Chapter Text
"there's nothing to play on this damn radio!" brynne screeched from the shotgun seat of the minivan. specifically, the minivan aiden had rented in seattle to take the band from the seattle-tacoma international airport to the garage where their tour bus was supposedly waiting.
aiden was driving, brynne had named herself passenger princess, the twins were dozing off in the back, and aru was pushed to the window by mini and rudy in the middle seats. definitely comfortable.
aru sat up and leaned over brynne's seat to watch as her friend scrolled through the available radio stations. she didn't have to waste her time summarizing—none of them were suitable.
aiden groaned, a strand of his curly hair falling into his face. how could he look so perfectly normal at this time? aru was sure she currently resembled a character from monsters inc, and the thought bugged her until aiden spoke up again. "bee, just play something! it's too quiet in here. rudy, are you sure this is the place?"
rudy flopped against his window. "for the millionth time, yes, cousin dearest! they said they'd let us know when the bus was ready to go."
mini poked him gently, as she was sitting in the middle seat between rudy and aru. "you could have gotten the place wrong, you know?"
rudy gasped dramatically at her. "i didn't think you were one to doubt me, mini." mini rolled her eyes behind her purple-framed glasses.
"okay, fine, i checked again, and apparently, this is the place," aiden started. "but shouldn't there be a deadline for when they finish cleaning it up?"
their band leader shrugged. "i don't know. i didn't ask."
aru resisted the urge to yell at rudy. it was 3 am and they were the only car in a parking lot across the country from their homes. booking a hotel was pointless when the bus might be ready any minute, and they could just crash in there. but it also meant staking their sanity on the belief that it would be ready soon. "brynne. i will give you kitkats everyday for the rest of your life."
brynne leered at her. "fine. but don't blame me if you don't like the selection." aru's friend scrolled back up and tapped on a seemingly-random station. when it began to play, the group collectively sighed.
"god rock? that's all there was?" aiden questioned as he scrolled through the radio stations like a madman. "i guess…it's the best we've got."
"i'm redownloading spotify as soon as we get access to wi-fi," aru said, glaring at mini. her 200-day-long streak of listening to the lord of the rings soundtrack was already broken, unfortunately.
mini frowned. "deleting spotify was for your own good. this tour is about us—no need to have competition waiting for us everytime we log onto our phones."
"fine, fine," aru responded, knowing that mini wasn't convinced. "but can we at least do something?"
the five of them stared at each other, until mini tugged at the zipper of the backpack at her feet. "wait, i think i have something."
aru's jaw dropped open. "mini! you had entertainment this whole time?"
mini shrugged, her expression sheepish as she pulled out a stack of index cards. "around a tenth of americans suffer from short-term memory loss, you know?"
"when was the last time you forgot something?" brynne challenged with a pout.
aru watched as her friend ignored the question and shuffled the cards. "i had anticipated that we'd be stuck without internet at least once during the trip, so i made my own game of heads-up. custom to us," mini added.
rudy impatiently plucked a card from the top of the pile, and held it up to his forehead. his word was potatoes. "c'mon, let's play!" as far as aru could remember, rudy had only played this game once before, and failed miserably. desperate times called for very desperate measures, she guessed.
aru opened her mouth to start, but mini held up her hand. "we go around in a circle with each person giving the guesser one clue. whoever can guess their word with the least amount of clues wins. i'll start. nickname."
rudy's mouth was shaped like an o, and aru stiffled a giggle. "aru, please make this easier," he said.
she grinned. "my clue is us."
rudy threw his hands up helplessly. "thanks for the help!"
brynne shrugged. "it makes sense. my clue is mashed."
"nickname. us. mashed. our nickname? rudy rocks?" aiden shook his head in response.
"mashed…like potatoes?" rudy continued. "wait, potatoes! i got it!" he whooped, putting his hands up in the air and wincing when they hit the ceiling of the van at an uncomfortable angle.
"okay, okay, me next!" aru exclaimed, stealing the attention away from their suffering leader. "three clues. i can beat that, can't i?"
"let's see," mini responded, handing aru a card face-down. aru grabbed it and held it in the air above her head.
upon seeing the word, aiden blinked rapidly, pressing his mouth into a frown. brynne made eye contact with mini. aru tried to decipher their expressions, but all she could tell was that this word had rudy confused.
"i thought these were custom to—" rudy started before mini shushed him. "okay, i'll play along. my clue is science."
"science? what do we have to do with science?"
"that's what i'm asking."
mini waved him off. "my clue is heart," she said, glancing at aiden. the heart was his symbol in the band, though why that was important, aru couldn't tell.
"science. heart. science. heart." she looked at brynne, deflated. "fine. third clue?"
aru knew that brynne's strength had never been subtlety. "my clue is aiden." aiden's eyes widened, and brynne challenged him with an innocent "what?"
aiden shook his head. "my clue is mendeleev."
aru stared at him in horror. "you guys are messing with me. who is that?"
"you don't know who mendeleev is? how did you graduate high school?" aiden questioned in a way that almost seemed genuine. aru looked to mini for help, who just smiled to herself.
rudy helpfully added, "i don't know who that is either."
"you're different," aiden responded, before turning his gaze back to aru. "and you're really bad at this game." his words were harsh, but aru caught the way aiden's eyes softened, and how the corners of his mouth seemed to turn up.
she hoped her face wasn't turning red. "you just named some obscure russian person and expected me to know 'em. snob."
his smile grew slightly bigger. "troll—" he said in their usual way, before brynne cut in: "let's go for another round."
rudy's next clue was AP. mini's was romantic. brynne's was flirt. before aiden could add onto aru's growing embarrassment, she blurted out: "it's almost dawn; my brain hurts. just tell me the word already."
aiden looked down at his phone distractedly, but aru wondered if he was simply avoiding eye contact. "the word was chemistry," he told her.
"oh!" aru nodded eagerly, trying to remember all of the clues she was given—until she recalled brynne's first one. "why was aiden a clue? brynne?"
she nudged her friend's shoulder, hoping this wasn't going where she thought it was.
brynne's expression was impassive. "aiden used to help all of us with our chem homework, remember?" aru did remember, now that she was prompted. aiden guiding their study sessions when they were all stumped on the same assignment. but it wasn't necessarily memorable.
"okay," aru agreed hesitantly. maybe she was just going crazy. "whose turn is it next?"
brynne claimed the role of the guesser, and the game went on. as they played, aru kept sneaking glances at aiden. his eyes were practically glued to his phone, having said that he was waiting for an update on the tour bus. but when aru finally caught his eye, his entire face seemed to turn red under the car's dim lights.
as if cued, his phone pinged, and the five of them fell into silence as they waited for him to read aloud the update. aiden's expression morphed back to normal, and aru wondered if she was just imagining things. it was almost dawn, after all.