Postgrad Partners

Domestic First Day

They entered the cool, air-conditioned store, greeted by more crowds of back-to-school shoppers and pop music that Tori loved and Jade loathed. Taking out their phones, they pulled up the shopping list Jade wrote and shared between the two of them. Tori committed half the list to memory and nudged to Jade, "So I'll take care of the furniture and you'll take care of your clothes?" Jade nodded quickly and broke away to grab her own cart, leaving Tori to grab one and scan the aisles for home goods.

Tori's cart was quickly filled with various snacks, extra bedsheets, toiletries, some discounted classic movies she liked, and a few dark-colored clothes she thought Jade would like. After parking her cart in front of the checkout registers, she texted Jade to see if she was finished with her end of the list. While waiting for her reply, Tori heard a shaky voice next to her, to which she turned and saw a pair of young girls looking at her with their eyes almost glowing. "Hi there," Tori greeted a bit nervously.

The two girls were clearly too nervous to reply until one of them poked the other into saying something. In an almost hurried voice, the first girl asked, "H-Hi! Are you Tori Vega?"

Now Tori was the one hesitant to reply as she wondered how someone already knew her name from across the country. "Um...yeah. I'm Tori Vega, how do you...?"

"See?! I told you!" One of the girls interjected, pulling out her phone and showing the lock screen to Tori. She recognized the picture right away from her performance at the Platinum Music Awards, "You sang at the awards show last year! You were so cool!"

Feeling a bit flattered, Tori blushed and smiled to the two girls, "Aw, thank you! I'm so glad you two enjoyed it!"

"A-And didn't you sing the national anthem at some game and then get dragged by the school's mascot?!"

The flattery was quickly replaced by cringing discomfort as Tori tried to keep her composure, "Y-Yeah...that...that happened, too."

"But you still sounded so good until then!" they persisted in praising her, to which she could only smile back in relief.

"So what are you doing here in Miami?"

"Are you going to college here or working or...?"

"Do you have a boyfriend now?!"

Overwhelmed, Tori stammered to answer any of those questions until she felt a familiar arm wrap around her waist and pull her against a familiar warm voice that answered, "Boyfriend? First I'm hearing about it. Do you have something to tell me, Tori~?"

Tori turned her head to see Jade raising an eyebrow at her, and she could only sigh and instinctively peck her on the lips, as if to thank her savior from embarrassing herself. Then she realized what she'd just done...in public...in front of two young, possibly impressionable, girls. She didn't have to look hard to see the surprise plastered on both of their faces. Bracing for the worst, she cringed into Jade's side until she heard them both exclaiming wildly again.

"Omigod! Is she your girlfriend?!"

"I had no idea! She's so pretty!"

"You two are sooo cute together!"

"Wait, isn't she the girl you sang with in that karaoke video we saw?!"

They pulled up another video on their phones, apparently made by someone who had watched them tell two stubborn boys to wazz off in musical form on their sushi date years ago.

Tori and Jade looked at the video in complete shock, wondering how they'd never seen their performance recorded like that, but going off the girls' excited expressions, they smiled at how well-received their singing was and nodded along with their continued exclamations.