January 22nd 2024

Chapter 22
The Surprise in Contact

It was one of the funniest and unexpected things for them, as parents, to watch their kids when they were just… the happiest that they could be. It would never stop being something they strove to see happen, of course, but once they got there, that was where the magic happened. Seeing how that happiness would affect them, seeing them experience the feeling… It was enough to have them smiling and smiling without end, too.

They got to experience this on the night following Haru's arrival, the night when Marianne had been reunited with him and learned that he would be in Austin until after her birthday. Once he was gone, he and his family returning to the Farrells', where they were staying with Haru's aunt, uncle, and cousin, Marianne was still up and about for a while, and her energy was a perfect representation of how she felt. She could barely sit still, didn't know what to do with herself… and her smile… Oh, her smile was absolutely everything to Maya and Lucas.

When they'd finally gone to bed, it was their chance to finally stop and look back on the evening, on the unveiling of this surprise that they'd been holding in for all this time. They'd imagined something like this as the outcome of that surprise, but this was for sure an occasion where reality surpassed expectation by miles and miles. Maya was very happy to tease her husband about his goofy smile, saying that it was comforting to know that it wasn't just her hormones being wacky at the moment, that this was just what the two of them were experiencing as parents with their firstborn. As if it wasn't bewildering enough to know that this birthday Haru would be there for would be their pumpkin's twelfth. Only a moment ago, there hadn't been as many mini painted pumpkins as the letters in her name, and now there were going to be four more than needed.

Saturday morning arrived, and sleep had only recharged Marianne Friar's energy bubbles, allowing them to fizz and pop within her, making her excited all over again at the prospect of seeing her long-distance friend and spending time with him over the weekend. She wouldn't have to wait long to get started, as the parents on both sides had been in communication all along, and the first order of business for this day was breakfast out at Ma Maggie's.

Did it sort of feel like a very chaperoned date between the two of them once they were all seated around the extended table where the Friars usually sat? Oh, wholeheartedly. Marianne and Haru were side by side, and they spent the entire meal turned sideways in their chairs, even as they ate, so they could talk with one another. They barely stopped talking long enough to actually consume their breakfasts, and they definitely never ran out of things to say. If either of them was aware of their surroundings, of their family members also in attendance, they didn't show it until they were all done and it was time to go.

The day was barely underway, and they followed up breakfast with a digestive stroll through a museum. For weeks now, Maya and Lucas had to hear from their daughter about how much she wanted to go to this one exhibit, but also that she wouldn't go, couldn't go, because in her heart and mind it wouldn't have felt right to be there without Haru, that it made her think of him so much. And all the while, they had known that he would be there in late October, that they would get to go before the exhibit closed. Now, they were here, and again the two of them looked like they forgot that anyone else was there as they wandered along, and stopped to look at something, and then moved again… More than once, Maya or Lucas would try and get the other's attention to point out what the pair was up to. At least once, it looked to them like one or the other of the kids might have tried, consciously or not, to take hold of the other's hand, though they eventually refrained.

It was getting on to lunch time by the time they left the museum, so they had moved right past 'walking to digest' and into 'walking to work up an appetite.' They had more than their most favored spots in the city where they liked to eat, they did, but they ended up at Nando's Diner and that was really the perfect choice for this moment. Marianne hardly ever got to hang out with her faraway friend, and it was the most logical thing for her to want to be in this place that she loved with him. She would be here so often with her local friends, and so now that Haru was here, she would want to have this be a place for him and her, too.

Maya and Lucas had been speculating that their daughter had found a way to 'fairy mark' one of the tables with her friends by now, and for all the effort she put into being discreet about it, they spotted the moment where she aided Haru in adding his name. They weren't exactly encouraging their children to go and carve their names all over the place, but if they were going to do it anywhere in Austin, they were very sure that Nando's would be the place. Asher's uncle would practically hand them the knife and see to it that no one looked.

The afternoon had been a mix of things, starting with a trip to the bookstore after Haru mentioned that there were some books he'd been meaning to tell Marianne about but waited because he knew that they'd be seeing each other, and then turning into a face off at the hoop, back at the Friar house. It was not Marianne versus Haru but the two of them versus Gracie and MJ. The funniest part there would have to be Max Farrell, Haley Hunter, and their cheer coach standing on the sidelines, giving their best three-person routine to encourage the players on either side.

The day was just barrelling onward, and dinner turned into pizza in the living room as the kickoff to an extended movie night, as extended as they could make it on that night. As their resident cinema fanatic, Haru had plenty of suggestions for titles they might watch, but he was also very shy about it, so it would be much more important for him that everyone had a good time. He had an ally in all this, of course, and Marianne would be there to champion his ideas. They were sitting next to each other on the floor the whole evening, at times joined by the younger kids, but other times it would just be the two of them, and again it would be impossible to not look at them being as obviously sweet together as any two pre-teens could get. He would whisper facts about whatever they were watching, and she'd be genuinely invested… and occasionally prone to planting popcorn on his head until he noticed and she laughed at the way he tried to collect it all.

The Friar-Farrell-Matsuoka weekend continued on Sunday morning, where the Friars hosted the other two families for a pancake breakfast in their kitchen. Marianne was getting to be a very good pancake flipper, a skill she would want to try and teach to Haru that morning. As attentive as he was while he listened to her, his attempts started off as pure and chaotic disaster, but it made Marianne laugh, and him along with her, so he'd keep trying. He didn't master the skill by the time they had pancakes for everyone, but he had gotten better, including one near perfect flip which had gotten a proud shout and a 'did you see that?' out of Marianne. He had finally retired from his attempts, the better to let Marianne and Lucas get the last few done.

As they all sat and ate, Marianne was happy to both share and expand on her growing Japanese vocabulary with their guests. Most of them knew about Himari and how she was staying down the road with the Dixons, but her influence had been kept as quiet as possible, the better to spring this surprise on Haru and the others in just the moment that felt most appropriate. All she needed was to see the startled looks, on Haru's face as much as his family around him, and it made her laugh with great satisfaction. There was no putting this back into the unknown, and Maya and Lucas could easily see their daughter becoming fully fluent before they knew it, under Haru's long-distance tutoring. If they could give those two the means to make that distance feel less so, then there was really no question to it.

After breakfast, they were off to the ranch. There was so much for Marianne to show Haru there, him and his sister, too, as they'd been coming by from summer to summer, and Kimiko had also been an XC for a year. They were familiar with the place in that great way where, no matter how long they were away, coming back felt like they'd never left. But they were all decorated up for Halloween now, and that was not something they got to see all too often. This turned into Haru and Kimiko looking for any of the hidden figurines while Maya and her sisters did their best to not tell them where to look if they happened to know that there was a figurine nearby. That would get to be the funniest whenever they would almost give themselves away and one of the others would have to make sure they could keep it together. In the end, the two siblings each managed to track down one of the figurines, though as they didn't feel that they would be involved enough for it to matter in the grand scheme of things, they decided to put them back where they'd found them, for others to find them again.

The rest of the day was a mix of other stops here and there, like the comic book store, and the park, places that Marianne loved and wanted to share with Haru especially. It had long been accepted that this was the name of the game for this weekend, and everyone was happy to commit to it. They knew that, after this, much as they'd try to make the most of this visit to Austin, they would have to wait a whole other week before they could do more like this, so these days had been a gift not to squander. When they finally had to say goodbye, it was bittersweet but majority to the sweet side. Marianne waved them off and as she turned to see her parents' smiles, she smiled back.

"Good weekend?" Lucas asked while Maya held her arms open and Marianne hurried to meet her in the embrace.

"Yeah," she smiled, pulling back but remaining in a loose hold with her mother. "I know I have to go to school and all that, and that's going to get kind of…"

"In the way?" Maya offered, and Marianne laughed.

"It's okay," she insisted. "I'm just glad that he's here… with his family," she added after a beat.

"With his family," Maya nodded to Lucas, who nodded back to her.

"With his family," he echoed.

"Why are you being weird?" Marianne asked, baffled, and it made her parents laugh.

"Are we being weird?" Maya asked her, and Marianne nodded. "Well, that happens, I mean look at who we are," Maya gestured between herself and Lucas.

"Speak for yourself, I'm not weird at all," Lucas held up his head in mock indignation. That got a laugh out of Marianne, and Maya held her nearer again, basking in that great joy.

"You tell yourself whatever you want there, Huckleberry."

TO BE CONTINUED

See you tomorrow! - mooners