Paper Wishes (#1)

Chapter Nine: Old Friends

The next morning I woke to an extremely cheerful Nox, who was already dressed for school. "Good morning," he said as he kissed my head, "Thank you for staying with me last night."

I smiled, because I didn't know what to say but that seemed to be enough for him.

"I put your things in the bathroom already – you can't miss it, I left the door open."

When I emerged from the bathroom ten minutes later, wearing a floral print Liz Lisa dress with my tresses in loose curls cascading down my back, Nox was standing by the door putting on a leather jacket.

"You're beautiful as ever, my Hikari." He held his arm out to me, for us to link arms. "Shall we?"

***

We were earlier than I had been yesterday, but we weren't the earliest students to arrive on campus. Nina and Nikki came to sit with us at the concrete tables in the quad. They were sisters by adoption; Nina was German by ethnicity but American by nationality, and the younger of the two, currently a sophomore. Nikki was a senior, like me, and had been born Jjang Bora in South Korea before being renamed after adoption. Nikki and I had been really close until our sophomore year when we just went our own ways, as people are prone to do.

"Good morning, you two!" Nina chirped excitedly, her shoulder length blonde hair swishing back and forth as she practically skipped toward us. She'd always been the more cheerful of the two. Not to say that Nikki wasn't cheerful – she was, especially once you got to know her, but Nina exuded cheer out of her pores.

"Vilv, we just wanted to tell Nox that he couldn't have found a nicer girl for himself," Nikki gave me a warm smile as she spoke.

"That's right! She's really giving, so don't you take advantage of her!" Nina added her two cents. "Whenever I needed extra help studying for Japanese class, she always made time to help me out."

Nox smiled. "Thanks. I know how fortunate I am. I'll take care of her."

"You better, or else," Nikki joked.

They stood to leave but before they did, Nikki came around the table to give me a hug. "I know that we aren't as close as we used to be, and I'm sorry I wasn't there for you when your mom passed away. I'm just..."

"I know - you're not good with emotional situations. It's okay... you know I'm not so great at it either." I returned her hug, perhaps a little tighter than she expected, but I wanted her to know that we really were okay.

Nikki smiled. "Thanks. Anyway, Nina and I are heading over to the cafeteria for breakfast, but we just wanted to meet your sweetie. Word travels fast in a small school like ours."

They waved as they headed off. "Nice meeting you, Nox! Take care of our Vilv!"

"Aren't you going to ask me about them?" Although Nox had met Nikki yesterday because we had a class together, he hadn't met Nina yet.

"Nah," he said as he tapped his forehead, "I have a lot of knowledge about your life, traveling through your sub-conscious and all."

"That's kind of nice, in a really weird way."

He grinned. "Thanks... I think," he said as he gave my hand a gentle squeeze.

The truth was that it was nice, because I wasn't good at explaining my feelings to other people. There were things that came easy enough – joking around, letting others know that I cared about them, but other things weren't easy to talk about. I gave myself a moment to think about how closed off I had been for months after my mom had passed. How I'd tried to keep up appearances for Kai's sake, but couldn't bring myself to do much more than get through day-to-day routine.