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The rain had no business being this heavy.
Lumine had checked the weather forecast that morning—because she's that kind of person—and it was supposed to be windy with a slight chance of a drizzle. She guesses this was a particularly angry drizzle.
"Can you pick up your pace a bit? We don't want Hu Tao to think we're not coming." Aether said from ahead of her, his voice infuriatingly calm.
"I'd like to remind you that this is all your fault." Lumine grumbled, squeezing the water out of her drenched dress.
"How is this my fault? I have no control over the weather."
"We missed the bus because you spent—and listen to me very carefully while I say this—forty five minutes doing your hair!" she said, slowing down a bit, and looking him in the eye.
"Braids are hard to do. It takes alot of time." he said, having the audacity to look patient. "And you're overexaggerating, it wasn't forty five. More like thirty."
Lumine simply gave him a look that meant that she was seconds away from turning this into a 1v1. And archons know Lumine gave hard punches. Aether shivered thinking about it, his jaw still hurt.
"Okay okay," he said, raising his hands in surrender. His stupid hair was untouched by the rain, whereas Lumine looked like a wet dog. "But you have to admit, it's good."
"Yes, Aether, your braid is great. I'm sure if they wrote the book Best Braids in All of History, yours would be chapter one." she deadpanned, then gestured around her. "Definitely worth all this."
"We're almost there." he objected, but looked slightly mollifed at her comment.
"Yes, and we're forty five minutes late because my brother wanted to look pretty in the rain." Lumine grumbled, trying to get her hair to look a bit more presentable.
"I'm always pretty in the rain." Aether said, grinning slightly. "Come on, Lumi, let's go." he took out his hand, waiting for her to take it like old times. When they were children, they would hold each other's hands and run in the rain, laughing.
"You better hope this is worth it." she huffed, taking his hand as they raced through the streets.
Hu Tao's house was visible three blocks away, colorful lights streaking out the windows, and shining christmas lights? (it's the middle of spring) luminating the entire neighborhood. There was a little carved wooden sign by the gate said something Lumine couldn't read from this distance but that she was almost certain was either a joke or a mild threat, because that was the full range of Hu Tao's decorative sensibility. There was a potted plant on the left side of the porch steps that had grown considerably beyond what the pot could reasonably support, spilling over the sides and curling toward the steps like it was trying to make a break for it, completely unbothered by the rain.
Once they both made it to the front door, drenched in cold water and panting, the door immediately flew open, which led to Aether almost falling over because he leaned on the it while trying to catch his breath.
"Lumine! Aether! Finally, I thought you guys were lost or something." Hu Tao's cheerful voice echoed. She took one look at them and her eyebrows furrowed. "Ooh, guess you got stuck in the rain, huh?" she said, looking at Lumine with an expression that looked like she was trying to hold back a laugh.
"I will leave, Hu Tao." Lumine said, as Aether stepped into the warmthness of the house, sighing in relief.
"No you won't! Everyone's here. Come on!" she said in her usual over-excited nature, closing the door behind Lumine. "Xiao's over there, Aether." she said pointedly, having noticed Aether's gaze flitting across the room. Aether smiled and thanked her, making a bee line to the teal-haired junior.
"You think he likes him?" Hu Tao grinned at Lumine, who was taking off her jacket and hanging it on a nearby hook.
"Aether likes everyone. It's hard to notice the difference." Lumine shrugged. "My guess is as good as yours."
"They'd definitely look great together though—ah, no don't feed her that!" Hu Tao cut off, as she noticed Xingqui feeding her cat, 'rock' (yes, that was his actual name) red hot peppers. "Gotta leave you for a bit, Lumine!" she said as she ran off.
The girls had, as expected, secured the best seating in the house.
The big sectional sat in the far corner of the living room at a slight angle that made it its own world—close enough to the rest of the party to see everything, tucked enough away to have actual conversations. Lumine spotted them the way you spotted a familiar constellation, each of them exactly where you'd expect.
Navia was at the heart of it, the way she always managed to be at the heart of things without ever seeming to try—her golden curls were pinned up in that particular way she did for events, soft pieces of them falling loose at her temples, and she was laughing at something with her whole chest, one hand gesturing in the air. She had that quality, Navia, of making whatever space she occupied feel warmer just by being in it. People gravitated toward her without entirely meaning to.
Furina was beside her with her legs crossed and a drink balanced on her knee, and she was mid-sentence with the kind of total commitment she brought to all of her sentences—her eyes wide, both hands now involved in the story, clearly at the part where things had gone wrong in an interesting way. She'd done something architectural with her hair tonight and was wearing a pretty cream-colored dress that had no right being that good.
Clorinde sat at the far corner of the sectional in a way that might look detached if you didn't know her. Her dark hair was loose—Lumine had seen her with it down maybe four times—and she was actually, genuinely, quietly smiling at whatever Furina was performing, which from Clorinde meant she found it very funny. She had a stillness to her that never read as boredom, more like someone who'd decided exactly how much energy they were willing to spend on a room and was conserving the rest for something worth it.
Mualani had clearly already visited the snack table—she was holding a plate with so many biscuits Lumine was worried it'll fall over. Her hair was down and she had a bright, oversized coverup-style jacket on that she'd probably brought for warmth and had just decided was the fit. She was the kind of person who looked like she'd just come from somewhere good and was on her way to something better.
Nilou was tucked into the curve of the sectional with her feet up, the way you got comfortable when you'd been there long enough to stop performing being there. She was the kind of person whose attention made you feel steady—she looked at you when you talked, really looked, and she had this way of finding things genuinely lovely that never felt performed.
Lynette sat at the edge of the group, silver tail making a slow, languid movement that meant she was paying attention even though she was quiet. She'd said something a moment before Lumine reached them, something short and low, and Clorinde's almost-smile had deepened slightly in response.
Lumine dropped onto the cushion beside Mualani and felt the last of the wet-and-late feeling start to dissolve.
"You made it!" Nilou brightened immediately.
"Barely." Lumine murmured, touching one of her soaked strands. "We missed the bus."
"You walked all the way here?" Navia said, genuine concern flashing in her azure eyes. "In this weather?"
"I almost got caught into it myself," Furina added, a hand on her chest dramatically. "It was quite aggressive, I felt attacked."
"Here, you look like you need this," Mualani said, offering Lumine one of her biscuits which she took gratefully. "I actually enjoy the rain myself, it reminds me of the water." she said in a nostalgic voice.
"Everything reminds you of water," Clorinde said, sipping a bit of her fruit punch.
"Well, everything is connected to water if you think about it enough." Mualani grinned, and the both of them got into a long discussion on the ocean and surfing techniques.
"I've got a dry jacket if you're cold, Lumine." Lynette said quietly from where she sat, tail curled protectively around her.
"No thanks, Lynette. I'm almost dry anyway." she shrugged, as she listened to Navia and Furina's current conversation, which was actually pretty interesting. Navia always seemed to have the best stories, and Furina had a magnificent way of telling them. They always were the center of any party.
Lumine drank her drink and felt herself unwind, degree by degree, from the outside in.
She watched Aether drift across the room the way she sometimes did at parties—not out of worry, just the particular background awareness of a twin. He'd made it to Xiao eventually, which she'd expected. Xiao was doing his usual thing, standing close to the wall with his arms folded and his drink untouched, wearing the expression of someone who had been dragged here against his will and was going to make sure everyone knew it. Aether was talking to him with that unhurried, genuine quality he had, and after a few minutes she watched the tightest line of Xiao's shoulders drop by about ten percent. Which, for Xiao, was basically a standing ovation.
She lost track of him when Navia started a story that required everyone's attention.
It was a good one. Something that had happened at work—Navia ran things with an easy, capable hand but she had an eye for the absurd details of it, the things that went sideways in small human ways, and she told it with that warmth she had, the kind that never made anyone the villain, just the participant in something that had gotten away from everyone. Furina kept interrupting with follow-up questions that were mostly just elaborate ways of expressing disbelief, and Lumine found herself leaning forward without quite deciding to.
"And then he said," Navia paused, pressing her lips together briefly over a laugh that was already building, "that's not my department, and simply walked away—"
"He did not," Furina said, with the scandalized energy of someone watching a historical atrocity.
"He did. Completely calm. Just—walked away."
"What did you do?" Nilou asked, eyes wide.
"I stood there for a moment," Navia said. "And then I handled it myself, which I was going to do anyway, but still—"
"The audacity," Furina said, sitting back. "The sheer, unearned audacity of some people." She shook her head. "You should have said something."
"What would I have said?"
"I don't know, something devastating. I would have said something devastating."
"You always say that," Clorinde said.
"Because I always would."
"You froze in front of the entire literature class when Professor Neuvillette asked you a question you didn't know the answer to," Clorinde said, with the flat, affectionate delivery of someone recounting established fact. "For about twelve seconds."
The group turned to Furina.
Furina opened her mouth. Closed it. "That was a completely different context," she said, with great dignity. "That was academic pressure. This is personal principle. I perform much better under personal principle."
"Uh huh," Mualani said, not looking up from her plate.
"I do—"
"Sure," Lumine said.
Furina looked between them all with the expression of someone who had been betrayed by people she'd personally chosen to associate with, which was ruined slightly by the fact that she was clearly trying not to smile. "I hate all of you," she said, warmly, and finished her drink.
It was sometime later—the party had found its comfortable rhythm, loud in some corners and quiet in others—when Navia set down her drink with the particular purposeful quality that meant something was about to be organized.
"Tomorrow," she said.
The group settled.
"All of us. There's that café Nilou mentioned, the one near the riverside market." She looked at Nilou. "The one with the plants in the window?"
Nilou straightened slightly, pleased that it had been remembered. "They do a cardamom latte that I've been wanting to try for weeks. And the market runs all day on Saturdays, there are vintage jewelry stalls apparently—"
"Vintage jewelry," Furina said, with immediate, uncomplicated interest.
"And food stalls," Navia added, looking at Mualani.
Mualani pointed at her. "Now you're speaking my language."
"We eat first," Navia said, with the patient certainty of someone who had already done the math on this. "Full breakfast. And then we can take our time with the market."
"As long as eat first means actually first," Mualani said, with some feeling. "Not browse-a-bit-and-then-eat. First first."
"First first," Navia confirmed.
Mualani settled back, satisfied. "Then I'm in."
"I'm free all morning," Nilou said.
"I have nothing until dinner," Furina said, pausing, then: "Actually I have nothing at all, I just like having something to reference."
"Lyney and Freminet are having a 'brothers' day out' tomorrow'," Lynette said, with mild amusement. "I'm free."
Clorinde said nothing, but she'd already shifted slightly in her seat in the way she did when she was mentally adjusting her schedule. Which meant yes.
Everyone looked at Lumine.
"Obviously," she said.
Navia smiled—full and warm, that particular smile she had when something was settled in a way she liked. "Good. I'll send the details tonight."
Mualani had abandoned the sectional in favor of the snack table, and she'd pulled Lumine with her on the basis that the little pastry things were running low and someone needed to secure more before Xingqiu got to them first.
"He took six," Mualani said, with the gravity of someone reporting a crime. "I watched him. Six, Lumine. From one plate."
"That's Xingqiu's whole personality though," Lumine said, scanning the table. "He does everything in excess and looks charming while doing it."
"The charm is the problem, honestly. Nobody stops him because of the charm." Mualani picked up a new plate and began rebuilding her selection with the focused energy of someone who had a system. "If he was annoying about it people would say something."
"If he was annoying about it he wouldn't have taken six."
"That's... actually fair." Mualani pointed at her briefly. "That's a good point."
Lumine picked up a drink from the end of the table and leaned against it, watching the room. The party had reached that particular hour where the energy had settled into something comfortable—less performance, more actual conversation. The music was still going but nobody was competing with it anymore. People had found their corners.
She was in the middle of saying something about the playlist—something about how the transition into the current song was actually well done, which she was not going to admit to Hu Tao directly—when she took a step back to let someone past and walked directly into a wall.
Except the wall made a sound.
"Watch where you're going."
She turned around.
Kunikuzushi stood there with his drink, looking at her with the expression he reserved specifically for minor inconveniences that he was going to treat as major ones. He'd stepped back just enough that nothing had spilled—on him, notably. Her sleeve, less fortunately, had caught the edge of his cup and was now slightly damp, which was deeply unfair given that she'd only just dried out from the rain.
She looked at her sleeve. She looked at him.
"You were standing directly behind me," she said.
"I was walking past you."
"Then you were walking directly behind me, which is—" she gestured at the general width of the room— "a choice, given the available space."
"The available space," he said, with the flat precision he used when he found something stupid, "is mostly occupied by the table you were leaning on."
"I was standing to the side of the table—"
"You were blocking the table."
"I was adjacent to the table, there's a difference—"
"The difference being that you were in the way either way."
Lumine looked at him for a moment. He looked back with the particular brand of composed irritation he carried like a accessory, like he'd decided to be annoyed and had committed to it as an aesthetic.
"You're welcome," she said, "for breaking your fall."
Something moved across his face—not quite a reaction, just the suggestion of one. "I didn't fall."
"You walked into me."
"You stepped back into me."
"Because someone was coming through—"
"Then you should have checked before stepping back."
"I shouldn't have to do a full survey of the room before taking one step at a snack table," she said, pleasantly. The pleasantness was doing a lot of work. "But I'll make a note for next time. Wouldn't want to inconvenience you again."
"I'd appreciate that," he said, with perfect sincerity that was completely devoid of sincerity.
"I'll add it to the list," she said. "Right below 'things that matter' and above 'not my problem.'"
He looked at her with an expression that was almost, almost something—some flicker of the sharpness he had when he was actually engaged with something rather than just dismissing it. It lasted about one second before he picked up his drink, turned, and walked away without another word. Which was, she'd learned over years of exactly this, his version of not having a comeback.
She turned back to the table.
Mualani was standing exactly where she'd been, plate in hand, having not moved a single inch. She had an expression on her face that could only be described as privately delighted—the look of someone watching something extremely interesting while maintaining complete plausible deniability about finding it interesting.
"What?" Lumine asked, squinting her eyes.
"Nothing," Mualani said immediately.
"You have a look on your face."
"I have my normal face."
"Your normal face doesn't look like that."
"Like what?" Mualani picked up a cracker with great focus. "I'm just standing here. I didn't say anything."
Lumine looked at her for a moment with the particular suspicion she reserved for people who were being too careful about something.
"Whatever you're thinking," she said, "don't."
"I'm not thinking anything."
"Mualani."
"I'm thinking about the snacks," Mualani said, with tremendous innocence, and held the plate out toward her. "Do you want one?"
Lumine took one. She did not look toward wherever Kunikuzushi had gone. She was very deliberate about it.
Mualani ate her cracker and said nothing, which was somehow louder than if she'd said something.
The thing was—and Lumine knew this, she was self-aware enough to know this— she and Kunikuzushi had a history that was mostly just mutual exasperation, and had always been mostly just mutual exasperation, with one brief window in their first year of high school where it had been something slightly less than that. Not warmer, exactly, just—less jagged. They'd been in the same lunch orbit for a few months, and the sarcasm had occasionally had some warmth underneath it, and she'd filed him under interesting in the way you filed things when you were fifteen and hadn't yet learned the difference between interesting and just sharp.
She'd figured out the difference eventually.
He was sharp. He was genuinely, specifically sharp, the kind of person who noticed things and had opinions about them that were usually accurate and always delivered like he hadn't considered that you might not want to hear them. And that was fine. That could even be good, in the right context, in the right amounts.
The right amounts being, apparently, not whatever amount they'd naturally arrive at when left in the same room.
She looked across the room, not looking for him, just looking.
She found him anyway. He'd positioned himself near the far wall with his drink, not quite alone, standing at the edge of a conversation with Heizou and someone else she couldn't see clearly. Heizou seemed to do most of the talking though, and Kunikuzushi just nodded along, sipping his drink.
She looked away.
What had seemed promising about that, she thought, for the hundredth time over the past two years, genuinely, actually trying to reconstruct it.
A jawline. Fine. Objectively, fine. Decent music taste, she'd give him that. And the sharpness, which she'd filed under interesting at fifteen and under exhausting at seventeen, which perhaps said something about fifteen-year-old Lumine's judgment that she'd rather not examine too closely.
"You know," Mualani started, in the very casual voice she used when she was about to say something she'd been holding for a while.
"No," Lumine said.
Mualani closed her mouth. Opened it again. "I was just going to say—"
"No, Mualani."
"You don't even know what I was going to say."
"I know exactly what you were going to say."
A pause. Mualani looked at the ceiling briefly. Then back at her plate. Then at Lumine with an expression of someone exercising genuine, effortful restraint.
"Fine," she said.
"Thank you."
"I just think—"
"Mualani."
"Okay," Mualani said, with the peace of someone who had decided to let a river run its course. "Okay. I'm not saying anything." She picked up another cracker. "I'm just observing."
"Observe quieter."
"I'm not even making noise—"
"You're making a face."
"This is just my face, Lumine—"
"It's a loud face." Lumine picked up her drink and turned back toward the sectional. "Come on. Navia was saying something."
Mualani followed, biting down on her cracker, looking extremely serene about everything.
She was going to bring it up again later. Lumine knew she was going to bring it up again later. She'd wait until the moment had technically passed and then she'd say something that was technically about something else but wasn't, and she'd have that look, and Lumine was going to have to shut it down again.
Some conversations, she thought, needed to stay permanently on the floor they'd been dropped on.
She walked back to the sectional and did not think about it further.
The next morning.
She knew before she opened her eyes.
There was that particular quality to it—not just tiredness, which was something you could negotiate with, which had soft edges—but the other thing. The thick, hostile feeling in her throat. The ache behind her eyes that sat too deep to be squinting into morning light. The specific arithmetic of her temperature, the faint wrongness of her own skin, the way the blanket felt both necessary and stifling.
Lumine lay very still on her back and stared at the ceiling and waited to be wrong about it.
She wasn't wrong about it.
She ran the numbers. The café was twenty minutes away. She could function for twenty minutes. She could function for longer, technically, people functioned while sick all the time, it was not a new phenomenon. She'd get there and she'd sit down and she'd have a coffee and by the time they got to the market she'd have warmed out of it.
She sat up carefully. Waited for the room to decide on a position. Got up and began getting dressed with the deliberateness of someone managing each step individually.
She made it all the way down the hall. She was three steps from the front door. She could see the entryway.
Aether came out of the kitchen with a mug of coffee and stopped.
He didn't say anything immediately. He just looked at her, the way he did when he was reading a situation—still and quiet and thorough—and she could see him arrive at his conclusion in real time.
She kept walking. "I'm going out."
"Lumine." Not loud. Not urgent. Just present.
"I'm fine."
"You have shadows under your eyes that were not there last night." He didn't move to physically stop her, just stood in her general path with the calm, immovable quality he got sometimes. "And you're wearing two different socks."
She looked down. She was wearing two different socks. One grey, one with a small pattern on it that she was pretty certain belonged to a pair she'd had in middle school.
She looked back up. "I was going to fix that."
"Come sit down," he said, in the tone he used when there was no actual argument available because he was simply right.
Her throat hurt. Her head ached specifically behind her left eye. The front door was right there and also going out of it suddenly seemed like a lot.
She turned around and went back to the couch.
Aether disappeared into the kitchen and came back with tea—the kind that smelled like ginger and something earthy, the kind she'd been drinking when she was sick since before she could remember, because he'd started making it for her when they were twelve and she'd had the flu and he'd run out of things to do. He set it into her hands and sat at the other end of the couch, and she felt rather than saw him lift her feet into his lap, easy and automatic, the move so practiced it didn't require discussion.
The tea was almost too hot. She held it anyway because the warmth through the ceramic was working on something.
"Who were you going out with?" he asked quietly.
"Navia and the girls." she replied, closing her eyes as he leaned her head on the back of the couch.
"I'll text her for you." he unlocked his phone, already looking for her number.
"You don't have to, I'll do it—"
"Already done. She said they're going to reschedule it." he cut her off, then looked at her, his worry apparant. "How do you feel?"
"I'm fine." she mumbled, then at the silence that followed, cracked an eye open. Aether was looking at her with an unamused expression. " My throat hurts. I've got a small headache."
"Rate the pain out of ten." he said, sounding unusually serious. Aether was the fun twin, the one that always seemed to have a stupid idea that never ended up working, and the one who teased her day and night. Hearing him so sincere was definitely a surprise.
"Five? Maybe six."
"Ah, okay. Wait here a second." he stood up, disappeared for a few moments and came back with several things in his arms.
"What's with all the stuff? I'm not dying, Aether, I have a cold." she said, as Aether placed the back of his hand on her forehead.
"You've got a fever, too." he sounded genuinely upset. Lumine would say he sounded like a kicked puppy. "Keep this here." he said, pressing a cold compress onto her forehead.
"What's with the sad face?" she asked, raising an eyebrow. She grimaced at the feeling of cold water running down her face.
"This is all my fault. If we hadn't missed the bus..." he trailed off, looking away guilty. "I'm sorry, Lumi."
"Stop it." Lumine said, before he could finish spiraling into whatever guilt trip he was currently constructing for himself.
He looked at her.
"It was raining anyway," she said, shifting the compress slightly so the cold water stopped running directly into her eyebrow. "We would've gotten wet at some point regardless. The bus stop isn't exactly covered."
"That's not the point—"
"The point," she said, "is that you feel personally responsible for a cold I may have gotten from the rain, while ignoring the fact that the rain didn't care whether we were on the bus or not." She paused."The bus stop has a leaky roof, Aether. I've seen it. I've stood under it before and gotten wet anyway."
"You don't know that that's why—"
"I also don't know that it isn't."
He gave her a look. The look he got when she was being logical in a direction he didn't want to follow.
"You can feel a small amount of bad," she said, settling back into the cushion. "I'll allow that. Medium-small. Like a three out of ten of bad. But you're sitting there making a face like you personally called the clouds and scheduled the rain for last night, and that's excessive."
"A three out of ten," he repeated.
"Which is generous, because frankly I was going to suggest two."
The corner of his mouth moved. Just slightly. He was trying not to let it, she could tell, because he was still processing the guilt and didn't feel like he'd earned the smile yet, which was so deeply, specifically Aether that she almost felt fond about it.
"You're being nice to me," he said, with mild suspicion.
"I'm being accurate," she corrected. "There's a difference. Don't get used to it, I have a fever and my standards are temporarily lowered."
He did smile then, quietly, the way he did when something landed and he didn't want to make a big thing of it. He reached over and adjusted the compress so it sat better on her forehead, careful about it, and she let him because it did feel better when it wasn't dripping.
"How's your head?"
"It's okay."
"I'll give you some painkillers right after you eat." he said, standing up, presumably to make breakfast.
"Okay." she mumbled, "And Aether?"
"Mm?" he said, looking back at her.
"Thank you." she said, quietly, looking away when he smiled brightly.
...
Meanwhile, in 'les magnifiques' (Furina named it)
surfergirl: okay but we're doing the FULL brunch menu when you're back and you're not allowed to order light because you're sick that's not how recovery works. And also you owe me a trip to the beach.
therealfurina: are you dying or just regular sick because the distinction matters for how dramatic I should be about this
frenchmafia: I'm making you soup next time I see you, non-negotiable, feel better 💛
clorinde2: Get well soon.
niloulovesflowers: I looked up the best teas for a sore throat, I'll send the list, feel better soon 🌸
doiknowyou: I hope you'll be okay. Lyney says get better soon.