Akin to all visitors, Rain too arrived with its baggage of clouds and chilly winds. Hawkers at the Square had their qulits and caps on while they sat monitoring their goods, slightly shivering in the open area. Whilst housewives stayed in, students and working folks were compelled to leave the warmth of their homes and trod outside.
Though chilly, the wind greeted each person with equal briskness. A cold slap in greeting and unconsented wind molestation was in lieu for Nadia and Bernie as they made their way to the Square.
Mr. Henry's corner shop was opened up and two young kids were sitting in his chair, wrapped in one blanket, leaving no air pockets, and deeply focused on game in their hands. They did not look uo as Nadia entered and beelined towards the packets of instant coffee.
"Your mum wouldn't like that," Bernie stated, eyeing the line of coffee packets Nadia got for herself.
"She wouldn't mind it either, it's cold, she'll understand. Should I make one for you?" Nadia asked, shuffling around the store to find empty cups and a bottle of milk.
"Yes please," Bernie grinned as he walked to the perishable goods refrigerator and shivered while taking out a cold bottle of milk. He juggled it in his hands, mumbling cold cold cold while he walked to the front of the shop.
"Oh, thank you," Nadia saw the bottle of milk and grabbed it, instantly cursing, she jolted her hand away.
The bottle accepted its fate, propelling into downward descent but before it could trash against the ground — a hand grabbed it.
"Seriously, what would you do without me?" Ryker scoffed as he held up the bottle of milk and shoved it in Nadia and Bernie's scared faces.
"Oh my, I almost thought we lost it," Nadia said, clutching her chest. "Coffee?" She asked Ryker as she walked further into the shop.
"Yes please," Ryker replied and slung an arm around Bernie's shoulders. "Where are your phones? I texted you both last night."
Nadia opened three packets of instant coffee and poured it in three cups.
"Mine's in my bag, what happened?" Bernie asked as he looked at Ryker. In return, Ryker stared back.
The bags under their eyes were a dead giveaway of their sleepless nights. They merely nodded at eachother and looked away.
"I was at Nadia's, we watched Harry Potter," Bernie informed.
Nadia opened the bottle of milk with a can opener and poured it in the three cups.
"Oh," Ryker merely uttered, staring at Nadia's busy figure. "Did you have fun?"
Bernie shrugged as Nadia placed one cup in the microwave and waited, staring dead straight into the light.
"Will you do track today?" Bernie asked, eyeing the kids busy with their game.
"Morning practice was cancelled, will do the afternoon though. Will you guys do the club thing today?"
"Yeah, after school."
Nadia appeared in front of them with two coffee cups. "Here you go, Your Highnesses," she curtsied and offered the cups, grinning.
"Why thank you, my Lady," Bernie curtsied back and took the cup. Ryker picked it with no charm but Nadia did not pay attention to it.
Instead, she whined about, "No! It's supposed to be a maid's work! you are princes and you like a maid's coffee so much— scandalous! you decide to make the maid your one and only but the father does not agree?! you run away with the maid!"
The microwave dinged.
"—ah, be right back," Nadia skipped back to the microwave.
"There she goes abandoning her lover," Bernie sighed dramatically, kneeling on one knee with a hand extended out in longing.
"Get a life, dude," Ryker thrashed Bernie's head and grabbed him by the collar to stand up.
"Oh I see, YOU'RE THE KING!" Bernie gasped and stepped back, hand on his mouth and eyes widened with horror. As Nadia reached them, he looked at her with the same scandalised expression and exclaimed, "He's against our love!"
"Why now, Your Royal Highness, you cannot break up true love! If we do not succeed in running away, we will die on this ledge and your walls will forever be stained with our blood!" Nadia exclaimed back, dramatically gesticulating.
Ryker rolled his eyes and walked away. Bernie and Nadia followed, narrating the plot tangent where the King agrees to let the two lovers run away as long as they never come back to the kingdom again. Ryker took out his wallet and placed the cash on the counter. One of the children grabbed the cash and slid it into their father's money box.
Ryker picked up the pen and register on the cash counter and made an entry for the coffees, cups and milk, all the while Nadia and Bernie made slow progress of running out of the kingdom. Ryker looked up from the register and found the kids staring at the dramatic duo.
He shook his head and walked out in shame.
"You both are such a nusiance to associate in public," Ryker grumbled as he sipped on his coffee.
"You love us anyways," Nadia grinned and ran back to his side. She locked his left arm with hers and Bernie locked his right arm with his.
"I know, right? Maybe I'm the mad lad," Ryker scoffed as he walked with two burdens hanging off each of his hands, making slurping coffee noises in his ears.
Though the walk ahead was long and the slurps were annoying, the wind was cold and Nadia's blowing hair were itching his neck — Rykers lips were turned up into a smile. His eyes were crinkled and all weights were washed down by a cup of instant coffee and his friends by his side.
At the front gate of the school, Marilyn stood with her bag in her hands, waiting patiently. Her stance was akin to a mannequin and if not for the ocassional movement of her eyeballs, one would think she was a cardboard cut out owing to her beautiful features.
"Marieeeeeeee!" Nadia squealed as she left Ryker's side and run up to Marilyn.
"Nadieeeeee!" Marilyn squealed and ran towards Marilyn.
They met mid away and flung into a hug, jumping around in a circle.
"Didn't they meet yesterday?" Ryker scoffed as he stared at the jumping girl, nostrils flared with exasperation.
"I am sure they did..." Bernie dragged.
The rest of the day was spent as Ryker and Bernie following Nadia and Marilyn around until Ryker left for practice and it was Bernie staring at Nadia's back again.
He did not like it, one bit, as Nadia discussed the club application process and the hows-and-whats of making campaign posters with Marilyn. Their closeness would make one believe that their shoulders were stuck together, unmoving as they pranced around in eerie synchronisation.
And though Bernie thought the attachment would end at the school gates afterschool, oh boy was he wrong, he thought, as he sat in front of a computer in a cyber cafe and tried to make sense of the moving figures before him.
"What even is this game?! I keep dying!" Bernie snapped. His complaint landed on deaf ears as Nadia stood behind Marilyn's chair, one hand over Marilyn's left shoulder and the right hand over her mouse. She was bent down and her face was beside Marilyn's as she carefully guided Marilyn through the game.
"Wah," Ryker scoffed as he perched his chin on Bernie's shoulder and witnessed the scene before him. "You know what?" Ryker said as he stood up and recreated Nadia's position with Bernie, "Let senpai teach you," he snorted as he whispered in Bernie's ear.
Bernie jolted up, crashed his head in Ryker's chin and swore out loud in between of laughter. "N-no-not fucking SENPAI," Bernie managed to cough in between laughs.
Ryker held onto his chin as well as his stomach, tears welled up in his eyes but the mental image of groping Bernie's hand was too hilarious.
Nadia stared up at them, wondering what she missed.
"Do you know what happened?"
"I don't," Marilyn shrugged, "Maybe they're laughing over losing too much?"
Nadia scoffed and nodded, "Must be," she said with a grin and continued teaching the game controls.
"Are you okay? Did you bite your tongue? Does it hurt?" Bernie asked, feet still filtering as bursts of laughter made him sway like a drunken man.
"Yamete yamete, mo yamete, senpai," Ryker said in a nasally voice, earing a cackle from Bernie. They descended to the ground, rolling as Ryker repeatedly hit Bernie's arm with exasperation.
"Excuse me? Please do not disrupt the peace of the cafe. Leave if you must laugh so much," an employer scolded them.
Bernie and Ryker pursed their lips, eyes blown wide as they tried to contain their laughter.
"Guys, what are you doing here?! I don't want to be banned from the only cyber cafe in town!!" Nadia whispered, a frown etched on her face.
The hard coldness in her demeanor made Ryker and Bernie stop instantly.
"Our apologies," they bowed in sync.
"Yes please, I like playing games with other," Nadia smiled at them and walked back to her seat. "Marilyn's got a hang of it, let's start now," she said.
"But I didn't —!" Bernie whined but took a seat, nonetheless.
Game after game, Nadia would sweep the floor off enemies and win the MVP as well as the match. In the virtual battlefield, she was indomitable.
"How are you so good at it?!" Marilyn asked, eyes wide as she stared at their score difference.
"I used to play a lot of games with my papa, he loved computers and games and movies," Nadia reminicised, smiling.
Ryker's brow arched up. This was the second time Nadia had mentioned her father, ever.
"Oh?" Marilyn uttered, "What do you remember of him? What's he like?" She asked. Her hands squirmed in her lap and her chest heaved in a dead giveaway of her nervousness.
"Hmmm, he was good, I guess," Nadia smiled, "We played games a lot, fought a lot, he bullied me so much to make me stronger. I don't know, I really hated it that time because he never told me that he was trying to make me stronger," Nadia grimaced.
Though she was young, her father's face was disappearing from her memory. Day by day, the figure in her head grew more distorted — changing shirts, switching colours, wearing newer trends. It was always different, yet, her heart understood the presence as her father.
It was the same father she would sit with on the carpet in front of the television while he narrated random trivia about the actors on the screen or the plot or the making of the scene. The father by whose side she sat on a chair, playing PC games and screaming over every small win. The father who would scream at her mother while she screamed back.
"What is that dumb civil defence going to give us?! I work all day, earn and do all chores around the house! What do you bring to the table?! I fu— hate it in here."
"Where else will you go you bitch?! You're stuck with me so fucking sit down and whatever the fuck your motherfucking boss wants your ass for and stop fucking minding my fucking business. If you don't want to make food then fucking don't, I'll just bite my tongue and fucking die right here."
"I'm glad you had a good time with him," Marilyn smiled and patted Nadia's back.
The ravenette nodded. As memories fade, we desperately cling onto the happy ones. The ones which made the journey worth it. As people leave, the most people remember about them are the good things they left behind. The bad often diminishes, becomes hazy and blurs the line with the good. Then, what remains is grey.
The grey eventually depreciates into white.
Ryker frowned, eyes staring at Marilyn patting Nadia's back. In the one day they had met, did Nadia let her know about her father's death? Why was Marilyn talking in the past tense? Well, it would make sense. She did mention her father on the day they first met.
He glanced at Bernie and his comically widened eyes revealed that he was not privy to the information.
"Well, whatever, let's keep playing!" Nadia exclaimed and clicked on 'Re-start.'
That night, as Nadia laid in her bed, sleep did not greet her. Instead, there was an odd nervousness in her chest that compelled her to wake up and get to writing.
Dearest Arabella,
Have you ever lost someone close to you? What did you do then? I don't really think about my father a lot but when I do, I feel sad about it. There were too many things I feel. Maybe one day I can name all of them. For now, it is hatred, regret, love, longing — makes sense? I don't really understand.
I cannot talk to mumma about it or Bernie or Ryker or Marilyn, I don't know. I am embarassed. I probably wouldn't be able to talk to you about it as well if I wasn't sure that this letter would always remain unread.
This is nice. I hope you never lose anyone close to you, though I know it's a stretch. All people come and go, like fireworks. Some leave a brilliant legacy, some are too loud, some end up on the wrong path, some endanger others, some just don't burn, some burn out too easily but they're all supposed to give happiness. Though most fail. I don't like fireworks, Arabella. Do you?
I wish I would have recorded your performance that night. You're a firework who would leave a brilliant legacy. I wish you the best.
Most persistent,
Nadia Paisely.
Nadia heaved a sigh and folded the page. She took out an envelope from her desk drawer and shoved the letter inside. She placed the envelope in between a book and jumped back on her bed.
The new question that plagued her mind was: 'what do I cook for tomorrow?'