Because they were in student council now, they were leaving school later than they usually would, so Sisi could walk home with them.
However, instead of Mirabelle’s usual presence, her spot today was temporarily replaced with Alice. Though her role was different, she nonetheless made quick friends with the rest of the Jupiter sisters. Interestingly, Alice was already well-acquainted with Bianca, to the surprise of the Elites.
“Eh, I didn’t know Mira was like that at home.”
“Yes, she’s kind of like Teto in that sense, but she’s just more of a diva in general than anything else.”
“I can see that. Mira likes to have things done her way.”
“As the lesser twin, I see it all the time.”
Their group passed through the playground that they held so dear, and at the same time climbing onto the structures as they walked by.
“The slides.”
“The monkey bars.”
“The jungle gym.”
“The swings.”
Four boys stood atop their respective playground equipment, complete with exaggerating hero poses.
“Y’all wished this was a photoshoot. Too bad you guys aren’t male models.”
The other girls giggled at Bianca’s accusation. The boys were impenitent.
Past the fence beyond the playground, the two groups waved each other goodbye. Last year, the number of people on the suburbs’ path outnumbered the city’s, but now the pilgrims on the city’s path increased almost twofold, including Alice.
The diminished gang waved Eon farewell when they arrived at his apartment, not too far from where the Eternian children lived. They continued along the main road, slipped between a narrow alleyway between two shops and onto a smaller road behind them, where their apartment building was. They were home.
Arriving at the door to their doubled-up flat, they bustled through the opening hurriedly and tumbled into their side of the flat. Evie and Teto landed on the couch and flipped on their radio set, letting the radio station’s music sound through their apartment.
“Wow. This scene is terrible.”
Alice commented on the state of their side’s living room. It was quite messy, as usual.
“It’s not my fault.”
Both Yui and Kato raised their hands, distancing themselves from the chaos. Kato was one of the minor perpetrators, though.
“I’ll get to cleaning up, okay?”
Yui smiled elegantly as she pointed to the mess in front of her. The two nodded and Yui left them to take care of the two other sisters and the clusters of clothes and belongings scattered across the room.
“If this mess happened in my home, I would be so angry. You wouldn’t want to see it.”
“You’re a stickler for tidiness?”
“You bet. Still, this place is nicer than I expected.”
Kato took her schoolbag and hung it with his own on the new coat rack that Yui insisted on buying as to try and fix the stormy situation in their flat.
“What do you mean by that? Did you expect us to live in an actual dump?”
“No. But then again, feeding three kids from the wild takes a lot of effort. Yui doesn’t count since she’s been here for only a week.”
“Of course. It’s a shame you couldn’t meet Karl. He singlehandedly raised three problem children from the start of grade school ‘til last week.”
“He must be a really patient and talented person then, to have raised the three of you.”
“Truly, a one of a kind.”
On the carpeted floor was a large enough coffee table for Teto to slip her legs under and sit on the carpet at it as if it was a real desk. Evie following suit, they took out their homework for the day and began working on it furiously.
“And those two are surprisingly enthusiastic about doing work.”
“Teto I understand, but Evie is a surprise, yes.”
“What about your homework?”
“Mine is whatever. What about yours?”
They locked eyes, but Alice did not back down this time.
“My work is easy to finish.”
“Good at school, eh?”
They looked to the two sisters who were already scratching their heads in frustration, mere moments into starting their assignments.
“On the other hand, they need to get started because they’re not the studious type.”
Kato shrugged while Alice giggled at the struggling duo. Teto continued to pull at her hair, and Evie turned to the two better students, giving them a tired expression that told them she was already utterly defeated.
“Give them a break. Not everyone’s born with talent for studying.”
Yui consoled the deific sisters as she paused to give direction on their homework. In only a span of a week, she became a splendid elder sister to every one of them.
As Old Yue music played in the background from the big metallic box that was the radio, Alice turned to the window behind her. It was large and spanned the length of the living room of the flat, overlooking the pedestrian road, shops and the main road they came from earlier. Lying atop the plastic screen covering the bottom of the protruding metallic cage that secured the wide window was their altar.
“What kind of an altar is this? And these spirit labels?”
“Ah, these are our spirit names. Our master gave these labels to us after we completed our training under him.”
“All of you are deities? Not just Evie?”
Alice’s eyes widened, incredulous.
“Forgot to mention it earlier. And Evie forgot to mention it for a whole year. The three of us are deities. Yui is not.”
Kato pointed to the three to make his point clear.
“Ah, that’s why there are only three names here. Which one’s yours?”
“That one.”
He pointed to the one named ‘sunrise’ and Alice giggled at the name, to which he was a bit upset.
“What’s so funny about it?”
“It just sounds so corny, and also to describe you with it.”
“All literary names are like this. The other two didn’t get any better names.”
Kato was defiant, but it was true that they were weird names. Even they themselves made that observation yesterday, but still, less ammunition for Alice the better.
“So I’m guessing ‘sunset’ is Teto to complement yours, and ‘sparks’ is Evie. I’d say those are better names than yours. Yours just sound so arrogant, like the high and mighty person you are.”
“High and mighty, that sounds like me, all right.”
“What is it that you all are now? Hearts candidates?”
“Yeah. We’re next in a long line to becoming Hearts.”
“Eternia’s greatest deities. Sounds like a hard job.”
She looked beyond the altar and over the shops and the main street. They were only one floor up, so the main street itself was somewhat obscured by the shops. Below, the pedestrian street continued to flow with occasional passersby and small motorized vehicles.
“I like this place a lot. It’s a lot noisier than my home.”
“Where’s your home?”
“In the new town Tseungkwano. The newly developed city area that once only had rich people’s houses.”
“And they still have the rich people’s houses there.”
“Well, of course. Just a typical mansion.”
“A typical mansion.”
He scoffed.
“If I had a choice, I’d prefer to live here than over there. Ugh, I hate that place. Why does it exist? Why is this suffering?”
She furrowed her brows and made a pained face, perhaps with a slight twinge of melodrama, as she was reminded of the disappointment she had for her residence. Kato was bemused at her melancholia, but nonetheless pulled her back out of her distress.
“Why choose here over there?”
“Although that area’s gotten better compared to a few years ago, I still feel like everything is way too far apart from each other there. It makes it feel inconvenient and empty of people.”
“Ah, you prefer the busy lifestyle than the suburban one.”
Alice took her schoolwork out from her bag that hung from the standing coat rack. She made her way over the carpet and sat at the now-crowded coffee table. The two who were struggling continued to do so.
“Of course. Who wouldn’t want to live in a warm home like this one?”
Kato too took the same physics assignment out of his, but instead of squeezing himself at the table, he placed his belongings on the wide windowsill and leaned against it, enjoying the warm and mild winds as he easily penciled in the answers.
And so the fairly peaceful scene remained for a long while. With excruciating pain and effort, Yui and Alice were able to teach Teto and Evie how to do their assignments in time. Because Kato knew how hopeless those two were, he declined to join them in the first place.
As the sun approached ever closer to the city’s skyline, the sunlight stretched further into the orange spectrum. On the other side of the flat, the sounds of a kitchen hood rumbled on for a long time. Only until the smell of food reached the siblings’ flat did the fan turn off and was followed by the sound of cluttering furniture.
“Dinnertime!”
Sisi called out to the children on the other side, who immediately dropped whatever they were holding and hurried into Karl’s flat.
“Impressive. Ms Romana, this is all your work?”
“Except for the roasted pork Sisi bought from downstairs, everything is mine creation.”
They all sat around the cramped folding table and began eating immediately. The impressed Alice, however, remained wide-eyed and hesitant to start. On the table were the roasted pork, white-cut chicken, stir-fried seafood with rice noodles, steamed egg with dried shrimp, and pea sprouts. In the kitchen was a pot of pork bone soup combined with various herbs.
Sitting next to her was Kato, who used the common chopsticks to fill her bowl up with the rice noodles. Since Sisi decided to go with frying rice noodles today, there was not a need to cook too much rice.
“Eat up. You’re here exactly for this, right?”
Kato laid down the bowl in front of her, and then picking up some other foods to put into her bowl as well until it was filled with a variety of meats and vegetables.
On the other side of Alice was Evie, who took a morsel of shrimp and held it up to Alice’s mouth with her chopsticks.
“Eat up already.”
Alice saw the calm smile on Evie’s face, and she acquiesced. She ate the food that Evie boldly held up to her, and she was markedly moved. Her eyes turned watery at the force of her emotions. It was as delicious as she remembered it, the Yue food that she would eat on occasion outside of her childhood household in Breisgau.
“Are you crying already? Isn’t it too fast?”
“The first bite is always the most emotional, Evie.”
Yui chided Evie as they watched on expectantly at Alice’s reaction. It wasn’t hard to tell that Alice really liked the food.
“Thank you, everyone. It’s only this good because I’m able to enjoy Ms Romana’s food with all of you here. Let’s eat.”
Alice smiled at everyone. They returned it graciously, and continued eating again.
“I never thought Evie would come up with something like this. I’m glad that we’re friends.”
“Evie’s got some really good ideas when you least expect her. That’s my precious older sister.”
After finishing dinner, Kato brought Alice to the local bus stop for her to make her way home. Though Sisi had tried to insist calling a taxi, Alice unsurprisingly wanted to make her way home travelling through the city by herself.
“I told you, right? Even though I lived in Breisgau for most of my life, and now in Livia, there wasn’t actually a lot of opportunity to eat locally. First world problems.”
Breisgau was a large city in the Kingdom of Rine near the Auxiria-Ava-Rine border, coincidentally also a major exclave of Old Yue speakers and the hometown of Franco’s family.
“But when you did, you liked it a lot, even making Yue cuisine your ‘mother tongue’, so to speak.”
“Somehow, it was always my mother tongue.”
The busy main street began lighting up with its night time displays and signage. Many passersby took an extra moment to get a better glance at the elegant and attractive blonde girl, and rightfully so. Alice was that deserving of her popularity at school.
“Even though I’m born Rinian, I’ll always be more like a person from Yue than Rine. That’s not changing, no matter how much traditional Rinian food they serve me at home.”
“Fair. I’m born Auxirian and can still speak Standard Candoran, but I have no emotional ties to Auxiria. Yue, in its old form, is my sole identity. It’s the case for everyone who grows up here.”
“I can tell.”
She chuckled lightly. At a nearby store, a radio was turned on and music played loudly from it, though the streets were already noisy enough to dampen the music.
“I’m surprised that Ms Romana would be this good at Yue cuisine. She’s supposed to be from Royal Candor, right?”
“Well, part of why Sisi’s Old Yue is so good is because she was born to be a Heart, so naturally, Old Yue would be her first if not second language. She is also a graduate of Korolev Senior.”
“Makes sense. That means she spent her youth here in this city, lived as a student and fought the Class Wars, once upon a time.”
“No doubt she learned to be so prideful of the Class Wars from winning it too.”
“She was in the winning class of her year? Then is she in her year’s photo in the West Hall?”
“Yeah, we all looked for her photo the next day she told us about it. She looks exactly the same as she did back then.”
“Her youthfulness is truly mysterious.”
“Mysterious indeed. One day, I’ll find out why.”
The bus that she needed to take had stopped in front of them.
“Thanks again for the food. You have no idea how uncommon this is for me.”
She said, a tiny bit tearfully. Kato nodded sympathetically.
“Then let’s hope we can all hang out some more and enjoy. We’ll turn it into commonplace.”
The week rolled by in an instant and already it was Saturday, the last school day of the week. Morning classes continued as normal, but there were no afternoon classes on Saturday, so class was dismissed by lunchtime. However, the school remained open until the regular end of school day for extracurricular activities.
“Give me that.”
“Okay, fine.”
Kato passed a carton of the tea drink he got from the vending machine outside the student council room that he wanted for himself, but Alice decided that he shouldn’t drink packaged tea drinks and instead, should drink the herbal tea she brewed at home and brought to school.
In fact, Alice also brought homemade lunch for Kato, knowing that the Elites normally got takeout from the cafeteria. Surprisingly, Alice knew Yue cuisine well enough that it was no different from a native cook’s food.
“Thanks for the food, Alice. I most definitely recommend.”
“Hmph. Of course my food is good. I’ve never had anyone who thought it was bad.”
Alice turned pink and tried to hide her delight with a prideful assertion.
“If there were, those guys don’t know what Yue food is.”
“Right? Yue cuisine’s flavours are light, so foreigners usually complain about a lack of taste. But that’s what makes it great.”
“The use of scallions, garlic and ginger is why it’s so good. It normalizes the flavours so that it remains light to your taste buds, even if the flavour itself was originally heavy.”
After her experience with Sisi’s handwork, this was the result. The day before, Kato too cooked a meal for Alice, and they spent a good chunk of time too praising and criticizing the results of his efforts.
“I think your cooking is better than mine, even with the power of love for my sisters on my side.”
“The culinary arts are about diversifying your experiences. If you cooked food for your sisters all this time, then of course it would be tailored to their tastes.”
“Then I’m a master of cooking for sisters.”
“Calm down there, son. You said you only got time to cook once or twice a week, so you’re most definitely not that practiced.”
The two sat at one end of the conference table of the student council room, whilst the rest of the Elites and the Jupiter sisters, over the course of lunch period, gathered at the other end of the table.
“What the hell’s going on?”
Caius whispered to the other guy and girls around him, together watching the two cuisine enthusiasts ramble on.
“I know and I don’t know. But in other news, this is what a romantic comedy should be like.”
Bianca flicked at Eon’s forehead upon hearing that, to which Eon yelped reflexively at the pain.
“Although I have some choice words for you, it wouldn’t stop you anyway.”
“That flick was kind of like a choice word!”
“And it’s not stopping you.”
“You’re indeed correct.”
Evie continued with her bento box as their vanguards began bickering again. She ignored the noise from her childhood friends, and instead, she watched on Kato and Alice’s conversations silently. Unfortunately, it wasn’t entirely silent as an ominous aura emanated from her, which contributed to the spooked nature of the rest of the gang.
There were two people missing, one Teto and one Franco. Teto, belonging in second year, had her own group of friends to hang out with at school, to the dismay of her brother. On the other hand, Franco stayed home as he had to go visit a temple with his parents.
“Evie’s going to get mad soon, is she? She does this with Mira all the time.”
“I can see it going either way. Alice is not Mira, after all.”
“Though Evie’s been stone-faced the entire time, she’s usually like this, so let’s give it more time.”
Scarlett asked Ariel and Yui of the student council room’s current situation.
“Okay, to be fair, we all kinda moved away from them, so this is the result.”
“That is to say, we’re part of the problem too.”
Eon and Bianca rejoined in their mumbles when they finished throwing punch lines back and forth.
“Evie, come here.”
Suddenly, Kato called out to his sister, which caused everyone else in the room to freeze. Evie gracefully moved over to the seat next to him, her eyes only on Kato.
“Wanna bite? Say ‘ah’.”
Kato smiled brightly as he held a spoonful of Alice’s fried rice out to her. Alice, like the rest of the room, was perplexed at the kindness that Kato showed to Evie, in contrast to his usual attitude towards her.
Without hesitation, Evie closed her mouth on Kato’s spoon, having a taste of Alice’s culinary abilities.
“Mm. It’s great.”
Evie’s cheeks tickled pink as she revealed a softened expression and let Kato wipe the corners of her mouth with a napkin. The wariness she had up until now was gone completely.
“Evie! Take a bite of this, too!”
Alice’s eyes lit up at Evie’s docile response. She pushed her lunchbox in front of Evie and began feeding it to her too. Evie didn’t resist and let the unusually joyful Alice take care of her.
Meanwhile, the other children watching on let out a collective sigh of relief as the ticking time bomb known as Evie had not detonated.
“I guess living with Evie for your whole life teaches you some things that could tame her.”
Eon remarked. Evie just wanted some attention from Kato, and Kato knew that very well. Since everyone was not holding onto their breaths anymore, they finally felt safe enough to continue with their own lunches as well.
With peace restored temporarily to the student council room, the timing was ripe for a foreign invasion, and indeed, the action never stopped for the Elites.
A knock on the door came after a long lull in the tension, and once the door was busted open by the intruders, the tension returned in a flash.
Of course, the Elites were not overly perturbed by the disturbance as among them were two deities. And they were most definitely not perturbed by the two burly third-years that flanked the two very familiar faces.
“Greetings, student council. Pardon my intrusion, but I’ve invited myself in because the door was unlocked.”
The deep voice echoed through the spacious and silent student council room. Next to Gilbert was his usual lackey in his usual sloppy yet menacing form, Stephen.
Alice turned away from the scene at the door, instead continuing to feed Evie like she would a pet. Bianca rushed out from her seat to make a stand before the four unruly men with their shiny shield-shaped badges attached to their breast-pockets. They were badges that members of the Public Safety Committee wore.
Kato and Eon followed behind Bianca quickly to meet the challengers to their new after school hangout place. And also to support Bianca, of course.
“What do you want?”
Kato started before Bianca could get a word in, asserting his dominance not only on the PSC members, but also Bianca. That particular part didn’t fall on deaf ears, and Bianca elbowed him hard in the ribcage.
“Sorry about this brute. He can be rude sometimes. Now, Marshal, what do you want?”
Eon stifled a giggle upon hearing her make the same barbaric demand. The scene was as usual for them as it could get.
“Madam Chancellor, and Madam Secretary as well. It looks like I have a few businesses I can take care of together here, but let’s go with one thing at a time.”
The marshal was the official leader of the PSC. In its internal deliberations last year, Gilbert was way more qualified to take its leadership than any of his competitors, and thus gained a student organization that was more or less under his complete control.
“Without going into too much detail, I would like to propose new legislation in next week’s convention of the Assembly. Here’s the draft.”
He motioned for Stephen to hand over the folder he was holding onto. Bianca took it from him and handed it to Eon without looking at it.
“Is there anything else?”
Bianca made it obvious that he was not welcome here. Gilbert, like always, was unmovable. Instead, his right hand man got agitated for him.
“Is this attitude necessary from the student council? Don’t forget you’re a role model for students in this school.”
“And so are you. Whoop-dee-doo.”
“You…!”
Bianca’s shrug was met with a snarl from the lackey, but nothing else came of it.
“Let’s leave it at that. Onto the next order of business. I intend to bring forth a motion for hoisting of the Ewiger Landfriede. If whichever Madam Speaker next week would add this motion to the agenda, that would be great.”
Hoisting was basically putting a delay on the policy. Policies could be defeated if it continues to get hoisted until the end of the year, when there wouldn’t be enough time to debate on it anymore and it dies off.
“This is the formal order for the hoisting motion. I will inform you now that you will find the submission of it acceptable on the convention day.”
This time, Stephen took out his clipboard with two copies of the order on it, ready for them to be signed by Members during the convention, which would garner enough support to justify putting forth this motion.
“Can I take this as an extortion attempt to force us to first-read your draft?”
“No. They’re two separate functions. But if you want to take it that way, then you’re more than welcome to.”
Obviously he wouldn’t say ‘yes’ to that question, but it nonetheless was an obvious threat to first-read Gilbert’s legislation, or else they would attack the Ewiger Landfriede immediately.
“Whatever then. Thanks for your warning. It’s Saturday afternoon, dear Lord. Done?”
“My business with you, Madam Chancellor, yes. There is one more thing to take care of.”
While everybody else stood in place, Gilbert moved in Alice’s direction, who was trying her best to ignore the approaching man.
“Alice, have you decided on attending tomorrow night?”
She paused for a short moment as he asked her that question. Eventually, she let out an exaggerated and impatient sigh. Standing up from her seat, she looked up into the face of her fiancé and grimaced.
“Yes. I’ll be attending, but only when supper starts. I won’t be there for the pre-party and reception.”
“Thank you. I’ll be awaiting your attendance with anticipation.”
She rolled her eyes at the formality. Without another word, she sat back down and ignored Gilbert.
“Who’s this? A fan of yours?”
Evie asked her neighbour innocently as everyone else froze on the spot, for a variety of reasons. The Elites and the Jupiter sisters were holding their breaths again, eagerly waiting for Evie or Alice to say something, while the marshal’s lackeys balked in disbelief.
Alice, too, turned red at Evie’s question, but didn’t make a scene of it. Even with Alice’s mild awkwardness, she saw that Evie had no ulterior intent behind it and was genuinely just unaware.
“No, Evie. He’s my fiancé. We’re getting married after we graduate from high school. I’m sorry I haven’t told you this before, but it was a real deal since the end of last year.”
Decided that the cat was out of the bag, she obediently explained it to Evie, almost pleading with her to understand. Of course, confusion flickered across Evie’s face at her explanation.
“Alice…”
And then something clicked in her head, possibly in an unexpected and unnecessary way. She stopped and embraced Alice, who was surprised at the sudden physical contact.
“I feel sorry for you.”
Then the other student council members burst out laughing. Evie most likely didn’t have any deep meaning to that remark, but her honesty was ridiculous nonetheless. Stephen and his goons, however, were livid, and were only stopped by a signal from Gilbert.
“I’ve told you, Stephen. Whatever it is, there’s no changing the fact that she is engaged to me.”
Alice’s face turned sour for a moment, but was instantly cured by Evie’s touch.
“But this is disresp—”
“I don’t need it. Not here. These people are not my enemies, Stephen. And it’s time for us to leave.”
He looked expectantly at Alice, who took a moment before sighing apologetically and had Evie let go of her, to which Evie looked a bit sad about. She began packing her things and her half-finished lunch into her schoolbag.
“Alice, what are you doing?”
Kato was the first to speak up at the sudden change of events.
“It’s time for me to go. Gil’s here to pick me up too, actually, probably because I haven’t showed up at the front of the school by now. Sorry, I should have told you guys first.”
“But why?”
“I’m responsible for taking her home on Saturday’s half-day, so here I am.”
Gilbert answered for her as they all headed for the door, the rest of the room still frozen in place. Alice consoled Evie as she got up and followed behind Gilbert.
“Evie, guys, I’ll see you all tomorrow. It’ll be fun!”
Alice’s smile was genuine. She looked forward to tomorrow as much as the rest of them did, so all they could do was return the smile.
“You bet!”
“See ya!”
“Bye-bye!”
A flurry of goodbyes went by in a flash. As they passed through the door, Alice turned around once more, with the smile still there.
“Kato, I’m glad that you were the one who invited me.”
Feeling surprised and somewhat puzzled, he didn’t have a witty response for her. That phrasing felt different from usual.
“No problem. I’m here all day.”
Then it was followed by a solid thud of the closing door on the student council room, and all the Class A students had vacated.