VIOLET SKY, takigawa chris yuu

━ chapter seventeen

act ii

how do we do this?
( carefully. )

chapter seventeen

❛nothing lasts forever in high school❜

━━━━━━

"Oh. thank goodness, I thought you'd left already!" Eiko says as she bounds into Amara's room. She gives her a quick half-hug, the smell of bleach and antiseptic clinging to her pink scrubs, tickling Amara's nose unpleasantly.

Eiko pulls away and drops onto the edge of Aiko's bed. While she smiles brightly, the slightly messy bun of black hair on her head and the circles under her eyes are a testament to the ten-hour shift she just did. It hadn't been scheduled but something happened with a patient, so she was called in this morning, effectively ruining their plans for the first half of the day.

"No, he's running late," Amara says belatedly, turning back to the full-length mirror on the door to the closet, adjusting her jeans. "He is usually punctual. I think something happened with his parents."

"I hope they're okay," Eiko says, eyes crinkling when her smile softens. "You look wonderful."

"Only took her three hours to pick it out," Aiko grumbles, shamelessly stretched out on Amara's bed, eyes trained on her phone.

"Aw."

Heat rises to her neck, bunching at the collar of her sweater.

"I'm just trying to make a good impression," she mutters.

"They'll love you! I don't think you need to worry about that. Right, Aiko?"

"Eh."

Eiko waves her off. "Besides, isn't he foreign, too?"

"His dad's white but they've lived here for his entire life." She frowns. "And that won't exactly get me brownie points. His dad doesn't . . . approve of our relationship."

She figures there's no use in toeing around it.

Aiko looks up from her phone, eyebrow raised. "But he's never met you."

"No. No, he hasn't," she grumbles. "But relationships, you know? And we're teenagers or whatever. And this is our last year. I think . . . he thinks this is bad timing on our part. Especially since I'm leaving and I won't go to college here."

"I see his point. Nothing lasts forever in high school." And she goes back to her phone.

Amara purses her lips and turns to look at them.

"Don't talk like that," Eiko scolds, shooting Aiko a reproachful look over her shoulder. Aiko ignores it. "Did Chris tell you that? That his father doesn't approve?"

"Not exactly," she hedges, grabbing a tube of lip gloss. "I . . . sort of eavesdropped on a conversation with him and his mom on our first date."

"Sort of?"

Amara ignores Aiko. "We ran into her. I went to try on some clothes and when I went back . . . well. I know it's bad but whatever, it's water under the bridge. Now, I just . . ." she turns back to the mirror, shaking her head a little then uncapping the lip gloss and carefully applying it.

"I hope he plans to tell you about that. It's not exactly fair of him to drop that on you once you get to his house," Eiko says, a frown now marring her features.

She closes the lip gloss and rolls her lips together, leaning toward the mirror and wiping off the excess that's smudged on the corner of her mouth with her index finger.