Chapter Text
As the now familiar tattoo parlor came into view in the fading late afternoon light, JB grinned to herself as her steps sped up slightly in excitement. Ignoring the closed sign, she practically burst right in, the bell chiming behind her. The tall man inside didn’t turn away from his current task of sweeping the floor, only sighed in acknowledgement of her presence.
“Helloooo, my favorite tattoo artist~” she went right up to him and waved in his face, “Your wonderful girlfriend is here.”
“You only know one,” he rolled his eyes as he continued to tidy up the place for the day, “And, I don’t care that you’re here.”
“Uh-huh,” JB just shook her head with a smirk, “Well, Panda, I’m sure you’ll appreciate this free podcast. I shall graciously allow you to talk shit about my co-workers with my beautiful self.”
Pran snorted at that but gave no other indication of his assent.
Hoisting herself up onto one of the counters, she began rambling about her day at the radio station she worked at, embellishing here and there for humor. There was such a weird caller, and her co-announcer was such a dork, and so on and so forth. Pran was used to the noise at this point, it was almost comforting — like when he was a kid and left the TV on to sleep so that he’d feel less alone in the empty home.
Eventually, JB ran out of her day to recount, but today was the day of the week that Pran did the accounting for his shop. Since he learned it from oh-so-meticulous Jeremy, it always took a while. Snooping around to entertain herself, she slipped off from the counter and dug around the drawers of his desk. With a triumphant gleam in her eyes, she fished out a stack of mail he had stashed to read later.
“Bills, boring, boring, why are you even subscribed to that?” she sifted through the envelopes quickly as he paid her usual meddling no mind.
After a while of silence, he glanced back to find her blinking at a cream envelope with an elegant gold-and-auburn wax seal. Walking over to her, he glanced over her shoulder to see that the sender was “Baxter Ward & Co., Weddings by B&W” and that the sender address was listed as their satellite office in Golden Grove, Oregon.
“Dude, who the hell’s making the mistake of inviting you to a wedding?” JB sprang back up as chipper as ever and turned to him with an incredulous excitement, “And in my boring-ass hometown?! Open it, open it!”
JB couldn't imagine how she'd managed to miss out on an invitation. She was practically Golden Grove's greatest export! But right now she was more curious than offended.
Pran stood obstinately still for a few seconds before giving in and ripping the envelope open. JB, despite being rather tall for a girl, stood on her tiptoes to read it at the same time as Pran.
Being JB, she decided to dramatically voice the letter as she read, “Pran Griffan Intan Taylor, you and a plus one of your choosing are warmly invited to the wedding of Franky Second with Tamarack Baumann and—”
“Oh,” she cut herself off.
Then, suddenly, she burst out laughing. Pran simply looked at her with a raised eyebrow and his usual judgmental expression. She shook her head as her laughter died down.
“That explains exactly why I wasn’t invited. How do you even know these guys, Panda?”
He shrugged, “That Qiu thought we were friends when we were kids.”
“Well, were you?” she tilted her head slightly.
“No.”
“Let me guess, they just talked at you and you ignored them,” she grinned, “And it didn’t bother them one bit.”
“Yep.”
She laughed again at the coincidence of it all, “Man, that sounds exactly like Choo-Choo train before they got all emo.”
He stared at her with a look that might have been mistaken as concerned if it had been far less judgmental. As it stood, he seemed like he had eaten something bad yet was wondering if she was sick. JB laughed a bit more, at his expression this time, before she could breathe enough to explain herself.
“Qiu’s my ex,” she explained simply, as she snatched the letter to read more of the details, “Damnnn, respect though. I didn’t even know you could marry two people in the same wedding. I guess Franky started dating Qiu too after Tammy?”
“...Huh.”
It was Pran’s turn to blink at her in confusion. For some reason, despite how flirty she was and how she had gone on a date with every jerksquad guy… It occurred to Pran, rather belatedly, that JB had existed before Saint Sara Belle. And dated before it, apparently.
“I just dropped lore and that’s all you have to say?” JB laughed before shaking her head, “Well anyway, are you done closing up yet?”
“No,” he replied, remembering he got a new shipment of inks and suddenly deciding he needed to catalogue and organize them right now.
JB groaned but sat herself back down — on the swivel chair behind his desk this time — as he began his next task. Spinning around slowly, she propped her elbow onto her lap and leaned to rest her chin on her hand as she watched him.
After a while of silence, she complained, “This is boring.”
“Entertain yourself,” Pran shrugged as he sorted through the bottles, “...bring back my white noise.”
Her eyebrows raised at this. She knew exactly what that tone meant. Pran had gotten bored of hearing about radio callers. He wanted something juicy while pretending he absolutely did not.
“You could’ve just asked to hear about the exclusive deets of my messy past lovelife, babe,” she snickered.
“No,” was all Pran said.
“Fine,” JB said as she spun once more in his chair, “Since you asked so nicely.”
“I didn’t,” he frowned.
She leaned back with her typical shit-eating grin, “Picture the most boring town in all of Oregon.”
“Now imagine the most popular kid in it suddenly deciding they hated everyone. Well — almost everyone.”
—
Golden Grove was the sort of town where even mildly interesting things only happened every so often. Unfortunately, today’s thing was summer break ending. As JB walked with the flow of familiar faces into Riverview Peak for another year, she sighed just loud enough for her sisters to hear.
“Bored already, sis?” her middle sister asked without looking up from her occult magazine.
“Duh,” she said plainly as she waved at a couple of mutual friends of theirs.
“How has your summer break been, girls?” a girl in the grade below theirs sauntered up with intimidatingly perfect posture and an outfit that looked more suited for a job interview than the first day of ninth grade.
Instinctively, JB’s youngest sister hid behind her. She had never fully gotten over her fear of Vianca. But that was alright, JB had enough extrovertedness for all three of them.
“Vivi! It’s been great. We got to travel outside this boring old town for a couple weeks,” JB grinned.
“That’s wonderful,” Vianca replied with a lovely yet controlled smile before her eyes were drawn to a cluster of students surrounding a taller kid.
JB squinted to pick out individual faces in the noisy crowd. Off slightly to the side and more visible seemed to be Franky and Tamarack, two kids from the cul-de-sac further up the road where JB and her sisters lived. Vaguely, JB remembered how they had always been attached at the hip and gone to school together using their scooters. She wasn’t exactly often punctual to class, so she sometimes saw them riding past her house in the morning. Of course, there was usually a blur of dark brown hair speeding up in front of them on a bike.
As Vianca went to socialize with the girls in that crowd, JB finally spotted the third member of the cul-de-sac trio dead in the center of the small crowd. Their hair was slightly longer now, and they wore the cutest earrings and choker, but the change that JB noticed more was the thinly veiled tiredness in their eyes and languid smile. Huh. That was new, wasn't it?
“Earth to JB?” her middle sister tugged at her sleeve, “We gotta check if we’re in the same homeroom.”
“Uh-huh,” she said, an odd curiosity in her voice, “Is it just me or Autumn Lin’s been replaced with an alien?”
Her sister snorted at that, “Maybe a changeling.”
The youngest spoke up softly as JB continued to observe Qiu, now noticing how quickly their smile disappeared when no one was looking directly at them, “That constant attention must be scary…”
“Autumn, scared? Probably just grumpy and moody,” the middle triplet shook her head, remembering how easy it had been to make Qiu believe her supernatural stories as a kid but how they had never been spooked about them.
“Well, that’s just what happens when you first enter high school,” a friend of theirs joined in, “Probably going through an emo phase. Everyone still loves the kid and won’t let them alone, though. It’s kinda funny.”
“Fascinating,” JB had grinned dangerously, and her sisters exchanged concerned glances as the bell rang.
—
JB wouldn’t remember about her fascination until a good two weeks later. She had her own life, social circle, and new school year to settle into. However boring and shared with her sisters it always was. She sat at the cafeteria today in silent observation. Passively, she noted that Franky was sitting with Qiu today. Though she wasn’t actively observing before, she realized Franky usually alternated between sitting with Qiu or sitting with Tamarack and a girl from the middle school section with green hair, but they never seemed to sit with both Qiu and Tamarack at the same time. Curious.
JB hadn’t approached Qiu, they were friends as kids, sure, but they were just passing acquaintances now. Their old group had just sort of drifted apart after Alicia had gone to that boarding school in SoCal and Qiu started that “boy’s club” or whatever with that older boy and Ren. By the time Franky and Tamarack arrived in town, she and her sisters weren’t really classified as Qiu’s close friends anymore. It was normal.
Watching in much the same way she had seen Alicia do during their childhood, JB could have sworn she saw Qiu glancing to the side every now and then. Trying to follow their line of sight, she saw Ren sitting alone at a far-off table as he ate. She looked back to see that Qiu’s eyes lingered slightly before Franky said something that caused Qiu to look back at them. Just for a moment, they seemed to hesitate before giving Franky a reassuring smile.
“Dude, I can see why people-watching is a hobby even though it’s totally creepy,” JB mused to her middle sister as she turned her attention back to the large shared lunchbox their mom had packed for them, “Makes it easier to meddle later.”
“Please don’t,” her youngest sister squeaked.
“There’s no stopping her from fulfilling her fate,” the middle triplet shook her head sagely.
“Exactly,” JB waved her spoon as she changed the subject, “So, what did you two choose again for the required electives this year?”
Her middle sister snorted, “You have the memory of a goldfish. I got Outdoor Excursions and Photography. Hopefully I get some good pics of UFOs or fairy rings.”
“...Yearbook and Photography too,” the youngest replied.
“Ah, yeah those are good choices. You’ll have her with you for Photography and I’ll be with you for Yearbook. I got Intro to Business for my other elective,” JB nodded.
“We know, because we remember stuff about our sisters,” the occult-obsessed girl rolled her eyes.
“...Autumn’s in Intro to Business too,” her shy sister surprisingly supplied, but left the fact to speak for itself.
JB pouted, “And I chose that elective for better reasons than that. One of us has to take over the family restaurant at some point. I’m already the best at cooking, so might as well.”
“We didn’t say otherwise, but it sure is a good thing you didn’t take it already last year,” her middle sister mimicked JB’s usual fake-innocent grin.
JB just groaned at that, “Making money’s gonna be hella fun and you two are gonna be jealous of my awesome and reasonably justified choices by the end of the year.”
Her two sisters didn’t argue further, just smiled quietly at each other.
—
Qiu didn’t look up when she entered the Intro to Business classroom for their first meeting. They were staring out the window at the late afternoon sky and the trees just beyond the school gates. At least, they were until JB pulled up the chair in front of them.
“Oh. Hi,” they greeted her lazily but still in a pleasant enough manner.
“Hi Choo-Choo,” she flashed a grin.
Qiu rolled their eyes lightly as a smirk played on their lips, “It’s been a while, Jellybean.”
JB blinked. It had been a while since anybody had called her by that full childhood nickname. She had almost forgotten that that was what JB stood for.
“Huh, you remember that,” she said as she sat down in her chair sideways to be able to look back at them, her chin resting on her arm propped on top of the backrest.
Qiu lifted their head, confused, “Why wouldn’t I? I only forget my things.”
JB thought for a beat before shrugging, “Fair. Anyway, guess Intro to Business is what all the cool kids chose?”
“Not really,” they frowned, looking away.
“That’s fucking perfect, then,” JB laughed, not noticing the look of mild surprise Qiu wore as they looked back at her.
—
As soon as class ended, JB headed to the bike racks to unchain her sparkly green bike. She noted that her sisters’ weren’t there, the exact same models as her own but in purple and yellow instead. It was only then that she checked her group chat with them and found out that those in the Photography elective had to scatter around town looking for suitable subjects for an assignment.
With a shrug, she pocketed her phone and hopped onto her bike. They’d probably be back home a bit later than her. As she began pedaling away from Riverview Peak, she first thought about how convenient it was that all three sisters had their own phone now. They used to share one back in elementary and middle school, since, for better or worse, they always had the same homeroom classes. By high school they started being split into different electives so it was a justified demand to their parents. Not that it made much difference to JB, since she usually kept the shared phone as the eldest and by far most sociable triplet back then.
Then, as was getting increasingly usual, her thoughts turned towards a certain Qiu Lin. Not the business class earlier as a whole. Just Qiu Lin during it.
Whenever someone walked up to Qiu, they seemed determined to drag them back into whatever conversation they'd already decided Qiu wanted to have. They laughed before Qiu did, finished stories Qiu never started, and acted like nothing had changed since elementary school. Meanwhile Qiu kept smiling with all the enthusiasm of someone waiting in line at the DMV. It was almost impressive.
“They’re just too interesting and hot to be left an unanswered question,” she smiled at no one in particular, sealing her meddling fate.
JB never could stop sticking her nose in other people’s business. It was her favorite hobby and she was never shy of declaring it so. But there was a time in her life that it had been too uncontrollable and ended up hurting others, and this was the start of that time.