Chapter Text
The festival started at five in the afternoon, which meant Susie came over at twelve. Not to get ready, but more so because she had nothing better to do on a Sunday.
Kris shut their door, gently wrapping the elastic band they used as a lock in place around the knob. They grabbed out a box, the one that Asriel’s new shows for university came in. Along with it were the shoelaces from the black lace-ups they had before they got his old shoes as a hand me down.
Gently, they reached for their chest, before plunging their hand in and grabbing the soul out. As fast as they could, they slammed the lid closed, tying the shoelaces around the lid. They learnt from the last time that that thing was smart enough to open a box on its own. They tied the knot thrice, each time considering tying it once more to keep it inside. The only thing that stopped them was Toriel knocking on their door.
“Kris” she beckoned “Susie’s at the front door to see you,”
“Yeah, just- give me one second” they said, their throat still corse. They moved quickly, standing on their toes to reach the top of their closet, sliding the box on top and using their old school-books as a weight to stop it from moving.
They undid the band around the doorknob and tucked it into their pocket. Emerging into the kitchen, they saw Susie speaking to Toriel. It was just something about the weather, but they could see by the way Susie feigned a smile she did not want to stay any second longer than she had to, which they guessed was because of the events of yesterday evening.
“Oh! There they are!” Toriel smiled “Kris, you be nice to Susie, okay? I’ve made you both some snacks, too. Come down if you need anything.”
Without asking, she’d already produced a plate of cookies, and invited both of them to take it up to their room. Susie curtly grabbed the plate and speed-walked over to Kris, who led her upstairs.
“Does your Mom… nevermind,” she uttered “Let’s just get into this project thing”
Kris had texted her that morning to come over. Neither of them cared about their project, but they had finally decided on their topic, being something about pies. Susie had brought with her all sorts of supplies from the library, several colours of cardboard, glue, scissors, and markers. They weren’t entirely sure those were meant to be borrowed, but they couldn’t care less about it.
Within ten minutes, small bits of paper scattered the floor from them cutting out the letters. Susie was on glue duty, seeing that Kris’s hands were far more stable than hers. They had a system, they would cut a letter, hand it to Susie, and she would slam it down with glue, talking in between.
“Have you ever thought about getting more decorations from your side of the room? No offense, but it looks… kinda sad” Susie said, looking at the single glow-in-the-dark star she’d taken from Asriel's side of the room and given to Kris.
Kris looked up at the same star, “It wouldn’t hurt”
“I reckon you should get blue and pink, like your darkworld colours,”
They handed her an ‘E’ made from yellow cardboard,“Maybe”
She smushed the letter onto the pink A3 sheet next to the ‘I’, “And a keyboard, too. How are you gonna practice without one?”
They put down the scissors and scuttled over on their knees to their bed “Actually…”
Susie moved out of the way as they reached under and pulled out a large brown leather box, dragging it against the floor. It was old, cracking at the corners, exposing the white fabric that lay underneath the hard leather exterior. There was a sharp click before they opened it, revealing a keyboard. Perfectly pristine with not a speck of dust or single fingerprint.
“You had this the whole time?”
“Yeah, help me set it up”
She gladly helped them lift the keyboard out of its box. She held it by herself as Kris lifted out the stand, adjusting while sitting on their bed. After it had been set to their liking they nodded, and Susie gingerly placed the keyboard down.
The buttons lit up as tiny white specs under the glossy black surface. They used their thumb to finger a C, fiddled with the volume, before pointing with command to the spot of bed to their left.
The mattresses dipped as Susie sat down next to them, the scales of her arm grazing their sweater.
“You can be the right hand,” they said.
She enthusiastically nodded as Kris explained what notes were to her; which ones were ‘A’ and which one was ‘C’, and that most scales start with ‘C’ for whatever reason instead of ‘A’ even though it’s first in the alphabet. She thought that was dumb.
She tried to press down, but her finger was slightly too large to fit between two white keys. Instead she used her claw. The sound rang out, far louder than when Kris pressed it.
“It’s pressure sensitive” they curtly explained “Not too hard, but not too soft either” they grabbed onto her hand, placing their fingers over hers. The touch of their softer skin against her scales tickled.
“Your hands are so cold,” she remarked.
They guided her thumb to the same note, this time with her middle finger instead of her pointer, and pressed down “See, like that”
“Yeah, I think I get it,”
Kris directed her on how to be their right hand, “That's where all the chords are,”
“Uh, What’s a chord?” she asked with a shy smile
“A bunch of notes together” they wrapped their long fingers along her hand again, gently pressing down each key one at a time, gently mumbling “F… G sharp…” and so on.
She relaxed her hands, letting them control her movement completely. She still pressed down on the keys as lightly as she could, nervous any more effort could cause it to break. They noticed, but didn’t care to comment, giving her grace as a beginner and friend.
“The last one’s just the same but with one note different” they mused, showing her the last chord.
Susie nodded. She repeated them a few more times, pressing down as gently as she could. They counted from one to four a few times to direct her on when to press, and after a few minutes she could do it without them to teach her.
“Am I… doing it good,”
“It’s perfect. Just keep doing that,”
Kris took a breath before starting with their right hand. It was an active effort for Susie not to be distracted by their fingers. They scaled the keys with an agility developed from a lifetime of playing, their fingers crossing over themselves but never getting tangled.
They stopped, before looking up at her.
“That was… really good,” she said
“Yeah… my fingering was a bit off though, I haven’t played that one in a while”
“What? Dude, that was literally perfect. What are you talking about?”
Their face turned faintly pink “That’s…” they trailed off as they heard a faint tapping sound on the blanket. They cocked their head to the side “... is your tail wagging?”
“What? No! That’s nothing,” her face immediately turned red as she furrowed her brow.
The tried to reach around to pull up her jacket “Then what was that-”
“Oh hell no! You jerk,”
Susie tackled them onto their own bed, shoving them down onto the pillow. They laughed as they tried to fight back, however they were clearly outmatched by her in terms of sheer strength. The blankets came out of place as they tried to wriggle out from under her.
“You aren’t going anywhere, twerp!”
“At least I don’t have a tail” a quip which earnt them another shove.
They stopped fighting as Susie calmed down, leaving them both stretched out on their bed, her pinning them down. They both made eye contact, feeling each other's breath on their lips.
“What’s with that weird look on your face?” She asked, half joking, half worried.
“Nothing…” they trailed off, tilting their head upwards to meet her eyes.
“You’re ridiculously good, you know”
They averted their gaze, blushing “I haven’t practised in ages,”
“Why are you being all modest about it, you’re like… Monzart or something, and what was that other guy… chopping? No, that doesn’t…”
She paused as their hand brushed against their snout. Without thinking they leaned in. The kiss was quick and fleeting, neither of them fully committed. Kris pulled back, their heart racing and breath panting. Susie stared back at them, dumbfounded.
“Mozart and Chopin. Both far above me in terms of skill” they corrected her before she could even open her mouth.
“Eh, whatever. You could play circles around them, easy”
Susie backed off of them, allowing Kris to sit up fully. They checked their phone,
“We have half-an-hour,”
~
Noelle sat at her desk, dabbing foundation onto her face in rhythm. The pressure felt weird, but she endured. The foundation was from the local convenience store, and the palette was one she had gotten secretly a few years ago while she was out of town at the mall, lying that the hairbrush she had gotten was ten dollars as a cover up for the five dollar palette.
She was doing it partly for herself, partly for Susie. Although she wasn’t quite sure if Susie would even notice. But Kris absolutely would. Two hours ago, she’d gotten a text message from them. She tried not to look at the prompt saying ‘five years ago’, below the message above.
I’ll come to your house at 4. Tell Carol you’re going with me. Do not mention Susie, but she’ll be there too.
Her mother was surprisingly calm about the whole thing, saying that as long as she stuck by Kris and not anyone else, she could go. Noelle had felt the tension in her body melt away as she said that, fully expecting to be chewed out on the spot for even daring to suggest the idea.
At 3:45 she was sitting on the lounge of the family living room, twiddling her thumbs. She wondered if Kris had done something to coax her mother to let her go, or why they were suddenly talking to her now after all these years. If they’d been at Saturday mass five years ago, which would be a surprise in itself, they’d most likely just walk straight past her. The same as they awkwardly scurried past her in the hall during lunch. Still, she remembered something about looking a gift horse in the mouth. Maybe they made some sort of plea to her; they were good at using their ‘puppy dog eyes’ to get what they wanted, afterall.
The doorbell went off. The chime was on a rotation of tunes, this time being a rendition of the chorus of ‘jingle bell rock’. Kris was standing there, hunched over, peering a single red eye down the peephole.
“Kris, you’re early,” Noelle greeted
“Better than being late”
“Fahaha, I guess…”
They looked at each other for a moment, before Noelle quickly turned around to announce Kris’s presence.
“Be safe,” Carol emerged from her bedroom. She came down the stairs, her hooves echoing the tiled steps. She turned her sharp gaze to Kris “And don’t let Noelle out of your sight,”
They only nodded
“Uh… bye, Mom” Noelle waved as she watched Carol leave. The moment she was out of sight, Noelle quickly stepped out of the house before locking the door behind her, “let’s go,”
Susie was waiting a few metres away from the gates of the Holiday’s house, hidden behind the thick wall of pine trees in their yard. The moment Noelle saw her, she dashed in front of Kris, stopping just shy of leaping into Susie’s arms.
Susie’s posture stiffened when she saw her, the skin on her cheeks beneath her scales turning magenta “Oh, hey Noelle! You look, uh, really nice! I like that sparkly stuff on your eyes”
“Thank you!” Noelle dug into her pocket, “I brought you a gift, too”
“What?” she stared blankly as Noelle dug into her bag “You didn’t have to, I wasn’t expecting you to get me anything,”
Kris caught up to them and she accepted the gift, a tiny white box with blue ribbon with a snowflake pattern. She gingerly plucked at the bow and unravelled it, opening the lid to reveal a dozen differently coloured pieces of chalk shaped in tiny hearts.
“Do you… like it?”
Susie held one piece up “How the hell did you make this?”
“Oh, it’s a mix of different recipes! The blue and green one are cornstarch, and the pink and purple ones are eggshells,”
She shoved the piece of chalk in her mouth and chewed “This is way better than the ones at school,” she said while chewing “If I had known that you were gonna get me a gift I would’ve brought one too, y’know?”
“No problem! It was really fun, actually. If you ever want more, I’ll be happy to make some whenever you want. I could even come over to your house to drop it off”
“Uh, maybe not at my house” Susie blushed and reclosed the box to put in her own pocket, “at schools fine, you can leave it in my desk”
“Leave a gift in your desk…” she trailed off “Ah, sure!”
The three of them kept moving towards the festival. People had taken to hanging up signs and buntings between street lamps. There were several different posters
Visit Catti's fortunes! Get a fortune without having to pay one first!
Another sign, this one in pink, advertised cotton candy, with several addendums at the bottom
Our product is made from sugars, not with cotton, fairies, nor the beards of old men
No refunds will be offered to racoon-monsters
The closer they walked to the park, the more signs appeared in abundance, until they came to the entrance of the park. The smell of sugar and oil lay thick in the air as they wandered closer.
“Angel be damned, I didn’t know the town had this much stuff laying around,” Susie looked around, eyes wide.
“There was a big fundraiser last year to afford all of this. Although…” Noelle stopped herself from saying her family paid for a third of it
“Which one do you wanna do first?” Susie asked the both of them
“Well, we could do the ferris wheel, I think those have two seaters, or we could-”
“I’m hungry” Kris said
“Good point, we gotta fuel up first” Susie nodded “Noelle, do you know where the food stalls are?”
“Um, the row behind us, I think,”
“Well lets go then!” She grabbed both Noelle and Kris by their wrists and dragged them over to the food stalls.
The smell of sugar and oil was even more intense, with added notes of butter, cinnamon, ketchup and salt. They collectively decided on getting fries to share from a van. Unfortunately there was a line of at least five other people. Kris grabbed the ticket and stood in the small crowd to wait alongside the others.
“Y’know those zombie enemies in dragon slayer, right?” Susie cocked her head over to Noelle
“The ones with the crazy amount of hit points?”
She nodded, “And the skeletons?”
“Yeah, those are a pain to fight. When I first got to the first island dungeon I could barely get past the first room with them. I had to back track all the way to the first shop to get the shield,”
“Well, I was thinking, what would you rather; Fight a hundred zombies or a hundred skeletons?”
“Hm, I wouldn’t mind either way. If you have enough equipment you could go through a hundred of them in like, a minute or two”
“But like, you have to choose one. Like if you only had to fight one or the other for the entire game, which would you pick?”
“Well, skeletons have more useful drops. You can get the bone shard, which you can trade in for the great sword at the traveling salesman shop,”
“the what?”
“The traveling salesman! You only get him after you complete the quest with that lady in cityville. It’s actually way cheaper to get stuff from him than any other shop in the game”
“Uh, yeah. Totally knew about that guy” She put her hands in her jacket pockets “I’d go zombies. The skeleton’s arrows are a pain in the ass”
“Fair. How about I do one?” Noelle suggested, before pausing for slightly too long to think “maybe, uh, do you like winter or summer more?”
“Easy, winter. You can always put more clothes on, but you can’t take more clothes off”
Noelle turned pink “Fahaha, good point... it’s hard to choose one or the other, but I prefer summer, actually”
“Really? I thought reindeer liked the cold?”
“Well in hypothetical. But in summer there's more reason to go outside to the beach, or go get ice cream. In winter I’m just cooped up inside making cards all day.”
“Huh, maybe I should celebrate Christmas in July, then”
“I have a question” Kris interrupted them “Do you want regular salt or chicken salt?”
“Eh?” Noelle blinked at them “oh, chicken salt, please,”
Kris went back to the truck to get the promised salt. Susie turned to Noelle, “What the hell is a chicken salt?”
“Salt with chicken stock in it, dad makes it himself and got everyone else on it. It’s caught on really quick, faha,”
Kris returned with a box and a receipt, before they figured they’d need a place to sit down and eat. Most of the surrounding seats were taken, but Noelle spotted a wooden two-seat bench, close by the ferris wheel. She took her turn in leading the way, weaving around people and seats to get to them, occasionally checking over her shoulder to see the other two still following her.
Susie turned to kris “Y’know, I kinda feel like, underprepared for Noelle”
“What, like she’s an oncoming weather event or something?”
“No dumbass, like, I didn’t put in enough effort for her,”
Kris shrugged “She probably doesn’t care, and to be honest she’s probably into it, given that…” they stopped themselves from mentioning Noelle’s obvious crush on her “she came with us voluntarily,”
Susie nodded “Yeah, I guess…” she trailed off, watching Noelle turn her head to look behind her again, watching her hair fall over her shoulder and back again “but she made me chalk, twice. I can’t expect her to give me chalk in return for nothing. Do you have any ideas?”
“Hm, maybe a festival game”
“Duh, why didn’t I think of that! What about those test of strength things? I think I’d be good at those,”
“Yeah, she’d like that, it’ll make you look really butch,”
“Huh? What do you mean butch?”
“Nevermind,”
They settled at the table, silently eating their chips. Mainly it was Kris eating them, watching Susie and Noelle chat about something. They let them, lapsing into silence.
The ferris wheel looked very little like the one in the Cyberworld. For one, it lacked the heart shaped seats, having plain circular ones instead. The nice-cream man was the one selling tickets and letting people on, usually in groups of two or four.
~
Susie launched another tennis ball at the metal bottles. It banged onto the centre, but only knocked three over out of the six she needed.
Without asking, the worker held out another ball and she grabbed onto it. This time she threw it with force at the bottom row, but again failed to get all six to fall over, instead only knocking down the bottommost bottle on one side, leading to a cascading effect which left the rest of them sitting there, mocking her.
She reached for another ball, before being interrupted by a familiarly nasally voice.
“Ah-ah, who am I to leave a fellow gamer to the whims of a carnival game”
“The hell, where did you come from!” Susie whipped her head around to glare at Berdly.
“That’s irrelevant, now I am here to assist you” he came forward and took the ball from the clerks hand “it’s not always about force, it’s also about technique. No matter how hard you hit, the bottles are so heavy, there will likely be one left standing there. So; one must aim from the side… and!” He threw the leather ball from a side angle, knocking over the bottom row of bottles and subsequently the entire stack “voila!”
“Dang, here, I guess” the clerk handed him a small dog shaped plush.
Berdly dramatically turned and held the plush out for Susie “Here, you can have it on my behalf,”
She took it from his wing, and stared at it for a beat, before handing it to Noelle.
“Here, this one’s for you”
Kris quietly laughed as Noelle graciously accepted the gift from Susie.
“Aw, how sweet! Thank you!”
“Huh, what?” Berdly squaked “You only have that because I won it! You can’t gift someone something that you didn’t earn legit! Rules are rules!”
Kris nodded somberly “He’s got a point, those are rules”
“I mean, I don’t mind either way, it’s still a nice gesture, Susie” Noelle assured
Susie furrowed her brow “Fine, then I’ll earn one legit! And it’s gonna be ten times better than your one, too!” She looked around the area before spotting another ball game “There!” She pointed and grabbed Noelle’s hand and pulled her along.
The other two followed her, stopping just in front of the machine. Two lanes with several different scoring circles, some within each other.
“Get me a ticket to play whatever this is!” She demanded of the clerk. They obliged her and gave her a ticket.
“And one for me too! And make it so that we’re playing against each other!”
“What the hell, why are you following us,”
“No-one threatens to out-do this bluebird’s carnival game prowess and gets away with it, Susan”
“At least get my name right if you’re intimidating me, Bradly!” she yelled
“That’s it, Noelle, we’re giving it our all!”
Noelle cocked her head to the side in confusion “... We?”
Berdly curtly ignored her and tapped the start button on the lane. The scoring boards on the end of the lane lit up in LED glory as the two rivals began. Susie was fast and forceful in her throws, which did convey her passion in winning, but however did little in the way of actually winning. Noelle and Kris watched from the sidelines, Noelle giving Susie encouragement and cheers while Kris silently observed.
It was halfway through the allotted time and Berdly was far ahead in the lead. Susie frowned.
“Gah, I can’t believe this” she looked at Kris and Noelle, before her eyes lit up “wait a dham minute! Kris, get over here!”
Kris gladly obeyed her, getting over. Susie picked them up by their armpits before holding them over her head and launching them inside the lane. They quickly shimmied themselves above the scoring holes and Susie began throwing balls at them. Their hands were nimble enough to quickly catch most of them, regardless of how far they veered away from scoring, and dunk them into the highest scoring slot. The LED number soared upwards quickly surpassing Berdley’s.
“Haha” Susie mused “Whose got the prowess now, asshat!”
“No fair! She’s cheating!”
The clerk turned around in confusion, before they saw what was happening and began shouting “Alright, time’s up! Get out!”
“Shit! Kris, here!”
The three of them quickly scrambled, Kris scurrying awkwardly to the end of the lane and using Susie’s help to get down onto the grass. The three of them made their escape.
~
To their surprise, delight and slight worry, Kris’s soul had remained relatively quiet after stuffing it back inside themselves after Susie left their room. Perhaps it was too nervous, or maybe it couldn’t be bothered. Either way, they had far more grace to express themselves that afternoon.
Dusk crept up on them as their competition fizzled out. Susie had thoroughly won using various techniques, typically employing Kris to manipulate the balls, bean bags or whatever throwing thing used. Eventually Berdly gave up, and left them to go hang out with monsterkid, who seemed to be utterly in awe of his skill.
After a few more rounds of festival games their competitive spirit had worn out, and Noelle had been gifted a hearty collection of stuffed animals, candy and assorted stationary. Despite how many she was given, she always blushed and accepted each one, eventually resorting to using a basket and Kris to carry the items for her.
Slowly, as the sun began to set, Susie spoke to Kris less and less. In fairness, they weren’t much of a talker, but still, they were the ones carrying the toys, not the one being gifted them. Eventually she stopped using them as a prop for the games, and between wandering around deciding what to do next, and waiting in line for the next attraction, most of her attention was focused on Noelle.
The three of them came back to their bench. She placed a collection on the table as the other two sat down on opposite benches.
Susie picked up a packet of mini-marshmallows, saying quietly enough so Noelle couldn’t hear “Lancer would love this”
Kris nodded, saying under their breath “Ralsei, too,”
“You can have those if you want” Noelle said as she sat down next to Susie. Susie thanked her before eagerly ripping open the packet and dumping its contents in her mouth.
“Tastes even better with victory,”
“Mmm” Noelle nodded “I’m too tired for another game, how about a ride, like the ferris wheel?”
“Whatever you want. But isn’t there only two seats on each one,”
“Really? You looked at it already” Noelle’s face grew flush
“Nah, I just looked at it while we were walking. How are all three of us gonna fit?”
“Um, well we can’t exactly take all of your prizes on with us, so maybe one of us can look after them while the other two ride?”
“Good idea. Kris you wouldn’t mind sitting this one out right?”
Their eyes widened a bit “Uh… nah, it’s fine. I don’t like heights anyway” they shook their head.
“Hell yeah, c’mon!”
Susie grabbed Noelle by the wrist and dragged her to the start of the line, Noelle turned around half way to thank them. Kris smirked a little, before beginning to fiddle around with their phone.
In the distance, they saw the both of them talk. One of them would say something, and then the other would giggle. They were impressed with Noelle, given not even they could get Susie, the violet tormentor to giggle. Noelle caught a few glimpses of her tail poking out from behind her, before promptly looking away. Their mind drifted back to earlier that afternoon, imagining Noelle in their place instead. For some reason or another it made them feel ill. Instead they distracted themselves with a mobile version of sudoku after they disappeared into the carriage of the ferris wheel.
The wheel slowly spun clockwise as they rose high into the air, away from them. Despite knowing better, they still stared at them through the window of the carriage as they talked. In their head they knew that it was better to just stare at their phone, but their heart wasn’t letting them tear their eyes away.
The two of them chatted for a while, laughing and at whatever the other one said, complimented by the occasional shoulder touch or accidental hand contact. The laughing stopped eventually, and they fell into what looked like a more serious conversation.
Noelle leaned in, cautiously closing the gap between them. As they rose higher she slid closer more and more, gently pushing away the physical boundary between them. Each time Susie paused, but didn’t say anything. It was clear that they eventually started to hold hands.
Noelle turned, then she was practically on top of her, and she told her something. Susie grabbed her waist, holding onto her for a second, before kissing her right there. Kris’s heartbeat swelled in their neck.
“Kris?”
Susie leaned away, scratching the back of her head as Noelle giggled. Kris watched in a blurry haze as they kissed again, for longer this time. Two blurry silhouettes of their friends kissing.
“-ris? Kris?” Monster kid poked them “you alright? You look like you’re zoning out,”
They shook their head, reality catching up to them, “nah, it’s nothing,”
"That's cool, check out my awesome stash, Berdly got it for me!”
They nodded half-heartedly. For the next twenty off minutes they only stared at the ferris wheel as monster-kid chewed their ears off about everyone else at the festival, Berdly, Catty, Jockington and so on. It was purely in one ear out of the other. For all they cared, the only people that existed in that moment were themselves and Noelle and Susie.
After a while they turned over their shoulder and noticed they had left, how long ago they couldn’t say. They saw the carriage their friends were on had finally looped back down to the ground. Susie took Noelle's hand as she guided her out of the carriage and onto solid, non-swinging ground. They felt ill seeing the way they looked at each other.
~
They’d collectively decided to call it a night shortly after that. From the festival, Susie and Noelle walked beside each other, giggling and talking and talking about dragonblazers, school, old video games and so on. Noelle went on and on about the variety of exploits in Cat Petterz and how she can show her all her different pets at the computer lab tomorrow.
Kris walked ahead of them, navigating the street as illuminated by the moon and street lamps. They kept checking their phone to see the time. It was quarter-past-ten, and the next time they checked it was sixteen-past-ten. In what felt like half an hour they came to the large garden surrounding the Holiday home.
“Shit,” Susie said, suddenly stopping in her realisation “Your Mom’s gonna kill me if she sees us together”
“Don’t worry, I’ll walk her the rest of the way” Kris offered “that way she’s not gonna have any idea that Susie was with us”
“Oh, that’s smart” Susie said, “See ya tomorrow, then”
They hugged each-other goodbye and Susie left, Noelle watching as she disappeared from sight. She came to Kris’s side
“If only every day could be this fun”
Kris only nodded. They both kept walking. Noelle tried talking again
“It was really funny, watching Susie throw you”
They smiled this time instead of just nodding “Yeah, she does stuff like that all the time”
They approached the looming black iron gates that lead into the driveway. Noelle paused, getting out the key to unlock the large lock that sealed the property away from the rest of the town. The heavy chains slid off onto the ground with a thud. Noelle picked them back up, and Kris wordlessly helped her pull the gates back together.
They came closer as the gates were nearly shut “See you at school tomorrow, too” she said, turning to the inside of the property.
“Wait,” they said “Your hair got messed up” they gingerly used their finger to retuck Noelle's hair back behind her ears. They made sure it was secure behind her ear, before tugging at her collar to make sure it sat correctly too.
“Thank you,” Noelle uttered, casting her gaze to the ground rather than Kris’s face. They stepped back and let her fix the chains around gates, sealing them and walking back inside.
Both of them looked back at each other, as if on que. Noelle smiled and waved, in a frilly yet genuine way. Kris wasn’t sure if they smiled or not, but they felt the corners of their mouth tug upwards into something resembling a smile. The rubber sole of their sneakers tapped across the pavement.
They couldn’t help but look back again, only to see Noelle was back inside.