Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

When his phone lit up, he thought one of his study partners had finally answered him, but the display showed an unknown number.

He stared at it for a few long seconds, unsure what he was supposed to do with it. Block the number? A strange number texting him was weird, after all, but in the end, he was a man of science and decided to at least look at it.

(Unknown – 02:35)
Hi
No idea who you are but Vi said to text you
So uh
how ya doing?

Ekko stared at the messages. Vi? What was the woman up to now? She was always weirdly into his personal life, but so far she had never given his number to anyone – in fact, he had specifically told her not to do that, because he was afraid she’d give it to anyone, she even remotely thought was dateable. Because for some reason him finding a significant other was important to her.

His instincts went back to blocking the number and then text Vi a very rude “what the fuck” message. The problem simply was the essential question: Why did that nosy woman give his number away, without even asking him first? It wasn’t like her.

So, against his better judgment, he played along.

(Weird number from Vi – 02:42)
Hey, I’m doing good.
For an engineering student at least, I guess.

(Unknown – 02:47)
So, sleep deprived and hungry?

(Weird number from Vi – 02:49)
damn
good guess
you study engineering too?

(Unknown – 02:50)
Nah
Got some buddies in that department, tho
well… one
only fun engineer I’ve ever met
so just gonna let ya know: If you bore me, I’m gonna block you

(Weird number from Vi – 02:50)
I’m not boring!

(Unknown – 02:50)
yeah?
Whatcha do for fun?

Ekko wanted to furiously write a reply – how dared this random person assume he was boring?

But he had no idea what to write. He was boring. Apart from going to classes, learning at home, taking walks from time to time and more learning with his buddies, he really didn’t do anything. Well, binge-watch stuff on Netflix maybe.

He could be fun, if he would be a lot less busy, though. Knowing that didn’t make finding a proper answer any easier, however.

And as he thought about a reply, way too long, he got another text.

(Unknown – 02:56)
knew it xD

He stared at it, trying to decide if this might be the right time to block the number. Wasn’t that the number one rule for any socials? Whoever frustrates you gets blocked?

(Unknown – 02:57)
Lemme guess
you’re learning right now?

(Weird number from Vi – 02:59)
I hate that you do that

(Unknown – 02:59)
what?
Be right xD
don’t take it personally tho, I’m always like that

(Weird number from Vi – 03:00)
what are you doing?
Can’t be that much more exciting
I doubt you’re stealing a rhino or sth

(Unknown – 03:03)
hahahah
fair
watching friends
don’t judge

(Weird number from Vi – 03:05)
I’m not
it’s a classic

(Unknown – 03:06)
right??
real talk tho: Ross or Joey?

(Weird number from Vi – 03:06)
joey for sure
ross was kinda an ass to rachel, joey was sweet and at least never cheated
and I swear don’t pull the “they were on a break” card

(Unknown – 03:07)
on a break my ass
they had a little fight and ross immediately jumps the next best girl

Ekko wasn’t sure when, but at some point, he started smiling. Probably because finally someone was on the same page as him! It was a little sad that the only person who agreed with him was a stranger Vi gave his number to, who he had known for like ten minutes.

To be completely fair, though, most of his friends didn’t even watch the show (which was a crime in his opinion), so his statistic on “everybody stans Ross” relied on like two people. And now, him included, he had two people for the counter position. Maybe not blocking this person wasn’t a bad idea after all.

(Weird number from Vi – 03:11)
hey what’s your name?

(Unknown – 03:14)
you know what would be fun?
Figure it out

(Weird number from Vi – 03:15)
seriously?

(Unknown – 03:15)
damn you really are a bore xD

(Weird number from Vi – 03:16)
how am I supposed to do that anyway?

(Unknown – 03:18)
if you know Vi then you’ve got a high chance of having met me before
use your brain, engineer xD

(Weird number from Vi – 03:19)
do I at least get a clue?

(Unknown – 03:23)
I’m a girl
you’re not gonna get more than that
have fun!

(weird engineer – 03:24)
gotta delay the challenge a bit, sorry
got a test tomorrow

(friends girl – 03:26)
and ya still awake?
Dude
not even im that crazy

(weird engineer – 03:26)
i’m not even halfway through the material

(friends girl – 03:26)
gee I can’t believe im saying this but
at the risk of sounding like my sister in law
that ain’t healthy
go to sleep

(weird engineer – 03:27)
u too

(friends girl – 03:27)
jokes on you
im high on coffee right now
couldnt sleep if I wanted to xD

(weird engineer – 03:28)
I don’t even know what to say to that

(friends girl – 03:28)
hehehe

He shook his head and sighed.

That turned out a lot differently than expected. More likely was a very short conversation, ending with him blocking this girl. And now, he really wanted to get to know her more.

It was a bit odd and frustrating that she didn’t want to tell him her name, but he was sure he could figure it out. It made sense that she was one of Vi’s friends if that woman gave her his number – Vi must trust her to some extent. The problem was, that he knew too many of Vi’s friends due to her constant meddling and trying to find him a partner and/or generally more friends up here in Piltover.

Thinking about it a little longer than he should have, he came to the conclusion that this mystery girl could not be one of the love interests, Vi had picked out for him. She would not try the same person twice. So the only thing left were the friend interests. At least that narrowed it down a bit.

He was almost up and about to make a list of people he could still remember meeting, to try and rule some out, when he remembered that he had a test to learn for.

One problem at a time.

***

“Hey, little man”, an all too familiar voice greeted him, while he was still waiting for his precious coffee.

“Vi”, he said coldly which was partially due to his exhaustion and lack of sleep, but mostly because she just gave his number to a random person. It didn’t matter that said person was a Friends lover and seemingly an interesting person – she still invaded his privacy.

Vi sighed. “You’re that mad, huh?”

Ekko turned around to look at her with the most disappointing look he could muster. “You just betrayed my trust in you, no big deal.” He hoped the sarcasm was still audible even if he was short to passing out.

The woman beside him laughed awkwardly. “I’m sorry, but I really thought you might like each other.”

Now it was Ekko’s turn to sigh. “Doesn’t change the facts.”

Vi studied him for a short moment, a smug smile appearing, “So, you do like her?”

“She seems nice”, he answered shortly and watched Vi make a confused face. “Is she not?”

“She is!”, the woman said quickly. “It’s just … not the usual words I hear from people describing her.”

Ekko blinked, too tired to be properly confused, but it came close. “And yet you gave her my number?”

“Come on, you know that sometimes people misjudge you, just because of a first impression. I felt like you two could get along and … seems like I was right.” Her smug smile returned.

Vi did have a point, though, no matter how annoying she chose to be about it. People often fail to be patient enough to really get to know someone. Not that this mystery girl seemed to have any insecurities about that, but maybe that was the point. Maybe she just refused to bother with the charade of niceties. But maybe he was just reading too much into it.

Apparently sensing how her rare moments of sorta wisdom have made him a little melancholic, Vi bumped him with her shoulder. “I think it’s great you guys like each other. And I’m sure you two will figure out each other's identity soon.”

That stopped any train of thought, he had in an instant. “Wait. You didn’t tell her who I am?”, he asked confused, but then remembered her very first text. She did say that she had no idea who he was. What the heck was Vi playing?

The woman shrugged. “Well…”, she said awkwardly. “If I told her who you are, she would have never texted you, so I just told her, you’re a friend of mine, I think she would like. To be fair, she was very skeptical, but … seemed like she texted you anyway”, she explained. “Keeping it a secret was her idea, though. She told me this morning to better not slip should you ask. So I won’t.”

He simply sighed, refraining from asking any more questions that Vi probably wouldn’t or couldn’t answer anyway.

Coincidentally, that was the exact moment, he finally was able to get his hands on his coffee.

“Well, before I solve that mystery, I have another one to solve. Knowing Heimerdinger, probably several even”, he mumbled, defeated before he had even entered the classroom.

“Good luck!”, Vi told him cheerfully, but he barely noticed, only halfheartedly waving in response, already mentally reciting everything he could still remember from last night's learning session. It was not a lot, but hopefully enough to at least pass. He could do better next time.

***

Jinx stared at her phone every five minutes and hated it. How was she supposed to focus like this?

(friends girl – 10:37)
Good luck dude!

Since she had no idea when exactly this test of his was, she had just written him a message when she woke up, which, to be fair, had been late. Probably late enough for the guy to already be writing his test. But maybe a little sleep had made him realize, he didn’t want to talk to her anymore and the only reason he had last night was the delusion that came with insomnia.

Not knowing which one was the true reason made her anxious and she hated it.

It was stupid and she knew it, but she couldn’t help it. As much as she hated to admit that her sister had been right, she did like him, even though they barely knew anything about each other.

The thought of sending another message had crossed her mind more than just a few times at this point, but she held herself back. She didn’t want to come off as desperate or something – even if she was.

Jinx tapped impatiently on her table, already earning annoyed looks from everyone around her. Right now that was the only way for her to rid herself of the anxious energy, though, so they had to deal with it. Not like that could make them hate her more.

That was exactly the thing, wasn’t it? People were always quick to leave her, thinking she was too weird, too much, too loud, too mean, too whatever. But this guy didn’t. Not yet, anyway.

Vi had said that he would be nice and honest and that she was sure that he wouldn’t make any comments like her previous friends. It was the only reason she had even given it a shot and she was really surprised to find this guy … actually holding up Vi’s hopeful promises.

This was driving her mad.

Then again, why did she even bother that much? Even if this guy turned out to be less great than he seemed at the moment, even if he left her like everyone else… She didn’t know who he was and neither did he.

She’d never have to feel embarrassment when accidentally seeing him because she wouldn’t know. He’d never get to gossip about her and turn people on her because he didn’t know.

The only consequence would be for her therapy bill to grow even larger because hey, she can’t even make a complete stranger – her sister recommended, who had no prejudices against her whatsoever – like her and make him be her friend.

This was why Jinx had made it into a fun game to figure out the other's identity, even to her sister, but in reality, she simply didn’t want to know. She didn’t want him to know. In the long run, it will be better to have stayed anonymous.

All of those depressing thoughts vanished in an instant when she saw her display light up.

He wrote back. He actually wrote back.

A smile crept into her face and she carefully pulled her phone closer and hoped the Professor wouldn’t catch her. Not that it was illegal or anything, but he didn’t like it and would embarrass you for not listening.

(weird engineer 13:38)
Thanks!
Went better than expected, honestly
Heimerdinger usually has the craziest exams but this one was ok

(friends girl – 13:39)
and yet you stayed up wayyyyy too long
you should chill more

(weird engineer – 13:40)
don’t tell me you never worry about college

(friends girl – 13:40)
meh
only here to pass the time
I don’t really care

(weird engineer – 13:40)
seriously?
Damn
would’ve never gone through this hell just to pass time

(friends girl – 13:41)
I guess
it’s usually pretty chill tho
but maybe that’s just because I don’t take it seriously
then again, I pass, so maybe I’m just naturally gifted

(weird engineer – 13:42)
yeah, I don’t think so xD

(friends girl – 13:42)
rude

(weird engineer – 13:43)
what’re you studying anyway?

(friends girl – 13:43)
computer science
it’s more fun than I thought
actually thought about going into engineering but … nah

(weird engineer – 13:44)
good choice
you saved yourself a lot of existential dread

(friends girl – 13:44)
you seriously just need a different attitude
and some fun friends

(weird engineer – 13:44)
like you?

(friends girl – 13:44)
yea!
Why not, I’m fun

(weird engineer – 13:44)
too sad we’ll never get to do anything because I don’t know who you are :(

(friends girl – 13:45)
nice try xD
I’m sure you’ll figure it out

(weird engineer – 13:45)
any clue who I could be?

(friends girl – 13:45)
You think I know all of Vi’s friends?
I’m really not that obsessed

(weird engineer – 13:45)
does Vi have that many male friends?

(friends girl – 13:46)
again
no idea
I don’t talk to her much

(weird engineer – 13:47)
really?
The way Vi’s been talking, I thought you were close

(friends girl – 13:48)
guess so?
It’s complicated.

Jinx really hoped this guy wouldn’t ask about it. She barely talked about that sore spot to anyone – not even her therapist.

One would think at least her sister would stick by her side, but well … that turned out to be wrong.

Vi tries to make things better, she had to give her that, but Jinx was still so pissed about the whole thing that she avoided talking to her sister if possible.

It didn’t matter how much Vi tried to tiptoe around it or how many times Lux told her to “just let it go” and “forgiveness is such a beautiful thing”, she’d rather be lonely forever than forgive Vi for betraying her so easily. The woman could at least apologize properly, but no.

Besides, she wasn’t lonely. She had friends. Sort of. Lux felt more like a conscience than a friend and Zeri barely had the attention span to listen to anything. Lux’s boyfriend was fun, but she didn’t like Jinx and him hanging out, because it mostly ended with the goody two shoes having to bail them out of jail (if Vi hadn’t beaten her to it, yet). In theory, she also could make more of an effort to befriend the science guys Caitlyn insisted on introducing her to, but … only Viktor was really fun and he usually came in a package with Jayce, which made it all boring again, so also not much ground to cover there.

Alright, maybe she was a bit lonely.

Didn’t change the fact that this engineer was not gonna get anything out of her here. It was still too early.

(weird engineer – 13:52)
should I ask?

(friends girl – 13:52)
no

She felt like she should add something to that and started typing several times. Things like “I’m fine” or “maybe another time” or “you’ll probably get it when you figure out who I am”. But all of them felt so wrong and weird.

Eventually, she simply put her phone away, listened to the last five minutes of her lecture and went home, without checking it again. He probably thought she was rude, now or felt annoyed that she won’t open up to him or maybe he even feels entitled to some explanation on why she didn’t want to talk about it. After her thoughts had been depressing her since she woke up and wrote that first text, she just couldn’t deal with that right now.

She would deal with the inevitable disappointment later. Much later.

***

It’s been a week. Well, six days and a little something, but who was counting the hours? Ekko apparently. The answer would be five. Six days and five hours – fortunately he was not desperate enough to count the minutes too.

He had watched the three dots appear and vanish before the girl had gone offline and never went on again. Or maybe she had been online, it wasn’t like he could check every single second of every day. All he knew was: every time he was online, she wasn’t. And he didn’t know why.

Who could’ve expected Vi to be such a sore spot? Especially since she was the one who gave the girl his number – he had really thought they must be close friends.

He didn’t have much of a problem with not prying, he could respect a boundary. What he did have a problem with was the big unknown he now faced. What was he supposed to write after that? Was he even supposed to start the next conversation or should he wait for her to do that? Would she do that?

A snapping finger in front of his face eventually ripped him from his thoughts.

“Dude, were you even listening?”, asked a very annoyed Mylo. “This is the first time we’ve seen each other in months. A lot has happened, there’s no way you were already bored.”

“Sorry”, Ekko mumbled sheepishly. To be fair, Mylo’s definition of ‘a lot has happened’ usually comes down to a lot of work and relationship drama (or rather his drama around finding a relationship) – it was always the same and yes, boring. “I was just thinking”, he uttered out some sort of excuse.

“Leave that for your classes. Relax man.”

“College is hard”, Scar interjected now, never really having been a big fan of Mylo. “Give him a break.”

“Why are you even here? You see Ekko every day”, Mylo complained and Scar simply shrugged, sipping on his drink, leaving Ekko to eye-roll at the two.

“It’s nothing, just forget about it”, Ekko tried to avoid possible bloodshed. “So, what were you saying?”

As expected, Mylo took the spotlight immediately and stared, as Ekko should have guessed, back at the beginning.

Ekko tried to at least pretend to be interested and keep listening as he went on about … something. Most of it all went straight over his head, though. His eyes kept glancing at his phone and his mind went through every possible scenario he could think of, any way to respond or not. Maybe he should just change the topic – would that be rude? It felt rude.

A loud “Seriously?” brought him once again to the realization that he did not listen at all.

“Sorry”, he said again.

“There is no way, college is keeping your thoughts that busy”, Mylo said, his arms crossed and his face could almost be called a pout.

“It doesn’t”, Ekko confessed with a sigh. In fact, college was the furthest thing from his mind right now.

“So, it’s a girl then?”, Scar asked and threw him off a bit.

Sure, he was right, but … “Why would it be a girl?”, he asked, feeling a bit offended. As if the only thing a guy could be thinking about would be school and a love interest.

“Come on. I’ve noticed, how you’ve stared at your phone. The question is, what’s got you stressing like this about a simple text? Most likely answer: a girl. Unless it’s a boy. No judgment”, Scar explained matter of factly. Ekko had to blink a few times in confusion – were they really talking about this right now?

“That’s because it’s been really awkward for like a week.” Honestly, he didn’t even know why he said anything at all, but he did and now there was no getting out of it.

“Why?”, Mylo now asked and Ekko sighed again. “Come on, I can help you! I’m an expert.”

“You didn’t have a single relationship in your life”, Scar pointed out, sending Mylo spluttering.

“Just tell us the problem? We’ll see if we can help you”, Claggor chimed in, startling Ekko a bit, because he kinda forgot the man was even there.

Feeling a little bit cornered, he sighed one last time, resigning himself to his fate. “It’s just… we’ve only been texting two days so far and … I kinda hit a sore spot, I guess and now I don’t know how to respond anymore. She told me not to ask, and I respect that, but I still don’t know how to get out of it and the more time passes the more awkward it gets.”

“Hm, that’s though”, Scar mumbled, a finger on his chin while he thought.

“Well, if it’s really been a week, it might be okay to just change the topic”, Claggor thought out loud in a similar position as Scar.

“Yeah, definitely seems like enough time to just be random”, Mylo agreed. “Just write her a ‘hi’ and see how it goes. Maybe even a ‘how are you’ and then depending on her response you can see if she’s still pissed or something.”

“She didn’t particularly seem pissed”, Ekko more questioned than said – it was hard to understand the emotion over text, after all.

“Whatever”, Mylo said and shrugged. “Just write something and see how it goes.”

Usually, Ekko would not listen to Mylo when it came to any sort of advice and especially regarding relationships – this man had nothing to show for himself but a lot of slaps to the face (literally). He wasn’t the best person in any situation, always being at least the slightest bit toxic. But looking at the unanimously nodding heads around the table, it seemed that this time – this one time – he wasn’t wrong?

It was a huge leap of faith and he knew it, but it didn’t stop him from trying.

(weird engineer – 19:29)
Hi

Ekko already had his phone in his sights, but he made sure to have the sound on too, now.

The load at least lightened a little bit. Certainly enough to be forced to listen to Mylo’s drama in full and the man took full advantage of it. It was not enough, however, to resist the urge to check his phone every few seconds.

But no message came.

When they went home, he tried again.

(weird engineer – 21:58)
How are you?
I hope you’re doing ok

Nothing. No response whatsoever, but he tried not to think much of it. Maybe she was just busy, her phone was uncharged, or she took a nap. There were many reasons why a person did not answer their phone immediately or even after a few hours and maybe it was one of those rather than that she actually was pissed and never wanted to talk to him again.

After having to spend time with Mylo for so long, he was in theory tired enough to go straight to bed, but sleep didn’t want to come, no matter his exhaustion. Every minute that passed, in which she didn’t answer, he felt more awake, more anxious.

And when his phone did light up with a text, it wasn’t her.

(Vi – 23:26)
Hey, little man!

(Little Man – 23:27)
hey

(Vi – 23:27)
you doing okay?

(Little Man – 23:28)
Oh, yeah, sure
I’m fine
did you want something or just checking in?

(Vi – 23:28)
actually I did want to ask something
Caits gone for the weekend, so I thought we could spend the day
yk, like old times. There’s an arcade not far from here

He thought about it for a minute. Spending the day with Vi would be nice and promised to be very distracting. Ekko wouldn’t have to think about college for starters and maybe the little brain break would even help him to come up with a text for this mystery girl, that would convince her to talk to him again.

(Little Man – 22:32)
Sure! Sounds fun, I’m in

(Vi – 22:32)
Great!
Just be at my place tomorrow at idk 1 pm?

(Little Man – 22: 33)
sounds good

Despite his heavy eyes and sadness over being essentially ghosted, Ekko was genuinely excited. It’s been a while since he was at an arcade or had a chance to properly hang out with Vi. The last few years she’s always come in a pack with either Caitlyn or some of her new friends, which usually included some sort of scheme to set him up.

Not that he had something against Caitlyn – she was fine – but a chance to hang out ‘like old times’ did sound very nice regardless. Nice enough, to finally stop thinking about his mystery girl for a little while and fall into blissful sleep.

Chapter Text

Vi was behaving weirdly. Nothing new really, she always behaved a bit odd around Jinx – something to do with the guilt, she supposed – but this felt different.

She hadn’t thought a whole lot about it up until now. The day before, when Vi had texted her, it was just like any other desperate attempt by her sister to reconcile, but now Jinx felt as if there was more afoot than simply Vi’s need for approval.

“So?”, she disrupted the awkward silence between them. It had already been a good ten minutes since Vi had picked her up, which again was weird. “Where exactly are we going?”, she asked. Vi had said something about an arcade and Jinx had obviously thought about the old rundown arcade they had hung out as kids – it would fit right into her sister's sappy personality.

“I told you. The arcade.”

“I’m pretty sure we passed that like six minutes ago”, Jinx pointed out.

Vi’s face looked like she bit on a lemon. “Well… I kinda meant the one up in Piltover”, she awkwardly explained. “There’s one not far from the apartment, I … I should’ve specified that.”

“Yep.” That was the only response Jinx could muster.

She knew her sister spent way too much time up there, but this kind of miscommunication had never happened before.

They went out for dinner, both knew to meat at Jerichos.

Hang and talk, their favorite roof with a view over the black market.

A drink, they went to the Last Drop (no matter how reluctantly Jinx went there, they still had the best drinks).

“You really are turning into a Piltie”, she eventually mumbled.

“Powder-”

“Jinx.” She gave Vi a pointed look and they went back to awkward silence.

With a sigh, she pulled out her phone, ignoring the texts from her engineer, pulling up another chat.

(Daughter – 12: 23)
going up topside apparently
not sure how ill get back
Vi’s probably getting drunk as usual

(Dad – 12:23)
I can send Sevika to pick you up.

(Daughter – 12: 23)
didnt she have like a date or whatever?

(Dad – 12:23)
I’m sure she can arrange something.

Jinx thought for a second. She didn’t like the ogre by any means and the feeling was mutual too. Keeping that in mind, she did not feel like sitting in a tiny car with the woman for half an hour. Besides, if Jinx ruined her date, she could forget her private chauffeur for the girl's nights, she and her friends had planned next week. The deal was for Jinx to leave the ogre alone a week before and after, after all.

As much as she loved making Sevika’s life miserable, she could not risk losing her assistance next week.

(Daughter – 12: 25)
its fine
im sure I can crash at vis

(Dad – 12:26)
If you feel comfortable with that, that would be alright as well.

She couldn't help but snort a little. The old man always wrote so formally, while Jinx couldn't even be bothered with upper case, relying solely on auto-correct.

(Daughter – 12: 26)
ill survive :))))

With another sigh, she turned back to Vi, who looked like she had to shit – the woman always made weird faces when she felt uncomfortable, but that was a new one.

“How long is your wife gone, again?”, she asked straight away because what else would she do?

Vi glanced at her for a second, now looking like a puppy happy to get a head pat. Jinx rolled her eyes. “Oh, uh, till tomorrow evening”, she answered, apparently just happy to be talking. Or happy, Jinx hadn’t insulted stupid Caitlyn.

“Cool, so I can crash at yours tonight.” It wasn’t a question. Vi would agree anyway, so why even bother – it was a lot more effective this way.

“Of course!” Case in point. “You could’ve even with Cait around.”

“Maybe, but wouldn't wanna.”

Vi sighed. “You know, not all Pilties are bad. Cait is-”

“Spare me your icky romance, please”, Jinx interrupted, hoping her disgust showed on her face. “Speaking of, I really hope you didn’t set me up with some Piltie, because you better tell me now before I get in too deep.” So far, Jinx hadn’t really thought about the possibility, but considering most, if not all, of Vi’s friends were from up there, it wasn’t out of the question.

But Vi only smirked. “I thought, you wanted to figure out each other identity on your own?”

“I could spare me the effort with just a single three-letter word.”

Another sigh. “You made the rules, I ain’t telling you”, she said in that tone that made clear, there was not gonna be any discussion about it. Jinx groaned. “If you wanna know so badly, just ask him yourself.”

She rolled her eyes, not dignifying that with a response.

That was exactly why she had asked Vi – because Jinx couldn't ask the engineer. It had been no contact for about a week now, which was fine with her. A silent breakup (not that they were together) was the preferred ending for her. But then he wrote her again yesterday and she didn’t know what to do about it.

Not having expected anything from him, she had read them accidentally and instead of him saying something like he thinks she was rude or that he didn’t wanna continue this, he just wrote “Hi, how are you?”, which was endlessly more uncomfortable for her. What in the world did that mean? And what was she supposed to respond to that?

Pondering these questions once more, she let Vi stew in the silence.

That is until a very loud noise, Jinx didn’t even know how to describe, disrupted not only her thoughts, but the awkwardness as well. The confused “uuuuuuhhhhhh” from Vi did nothing to reassure Jinx that everything was gonna be fine.

“What’s going on?”

“I don’t know”, Vi said, pulling the car, which now started to smoke, to the side. “But at least we made it to my apartment”, she added with an unconvincing chuckle, while the car pathetically

stopped just short of reaching the entrance door.

***

At this point, Ekko didn’t know whether he should be worried and more importantly, which of the options should worry him the most – the possibility of her being in a state where she physically cannot write back, or that she might not want to write back.

Either way, he was determined to forget about it for at least one day, to have some fun.

The beginning of that certainly was interesting, already.

He had taken the train, since he didn’t own a car, and Vi didn’t live all too far from the station. She did offer to pick him up, but he didn’t want to inconvenience her, so he declined Vi’s offer. And as it turned out, she couldn’t have if she wanted to.

In front of the apartment complex was a car that got currently cursed at by Vi who looked like she had spent some time under it, if the oil and dust were anything to go by. On the wall of the apartment leaned another woman, a lot paler than Vi and with long blue hair braided into two twin braids. She didn’t seem to mind Vi as she stared at her phone with an impassive face. For some reason, she felt familiar.

Vi’s scrunched-up face excitedly lit up when she spotted him. “Little Man!”, she yelled over and waved. Now the girl on the wall looked up. “You remember Powder, right?”, the redhead asked and pointed towards the other woman.

“Right. Powder”, he realized. That’s why she felt so familiar. “Damn, you changed a lot”, he said, looking at her a little closer. Her entire style was way more punk than he would have ever imagined and he definitely never thought the little Powder he knew would wear such a revealing crop top.

“I also changed my name. Legally”, she bit out, looking more at Vi than Ekko. “It’s Jinx now”, she told him much warmer when she noticed his confused look. It seemed Vi was not a fan of the new name, though. She looked like she had bitten something sour.

“Alright”, he simply said and shrugged, hoping to release some of the tension. It would be some getting used to, but he could respect her wishes. “It’s good to see you”, he then added and even earned a smile.

“Yeah, you too, little man”, she said.

He cleared his throat and debated for a second if he should say something, but why not? “Ekko is okay.”

“Alright”, she said while shrugging, mirroring his response from just now with a smirk.

While Vi would never let that nickname go (although it seemed, that would also go for Powder), at least, he got one of the sisters on his side.

“Sorry, but it’s gonna take a few more minutes”, Vi said from somewhere behind the car.

Ekko could see Jinx roll her eyes. “Just call a mechanic”, she said in an annoyed tone that told him, this wasn’t the first time she had suggested it.

“I can fix this”, Vi retorted, making Jinx roll her eyes again.

“Didn’t know they teach you how to fix a car when becoming an enforcer.”

“Not right now!”

Ekko could physically feel all the awkwardness and unspoken issues between the sisters. He hadn’t heard a lot about what Jinx was up to since he moved up here and from how little Vi really talked about her, he always knew their relationship had strained a little. And in all fairness, he hadn’t been particularly ecstatic when Vi had told him, she was gonna become an enforcer either, but it seemed like Jinx had even more of a problem with it. And Vi had a problem with Jinx having a problem with it.

He cleared his throat, going in between them a little bit.

“How have you been?”, he asked Jinx, since he didn’t know anything about her life right now – he knew plenty about Vi and the woman was busy at the moment anyway.

Jinx looked at him for a second and seemed to think about whether she would answer him or not. Eventually, she shrugged. “Good, I guess”, she mumbled. “Could be worse. Got some friends, something to do, a therapist. What about you?”

“Oh, uh … I’m good too. College is … hell but I’m sure I can survive til graduation.”

Jinx chuckled a little. “That bad? Maybe you picked the wrong thing to study.”

“Well, I’m going to be honest, I cannot recommend”, he said and chuckled himself.

She smiled before they settled back into the pre-existing uncomfortable silence. Jinx was fidgeting with an elastic around her wrist and Ekko wasn’t sure if it was out of habit or nervousness. Although, as awkward as he himself felt, he assumed the latter.

“Anything else?”, Jinx asked surprisingly – Ekko really thought the start of a new conversation would be up to him. “I mean, your life can’t only consist of college.”

He took a deep breath. “Well between sleeping and eating every once in a while … it kinda does.”

“Seriously?” Jinx looked at him like she was trying to solve a specifically hard equation. “You never go out with friends? You’re kinda doing it right now, so you must have the time for it.”

“Fair”, he admitted. “I do sometimes go get something to drink with friends. I watch movies with my roommate.” He thought hard, but that was really the best he got. Maybe his mystery girl was right, after all – he was boring. “What do you do for fun?”, he asked back, before she could make any comments.

Jinx giggled and searched for something on her phone, before turning it around for Ekko to see …

“… Is that…? That looks like the docks.” He was looking at an absolute mess of colors and symbols and drawings all over what he thought to be the enforcer building down by the river, not too far from the bridge.

“Yep.” Jinx grinned widely.

“You vandalized a building of law”, he summarized the situation. Again, not what he ever imagined Powder to grow up to be.

“Well, I can’t take all the credit.”

“Who helped? Your...” He tried thinking of the best words since he didn’t know Jinx well enough. “… significant other?”

“Ew”, she replied, making a similar face to Vi’s when Jinx had corrected her on the name. “The boyfriend of my friend”, she explained and now Ekko made a face. “Not like that. He’s cool and always down to do shit like this. We’re pals.”

“Reassuring”, Ekko mumbled.

“Hey, I might be a lot of things, but I’m not a homewrecker. Honestly, I’m offended, you would think that.”

He held his hands up defensively. “I didn’t think you would be, it just … sounded a bit weird.”

She thought a second, then shrugged. “What about you?”

“What?”

“You asked first, so what about your significant other, should they exist”, she explained and Ekko immediately had to think about the mystery girl and tried to find a way to maybe avoid this topic altogether, but then he thought. Maybe Jinx could help him. Since advice from other guys obviously didn’t work, maybe he just needed a woman’s perspective on this.

He took a deep breath, bracing himself for the awkwardness that was about to come. “Well, there is this girl, I’ve been trying to get to know”, he started slowly.

“Uh huh”, Jinx said carefully, seeming suspicious to where this was going.

“I think I messed up somehow. She doesn’t answer my texts anymore and I honestly don’t know what to do. Maybe you might know how I could solve this?”, he carefully asked.

“Because I just know how any girl ticks?”, she responded unimpressed.

“No”, he immediately said. “I’m running out of ideas”, he admitted.

She sighed. “Alright. What did you say?”

“Nothing!”, he defended quickly. He really didn’t say anything, he just steered the conversation in the wrong direction.

“You must have said something if she’s pissed”, Jinx mumbled.

“That’s the thing. I don’t even know if she is. She didn’t seem pissed but maybe … maybe I’m just an idiot.”

“Wouldn’t rule it out”, Jinx said. “But if you think, she’s not mad then maybe you’re not even the problem. Maybe …” She trailed off, seeming to think, potentially even having some realizations, he wasn’t sure. “Maybe, just be open about what you feel. If you can’t decipher her mood, she probably doesn’t know yours either. Just … take a leap.”

It certainly did look like Jinx just solved a problem for herself as well, with the way her face suddenly lost all tension and she looked at her phone, but Ekko wasn’t going to pry.

So, he simply answered her advice. “Thanks. I’ll try that. Maybe you’re right.”

“Wouldn’t count on it. I’m not good with feelings”, she then admitted.

He wasn’t quite sure how to respond to that, so he kept his mouth shut and let the awkward silence return, thinking about what exactly he was going to text. Maybe if he wrote the girl something to let her know that they could just move past that one moment and that he wouldn’t ask about it, maybe it would make her write back again.

It was a slim hope, but one he needed to hold onto. He already went down the rabbit hole of what his message would look like and what he would want to include. It shouldn’t sound too stiff after all, but still honest.

An explosion sound made him come back to reality, though. For one second, Ekko feared some terrorists were attacking or something, but the huge black cloud of smoke coming from Vi’s car, combined with all the curses Vi let out of her mouth, told him everything he needed to know.

“Told you to call a mechanic”, Jinx said as innocently as a little kid with the most devilish smirk, he had ever seen.

Vi, however, did not respond and simply stomped past them. “Guess, no arcade today”, she grumbled angrily, making a face that looked like she had just lost a fight. Technically she did, he supposed – against her own car.

“You want tea?!”, she yelled from the inside of the staircase and it echoed so loudly, it wouldn’t have surprised him if a neighbor had responded.

Ekko looked over to Jinx for a second, who tried really hard to keep a bigger laugh in before they followed Vi into her apartment.

***

After Vi had taken a really long shower, apparently giving herself enough time to calm down, she was back to being a fun and nice friend. The overall tension was almost completely gone when everyone had their tea. Almost, because Vi still slipped up with Jinx's name, which caused some awkwardness from time to time again.

But apart from that, Ekko really enjoyed his time with the sisters. Even if they didn’t get to go to the arcade. At least Vi knew how to make a good tea – he suspected he had Caitlyn to thank for that.

They talked a bit about life, both of the sisters effortlessly and creatively avoiding sore spots like it's a sport – if it weren’t so sad, it would be really impressive. Eventually, they settled for some movies and at some point, Vi even pulled out a board game from somewhere on her way back from getting alcohol.

To the surprise of everyone, Jinx won the game. Though, Ekko was sure, she had cheated somehow. Vi hadn’t really been a threat, being too drunk at some point to notice anything, really. But Ekko still wondered how he missed the blue-haired woman’s tricks.

It was no use, however. Jinx was consistently denying having cheated and Vi, even drunk, would defend her sister to the death, so he settled with his loss.

Sadly, everything had to come to an end, and at around midnight, he decided to leave. Vi would have surely offered for him to spend the night if Jinx wasn’t already crashing on the couch. It was okay, though, since Ekko lived nearby, while Jinx would have had to travel all the way back to Zaun.

And it was more convenient for him anyway because it would give him enough time to form a coherent message on the train.

While he was well aware of how late it was, he didn’t hesitate to send the text right away. They did already have a late-night conversation, so there was actually a pretty realistic chance she was up. Unless she had magically fixed her apparent sleep schedule in the last week.

(weird engineer – 00:53)
Hey again
I know the conversation before was probably triggering something and I’m sorry for that. I won’t ask, though! It’s completely valid if you don’t wanna talk about it
I just hope we can still talk about other stuff…
Please?

Ekko wasn’t expecting anything, not immediately and probably not for a few hours, so he opted to stare out the window, watching the buildings fly by, noticing as always how much darker the streets were up here compared to Zaun.

And when his phone rang a few minutes later, he expected Scar to ask where the hell he was and if he was going to be home anytime soon.

The name that actually popped up almost made him choke on his own spit.

(friends girl – 01:02)
no need to sound so desperate xD

He stared at it and the audacity it conveyed. After stressing for an entire week, that’s the response he’s getting?

(weird engineer – 01:03)
seriously, thats your first response?
Thanks for appreciating my carefully chosen words

(friends girl – 01:03)
sorry
I don’t know what to say honestly
I’m not good with feelings but … thanks
So
how ya been?

(weird engineer – 01:03)
terrible!
I was worried, idiot

(friends girl – 01:03)
about what?

(weird engineer – 01:04)
oh I don’t know
that you might have gotten into an accident for example
damn it, at this point I even considered you’re dead

(friends girl – 01:04)
thats sweet, but
death ain’t ready for me }:)

(weird engineer – 01:04)
very calming

(friends girl – 01:05)
anyway
any closer to figuring out who I am?

(weird engineer – 01:06)
no
of course not
what did you expect?
i’ve got nothing except: you’re a girl who likes friends
and death is afraid of you, apparently

(friends girl – 01:06)
fine
ill give ya compensation
one question
if it’s too obvious I won’t answer tho

Ekko was surprised she even offered it, but he would take it. Just what to ask? And what would be too obvious? Thinking for a few minutes, he went through the possibilities. The name was out of the question, and so was anything about Vi, as he had learned.

He could ask about her hobbies, maybe, but that wouldn't get him any closer to answers. Maybe he should build on something, he already knew, like … he knew, she studied computer science, but where?

Decided, he started typing again.

(weird engineer – 01:14)
what school do you go to?

(friends girl – 01:16)
assuming Vi wouldn’t give me the number of a serial killer
Zaun Uni
You?

(weird engineer – 01:16)
Piltover academy
and don’t worry, I don’t have the guts for murder
too much dirty work

(friends girl – 01:16)
pussy
didn’t really think you’d be a Piltie tho
then again, I got your number from Vi...

(weird engineer – 01:17)
am not
got a scholarship, I’d be crazy not to use it

(friends girl – 01:17)
fair
you still live up there , you stuck up

(weird engineer – 01:17)
not everyone here is stuck up. I mean, look at Vi
my learn buddies are also pretty fun

It was really only one learn buddy – his roommate – but she didn’t have to know that.

(friends girl – 01:17)
where are they from?
Piltover?

(weird engineer – 01:17)
zaun
why?

(friends girl – 01:18)
see? All your examples are from Zaun
of course they’re fun then!
Doesn’t count

(weird engineer – 01:18)
maybe you just haven’t met the right people

(friends girl – 01:18)
oh ive met Pilties
I hated all of them
the ones I didnt, turns out, not pilties
you’re just playing into my theory
you can’t prove me wrong

(weird engineer – 01:19)
my professor is pretty cool

(friends girl – 01:19)
aha...

(weird engineer – 01:19)
I wont change your mind, huh?

(friends girl – 01:19)
not until ive actually met proof

(weird engineer – 01:20)
fair enough
Gotta go, tho
talk tomorrow?

(friends girl – 02:08)
sleeping?
gn then

(weird engineer – 02:08)
you too

Ekko didn’t mean to cut their conversation short, but he got to get off the train and to be fair, he was tired. Going to bed did not sound too bad if he was being honest with himself and he usually tried to be.

What did worry him a little, though, was that she didn’t respond to his question of if they would talk tomorrow, but maybe she just didn’t see it. And he surely didn’t want to ask again. So, he ignored it and hoped she would refrain from ghosting him again.

***

(friends girl – 08:31)
good morning, dearest stranger

Ekko stared at the text in confusion.

Taking another good look at the time, his confusion just got worse. It was almost noon and since he got to bed rather late, that checked out. She also has been up as late as he has, if not even later, but then why was she already writing him at eight in the morning? And more importantly, why did she sound so cheery?

(weird engineer – 11:45)
hi?
anything special happening today or why so happy?
If I should read that message this way

Trying to suppress a yawn, he got out of bed, his phone in hand, waiting for some clarification on what was going on, but there was nothing, so he decided to go through his morning routine for now. Wasting his time with necessities felt like the best way to go – certainly better than being glued to his phone for who knew how long.

First things first, though. He needed coffee.

Getting into the kitchen, it seemed someone already tried to take care of that. There were coffee splatters everywhere, a half-full cup standing on the table. It looked like there also had been an attempt at cooking, but the way the pan looked, his roommate must have burned his breakfast, as well as splattered what was left of it on the wall.

Ekko walked backward out of the kitchen, deciding to get coffee elsewhere.

(Ekko – 11:58)
dude
the fuck happened to the kitchen???

(Scar – 12:01)
sorry man
had a bad morning
I’ll clean it later, promise!

He could accept that.

Not that he was obsessed with cleaning or anything – looking at his desk, he had no right to judge anyone anyway – but everyone had a breaking point and the state of their kitchen apparently was his.

With a sigh, he rubbed his eyes and tried to remember which coffee shops might be still open on a Sunday, coming up with nothing – great, so no coffee after all.

Ekko let himself fall back into his bed. If he didn’t know any better, he would say he was hungover, but he only had two glasses tops. Vi always drank a lot and even Jinx downed quite much, but Ekko wasn’t big on alcohol anyway, so he drank as little as possible, still enough to be polite.

Maybe the first proper night's rest in weeks was responsible for his state right now, but who knew – he studied engineering, after all, not psychology.

All he knew was his mind was a little hazy and he really wanted to go back to sleep. He actually did almost doze off when a ping from his phone woke him back up again.

(friends girl – 12: 36)
you read it right :)))
I am happy
had to spend the night in Piltover
sooooo happy to get back to Zaun

(weird engineer – 12:37)
so that’s why you were up so early

(friends girl – 12:37)
yep
wouldve slept more
but
my ride is an early riser
also I kinda wanted to get home as early as possible
my sleep can take it

(weird engineer – 12:38)
wait
Why didn’t you tell me you were here yesterday?

(friends girl – 12:38)
why would I?
Not like we were really talking either ...

(weird engineer – 12:38)
we could’ve met??

(friends girl – 12:39)
and ruin our little game?
No way

(weird engineer – 12:39)
at this rate, I figure out who you are when I’m 50

(friends girl – 12:39)
oh don’t be so pessimistic
I believe you can do it till you’re 40 xD

(weird engineer – 12:39)
haha
how funny

(friends girl – 12:39)
anyway
gotta run tho
promised my dad to learn ugh
already late xD

(weird engineer – 12:40)
good luck

(friends girl – 12:40)
thx

With a sigh and a groan, he decided to get up after all. If this girl could be productive after having only slept three hours at max, he shouldn’t be lying in bed all day. Resting a little, sure, but he could do that while being at least properly dressed.

Besides, he really needed to put some more effort into finding out who she was.

The problem simply was that he really didn’t know where to start. Sure, they had talked about some things, but never about anything that would help him in his quest.

While he at least drank a little water and changed, he tried to review what he could work with:

The girl knew Vi (and had some beef with her apparently), was a fan of sitcoms, was living and going to college in Zaun, studying computer science.

That really wasn’t helpful.

Now feeling a bit better, being out of his sweaty pyjamas, he sat down on the couch and scrolled through their texts again, hoping to find some more that he might have overlooked so far.

He still didn’t find a lot. The only things he might have figured out, reading through it all again, were mostly things about her personality. She had a friend who was either studying engineering or was an engineer, she was lowkey rude at times, had terrible self-care habits, doesn’t worry much about college, but still succeeds, so she was probably smart. And she didn’t like Piltover, which could apply to anyone in Zaun.

What was he supposed to do with that little to go off of? He didn’t have a single idea how to go about this, apart from maybe going down to Zaun, finding the computer science class and hoping to see her, but he did not feel particularly comfortable with that.

The only thing, that might be helpful was a little sentence she had said in their very first conversation. “If you know Vi then you’ve got a high chance of having met me before. ”

He didn’t meet a lot of Vi’s friends. Just like she allegedly didn’t know all of Vi’s friends, either. So, all he really needed to do was figure out which people were in the overlap of his and her knowledge of Vi’s friends.

There was no way, he would ever get to know his mystery girl’s side of this, but maybe he didn’t need to. He’ll just have to try and remember everyone he had met for the sake of Vi’s shipping desire – romantic or platonic didn’t matter, she wanted him to meet new people in general. Then he could rule them out, one by one. Hopefully.

The only problem was … his memory was shit…

Sighing he pulled out his phone again.

(Little Man – 13:11)
hey Vi

(Vi – 13:14)
hey man, what’s up?

(Little Man – 13:15)
can you do me a favor?
Pls?

(Vi – 13:15)
what kind of favor?

(Little Man – 13:16)
ok, might sound weird but
do you have a list of all the friends you’ve already tried to pair me off with?

(Vi – 13:17)
I wasn’t doing that!
Just trying to introduce you to some people is all

(Little Man – 13:17)
sure
do you have a track record or not ?

(Vi – 13:17)
not sure
but I can go through my contacts and check if they’ve met you

(Little Man – 13:18)
thanks

(Vi – 13:18)
what do you need this for anyway?

(Little Man – 13:19)
just trying to figure out who that mystery girl is

(Vi – 13:19)
naaww
I knew you’d like her
don’t worry, I’ll send you the list later ;)

Ekko refused to thank Vi for that – not after that comment. She acted like she knew who was best for him, but truth was, her track record for getting him dates (he didn’t even ask for) was not great, terrible in fact.

But what did relieve him was that Vi wasn’t even questioning why he’d think he knew her already. It only meant that his mystery girl’s guess was right and they do actually know each other.

While he tried not to get his hopes up too much, he was already thinking about a strategy to narrow down whatever list Vi would conjure (and he was pretty sure there was a list). He could probably exclude every date attempt because as much that woman tried to ship him off, she would not dare to try the same person twice. Which would only leave all the other random people he got to know.

For now, he had to wait, though.

He wanted to rest a little, didn’t he? Maybe he should tackle that in the meantime.

Chapter Text

It had all started so innocently, which was not a word usually associated with Jinx, which probably should have made her suspicious.

After her therapist gave her the assignment to try out a few things in order to get her some healthier coping mechanisms, she had to try knitting and in the process almost stabbed out her dad's good eye. Then there was journaling – she had actually tried that one earnestly, but it just wasn’t relaxing. Whenever she wrote down things that had frustrated her throughout the day, it just fired her up more, so she ended up burning the stupid book.

When the next suggestion was baking, Jinx decided, fuck all of that and try to find something herself.

So, Lux (as great a friend as she was) was the most boring person she knew. Her ideas to reduce stress and anger in a healthy way were things like meditating or yoga and basically everything her therapist had already told her, so Jinx went to the next person.

Zeri was a squirrel on crack (which she usually loved, but sometimes it was a bother) and had bombarded her with anything and everything she had ever tried and done, which honestly just overwhelmed Jinx, so she decided not to let Zeri show or suggest her anything ever again.

She skipped over her dad and Sevika entirely, because she knew how they handled things: For the ogre gambling and for her dad smoking – none of which sounded like better coping mechanisms than self-harm or destroying things by throwing them at a wall.

Jinx asked her sister, who simply responded with “Uhhh … I usually just hit something?” and why exactly she expected Vi to be healthier than herself, she didn’t know.

She had thought about asking her engineer, but eventually decided against it – not because she wasn’t interested or something, but it felt way too personal for her to know, so in all the conversations they’ve had these few days she didn’t bring it up once.

After all that, she went to her last resort – the people she liked well enough but wasn’t really friends with – Jayce and Viktor, who surprisingly were the only ones with common sense apparently.

Which was how she found herself in front of Caitlyn.

“You have got to be kidding me”, she grumbled. When Viktor suggested shooting might be something she would like, she couldn't argue and agreed to try out the shooting range. However, she hadn’t expected that Caitlyn of all people would instruct her and make sure she didn’t accidentally (or less accidentally) kill someone.

“I’m afraid not”, Caitlyn responded, betraying her own non-existent enthusiasm.

“I’m never telling Vi anything ever again”, Jinx said, more to herself than the woman in front of her. It had to be Vi – Jayce might be willing to try to set her up with Caitlyn as well, but Viktor luckily had enough sensibility for the both of them. Vi, however, did not. She really should have guessed this was going to happen.

Caitlyn sighed. “Don’t be so hard on her. She just thought you might appreciate some familiarity.”

Jinx tilted her head in confusion. “You sure, she doesn’t just want you dead?”

Even though Caitlyn rolled her eyes, it was a valid question – giving Jinx a gun and putting her into the same room as her sister’s hated wife was basically asking for an execution.

“You’re a beginner. You don’t get a real gun”, was all the other woman responded, now making Jinx roll her eyes – how boring. “Let’s just get this over with”, she added before turning around and walking to the main building.

Jinx followed because what else was she supposed to do? She couldn't leave – whoever built this stupid thing on an island deserves to be punished – so she figured before she wasted her time waiting for the ferry to come back, she might as well learn how to shoot. Unfortunately, Caitlyn knew that Jinx would rather spend her time productively before wasting it out of spite and looked accordingly smug – Jinx hated it. It made her want to shoot the other woman even more.

For some reason, they started their lesson a lot differently than Jinx had imagined. Caitlyn had led them into a room with a bunch of different models on display and at first, Jinx had been a little excited about that, but then the woman started to talk.

She didn’t quite know why she was supposed to be able to tell all these guns apart by name, but she tried to listen anyway. Part of her understood that all of them had different power or could hold more or less ammunition or whatever, but at some point, it was just too much information and she started to wonder if Caitlyn tried to torture her or something.

About when she was ready to doze off, she felt her phone vibrate in her pocket. Part of her hoped it was Vi, so she could tell her just how stupid this decision was.

(weird engineer – 14:23)
hey
howre you doing?

She was not gonna lie, she was not disappointed to see his name pop up instead.

(friends girl – 14:23)
heya
meh
first tortured by my therapist
now by my sister
what about you?

(weird engineer – 14:23)
what happened?
I’m fine, I guess?
Drowning in homework, but apart from that, i’m good

(friends girl – 14:24)
im supposed to find “healthier coping mechs”
not going well
and my sis idea of helping aint helping

(weird engineer – 14:24)
damn
any way I can help?

(friends girl – 14:24)
dont think so
but thx
why are you texting me anyway?
Sounds like you need to focus on other stuff

(weird engineer – 14:25)
need a break

(friends girl – 14:25)
and you spend it with me?
What a cutie

A little chuckle escaped her, which made Caitlyn check on her a little more closely.

“Jinx!”, she complained loudly, startling Jinx enough to drop her phone. “Are you serious?”

“What do you want from me? I won’t remember anything you said anyway. Can’t we just skip to the good part?”

She leaned down, picking up her phone again, while Caitlyn rubbed her eyes.

“It’s important to know, what-”

“Yeah, I do understand the practical reason behind your rambling, but that won’t change the fact, I ain’t remembering shit”, she interrupted before the woman could make any big speeches. Caitlyn looked ready to explode and/or strangle her. “Why do you even care? We both know this is a setup anyway”, she mumbled, looking back at her phone and ugh Sevika texted her.

“Possibly”, Caitlyn responded, seemingly a bit calmer already.

“And it’s not gonna work.”

“Wasn’t expecting anything more than for you to listen.”

Jinx snorted. “I’m just saying, I don’t get why you bother so much. Just give me a gun, show me how to hold it and we’re done.”

“There is so much more to shooting than just that!” Back to the strangle-hands, cool. The woman took a deep breath, before continuing. “But you’re right. I shouldn’t put so much effort into this. I’m just doing Vi a favor, after all.”

“The things you do for love… can’t relate.”

“Of course not”, Caitlyn mumbled and Jinx felt just the tiniest bit offended. “I still want to do this right. It’s my responsibility that you know how to shoot properly, so … I guess you learn more on a practical level and I probably should have thought of that from the beginning, but you’re right. Long speeches won’t help you.”

“Wow, you’re faster than my therapist.”

“We start with the basic types and you can already get a feeling for the craft. Next time, we’ll go through some more rare models, alright?”, Caitlyn ignored her comment and suggested the first sensible things Jinx had heard all day.

“Sounds like a plan.”

“Good.” With that Caitlyn went ahead and prepared everything.

Jinx turned back to her phone.

(Ogre – 14:29)
when’s your shit startin?

(Brat – 14:31)
7
I think

(Ogre – 14:31)
got a more exact layout for me?

With a groan, she pulled up the group chat and checked the time again and whatever else they had planned, which wasn’t a lot – neither Zeri nor her were planners by any means – but she hoped it could satisfy Sevika for now.

(Brat – 14:32)
zeri wants to watch a movie at 7.30
sooo pick up at 7, prop lux last cause she’s the closest to the theater
we def wanna hit a bar at some point
not sure if right after movie or later
hey btw
could ya ask Silco to leave some money?
Im out

She received a thumbs-up reaction and Jinx already wanted to switch conversations back to her engineer to tell him, she’d be gone for a few hours, but then she saw Sevika typing.

(Ogre – 14:35)
ask him yourself

(Brat – 14:35)
why????

(Ogre – 14:35)
hes your dad
aint my problem

(Brat – 14:35)
actually
per our deal
it is

(Ogre – 14:35)
how so?

(Brat – 14:36)
hate to tell ya but
you basically agreed to be my slave today :P

(Ogre – 14:36)
I hate you

(Brat – 14:36)
shouldn’t make deals with me when youre drunk then

Now that her girls-night was out of the way, she did change back to the engineer, who left an unread message ten minutes ago, when Caitlyn had startled her.

(weird engineer – 14:25)
All my friends are busy
and I never know what youre up to, so I thought I'd take my chances

(friends girl – 14:36)
still nice to be thought of
and Id love to keep you company, but I think my “teacher” will kill me if I dont put the phone away soon

She looked over to Caitlyn, who was more or less patiently waiting for her, having finally finished her preparations.

(weird engineer – 14:37)
wouldn't want that
dont worry
guess its time to keep grinding anyway

(friends girl – 14:36)
I believe in you

Now, she put the phone back into her pocket and turned to Caitlyn.

“You know, if you keep scrunching up your face like that, you won’t ever get rid of these wrinkles”, she commented on the annoyed look on the woman’s face.

With nothing more than a groan, she turned and led the way to the training grounds, Jinx following.

***

(weird engineer – 17:53)
how did it go?

Ekko wrote, thinking he should check in as it was a thing friends did. Truth be told, though, he was not just doing this out of friendly interest. If accidentally or not, she had revealed something interesting – she had a sister, as it seemed – and he kind of hoped he could get a little bit more out of her.

Vi was still working on her list, after all, so he still had too little to work with. Who knew Vi knew so many people, it takes her six freaking days to put it together, plus however long it takes her to actually finish.

(friends girl – 17:58)
well, no one was killed, so
good id say

(weird engineer – 17:58)
im very happy to hear no one died

(friends girl – 17:58)
before you sing me praises I should tell ya
they wouldn't give me real bullets

(weird engineer – 17:59)
where the hell were you???

At this point, information wasn’t that important anymore, he was just somewhat concerned about his and everyone else’s safety.

(friends girl – 17:59)
xD
shooting range

(weird engineer – 17:59)
why?

(friends girl – 17:59)
I told ya
needed to find a healthier coping mechanism

(weird engineer – 17:59)
right
and in trying to be healthier you chose shooting?

(friends girl – 18:00)
believe it or not
I did a lot more damage trying to knit, bake and meditate
so a bud suggested shooting might be a nice outlet
he was right

(weird engineer – 18:00)
i’m glad you found something

(friends girl – 18:00)
youre still worried huh?

(weird engineer – 18:00)
wouldn't it be weirder if I wasnt?

(friends girl – 18:00)
I guess
got anywhere with your college stuff?

Ekko was a little grateful for the topic change because he did not know how to keep this going. As worrying as it felt to know, that this woman would be legally allowed to hold a real functioning gun sometime in the future, it was still knowledge that might help him in the long run.

(weird engineer – 18:01)
sorta
I got somewhere for sure

(friends girl – 18:01)
back to the existential dread I see

(weird engineer – 18:01)
yeah …
taking another break for now tho
promised my roomie to watch star wars with him

(friends girl – 18:01)
classic

(weird engineer – 18:01)
cool, so apart from friends you like sw
gonna write that down

(friends girl – 18:01)
what can I say
its a fun watch and like 90% of these people are hot

(weird engineer – 18:02)
can’t argue with that

(friends girl – 18:02)
whos your hottest hottie?

(weird engineer – 18:02)
uhh
depends on the trilogy

(friends girl – 18:02)
come on
you tell me yours I tell you mine

(weird engineer – 18:03)
Han Solo, Padme Amidala, Kylo Ren

(friends girl – 18:03)
damn
agree
tho kylo ren is like the only real option from the sequels
expect maybe poe dameron

(weird engineer – 18:03)
fair xD
or that pink-haired lady who had to take over the ship in ep 8 I think

(friends girl – 18:04)
yeah! I remember her!

(weird engineer – 18:04)
now you
at least for the other two trilogies

(friends girl – 18:04)
right xD
its kinda power couples sharing first place in both
dont ask me why
so han solo and Leia Organa, Anakin and Padme
I mean
I have two hands xD

(weird engineer – 18:04)
I did not just read that

(friends girl – 18:04)
xD
close second obi wan
hes an icon

(weird engineer – 18:05)
cant say you’re wrong

(friends girl – 18:05)
now for the most important question
does your roomie know hes gonna have to watch you pine for like
3 hours?

(weird engineer – 18:05)
trust me, hell be worse

(friends girl – 18:05)
no way

(weird engineer – 18:05)
you should have seen him watch marvel movies

(friends girl – 18:05)
never got into it
a lot of hot actors there too tho

(weird engineer – 18:05)
no marvel fan, interesting

(friends girl – 18:05)
that desperate for info? XD

(weird engineer – 18:06)
I take finding your identity serious

(friends girl – 18:06)
ya think youll find me with my movie preferences?

(weird engineer – 18:06)
you never know

(friends girl – 18:06)
imagine me rolling my eyes right now

(weird engineer – 18:06)
how if I dont know what you look like?

(friends girl – 18:07)
thats a you problem xD

(weird engineer – 18:07)
great...

(friends girl – 18:07)
anyway, im bout to be gone again
girls night
just a warning tho
ya might get a drunk text or sth
depends whos contact ill find first

(weird engineer – 18:07)
ill look out for it
if I get nothing should I be relieved or assume the worst

(friends girl – 18:07)
that depends on how much youd appreciate me telling you shit like
btw I threw up
or
the moon looks wonky

(weird engineer – 18:07)
id very much appreciate it
even if only for a laugh

(friends girl – 18:08)
wow
I take my earlier statement back
not cute

(weird engineer – 18:08)
seriously tho, have fun

(friends girl – 18:08)
probably will
see you later
or not
we’ll see xD

He was smiling, when he put his phone away. That happened a lot lately.

Ekko wasn’t a grumpy person – actually, he’d probably describe himself as generally positive – but still, he noticed how he had to smile and grin, anytime he even thought about her. About something she said, his quest to figure out who she was or simply wanting to text her.

It was slightly unsettling, but not in a bad way. He liked her and that was nice. The reason he didn’t quite feel comfortable with that, though, was simple: what if he found her and she was not what he expected?

What if she was one of Vi’s previous attempts, after all – he didn’t think she would be, but it wasn’t completely off the table. Or what if she was different in real life and all this texting was just an act?

There were a lot of possibilities why he was a little scared to find out who she really was, but at the same time, the urge to solve this problem was strong enough for him to keep going. And so, he wrote down the newest revelations on the sheet of paper he had started to document any clues he could find, before finally working on that popcorn he had promised Scar.

***

Jinx loved her friends, but she had to say, she was more than happy to finally get in close proximity with a bar. The movie had been quite good, but what else was to be expected from Tim Burton? No, her problem lay with Zeri, who, despite choosing a two-hour-long movie, could not sit still after mere ten minutes. Luckily she was quickly distracted by Lux, who had been unreasonably scared of the special effects.

Sevika’s complaining all the way to and back from the cinema had not helped anyone’s mood either. Which was how they all had a drink in their hands a lot earlier in the night than expected.

“How’s your art project going, by the way”, Jinx asked while sipping on the first drink of the night.

“Not great. Realism is so boring and then I still gotta pass the exam on it”, Zeri exclaimed with a hint of desperation.

Knowing Zeri’s eccentric nature, Jinx could imagine the pain her friend was in right now. “You probably just need the right inspiration and then you’ll create a masterpiece”, she tried to cheer her up.

“We’ll gladly help if you need it”, Lux chimed in as well.

Jinx nodded, already downing a good bit of sweetly burning alcohol. It was surprising she didn’t make that her unhealthy coping mechanism yet.

“Hey slow down”, Zeri said with a laugh. “I still need you at least somewhat sober.”

Well if that wasn’t suspicious. “What for?”

Zeri and Lux exchanged a conspiratorial look, both grinning at each other, which gave Jinx this weird compulsion to run away.

“We’ve known each other for a while now, right?”, Zeri started, putting Jinx off even more.

“I hope you don’t plan on proposing”, she grumbled, sipping on her drink again.

The green-haired woman sighed. “What I’m trying to say is: I think I know you pretty well and I’ve noticed … things.”

“Things?”

“Yeah. Like how you checked your phone a whole lot more often during the last week or how you’ve been oddly happy, I mean you didn’t even try to fight me on watching Beetlejuice!”

“Even I noticed. You’re a lot more cooperative. The fact that you agreed to try meditating with me was shocking, to say the least”, Lux chimed in now, too.

“Maybe my therapist is finally paying out”, Jinx responded.

She had a feeling where this was going and she did not like it. With Lux living in Piltover, they did not have a lot of face-to-face time, but Zeri did have all the opportunities to notice all the little things this stupid engineer made Jinx do. Like, smiling at her phone, which she realized she was doing lately. And on top of that these two love some good relationship drama (although actual drama did not have to be necessarily involved for them to be interested), so of course they would ask.

Her two friends exchanged another look.

“Oh, please. We all know your therapist is not that good”, Zeri said and it was true.

“In fact, I think you might want to look for someone else”, Lux suggested and again, true.

“And start from the beginning again? No thanks.”

“Not the point!”, Zeri interrupted before they strayed from the topic too much. “The point is…. Is there someone you might want to tell us about?”

“No”, Jinx answered quickly, which was (in theory) a lie, but she could not possibly tell them about a guy she didn’t even know the name of, even if he was nice and hadn’t abandoned her yet, even when she was rude or ghosted him for a week.

Her face started to suddenly feel hot and she did not like it.

Zeri didn’t look impressed. “Don’t lie to me, I can see you blushing.”

“Tell us, tell us, tell us!” Lux almost jumped from excitement and grinned widely. “Please!”

She sighed, “There’s not much to tell”, Jinx mumbled reluctantly because there really wasn’t. And she also still didn’t really want to talk about it.

“I knew it!”, the green-haired woman exclaimed in victory. “Come on, there’s gotta be something. Name? Age? Anything?”

Jinx simply made a weird sound and shrugged. She literally didn’t know shit about the guy. Well, except he studied engineering, big deal.

“What?” Now Lux tilted her head in confusion and Jinx sighed.

“We’ve only texted, okay? And Vi didn’t wanna tell me who he is and-”

“And then he couldn’t tell you?”, Zeri asked, similarly confused as her friend.

“No”, Jinx said firmly. “No, I didn’t want it. He doesn’t know my name either”, she explained and shrugged. “Told him to go figure it out.”

“Of course you did”, Zeri said, leaning in her chair, trying very hard not to laugh and failing at it.

Lux seemed to think about the whole thing and didn’t seem like she approved. Obviously, but Jinx just felt safer this way. More time to get to know each other, with the possibility of breaking things up, without ever having to know the other, just felt comfortable. No matter what the goody two shoes would say would make her change their little game.

Zeri too still seemed hung up on that, but what exactly she thought about it was unclear. At least she thought it was funny. “Damn, you’re mean”, she commented after a few seconds.

“Years of practice”, Jinx replied and took another sip from her drink.

“So you’ve … never met?”, Lux then asked, still in thought.

That made Jinx pause to think. She did mention that they must have met each other, in passing at least, to the engineer, but if that was really true, she didn’t actually know. “Well, Vi gave me the number and was really weird about it. She didn’t wanna give me any details of who he is, which probably means if I knew I never would have texted him and now I don’t know how to feel about that”, she said her thoughts out loud. “But uh...”, she continued after a few seconds. “There might be a chance we’ve met. Since Vi feels the need to warm me up to Piltover, she has introduced me to a lot of her friends, but if he was really among them, no clue.”

She gave Zeri and Lux a minute to process what she just said.

“But”, Lux eventually said. “But if Vi didn’t want to tell you anything, doesn’t that mean, you’re encounter must have been terrible?”

“Honestly, I don’t know”, Jinx admitted. “Maybe, but Vi never knows what would upset me and what not, so there’s no guarantee.”

It was fascinating how her friends were now deep in thought and Jinx was not even entirely sure what they were thinking about. Either way, she used this moment of silence to pull out her phone, because one thing she would like to know. Sure, a lot of things were off-limits in terms of direct questions, but his age would be safe enough.

(friends girl – 22:23)
hey
quick question
how old are you?

“Are you texting your mysterious boyfriend?”, Zeri asked, straight up leaning over the entire table to look at the screen, but Jinx held the phone an arm's length away, so she couldn't see anything. “Oh come on!”, she complained, now basically sitting on the table.

“Ever heard of privacy?”, Jinx asked a little annoyed. “Also he’s not my boyfriend.”

“Not yet”, Zeri simply responded with a grin.

“Please get off the table”, Lux carefully interjected, while all but pulling her back into her seat herself.

Jinx selfishly used the struggle between the two, to excuse herself to the bathroom. Not the nicest place to text someone, but if it was going to get her just five minutes of undisrupted alone time, she would take it.

(weird engineer – 20:25)
oh look who’s asking for information now xD

(friends girl – 20:31)
just curious
doesnt have to be a big deal
not like a number could give me much of a clue anyway

(weird engineer – 20:31)
how about we make a bet

(friends girl – 20:31)
?

(weird engineer – 20:31)
I bet I’m older than you

(friends girl – 20:32)
hah!
No way

(weird engineer – 20:32)
and we have our bets xD

(friends girl – 20:33)
okay, fine
what’s the reward?
what do you want?

(weird engineer – 20:34)
hmm
you give me another clue
but a good one

(friends girl – 20:34)
k
but
if I win
you buy me a pizza

(weird engineer – 20:34)
really?

(friends girl – 20:35)
always love me some free food
besides I havent eaten for hours
aaaaand I can treat my friends a little
get something in our stomachs besides alcohol

(weird engineer – 20:35)
you’ve got a point
deal

(friends girl – 20:36)
good!
How about we send our ages at exactly 40?
to make it fair

(weird engineer – 20:36)
sounds good
year and month tho
if we’re only a few months apart we’ll never find out whos older

(friends girl – 20:37)
true, okay

(weird engineer – 20:37)
there’s not way I’m younger than you

(friends girl – 20:37)
we’ll see xD

Jinx couldn’t help but smile while writing, even if she was sitting on a public toilet and she could really imagine better places to be.

Even when the door was opening, she didn’t mind the awkward company of someone else doing their business right beside her. She was way too fixated on the time to care.

“Jinx?”

That, however, she did care about. She sighed. There was no way she could hide anyway. “Yeah?”

“Are you hiding in here?”, Zeri asked, sounding more confused than anything else.

“Just a sec, I’m trying to get us pizza”, was the only response she could muster as she tried to focus on the time again. She couldn't miss her cue.

“What?”, Zeri asked even more confused, but Jinx just hushed her in return.

(friends girl – 20:40)
21 y, 9 m

(weird engineer – 20:40)
21 years and 3 months

Three little dots showed up and quickly vanished again and even Jinx looked over the numbers again and again, making sure she read it correctly.

(weird engineer – 20:42)
damn it

(friends girl – 20:42)
hell yeah!!!!

(weird engineer – 20:42)
I’ll admit defeat
what kind of pizza do the ladies want?

(friends girl – 20:43)
what a gentleman xD
give me a sec, I’ll ask

(weird engineer – 20:43)
I can wait

She emerged from her toilet cabin, just to stare in the face of Zeri who seemed equally confused as worried now, but Jinx only smiled.

“Don’t look like that, I got us pizza”, she exclaimed but it only seemed to worsen her friends' confusion, so she sighed. “Come on”, she mumbled, shaking her head and dragging the woman back to their table, where Lux sat looking in their direction with worry in her eyes, but Jinx didn’t plan on answering any of their questions right now.

With a smile, she sat back down on her chair and looked towards her friends. “So, you want pizza?”, she asked and while both exchanged their worried looks, they nodded. “What do you want?”

Lux sighed. “Just take a Margherita. Might be safest”, she suggested.

“Yeah, otherwise we’ll just start arguing like last time. Besides, cheese is always great”, Zeri agreed with a nod of her head.

Jinx couldn’t argue with that, so she whipped out her phone again and started typing.

(friends girl – 20:51)
a huge margherita pls

(weird engineer – 20:51)
noted
where to tho?
Gotta give the delivery guy an address after all

Right. She thought about her options for a second, before settling on the safest, even if it was a bit rude.

(friends girl – 20:56)
send it to The Purple Eye
for Crownguard

(weird engineer – 20:57)
I’m guessing that’s not your last name

(friends girl – 20:57)
do you really think I’d make it that easy for you?

(weird engineer – 20:57)
wouldn’t have dreamed
gonna order you a pizza then

(friends girl – 20:57)
you’re the best!

“Pizza is on its way”, Jinx announced and took another sip from her long-forgotten drink and tried to ignore the confused and shocked faces of her friends.

“To here?”, Lux asked nervously.

“Not gonna give a stranger my address”, Jinx mumbled and ignored the fact that he could easily find her if he delivered the pizza himself, for example, or even by showing up at her computer science class – Zaun Uni wasn’t huge after all. Honestly, thinking about it, she was surprised that hasn’t happened yet.

“Fair”, Zeri mumbled and shrugged.

Lux did not seem so easily calmed, though. “But it’s still weird. Not like we can eat it here. Pretty sure they’ll throw us out if we try.” Zeri slowly nodded in agreement but Jinx only rolled her eyes.

“It’s fine. It’ll be our cue to leave. No big deal.” She shrugged.

Besides, no one here would dare throw out the daughter of the owner, so she’d argue they were pretty safe. The only reason she’d agree to leave this early was because the later it got, the more weirdos showed up and she did not want to be here when this place was filled with them.

But while they were here, she was going to make the most of it, so she drank what was left of her drink and ordered another one.

The conversation drifted away from her mysterious engineer, probably because there just wasn’t anything to talk about, and towards other things, like Lux’s boyfriend, who as it seems got into enough trouble even without Jinx around to drag him into the dark side. Then there was college and the inevitable question of what came after. They moved on from that rather quickly, though, no one being in the mood for the dread of the future.

The pizza was basically forgotten, laughing and talking, until the barkeeper came over to them with a very insecure look on his face. When Jinx noticed him she wasn’t quite sure what to think, already fearing some weird attempt of flirting directed at one of them (wouldn't be the first time that ever happened), but then she spotted the pizza box in his hands and she remembered with excitement and relief.

“Oh, it’s here!”, she said excitedly.

“Thought it was yours”, the barkeeper mumbled and by the looks of it, regretting his life choices.

“Thanks”, Jinx simply said, however, grinning up at him. “Don’t worry, we’ll leave”, she added quickly before the awkward guy got a panic attack or something. Jinx then looked for the money her dad had left her and without counting just pushed it into the man's hand. “Keep the rest, I’m sure you deserve it.”

The man looked like he was about to deny the gracious tip, but Jinx wasn’t about to give him a chance to do so.

“You were doing great today, you know”, she said while shoving the pizza into Zeri’s arm and then dragging both her friends from their chairs. “What was your name again. Chuck?”

“Uh, it’s Thieram”, he answered with great confusion.

“Cool. I’ll leave you a glowing review, kay?” She didn’t wait for an answer, dragging her friends to the exit and vanishing. Jinx wasn’t by any means a good person, but ordering a pizza to a bar was a bit rude. Usually, she wouldn’t have bothered with most people working for Silco hating her anyway, but Chuck was always nice to her, so she guessed he deserved a bit of compensation.

“I cannot believe this actually worked out”, Zeri mumbled in disbelief once they were outside, but clearly happy about the food.

“And we didn’t get in trouble”, Lux added, equally happy and relieved.

Jinx herself simply texted a quick “thanks” to her engineer, before following the others into the car.

“Please tell me I can go home now”, Sevika grumbled as she turned on the car, but Jinx had other plans.

“So”, she turned towards the other two. “Are we feeling board games and Netflix or wanna go to the arcade?”, she asked and Sevika already groaned, but Jinx wasn’t going to feel bad. After all, she was meant to go last week and then couldn’t because her sister refused to get her car properly fixed, so she could make up for it today at least.

That Zeri would be in was clear before she had even asked, but it surprised her a little that Lux reacted equally enthusiastic to the idea of an arcade. She wasn’t going to complain, though.

“To the arcade then!”

“I am never drinking again”, Sevika simply mumbled under her breath, as she drove onto the street and towards their destination.

Chapter Text

It had started five weeks ago, on a Tuesday. Probably a Monday even, but Tuesday was the first day she had noticed it – the whispers, the looks. Her friends (though, that was an exaggeration to begin with) were behaving oddly, telling her obvious excuses for why they couldn't sit together at lunch or learn later.

Powder hadn’t been entirely sure what was going on until she heard what they were whispering about.

Jinx.

Mylo always called her that, frequently enough that outsiders might think it’s her actual name.

Now it echoed through the halls, haunting her. She really tried to ignore them, their looks and their whispers.

Stay away from her. Be careful, don’t get too close. She’ll jinx you. Didn’t you hear the stories?

Every whispered word hidden behind a hand was like a slap to the face. Powder clutched her books closer to her chest and kept her eyes on the floor.

Her parents were dead, she couldn't even remember the tiniest bit about them, but that day, and for the first time ever, she missed them. Missed not having anyone to turn to. Sure, Vi tried her best, but in this case that consisted of a simple “Just ignore it”.

She had cried herself to sleep a few times during the last couple of weeks – the others had to have noticed, but they didn’t say anything.

Powder couldn't even blame them – she had brought this upon herself after all. Had pushed Mylo too far, gotten on his nerves too much, messed up one too many times and now she couldn't enter school without her heart racing.

Just one more class. She could barely remember what any of her teachers had told her today or last week. The looks and notes that were exchanged behind her back left her body trembling and her mind hazy – she couldn't focus on anything but them.

“Just ignore it”, she heard Vi tell her, but Vi wasn’t actually here to hear them. Vi didn’t see how they all rather stumbled into a locker than stand too close to her. Vi didn’t know anything.

She hated it and how it made her feel so powerless. She wanted to go home.

No. No, she didn’t. Mylo was there. Powder couldn't stand to look at him and avoided him whenever possible, hoping to at least not make it any worse. The others noticed and chose to ignore it and that hurt more than anything.

The worst part was how little it surprised Powder. Vander always avoided her anyway, being too uninvolved to know what to do with her. Claggor never said anything at all. Mylo was the reason for all this. And Vi … Vi didn’t really do anything either. She kept ignoring Powder’s situation just like everyone else.

She probably agreed with Mylo – Powder never did get anything right, after all. She was a jinx. Everyone thought so, even Ekko. Stupid Ekko just up and left her when she needed him most. She hated Piltover for giving him that scholarship and she hated his parents for letting him go and she hated him for not being here.

The school bell rang and Powder packed her stuff as quickly as possible, vanishing before anyone could even start whispering – she had gotten quite good at that the last few weeks.

Walking home was always the best part. No one looked at her weird or said something mean about her. Nobody knew her and it was kind of relaxing, which was why she dreaded going inside the Last Drop.

Powder found herself hesitating more and more these days. It had started with her walking slower to now standing in front of the building for a few minutes.

Today, though, she was sure she stood there longer than just a few minutes. How long exactly, she couldn't say, but it felt like an eternity and at the same time, it was too short to calm her nerves enough to pretend she was fine.

After ten minutes, maybe thirty, she turned around again. Her legs just started moving away from the bar and somewhere else. She took step after step, with each one further away from all of this, feeling lighter and getting faster with each corner she rounded.

At some point she was running, not knowing where to and also not quite caring about that. She just had to get away, so she ran until she lost all sense of familiarity. Somewhere in there she also must have started crying again, making her unable to see clearly, which might be the reason she completely missed the obstacle in front of her, running straight into it and consequently landing on her ass.

When Powder had wiped enough of her tears, she could finally see what it was, or rather who.

“You okay?”, Sevika asked, more annoyed than caring. The tall woman didn’t crouch down or help her up or anything. She just looked down at her.

Powder weakly shook her head and cried even harder. She hated crying in front of Sevika – that woman had no patience for bullshit and Powder unfortunately required a lot of that.

The woman sighed and suddenly two strong arms hoisted her back up after all. “Here”, she said, holding out a tissue, which Powder gladly took, wiping her face and taking deep breaths to hopefully stop crying soon.

Sevika more or less patiently waited for her to calm down, by going back to whatever business she had been handling before Powder had crashed into her. She was actually happy about that. It was always terrible to have people watch you have a breakdown.

“Now”, the woman said, when her business had been concluded and Powder’s only problem left was a still running nose. “You ran away?” Straight to the point, as usual.

Powder, still lacking the ability to form proper sentences, simply nodded.

“Any particular reason?”

She needed a few seconds to manage an answer, which Sevika took as an opportunity to light a cigar. “They don’t care”, she eventually mumbled weakly. “They’re happier without me.”

The woman raised an eyebrow and then sighed. “Okay, how about you take a deep breath and try again, less dramatic this time”, she grumbled, very obviously not wanting to be in this situation, but Powder didn’t care – she was just happy than anyone was willing to listen, so she tried to order her thoughts.

“They’re calling me names”, she mumbled eventually.

“Who? Your family?”

“No”, Powder answered quickly, before noticing that the answer was technically wrong. “Well, Mylo does”, she corrected herself. “But now in school too… and the others just don’t care.”

Sevika hummed, now looking a bit less apathetic. “Alright. Come on, then.”

Powder was confused – what was happening? Was the woman bringing her back? She didn’t want to go back, not right now at least. “What?”, she asked scared enough for Sevika to roll her eyes.

“I ran away a lot as a kid”, she then said, confusing Powder even more. “I thought no one cared about me, too. I’m not letting you go back there like this, but … Vander’s gonna kill me if I leave you on the street, so you coming?” She held out her hand – reluctantly, but she did.

Powder carefully took it and let herself be led wherever.

Now a little bit more calm, she noticed that she really didn’t know where she was and while she wouldn't say that she trusted Sevika by any means, the woman was still the closest she would get in terms of someone she could trust.

They saw each other rarely, but they knew of each other. Sevika usually came in a pack with Silco, who she knew the rest of her family hated, but Powder never really understood why – he seemed nice enough. At least he was always nice to her, which might have something to do with her not hating him from the start. He was creepy, for sure, but she also thought Jericho was scary, but that didn’t mean anyone treated him badly. She really didn’t get it.

Point is, at least she knew Sevika was safe. Even if Powder didn’t know where exactly they were going and the neighborhood they walked through became more and more shady.

She probably ran far enough to make it into Silco’s part of town – as no one ever wanted to explain these things to her, she wasn’t entirely sure why Silco and Vander were having this weird arrangement, dividing Zaun into two different leaderships, but she did know that it was the reason, the two men had to meet up from time to time.

Maybe Sevika could tell her. “Why is it that Vander and Silco govern different parts of Zaun?”

The woman seemed confused by the question, but answered regardless. “Some longstanding fight between them. Don’t know what it was about, but they couldn't agree on anything, so they decided on this for some reason.” Powder nodded, but wasn’t really satisfied. “Why don’t you ask him yourself?”

“Vander won’t tell me.”

“I meant Silco”, Sevika clarified, before they stopped in front of a building. “Come on”, the woman said again, before leading them inside.

It was quite overwhelming – a lot of people, loud music. Some of them gave the pair weird looks, which was probably fair as this did not seem like the place anyone would take a child to, least of all Sevika. The woman ignored them all, though, and simply went up the stairs and down a hallway where the noise already died down a bit.

Eventually, she stopped in front of a door and knocked. When someone responded from the inside, she turned to Powder. “Wait here”, she said, before going inside.

Sevika didn’t fully close the door, so Powder naturally strained her ears to hear what was being said.

“One of Vander’s kids ran away. Didn’t wanna leave her in the streets”, the woman explained.

“And how is that my problem?”, a bored voice responded and if Powder wasn’t entirely mistaken, it was Silco’s voice.

“It’s the one that doesn’t hate you. She’s apparently being bullied.”

“By her family?”

“Among others.”

Silence followed. Powder didn’t know what to think. It made sense that Sevika wanted to get rid of her somehow and truth be told, if she had to choose between the mean woman or the slightly creepy, but otherwise nice man, she’d choose the latter.

“And what exactly am I supposed to do with her?”, Silco then finally asked.

“I don’t know, but you can deal a lot better with kids than me. Just talk to her.”

A sigh. “Fine.”

That did not sound like he wanted to deal with her either, but she would take what she got, so when Sevika opened the door again, she let herself be ushered in and watched the woman leave. Then she stood awkwardly in the middle of the office.

It was a nice one, not that she had anything to compare it to – they weren’t allowed in Vander’s, so she had never seen it, but still, she thought Silco had a nice office.

Silco silently mustered her, while seemingly thinking about what to say. “Do you want to sit? Do you need food?”

“I’m not hungry, thank you”, she replied, but did sit down on the couch to her left, while Silco went back to look at some papers on his desk.

Truth be told, she was hungry, but she doubted the man would have anything on hand right now and she didn’t want to inconvenience him. If on cue, her stomach growled – the universe really hated her.

“You do not need to pretend you’re not hungry”, Silco said.

“I’m sorry”, Powder mumbled and earned a confused look.

“For what?”

“I don’t know.”

They awkwardly stared at each other for a few seconds before Silco put his paper down and leaned back in his chair. “Why don’t you tell me why you ran away?”

Powder wasn’t sure if she wanted that, apart from she didn’t even know why. “I … just started moving”, she said eventually. She hadn’t really thought about it at all, she just did it. “I didn’t wanna go home, I guess.” She hesitated a bit before the next part, but something inside her urged her to say it. “I don’t like it there”, she mumbled.

Silco hummed. “I don’t like it there, either”, he then said, probably in an attempt to relate to her a little. It did bring up a different and interesting new topic.

“Because Vander hates you?”, Powder asked carefully.

“Yes”, Silco responded with confidence, it was honestly impressive.

“Can I ask you something?” He nodded. “What happened?”

He thought about something – his face, especially with a scar covering half of it, wasn’t easy to decipher, but Powder found if she only stared hard enough, she could find the little movement of indication.

“How about this”, he then said. “You tell me your story and I’ll tell you mine, hm? Fair trade?”, he asked and Powder thought about it. She did want to know why he and Vander didn’t get along and had this weird way of governing Zaun. She really wanted to know.

“Mylo, one of my … one of the boys”, she started and felt bad for not being able to say it, but the only one in her family, that actually felt like family, was Vi. “He always calls me things. Jinx, mostly. Because I can never do anything right and whenever they take me with them anywhere I end up ruining things, one way or the other. Like last year, we were at the arcade and Vi wanted me to try that boxing machine, but it hit me so hard, I fell backward down the stairs and had to go to the hospital. Only my arm was broken, but the whole day was ruined for everyone.”

There were thousands more memories like that – she stumbled, didn’t make the jump, ran into the wrong person, messed up a prank. Powder always managed to find a way to ruin things.

“I probably messed up one too many times, because Mylo must have told his stupid friends at school what a jinx I am and now everyone looks at me weird and is scared I’ll hurt them with just a look. The few people I hung out with are gone and when I tried to talk with Vi about that, she was either busy or didn’t really listen and … I’m not even sure she cares.”

“So you ran away?”

Powder nodded. “They only ever notice me when I mess up. I wouldn't be surprised if they don’t even notice me missing”, she mumbled, pulling her knees to her chest.

Silco nodded, seemingly mulling it over. Powder was somewhat relieved about his lack of reaction – at least that meant he didn’t think she was crazy or dramatic for thinking that.

“I see why you wouldn't want to go back there”, he said eventually.

Not quite knowing how to respond to that except a thank you, she opted for a topic change. “Now you”, she therefore said, managing to get a slight chuckle out of the man.

“You’re right”, he said and cleared his throat. “Vander and I have been close, once. We were practically brothers.” Hard to believe, but okay. “We both shared the dream of independence for Zaun and we were willing to fight for it. You might be aware of how that ended.” He looked over to Powder, who sadly nodded – that was the reason her parents died, but she didn’t hold a grudge against Vander, so she wasn’t going to start with Silco now. “Afterwards, we still sort of got our way. The council wanted to avoid further bloodshed and was willing to at least give Zaun a government, even if we still havePiltover to answer to for most things.” He did not sound happy about that.

“What does that have to do with Vander?”, she asked, as she did not see the point of the history lesson right now.

“Patience”, Silco simply responded, before delving back into his story. “I was not satisfied with the scraps they had thrown us, but Vander wanted peace. We started to disagree on how to continue, which ended in a rather unpleasant fight.”

“Is that how you got your scar?” Powder only realized how insensitive her question was after she had already said it. She was about to say that it didn’t matter or something, but Silco didn’t seem to mind.

“Yes. I’m pretty sure he tried to kill me, although the toxins in the river did the most damage. Vander simply made the cut”, he explained and the mental image of the dirty river flowing into the fresh wound formed in Powder's mind – it was disgusting and terrifying. “It hurt like shit.”

Powder had to snort, hearing Silco curse and felt a little bad, considering the story.

“I’m glad I can amuse you”, he commented and it seemed genuine, slightly sarcastic, but he wasn’t mad that she had to laugh. “Anyway, since I was harder to kill than he anticipated, he had to make peace with me being constantly involved in Zaun, so we decided to simply divide the city”, he finished the story. “It wasn’t what either of us wanted, but while I have accepted the circumstances, at least for the time being, Vander hates it. He never liked to share.”

Powder nodded, it certainly was an explanation, though she still wasn’t sure why they couldn't get along just because they didn’t agree on some things, but she wasn’t going to pry any further.

“Now, would you like something to eat?”, Silco asked again and this time Powder relented.

“I guess.”

“Good”, he said. “What would you like?”

“I don’t know. Whatever is fine”, she mumbled, because it was. She really wasn’t picky, but Silco still looked at her, waiting for an answer, so she decided to push her luck. “I like Jericho’s.”

With a nod, he vanished out the door for a few seconds, probably telling someone what to get, before coming back and this time sitting down on the couch.

“Tell me a bit more about yourself”, he said.

“Why?”, Powder asked confusedly, as she still wasn’t under the impression that he liked babysitting her. Besides, he was probably busy.

“The food will take a bit, I might as well keep you company while we’re waiting.”

“But why?”

Silco sighed. “You’re the only one of Vander’s kids who doesn’t hate me. Why?”, he asked back, but Powder was willing to play along.

She shrugged. “No reason to hate you, I don’t even know you.”

“You’re smart, reasonable and talking to you has proven to be interesting”, he answered back.

She had no real reason to distrust him or be cautious. Also, she liked talking to him because she felt actually listened to for once and he really talked to her, gave her proper answers and all. It was nice.

So, she dived right in, telling him about school and how she loves the science classes the most, how Ekko and her rambled over ideas, but he was gone now. Told him about her own little inventions and creations and that they never worked, but Silco said that she was still young and was sure she would figure it out with time. It reminded her a bit of Vi – she told her that too, but with each new time her sister told her, she got the feeling Vi didn’t quite believe in it herself.

Silco told her a bit more about what he was actually doing, apart from politics, which was boring. Apparently, he owned a few bars, but there was obviously a bit more to it than he wanted to tell her, which was fair – she was basically a stranger.

Then the food came and Powder made the man eat some of Jericho’s as well. At first, he looked disgusted, but he didn’t seem to hate it.

Despite not really wanting to go there again, it did happen after a little while and she talked about how she felt at home once more, how she felt like nothing more than an obligation.

When she got tired, Silco showed her his apartment, which looked a lot more normal than she had expected. He got her a few pillows and a blanket, so she could sleep on the couch, which she did – Powder hadn’t noticed it before, but she was exhausted and something about being somewhere else made falling asleep so much easier than usual.

Despite everything, she did still have a nice day, she thought.

***

The smell of dinner was in the air, so Vi decided to give herself a break from homework. What was the point of these anyway? All they did was give her a headache. It was a miracle she managed to focus until dinner time.

She went upstairs, where Mylo and Claggor already set the table. Vi decided to help.

It was a nice routine – they went out after school, then came home and did their school work, then there was dinner and then finally some chill family time. Maybe they’d play a board game or watch a movie, they’d probably decide while eating, as usual.

“Could you get Powder?”, Vander asked, after he noticed her little sister was still missing.

Vi nodded dutifully and went to the roof – it was her hideout most days, where she could do whatever she wanted in peace – school, her inventions, sometimes she even doodled some cool-looking monsters. The last week though, she didn’t really do any of that when Vi got her for dinner. Powder would just stare at the horizon, which honestly worried Vi. She knew her sister had trouble at school and that Mylo was responsible for it, but apart from giving the guy yet another talking to, what was she supposed to do?

With a defeated sigh, she pushed the door to the roof open and looked around. “Weird”, she mumbled, when she didn’t see Powder anywhere. Maybe she found a new nook to hide in? Her sister did that sometimes, when she really wanted to be sure no one would bother her, she would cram herself in the most deserted places.

So, she went back downstairs and searched everywhere, even the toilette and Vander’s office – the chances were slim, but with how distant Powder had been lately, she might have chosen the off-limits room to hide in.

But Powder was nowhere to be found.

Slightly panicked, but trying not to let it get to her just yet, she went back to the living room. “Have you seen Powder?”, she asked, frantically looking around, hoping she might have shown up on her own and they had just missed each other.

“Isn’t she on the roof?”, Mylo responded, slightly bored.

“I checked everywhere”, she stressed and started to properly panic now as the confused faces around her meant that no, no one had seen Powder.

Vi ran to their room as a shiver ran down her spine with all the terrible possibilities currently playing in her head. As expected, her backpack was missing as well – there was no trace of her. Nothing.

She went back upstairs, heading straight for the door, but Vander stopped her.

“Vi, calm down”, he said.

“Powder is not here. Her backpack is not here”, she yelled out and then thought of something. “Did she even come home?”

Vander started to think. Powder was usually home before the other’s, so Vi had naturally assumed, she was on the roof when she had made it back, but Vander should have seen her come in.

“I’m not sure”, he mumbled eventually.

Vi was at a loss for words. At least, momentarily. “How can you be not sure?! Did she come in here or not?!” Vander didn’t answer her, so she turned back to the door. “I’m searching for her”, she said matter-of-factly, but was stopped yet again.

“We all will”, Vander stated, before turning to the boys. “You two go left, we’ll go right. Let’s go.”

They all hurried out the door so fast, that Vi wondered for a second if Vander even locked it. Not that that was important right now. The only thing that was, was Powder.

The worst part was not knowing what actually happened – was she kidnapped? Did her classmates beat her and left her somewhere? The picture of her dead parents flashed before her eyes. What if Powder would look like that when they found her? Zaun could be cruel.

A heavy hand on her shoulder brought her back to reality.

“Vi, you need to calm down. We won’t find her if you won’t be able to actually look for her”, Vander told her and taking in her surroundings, she noticed they had already made it pretty far from the Last Drop and she didn’t even notice.

Calming down made sense, but her worry sadly overpowered any rational thinking. “I can’t”, she bit out, trying to take deep breaths – that was supposed to help, no? Thinking, however, brought one particular thought back to her mind. “How did you not notice she never came home?”

But she didn’t notice it either. Vi should have checked on her sister right after she came home, she shouldn't have just assumed. She was an idiot and now Powder might be in who knows what trouble and it was all her fault.

“Vi”, Vander called her out of her mind again. “I know I messed up. But we have to focus, okay?”

Breathing in and out. One time, two, and just one more. “Okay”, she answered when she felt remotely calm. It was still far from it, but it was better than all-out panic.

“She’ll be alright”, Vander told her and she knew he just tried to make her think positive, so she would stay calm.

“How do you know that?”

He sighed. “I don’t. But Powder’s a smart kid. I’m sure she found a way to be safe.”

Vi nodded, even if she couldn't quite believe what Vander said. Yes, Powder was smart, but she was also still very young.

***

They didn’t find her.

Vi slumped into the next best chair, the second they made it back to the Last Drop. She had no energy anymore.

They had been out searching, asking around and getting more frustrated by the second for hours now. It was like Powder had been abducted by aliens – there was no trace of her anywhere and no one even had seen her. Vander had eventually called the janitor of the school to ask him if maybe Powder was still there somehow, but the one person who had seen her claimed her little sister had been walking home as usual. But then why wasn’t she home?

And now they waited as they didn’t have another choice but to wait for Powder to come back on her own, or maybe someone would end up remembering seeing her and comes in to tell them, although that seemed like wishful thinking.

Vi hated it. Waiting was not her thing, not ever – she was the kind of person who runs headfirst into a wall, as Vander put it so well, but at least like that she wouldn't feel so useless. With every second that ticked by, she went more mad.

Powder just had to come back – Vi refused to think of what she would do if that didn't happen, but it was lingering at the back of her mind regardless.

After a little while, Vander tried to get them to eat something, said it was important. Vi had to disagree. It wasn’t important, Powder was important. The others were willing to get at least something in their stomach, but neither made it farther than five bites.

The more time went on, the more tired they became. Occasionally someone would doze off for a few seconds, but always come back to the panic and fear lingering in the air. There was no sleep to get this night.

So, they waited and watched the sun rise.

“If she’s not home by eight, I’ll call the enforcers”, Vander disrupted the silence, startling the others out of their sleepy stare.

“The enforcers?”, Vi asked, hate apparent in her voice.

Vander sighed tiredly. “We won’t have another choice.”

Another thing she didn’t want to think about. What were the enforcers supposed to do anyway? Search for Powder and ask around? Vi was pretty sure they had that covered already. Besides, there was no way in hell she would put the safety of her little sister in the hands of some Pilties.

Back to waiting, for now. They could watch the outside come to life, the first of the surrounding shops opening, the early customers coming and going. And then finally, the door to the Last Drop opened, but it wasn’t Powder who stepped through.

“Silco”, Vander gave the men a cold welcome – certainly the last person anyone here wanted to see right now. “What do you want?”

“I’m here to ease your worries”, the slimy weasel answered unbothered by the hostility in the room.

If Vi had been sleepy up until now, she wasn’t anymore. The only worry they had was her sister and that guy was bad news incarnate. “What did you do to Powder?!”, she confronted him right away, but the man continued to not give a shit.

He rolled his eyes. “I gave her a place to sleep and a meal. She is alright.”

A sight of relief came out of everyone’s mouth except Vi’s. She couldn't possibly be relieved when her little sister was somewhere in the home of Silco. Unfortunately, she didn’t get the chance to say anything.

“I think we should talk”, Silco said to Vander, who looked conflicted, but eventually gave in.

“Go downstairs”, he then said to the others and none of them looked too happy about it.

“What? Why?”, Mylo asked offended, while Claggor looked confused and Vi was fuming with rage.

“She’s my sister. I’m staying”, Vi said forcefully, hoping it would do anything to convince Vander’s stubborn head to actually let her stay.

Vander did have a long night, too, though. “Vi, please. Let me deal with this.”

His calm voice had no effect on her, not anymore, not after hours of worrying. Her anger just doubled and made her unable to think of anything to say, so she stomped away in defeat after all. Mylo and Claggor carefully followed her.

Another round of waiting and Vi hated it even more than before. She had questions. How did Powder end up with Silco? Was she still there? What happened yesterday? What did that guy want to talk about?

Claggor seemed to sense her inner turmoil. “At least Powder is okay”, he mumbled, like he thought Vi would snap if he was too loud, but she simply nodded. She didn’t know what else she was supposed to do.

It was just… it didn’t feel like Powder was safe if she was still who knows where with only Silco to care for her. Sure, he said she was alright, but did they really want to believe him just like that? Something was wrong. Vi could feel it.

She didn’t say any of that out loud, though, somewhat content in the awkward silence. With how quiet it was they could almost hear what the two men said. Almost, not really, but they did hear Vander yelling. Silco never yelled back, the calm bastard.

“What is going on up there?”, Mylo asked after a while of listening to it.

“I don’t know”, Vi responded and got up. “But I’m gonna find out”, she said and snug back upstairs – she just couldn't sit around any longer. Vi noticed the boys weren’t following her, but that was alright, they didn’t need to.

She decided to get just close enough to hear Silco’s insanely calm voice respond and still be far enough away to not be seen.

“You have no right to judge how I raise these kids!”, Vander yelled. Silco must have thought he could give some criticism after spending one evening with Powder – the audacity of that man.

“It’s not my criticism, brother. I recited your ward.”

What? Vi obviously hadn’t heard what the exact judgment was, but if it had riled up Vander this badly, it must have been harsh. And Powder had said it? No, it must be a lie to get under Vander’s skin.

She could hear him walk around – he did that when he tried to keep his fury verbal and avoid any physical action. “You have no idea how hard it is to raise four children!”

“Maybe you shouldn't, then.”

It went really quiet after that. Vi had to hold her breath out of fear they might be able to hear her. Then again, maybe her racing heart would be loud enough to do that anyway. What was happening?

Eventually, Vander awkwardly cleared his throat. “What do you mean?”, he asked with suspicion.

“That girl is clearly troubled and this is certainly not a good environment for her, especially if she has no one to turn to”, Silco said, still so fucking calm – Vi’s urge to punch someone has never been more intense.

“She has Vi”, Vander responded sternly.

Silco scoffed, almost laughed, it made Vi sick. “Right, the sister. As far as I’m aware, she is but a child herself, unable and unfit to provide the necessary comfort Powder needs.”

What? The guy became an expert on their family overnight? Vi couldn't believe what she heard and little did she know just how much worse it was going to get.

“Silco”, Vander started again, sounding very angry and very close to not being able to hold back anymore, but the other man still seemed to be unbothered by all of that.

“Maybe I should take her off your hands.”

Vi was pretty sure her heart had just stopped.

“What?”

“I’m sure you heard me.” Could that asshole at least show the slightest bit of emotion?!

“You will not take her”, Vander outright growled.

“I’m afraid that’s not a choice you’ll have to make.”

“I will not let you of all people tear my family apart!” There was a sound of fabric being stretched, so Vi imagined that Vander probably grabbed the other by the collar.

Silco sighed – how was he so calm? “You’re more stupid than I thought if you don’t realize that already happened.”

“I should have killed you when I had the chance.”

“I had no part in her decision to run away and I certainly had no influence on your other kids to bully her into doing so”, Silco responded, still unbothered and Vi desperately wished, Vander would rip his heart out.

“Get. Out”, he growled instead.

Vi could hear the door open, but it didn’t close. Was he still there?

Silco was indeed still there, clearing his throat before spreading a bit more of his poising. “Maybe think about it. For now, I’ll make sure she’ll get to school and will be home for dinner today. We can discuss the rest at a later date. Perhaps you’ll be more reasonable then.”

Then the door finally closed and Vi could finally breathe properly again.

She felt hazy, she might actually pass out. Her heart should probably not beat this fast either.

When Vander came around the corner, they locked eyes for a second, before she croaked out a weak little “No.”

He crossed the distance quickly to give her a hug. “He won’t take her”, he reassured her, but honestly, Silco was probably capable of making anything possible. “He was right with one thing.” Vander pulled back to be able to look at her. “This is not up to me and it’s not up to him, either. It’s Powder’s decision to make. If she doesn’t want to leave, there’s no way he can convince a courtroom.”

That was reassuring, in a way. If that was true, there would be no reason to worry. Powder would never leave them.

***

It was quiet. That shouldn’t be anything out of the ordinary, considering Powder was currently all alone in the apartment, but she just wasn’t used to so much silence. The school was loud, so was Vander’s bar and so were her siblings. Vi snored, so it wasn’t even quiet at night.

Powder needed some noise, so she carefully took the TV remote and tried to figure out how to make the TV do what she wanted. Vander had one too, but a lot … less of it, if that made sense.

Turning it on was the least of her problems, but everything that came after overwhelmed her. It asked her things – not in a voice or anything, but on the screen were these pop-ups. She could probably figure out how that thing worked – a bit more time, some trial and error – but she really didn’t want to break anything, so she stuck with the safest options throughout the entire process.

Not entirely sure how, she managed to turn on a show and once it was running, she all but threw the remote away, as it made her way too anxious.

By the time the door opened again, she had made her way through half a season. (She had been awake for quite a while already. That couch should be illegal.)

Silco peeked into the living room and took in the situation. “I see you found the Netflix account”, he stated eventually, while taking off his coat.

“I’m sorry.” Powder wasn’t entirely sure for what. Maybe for using his stuff without asking.

He looked at her confused. “I didn’t say it was anything bad. In fact, I’m glad you found something to occupy yourself with”, he said, which made her relax a little. “What are you watching?”

“Friends.” Another slightly confused look. “It was the first thing that showed up. I like it”, she explained.

“It is quite nice, yes”, Silco responded and then sat down on the couch next to her.

They sat in silence while they let the rest of the episode play out. It was something about Rachel trying to get revenge on Chandler for accidentally seeing her shower – Powder didn’t know why anyone would want revenge for that, but it was fun to watch.

When they made it to the end of the episode, she carefully took the remote in hand again and turned off the TV.

“I should probably go to school”, she mumbled, not looking forward to that.

Silco cleared his throat, shifting uncharacteristically awkward on the couch. “About that”, he then said. “I was just with your family, telling them you were alright.”

“Oh”, was all Powder said. It was nice to have that little problem out of the way already, but there was clearly something else and she wasn’t sure if she would like it.

“I had a little chat with Vander and...” Silco hesitated, which again, was odd. She didn’t know the man very well, but he didn’t exactly strike her as the awkward kind. “I might have said something, that I’m going to need your opinion on.”

“Okay? Is it bad?”

“No.” That he said with certainty again. “It is something that slipped out and now that I said what I said, there is no going back. So, I thought about it and I don’t think it is such a bad idea.”

Powder hummed, still confused – where was this going?

Silco sighed. “I really think that place is not good for you and I might have told Vander that you should not live there.” He gave her a pointed look and she started to have an idea as to what he was talking about – there was this tiny feeling of hope forming inside her, but that was wrong, wasn’t it? She shouldn’t be hoping for that. “Powder. I would be willing to adopt you if that is something you would like. Quite honestly, it would be a shame letting a mind like yours rot under Vander’s care.”

She stared at him while the hopeful feeling got bigger. Powder didn’t understand it – it wasn’t like any of them, except Mylo, was mean to her. It wasn’t particularly nice, either, though. Up until now, she just never realized how much it bothered her.

It was wrong, but yet she opened her mouth. “Yes”, she said, because leaving felt so so right. And she felt terrible for it. But also relieved. Silco did too, as it seemed. “You’re gonna have to buy a proper bed, though, this couch is terrible”, she then said to lighten the mood a little – her own mostly, but seeing as Silco smiled a little, it seemed to have improved his as well.

“Believe it or not, you’re even going to get your own room”, he then said.

“Really?” It made sense, but she had only ever known being crowded in with her sister. For a short time, all four of them had even lived in the same room.

“Of course”, Silco said as if it was the most natural thing in the world. Then he got up and held out a hand. “Come on now, you need to get to school.”

And just like that, all her happiness vanished.

“I know”, Silco said, noticing her shift in mood, which at least brought that hopeful feeling back – at least he noticed her. “There’s nothing I can do about that right now, unfortunately.”

“I know”, Powder mumbled sadly, but maybe he didn’t need to. Maybe it would be enough for him to be there – it was all she had wanted these past few weeks, for someone to be there.

Rationally she knew this must be the wrong decision, to leave her family behind like that, but it hadn’t just been the last three weeks, it had been years that she had felt like that and as she took Silco’s hand, she felt safe to go to school for the first time in a while. It made her think that maybe, it was the right decision after all.

***

By the time school was over, that certainty in her decision was gone again. What if she was just overreacting? Every family had their hard times, right?

Silco stood patiently behind her while she tried to muster up the courage to go inside. They would be really mad at her.

Deep breaths, she reminded herself and pushed herself to just get it over with. Powder carefully made her way inside and looked around. The bar was empty, which she hadn’t quite expected, and the only people around were her family, who all looked very tired.

She had barely made it three steps in when someone crashed into her.

“Pow.” Vi sounded relieved, but Powder only felt awkward.

Somewhere in her peripheral vision, she could see the others come closer as well and then she saw Silco walk up to Vander. He was quiet, but still, everyone heard what he said. “You should start looking for a lawyer.”

Vi instantly let her go to glare daggers at Silco, who ignored her and instead patted Powder’s shoulder as goodbye. She waved back.

The second he was out the door, everyone’s eyes fixed on Powder. Why was everyone looking at her? She knew why, but why?

“What?”, Vi asked and Powder didn’t know what to say. She desperately tried to think of something, but came up with nothing. “What did he mean, Powder?” Vi’s hands formed into fists and Powder instinctively took a little step back.

“Vi”, Vander tried to go between them, but it was no use.

“No”, Vi interrupted him. “What are you thinking? Actually, what were you thinking yesterday? I get that you need time for yourself, but you couldn't have left a note? We were up all night looking for you! We were worried sick and now what? You have one little breakdown and wanna leave us?!”

Vi was yelling at her – it wasn’t new or unexpected, but her sister couldn't seriously act like she didn’t understand why what happened happened. Powder didn’t even know what to respond to first. So, she just stared, but Vi didn’t say anything else either.

“I’ll go to my room”, she eventually bit out, but was immediately stopped by her sister.

“We are going to talk about this.”

“I don’t want to talk about it!”

“Well tough!”

They were stuck staring at each other for another few seconds before something in Powder snapped – she didn’t know exactly why, but it might have something to do with them fighting and no one doing anything, as usual. Maybe something on Vi’s face helped it along as well.

“You wanna talk about it? Fine! I didn’t leave a note because I didn’t even come home, but apparently you haven’t noticed that, did you?! You had one sleepless night? Poor you, I haven’t properly slept in three weeks and no one cared about that either!” She noticed the others were staring at her in shock, but she couldn't find it in her to care.

“Well I’m sorry, but you can’t just run away like that!” Vi was the only one, who still had more than shock in her.

“Don’t blame me for that! Maybe if anyone here had cared about my problems a little more, I wouldn't have! No one cares! Vander spends so little time with me, he can’t even properly talk to me, Claggor doesn’t talk at all and Mylo is an asshole! And you! One little breakdown?! I’ve had hundreds, Vi! You’re a really great sister if you haven’t noticed!”

“I have a life too, you know?!”

“And that can’t stop for one second? The entire school is scared I can kill them just by looking at someone and all you could give me was a ‘just ignore them’? Great advice, really, loved it! Maybe you should take your own advice, sister! Ignore the entire thing, I’m sure it gets better!”

Powder was not going to lie, while she had no idea what kind of response to expect here, a slap to the face was certainly not it. Equally unexpected was her own response. Why was she laughing?

The terrified and shocked faces around her made her laugh even more – it was a little funny to see them look like that.

When she finally managed to calm down a little, she spoke up one more time. “You should be happy, really”, she said, still grinning from the minutes of laughing just now. “You’ll have one less thing to worry about. No one to jinx your lives anymore.”

With that, she left the shocked faces behind and vanished into her room.

Powder could feel her cheek sting – it was probably all red, but she didn’t care. She pulled out her homework and started working on it as she needed something to occupy her mind with.

In a way, she was happy about the pain – it was a good, if temporary, reminder that her decision was a good one after all. Now, she just had to power through until Silco had official custody over her. That would be a fun few months.

When the door opened, she expected Vi to come in with her typical apology that Powder certainly didn’t want to hear right now, but it was Vander who awkwardly stood there. She didn’t say anything, just waited.

“You want me to bring you something for that?”, he asked, tapping his own cheek, but Powder shook her head – she’d like to keep it for a little while. “You weren’t wrong just now”, he then said. “I get it if you really want to leave, but I want you to know that I’ll still fight for you.”

Powder nodded. She could accept that because despite his awkwardness around her, he always fought for who he considered friends or family. It wouldn't stop her from hoping Silco would win, though.

Vander left again and only came back to bring her something to eat. Vi didn’t come in at any point, probably taking to sleeping on the couch, which Powder didn’t mind.

The next few months certainly would be the worst of her life, she could already feel that. She just hoped it would be worth it.

Chapter Text

Vi had finally sent over The List, as Ekko started to call it unnecessarily dramatic, and instead of learning, as he should, he went over it. There were a bunch of different names of people he had to have met one way or the other and he didn’t even recognize half of them.

A few he already started to cross out, considering those were exactly the ones who already had their chance, per Vi’s insane shipping behavior, but he was pretty sure there had been more and he simply didn’t recognize all of their names. So, he had to text Vi again, hoping (read: being pretty sure) she could provide just the slightest bit more information concerning the circumstances of having met these people.

The only other conclusions he could make was that this list was oddly well organized (she even made it alphabetical) and Vi had more issues than he had originally thought – there were a lot more people on this list than he expected… That woman had a sincere problem.

Even waiting for Vi’s response, again, he read through the list, finally stumbling over another familiar name. Powder.

For some reason, it surprised him that she showed up at all. What did not surprise him was that she didn’t show up in the J category. But he still thought it was weird for Jinx to be on the list. Then again, even though Vi knew what the list was for, she was also pretty determined to play along to their little game and he did ask for anyone and everyone he had met. Jinx belonged in that category and was immediately scratched out – there was no way Vi would set him up with her baby sister.

Going through the rest and crossing out some more names, he did not feel any closer to his goal than before. He seriously needed more information, but where was he supposed to find that?

Ekko tried to think of something, staring at the wall and from time to time back at the list until he was interrupted by his phone. To his shame, he gave in to the distraction without a second thought.

(friends girl – 15:08)
watcha dooooiing?
Im bored...

(weird engineer – 15:08)
I was just thinking about you

(friends girl – 15:08)
why would you do that?

(weird engineer – 15:08)
was trying to figure out who you are
not going great

The dots that came and vanished again and again worried him a little. Should he maybe not have said that?

(friends girl – 15:11)
youre really determined, huh?

He thought about his answer a bit more thoroughly now. Maybe he shouldn’t make it sound so obsessive? Did he sound obsessed? Well, best play it safe.

(weird engineer – 15:12)
I wouldn't say determined, but I kinda wanna know
but what are you doing?
Why so bored?

Better to change the subject before she went and ghosted him again because he made her feel uncomfortable.

(friends girl – 15:12)
therapy

(weird engineer – 15:12)
therapy is boring?

(friends girl – 15:12)
well
right now im on the train to get there
but … yeah therapy is usually boring too

(weird engineer – 15:13)
damn
is it appropriate to ask why you go to therapy?
If not, im happy to talk about the torture my prof is putting me through again

(friends girl – 15:13)
maybe you need some therapy too

(weird engineer – 15:13)
probably

(friends girl – 15:14)
as for the why
im insane didnt you notice
jk
some childhood trauma, some depression, some more trauma
you know
the usual

One little thing, that Ekko didn’t bother to think about before asking the question, was that he had no clue what to answer to that without being awkward or insensitive or both.

(weird engineer – 15:15)
no idea what to say now…
have fun?

(friends girl – 15:15)
it will be
pretty sure im about to win

His response worked out better than he had expected.

(weird engineer – 15:15)
I wasn’t aware therapy was something you could win

(friends girl – 15:16)
you should try it my way
trust me
it works

(weird engineer – 15:16)
you know sometimes I wonder whether I should be scared of you or worried about you

(friends girl – 15:16)
both?
I could ask my therapist

(weird engineer – 15:16)
pls don’t

(friends girl – 15:16)
buzzkill
it would be so much more fun than my stupid childhood again

(weird engineer – 15:16)
i’m sure if you did therapy probably you might be able to get out of it at some point

(friends girl – 15:17)
and lose my bestie?

(weird engineer – 15:17)
I cannot tell if you’re serious

(friends girl – 15:17)
half
I mean
I have other friends, but
as much as my therapist knows about me, she has to count as a friend too

(weird engineer – 15:17)
i’m not so sure about that

(friends girl – 15:17)
I guess that will always be a mystery then

Ekko had to chuckle a little. Part of him still wasn’t sure just how seriously he should take any of that, but he opted for she was joking, for his own inner peace.

He then watched her go offline again, guessing she probably arrived at her therapist’s place, which also meant, he had to go back to his quest. Well, that, or learning – both didn’t sound very promising.

One last glance over their latest conversation, he searched for clues again and found none. Unless… reading about her friends again, he remembered, he got one of their names, didn’t he?

So, he scrolled up to just a few days ago, trying to find it again and there it was. Crownguard.

It was probably wrong to google her friend, but … the name rang a bell in his mind that he couldn't quite place anywhere, so he gave into the urge and typed the name into his laptop.

Turns out, the reason the name felt so familiar was because this family was fucking famous and rich. Old money from the way it looked, but he didn’t care about whatever the old people were up to. He needed someone who was around his and the mystery girl's age.

There were kids but barely anything to be found about them until he stumbled over an article.

“Crownguards in shock over heirs' decisions”, he read out loud and decided to read it. Well, he skimmed it. Apparently, the son went and joined the army and the daughter went to study abroad in Piltover. “Interesting.”

It was probably safe to assume that Luxanna Crownguard was therefore the friend of his mystery girl.

His first instinct was of course to check out social media, which was on private, so he then decided to give Google one more try. Maybe if he searched for her directly and not just her family name, it might actually get him somewhere.

In fairness, it did, but he also had to thank Janna that he was not in the public eye because holy shit there were so many gossip articles, it was honestly terrifying. Still, they were somewhat helpful. Not most of them, but one caught his eye, someone complaining about the woman’s boyfriend not being up to standard, but he was certainly a great choice if you’d ask Ekko because, in a weird twist of fate, he knew the guy.

Though knowing him would be a stretch, but he went to the same school as him and even the same class. Talking to him wouldn't even be out of his way.

***

He had a plan. Simple and easy – find Ezreal, tell him the situation, hope and pray he will know what Ekko is talking about, and get answers.

So, when he went into the classroom the next day, he hadn’t even sat down when he was looking for his target. He had never paid much attention to any one of his classmates, really. He knew a few of them from group projects, but he certainly never interacted with the blonde guy he knew nothing about, apart from the fact that he always sat in the last row. Logically, that’s where Ekko went looking.

And bingo. It seemed Ezreal arrived shortly before him, as he could see the guy set up his space. Without a second thought, he went over and sat down next to him.

“Hi”, he said, hopefully in a casual manner, before blanking because, despite his plan, he wasn’t sure how exactly he was supposed to go about this without sounding weird? He should have planned out a script as well.

“Oh, uh… hi?”, Ezreal responded confusedly, which was fair considering they had spent years not talking, hell, barely even glancing at each other. “Uh, if you wanna ask about homework, I … I didn’t do it,” the blonde then said, apparently having his own expectations about a random guy wanting to talk to him.

Now Ekko was a bit confused by that assumption, though. “No, I got that covered”, he simply responded, before wanting to steer them into the right topic, but was interrupted.

“Really? Can I copy?”, the blonde asked excitedly.

Ekko thought about this for a second and got an idea. “You know what? Sure.”

“Sweet!” Ezreal already pulled out some pen and paper, while Ekko reached into his backpack to get his stuff, deciding this was gonna be his seat for the class anyway now.

“But only if you answer a few questions.” He took his shot at getting to the topic he actually wanted to discuss. It was out of character for him, but class was the furthest thing from his mind at the moment.

The other guy paused. “Look, dude, I didn’t even manage homework, I’m not sure I can answer anything”, he explained.

“Not about class”, Ekko clarified, questioning how the other one even got this far, but still willingly handed over his homework so the man could continue to do so.

“Oh”, Ezreal responded relieved. “Okay then. Hit me.”

Now for the part that would sound extremely weird if Ekko had the wrong guy, which he was certain wasn’t the case, but there was still a slight and awkward possibility. “Alright, so … I’ve been texting this girl, but I don’t know who she is, but through a few clues, I do know that your girlfriend is friends with her. Any chance you know what I’m talking about?”

Ezreal stared at him suspiciously. “Wait. Is this about- no wait! Lux told me about this. You’re the engineer guy?”

“Is that what she’s been referring to me as?” Pretty straight forward and considering his own nickname for her, he probably shouldn’t complain, she went with the first information she had received.

“Yeah. What do you call her?”

“Mystery girl, but in my contacts, I have her as ‘friends girl’”, he said, slightly uncomfortable, being well aware it sounded weird.

Ezreal didn’t seem to care, though, simply nodded. “She does like Friends .”

“So?”, Ekko tried to get back to getting his info, but the blonde just looked confused again. “Anything you could tell me about her?”

“Oh, no.” The guy shook his head. “I don’t think I’m supposed to tell you anything. You’re supposed to figure it out”, he explained. “Though, I think if any of you finally get there, she’ll be happy. I mean, I don’t quite know what her type is, but I got a feeling you might be.”

Ekko wasn’t sure how to respond to that, but he did know his face was beet red right now. “Thanks?”, he eventually bit out.

“What’s your type, by the way? I could at least leave her … a review or something”, the blonde then said, leaving Ekko to think while the guy started copying the homework.

“I don’t know”, he said eventually. Ezreal raised his eyebrows like he was expecting more, but there really wasn’t – his only crush so far had been ten years ago. “She seems cool, though, so I really wanna know who she is. You know, being able to finally meet her in the flesh. You really can’t tell me anything ?”

Ezreal seemed to be disappointed by Ekko not telling him his type, but thought about his question anyway. Judging from his face, however, the result would not be positive. “Sorry, bro”, he said and Ekko felt all hope leave his body. “If she told you to figure it out, then me telling you outright would be cheating.” Both glanced down at the start of a copy of Ekko’s homework. “Yes, I know how ironic that is considering the situation.”

Ekko sighed. “Not even a clue?” Maybe not all hope had left him yet.

“I don’t know… I really don’t want to mess up your thing and risk her being angry at me. I mean, she’s great, don’t get me wrong, but she can be pretty scary.”

“Yeah. I noticed.” Maybe scary wouldn't have been the term he had used, but she very clearly, even over text, had some intimidating tendencies.

“I’m really sorry”, Ezreal said again.

This was getting frustrating.

***

Jinx stared at the message for a long time.

(Ez – 10:17)
your uhhh
secret engineer was just with me
didn’t tell him anything
just saying, he asked

What did it mean, he asked? What did it mean, he was just with Ez?!

She had to force herself to take deep breaths. “Calm down, he doesn’t know shit”, she mumbled, but neither affirming words nor oxygen helped her stay calm. Her mind and body just became gradually more panicked and restless, so she got up to walk around her room a bit.

Of course, she had known this could happen. If Vi truly hadn’t blabbed yet, at the very least Jinx being tipsy and giving him Lux’s last name could do the trick. She had known this decision brought certain risks. She also knew both Lux and Ezreal attended Piltover Academy, which meant if her engineer was smart, he could easily find them.

It’s just … she had kind of hoped it could stay like this forever. Jinx liked not knowing him in person. It meant she never had to make this into something serious, she never would have to decide if she actually liked him, because what did it matter if she liked him if she didn’t even know his name? By not knowing his name, she didn’t have to give this a name. And on top of that, she never would have to experience the painful awkwardness of realizing he was not the same person in real life. Being fair, if she hadn’t been so disinterested from the start, never expecting this to grow into something bigger, she would have surely acted differently.

Then again, he didn’t seem particularly head over heels for her, so maybe she was stressing for nothing. Maybe he just couldn't stand the mystery and didn’t even want anything.

She picked up her phone again.

(Jinxy – 10:28)
what did he say?

(Ez – 10:29)
just wanted to know who you are
said I cant tell him
so he asked if I could tell him a clue but
I dont fucking know what I can tell him
so I said no again

(Jinxy– 10:29)
good

(Ez – 10:29)
he seems nice tho
good guy
hot too
feel like you might be perfect for eo

(Jinxy– 10:30)
dont care
never gonna meet him

(Ez – 10:30)
dont say that

(Jinxy– 10:30)
gonna block him

(Ez – 10:30)
dont you dare
you’re being dramatic

(Jinxy– 10:30)
f u

And she was back to pacing. She wouldn't block him. Or maybe she would. No, that would be stupid. He already forgave her for ghosting him once. She couldn't do that again. Well, she could, but she didn’t want to. For some reason. Why did she care again? Oh, Janna, she cared.

Even worse, she could feel the walls come closer. This was too much. She had to get outside. Get a clear head.

If therapy did anything for her, it was this: panic is never a good guide. So, she would have to take care of that first before making any other decision.

Taking her phone again she did something she really didn’t want to.

(Jinx– 10:34)
I need to shoot sth
you up?

(C – 10:36)
I am literally at work

(Jinx– 10:36)
still on your phone

(C – 10:36)
I can’t just leave

(Jinx– 10:36)
want me to vandalize sth instead?
You signed up for this you know

(C – 10:36)
I’ll tell Vi to cover for me

(Jinx– 10:37)
ill be there in 30

(C – 10:37)
So will I, I guess

Jinx grabbed her bag, shoved her phone into it and started making her way topside. She hated everything about this decision, but at least this would be a good enough test to see if her new-found coping mechanism was working properly.

***

She was vaguely aware of Caitlyn trying to talk to her in between each shot and refill, but the noise, as well as her racing thoughts, were drowning the woman out. The enforcer was worried, yada yada, but Jinx needed to get it out. Get everything out, every bit of energy that powered her panic, insecurities, anger, whatever it was that was currently driving her crazy.

Jinx honestly didn’t know how much time she had spent there, but at some point, all the fake bullets were shot and she couldn't refill anymore.

With nothing more to do, she slumped to the ground. Slowly coming out of her haze and noticing her heavy breathing and shaking legs, she supposed she had been here a while .

Eventually, Caitlyn crouched down next to her. The woman hadn’t even said anything yet and Jinx already had to roll her eyes.

“As impressed as I am of your abilities to hit the mark almost every single time, despite your obvious exhaustion, I don’t think this is healthy”. There it was and with the amount of fatigue crashing over her, she was glad she had already done the eye roll because she did not think she could do more than blink right now.

“How long have I been here?”, Jinx asked regardless.

Caitlyn checked her phone. “About an hour.”

“Cool.”

The woman sighed. “Do you want to talk about it?”, she asked carefully, which Jinx responded to with nothing more than a look. “It’s just an offer. There is clearly something bothering you and if you want to talk, I’m happy to lend an ear.”

“Why?”

“Because… I would never go as far as to say I like you, but you are Vi’s sister and with that, I care.”

Jinx snorted. “So you don’t really care. You just have to because you’re married to my sister”, she summarized. “I don’t need your pity care.”

“It’s not pity”, Caitlyn defended. “Obligation, maybe, but not pity. You know, if you actually bothered talking to me instead of constantly pushing me away, I might be able to care a bit more honestly.”

“I’m not pushing so much as simply avoiding you whenever possible.”

“Whatever.” Caitlyn got up again. “Why did I even try?”

“I don’t know”, Jinx mumbled unhelpfully.

“Could you at least get up from the ground?”

With another eye roll and a groan, Jinx heaved herself to a semi-standing position, already being able to feel the ache in her muscles that would haunt her for days. For a lack of other options, she seated herself next to the enforcer on a bench.

Jinx did feel a lot calmer, though, so at least her exhaustion had purpose. The silence was bothering her, however.

“Do you know who Vi set me up with?”, she asked. It was all still on her mind, after all.

Caitlyn looked at her with that weird face she only makes when trying to crack a case. “Is that what this is about?”

“Don’t try to analyze me and answer the question”, Jinx snapped back, making the woman sigh again.

“I do”, she said. “But I thought you didn’t want to know.”

“I don’t.”

“Alright.”

“That’s the problem.”

“I … I’m not sure I understand”, Caitlyn replied with clear confusion.

Jinx scoffed. “Of course not.”

“Maybe you could try to explain it?”, the woman suggested, earning herself another somewhat disgusted look. “Talking about it might help organize your thoughts and see a clearer picture.”

“With you?”

“It doesn’t have to be me.” Caitlyn shook her head in this weird gentle manner that made Jinx feel seen and made her suspicious at the same time. “If you’d rather talk to your friends, that’s fine too. But I think you should talk to someone.”

Jinx thought about it. She would be stuck on the bench for a little while longer, that much she was sure of, and a phone call or texting didn’t feel right in the situation. Most importantly, she needed to get this out now, before she regained enough energy to panic about it again. Seemed like her sister’s wife was the only real choice she had.

“He found one of my friends”, she said after a little while, not quite willing, but resigning herself to her fate. “He’s getting closer.”

Caitlyn nodded. “And you don’t like that?”

“Kinda.” She sighed. “It’s just … texting is so anonymous. I mean, I haven’t held back on, well, me, but he doesn’t know that and I don’t know if he’s really like that either”, she tried to explain. “I don’t know.”

The enforcer seemed to think for a few seconds. “You said that you not wanting to know him is a problem”, she said then.

“I don’t know how to explain this to make it make sense, okay?”

“Feelings don’t always make sense.” Caitlyn shrugged. “Just try.”

Jinx groaned – this was almost as exhausting as shooting for an hour or so. “He’s nice, so logically, I should want to know who he is, right? But I don’t. He’s nice, but … what if he’s not really? What if we finally know and we meet and … what if I won’t like him anymore? What if … what if he won’t like me…?” That’s what it came down to in the end, didn’t it? It’s because she liked him that she was scared he wouldn't like her back. Glancing at Caitlyn, it was obvious the woman wanted to say something and just hadn’t found the right words yet. “If you utter a single word, I’ll shoot you. I don’t care these aren’t real bullets.” Or that she had run out of them.

Luckily, the enforcer didn’t point it out and remained silent, but it was clearly bothering her. Jinx could see on her face that she desperately wanted to say something. Whatever it was would have to die in the woman’s throat, though. Right now, Jinx didn’t need any stupid comforting words or whatever advice the other had to offer.

She felt stupid. She liked him, so what? If she had to guess, it was the easy conversations and the willing forgiveness when she had ghosted him that made it all so … important. Judging from the texts, he might be able to stay in her life for a little while and she wanted that. But what did he want? Simply to lift the mystery around her? Or a real friendship? She didn’t know and it made her feel … things. What exactly, she couldn't say, probably because Caitlyn’s constant gaze on her did not make thinking any easier.

“Ugh, spit it out!”, she disrupted the silence when she couldn't take it any longer.

Caitlyn looked outright confused. “You said-”

“I know what I said!”

The woman didn’t seem convinced by any means, but carefully formed words anyway. “Look, I’m not saying you shouldn't worry. The risk is always there, after all. But I do think that if you like him, maybe take the risk. I don’t ever see you being afraid, so why start now?”

Jinx scoffed. Just because she can act tough, didn’t mean she was never afraid. She was scared all the time. When Silco got her that first therapist, when she met Zeri and Lux, when Lux got a boyfriend. Care was dangerous – when you didn’t give a damn, there was no reason to be afraid. But when you cared – and she did care about her friends, her dad, even herself – that’s when you have something to lose. And unfortunately for everyone, she had what her therapist had called ‘abandonment issues’.

Now, how to explain this to a privileged Piltie? “Did Vi ever tell you what happened?”, she decided to ask.

“A little.” Of course, Caitlyn knew exactly what she was talking about. “She doesn’t like talking about it, so not really, I suppose.”

“Course not. The guilt is eating her alive”, Jinx replied with light amusement. It was sad, really, but seeing her sister flinch every time Jinx reminded her of her name was funny in its own way and so was the woman’s reluctance to deal with it.

“That I noticed”, Caitlyn mumbled. Vi was an open book, it wasn’t hard to notice.

The other looked at her expectantly, waiting for Jinx to make her point, but it wouldn’t make a whole lot of sense without the backstory – luckily for them all, she had a therapist, contrary to her sister. Maybe if Vi would finally get one as well, she would live a lot happier and guilt-free too. From experience, Jinx could say that getting rid of all that guilt would take a while, but it would be worth it.

“I always had a tendency to fuck up. Barely ever did anything right. Ruined a lot of days for my siblings. Never meant to do any of that, but it kept happening, so at some point, Mylo started to spread rumors.” Despite therapy, it was still not easy talking about it.

“What rumors?”, Caitlyn asked carefully and quietly enough that Jinx would have overheard her if they hadn’t been the only people at the range right now.

“He told everyone that I was bad luck. It wasn’t anything new, he’s been telling me that since I can remember, but now he just told everyone. I don’t exactly know what he had said specifically, but it did go so far, that people were afraid my mere presence could kill them.” She had to take a deep breath while ignoring the other woman’s face – she looked like she was about to cry, or maybe it was just pity. “Vi stood by, watched how I lost the few friends I had and saw the other kids avoiding me and she didn’t do anything. I think she agreed with Mylo at least a little. Well, then there was the entire thing with Silco and how I ended up living with him, which Vi obviously didn’t like, even though she was part of the reason it was happening. Didn’t make things better at school, though. Just because I had a different dad now didn’t change that I could jinx their lives. Eventually, he signed me up to be home-schooled, which was nice.”

There was the case-solving face again. “That’s why you named yourself Jinx?” It sounded less like a question and more like a realization.

“Yep”, she answered regardless. “I never wanted to be one, but … I guess there’s this weird security in owning it, you know? Anyone calling me that can’t hurt me anymore.”

“That’s smart.” That was the last response Jinx would have expected. Vi knew her reasoning too and didn’t think it was a good idea in the slightest and, for some reason, she had thought Caitlyn would be similar, but it seemed like she was wrong about that.

“I know”, she responded after a short moment of her brain short-circuiting. “Doesn’t mean nothing can hurt me, though. And it certainly makes finding friends a lot harder. I mean, I can be sure the ones I have will stick around, but … he doesn’t know me like that”, she said, getting back on topic. “What if it scares him? After all, I know I’m bound to fuck up, but as long as he doesn’t know who I am … I’m safe. It’s stupid, I know.”

“No”, Caitlyn quickly jumped in, surprising Jinx once more. “No, it’s not. It’s understandable. You’ve been hurt and had to make some bad experiences and … sadly, adults don’t always act better than kids. It’s alright not wanting to be hurt again.”

“Really?”, Jinx asked skeptically.

“Of course! Besides, you haven’t been pretending to be someone you’re not and he seems to like you, so if suddenly your name or reputation will change that … then he’s an idiot”, Caitlyn said, so full of conviction, Jinx honestly didn’t know what to respond. “The way I see it, he’s either decent or screw it. You’re either happy or you’ve lost nothing but a whole lot of troubles.

“That’s … not a bad way to look at it”, she mumbled, slightly overwhelmed by Caitlyn, of all people, being right. “You know, it’s not too late to change professions. You’re a better therapist than the one I have.”

The woman did not look convinced. “Thanks, but I’m good”, she declined so politely – if Jinx didn’t have so much to deal with right now, she would have been disgusted.

As it was, she simply shrugged. “Suit yourself.”

Caitlyn rolled her eyes, but it seemed more playful than annoyed, which was odd, but alright considering the circumstances. “Are you feeling better?”

Jinx sighed. “I guess.” She did feel better, to be fair. As hard as it was going to be to actually put preach into practice, the thought of ‘he’s either gonna stick or it won’t be worth it’ was a calming one.

In fact, she was calm enough to contently sit in silence and wait for her body to regain full functionality, but then the enforcer cleared her throat, making Jinx suspicious again.

“So”, the woman started awkwardly. “Since we’re talking already, I wanted to ask if you would want to attend my birthday party on Saturday next week?”

Jinx tried to read the facial expression, trying to figure out if this might be a trap. “Do you want me there or does my sister extend the invitation?”.

Now, the woman looked uncomfortable. “Truth be told, Vi asked if I would be willing to invite you and you also are the last person I still debated inviting.”

She wasn’t mad about it. Actually, she found it a bit funny because it was very obvious that that was the case. “What changed then?”, she asked with a little chuckle.

“Right now.” One thing she had to give Caitlyn, at least the woman was honest. “I know we don’t get along and we might never, which is fine. But I do think that you deserve to be part of the family. My family, as well as Vi’s.”

“That’s nice”, Jinx bit out, despite every fiber of her being telling her to turn it into a joke. The more reasonable part of her sadly recognized the woman’s effort today, though. “What tells you I want to come?”

“You don’t have to, I’m just inviting you.”

“I mean, it’s probably gonna be boring, anyway. Bunch of stuck-up Pilites, I have met your family, after all.”

Caitlyn didn’t look as hurt as she should be and Jinx already started regretting telling her anything. “Some of your friends will be there too, you know? Thanks to my mother, I had to invite Luxanna Crownguard because of politics. I’m sure her boyfriend will attend, as well, as her plus one.”

Jinx groaned. “Fine, I’ll come to your stupid party. Someone’s gotta save the cool people from the absolute boredom.”

“What a martyr”, Caitlyn replied sarcastically enough that Jinx had to laugh.

She’d never be friends with that woman, but maybe she was starting to possibly be willing to accept that she was perhaps not quite as terrible as Jinx had painted her so far.

Chapter Text

It has been a few days since his initial encounter with Ezreal and ever since they have been hanging out a lot. At first, Ekko just wanted to stay close to the guy, in hopes of getting at least some more clues, but despite the constant swerves in the right direction, the blonde always caught himself right before it got interesting. Well, and then Ezreal didn’t want to leave him alone.

As Ekko lost his hope and patience, he wanted to get back into his usual routine, but he just couldn't get rid of the other.

It wasn’t a bad thing – the blonde was fun and cool – it was just a bit unexpected.

Equally unexpected was the mood his mystery girl seemed to have been in of late. The messages have been short and almost apathetic, which made him feel like he was annoying her and she didn’t want to talk to him. At least she didn’t ghost him, which he already counted as a win. But the more days passed and it didn’t get better, he started to get sincerely worried.

He already thought that maybe he should just ask her, but the last time they had gotten into sensible topics they stopped talking, so he decided not to do that. Ekko could, however, ask someone who knew a lot more about her life, not that he thought Ezreal would actually answer anything.

Still, by the time lunch rolled around, not knowing what was wrong bothered him enough to at least try.

“Hey, um. Her texts have been a bit odd lately, is something going on in her life or should I take it personally?”, he asked, not having to explain who he was talking about.

Ezreal thought for a few seconds. “Don’t think there’s something. She’s been weird with me too, but that’s probably because she’s still mad because I told her she was being dramatic for wanting to block you.”

“What?”

“Oh, right… I told her that you’ve found me and I think she panicked a little.”

Ezrealwas way calmer about that than Ekko. In good news, she obviously had a change of heart, because he was not blocked yet, but it was still worrying that she had wanted to. If she was really panicking about him getting closer to her identity, though, it would explain why all her answers had been so short – she probably just didn’t want to give out more information by accident.

“I can tell her to quit the crap if you want”, Ezreal then volunteered, already waving his phone temptingly.

Ekko however shook his head. “Nah, it’s fine. She still talks to me a little, after all”, he said. Despite his decision, he had to look at the other’s phone – it was an intriguing offer. But in the end, it was her choice, so he really didn’t want Ezreal to try and force her into it.

“Alright”, the blonde said, shrugging, putting the phone back down on the table where it lit up.

It was probably caused by a slight touch of the finger, something simple like that, but for Ekko it felt like fate – he could have looked anywhere, but with his eyes still attached to the phone and Ezreal’s offer, it caught his attention.

“What’s that?”, he asked, pointing at the phone.

Ezreal was confused for a few seconds before he understood. “Oh, my wallpaper. Why?”

“Yeah, I guessed that, but what is it?”, he asked a bit more specifically. There was something about that picture, he couldn't quite place.

“Ohhhh”, Ezreal let out in understanding, before unlocking the phone and, what Ekko guessed must be, looking for the full picture. When he had found it, he turned the phone around for Ekko to see it properly and yes, that photo definitely felt familiar. “That was a little fun afternoon with-” There he caught himself again. “With her. You know, mystery girl.”

Ekko nodded, studying the picture. “I feel like I’ve seen that before”, he mumbled, utterly confused. That was some clear vandalism, somewhere by the docks. Maybe he had walked past and saw it?

The blonde shrugged. “Maybe she sent it to you? Not sure if you’ve known each other that long, though.”

He shook his head – they have never sent each other pictures, because there was never any reason to do so. There was not a single photo in that chat. It was impossible for him to have seen it there. “Can you send me that? I’m sure I know it”, he asked the guy. Ekko wasn’t entirely certain if staring at it for hours was gonna help his memory, but he had to take every chance he could get.

“Sure, don’t see why not”, Ezreal said, shrugging. “Not like you can see anyone on it, or names or whatever.”

“Thanks, man.” As frustrating as it was to have the right memory stuck somewhere in his mind and not being able to reach it, it was nice to finally have some resemblance of a clue. Maybe if he remembered at some point, it might actually lead him somewhere.

Looking at his own phone, when he got the notification of Ezreal’s text, he noticed the time. It seemed the picture would have to wait. “Damn, gotta get to my next class”, he mumbled.

“You got more classes today?”, Ezreal asked in confusion.

“Just one, it’s also less of a class and more of a learning group”, he explained. Some people from their class got together from time to time, to discuss the topics and do their homework together, essentially helping each other as well as answering questions if possible. It was a little bit of extra time spent at school, but it had saved Ekko’s ass more times than he could count, so he kept going. “See you Monday!”

“Have fun!”

Well, he wasn’t quite sure about that, but at least he wouldn't be bored.

***

His learning group had been intense, as always, and it wasn’t helped by the fact that he just couldn't focus, that stupid picture always at the back of his mind.

Now, being home, he didn’t even bother trying to get some more studying done. Ekko sat down on the couch and opened the picture to stare at it.

He had definitely seen it before, just when? Or how? Considering how rarely he went to the docks, it was … well not impossible, but unlikely that he had seen the crime on a casual walk. So, the only other option was that someone had already shown it to him. Maybe they had walked past it and took a picture?

In hopes of something, he actually randomly sent the picture to the few people he knew and asked if they knew it somehow, but none of them did. He had even asked Scar when he had finally made it home.

“You know”, Scar said, looking at Ekko, after having done nothing more than glance at his phone. “If this is what your mystery girl does in her free time, are you sure you really wanna find her?”

“Before I make any long-term decision, I would love to have met her at least”, Ekko responded. Sure, it should probably be a lot more concerning for him to know she vandalizes poor walls for fun, but then again she also shoots for emotional regulation, so what did he even expect?

The other man sighed and gestured for the phone, which Ekko willingly handed over. “Okay, so… that’s definitely the enforcers building down by the docks.”

“Yeah.” So much was obvious.

“She certainly is colorful”, Scar commented, before handing the phone back. “Sorry, but I don’t think I’ll be much help. I think I could remember if I’d seen this mess before. Don’t see anything else of importance either.”

“That’s fine.” Not really, but that wasn’t Scar’s fault. It bothered him so much that he couldn't remember where he had seen that stupid thing.

Taking a deep breath, he tried to think of something. The only thing he could definitely say is that it hadn’t been that long since he had seen that picture – surely only a couple weeks. Maybe retracing his steps might help. There certainly wasn’t any harm in trying.

So last weekend, he was home studying, and his mystery girl had a night out. With Scar visiting his family he had been utterly alone, didn’t have any real contact with anyone, and therefore did not see this picture. The week before he was basically just going to school and sleeping, maybe texting her sometimes, but otherwise he had been too busy to converse with anyone who could have shown him this picture. Another weekend back, he hung out with Vi and Jinx. They had played a few board games after Vi’s car broke down, which was when he had talked to Jinx and …

“ What do you do for fun?”, he asked.

Jinx giggled and searched for something on her phone, before turning it around for Ekko to see …

“… Is that…? That looks like the docks.”

“ Yep.” Jinx grinned widely.

“ You vandalized a building of law”, he summarized the situation.

“ Well, I can’t take all the credit.”

“ Who helped? Your … significant other?”

“ Ew”, she replied, making a face. “The boyfriend of my friend”, she explained.

…he could recall it clearly now. Jinx had shown him that picture, while Vi tried to save her car.

But that was impossible.

But he was sure that the picture in front of him was the same one Jinx had proudly presented.

But it couldn't be Jinx, that didn’t make any sense.

But it made so much sense.

The little clues that had built up, replayed in his mind, putting themselves into the right place of the puzzle. Jinx lived in Zaun. Jinx was a bit older than him. Jinx had a sister. When he had brought up Vi, she had shut down, because Jinx and Vi had still some repairs to do and a lot of resentment between them. Powder had always loved the shooting game at that run-down arcade. The mystery girl succeeded in college without even caring about it, she had to be smart. Jinx was smart.

If you know Vi then you’ve got a high chance of having met me before.

Ekko had to let out a groan of frustration at his stupidity. Of course, he had met her before, because she was Vi’s goddamn sister and anyone who knew Vi, had to know Jinx. Resentment and separation didn’t do anything about the fact that these two were a package deal.

And of course the picture. Jinx had said, she did that with the boyfriend of her friend. Ezreal said he did it with the friend of his girlfriend. There was no way, that was just a coincidence.

Still in a daze and somewhat in denial, he pulled out his phone.

(Little Man – 16:18)
Vi
Did you sincerely try to set me up with your sister?

(Vi – 16:20)
finally!
You really took your time there bud

Not at all the reaction, he had expected. Part of him had actually still hoped, she would say something like ‘No, it’s not Jinx, why would you think that?’, but that had not happened and Ekko was not sure how he was supposed to feel about that.

(Little Man – 16:22)
why?

(Vi – 16:22)
I know you had a crush on her, for one
and
maybe I tried to get you two back together
you’ve been best friends before, well everything
I just feel bad since it’s been kinda my fault
so
I thought at the very least you’ll be friends again after this

Ekko sighed, remembering the drama that went on back then. He kinda got himself out of that by accident, having been accepted into Piltover High and moving away. It was only thanks to his old mentor Benzo and sometimes Vi – who avoided talking about it at the time, though – that he knew how any of that was going.

(Little Man – 16:23)
it’s not your fault
I moved away
could have made a better effort holding contact

(Vi – 16:23)
still
despite her reluctance, I think Pow will be happy to have you back in her life

He certainly hoped so, because according to Ezreal and his own observation of the situation, she did not seem bothered to find out who he was and seemed to be scared of him finding out who she was.

And to think that if only Ekko had thought to ask about her number back then – they would have figured it out immediately, but he was so busy trying to think of a way to get un-ghosted, that it completely slipped his mind to ask.

Speaking of, if Jinx hadn’t been ghosting him at the time, they probably would have caught on to them texting each other! Vi had been in the shower for almost an hour, certainly enough time to notice the weird coincidence of Jinx receiving texts right after he sent them.

It all felt like some bad joke and it brought up the question of just how many of these coincidences did they have?

However, knowing all that certainly didn’t make the situation any easier. Ekko had no idea what to do with this information now. There was no relief, no happiness to have finally figured it out, just … dread. How was he supposed to go about this?

(Vi – 16:25)
oh btw
just a reminder: Caits bday is next week
I know you like to forget

(Little Man – 16:25)
right …
remind me again next week, okay?

(Vi – 16:25)
of course

In all fairness, he did forget about it. Ekko also wasn’t quite sure, why he was even invited – he and Caitlyn got along, but weren’t friends by any means – but he didn’t want to say no either. With college and now the added mental load of Jinx, however, he wanted to go even less.

But who knew? Maybe a night out would clear his mind.

***

Things have been weird.

Jinx hadn’t been particularly talkative after her therapy session with Caitlyn, unsure how to act knowing the engineer was getting closer. No amount of talking about it would ever make her not panic at that thought. So, sure she had acted distant and maybe it was finally getting on his nerves, but he wasn’t texting her anymore and something about that didn’t feel right.

She heard a sigh from across the room. “Could you not scrunch up your face? It’s supposed to be… well I don’t know what my teachers want, but it’s certainly no scrunch.”

“Sorry”, Jinx mumbled, trying to relax her facial features a bit, so Zeri could finish painting whatever. At least she had allowed her to look at her phone – it made sitting still a bit less boring.

“So”, Zeri then said. “How are things with you engineer?”

Jinx had to groan. “He found Ezreal”, she said and Zeri sighed.

“Yeah, I know”, she replied somewhat annoyed. “You already told me last week. And every day after.”

“It’s just...” She didn’t even know.

“I know, you’re panicking. Though I don’t exactly know why. I mean, I’m sure you have your reasons. But … did anything happen after that?”

“Well…no?” It was a bit complicated. Something did happen, it was just that the something was that nothing happened anymore. “We haven’t been talking this week. To be fair, I haven’t been reaching out, exactly, but he always did and now … he doesn’t anymore”, she tried to explain.

Zeri looked at her, trying to figure her out. “So you got what you wanted.”

“No.”

The woman sighed. “Are you aware that you’re sending mixed signals?”, she asked, returning to her painting.

“What do you mean?”

“I mean, you said you are not reaching out to him, but now that he’s doing the same, suddenly it’s bad.”

“I never said, it wasn’t. I just didn’t know how to deal”, Jinx defended herself.

Zeri sighed again and gave Jinx a pointed look. “In my experience, most people give back to you what you gave them, which means, if you bring ghosting into the game, it’s fine for him to do it too. Besides, after Ez told you about their meeting, you were about to block him. All your signs go to not wanting to know him, but now that he’s being distant, one could assume it’s what you want, but you don’t want it?”

“I never said I was an easy person”, Jinx grumbled, her arms crossed.

Zeri looked at her unimpressed. “Did you tell him that?”

“I’m sure he knows.”

“I’m sure”, the woman answered with a hint of sarcasm. “Point is, maybe start to get your priorities straight before you get mad at him for playing your game.”

Jinx had to groan again. “I knoooooow.”

Zeri was right because of course she was. It wasn’t like Jinx didn’t know she had some communication issues, but she already has gotten a bit better. Otherwise, she would not have been able to talk about this to Zeri or even Caitlyn. Strangers, which her engineer essentially was, that was when she was starting to struggle again. That might also have something to do with the fact that she felt comfortable with people she knew, therefore making talking easier, but she didn’t exactly feel safe with new people, which made talking harder.

She was getting a headache – she had already been thinking way too much about this over the last week. Right now, she needed a distraction.

“So, what are you doing again?”, she asked Zeri, who was still somewhat focused on her painting.

“Realism. Boring, but necessary”, was the response with an additional eye roll and Jinx remembered her friend mentioning something like that a while ago.

And Jinx wanted to see. She liked to sketch and draw a little as well, but she would never get as good as her friend. Jinx was a bit jealous sometimes, but then she remembered how Zeri struggled to get her microwave working when she had simply forgotten to plug it in and she felt better about herself immediately.

“Wow”, she simply said, when she had crossed the distance and was able to admire the artist’s work. Zeri was usually more of an abstract artist, so her disdain for the more muted colors of life and its lack of movement was to be expected, but even though she hated it, she still managed to create something beautiful.

“I took some liberties if that’s okay”, Zeri then said. “No offense, but I’m not gonna draw your Rapunzel braids.”

Jinx giggled. “It’s fine, I like it. Suits me.”

On the canvas, Zeri had exchanged her long braids for a bob with purple strands running through it. If she wasn’t so attached to her braids, she would have asked Zeri to make that painting a reality.

“Now sit down again, I’m not done yet”, her friend then ordered and Jinx made her way back to her seat, despite her not existing motivation for sitting still.

It did give her time to think, though. She really liked what Zeri had painted there and it made her question, why she didn’t want her hair to be cut? For some reason, it was always just a given for her and it might be the first time she actually asked herself why.

In the end, it came down to Vi … as always. She couldn't let anyone cut it, because it had to be done by her sister, as it always had been done, but Vi hadn’t been around in a while, and even today, she didn’t really trust her sister enough to take that step and ask her to do it. So it kept growing unbothered.

Jinx remembered the talk she had with Caitlyn. As much as she hated taking that woman’s advice, she had a point saying she shouldn’t let past hurt stop her from taking some risks. What did she say again? Either it turned out good for her or, if the people, she thought were close to her, had a bad reaction, she wouldn't lose anything but trouble. Or something like that. In a way, whatever happened, one way or another it would turn out good.

That last one was hard to believe, to be honest. Then again, despite all of the trauma she had to go through, she did end up at a nice place, didn’t she? It seemed happy endings hurt.

Maybe, it was time for her braids to go. Not because she and Vi finally got along – waiting for that seemed pointless anyway – and not because she was particularly over anything in her past. But maybe, just because she had to start to let go. And move on. Her therapist had been annoying her with that for quite some time anyway, so why not finally heed her advice, even if it was probably gonna look a lot differently than she had imagined.

And honestly, if not for all of that emotional bullshit, she really wanted to do it for herself – maintaining her hair at that length was exhausting.

Since Zeri was still not done, she took her time, to doom scroll a little more, letting the decision fester. There was a good chance all of that came from sleep-deprived delusion, but whether it was her brain shutting down or her emotional growth starting to show, she was filled with a steadily increasing urge to go through with it. And at the exact moment, Zeri put her brush down, she made that decision final.

“Hey”, Jinx called over to her, waiting for the other to look up. “Is there any chance, you have hair dye around?”, she asked, right out the gate and earned a confused look.

“What are you planning?”, Zeri asked suspiciously.

“I’m not planning anything”, she said, wandering over to the painting again, pointing at it. “You did.”

Some part of this decision really had to go to sleep deprivation, because Zeri took a few too many looks between Jinx and the painting to finally get it – they were both so damn tired. “Are you sure?”, she then asked.

“Yeah. I think it’s time.”

“Cryptic”, Zeri mumbled. “But if you’re sure, I’ll do it. We can even donate that insane length of your hair if you want”, she said, going into the bathroom of her apartment.

“Not sure about that yet.” They were going to have to wait until it was actually off her head. Jinx was still pretty attached to her hair, after all. Maybe she should bury it instead, with a funeral and everything.

After a few slightly concerning noises, Zeri emerged from the bathroom again. “You’re in luck, got a beautiful shade of purple right here. I’m guessing that’s what you were going for, anyway. Like in the picture.

“Yep, perfect”, Jinx responded, heading into the bathroom now as well.

“And you’re really, one hundred percent sure? I mean, that amount of hair won’t regrow overnight. Off is off.” Zeri studied her with an uncharacteristically focused look.

Jinx herself took a glance at herself in the mirror. “Yes. Let’s do this.”

***

There was music coming from the inside of the incredibly fancy-looking house in front of her. Part of her was actually impressed by that, not having expected a party in the most literal sense, but more like a tea party – timid and quiet. She wasn’t even sure if anyone heard the doorbell over all the other noise.

When the door eventually did open, it was Caitlyn herself who greeted her – another unexpected thing, as she was pretty sure these people had servants.

“Jinx?”, the woman asked slightly confused.

“The one and only.”

“Wow, you look great! Come in.”

A part of her relaxed immediately at the compliment. Jinx loved her new haircut more than she had expected to, but she was still nervous about other people’s reactions, which she didn’t like, but apparently had to deal with.

Jinx made her way inside. She had never actually been inside the Kiramman estate, for obvious reasons, so she hadn’t really known what it would be like. It was impressive or it would be if the display of wealth wouldn't disgust her so much. Luckily the insane amount of people hid most of it.

“So, the bathroom is upstairs on the left, if you need it. Kitchen over here if you want something to eat and drink. Anything higher than the first floor is off limits and uh...” Caitlyn looked around. “There! Lux and Ezreal, if you need company. However, I feel I should also mention that Mylo and Claggor are around here somewhere, too, if you … want to avoid them.”

“Got it.” Jinx nodded, thankful for the information. “Where’s Vi?”, she then asked, finding it slightly suspicious that her sister was not mentioned at all.

“Oh, I don’t know”, Caitlyn simply answered, looking around again, but Jinx didn’t really care. If the woman didn’t know, then that at least meant there were no evil plans afoot.

With that out of the way, she made her way over to her friends. Lux noticed her almost immediately, running over and hugging her, while Ezreal trailed behind.

“Jinx! Your hair? What are you doing here? What happened to your hair?”, her friend babbled without taking a breath and generally there was something off about her behavior. Jinx looked over to the boyfriend.

“She’s drunk”, he said matter-of-factly, sipping on his own drink.

“How much did she drink?” In all fairness, she had never really seen Lux drink. Sure, on their girls' nights, they were always having drinks and while the blonde would sip on something resembling alcohol, she was always going for the least amount of alcohol possible and never even finishing her first glass. So, it was safe to say Jinx had never seen Lux even remotely drunk.

Ezreal thought for a bit. “Maybe half a cup. This stuff ain’t light, though.” Half a cup? Was he serious? It would explain why her friend stayed away from actual drinking so consistently. “But seriously, what happened to your hair?”

Jinx giggled. “Cut it.” She shrugged.

“I can see that.”

“Zeri did it last night. She did a good job, though, don’t you think?”

“For sure! You look badass!”

“You look gorgeous”, Lux mumbled, still hugging her, in agreement.

Jinx looked at her friend with a hint of annoyance. “Is she gonna be stuck to me the entire night?”, she asked as Ezreal seemed calm enough about the situation that she assumed, he might have some experience with a drunk Lux.

The guy looked down at his girlfriend as if he just now noticed her still clinging to Jinx – he, too, was definitely a little tipsy already – and tried, with a certain clumsiness, to get her off of her. At least he succeeded.

“So, what do you do here?”, she then asked. The music was cool and some people were dancing and there was certainly some mingling going on, but in typical topsider fashion, the overall vibe was … stiff.

Ezreal shrugged. “Well, dance, drink, talk. The usual.”

Jinx hummed, which probably wasn’t heard over the music. She looked around, trying to find some more familiar faces, which she did. Just across the room, she found her sister with Jayce and Viktor. Caitlyn was nowhere in sight, though – she probably still had no idea where Vi actually was.

Honestly, she would have been content not talking to the little group right now, maybe saying hi to the science partners a little later and Vi … she was sure she would find a good time, but as fate would have it, in the exact moment Jinx wanted to look away again, her sister spotted her, waving her over.

Jinx couldn't suppress a groan. “Gonna say hi to my sister real quick”, she said to Ezreal more than Lux, then reconsidering. “Unless you’ll tell me, she’s gonna cry when I leave.” It was a sincere worry, as she had no idea just how a drunk Lux would behave.

“Nah, it’s gonna be fine. I’ll just look at the fish with her”, Ezreal said calmly, pointing at the aquarium a little further into the room, which was an interesting design choice.

With a sigh, relieved and disappointed alike, she made her way over to the little group.

Viktor, who had been the only one not facing her so far, now turned around, and gave her a little once over, before nodding his head approvingly. It was as good a compliment as she was gonna get from the man and it made her smile a bit.

Jayce and Vi, however, were very clearly fighting with their facial expressions.

“I like it”, Jinx said, before anyone else could get a word in, making it clear, she was not gonna take any criticism.

Now the two were stumbling over their words. “I didn’t say it was bad”, Vi said eventually. “It’s just so short.”

“Slightly radical, no?”, Jayce added.

Jinx gave them an unimpressed look. “That’s kinda the point.”

Vi smiled at her in a way that told her exactly that her sister didn’t quite approve. “It looks nice, it really does”, she said regardless and Jayce nodded in agreement. At least the guy was a bit more believable in that.

“I didn’t think, you would actually come”, Viktor, as always the sensible one, changed the topic.

“Me neither, but … I promised Caitlyn when I was emotionally vulnerable and I didn’t want to be the person to go back on their promise, so … here I am”, she explained. No one had to know that she and Caitlyn had an actual nice moment of mutual understanding and that she therefore honestly wanted to be here. “Anyway, I’ll go back to my friends, but … have fun”, she ended the talk probably a lot quicker than her sister had wanted, but Jinx just didn’t feel like standing around them right now. She didn’t hate any of them, but all of them were awkward in their own way – always and only around her, too – and all three of them together was not something she wanted to deal with right now.

So, without even waiting for an answer, she turned around, walking back to where she came from, when something caught her eye. A head of white hair among the crowd, except he wasn’t really among them, more like alone in a crowd. Boy, did she know how that felt.

“Ekko?”, she approached him and he too, like everyone else tonight, did a double take. “What are you doing here?” More than anything, she was curious about that.

“Jinx?”, he asked and she simply nodded. “Wow, you look great”, he said and it looked like he actually meant it. “Uh, Vi invited me. You could think it’s her party. But what about you? I heard you and Cait don’t exactly get along.”

“We don’t.” That much was still true. She wasn’t sure what to label their relationship after that infamous talk, but for now, she’d call it a truce. “Yet, the birthday girl invited me herself.”

“Really?”

“Yep. She’s teaching me how to shoot, you know? Maybe she thinks we’re bonding or some shit.” She finished that off with a giggle.

“Maybe”, Ekko replied a bit oddly. Jinx didn’t know a lot about people, but some were especially bad at hiding what was going on in their brains, and there was certainly something going on in his. “I didn’t know Cait was teaching you, though”, he said eventually and if Jinx didn’t have a bad feeling about whatever made him so hesitant just now, she definitely did now.

“What do you mean?”, she asked carefully.

Again, this hesitance. What was going on with him all of the sudden? “I knew you were going to the shooting range, I just didn’t know that Cait was teaching you”, he answered nervously.

Jinx was very close to actually being scared, but then she remembered she had a sister. “Vi told you? That woman just cannot keep her mouth shut.”

“Actually...” He swallowed hard and the dread returned to her. “You told me.”

“What?” Now it was getting ridiculous. “I didn’t. I haven’t even seen you since that day with Vi and I wasn’t learning back then yet.”

Ekko was obviously gaining some confidence, but still, he remained somewhat nervous. “But you did. Tell me, that is.” He took a deep breath. “Texted me, to be exact.”

Jinx was getting annoyed. “What are you-” Until it hit her. Like a piano falling on her head. “Wait.”

The awkwardness returned to him in full force. “Hi?”

She didn’t do much but stare at him in disbelief. There was no way she could form a proper response, even her thoughts were having trouble forming themselves and she started to feel dizzy a little. How was that even possible? Jinx couldn't even put together if it was, since she never bothered collecting any information about the engineer she had been texting with.

She needed confirmation and she needed … she didn’t even know, but she certainly needed to get away from here.

Clearing her throat, she tried to form a full sentence at last. “I … I need some air”, she at least tried saying, though she could not say for sure if it came out correctly. Either way, she turned away and started walking. Where to? No idea.

The more distance she got between herself and Ekko, however, the more her brain decided on what thoughts to have in this situation and the most prominent were angry ones. Mostly related to Vi. Already close to the entrance door, she turned around again. She needed air and a knife.

Coincidentally, although unlucky for the two, Vi and Caitlyn were already where the knives were.

Now there was no holding back. The mere sight of her sister made her more angry than she had ever been, which probably wasn’t true, but feelings man.

“Are you fucking high?!”, she yelled, slamming her hands on the kitchen counter between them – an obstacle for which her sister should thank the heavens.

Vi seemed more than just confused. “Not right now? Why?”, she asked uncertainly, while Caitlyn seemed to sense Jinx’s hostility, and started to slowly put the knives somewhere harder for her to reach.

Unfortunately for her, not slow enough. “And you!”, Jinx pointed at the topsider. “You knew!”

Of course, Vi would always come to her wife’s rescue, putting herself in Jinx’s line of sight, a lot more confident than she had been just three seconds ago. “What are you talking about?”

Jinx took a deep breath, crossing her arms. “Ekko. I cannot believe you would do that!”

“Oh.” A sound made by both Vi and Caitlyn.

The enforcer put the knives back down, apparently assuming that just because Jinx had a reason behind her anger, she would not be willing to stab her own sister, who, on the other hand, looked conflicted and didn’t know what to say.

“I really thought, you’d be happier, Pow”, she uttered after a few seconds that felt like hours. “You’ve been best friends and … I know it’s my fault, you aren’t anymore.”

Jinx couldn't help but laugh about that. “Yeah, who else’s?”, she mumbled sarcastically. “How about I take a bit of that burden off ya, kay?”, she asked, her voice sweet and the faces of the two women disturbed. “I was fucking alone and he left. I’m not even mad, he went to that stupid fancy school, but I don’t know… he could’ve sent letters? Visited? I don’t know? Sure, you didn’t help, sis, but he dug his grave all on his own.”

Vi again hesitated to answer. “You two seemed fine the other day”, she then said carefully.

“I have a fucking therapist, Vi!” And she was back to yelling. “Do you think people who are ‘fine’ go to therapy?!” She stared at her sister, looking for … something. Jinx didn’t even know what she was looking for – maybe something that would make her regret not having her hair cut by Vi, but … all of this just made her more confident in having done it without her sister. She had to get out of here. “Besides. In case you haven’t noticed, I have a new best friend. And honestly, the way this stupid party is going, I might be better off hanging with her tonight.”

With that she turned around, wanting nothing more than to leave, but Vi just had to throw more gas into the already dying fire.

“Pow-”

“For the last damn time, my name is Jinx!” Standing so close to the kitchen door, she was pretty sure that a lot of people must have heard that, but she didn’t care. What she did care about was going through with the decision, she had started making the night before. “And maybe, until you get that right … there’s no point talking to you.”

“Jinx-”, Caitlyn tried, but there was nothing the woman could say now to make her change her mind, so Jinx interrupted her right away.

“You shouldn't have invited me”, she said, without looking back again. “Didn’t mean to ruin your party. Happy Birthday, Caitlyn.”

No one called out to her again. She didn’t turn around, walking straight out the door.

It felt like the right decision. Why did she feel so terrible about it?

She pushed the big fancy door open and took a deep refreshing breath before making her way down the street. Almost in a trance, she reached for her phone, going through her contacts and pressing the call button. Only when she heard the voice on the other end, did she realize she had called her.

“Why are you calling me?”, sounded the dark and annoyed voice of Sevika. “You hate calling people.”

“You need to pick me up.” It wasn’t more than a mumble, but she felt so drained, she couldn't be louder even if she tried.

There was a sigh on the other end. “Seriously? I need like forty minutes up there, just take the train.”

“I don’t care!” Turns out, she could be louder, after all, even if only through sheer desperation. “I walk a little in your direction, I just need to get away from this place, now!” Jinx already was doing that anyway.

The silence she was met with was almost enough for her to break down completely. “Fine. On my way”, was the answer eventually and thankfully the ogre had already hung up before Jinx had to try and get a pathetic ‘thank you’ out of herself.

With her overflowing thoughts, she didn’t really pay attention to where she was walking, though, which meant, she had to try and figure out where she was first before finally making her way in the right direction.

It was cold. Jinx could swear it wasn’t twenty minutes ago when she had gotten here, but right now she was freezing. And she felt terrible.

She didn’t hate Ekko. Differently from Vi, she had never blamed him for anything that had happened. Ekko had gotten a wonderful opportunity and whenever he had managed to back home, he always made sure to visit his parents, which was alright, he had to set his priorities. Would it have been nice to have received some letters? Yes, of course, but he probably didn’t even know where she lived after the entire custody drama, so she couldn't even blame him for not doing that, either. The only thing she could blame him for was living his life to the best of his abilities and … she could not blame him for that at all.

Vi was a different thing. While she does understand just how powerless her sister had been in that situation, as there was no way to stop rumors from spreading, she could have at least stood by Jinx, but her sister couldn't even do that. In the end, Vi too had avoided her, like everyone else.

Now she’s trying to fix her mistakes by fixing things that were not her fault at all. As cute as it was, Jinx would prefer it if Vi actually understood just what was actually her fault and apologized for it.

Jinx hated everything about this entire bullshit situation. And to think none of this would have happened like this if either of the two had asked for the other’s number when they had seen each other on their failed arcade day. How did he even figure it out? Ezreal would have for sure warned her if he had known that Ekko knew.

A loud honk, startling her out of her thoughts and making her jump a good half meter in the air, grounded her back in reality.

“Get in kid!”, the unmistakable voice of the ogre yelled out of the car.

Taking a few more deep breaths, trying to calm her pulse again, she got into the passenger seat without a word while Sevika drove off again. She brought her knees up to her chest and buried her head into them, not sparing a thought to road safety.

Only a minute later, she could hear water, which made her look up again. Turned out, Jinx walked almost down to the bridge without even noticing.

“Wanna talk about it?”, the ogre then asked, shooting her a side glance, but Jinx felt like she had already said enough today.

“Not with you.”

The woman snorted. “I remember the last time you ran away, you were pretty content talking to me”, she said like she just knew everything better.

Jinx rolled her eyes. “That was a long time ago”, she mumbled.

At least Sevika didn’t seem to feel the need to respond anything to that. She stared out onto the street, focused on driving and not crashing them. Jinx herself let the lights of the undercity wash over her. It did look beautiful in the night with all these colors – definitely better than Piltover with their boring streetlights that had no character.

“When did you get your hair done?”, Sevika broke the silence again, but at least it wasn’t about whatever made her sit in this car right now.

“Last night.”

“Does Silco know?”

Jinx had to smile a bit at the memory. “Was the first person to see it this morning.” He had also been the only one, she wasn’t worried about. “Said it suits me.”

The ogre looked over to her once more. “It does.”

“Feels weird”, Jinx mumbled because it did. If it wouldn’t fall into her face the entire time, she could have sworn there was no hair on her head at all.

“Considering you were reenacting tangled up until yesterday, I can imagine that you’re unused to it”, the ogre responded with a face that told Jinx just how funny the woman thought that was.

After that, they went back to silence. It was a slightly awkward one. One that would just make her overthink stuff again, so this time, it was her turn to speak up. “I broke contact with Vi. Again.”

Sevika looked over, seeming slightly surprised, but then … “Good.”

“What?”

The ogre sighed. “You’re pissed, frustrated, or sad whenever her name comes up or you go visit her”, she then said. “She’s not doing you any good.”

“She’s still my sister.” Is at least what she had been telling herself for years now, but maybe that didn’t really matter.

Jinx could basically feel Sevika’s questioning gaze on her. “What happened this time? Or do you still not wanna talk?”

“Not right now.”

“Alright.”

While Sevika stared back to the road, Jinx groaned and let her head fall back onto her knees. “I don’t know why I even went to that stupid party”, she grumbled. She should have just stayed home, lived in clueless bliss and avoided all the drama from tonight.

The ogre had the guts to laugh. “It’ll be okay. Hope isn’t a bad thing, just one to be careful with.”

“Where did you get that from? Some inspirational calendar?”, Jinx quipped back without looking up.

“Life”, Sevika now said with that certain annoyance in her tone that only Jinx could bring forth. “Experience. I’ve been disappointed and hurt, too, or do you think you’re the only one that has shit happen to them? It gets better. Trust me.”

“If you say so.” At least it helped, so that when Jinx turned back to the windows, looking outside, she would not let herself be consumed by the darkness behind her closed eyes.

Chapter Text

Ekko had been stupid – more than that, actually. He probably should have refrained from the punch, but how was he supposed to know Jinx would show up at Caitlyn’s party?

So, he blabbed, idiotic as he was, and watched Jinx get paler than she already was, before she walked away. It looked like she was going to leave, but then she turned around, went into the kitchen and in about five minutes, the music was turned down and the people stopped talking, starting around the kitchen area and slowly spreading to Ekko until everyone was listening in to the fight the sisters had at the moment. Though, by the time the sound was able to travel all the way to Ekko, they had been as good as done already.

Then she left.

The party slowly returned to its original state, but the awkwardness in the air was inescapable. As the night went on and more people went home eventually, the more awkward it became. Funnily enough, Caitlyn’s mother – who had been conveniently absent during the fight – claimed the party to be a success regardless of the obvious stiffness among the guests.

Ekko wanted to leave, too, but he was too curious to know what actually went down. So, he decided to help with the cleanup, along with Cait and Vi, of course, as well as Mylo, Claggor, and the two science people, Jayce and Viktor for some reason.

And, except Viktor, who had to sit down, they all helped productively, while the awkward silence drove them mad. Ekko had hoped that maybe they would talk about it, as they always did, but it seemed as if everyone was content to ignore it.

At least until Mylo couldn't keep quiet anymore. “And she jinxed it again”, he mumbled, but with how quiet it was, it was hard to overhear.

The majority of the crowd groaned with annoyance. A reprimanding “Mylo!” came from Vi, which caused the guy to shrug somewhat apologetically. Then the woman turned to the birthday girl. “I’m sorry, Cupcake.”

“I’m not mad”, Caitlyn clarified. “And she apologized.”

Jayce scoffed. “You call that an apology?”, he asked and if memory served correctly, he and Viktor had been closest to the kitchen by the time Jinx came out again, so he had probably heard the entire thing go down.

Caitlyn stayed stern, though. “Yes, I do.”

The man didn’t respond, but looked slightly ashamed when he put the last of the cake in leftover boxes.

“What let her freak this time, anyway?”, Mylo asked then, trying to look busy when in actuality he played with the fruit. If Ekko didn’t want to know so badly, he would have been annoyed with the guy, but as it was, he was simply happy someone else asked, so he wouldn't have to.

Vi let the plates, she was about to put away, down on the counter again, and not particularly gently, resulting in a loud crash that made Ekko worry, she had broken them. “Mylo, I swear I’ll punch you”, she then threatened her brother, already raising a fist.

The man lifted his hands in surrender. “Jeez, just a question”, he mumbled.

“How about you ask a little less and actually start helping”, the woman responded, angrily picking up the plates again.

“Vi, her reaction wasn’t your fault”, Caitlyn then jumped in again, putting a hand on her wife’s shoulder. “You tried, that’s all you can do.”

Vi sighed. “Trying didn’t do me much good, though. I messed up with her, again.”

For the first time, while being in the kitchen, Ekko felt the need to say something. “I guess, I didn’t help there, either”, he mumbled. “I probably could have been a bit more diplomatic.”

While he still didn’t know what exactly they had fought about, it didn’t take a genius to guess that it had something to do with Vi giving her sister Ekko’s number. He was sure Jinx had a right to be mad at Vi, though yelling and shouting at her did seem a bit extreme.

“She did say something about being mad at you, too”, Viktor now entered the conversation as well. Great.

“What did she say?”, Ekko asked in response, finally having something to latch onto. As always, Vi didn’t like talking about it in detail, but luckily more people have been present at the fight.

“Just that you could have written letters and not left her completely alone at, what I assume, was a pretty low point for her.”

“Though, I think she was mostly mad at Vi for using the wrong name and trying to constantly fix things”, Jayce added, before turning to Vi, who looked close to crying or punching someone – it was hard to tell with her. “Not that I think there’s something wrong with that.”

“What’s wrong with that…”, the woman now said and from the tone of voice, it was punching. “… is that I always have to fix things. I can’t just do them right the first time.” Nevermind, crying. “She was right, all along… I’m a terrible sister. Always have been.”

“This really wasn’t your fault, Vi”, Ekko now said again. “I blurted it out and definitely should have phrased it better and I mean the letter thing, she’s right, I could have written letters. I decided to leave and it was on me to hold contact, which I didn’t. None of that is your fault.”

Vi clenched her fists and shook her head. “Doesn’t matter. It wouldn’t have been a problem if Pow- J- … if she had stayed with us.”

Caitlyn was right there to comfort her. “It should matter. Not everything can be on you.”

“You don’t get it. It was my responsibility.”

As this conversation unfolded, Ekko noticed how everyone stopped what they were doing to listen closely to what was being said. Nobody cared about clean-up anymore.

“What was?”, Caitlyn asked gently, which did little to calm Vi.

“To protect her. And I failed. If it hadn’t been for me, she still would have been around when Ekko came to visit”, Vi almost burst out, like a lot of pressure being released. "They probably would have figured something out to stay in touch, but with her gone...”

“Vi”, Caitlyn started carefully, releasing the comforting touch from the red-head’s shoulder, to make sure, she could look at the woman properly. “Jinx and I had a talk the other day. When I had you cover for me?”

“Yeah… You said she wanted to shoot”, Vi responded slightly confused.

“She did. Exhausted herself completely, but it calmed her down”, the birthday girl responded and made a little pause to, what seemed to be, try and find the right words. “She was worrying a lot and well, me being the next best thing, she talked to me.”

Vi let out a very sad laugh. “Great, now my sister rather talks to someone she hates than me”, she mumbled sarcastically, before noticing what she had said. “I’m sorry.”

“It’s alright”, Caitlyn responded. “What I was meaning to say was … she told me a little about what happened back then and I think you’d benefit from hearing her thoughts on the matter.”

“I don’t think she wants to talk to me, right now”, Vi mumbled.

“She made that pretty clear, yes”, Jayce added unhelpfully, earning himself a stern glance from Caitlyn.

“Good thing, she told me, then”, she said, sending a pointed look to her friend. “She didn’t tell me the whole story, but I think I get the picture.” Vi already scrunched her face up as if waiting for the final blow to end her. “To be fair, we mostly talked about Ekko, but she said one thing that really stuck with me and I think you need to hear it. She named herself Jinx for a reason. It’s not a punishment, Vi and she’s certainly not trying to get back at you. She takes great pride in it, it’s a warning not to mess with her, I think. She told me, she feels security in owning it”, Caitlyn explained. “It’s nothing bad to her, rather a good thing that allows her to be herself.”

Another sigh from Vi. “I wish I could see it like that.”

So, as should be obvious by now, Ekko had absolutely no idea what had even happened back then. He had vaguely heard about it from Benzo. When after months, he was finally able to visit more than just his parents, everyone looked like someone had died. To avoid him jumping to conclusions, Benzo told him shorty that Powder had moved out because she had been adopted by Silco.

No one wanted to tell him how any of that happened, though.

This might be the best shot he had at finally finding out. “What happened? Back then?”, he asked, not directly at Vi – Mylo or Claggor could just as well answer it, but the both of them rather opted for avoiding eye contact.

“It’s my fault”, Vi said again.

Now, for some reason, Mylo apparently felt the need to disagree with her. “Shouldn’t it be mine? I started those rumors”, he mumbled, like he was actually ashamed, which he might be. The guy had a loud mouth and talked faster than he could think it through, but that didn’t always mean, he had bad intentions.

“No”, Vi quickly shot him down, though. “Because it’s also my fault that you even felt that way to begin with. I knew all along that Powder was too young, but I brought her anyway. She didn’t mess up because she was clumsy or … a jinx. She messed up because I pushed her too hard. Of course, you guys would be frustrated, but you let it out on the wrong person. And when those rumors started, I couldn't protect her from my mistakes. I didn’t know what to do.”

“You were a kid, too”, Claggor said, now coming to comfort her, as well.

“He’s right”, Caitlyn agreed easily. “What happened was terrible, but you were kids and kids do stupid shit sometimes.” As surprisingly crude as her words were, they were still right. It forced them into silence, to truly think about it and let it sink in.

“The night she ran away, I didn’t sleep at all”, Vi then said, clearly still not agreeing with her wife. “No one did. First, we went out looking, then had to wait, but she didn’t come back. When the door opened the next morning, it was Silco stepping through. At least then we knew she was okay.”

It didn’t seem like Vi was going to continue, so the eyes of the rest of the room shifted to the brothers.

“Vander sent us to our room”, Mylo eventually continued. “Still no clue what they even talked about, but they yelled a lot. I thought we were gonna have to bury a body.”

“When Silco left, Vander didn’t look happy”, Claggor added.

“Silco threatened to take custody of Powder away from him. Which he did”, Vi quietly finished, looking absolutely haunted. “She wanted to leave. I remember during all that, she still had to stay with us, legally – Silco didn’t have custody over her yet, after all. Didn’t talk to any of us for months. The only time I’ve ever heard her talk was when Silco came by to see how she was doing. Hell, she even talked to Sevika rather than any of us.”

“Can’t blame her”, Mylo mumbled.

Ekko couldn't believe that he managed to miss all of that. “And I wasn’t there”, he added to the shameful mumble. He should have been there.

Vi however just shook her head. “You were adjusting to a new school. You’re not to blame.”

He scoffed. “If you’re allowed to wallow in self-blame, so am I”, he responded, getting a little laugh out of Viktor that the man immediately covered with a cough.

“Me three”, Mylo joined in. “I should have paid more attention to what I was saying.”

“Okay, that’s it!” Caitlyn slammed her hands on the counter, startling them all out of the depressing silence. “Do you even hear yourself talk? This has been a good decade ago. I know it still hurts all of you and I also know that it will hurt for a good while longer and that includes Jinx as well. But, as it seems, at least Jinx is willing to move on.”

“What makes you say that?”, Jayce asked what they were all thinking. Judging from how she barged out of here, it did not particularly look like it.

Caitlyn took a breath, calming herself again. “Because of our talk”, she then said a lot more gently. “I could tell one thing for sure: as much as it still hurts her, she was more annoyed by it than anything else. She obviously wants to get over it, wants to be happy and stop wallowing in misery. And I think her new hair is a testament to that as well”, she explained. “She’s letting go and you should too. You all blame yourself for what she had to go through and I’m sure you all have a good reason for that, but Jinx, the person you all color the victim, couldn't care less about it anymore, I think it’s time for you to move on as well.”

Ekko wasn’t all too sure about the woman’s claim that Jinx didn’t care anymore – he saw her interact with Vi and her tendencies to ghost people, whenever she didn’t know what to do, showed very clearly how she was not over anything. He was, however, willing to believe that she wanted to be and maybe that really meant it was time for everyone else to try moving on too.

After a few seconds of letting it sink in, Caitlyn focused on her wife again. “And Vi, if you would talk to her, properly, I think you two will be fine. I sometimes get the feeling that you’re trying to ignore what happened, but that’s not how that is gonna work. Both of you have changed because of what happened and you need to acknowledge that. Only then might she let you in again”, she said, all while holding Vi’s hand. Then she turned to Ekko. “That goes for you, too. Jinx is a lot more self-conscious than she lets on. Talk and then you can move on from there.”

Ekko simply nodded and after a while, Vi did the same. Caitlyn made sense in a way. And the last time, he was not very sensitive about the subject, all it had taken was a heartfelt text for her to forgive him. Maybe a bit of honest communication would do the trick again.

After a long silence of contemplation and people slowly getting back to cleaning up, Caitlyn sighed. “Maybe she was right”, she mumbled, earning confused looks.

“With what?”, Jayce asked.

“I should have become a therapist”, she answered laughing, although no one really seemed to know what was so funny about that.

***

Ekko had a deadline. A Jinx-related deadline.

Caitlyn did have a point in that he should try talking to her. The problem simply was that his not-so-mystery-anymore girl had gone through with blocking him, after all. He did already have a hunch there, as any message he had sent would be met with no response – she did not even read them. So, one sunny day, he had asked Ezreal about it, who awkwardly confirmed it.

Following that, he had checked in at how Vi was fairing, which was how he found out that Jinx had not only blocked him, but her sister, Caitlyn, Viktor, Jayce, and anyone else who she might know living topside, except her two friends. And that meant, Vi would have to go to Zaun, knock on Silco’s door and hope anyone would even let her in, so she could apologize, which obviously was not going to happen. All in all, it was safe to say, Vi was not doing well.

All of that led to him thinking of a solution, which was where the deadline came in. The school year was almost over, which meant he had to try and get Jinx to talk to him before exams started hitting – and he would be lost in books and delusion from too much sleep – or after, during the summer break. And if he was being honest, he would love to get this done sooner rather than later.

The thought of Jinx needing more time did cross his mind, but knowing what he did, he suspected she would only be stuck in her own head, overthinking and as she didn’t have any access to her coping mechanism right now, he was sure that would end badly. So, sooner it was.

Now, the only problem was how to get her to talk to him. Stalking her at her school was still out of the question and showing up at her place would most likely result in being ignored.

The only real solution, he could think of in a short amount of time was the common ground they had: Ezreal. And by extension, Lux.

So, he had asked the blonde if the three of them could talk somehow, which was how he found himself in a little café just outside the academy district, one week after that disastrous party.

While picking their orders and now waiting for them, it was a bit awkward and Ekko wasn’t sure if he should already say something or wait until they had their coffee and cake, so they wouldn't be interrupted by the waiter.

Eventually, someone made the decision for him. “So, what did you wanna talk about?”, Ezreal asked. “I mean, Jinx, I’d guess, but…?”

Ekko nodded and cleared his throat. “I need to talk to her”, he said first. “It’s okay if she doesn’t want to be friends anymore, but at the party … a lot of things went wrong and I would love to at least get the chance to fix that. But since I have currently no means of communicating with her, I need your help.”

“And how exactly are we supposed to help?”, Lux now asked confused, but seemingly ready to assist however possible.

“Well, I have an idea, not much of an actual plan, but … right now I’m thinking that if we or, well, you … could get her somewhere neutral, we could force a meeting with me”, he tried to explain as well as he could, but he got the feeling that no matter what, it would always sound bad.

The two looked at him questioningly, as if they tried to figure out just what he meant with all of that and luckily that’s when the waiter showed up. No one was interrupted, which was nice and it gave them a bit more time to think without staring weirdly.

“Okay, let me rephrase that”, Ezreal then said and Ekko nodded, taking a sip of his coffee. “So essentially, you want us to lure her somewhere where you can jump-scare her with a conversation?”

“Yeah, pretty much.”

“Isn’t that… mean?”, Lux asked concerned.

“I guess”, Ekko had to admit. It for sure wasn’t the most considerate. “It’s the only idea I have, though.”

“I think it’s good”, Ezreal said confidently.

“Really?”, Ekko and Lux asked in unison.

The man nodded. “Knowing Jinx, we have to force her, there’s no way around that. She will never reach out first, especially not when she’s angry at you.”

“That’s true”, Lux said. “It’s probably not going to be pleasant to talk to her. Not in the beginning at least. It could get better depending on what you’re planning on saying.”

“So, you’ll help me?”, Ekko asked, feeling hopeful.

The pair looked at each other.

“She’s gonna hate us”, Lux then said.

“Oh yeah”, Ezreal responded.

“It’s a good thing, though.”

“Yes. She needs the help.”

They looked back atEkko and nodded. The actual planning could now begin. Everything was discussed. Where the meeting should be – they settled on Zaun, as Jinx would probably not set foot in Piltover anytime soon. How to make sure, she wouldn't run – they’d get Zeri on board, to have more convincing people, more people to block a possible exit and, according to the two blondes, she was a lot more creative than them, so she might have some more ideas on convincing Jinx to hear him out.

He was not going to lie, he was already nervous. The two were right, after all. Jinx would be angry and it would be difficult to get her to listen and talk to him, but he hadn’t made the effort when he was a kid, the least he could do was to try now.

Ekko had missed her, after all. Whenever he managed to see the siblings, and Powder wasn’t there, it felt like something really important was missing, because it was. When he had learned something new in school, all he had wanted to do was to tell her about it. He missed just hanging out with her, watching her sketch in a notebook or the furniture, hearing her ramble.

It was easy to say, he just didn’t have the time to find her address or write her or even visit her instead of the others. It would have probably been really simple to figure out where Silco lived, and therefore Powder.

Honestly, he didn’t know what had held him back from reaching out for so long, but he would make up for it now.

***

Jinx was not doing okay.

She hadn’t gone outside for two weeks, wallowing in her room with the only human contact being her dad and Sevika, as well as the occasional text message to her friends. No school, no therapy – decisions approved by exactly no one, not even herself, but she just didn’t feel like sunlight and fresh air or talking for that matter. Fortunately, they didn’t try to force her.

Silco knew why, though Jinx hadn’t told him. Not because she didn’t want to, but because she didn’t feel like it when she had made it back that night, and the day after, he was already filled in – stupid ogre.

So, the only thing left to do for her was to stare at the ceiling or watch YouTube videos of people torturing their Sims. Occasionally, she let herself be convinced to move her depression from her bedroom to the living room to watch Gilmore Girls with her dad.

That was until today. When Lux had asked her if she was up for some coffee or a drink, or even an outing to the arcade, naturally Jinx had said no. She was not at all up for it. When Zeri and Ezreal then bombed their group chat with a bunch of ‘please please please’, she had turned off her phone and left it like that, moving to watch her daily load of tortured Sims to the living room TV, then switch once her dad got home. For the last few days she couldn't even be bothered to move into her room anymore, deciding to sleep on the couch – it was closer to the fridge, anyway.

It was a nice little routine she had crafted for herself. Still, it hadn’t been particularly surprising to see the disappointed face of Sevika, when she came checking on her at around noon.

What was, however, was her standing in front of the TV, arms crossed, telling her she needed to go outside, which Jinx simply refused, which then ended in Sevika employing her inhuman strength to all but throwing Jinx into the bathtub, threatening to clean her herself like one would a toddler. So, for the first time in two weeks, Jinx took a bath. It felt disgusting, she didn’t want to be clean.

Sevika had checked on her once – if to see whether Jinx had drowned herself or just to make sure she actually touched the water and soap was unclear. The ogre did leave fresh clothes, though.

When she made it back out, the second surprise waited for her in the form of Lux, Zeri and Ezreal suspiciously waving at her in the living room.

“The fuck is going on?”, she had asked.

“You need to go outside”, Sevika repeated. “They told me they wanted to go out with you, so you will. Your father approves, too, so get your ass out that door.”

It was needless to say, they then started fighting, ending with Jinx being again manhandled – or in this case ogre-handled – and thrown out. She didn’t even have her phone with her in case of an emergency.

Her friends were staring at her.

“What?”, she snapped, still in no mood for company.

“You look...”, Lux started, apparently unsure of what to say.

“Shit. You look like shit”, Zeri helpfully finished for her. “What did you do the last two weeks?”

Jinx rolled her eyes. “Slept. Ate. Watched TV.” The looks around her got more concerned if that was at all possible. “Can I go back inside now?”

Lux grabbed her left hand, while Zeri took her right and Ezreal just grinned. If she had cared a lot more, she probably would have been a lot more worried about whatever her friends had planned.

“No”, Ezreal said, while the others dragged her forward. “Don’t worry, we’ll end up inside, just not inside that building.”

“Great”, Jinx mumbled sarcastically, but didn’t put up any fight.

While they walked, she was painfully aware of her current condition. After her bath, she had no time for her hair or make-up and she hadn’t seen the sun in two weeks – she must really look like shit. She felt it too – this walk was a lot of movement for someone who hadn’t walked further than to the toilet for a while.

And emotionally… well that department was currently shut down. After all, usually, she would have actually enjoyed watching Sims getting tortured or would have cared about the going-ons in the Gilmore household more – Rory’s college struggles, Lorelai finally getting her own inn, Dean cheating on his wife, this should have at least warranted a jaw drop, but nothing. Absolutely nothing. A good description of what she had felt since that party.

Jinx wanted to go home even more now.

Unfortunately for her, Sevika properly wouldn't let her back in, even if she managed to get away from her friends, who were watching her like a hawk, so that would be impossible in the first place. Weirdly enough, she felt like there was some conspiracy involved. She wasn’t sure why, but something about them showing up and the ogre playing along with whatever they were planning, felt very suspicious. None of this was normal behavior, despite the fact that Sevika forcing her outside her comfort zone and her friends being worried and pushy was very normal, actually.

None of that was helped by being brought to a very empty bar – sure it was the middle of the day, but usually there were still at least two or three people sitting around, but apart from Chuck and now them, there was no one present.

“What is going on?”, she asked again, while they sat down at a table.

“You have to promise not to freak out”, Lux said – at least there was confirmation that they had planned something and her suspicion was not just paranoia.

“I’m not sure, I’m even capable of that right now”, Jinx answered truthfully, snacking on the little basket of chips in front of her – since when did that exist?

“Good”, Lux then said slowly, seeming relieved.

“We talked with Silco about this”, Zeri then started the explanation, while Lux and Ezreal started to look incredibly guilty. “He made sure, you’d have privacy.”

“Privacy for what?”

The two guilt-ridden blondes exchanged a look and it just occurred to Jinx that she had been strategically seated the farthest from the exit. Maybe she should rethink her earlier statement – freaking out sounded good right about now.

Ezreal then cleared his throat. “We … made a plan to get you on neutral ground-”

“My dad’s bar is neutral ground?”

“Well… as neutral as could be. Anyway, plan to get you on neutral ground, so … you might be less depressed”, he vaguely explained and what was that even supposed to mean?

“We just thought…”, Lux then said, answering her confused face. “… seeing how bad you were doing after what happened at the party, it might do you some good to talk about it and-”

“I swear, if my sister is gonna walk through that door, you’re dead to me”, Jinx interrupted again, starting to feel some emotions again.

“No”, Lux quickly said, shaking her head nervously. “It’s not her, I wouldn't even know how to contact her.”

Jinx still didn’t really know what any of this was about, but she instinctively looked around, hoping to find another escape option, which was when she noticed that Chuck was gone. She didn’t know how or when, but he was nowhere to be found. And now her friends also got up and moved towards the door – what the actual fuck?

It was at that moment that Chuck came back and with…

“Ekko?!”, she exclaimed, not having expected him at all, although she probably should have – if only she would have been in a better shape.

“It’s been a while”, he mumbled as awkwardly as he had been at the party.

“Two weeks”, she mumbled back.

“You look great.”

“No, I don’t”

“No...” He shook his head, looking nervous, although she wasn’t quite sure why. “How have you been?”

Was this guy for real? “Let’s see, I haven’t seen my therapist, the sun, or my classroom in two weeks. I am, however, on the fifth season of Gilmore Girls, so I’d say, I’ve been great”, she answered sarcastically.

Ekko looked almost amused. “You watch Gilmore Girls?”

“My dad does and since I haven’t moved away from the couch, I do too, now. Is that all you’ve taken from that?”

“No, I mean … it just caught me off guard.”

Jinx sighed, she just wanted to go home. “Okay, I’m really not in the mood for chit-chat. What do you want?”

He took a breath. “I just wanted to talk to you.”

“You did.”

“I meant, properly. Sitting down, serious conversation kind of talking. I feel like a lot went wrong at the party.”

“Ya think?”

“Please.”

Ekko stared at her, puppy eyes on full display, she stared back, not caring for it, while everyone else looked in between them, as if they were watching a tennis match. Eventually, she sank deeper into her seat with a groan and could already feel the smug smile forming on Ekko’s mouth.

“You traitors, out”, she ordered her friends, then watched Zeri sigh, Lux smile and Ezreal lift his hands in surrender, before they made their way outside, no doubt blocking the door from there now. Then she noticed Chuck also slowly backing away. “You”, she stopped him. “You’re staying, I need a drink.”

“It’s one in the afternoon”, he said carefully.

“Do I look like I care, Chuck?”

“It’s still Thieram”, he said quietly. Jinx heard it, but ignored it regardless, turning to Ekko instead.

“So you gonna sit down, or what?”, she asked, before turning to Chuck once more. “Oh, hey Chuck! Could you fill up the chips too? I haven’t eaten anything yet.”

“You do know his name is not Chuck, right?”, Ekko then asked.

“Yeah, but it’s shorter and I mean, he reacts to it”, Jinx reasons, playing with the empty bask while they waited.

She really didn’t want to talk, but it seemed everyone had conspired against her today, so there was no way she could avoid it. What did he even want to talk about? Right now it didn’t even seem like he was going to say anything. Maybe she should say something then, get this thing over with.

“I’m not mad at you, you know?” With everything that had happened at the party, she figured it might be a concern of his.

He did look relieved. “Really?”, he still asked. “I mean, you didn’t particularly seem happy it was me and I can absolutely get why. And you blocked me.”

“Right”, she mumbled.

“It’s fine, I get it.” Ekko smiled reassuringly at her and she couldn't stand it. There was nothing to get about it – Jinx didn’t even know why she did that. “I want to start off by apologizing.”

“Don’t”, she said. “There’s nothing to apologize for.”

“There’s a lot, actually.”

Jinx groaned. “Could you not? You’re just like Vi!” That silences everything, as it seemed – even the lamps had stopped buzzing. On the bright side, her emotions came back. “You have no idea how I actually feel or if I even care about the things, you think, hurt me. Okay? I don’t need some half-assed apology about how everything was your fault and things should have turned out differently. For fucks sake, I spent years in therapy to be finally happy with what I have and I am. I don’t care how it could have turned out, I’m happy how it did.” She took a deep breath. “I said, you have nothing to apologize for and I meant it.”

For a long time, nothing happened. Ekko seemed to try and understand what she had just said and think about what to say next. Luckily Chuck finally came around with that drink and a newly filled basket, before he too vanished. At least she could bide her time now, eating and drinking.

“Alright”, Ekko said eventually. “I won’t apologize. However, I too, have feelings you know nothing about.”

“That’s how that works”, she said through a mouthful of chips.

“Well… I still feel sorry for not holding contact with you or supporting you while you were bullied. I really regret that. And I’ve missed you. While I did feel a lot of confusion when I found out it was you, underneath that, I also felt happy that after all that time, we had talked again.”

Jinx reluctantly stopped eating, reminding herself this was a serious conversation. “First of all, you were literally not even living in Zaun anymore. There was nothing you could have done without neglecting your new school life a good bit. It’s fine, I made my choices too. Could have written you just as well.”

“I guess”, Ekko chuckled as if he hadn’t even thought about that before. “I just thought, with what you told Vi...”

“I was angry at her. I was close to actually stabbing her, you can’t take my shit seriously.” She ate another few chips. “I’m sorry for blocking you, though. Not sure what came over me. I guess I just didn’t wanna deal with questions and everyone asking if I was okay”, she grumbled. It had just felt right at the moment. Not having to deal with anything.

“I honestly thought, you hated it being me so much”, Ekko replied, somewhat sounding sad. Jinx hated that.

“I was overwhelmed.” She shrugged.

“To be fair, I didn’t deliver the news all that smoothly.” Ekko now reached into the chips and basked too, seemingly happy about being able to busy himself.

“I didn’t react all that smoothly”, Jinx said and chuckling.

They then found themselves in a bit of an awkward silence. Ekko obviously didn’t know how to go from here and Jinx still had a lot to say, but didn’t really want to say it, which was ridiculous. It wasn’t like Ekko was a complete stranger and they had already talked about worse. She guessed it was because they hadn’t seen each other in so long that she hesitated so badly to say all the things that were on her mind.

She could trust him and a part of her knew that, but the other part screamed at her to run before she said something stupid.

Serious conversation, she reminded herself again. She didn’t have to put her heart up for dissection, she just had to be honest. As much as she hated it, she thought about Caitlyn’s words again. Either friend or jerk – win-win in both cases.

“I guess I was scared”, she said after a while, earning a confused look. “I didn’t want to know who you are, I wanted for it to stay anonymous. I suppose that even after all that time, I’m still scared people will judge me for … being a jinx.” She had to do something, so she went back to the chips or what was left of it. “I got overwhelmed when you told me. Still remember how my mind just went blank, not knowing what to do with that info. Should I run? Punch you? Say something? The only clear thought I could form was… Vi. Because of course, my idiotic sister had to pull a move like that, being all like ‘I wanted to get you back together again’ and she couldn't have done that like a normal person? Why didn’t she just tell me ‘Oh hey, by the way, you remember Ekko? You two should catch up, here is his number`.”

Ekko looked at her with a hint of concern. “So, really you’re just mad at Vi.”

“Yes. I wasn’t even really mad at Caitlyn, I just thought that maybe, Vi hadn’t completely rubbed off on her. She should have told me, I don’t know why she would go along with Vi’s plan like that.”

“That’s fair”, he replied, shoving the last chips into his mouth.

Jinx took a sip of her drink. “How is she?”

“Vi? She’s miserable.”

“Good.”

“Are you gonna give her another chance?”, he then asked carefully. “She’s really trying.”

Jinx groaned. “I know. Why do you think I haven’t left the house in two weeks? I feel bad.” She hated that she felt that way. “But, ironically, for us to stop hurting each other I have to go through with my decision, even though that hurts too because otherwise she’s never going to change and I’ll always be miserable around her.”

“I think I get that”, he said, now with the lack of chips fidgeting a little with a napkin lying around.

“Besides, I already told her what she would have to do if she wants to talk to me again. The bar ain’t high”, she added, taking another sip. “Makes it even worse, when I think about it. I just want her to accept the situation as it is, nothing more and that simple little thing she can’t do.”

Ekko took a breath. “I’m sure she’ll come around”, he then said. “After the party, Caitlyn kinda snapped, you know? Told Vi how ridiculous she was and that she should just talk to you instead of trying to ignore what has happened.”

She snorted. “Not sure if that really worked, Vi has a thick head.”

“That she does”, Ekko agreed. “I still think, she’ll work on it.”

“I sure hope so.” She didn’t want to say, she didn’t believe in it, but Jinx would still try to keep her hopes low on this one. Her sister had messed it up twice before, after all.

“So”, Ekko then said. “Awkward question, but … what about me? Any trials I’d have to pass to be your friend again?”

It was an awkward question indeed and Jinx wasn’t quite sure how to answer that. In short, no, but she didn’t feel quite comfortable just letting him back into her life like that – too much had changed and they had to get to know each other again. Even if she would agree to be friends again, it wouldn't be that simple. To avoid another Vi situation, she would have to put her expectations out there, now.

So, she tried putting that into words. “I want to trust you and I want to be friends again, but I … I feel like I don’t know you. Not anymore.”

Ekko nodded. “Then we just have to get to know each other again.”

That sounded too simple. “How?”

“We continue on. Texting and, now that we know, maybe even meet, hang out. Let’s see where that leads us. Maybe we’ll be friends again and maybe … we don’t fit together anymore. Either way, I would love to try.”

Jinx thought about that for a second. “Okay”, she then said and nodded. At least it made him smile. “I’ll try, but … don’t expect too much from me, okay?”

He chuckled. “I already figured it won’t be easy. I’m sure, we’ll manage.”

“Confident.”

“One of us has to be”, he quipped back.

“Ass”, she mumbled under her breath, taking another sip of her drink, but the way he laughed, she was sure he had heard it.

“You’re gonna have to unblock me, though.”

“I will. When I get home.”

Ekko looked confused. “Why not now?”

“Well, I don’t have my phone, because my darling friends have dragged me out of the apartment before I even had the chance to pack anything. That’s why”, she explained. “I think spending a few weeks being blocked might do them some good.”

That earned her another laugh, though she absolutely meant it. As well as this meeting has turned out, she was still basically kidnapped and somewhat imprisoned – she would get her payback.

For now, however, she would focus on Ekko and their talk. Sitting next to him, she had to admit, it was nice to know who the engineer was in real life. And thinking about it, there was something that she would love an answer to.

“Hey”, she said. “How did you even figure out it was me?”

“Oh.” Ekko chuckled again. “Remember that day with Vi and you showed me a picture of how you vandalized an enforcer’s building?”

“Yeah?”

“Well, Ezreal showed me the exact same picture.”

Jinx slammed her hand onto her forehead. “That is so stupid”, she grumbled. This was unbelievable, like what were even the chances she and her stupid friend would show him the same damn photo?

Ekko scoffed. “You know what’s really stupid? The time it took me to actually put that picture in the right context”, he said and Jinx had to laugh, him soon joining her. Both of them were actually smart, weren’t they? Yet, they could be really stupid sometimes.

After they had calmed down a little, Jinx had to yawn, despite it being the middle of the day. Well, she really was out of shape, it seemed.

“I really wanna go home”, she mumbled. She probably had to spend the next few days getting back into her healthy routine, definitely meet up with her therapist and eventually go back to school, but one thing after the other. “I’m sorry, it was nice, but I’m seriously not doing great.”

“It’s fine”, Ekko said quickly. “I get it. I’m glad we could talk, though.”

“Me too.” She had to smile a little. “I’ll text you, okay?”

“That would be great, yeah.”

It was still slightly awkward between them, but she hoped that would fade over time. For now, she would glare at her traitorous friend, but let them escort her back home to tell Sevika that Jinx was allowed back inside – it was always fun to know how little that woman trusted her.

Luckily the ogre didn’t stay long after that. While Jinx didn’t particularly like being completely alone, as it gave her thoughts too many opportunities to torture her, she needed a bit of silence to get her shit together right now.

First things first, she had to find her phone. It was somewhere buried under hundreds of blankets on the couch. Then she opened her contacts, unblocking a bunch of people. Everyone, actually, except Vi.

Her sister would have to earn that – the other’s had been nothing more than collateral.

She didn’t text anyone yet, though. Ekko and her had just talked – she would write him later or tomorrow, depending on her mood. Then there was the issue of Caitlyn, but she decided to wait out her therapy appointment on Monday before setting a date for the next lesson at the shooting range, if the piltie would still teach her, that is.

Instead, she got started on some dinner. Cooking might distract her enough from the bad thoughts while thinking about all the other stuff she still had to do. Like getting one of her classmates to tell her what she had missed, catching up on all of that. She also needed some exercise, but without Caitlyn and the shooting range, her only option was going to be walking around. Maybe she could take a walk to Jerichos tomorrow. Or the supermarket, as they were almost out of food – seemed like the ogre was too busy for grocery shopping the last week.

Oh, and she would have to think of a not too mean, but still mean enough, way to get back at her friends for today.

She should probably write all of that down.

Chapter Text

Ekko stared out the window of the bar, waiting.

Jinx seemed to take a little longer than expected or rather whoever handed out the diplomas. He wondered if she waited to leave just as impatiently as he waited for her to arrive.

“Anything interesting out?”, Scar asked him, startling Ekko immensely.

“No. Not yet”, he mumbled and turned back to the window – he almost missed his friend rolling his eyes.

“She’ll be here when she’ll be here and she has to show up eventually, it’s her party”, he said and patted Ekko’s shoulder in solidarity, before walking over to the others again.

It was Graduation Day in Zaun. Piltover, always having to be the first, had theirs a few weeks prior, and while Jinx couldn't care less about the entire thing, her friends – mostly Lux and Ezreal, although Ekko didn’t want to object to it either – wanted to celebrate. So really, while Jinx somewhat organized the whole thing, it was a party for all of them.

Everyone was already here, waiting for Jinx and Zeri to finally show up because that was the plan. After getting their diploma, the two would meet up with the others at The Purple Eye – because of course Silco happily cleared out one of his bars for his daughter, just because he can – and naturally without everyone present, the party couldn't start, which currently resulted in heavy boredom.

However, the reason Ekko stared out the window had little to do with boredom. Jinx had delegated a great responsibility to him, namely making sure Vi would leave after dropping her sister off. So, that was what he was doing and it had nothing to do with his old crush flaring up again, nothing whatsoever.

When something did happen outside, it was just Zeri, who looked slightly confused upon entering.

“How is my thing already done and Jinx’s isn’t?”, she asked, shaking her head.

“She did say, 3 pm, no?”, Lux thought out loud, while everyone checked the time. In all fairness, she wasn’t late quite yet.

Zeri scoffed. “Checks out that the computer freaks take that literally.”

Ekko was almost about to respond when he heard a car. He whipped his head back to the window, recognized the car as Vi’s, and all but ran out the door. He could swear he heard a few of the others giggle, but he ignored it for the time being.

Vi had parked as properly as she possibly could in Zaun, which placed them a little distance away from the bar and when Ekko came close enough, he was able to witness Vi crushing her little sister in a hug, which Jinx did not seem to enjoy very much.

“Okay, I think you can let go now”, she mumbled, trying to somewhat gently pry Vi off of her, which she reluctantly did. Being free again, Jinx took a step back and inhaled deeply. “I can breathe”, Jinx said dramatically.

“Jinx”, Caitlyn said, sounding annoyed as usual, but Vi didn’t seem to notice.

“I’m just so proud of you.” A bit of hesitation. “Jinx.”

“You’re getting better”, Jinx commented – the road was still long for these two, but at least they were talking again. “Anyway, I’ll see you next week”, she said (more towards Caitlyn than her sister, but he doubted Vi would catch onto that) and already turned to the direction of the bar.

Ekko guessed that now was his turn to avoid any awkwardness – Jinx had not been particularly clear about this job, but it really didn’t take a genius to know that she would simply like to steer clear of anything that could create a rift between them… again.

“Jinx!”, he yelled over, now crossing the last bit of distance and all the while forcing the already open mouth of Vi to close again. “We’ve been waiting forever, even Zeri beat you here”, he said nudging her playfully. “Let’s get the party started before everyone dies of boredom.”

Jinx chuckled. “Can’t have that.”

The only problem that Ekko couldn't solve was that Vi was stubborn. Seeing her puppy eyes, he knew the woman was about to say something or even question why she wasn’t invited, so he sent a subtle pleading look to Caitlyn, who luckily got the message.

“Come on, Vi”, she said, gently guiding her wife back to the car. “Jayce and I have a meeting later and I would hate to be late, so let’s just leave them to it.” For a moment Ekko wondered whether or not that meeting was even real, but he wouldn’t look a gift horse in the mouth.

“Yeah… sure”, Vi replied reluctantly, but followed along with Caitlyn regardless. “You have fun, yeah?”

“Sure”, Jinx said and waved impatiently.

Before the car had even started to move, she had already made her way to the bar, Ekko followed while rolling his eyes.

“You know, you could have just as well told her, this was a friends-only thing”, he said, curious to know if Jinx really didn’t think about it or just didn’t want to do that.

The way she sighed, he’d guess the latter. “Yeah, but then she gets all sad and disappointed and … I can’t deal with that and she probably wouldn't have driven me then.” He sincerely doubted that – as many issues as these two had, Vi would do anything for her sister.

“There was no other option?”

She thought for a second “Not with Vi. The only other option was Dad and Sevika, but they had to leave quickly for some business meeting – I’m lucky they were able to sit through the ceremony.”

It was still a bit weird to hear her call Silco her dad – he knew that legally he was, but with how little he had been there at the time, in his mind, Jinx always belonged to the little family of Vander, so he was still getting used to it.

“Jinx! Finally!”, Zeri interrupted their conversation, dragging Jinx further into the room. “Congrats, girl!”, she then said, hugging her.

“You too”, she barely got out, before Lux crashed into her as well.

“So, does that mean, it’s finally time for drinks and music?”, Ezreal then asked, Scar next to him nodding, while Jinx still tried to get out of her friend-made cage.

“Enough hugging”, she groaned and the other two released her. “Now, let’s get started. I’m surprised you haven’t already.”

“We were waiting for you”, Lux said and shrugged.

Jinx rolled her eyes and walked over to the computer that Thieram had already prepared – it was connected to Spotify and the speakers. It only took a few seconds and a rock song, Ekko had never heard before, was blaring through the room.

And then, it began. He had to say though, in his memories, the night’s events get more and more vague the later it gets.

He remembered dancing, drinking (a lot of that, actually), the occasional interruption for a game someone wanted to play – he could swear at some point Twister was being involved and the monopoly board had been thrown out the window, but he wasn’t all too sure about that last part.

Somewhere at around midnight, Jinx convinced Thieram to drink something as well, but since someone had previously drugged it with a sleeping pill (wherever that came from), he passed out shortly after. The poor guy then fell victim to Zeri, the art graduate, who made a masterpiece out of his face.

After Thieram was out, Jinx took her turn trying to make drinks, which have gotten worse with every new try. Still, Ekko had taste-tested them all – that was probably how he ended up being wasted enough to forget everything that came after and a good bit from the before.

At some point, must have been late at night, they had all passed out one way or the other.

When Ekko woke up, the sun was barely shining, still climbing its way up the sky and he could hear his roommate snoring loudly – it was a miracle that only Ekko was awake. Looking around he spotted Lux and Ezreal snuggled together in one of the booths, while Zeri slept straight up on the table. Scar lay in a corner on the floor. Ekko didn’t want to get up to see, but he guessed that Thieram was still behind the counter somewhere.

Who he didn’t see, however, was Jinx, which worried him a little, but before he could go look for her properly, the door opened, letting in the cold air and a certain blue-haired menace, carrying a monopoly board – so at least that had really happened.

“Who threw that?”, he asked, startling Jinx – her entire body tensed, it was almost comical.

“No idea”, she mumbled eventually. “Probably Zeri, though”, she said, putting in on one of the empty tables, before sitting down next to him on the floor. “I haven’t been this hungover in a while.”

“I don’t think, I have ever been hungover”, he responded and she chuckled.

“How do you like it?”, she asked with a grin.

“It’s terrible”, he groaned, massaging his temples, making Jinx laugh some more, before she got up, reached behind the counter and came back with some pills.

“They help, trust me”, she said, handing them over to him. “Need some water with that?”, she asked, reaching behind the counter again – it might just be easier to walk behind it, but he was not in the right head space to argue about that right now.

He simply accepted the glass of water and downed one of the pills while Jinx sat back down again. “Despite the pain, it was fun, though”, he said eventually because he wanted to say something.

“I’m glad you liked it”, Jinx responded. “What are you gonna do now?”

“What do you mean?” Maybe when the pills have properly set in, he would be better at talking and understanding what was going on.

“Well, school’s over. What are you gonna do now?”

“Oh”, he mumbled. He would lie when he said he hadn’t thought about it. He did, he just didn’t come to a conclusion yet. Would he want to work in Piltover? Did he want to move back to Zaun? What was he going to do with his degree in engineering? “No idea.”

Jinx chuckled again. “Me neither.”

“What about the others?”, he asked, as he would be interested to know if anyone here had any idea about their future.

“Zeri wants to go into freelancing and Lux is going back home for now. Ezreal is probably gonna go with her. Don’t know more than that, though”, Jinx said, sounding incredibly sad at the prospect of Lux and Ezreal leaving.

“Scar wants to do his masters”, he added to the list. “Guess we’re the only ones with no plan”, he mumbled. Wasn’t that sad?

“Guess so. Two peas in a pot. Maybe we should do something together.”

“Like what?”

She shrugged. “I don’t know. Like, invent things. For the people. Didn’t you always want to do that?”

He had wanted that ever since he was a kid and he still did, he just didn’t know how he was supposed to achieve that without any funding or patrons. To get that he would probably have to stay in Piltover, which he wasn’t completely against, but moving back home sounded just too nice.

“That’s hard to do without money”, he simply responded.

“I’m sure my dad would fund us”, Jinx said, looking like she really started liking the idea of inventing stuff with Ekko.

“Isn’t that nepotism?”

“Well sometimes you gotta take advantage of that”, she said and if she didn’t look so serious, he would have laughed.

But she was serious and maybe it had started out as one of her random thoughts, like a minute ago, but he had to admit, he didn’t hate the idea. But, it reminded him of something. There was this one thing that had been troubling his mind over the last weeks or months, actually.

After moving to Piltover and having no contact with Jinx, he really thought he had gotten over his crush on her. But since they reconciled and spent more time together again, he noticed more and more that maybe he wasn’t over anything. And, well, let’s just say, he was thinking about how to go about a confession, should he ever be brave enough to actually go through with it.

All of that just became a problem. If not now, he would muster up the courage to ask her out at some point and what if that would ruin their work, let alone their friendship? Jinx's imploring eyes made him realize, he wouldn’t have years to ponder this question, or to build up his confidence – she needed an answer now. That meant he had to get his feelings out of the way now before they started something that would be doomed from the beginning.

He couldn’t just say no to the proposal either – she would ask why, so he could just as well take the shortcut.

Taking a deep breath and bracing himself, he forced the words out. “Would you want to go out with me?”

She blinked at him. “What?”

“Nevermind, forget it”, he mumbled, feeling stupid – he should have been more drunk for this.

“Ekko”, she said and sighed. “What does that have to do with us working together?”, she asked, completely confused. Yeah, he definitely chose the wrong time, hungover as they were. He was not going to get out of this now, though.

“I like you, Jinx”, she said, not entirely sure where to start.

“Yeah, I like you too, that’s why we’re friends”, Jinx responded, more confused by the second.

“No, I mean...” What did he even mean? It was really not the best time to discuss this – why did he always pick the worst moments for stuff like this? “I’ve had a crush on you since we’ve been ten. I really like you and I would like to go out with you and I just thought, before things get awkward at work, I put it out there now?” Why did he say it like a question?

Jinx stared for a few seconds again. “So you do want to work with me?”

“Yes, but that was kinda not really the point.”

“Well, I’m sorry, I’ve slept like two hours and I have a headache.”

“I’m sorry too, it was stupid to bring it up.”

Both of them sighed and returned to silence. For all of ten seconds, before Jinx started to laugh, trying to be quiet to not wake the others. Not Ekko was the one being confused.

“What’s so funny?”, he asked, being slightly concerned.

“I don’t know”, she said in between giggles. “This is just so silly.”

“It is?”, he quietly asked, unsure if Jinx even heard him.

At some point, she calmed down and seemed to give it some serious thought. Jinx at least looked serious and a bit out of it, which was usually only the case when she was deep in thought.

“I have a therapist”, she then said and Ekko honestly didn’t know what to do with that information.

“I know?”

She sighed. “I mean, I have issues. Lots of them.”

“I know”, he repeated.

“I barely know how friendship works, I don’t know anything about … that.”

“Me neither”, he mumbled, starting to get somewhat of an idea as to what she was getting at.

“Could you please be serious here?”, she asked, getting irritated with his answers. “I’m not an easy person to deal with. I know you know that. What I’m trying to say is that most of that stuff might be tolerable in a friendship, but maybe not in a relationship.”

He thought about his answer for a second, but there was nothing else than… “I know.” Predictably, Jinx groaned. “I know, things won’t be easy”, he therefore elaborated. “I have my issues too, you know? We’ve managed so far. They have managed to live with us.” He nodded towards the sleeping friends. “If you don’t want to go out with me, that’s fine too and we move on, but … if you want to and are just worried, then let me tell you, me too. However, I’m sure we can figure out how to do this. Together.”

“I do want to go out with you, I just don’t think it’s a good idea”, Jinx responded so nonchalantly, Ekko almost missed the important part of the sentence entirely.

It took him a few seconds to form a proper response. “How about, we focus on the going out, for now, and cross the other bridges when we get there?”

“How about, we discuss all of that now and then go out?”

He had to stifle a laugh of his own now. “Jinx. You have ghosted me, blocked me, had meltdowns around me, I saw you shoot and all of that hasn’t scared me off. Whatever is gonna come up, we’ll find a solution.”

“Really?”

“Absolutely”, Ekko responded with all the confidence the hangover had left him with. “So, do you want to go out with me?”

Jinx, of course, made a display of thinking about it. “I don’t know, do you want to invent stuff with me?”, she asked back, barely holding a grin back.

He had to chuckle. “With you? Always.”

“Sap”, she mumbled, rolling her eyes, but leaned in closer. “Okay, I’ll go out with you.”

A sigh of relief escaped him – for a second he really thought he had screwed things up forever.

For some reason, he had to think back to that fateful night, when it had all begun. Ekko had almost blocked the strange number back then and sometimes he wondered if they would be here now if he had – he kind of doubted Vi would have given up that easily, but he didn’t know for sure, of course.

In the end, he hadn’t blocked her, got his best friend back and now even a date and a future. The universe truly worked in mysterious ways.