“We should get going.” Aoi is the first to rise from her seat. She isn’t sure what she hates the most: chairs that screech against wood, like in her parents’ home, or chairs that tumble to the ground and almost trip you as you stand, like the current, plastic one that now lays across Damian’s carpet.
The young woman grabs hold of the light blue furniture and pushes the clumsy thing back up. She shows her newfound friends two, brief nods, before she leaves them with their half-eaten meals at the table, as she takes off, toward the exit, with her luggage serving as her sole companion.
So far, nothing has happened from her taking the different set of pills.
Aoi knows this could change. She could say she is fine, and then she could collapse onto the floor from some kind of pain—it is like gambling, she thinks, but with your body’s nerves, and the outcome is never good.
But for now, she is fine, and that, in itself, is something to celebrate.
The young woman sings her own small victories and praises, alone in the cool air of this summer’s first month. She stands still, out on the balcony made of cement, that will lead her to Lucas’s van—the outside world—if she turns left, then takes a bright red staircase made of steel.
Back inside Damian’s apartment, Lucas leans in across the wooden table. He whispers to Damian, the words, “Is she okay?”
And Damian nods; he makes a promise to himself that he will not betray his new comrade—it is her story to tell, not his, Damian thinks, as his attention finds Lucas’s own for the brief instance of a second, before he goes back to browsing the news on his phone. “She’s great,” he tells Lucas, who is not convinced one bit.
Though, the young chef does not pry. He shrugs off the response he has just received with an, “Okay.” And an, “If you say so,” before he finishes the rest of his crepe, and wipes the excess creme that had wanted to linger, off his upper lip.
Damian pretends he isn’t staring as Lucas licks away what little is left of the white substance. He clears his throat. It does not do much for Damian, or, for the heat that has risen to his face. Eventually, the young man gives up on making every trace of his bashful jitters disappear. He hides his features from Lucas’s gaze, by staring down at the table, as if it is the most interesting artefact he has ever seen in this world.
He asks Lucas, if he can take his plate. If he is done.
Lucas hands the fragile porcelain to him, willingly.
And Damian tells him, “I’ll be a second.” He is proud that he has managed not to stutter this time. “Why don’t you join Aoi outside? I still need to finish these dishes and pack.”
Lucas raises a brow. He leans back against his chair. “You don’t need any help?”
Damian shakes his head, then chuckles. “Thanks, but I think that if anyone needs a hand, it’s her. Her luggage weighs a ton.” And then, after saying this, he freezes—because if Lucas were to ask him what is in Aoi’s luggage, Damian is not sure how he would explain the rows and rows of medical food she has jampacked in the medium-sized duffel bag on wheels.
Lucas, however, merely lets out a contented hum, before he shows himself out.
It is in bleak silence that Damian scrapes strawberry jam off pale plates. As his neck flushes with deep warmth, and a trail of sweat trickles down his back, he fears with all his might that inviting Aoi on a road-trip—a stranger, whose history he has no clue of—may be, perhaps, a bad idea after all.
Damian likes Aoi, he really does—and he appreciates her company, more so than the average person. Which is why he does not want her to get hurt. Although he is only her senior by a single year, he feels responsible for her in that regard, too.
His shoulders deflate, as does his motivation for this trip. The young man mulls over his options.
Though, in the end, Damian does not act on his fears. He packs his bags, says his temporary farewells to his apartment that he is still not sure whether or not he likes, then locks the door and checks it twice for good measure.
From over his shoulder, he notices Lucas and Aoi are still struggling with Aoi’s luggage.
Damian abandons his own bags and rushes over to aid the two in the task of getting Aoi’s belongings onto the parking lot’s ground, and into Lucas’s van. Then, he goes back up to fetch his own affairs.
By the time he is done Damian is huffing, and gasping for air. And Lucas is asking him why he did not take a break in between.
Damian merely smirks at his new friend, as he wipes the sweat off his brow. “This is nothing,” he tells Lucas, “you should see me when I’m done delivering that damned pizza every Tuesday night.”
Lucas cringes at the statement. “I’d rather not.” He gets into the van. “Anyway, are you coming?”
“Of course, I am!” Damian scoffs. He hops into the vehicle in turn. “Unless you don’t have space left for me between all those cakes of yours?”
“You exaggerate,” Lucas groans; he revs the engine and motions to the inside of his van with his free hand; most of it is still filled to the brim with clutter—cooking utensils and spare, square white boxes. “I left plenty of space for you! I cleaned everything out last night—look!”
From between two piles of cardboard boxes, that are all stacked atop one another, Aoi observes the two young men arguing at the wheel. She wonders how long they have known each other for. She thinks, that it must be quite an old friendship, for they are at ease with each other like close friends or lovers tend to be.
Finally, once the group are all set and ready to leave, Damian shuts the van’s door.
Lucas drives off.
Aoi waits for the moment where she will start feeling terribly motion sick—in fact, she is so apprehensive that she takes out the plastic bag she’d kept inside her trousers’ pouch, then takes a deep breath, with her eyes shut tight.
“Why don’t you go bother Aoi, instead?” the young woman hears Lucas mumble in the background. “I drive better when I’m not being yelled at.”
“Well,” Damian clears his throat. “If that’s such an issue, then why don’t you let me take the wheel and go back there instead—”
“Damian.” Lucas slows to let an elderly woman pass from one sidewalk to the next. A scowl takes his features. Without sparing Damian a glance, he tells his friend and newly made nemesis the word: “No.”
And Damian decides it is time to stop fooling around, for they are reaching the main roads now, and Lucas does indeed have much need to concentrate, lest they get involved in an accident.
The young man falls back into the deeper end of the small truck, and joins Aoi’s side once again. He frowns upon seeing the plastic bag clutched between the young woman’s nails. “Uh… you gonna puke?” he asks her. “Should we tell Lucas to pause for a sec?”
Aoi knits her brows together. “I’m supposed to be feeling ill.”
“Supposed?”
The young woman sighs, then opens her eyes once more. “Yes!” she exclaims. “But I’m not…” Her arms tense by her sides. “I don’t—” Aoi pauses to spare the bag a miserable second of her undivided attention. “I don’t understand. I’m usually motion sick by now,” she mutters.
Damian leans in toward her. He lowers his voice, then cups a hand around his mouth, in hopes that Lucas will not overhear. “Didn’t you say you were trying new meds today?” he whispers. “Maybe they’re working, dude.”
The young woman looks at him dubiously. She cannot believe for even a moment that this could be true. Granted, the doctors had said it is likely she would immediately know when something is or isn’t making a difference, but to experience it is a whole other ordeal—at least, it is, in Aoi’s opinion.
After having been a testament to how much modern medicine could fail a person in this day and age, How could it be this simple? Aoi thinks to herself, with a look of horror and complete befuddlement sprawled across her features.
In fact, the young woman is so completely and utterly speechless, that Damian takes slight worry in her silence and widening eyes.
“Are you okay?” he asks her as the van tilts, then shifts into another lane. “You’re not going to faint on us, are you?”
“I’m—” Aoi holds up a hand between them; just when she is on the verge of declaring that she is better, she feels the usual, nauseous grip, that tends to claw at her insides, in times like these. “Never mind.” She curls in on herself and grips her backpack, from which she takes out more pills. “I thought I was better, but it just took more time to come.”
“For what to come?” Damian squints at her. He observes the young woman down two, circular pills, along with a large gulp of water from her bottle. “You motion sick?”
Aoi nods, then wipes away the water that slowly trickles down her chin. “God, this sucks.”
Damian wraps an arm around her shoulder. Gently, he rubs her elbow and tells her that it will be okay, in hopes of bringing the young woman at least a small bit of comfort. “Hang in there, bud, we’ll be at our first stop in no time.”
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