CH1.01: Ridiculous Favors (I)  【Suu】

Summer dragged on in Vriya City, the sultry heat from the sea smothering the land like the inside of a steam-pot. Suu was convinced that the Rain Gods would need a ritual sacrifice at this rate, and she was more than willing to toss a bus-load of bitchy aunties and creepy uncles into the fire. Round up all the creepy men in town and shove them into the Kāsyan sea, for good measure. But sadly, brutal sacrifices only ever existed in horror-folktales, and modern-day medicine made sure most jerks lived way past their expiry dates.

At this rate, it would take nothing short of a miracle for rainclouds to show up, and Suu figured it was going to be a long, long summer. Miracles didn’t exist, after all.

“Just you watch, Mr. Airavara! Your precious daughter is headed for a lot of trouble,” Mrs. Venai bit out, her voice ringing across the old bookstore. “It’s just a matter of time!”

An old man sat hunched over the billing-counter, tallying the money the woman had just paid for her newly-purchased books. Adjusting his wire-rimmed glasses with his free hand, he gave her a well-practiced, sad glance.

“I’m afraid to ask, Mrs. Venai…” he began slowly, “…but what did she say this time?” he asked, sliding two silver coins from the pile towards her. Mrs. Venai eyed the ‘special discount’ and sighed.

“She asked me if I dropped my son a lot when he was a baby,” she said, voice flat.

Mr. Airavara’s eyebrows nearly reached his hairline. “I’m sorry, but what in—”

“Because,” she crossed her arms, “according to her, ‘his manners were on the floor’,” she huffed. The old man’s eyebrows scrunched into a painful crease, and Mrs. Venai sighed again before continuing. “Oh yes, and that he had the ‘personality of an unused slipper’.”

A terribly awkward silence descended upon the bookstore, only to be broken by a muffled sound from upstairs. Jolting at it, Mr. Airavara scrambled to sit up straight.

“I am extremely sorry, Mrs. Venai,” his fingers held his forehead while glancing at the staircase. His misery seemed to please the customer as she smirked at him.

“Well, curse me for looking out for your daughter,” the older woman snarked as she gathered her coins, “All I did was suggest she speak with my boy! But oooh no,” she shook her head with the last two words. “She went straight to insults!”

Nodding back, the old man shifted his concerned gaze between her and the staircase. “You tried to set her up with your son,” he grimaced, shaking his head. “You really shouldn’t have bothered, ma’am.”

Smacking her palm on her chest as if he’d accused her of a crime, Mrs. Venai gave him a horrified look. “Well forgive me, Sir, but don’t you want to see your youngest settle down?!”

Mr. Airavara’s fluffy white hair looked like a small cloud on his head as he turned around to grab a paper-bag. “Good Gods, don’t I. And I’m sure you and your son are wonderful people, Mrs. Venai,” he said, busying himself with packing her books. “But I’m afraid she’s a bit too young for him.”

“Too young,” the older woman scoffed and rolled her eyes. “Now what’s wrong with a thirty-five-year-old man marrying a twenty-eight-year-old woman?”

The old man paused for a moment before handing over her package. “Nothing wrong at all, ma’am,” he said with a small smile. “But Sumitra just turned nineteen. Thank you for your purchase, and do come again.”

Mrs. Venai stared with her mouth open as realization flashed across her face. Cheeks flushing red, she cursed apologies under her breath and scurried out of the bookstore. Sitting back on his wooden chair, Mr. Airavara took a deep breath.

“I know you’re up there Suu,” he called towards the staircase. “Enjoyed your view, did you?”

Footsteps thumped along the ceiling with a muffled voice going ‘you bet I did!’. Mr. Airavara sighed as his youngest daughter raced her way down the staircase like a feral cat on the run.

Suu landed on the wooden floorboards with a loud bang, her long curly braid flying one way and her divided-skirt nearly tripping over her ankles the other way. Steadying herself, she adjusted her apron and and darted her cat-like gaze at her father.

“That nosy old cow can’t count to save her life,” she peeked through the windows to make sure Mrs. Venai was gone. “Her baby boy is forty-one, by the way.”

Mr. Airavara slammed his palm onto his face. “Surely there were nicer ways to let her down,” he grumbled, tapping the receipt-book. “Customers are royalty, how many times have I told you that?”

“I know, but she wouldn’t shut up,” she protested, walking around the old shelves. “I told her that all I wanted was to make my own hard-earned money, but she was convinced that all I needed was a husband and three kids. And I was being nice, Pa. Cows are lovely, unlike Mrs. Venai,” she snarled, more-so because she was hauling a large slate signboard from behind a stack of canvases. “I bet they count better than her too.”

“Well, she won’t be back for a while, that’s for sure,” Pa sighed as he flipped through the receipt-book before stashing it under the counter.

Suu chuckled. “I’d deal with people like her if they bought your paintings,” she said, checking the signboard. “Commission a mural or two, and I’ll be on my best behavior!”

“Sounds more like a threat to me,” the old man climbed down from his chair. Suu smirked and said nothing, because he was probably right. “I don’t think she’ll press you over it again,” Pa continued with a tinge of pity in his voice, as though he were trying to console her. “But there’s no way she thought you were twenty-eight, for Gods’ sake,” he muttered.

A sneaky smile flashed across Suu’s face as she considered telling him the truth.

“It’s what people expect when your older sister’s well past forty and when your nephew’s older than you.” She then turned to face him with her widest smile yet. “But customers are royalty,” she sang, “So when Her Majesty asked me if I was twenty-eight, I said ‘yes of course, ma’am’.”

Some of the older shelves shook as Pa’s groans rang across the store, his face scrunching in that funny way it always did when he didn’t know whether to be angry at her or laugh at her.

“It’s no big deal,” Suu’s cheeky smile remained as she set the signboard against a shelf. She didn’t want it to be a big deal. Looking old next to her baby-faced peers yet young enough to get lectured into arranged marriage set-ups; that was how puberty chose to slap her. As a result, self-awareness followed her around like a clingy dog, one she’d have to feed for the rest of her days.

“This face helped me get hired,” she reasoned, thinking back to all the little part-time jobs she’d worked over the years. Pa was nowhere near rich, and with the way he managed his finances, it took a lot of scolding from Suu and her elder sister for him to barely stay out of debt. And with the mortgage on their building, every bit of money helped.

“Illegally,” Pa shot back. “Remember how much trouble I had to bail you out of—”

“That was just one time,” she held up her pointer, wagging it. “I was an ignorant child then!” Just as ignorant as the owner of the stitching centre who thought thirteen-year-old Suu fit right in with a group of young mothers.

“There’s a joke in there somewhere,” Pa sneered, raising an eyebrow at her.

“Well look, at-least I was paid for the work I did,” she crossed her arms, “unlike a certain bookstore-owner-art-teacher-muralist over here.”

Pa’s face scrunched with disdain, with that ‘I-pay-you-with-food-and-board’ look that parents often flung at their children. She was sure she’d see that face every single day if she’d been his art apprentice. But thankfully for her, the straightest line she could draw rivaled a toddler’s chalk scrawl. So for better or worse, ‘Mr. Airavara’s Art Apprentice’ was a job Suu never landed.

Pa rolled his eyes at the smug look on her face. “Speaking of work then, help me sort this order out,” he waved a piece of paper at her.

“An order?” she took the paper from him and began reading it with a frown. An order, she repeated in her head as if the word didn’t make sense. It didn’t, because she couldn’t remember the last time they got one of those.

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[A/N: Continued in the next part because I hit Tapas' word-limit lmao]