TERRIBLE THINGS

seventeen

Jase dug his fork into his french toast, his usual breakfast.

Kova sat next to him eating his own breakfast - he didn't have a usual one so they just kept getting weirder and weirder as the days passed. Today it was a potato pancake, applesauce, and a side of salmon which he'd given to Huraira, who sat across from them. She rotated between two or three breakfasts, but today she had a muffin and a cup of black coffee. Dark bags crested her eyes, the key sign of a sleepless night. She had been having a lot of those lately.

Jase suspected it had to do with Bonnie being in the hospital. Sometimes Jase found himself looking for the freckled girl himself, only to find a hollow emptiness in her place.

Huraira drained her cup of coffee. "I'm so tired," she groaned. "I was up until three hundred hours."

"And whose fault is that?" Jase asked.

"Kova's."

That wasn't the answer Jase had been expecting. He knew Huraira was living with Kova for some reason. Kova blinked at Huraira as if this were news to him. "Ka," he muttered. "You wanted to learn."

"Not in the middle of the night!"

"What do you want to learn?" Jase asked.

Another mystery, another argument. There were so many secrets separating them. Huraira and Jase used to tell one another everything, but that had changed. Now Jase couldn't seem to close the distance. He had a sick feeling that she knew about the Genetic Map and that was why she was keeping him at arm's length.

"Nothing," Huraira said.

"Smiles," Kova said.

In the absence of Huraira, Kova was all Jase had left. "You're teaching Huraira about Smiles?" he asked. "Didn't you almost fail that test at the Hopeful Conference?"

"Yeah, why did you almost fail?" Huraira asked. "You're literally a Smile... genius... thing." She groaned into her coffee cup. "I don't know, I'm tired."

"It was līla test." Kova crossed his arms. "How am I supposed to know how many bones a Smile has?"

Well- that was fair. Jase didn't know either.

Huraira, however, scoffed. "The Viper literally went over that," she said. "All of the information on the test was stuff we'd been taught a week earlier."

"While I was sleeping," Kova pointed out.

"You're infuriating."

"Get used to it, talaa," Kova said, looking him dead in the eyes as he took a ketchup bottle, popped its lid, and poured it over the contents of his plate.

Jase shrieked. "What are you doing?"

"Drowning his meal in ketchup," Huraira deadpanned. "Is this really any worse than the hot chocolate incident?"

No. Nothing was worse than the hot chocolate incident. Kova had a weird sense of taste and oftentimes did strange things. Like dumping an entire jar of pepper on his pancakes or dipping pretzels in mayo or, worst of all, pouring salt and hot sauce into hot chocolate. Kova would only drink it with salt and hot sauce. Otherwise, it was too sweet.

Kova dug his fork into his ruined breakfast and ate it constantly. Jase didn't have the strength to watch. How Kova was able to stomach half the things he did was the greatest mystery of them all, but it never seemed like Kova had a particularly strong opinion on what he was eating one way or another - unless it was sweet.

"On an unrelated note," Huraira said, "did you get the invitation to the Rose Petal Ball that I sent?" She shifted ever so slightly in her seat.

Jase smirked. "Yeah. I'll be there," he said. "Hopefully we can help liven it up a bit."

Huraira scoffed. "I kicked your ass last time."

"You kicked the whole party's ass. We got thrown out!" Jase said. "Your father yelled at us for half an hour!"

"He did," Huraira hummed in agreement. "I thought he was going to chop me up and feed me to a Smile." She chuckled, though it hadn't been funny at the time. "Moral of the story, don't get into fights at fancy parties."

Kova stopped eating. "That was you two?"

"Who else would it be?" Huraira smirked. "What we need to figure out is how to top that-" Huraira was cut off by Jase's alarm, letting him know he was about to be late for work. He sighed, half tempted to ignore it and sit here all day listing ways to antagonize the old bastards who ran the city with Huraira.

Huraira's face fell as she looked at his Chip. "Guess you two are off then."

"You should come back," Jase said as he always did. "I miss you."

"Maybe tomorrow," Huraira said like she always did. "Today... today I'm going to the hospital."

"To visit Bonnie?" Jase asked. He'd been to see her once with Kova, once without. "She's okay, right? She hasn't gotten worse, has she?"

"No, no," Huraira said, shaking her head. "I'm just going to pay her a visit and... maybe my mom too. While I'm there." She smiled, but it seemed sad. "And then... then I think my head might be clear enough to come back."

"See you tomorrow then," Jase said, sticking out his fist.

"Tomorrow." Huraira grabbed his fist and shook it. It was the same thing she'd done when they'd first met.

Maybe... maybe things could go back to how they were before.

Such a naive thought.

[author's note]

i really like this chapter (though it's a bit short) which makes me glad that i got to share it with the world on my birthday (may 4th hehe). thanks for reading and feel free to vote and comment, you guys never fail to make me laugh :)