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He needed to tell her today.
Their time as younglings was rapidly coming to an end, and Petro grappled with the unknown reality of the future. Of what came next.
He’d spent the past few years chasing that future, wanting it more than anything. But these days, as he sat beside his friends in class, he suddenly wished he hadn’t been so rushed. So wasteful. The days slipped, crashing into each other, and Petro was running out of time.
“I’m doing it today.”
Zatt fiddled with a busted up cam droid in his lap. He sat across from Petro at their usual table in the dining hall, wrench in hand and lunch tray forgotten. Petro already planned to finish off his food. Zatt didn’t glance up from his machine. “Doing what?”
“Asking Katooni out.”
The wrench slipped out of Zatt’s hand. He dove beneath the table to snatch it up before it could skid across the dining hall. Zatt emerged, a skeptical look on his face. “You were serious about that?”
Petro resented Zatt’s skepticism, but he knew it was warranted. He’d been talking about asking Katooni out for weeks, taking Zatt through first date ideas and half baked plans to pop the question. Zatt had mostly hummed noncommittally and been of no help, but at least Petro now knew he’d been listening.
“Why do you look so surprised?” Petro asked, leaning back in his seat and crossing his arms. “You don’t think I can do it?”
“I know you can do it, but I mean… should you?” Zatt speared a green bean with his fork. He stared at the limp vegetable, making no move to eat it. “With everything going on, is now really the best time to ask Katooni out?”
Petro frowned. That’s exactly why he needed to. “When else would I–”
“Who’s asking Katooni out?”
Petro turned as Gungi dropped into the seat beside him. Byph sat down across from him, next to Zatt. The two of them looked exhausted; it was the first time Petro had seen them all day. With their approaching initiate trial, Petro found it harder to track his friends down. They hardly had time to eat lunch together, much less catch up on the latest gossip.
Zatt jabbed his thumb in Petro’s direction.
Gungi snorted. “You’re joking, right?” He picked up a carrot and pointed it at Petro as he spoke, matter of factly. “She’s gonna say no.”
“What? Why?”
“Because she’s not into you.”
Petro scoffed. “That’s ridiculous. She’s obviously into me. Right, guys?”
Zatt and Byph suddenly became engrossed in their respective trays of food.
“Alright, I know what it is. You’re all just jealous because I’m the ladies man of the group,” Petro declared.
Gungi’s eyes snagged on something over Petro’s shoulder. A smirk curled onto his face. “Alright, prove it.”
Petro craned his neck. His stomach jumped into his throat, and he suddenly had second thoughts about finishing off Zatt’s lunch. Because there, moving down the center aisle of the crowded dining hall, stood Katooni. She hadn’t noticed her friends yet, nose stuck in a holobook.
“If you’re such a ladies man,” Gungi mocked, “then ask her out. Right here, right now.”
Not for the first time, Petro cursed his big, fat mouth for landing him in trouble. But all his friends were watching, and Petro wasn’t the type to back down from a challenge. So he turned back around and set his jaw. “Alright, I will.”
He stood. “Watch and learn, boys,” Petro called. “You’re about to witness the love master in action.” Petro ignored their snickers as he squared his shoulders, then strode through the room.
Conversations ran together, creating a gentle buzz of noise that blanketed the crowded dining hall. As he walked around tables of younglings, Petro reached for his crumbling confidence. Gungi’s words echoed through his skull. She’s gonna say no. Petro wasn’t sure he could handle her rejection, and as eyes followed his movement, he suddenly felt exposed. Like he was standing center stage.
Too quickly, his nervous energy closed the distance. Petro intercepted Katooni’s path through the dining hall. Instinctively, head still in her holobook, she swerved around him. It was an out. An opportunity to walk away. But Petro couldn’t return to his friends with his tail between his legs. So, against his better judgement, he cleared his throat.
“Katooni, you got a sec?”
She glanced up, coming to an abrupt stop. Her warm blue eyes registered his face, but her gaze was unfocused. “Not really,” Katooni grumbled. She staggered under the weight of a holobook stack in her arms, lunch tray perched precariously on top. Her mountain of potatoes threatened to spill with every shift of her hands.
Petro reached forward on instinct and steadied her tray. “I wanted to ask–”
“I hardly have time to eat,” Katooni cut him off. “I told Ganodi I would quiz her during lunch, but I also need to get through this mountain of work. We have our sparring session this afternoon, I haven’t even touched the star charts I need to memorize, and–”
Katooni continued to rattle off her laundry list of tasks, but Petro wasn’t listening. His gaze slid past Katooni’s shoulder to focus on his friends sitting a few tables behind her. Gungi grabbed Zatt’s arm and yanked it upwards. He tapped the stopwatch strapped to Zatt’s wrist. Petro glared at them.
He couldn’t say what he wanted to say to Katooni. Not here, surrounded by the entire youngling class and his friends hanging onto his every word. So Petro channeled his nonchalance and leaned as casually as he could against the nearest table. He donned the grin that charmed his fellow classmates and Jedi masters alike and decided to play it cool. “This weekend. You, me, and a holofilm. What do you say?”
Katooni blinked, as if she’d only just noticed him. “A holofilm?” She gave a strained laugh, eyes darting towards the pile of homework in her arms. “Were you not listening? We don’t have time for a–”
“Katooni!”
The shout pulled her attention. Petro turned to spot Ganodi rushing towards them, a half eaten apple in one hand and her lightsaber hilt in the other. She waved them both as she spoke. “Quit standing around. We’re already late!” Ganodi took a bite of her apple as she stepped between Petro and Katooni and continued towards the exit. “Those star charts aren’t going to memorize themselves!”
Katooni sighed. “I gotta go, before she gives herself a headache worse than mine.” She squeezed past Petro and left him standing alone, his confession sitting on the tip of his tongue.
He watched her leave, confidence shattering on her way out the door.
* * *
Petro buried his face into the pillow in his lap. He wanted nothing more than to crawl beneath his bed covers and disappear until he forgot all about his disastrous attempt to ask Katooni out. But he knew he wouldn’t get the chance; his friends would never let him hear the end of this.
“She’s obviously into me,” Gungi mocked from across their shared bedroom. Zatt and Byph snickered.
Petro lifted his head. “It wasn’t a no.” He clung to that flimsy thread of hope. The last shred of his dignity.
“Whatever helps you sleep at night, man.”
Petro groaned, rubbing a hand over his face. None of this had gone to plan, and he was running out of time. He needed to ask her. Needed to tell her before they were sent spinning in different directions across the Galaxy. If he didn’t, Petro would never forgive himself.
He sat up. “Can you guys just help me out?”
“You’re asking us for help?” Byph asked, eyes wide. He sat beside Zatt on the floor, a holobook open in his lap. The two of them were attempting to study before Petro derailed the afternoon.
Zatt crossed his arms. “I thought you were a ladies man?”
Petro waved his words away. “Alright, alright. I was wrong. Are you happy now?”
A smirk stretched across Gungi’s face. “Did you get that, Zatt?”
Zatt responded by opening the access port on the cam he had been tinkering with all morning. A holodisc popped out and Zatt raised it between two fingers, a wicked grin stretching across his face.
Petro lunged for the disc, but Gungi was faster. The Wookie snatched it out of Zatt’s hands and ducked away from Petro.
“You owe me five credits,” said Zatt, as Petro and Gungi wrestled for control of the tiny piece of tech.
Gungi grunted. “I never thought he’d actually admit it. Five credits well spent.”
Petro pushed against Gungi’s shoulder for leverage as he jumped for the holodisc. “You two are insufferable–”
Gungi held the holodisc high above his head, out of reach. He stared down at Petro, amusement playing across his face as Petro tried and failed to recover the recorded proof of his confession. “Do you want our help or not?”
Petro huffed. He threw himself back down onto his bed, crossing his arms. “Yes,” He mumbled.
“Yes…?”
He held back an eye roll. “Yes, please.”
Satisfied, Gungi pocketed the holodisc. “You were too direct,” he said. “You need to lay it on her a little. Like this–” He straightened, smoothing down the fur on his head and dropping his voice to a lower pitch. “Girl, are you a blaster? Because you’re stunning me.”
The other boys let off a chorus of boos and gags.
“I think Katooni would shoot me with a blaster if I tried that on her,” said Petro.
“You could try writing her something,” Byph piped up. “She’s always studying languages. You could mix a few together in a riddle that asks her out?”
Gungi gave a loud yawn. “Boring!” He paced back and forth across their room. “Girls want something exciting! Something that knocks them off their feet.”
Zatt rolled his eyes. “Like you would know.”
“I’m sorry, which one of us has actually been on a date?”
“Your conversation with that random girl at the Met doesn’t count.”
“It counts more than your pathetic flirting attempts with your sparring partners.”
Zatt’s cheeks flushed pink. He ducked his head.
Petro pinched the bridge of his nose. “Guys, focus. This is Katooni we’re talking about here. Gungi’s cheesy pickup lines aren’t going to work.”
“They might if you tried them,” Gungi grumbled.
“I feel like you were pretty clear when you asked her to see a holofilm. Maybe she’s just not attracted to you,” Zatt suggested as he tinkered with the random pieces of scrap metal poking out from under his bed.
Petro scoffed. “Come on. Look at me.”
Zatt kept his eyes on the screwdriver in his hands.
Gungi nodded. “Yeah, that can’t be it–”
“Thank you, Gungi.”
“I mean, she called Lyco cute once, and the two of you have the same face.”
“Exactly– wait, what?” Petro glowered at Gungi as his words sunk in. “We do not have the same face.”
“Yeah, you do.”
Petro began to protest further, but Gungi snapped his fingers. “Maybe that’s the problem. You don’t stand out enough. You need a new look.”
Petro believed his look was just fine. But before he could say as much, Gungi was already raising his hands.
The Force shifted, blowing right into Petro’s face like a harsh wind. He flinched, gripping onto the headboard at his back. The pressure around his head dropped away a moment later.
Gungi gave a grunt of approval. “Much better.”
Petro jumped off the bed. He rushed across the room to the mirror that hung just behind the door. The reflection staring back at him blanched. His hair stuck straight up, as if he’d been blown out an airlock. The hairstyle reminded him of the time he got stunned by five training droids at once. He turned to Gungi, eyebrow raised in a silent question.
Gungi only shrugged. “It works for Wookies.”
“Do I look like a Wookie?”
“Do you really want me to answer that?”
A flash of light went off. Petro turned to find Zatt clutching his cam again, trying and failing to bite back a grin. He and Byph dissolved into a fit of giggles, clutching their sides as they struggled to breathe.
Petro glared at them all. He couldn’t believe this was the best advice they had to offer. “None of you are any better at this than me!”
Byph tilted his head. “What did you expect?” He asked as he fought to catch his breath. “We’re just kids.”
He was right. Petro should have known better, but sometimes he forgot. With everything they had seen, everything they had conquered together, he forgot how young they all were. How little life experience they had outside of war and fighting for survival.
“Maybe you should ask someone a little older,” Gungi suggested. “Someone like Lyco–”
Petro sent his pillow across the room with the Force. It wacked Gungi across the face.
“You’ve all been spectacularly unhelpful,” Petro muttered. He ran his fingers through his hair, shaking out Gungi’s ridiculous handiwork. “Now, if you’ll excuse me, I need to find Katooni. Alone,” he added, when the three other boys moved to follow.
Petro left them sitting in their shared dorm room as he stepped out into the hallway. He would ask Katooni out on his own terms. No pickup lines. No gimmicks. He would tell her the whole truth. And he would do it today.
* * *
He found her in the courtyard.
Spring had finally reached Coruscant, sweeping across the city on a warm breeze. The courtyard bloomed. Petro picked his way around the flowers that stretched in neat rows down the garden. The sun was setting fast, painting the Coruscant sky in muted shades of gold.
He expected to find Katooni holed up in the library, buried under a stack of books. Or perhaps in one of the many training rooms across the Temple, practicing her forms with Ganodi. He didn’t expect to find her sitting alone atop the courtyard balcony ledge, knees pulled up to her chest and eyes on the Coruscant skyline.
Petro stepped up onto the ledge. He sat beside her, legs dangling over the edge of the balcony. The whole of Coruscant stretched out beneath his feet. He watched the traffic snake through the clouds in silence for a few moments before he spoke. “Studying a lot of star charts out here?”
Katooni sighed. Her eyes were focused on the streets below. Petro followed her gaze; the citizens of Coruscant shuffled down the sidewalks. “We have our final initiate trial in a week, and I can’t focus. I just keep thinking about…” she trailed off, lifting her focus to the sky. She chewed the inside of her cheek, and Petro knew she had more to say. So he let the silence stretch—a technique he learned from Zatt.
Sure enough, Katooni took a deep breath. “I’ve always liked star charts,” she said. “Learning about different systems, planets, ways of life. There’s a whole Galaxy out there, and I’ve been waiting to see it.”
Petro shifted. You’re running out of time, said the voice in his head. He gripped the stone ledge beneath his knees to anchor himself. “But?” He prompted.
“But now… now the only star chart I care about is this one.” She gestured to Coruscant at large. “And I don’t know if I can leave.”
The reminder of their expiration date settled between them, finite and heavy. It sobered Petro; made him feel lightyears older than the boy he had been half an hour ago in his dorm room. He had practiced the words he wanted to say on his walk across the temple, but they suddenly seemed flimsy.
Katooni blinked, remembering herself. “I don’t know why I’m telling you this. I know you’re itching to get out of here.”
Petro winced. His friends thought he didn’t worry about change. They called him fearless. Reckless. He wished that assessment were true.
He shifted closer. Their shoulders brushed against each other as they watched the sun dip below the horizon and Petro wondered if there would come a day where he couldn’t remember the Coruscant skyline. He rejected the thought.
“Sometimes I sit on the front steps of the temple and watch Jedi come and go,” he said after a while, voice so quiet it floated on the breeze. “It helps. Knowing no matter how far I go, I can always come back.”
Petro didn’t state the obvious. Sometimes Jedi didn’t come back. But that was the reality of war; a truth Katooni already understood.
“Can we? Always come back to this?” She looked at Petro, eyes apprehensively hopeful, and Petro knew she wasn’t talking about the temple or the planet. Suddenly he felt foolish. Racing ahead, chasing change before it was their time. He’d made too many mistakes up to this moment. He didn’t want to make another. Didn’t want to lose this, too.
“We don’t have to worry about it now,” he said, turning to face her. “None of us are going anywhere before our initiate trial.”
Katooni made a face. “Don’t remind me. Is this supposed to be a pep talk? Because you’re doing a terrible job.”
Petro cracked a smile. “What I mean is, we’ve got time.”
Katooni glanced back towards the dying sun. “It doesn’t seem like it.”
The sun might have been setting, but Petro wasn’t letting this day slip away like all the others. Not yet. “We’ve got all the time in the Galaxy,” he said. He swung his legs over the balcony ledge and jumped to the ground of the courtyard. Petro offered his hand to Katooni. “I can prove it.”
She gave him a skeptical look, but that familiar twinkle of curiosity glinted in the depths of her gaze, giving her away. She took hold of his hand, fingers warm and steady against his own.
Petro pulled her off the ledge and set off at a run. He dragged Katooni with him as he wove through the courtyard, their cloaks rustling the freshly cut grass.
Katooni stumbled, a laugh bubbling out of her. “Where are we going?”
“We,” he said as he led her back inside the temple, “are going to round up the rest of our friends and have a holofilm night, just like we used to. Stolen snacks from the kitchens and all.”
“Petro, I really need to–”
“Tomorrow,” Petro said, squeezing her hand as he pulled her along. “You can study different star charts tomorrow. Tonight we’re studying this one.”
Katooni gave a long sigh of defeat, but a smile tugged at the corner of her lips. She stopped resisting and fell into step beside him. “I’ll agree to this on one condition.”
Petro tilted his head. He caught a glimpse of Katooni’s face—young and carefree.
“Name it.”
“I get to choose the holofilm.”
Petro grinned. “I’d expect nothing less.” He tugged her towards him as they wove through a group of Jedi masters. “You’ve got a deal. I won’t even judge your poor taste in holofilms.”
Katooni scoffed. “Yes you will.”
“Yeah. I will.”
Petro and Katooni ran through the temple halls, laughter echoing off the walls. It was a melodic sound, one that was becoming less and less frequent. But not tonight. Tonight a cramped temple dorm room would sound the way it used to, before the days of exams and wars and the ever mounting weight of growing up. Petro wanted the sound to carry, if only for a few more nights. Everything was going to change, but not yet. Not now.
He didn't need to tell her today.
They had time.