i don't want to keep secrets just to keep you and i
in which imogen finds herself entangled in the mysterious web of tao xu's older sister.
extended summary inside!
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Kira, Aero, Nala and Adrian had been invited by Charlie to go to the arcade for his birthday on Saturday. They were doing bowling. Charlie was off at the entrance waiting for someone. "That's Isaac, he doesn't really say a lot. You know Tao and Kira. That's Nala, Aero and Adrian."
"Flint and Bennet," Nick mumbled since Adrian used to be on the rugby team and Aero always hung out with him.
"Yeah. Also, sorry in advance if Tao or Kira say anything rude to you," Charlie informed sheepishly. "That's just the way they are, but Kira's far more passive aggressive and it's terrifying."
"Oh, Nelson's here," Adrian mused, dragging them out of their conversation. Kira glanced at where Charlie was, blinking with an unreadable expression. Elle watched the easy smile on her face falter for a moment upon seeing Nick. The two boys walked over to the rest of the group.
"Everyone, this is Nick," Charlie gestured to the golden retriever boy that was beside him.
"Hey!" Nick said.
"Hey," Isaac greeted in response.
"Oh, good," Elle said. "We're just choosing fun names for the board."
"Fun names?" Nick said as he walked over to the keypad.
"Don't worry. 'Rugby King' isn't taken," Adrian slung an arm over Nick's shoulders, gently shaking him.
"For the record, Elle Smells was Tao's idea," Isaac informed the Nelson boy.
"Nala the Lion was Kira's idea, and lioness doesn't fit," Nala crossed her arms with a disappointed look on her face.
"See, mine is plain and simple," Aero pointed at his as Charlie sat by Tao. "but it sounds so flavorless. 'Oreo'."
"It's the only name with actually rhythm," Adrian argued.
"What does that even mean?" Kira wrapped an arm around Elle's shoulder, peering at the screen and watching Elle type in a name for Kira. "'prettier xu'. Aww." Elle shrugged and rested her head against her shoulder, which Kira returned with a warm smile.
They started to do some bowling, and Aero shoved Adrian for cackling at Charlie, who had bowled his chosen bowling ball down the gutter. Tao was doing some sort of strike ritual that only served to confuse the group. Kira and Nala essentially folded when his ball just rolled down the gutter and didn't hit any pins, clinging to each other and lightly smacking their shoulder.
"That's it! I'm not doing it anymore!"
"Let me show you how it's done," Kira pushed herself up, running a hand through her hair. She grabbed a bowling ball and walked up to bowl. She drew her arm back and rolled the ball at a decent speed, watching in anticipation as she knocked down all the pins. She shrugged cockily, her tongue slightly sticking out of the corner of her mouth as she sat back down. "Boom."
