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It was a little hard to believe how much technology had changed. Ten—twelve years ago, it was normal to communicate with those big crystal things that worked really weirdly. Terra had understood it to the “they fire patterns of electrons to a receiving end,” but the next part was about travelling through folds in space-time and connecting to a world’s Heart. That had gotten complicated and vague a little too quickly. Anyway, they were a tad unweildy, but they worked pretty well.
As far as he was told, the gummiphones were the same, just smaller and more portable. Maybe it had taken a few days to get used to the layout, but they were surprisingly useful. Especially in a huge castle; no one needed to run around yelling for someone else. Of course, there were only so many rooms one could be in, but sound almost never carried through to the basement, and many a frantic search had only ended there after a while of wandering.
That was what messages were for, as someone he forgot the name of told him. It was one of the chipmunks, but he had forgotten which. Nobody could hear when they were downstairs, but gummiphone messages were easy to send and nobody needed to them run around the house—which would take a few minutes off the regular ordeal of that. He wasn’t sure if they were trying to sell him something with their descriptions of each function; they’d given them the phones. Or maybe they were just very enthusiastic about their work.
But the basement is where he was now. One of the lightbulbs had been particularly troublesome the past few weeks, what with it only fully turning on after a few minutes, until it stopped working one day. It had to be fixed, another new thing. It seemed like there was one every day—that wasn’t a problem.
A slight buzz sounds, then another. Terra finishes screwing in the new lightbulb, and gives the switch a couple flicks. It works now; no more blinking to life only to blow.
Oh, right, the message. He fumbles his phone out of his pocket and the screen lights up.
Aqua: (2) unread messages
>>I am aking stew di y
>>you want to hekp
<<ye
<<s
At least the messaging application has a few options for him to instantly reply with actual words.
<<yes
Then, looking at the unused lightbulb boxes he’s taken out—this one had needed a weird size that was bigger than normal, but not as big as the regularly big ones, so it could have been a variety of random sizes that they had for some reason—he gathers them up and unloads them onto a closet shelf. He pads out another message.
<<comimg ovr
It takes a minute to even hit any key, let alone the right ones—takes forever. Well, they both take forever to type out anything, be it a message or a reply. Their hands shake from disuse and cold, even weeks after it’s all ended, so it’s not new to wait for a message for a minute or two.
He slips the phone back into his pocket—it won’t fall, that way—and climbs up the creaking stairs and out of the basement. They hadn’t always made that much noise, had they? Maybe it’s new, that after all their disuse they don’t know how to be stairs anymore. That’s something they have in common, he supposes.
He enters the kitchen to find Aqua squinting at a message, mumbling ingredients under her breath as she tears through the kitchen to find things. Already the counter is covered in a medley of vegetables, a pot, and a cutting board with various sizes of knives.
“What are we going to make?”
“One of the kids sent me an old recipe of theirs a while ago,” she says. “I thought I’d try it. It looked pretty good, and I can send them a couple pictures.”
He suspects that the cook is Kairi, who quietly showed them her recipe book when they came to the islands, who they haven’t seen or heard from in some time. Riku assures them, when he calls, that she just needs some time, and they’re both working things out. But false guilt is a terrible thing to bear.
“—so some meat, vegetables, fruit and it turns into comfort food just like that,” she says as she scrapes strips of meat into a frying pan. They start to sizzle. “Could you get the oranges from the fridge for me?”
“Never thought of using oranges in a soup. That’s an interesting idea.”
“Mhm. They go in at the end, so they don’t get soggy or lose their taste. They just can’t be cold.”
It does sound good, though he can’t manage to get himself excited over it. They all cook, but Aqua is probably the one who likes it best, how every combination can be so different or similar, and how every ingredient comes together to make an amazing dish. That part isn’t so hugely interesting to him, but it is nice to cook. It’s calming to have a purposeful end goal, he thinks as he washes and chops carrots. One that isn’t brought on by urgency or emergency, one that just comes together. In no time at all, the stew is ready for dinner, and Aqua insists on taking a few pictures of it.
It really is amazing, the oranges adding a tangy sweetness that only complements the spices in the meat. For a while it’s silent as they eat, then, as always, they start to talk halfway through the first bowl—which usually leads to them laughing uproariously at some joke. Dinner fades into cleanup, eventually.
But it’s been a long day, and he’s almost fallen asleep on his feet several times throughout it. They’ve cleaned up, which he barely remembers happening, and then retreat into a living room. Aqua starts on her message to Kairi while Ven reads.
He considers sending a quick message to her. Something small that she’d certainly see—she was writing a message now. It’s easy to type out a couple heart symbols. Blue ones, and his thumb shudders over the send button. No, not now. It’s silly, anyway, or sappy, or some combination of the two. Besides, they both know it already—what’s the point of sending a small message like this when they could just talk? Oh, he’ll send it to her anyway.
It’s because of the fuzzy confidence that comes with sleepiness that he stops overthinking and lets himself be sappy for a moment. As it turns out, blind confidence can be a good thing sometimes.
“Ven, how do you send pictures?”
“Oh, it takes a little getting used to, but after that it’s pretty easy. I’ll show you!” He comes over to the couch and pulls out his own phone. “So you go to the camera, and start out by either taking a picture or finding one you want to send.”
She follows the instructions, going to one picture of the stew in a bowl. “Alright. That’s easy enough for a start.”
“Then you go to the green arrow at the side and the message box will pop up. Just type in a name, and if you have them in your contacts, then it’ll pop up and you can select it.”
It all works out perfectly. Except for the actual message part.
It takes a very long time for her to decide what message to send, and just as long, if not longer, to actually write the message without many misspells. Sometimes she swears she can see her hands shaking, other times she can only feel it.
<<Thank you very much for thr recipe!
<<We all enjoyed it very much , here are some pictures!!
It feels too happy and fake. Sometimes it’s hard like that, sending messages with enthusiasm in them. It feels just impersonal enough right now, but maybe she’ll get used to it. The least she has is that she can send a message in any form to Terra, and he’ll understand. The buttons are too small most of the time, but they understand each other through the mistakes.
Then she notices a small notification at the corner of the screen.
Terra: (1) unread messages
That’s odd. She hadn’t heard the telltale ring recently, but—oh, that function was off.
>>💙💙
Two blue hearts.
Oh. At this point they both know that they’ve fallen for each other, hard, but neither has been been confident enough to be casual about it. This is due to a combination of factors, the main one being that they’re nervous—that they’re overthinking it all—though it’s only a ridiculous fear. They both know that, and it doesn’t change anything. Just one wrong move could—
Aqua usually tries to not think about the what if.
In any case, she texts hearts back, an orange one and a blue one. She hopes she’s not being too sappy with this, but surely Terra wouldn’t mind this if he had sent her the same thing. It’s a nice thing for both of them, she thinks as Terra reddens from across the room once he sees it. He catches her eye and she smiles. Then his face turns a few more shades of red. He sends back the same message as her—orange and blue hearts. Then the daily ritual begins.
It would be uncharitable to refuse to note that this exercise helped their confidence grow—so it will be noted. Quite simply, they became more comfortable giving and receiving affection.
It’ll happen at any time in the day. One of them will send some hearts, and the other will respond in kind—a signal that yes, today is a good day and I’m sending it on to you. It keeps going on, for what seems like weeks. It could be sappy or cute, but Aqua doesn’t care and Terra must not either. It’s just a quick reminder that they’re around for each other.
And it continues. Alongside the steady stream of “love you’s” and kisses they send hearts and hearts and hearts. Nothing of any of the gestures is lost with abundance of the others. It’s not saying too much—it barely says enough, sometimes.
And it keeps happening. The headiness of the first days does fade away, but they knew they loved each other even without the pure feeling of it. There’s no need for them to force their love to new heights to forever keep the feeling.
But of course they still send hearts to each other every day. It’s habit at this point.