in by himself, which left him waiting there for the other three to come back. Morgan was the one he saw first, him running in his direction with his long jacket flapping behind him. Despite not being that much younger than the rest of them, there was a boyish look to his face that made him seem like he wasn't anywhere close to his almost twenty-two years of age, and Yarne knew that he definitely looked way older when Morgan was around.

"Hey Yarne, does Kjelle ever tackle you as hard as she just tackled me?" he asked, panting as he came to a brisk walk up to the building. "If she hadn't done it on the grass, she probably would've broken my legs or something, it was really hard and really fast."

"N-no, she doesn't tackle me like that," Yarne replied, seeing the obvious grass smudges on Morgan's back as he opened the door and went inside. "Not like you would've stuck around to hear me talking about if it she did."

As he turned to watch the other two coming back, the first thing that caught Yarne's eye was the fact that Lucina clearly had a paper back in her hand, followed immediately by the way that Kjelle was limping again. Immediately, the worry that she'd managed to tear her leg back open along that scar from the boxcutter took root in his mind, and he jumped to meet her before they got all the way back to the building. "Twisted my knee going down, didn't feel anything pop or tear, but it wasn't a pleasant feeling to have," Kjelle explained, while still hobbling gingerly in Yarne's direction, not putting much weight on her left leg as she walked. "I already checked and it all feels right, just a twist, but we'll have to see."

Lucina glanced at Yarne and how there was the expression of worry plastered all across his face. "I think she'll be fine, but I'm no medical professional. I can't tell you how many times I remember this happening during games growing up. At least once a season, I think. Especially playing soccer, I think she went down more than everyone else combined."

"Thanks for the reminder about that, all those awards for 'most valuable when able to play' are still collecting dust at my parents' house," Kjelle coldly replied, before looking at Yarne as well. "Seriously though, don't worry about there being anything wrong until I can't walk tomorrow or the day after. If that happens, then you have permission to panic. But right now, there's no reason for it, got it?"

As much as it pained Yarne to have to agree to that, he knew that Kjelle knew her body best and if she was sure that she wasn't actually hurt, he'd have to accept it. "That's…I think I…yeah, I can keep from panicking right now. Maybe. Possibly. Can I maybe carry you inside so that you don't end up hurting yourself?" He was stammering, absolutely trying not to trip over his own words while fighting with his natural inclination to jump to worst case scenarios. "Please? It'll make me a lot less worried."

"I told you your prince would be willing to carry you in," Lucina teased, letting go of Kjelle's side once she was within Yarne's grasp so that he could pick her up and carry her in his arms instead of continuing to hobble her way back inside. "The two of you are too cute sometimes, have I ever told you that? Easily the cutest couple to come out of our group of friends."

"When the choices are between us, and Inigo and Cynthia, I don't know how you could even try making that argument." Kjelle, making herself comfortable in Yarne's arms, kicked out her uninjured leg toward Lucina, who dodged it with a duck. "But thanks. Means a lot to hear that at least someone out there finds us cute."

Yarne listened to the two go back and forth as they went inside and down the long hallway to where everyone else is, them moving on to talking about other things that had nothing to do with him in any way. This was the kind of involvement he enjoyed in situations, where he was allowed to be present but wasn't expected to be included by any means, and as long as no one was addressing him, he was happy to be there. That changed when they got back to the room and the questions began flying as to what had happened, why he was having to do some lifting, why he'd run out in the first place, and right as the boiling point began to be hit they were all silenced by Lucina, telling everyone to back off from her friends and leave them alone. "It's the least I can do for what you did for me out there with Morgan," she explained to them both. "I like repaying the favor as soon as I can."

They both thanked her, and soon enough they were back in two chairs away from everyone else, the only exception being that there was now a third chair right nearby for if Lucina decided she wanted to join them. In her absence, though, Kjelle was using it to keep her leg elevated, grumbling as she sat in the somewhat awkward position that required. "Somehow we should've seen it coming that one of us would get hurt while we're here, it's always just our luck it happens like that," she muttered under her breath, leaning her head into Yarne's side as she spoke. "Predictable, but I still hate it."

"Well, if it makes you feel any better, this happening to you means that you can sit here with me and not make it seem like you're leaving me alone." He was looking on the bright side of things, which was a tall order given the situation, but Yarne seemed pleased that he'd come up with that idea. "And if anyone wants to talk to us, they have to come here and if they're here too long, they'll get told to leave. Foolproof, really."

Her eyes glancing around at everyone who was very much in the middle of their own conversations, what the two of them were doing the least of their concerns, Kjelle lifted herself off of him and shook her head. "I get that you're always worried about people overstaying their welcome or making things uncomfortable, but I don't really think that's something you need to worry about this time. Everyone's back to doing the same things they've always done when we've gotten together as a big group, splitting off into their smaller friend groups and talking to the people they like most. The only exceptions to that would be…us, honestly."

"Yeah, I know what you mean." If they weren't all in one giant group, Yarne would have been completely fine with spending time talking to Brady and a couple of the others, as long as there was no chance the size of the group would get any bigger. He also knew that Kjelle would like to get to talk to Lucina and Cynthia, and probably even Severa even if she wouldn't care to admit it, but there was just far too much else going on for that to happen. "Next time I get the idea for everyone to get together, remind me that we should just have a…" He held two fingers up, slightly apart. "Much smaller event than this one."

"Are the two of you done being antisocial over there?" someone on the other side of the room called out in a high-pitched screech that had many heads turning, but Kjelle merely covered her face at the sound. Thankfully for them, there were plenty of others present who were able to accost the screamer and tell them why there was no chance of them getting up to join everyone else.

Lucina walked over not long after, checking over her shoulder to make sure Morgan wasn't following her but bringing someone else with, a tired smile on her face as she approached. "Sorry about that, someone was getting pretty nasty with Noire and you know what happens when that goes on for too long, she loses her mind and starts acting out," she said, her smile slowly fading away. "Wish she'd grown out of that as she got older, but not all things disappear with age."

"We really tried to keep her in check, but she just wasn't having it," the woman that had accompanied Lucina said, putting her hands on the back of the spare chair Kjelle's leg was currently on and bracing herself against it. "But what can we do except get her to stop after the fact? And by that, of course, I mean we sent Laurent to deal with her because she gets too…bothered when he starts getting into her screaming at him." She sounded slightly disappointed in the turn of events, but given that it had calmed things down, there wasn't a problem to be perceived.

"Thanks for doing that for us, both of you," Yarne told them with a thankful nod. "It means a lot that you'd make sure that we're not getting bothered over here."

"Well, it would've been better if that guy Owain brought with him wasn't actively antagonizing Noire, but we'll take what we can get here." The second woman rocked back and forth on her heels, keeping her hands on the chair as she did. "I'm just thankful that he didn't start coming after me."

Turning around to see what was going on with the rest of the group, Lucina spun back almost at once and stiffened her back. "Don't speak too soon, Nah, he might be getting bored with everyone else and wanting to pick on someone else. I've had the misfortune of meeting him before, something that almost no one else here can say for themselves. He's pretty persistent when he thinks he's going to be getting attention from it."

"I mean, let him at me, I guess? I can take him."

"Right, because the smallest person here by a long-shot is going to be the one to put Niles in his place." Lucina reached over and put a hand on the top of Nah's head, ruffling her hair and making her huff under her palm. "Honestly, I think you're the only person here without a chance of getting him to knock it off in some way completely on their own."

Even though she was relegated to sitting there and watching everything around her, Kjelle couldn't help but crack a smile at the statement. "As the next-smallest person here, still by a long-shot, I think I appreciate you making it clear that I could take his sorry ass if he came and tried messing with me properly. You think I could even do it with a bum knee?"

"We're not discussing the logistics of you kicking Niles into next week," Lucina said with a gasp, "but if we were going to discuss it…yeah, probably. I'd still put my money on you, knee hurting or not."

Nah grumbled something to herself, gave a rather annoyed look at Kjelle and Lucina both, and then turned to Yarne, her whole demeanor relaxing. "Hey, Yarne, how's the year of the rabbit going?" she asked, completely unprompted until he remembered why she would be aware of such a thing.

"It's definitely going as well as you'd expect, that being just like any other year," he replied, motioning toward his injured girlfriend without directly mentioning what had happened to her yet again. "For all the talk Mom did about it being a year of blessings, it sure doesn't seem like there's been anything good happening yet."

"That's a shame, my mom's already gearing up for next year's year of the dragon stuff and I'm like…please, do we have to? It's just a normal year, I don't get what all the hype is." Nah shrugged, her feelings something that Yarne felt as well. "Like, why does it need to be a special year for us to get all of these good things happening to us? Can't good things happen every year?"

"Mother's told me a few things about the celebrations for the year of the dragon, given that she casually observes them but doesn't get as devoted as the manakete culture does," Lucina said, stepping into the conversation where neither of the others would have expected her to. "It's mostly just beliefs still recognized by generations past, reusing a celebration meant for other cultures in their own. I'd assume that it's the same for the taguel and the year of the rabbit, except…"

"Except it's just Mom, me, and Ribbon who could tell you the answer to that, I get it." In just this one conversation alone, Yarne was speaking to more people who knew people who celebrated their culture's special year than there were ones living who celebrated his. It was the way things had always been, as long as he'd been alive, but having those reminders were a good way to point out how hard his mom had been struggling in the years between losing her whole way of life and having him come into her world. "Look, as much fun as talking about this is, it's still kind of a buzzkill when we're already having a hard time having fun. Mind if we do something else instead?"

He must have said that just loud enough that his voice traveled beyond where they were gathered, or perhaps it was a case of perfect timing, because he heard Brady call out from the middle of the room, "Everyone, let's gather and get to takin' a picture to show we all got together again! No sittin' out unless you're one of the people I didn't invite!" That was directed to those not actively in the group at the moment, which made sense minus the fact that the entire reason they'd gotten together that day was because Yarne had wanted to recreate their last picture together, and sitting out would have completely defeated that purpose. It was a huge hassle getting everyone arranged in a way that meant they could all be seen by the camera (because she wasn't allowed in, Beruka had offered to take the picture as well as keep Niles out of the way), but when she indicated that she could see everyone they posed and she snapped her shots.

Standing in the very back and center, like he traditionally was, Yarne kept his hand firmly on Kjelle's shoulder as she used him to lean against and keep herself standing despite her knee injury. She shouldn't have been right in front of him, given the stark height difference between them, but they'd worked it out so that they could stay together this one time. When she seemed to start getting unsteady, he reached to put his other hand on her but found that Laurent, right on his side, was doing the same thing as a gesture of kindness. "This group really does have people of all sizes, huh," Beruka commented after lowering the phone from where she was using it for the pictures. "Got some real short people and super tall ones, Severa wasn't kidding when she told me about that."

"Like I would've wasted my breath lying about that," Severa snapped in return, from her place on the far side of the picture, her and Lucina being the edges just like they were every time the group was together. "It's, what, almost a two-foot difference between the tallest and shortest here? I don't remember the specifics, but it's been that way since high school."

"It's always 'look at your tall and short people' and never 'acknowledge how many are stuck with middling heights'," Owain grumbled from right next to Severa, the guy furthest on that side in the back row. "Can't we admire all of us who aren't quite the tallest but not super short either?"

There was a rumble of agreement with that idea, followed by one request not to do that, coming from the ever-silent Gerome who had been there since fairly early on and hadn't really spoken to anyone despite being in all the groups. "I agree with Gerome, let's not just point out specific heights," Noire said, much calmer than she'd been when she was yelling earlier, as she stood as the only woman tall enough to be in the back row, down near the end so that she was surrounded by Gerome on one side and Laurent on the other. "I don't think anyone really likes being called out for how tall they are or aren't."

Before he had a chance to second what Noire was saying, Yarne noticed that Brady, on his other side, was looking at him with tears beginning to brim in his eyes. "Hey, are you okay?" he asked his friend, wanting to reach over and give him a reassuring pat but unable to do so given that his closer hand was already in use. "You look upset about something."

"Not upset, just…I'm so happy that we were able to get this all together, and it wouldn't've happened if it weren't for you askin' me about it in the first place." Smiling as best as he could, despite his otherwise gruff appearance, Brady seemed genuinely thankful for what Yarne had made happen there that day. "It's just like the old days, every bit of it, down to people arguin' about if we should stop pointin' out how tall we are, and how short the ladies down there are too."

"I resent you saying that," Nah said through a forced smile, looking up from where she stood next to Kjelle to make sure Brady knew her feelings on the matter. "Just because you tower over me doesn't mean that I appreciate it happening."

"Yep, just like the old days…" Yarne trailed off, his grip on Kjelle's shoulder tightening as he thought about how stressful the experience had been but how he wouldn't change much of it for the world. That led him to say, "Let's try to not keep this to an every few years thing, yeah? Might make it less like the old days if we keep doing it in the new days."

No one had much to say to disagree with that, and that was just how he wanted it.

The next day, it was like a built-in day to relax from what had happened the day before, which was desperately needed in Yarne's mind. He felt he'd done fairly well with the large group and all of the talking, single breakdown included, but when he woke up Sunday morning and felt like the world had closed down around him, he knew that he needed to take it as easy as possible so that he'd be ready for his next full week of work. Normally, that would have meant camping out on the oversized chair playing one of his games on the TV, but when he got out of bed he found that Kjelle had already made herself quite comfortable out there, his island game her choice of activity.

"I thought you said you're not as into this as I am," he said as he came to stand behind the chair, leaning over it and looking down at her as she rolled her eyes up at him. "Well, it's true, you've said that a bunch of times. What changed today?"

"Figured I could actually play around in it for a change and keep myself occupied doing this instead of hurting myself worse," she replied, gesturing toward the way she had her leg propped up on the arm of the chair, her knee absolutely swollen and bruised. "I can walk on it without too much pain, but it's definitely seen better days."

"Probably don't want to make that any worse, yeah, so I guess you can play and I'll watch. But I'm not helping you unless you ask for it." He meant in the game, but he hadn't clarified that until after he got another look of disgust shot at him, and after he'd cleared the air on that matter Yarne felt like perhaps he would have been better off saying nothing at all and finding something else to do.

He still ended up pulling up a much less comfortable chair to join Kjelle there in front of the TV, watching as she ran around their little island doing all of the tasks that he usually did on his own. She talked to the other characters, and every time she'd approach one he'd secretly hope that they'd mention him so that he could convince her to let him play next, but it never happened. Even their newest resident didn't seem to think it was important to bring him up, which was understandable, but Yarne was quickly growing frustrated at how this seemed like he wasn't even around anymore. "Why are you leaning in so much?" Kjelle ended up asking, looking at her boyfriend and how intently he was staring at the screen. "This is seriously the most chill game in all of existence, and you're treating it like it's life or death and something big's about to explode on screen or something."

"I-I don't know why I'm doing this," he lied, sitting up in the chair before slouching when she wasn't looking any longer. He knew very well why he was doing it, he was invested in their little island ecosystem and he felt that he was the one primarily responsible for its success, therefore being very invested in what was going on. He'd already completed all of the collection-based tasks in the game, but Kjelle hadn't, and it seemed that she was trying to make progress on that while she could. The problem, which she didn't even know was a problem, was that it wasn't the right time or season for her to be getting the things she was searching high and low for.

Not that he was going to tell her that without her asking him, as he'd already told her, and he knew that Kjelle was a rather stubborn woman who wasn't going to ask for help until she absolutely had to. It ended up being a lot more entertaining than it had any right being, watching her grow more and more frustrated with what she couldn't seem to find, and right as Yarne was about to remind her of what he'd said, she grabbed her phone and pulled up a list of all of the creatures in the game. "That's cheating!" he yelled, seeing the list on the screen and feeling a betrayal he didn't know the game could create. "You're not supposed to look these things up!"

"Yeah, well, I'm not going to have you get all cagey about telling me things just to get me to give you the controller, so I picked the better option." She turned off her phone's screen and walked her character down to the beach, sitting in a chair that was set up near her character's house. "You get too into how things happen in this game, Yarne, and honestly? It's a little concerning sometimes."

"Please, there's nothing to be concerned about. You'll be happy to know I haven't had any regrets about changing up the villagers since the last time I had to make that choice." It wasn't a huge victory, but it felt like a big moral one for Yarne; based on how Kjelle didn't even flinch at the comment, she must not have felt the same way. "Okay but, why did you pick playing this today? Does it really keep you that occupied?"

She hesitated on answering, saving and closing the game and bringing the system back to its home menu. "It wasn't my first choice, but seeing as it was the game that was in there and I wasn't getting up to change it to something else, it was the only choice I had." Offering him the controller, which she figured was what he'd been waiting on, Kjelle slowly began adjusting herself so that she could get up, her swollen knee clearly trying not to buckle under her as she stood. "I need to walk around now, for better or worse. You can have the chair, I'll sit on you if I come back and you're already in my spot, you know how it goes."

While he was thrilled that it was finally his time to play, Yarne knew that there were more important things to worry about than just getting his game time in. He sighed, setting the controller down on the arm of the chair before following with Kjelle, making sure that she wasn't going to fall on his watch, and together they paced around the small house for a few minutes, before they were back by the chair and she was looking at him, completely confused about what had just happened. "Yarne. You were supposed to be playing."

"If you fell while I was playing, I wouldn't have forgiven myself," he told her, sitting down and giving her plenty of space to join him in the chair, where naturally she chose to sit on top of him with her leg splayed far out to keep it elevated as he started playing the game on his own. "You know that I'm going to make sure that you're never hurt because of me, so I think you should've known I wasn't going to take advantage of you stopping playing quite like that."

"Whatever, it wasn't necessary," she said, before lowering her voice as she leaned back into his shoulder, letting the top of her head press against the back of the chair. "But thanks. It means a lot knowing that you'd pick me over fake animals."

"I mean, it's a pretty tough choice but I think you're going to be better for me than they are." Yarne gave it a moment before tacking on, "I'm joking about it being a tough choice, I'd never choose a game over my girlfriend, not in a million years!"

"I didn't think you actually would."

"Phew, because…" Biting on his lip, Yarne thought about some of the horror stories he'd gotten to hear over the years, about how there were people who would pick games over significant others every day of the week. "I don't know, I just wanted to make sure you knew the truth about how I feel."

Kjelle couldn't stop herself from chuckling at that, lifting her head back up only to lean it against Yarne's face instead. "Look, I'd never think for a second that you could choose something so stupid over me, just like you should know that you'd always be my first pick for everything too. I mean, if I didn't feel that way, do you really think I'd have read those books your mom gave us?" With the toes on her injured leg, Kjelle pointed toward the basket they'd been gifted in its current spot, sitting against the wall with its cellophane ripped open and most of its contents rearranged. "Those taguel history books aren't easy reads."

"Yeah, they're pretty dense to get through, even if absolutely none of it matters anymore because it's just the three of us left from the culture." Yarne knew he should have felt some sort of anger, or perhaps a solemn emotion, when saying that, but he was so over the importance of being one of three members left of an entire culture, especially with how much representing the past had overtaken his mother's way of life. "Don't get me wrong, I'm glad she's sharing them with you, but there's…so much else you could be doing with your time instead of reading about a basically extinct social group."

"Well, duh, I'm sure that I could find new workouts to do in the time I'm reading those books, but you know why I'm actually going through with reading them, right?" There was a seriousness in Kjelle's question that made Yarne curious for what the answer was, because he didn't have the slightest clue, as evidenced by how he set his controller down to give her his full attention. "I want to be able to meet your family where they are, not expect you all to meet me where I am. I see how hard your dad works to make sure he's doing his best to match your mom's devotion to the taguel way of life, and I…I want to do the same for you."

Yarne felt that he was at a loss for how to respond to that. All this time, he'd been fully prepared to live whatever life was given to him when he'd become an adult, and if that meant abandoning the roots he had grown up with, he was ready for it. But to hear the girlfriend that he adored tell him that she wanted to meet him where he was, it changed his whole perspective on things. "But you told Mom that you don't do these sorts of things, I remember you saying that," he pointed out, trying to make sense of things the best he could right then. "What changed about that?"

"Nothing changed. I'm still not for these sorts of celebrations if they're too involved, but that doesn't mean that I can't support you and your family in honoring the culture you come from. I want to do my part in helping your mom find her healing in whatever happened to everyone else, and I want to be able to help you continue on her traditions that she's taught you." Kjelle took a second, staring off in the direction of the basket, before sighing. "This is the part where, if I could do it easily right now, I'd get up and show you something else that I found hidden in that basket when I was pulling out new books to read from. You already knew about the bottle of wine she gave us, but did you know she gave us…"

She was waving her foot as wildly as she could in the basket's direction, almost as if she was asking Yarne to go check it out without saying so. But when he started shifting so that he could do just that, she seemed confused about why. "Just stay where you are, I'll tell you what else there was in there once I have the…words to describe it."

"What do you mean, it can't be so weird you don't know what it's called." Yarne was quite used to his mother's more eccentric gift ideas, and yet them being given something from her that wasn't easy to describe just didn't make sense in his mind. "Books, wine, I know there were some different candles in there that she thought would look nice, what else could there possibly have been?"

Her lips coming together as she continued to think of how to refer to the item in question, Kjelle kept staring toward the basket, as slowly her foot stopped its wild movement. "Maybe it would be best if you saw it for yourself, because it's definitely one of the stranger gifts anyone has ever given me."

"Then I'll do just that," he said, finally feeling like he could maneuver himself off of the chair without causing problems, and after making sure that he hadn't disturbed her positioning too much he went over to the basket, sat on the ground, and began digging through it. The moment his fingers touched something furry at the bottom, he knew he'd found what Kjelle was referring to, but the mere texture of the material had shivers shooting up his arm. Why in the world would his mother have given them something that was covered in fur? When he pulled the little trinket out, his whole face scrunched at the sight, while over in the chair Kjelle seemed to have the words finally strike her.

"A rabbit's foot! Right, that's what it is. How tacky, honestly."

Holding it in front of his eyes so that he could look at it as it spun around on its little chain, Yarne felt more confused than anything else about why this had been included in the gift basket to begin with. "Honestly, I was starting to think she snuck something inappropriate in here, because at least that would make sense to some degree. But a rabbit's foot? Mom hates these, she thinks they're stupid and harmful to rabbits. It doesn't make any sense that she gave us one out of nowhere."

"Maybe it's just another part of the traditions she grew up with that she's trying to continue? I haven't read anything about it in the books, but her experience might've been different than what was written." With a shrug, Kjelle seemed to be over talking about the little trinket, and Yarne put it back in the basket so they'd both forget about it. There were far too many other things in life to worry about, trying to explain the thought process behind being given a fake rabbit's foot as a gift was not worth the effort.

Besides, if they did decide to ask Panne about it anyway, she would have most likely dodged the question or done exactly as Kjelle had said and claimed it was part of the traditions. It just wasn't worth investigating any further, and when the time came to clean out the basket to throw it away, the foot was three seconds from meeting its doom in a trash bag before Yarne decided to keep it around anyway, just in case. He may have been slightly unnerved by its presence, but it didn't mean that it was trash; it just needed to be kept somewhere out of sight and out of mind, and so the box with their own set of rabbit candles was the perfect place to keep it stored.