Ena had been working for over an hour when she looked up towards Elio’s loft. He hasn’t left it since he first went inside. She goes back down to her work for another 30 minutes until Elio pops out of his loft. His bedhead and hazy eyes are clear signs to Ena that he’s just woken up from a nap.

Ena takes out an earbud. “Did you take a nap?”

Elio combs his hair with his hands. “Just a quick one. How’s work?”

“It’s going well. I’m really liking the colors I got going.”

Elio grabs a drink from the fridge. “That’s good. Want some food?”

“Now?” Ena asks as she looks at her work.

“Yeah.” Elio says as he sits down on the couch and starts looking through food apps on his phone.

“Sure,” Ena answers. “What are you thinking?”

“Pizza?” Elio asked with a hint of joy in his voice.

Ena smiles. “I could go for pizza.”

Elio swipes through the pizza options. “I like those little personal ones. So we can each get our own.”

Ena nods, agreeing. “Good idea.”

Elio selects his pizza and gives his phone to Ena to pick hers. She does so and then she scrolls to the sodas.

“Can I get a soda and maybe an order of breadsticks too?” Ena asked with similar joy that Elio had too.

Elio shrugs. “I don’t see why not. And I guess if you’re getting a soda, I will too.”

Ena adds their sodas of choice and breadsticks before giving the phone back to Elio. She resumes her work as they wait for the food. Elio rummages around the drawers of the desk until he pulls out a notebook and a pen. He sits back down and writes in the notebook. He would write a sentence or two before getting up and doing a little exercise, such as squats, calf raises or push-ups, then he would go back to write a couple more sentences. This cycle continues for a while until he stands up, a little frustrated, and looks around.

He searches for something in the desk drawers but not finding it, he goes into his loft and a few minutes later he returns with a stress ball that has a design of a local carpenter. He sits back down and squeezes the ball as he writes a few more sentences again. But just like before, he gets up after writing some more and leaves the building without saying anything to Ena, who’s been keeping on Elio’s odd activity but she just smirks as he leaves and she focuses on her work. 15 minutes later, Elio returns with a tennis ball in hand.

Ena glances up from the computer. “Where did you go?”

He presents the tennis ball to her. “I needed a tennis ball. So I got one from the groomers.”

“And that took 15 minutes?” Ena asks.

Elio bounces the ball against the wall with a smile. “I got caught in a conversation with the owner.”

“I see, why do you need a tennis ball?”

“Well-”

Ding dong

Elio and Ena’s faces light up at the doorbell as it signals that the food has arrived. Elio grabs the food from outside while Ena takes a break from her work and moves to the couch, where the two enjoy their meals. As they eat, they chit-chat a little but they mainly focus on their food. After a bit, they finish eating and relax on the couch and watch a bit of TV.

Elio takes a deep breath and stands up. “Okay, so anyways.”

He grabs the tennis ball and cradles it in his hands. Ena watches as Elio’s breath slows as he focuses on the ball. Somehow, she can tell he is using her ability.

Elio suddenly snaps his hands shut, squishing the ball flat into his palms.

FWUMP

The ball pops back into its form as Elio releases his hands

With a wide smile, he looks at Ena. “This is part of your training.”

Ena looks at the tennis ball, perplexed. “Is that what you’ve been working on. And it requires a tennis ball?”

“And a stress ball.” Elio adds.

Ena grabs the stress ball. “How so?”

Elio tosses the tennis ball at Ena as he picks up his notebook. He pops it open to look at his notes. “I’ve thought of two exercises to help you out. "One is to help you get better control of your Bounce and the other is to help you learn how to use your Bounce with your hands.”

Ena catches the ball and looks at the stress ball and the tennis ball in her hands. “You sure I can use my hands. I’ve only felt it in my feet.”

Elio looks at Ena’s hands, then he shows his hands to her. “I do, my Alter works in parts: scan, alter, and then manifest. I’ve been using all three on your Bounce, and I can tell you there is no location limit for your Bounce. You just gotta get used to it.”

“But the few times I’ve activated it, it’s only been on my feet. I’ve never felt it on my hands.”

“That’s not too unusual,” Elio reassures. “For the longest time, I had to touch someone with my hands to use my Alter but look at me now, I don’t even need to change my posture to Alter another’s ability.”

Ena feels a bit hopeful at Elio’s statement. “So, what exercises do you have in mind?”

Elio puts his feet together and raises them up to stand on the balls of his feet. As he does so, the floor bends slightly under his toes. “You gotta do this.”

Ena looks down at the slight bend under Elio’s feet. “What? Why?” she asked, confused.

Elio lowers his feet back to a natural stance. “It’s like a calf raise but instead of doing it on a ledge, you do it on the ground. When you raise your feet up, you need to push down using your Bounce. Imagine the ground bending to your weight as you raise up. Does that make sense? Make sense to me.”

Ena places the balls on the table and stands up. “I feel like I can manage this but I don’t know if I can freely activate my ability like you can.”

Elio does the exercise again. “It will take some practice, but you’ll be able to do it just like what I am doing. I am altering your ability to be smaller but denser. So the depth I’m getting will be greater than when you’ll get it but you’ll get it.”

Ena observes Elio bending the floor, and it regaining its shape when he releases his stance. “I can do that? How long will it take me to learn to activate it?”

Elio gestures for Ena to stand by him. He kneels down to look at Ena’s feet. “Not sure, but don’t worry, you’ll get it as long as you follow my teaching.”

He pushes Ena’s feet together. “Your previous activations happened when your body was under stress. This method is working out your body but also your ability. People have a hard time using their ability by itself if they aren’t used to it, so mixing it with physical activity will help. Now, give it a try.”

Elio lowers himself onto his knees, where his cheek presses against the floor. His face is inches away from Ena’s feet. He looks at Ena’s feet, waiting to see if her ability will activate. Ena looks unsure but gives it a try. She raises herself up on the balls of her feet, trying to activate her ability as she does. She holds her elevated stance, but the feeling of exhaustion starts to consume her after only a few seconds. To catch her breath, she has to lower herself. She feels burning not in her calves, where she would assume it would be but deep in the soles of her feet, bleeding up her heel towards her Achilles tendon.

Elio stands up, looking at her satisfied. “Yeah, that’s expected.”

“It is?” Ena says between heavy breaths. “Why do I feel so exhausted so fast?”

“Trying to activate your ability for the first time is like trying to work out a muscle for the first time. I was thinking of 3 sets of 20, but let’s do 3 sets of 10, 4 times a week. How does that sound?”

Ena sits on the couch, still breathing heavily. “I think I can do that.”

She looks at the tennis and stress balls on the table. She picks up the tennis ball. “What’s your plan for these?”

Elio picks up the stress ball. “I was planning on you squeezing them between your hands while trying to use your Bounce. Like what I did before. First, start with the stress ball, then move onto the tennis ball but that will need to wait until you can freely activate your Bounce.”

Elio tosses the stress ball to Ena. “You should squeeze this from time to time while thinking about your Bounce but don’t stress too much about it. Haha stress.”

Ena catches the ball and gives it a squeeze. “Just squeeze this?”

“For the moment.” Answers Elio. “If you feel exhausted doing it, stop. Your feet exercise is more important.”

Ena squeezes the ball a few times. “I see, so just squeeze this? Like a normal stress ball?”

“Yeah, that should work, I think. How are you feeling?”

Ena’s breathing has already returned to normal, and she is no longer feeling as exhausted as she did just minutes ago. Which is odd to her because she felt as if she just worked out for an hour straight, but now she feels fine. “Why do I feel back to normal so fast?”

“Your body was giving you a teaser.” Elio jokes. “Once you start the full exercises, your body will take a lot longer to recover, so plan accordingly.”

“Plan according?” Ena worries, “How exhausted will these exercises make me? Should I even do my normal workouts on those days too?”

Elio sits down next to Ena. “I would say do your Bounce exercises first and see how you’re feeling, then do your body exercises, if you’re able.”

Ena gets up and sits back down at the desk. “Well, I guess that’s fine. I’ve just been doing calisthenics lately.”

Elio starts to scan the TV for something to watch. “Sounds good.”

Ena resumes working on the flyers. “By the way, I am almost done. We can go to a print shop in a bit.”

“Oh cool, do you know where one is?”

“Yeah, I searched it up last night. There is one that’s a 10-minute walk from here. Do you not know your neighborhood?”

“No.” Elio says dismissively.

Ena shakes her head as she goes back to work while Elio finds something on the TV. An hour later, Elio has sprawled out onto the couch, mindlessly watching TV, or maybe he fell asleep, it’s a little hard to tell.

Ena looks up and calls out to Elio. “I’m done, wanna take a look?” she says loud enough just in case he is asleep.

Elio looks up at Ena. “Oh. Let’s have a look.”

He gets up and stands behind Ena at the desk to see her work.

She shows Elio two different flyers. “Here’s what we got. There are two slightly different versions. What do you think?”

Elio smiles as he leans close to the monitors. “Whoa! These are great! So much better than mine, great job.”

Ena smiles. “Thanks, which one do you prefer?”

“Hmmm,” Elio says as he examines both versions. “I’m feeling the left one. The colors are doing it for me.”

Ena shakes her head, agreeing. “That’s what I was thinking. Shall we go to the print shop?”

Elio stretches. “I don’t wanna go. Can you do it?”

“Sure,” Ena answers. “But I’ll need money for that.”

Elio rummages in his pockets and pulls out his wallet. He hands a card from it to Ena. “Here’s the company card. Don’t buy too much.”

Ena takes the card, noticing that it’s not at all a company card of any sort, but Elio’s personal bank card. “Will do, I can get around 100 copies.”

Elio moves towards the kitchen. “That sounds like a good number.”

Ena leaves the office and heads to the print shop. After some time, Elio is eating an omelette as she returns with two stacks of flyers.

She places the flyers on the table. “I’m back.”

Elio smiles as he looks at the flyers. “You got them.”

Ena sits next to him. “They came out really well. I did get 200 of them because it was a good deal and the owner said I could put one of them up in his shop.”

Elio looks ecstatic. “Amazing! Great job. I’ll make you an omelette.”

Ena puts her hand up and denies the offer. “No thanks, we just had pizza.”

“Oh yeah, that was a good pizza.”

Ena admires her work on the flyers. “Well, I think I’m done for the day unless you need me for anything else.”

Elio finishes his meal. “Nah, everything is done for today. When are you going to come by next?”

Ena gets up and moves to the desk to gather her things. “I got work and stuff tomorrow but the next day I can come by, but message me if you get any work.”

Elio nods. “Oh, I will.”

Ena looks at her keyboard and mouse. “I’m going to leave these here. I could start working on the website, but I would need your card to pay for it.”

“That’s fine, just give it back when you come by next.”

Ena gathers her things and heads home. Elio looks at the flyers with hopeful eyes as the door closes. The next day, Elio goes around town putting the new flyers up where the old ones were. He even goes to a few new businesses and gets them to agree to take his flyers. Ena went to work that day but as she worked, she couldn’t stop thinking about the website she wants to make. When her shift ends, she hurries home to start on the website. She starts to work on the website all throughout the night.

On the following day, with bags under her eyes, Ena arrives at the JOAW office just before noon. She unlocks the door and slowly steps inside, where she sees Elio eating a sub sandwich at the table.

He looks up at her with a smile. “Hey there! I got you a sandwich.”

He gets up and heads to the fridge as Ena sits down on the couch, placing her bag next to the couch.

Elio gets a sandwich from the fridge and places it in front of Ena. “I put up some of the flyers, I even put some up in new places.”

Ena looks at her sandwich. “QR codes.” She mumbles.

Elio resumes eating. “Huh?”

Ena picks up her sandwich. “I made the website last night.”

“All of it?” Elio says, baffled.

Ena takes a bite of her sandwich. “Yeah, but there’s a problem.”

“Uh oh. What is it?”

Ena picks up her sandwich and looks at Elio with sleep-deprived eyes. “QR codes.”