A Lady Never Tells Where She Hides Her Triforce Piece

Like, Totally a Weird Coincidence

Tris and I were walking home together after school, when she came to a sudden stop in front of me, causing me to bump into her. The tip of my shoe got caught on the back of hers, and I flailed in place for a moment before regaining my balance.

"Look, a café that sells bubble tea!"

"Ehhhh?" It was still hard for me to put words together, even though the day was over and I was only with my sister now.

"We should get some. We had a successful first day at a new school, so we deserve it."

"Mmm-mmm." I shook my head no. I wanted to get home as soon as possible, to change out of my school uniform. So people wouldn't be able to look right at me and know where I went to school, which seemed super counter-intuitive for literal ninjas. And so the button that was still straining would be less likely to pop.

"I know, I know, we don't need it, but I didn't say we needed it. We deserve it."

"Mmm-mmm." I shook my head again and tugged at my crisp white uniform top.

"Yeah, I guess we could go home and change first," Tris said, shrugging. "But after that, we're definitely coming back here to get bubble tea." I was glad she always seemed to be able to tell what I was trying to say, even if I was physically incapable of saying it at the moment. Well, she should be able to by now, having been a voice for me long enough.

We finished our walk to our apartment, a compact little one bedroom place in a tall apartment building not far from downtown. I rushed into the bedroom to change. We had divided the room right down the middle with a long piece of painter's tape, so it was clear which side was Tris' and which was mine. This had been Tris' idea, and while it might seem a little petty, I totally understood why she wanted to do it. 'Cause her side was always immaculately clean, and mine looked like a tornado hit it. The door was on her side, so she didn't have to walk through any of my slop.

Really, everything on her side was packed neatly on shelves or into clear labeled bins. But I never had the mental energy for any of that. Mine was chaos. But organized chaos! I knew exactly where everything was based on the last place I put it. If I wanted to pick up the next fantasy comic book I'd planned on reading, I could pull it out of the towering stack of books in a second, even though all the young adult novels and the slice of life comic books would be on top of it. If I felt like playing with my slingshot, I could grab it out of another giant pile without even having to look. If Tris was in the other room and I wanted to snag some of my hidden marshmallows, from the bag I didn't want her to know about because she'd either steal them or get on my case for keeping food in the bedroom... yeah. Shush. She doesn't even have room to talk when she lives on cookies.

So it didn't take me long to find one of my favorite t-shirts, in the clean clothes pile, after stepping past the dirty clothes pile and the worn-a-few-times-recently-but-clean-enough-to-wear-again pile. It was a faded grayish green, with a weird symbol on it consisting of a minimalist red bird and a yellow triangle made out of three smaller triangles. I wasn't sure where I'd even gotten this shirt, but something about it seemed... familiar and comforting. Maybe if I wore it, it would soothe me enough that I'd be able to string words together at the café. Or maybe not. I changed into it, and a pair of plain but equally faded jeans. She'd changed into something similar, except her t-shirt was blue with a cartoon cat eating pizza on it. Always with the cat stuff...

And with that, we headed back to the café, leaving me in awe of Tris' mental ability to know where it was. How'd she remember what street it was on or what store it was next to or anything? That's the kind of stuff I'd need to write down... and still have trouble finding it again even with the necessary info... A lot of stores look the same.