Catra immediately took notice of the not so subtle glances and whisperings amongst Adora's friends as well as the occasional gaping before the silence was broken. She didn't know whether she should feel complimented or embarrassed, it depending on the context of their murmurs really. Upon being introduced, Catra let her smooth, 'hey,' leave her mouth as one corner upturned into a smile smirk combination, her presence and exposure being presented from the get go. The only other girl in Adora's friend group was the first to reply to her.
"Hi! I'm Glimmer, it's nice to meet you." She jumped up and walked over to the girl to give her a light hug as if insinuating a 'welcome to the group.' Her pastel attire heavily contrasted Catra's black clothing choices, and if their fashion was in any correlation to their personalities, she began to question how well they would get along. As Glimmer pulled away, she decided to poke the bear.
"Adora's description of you was an understatement." She snarked with slight hints in her tone.
Catra raised her eyebrows in questioning and look at Adora from the corner of her eyes to see the girl rolling her eyes at her sparky friend. To jump on what Glimmer started, Catra pushed forth the tease, "Oh? Adora talked about what I look like huh?"
Adora instantly gave the girl a light shove before half the speech would finish, knowing where it was headed. "Oh shut up, Glim said understatement, for all you know I could've said you're really ugly."
Catra opened her mouth with a grin inching in, deterred by her unflustered response. Stepping further into the girls dorm and letting the door close behind her, she delivered her crafted response. "Well? Did you?" She spat out, moving closer to the girl as the two male friends in the background were blurring in her vision.
Adora, somewhat taller than her, looked down at her face and scanned it. "Oh I bet you'd love to know."
"Well I know I'm not ugly so seems like you may have described me as something quite the opposite." Catra continued. She didn't know what she wanted to get out of the interrogated girl and what response she could possibly receive that could gauge her victory in this conversation. So why did she continue to insist?
Adora simply shook her head with a smirk, letting Catra's soon to be unanswered question down lightly in an attempt to end the conversation as fast as possible incase something unwanted sipped out. She forced a reasonable, yet obvious, excuse.
"I'm being a terrible host. Catra meet Swind and Bow, they're in inter with Glim." She gestured to each person as she announced their names, also receiving a timed wave by each person as they let friendly gestures entice a new bond to form.
Catra nodded politely towards each of them before Bow struck up another conversation to prevent awkwardness. With all the bubbly-ness she could sense in this friend group, she presumed there wouldn't be a lot of quiet moments with them.
"So, we want to order Chinese right?" Bow exclaimed, clasping his hands together in excitement. "I've been craving their food for ages."
Glimmer squealed and pulled out her phone, likely opening an ordering app, and waddled over to Bow. Once she plopped herself next to him, Swind soon made his way over too and they indulged into an overlapping of voices about which variation of dumplings, soups or noodles to order.
While they were preoccupied, Adora offered for Catra to place any belongings wherever she wanted and she could treat her room as if it were her own dorm. "They treat it like their own anyway." Adora joked to her new friend, motioning at Glimmers crochet project and Swind's gaming device. Catra laughed softly in response, it wasn't awfully funny but she felt some urge to make this girl like her and want to befriend her further.
"You're good with Chinese food?" Adora asked kindly, tilting her head as if angling it downwards to be more within Catra's eyeline. Raising her gaze to meet the others and then travelling down again to focus on where she was to leave her jumper and keys she brought over, her sight brushed over Adora's features. Aligned as if carved by goddesses, her eyes, nose, lips...it was all perfectly harmonious.
Mentally raising a hand to knock herself back to active listening, she agreed with her, "Yeah Chinese is good, my mum used to make it for me all the time."
Adora straighten up more, portraying surprise in her stance as she asked a question, multi tasking by guiding the two of them to Adora's bed while they let the other three decide their shared order of food. "Does your mum cook asian cuisine a lot?"
Catra sat on the end of Adora's bed, careful not to invade too far into her personal space, yet with the rest of the bed free, the other still chose to sit right beside her, their shoulders almost touching and would contact if one were to sway. "Yeah, she's Chinese, she cooked for me a lot when I was a kid. It was like her love language, communicated things she couldn't express in words."
Adora processed the information and showed intrigue by the slight gleam of sight into Catra's family history, yet another question overrode with suspicions building. "Chinese? You look very Latina to me."
With a slight pause from Catra, thoughts were proved. "Are you adopted?"
The dark haired girl shrugged as if there it was an unhidden secret she was willing to let out. "Yeah, I was when I was only a few months old. I don't remember anything of a life I could have had. It's just been me and mum. And that's all I know." Upon shedding the somewhat deep information of her past, Adora felt more connected to her, attaining an atmosphere of trust between the two, despite the fact Catra may only be sharing surface level things. Wanting to keep things lighter and not be 'that person' that goes uncomfortably deep in the pursuit of personal information, Adora replied based on another pick up.
"What was your favourite dish your mum made?"
Catra perked up at the question, eyes lowered in a nostalgic reminiscence as she seemingly pondered her options of menu items. "Her pork and lotus root soup was my favourite. I really liked the texture of the lotus root especially," She replied with a smile on her face that resembled some gratitude towards Adora for bringing her back to that moment.
"Have any restaurants soup been able to beat hers?" Adora inquired, facing the other to look into her eyes, the topics they were covering remaining safe so their friendship would not downfall as quickly as it began.
"Nope, never." She shot back confidently and crossed her arms. "Mum does it best."
"I'm sure she does. She sounds great." Adora assumed with positive connotations, yet the clouded gaze that fell over Catra and the change in subtle happiness faded ever so slightly. Adora feared she had said the wrong thing just by noting the girls body language and was slashing thoughts through her mind to discover a way to cover up for her potentially stupid words. But instead Catra beat her to it.
"She's great at some things. Maybe she can make the soup for you one day."
The last sentence lingered on the girls tongue and flowed through Adora's cochlea like waves of hope. She didn't know why that concept felt so exciting and personal, but she took it as a level up of friendship. Before she could say something heartfelt back, Bow interrupted the two with the groups order, asking for Adora and Catra to check everything incase they wanted things added or taken away.
"Can you guys check the order summary. We'll split it between the five of us yeah?" Bow asked as he shoved Glimmers phone in the girls hands to look over.
Catra identified the total payment was to be $73.50. Roughly $15 per person. That's a good deal. Adora held the phone closer to Catra before inevitably passing it to her gently. "They always order the same things, I'm okay with everything. You should check it incase you want to change anything."
Swiping her finger across the screen rapidly she saw familiar names whizz by her, the identification of Chinese menu vocabulary a second nature in her mind, and agreed with the food they had selected. Giving the phone back to Bow by lifting off the bed slightly, she nodded and exchanged a, "looks good," with him, before nuzzling back into the warm space she had left beside Adora. As if sliding back into their last conversation momentarily, Catra raised her acute observation from the order.
"It's funny, they ordered the lotus root soup."
YOU ARE READING
The Red Swan // Catradora
Fanfiction(CONTENT WARNING! NSFW)Catradora Dance School AU. It's Adora's third year at Brightmoon School of Arts where she is in the advanced level dance classes. With levels of difficulty spread across their graduating year group, she's sure to get the Black...
