GOLDEN, luke hemmings

XXXVI: I THINK HE LIKES YOU

At that, Ava let out a weak chuckle, a couple of tears running down her cheeks that she didn't notice until their salt touched her lips, and she had never been more happy to be called ugly by her younger sister. She crouched down so that they could be at eye-level and Ryuu grinned, hugging Ava.

"I missed you, you goofball," Ava teased, hugging her baby sister tightly as Luke beamed, thanking God that the day was off to a good start.

Then, distracted by the scene in front of him, he was surprised to feel himself become enveloped in someone's arms and looked down to see Ava's brother, Kaito, wrapping his lanky arms around Luke's limber legs. Unlike at other moment this could've happened, Luke didn't find himself uncomfortable or too taken aback. In fact, he let out a giggle and ruffled the hair of the small boy hugging him, asking no questions.

The experience was much more favourable than that of which he had with Hanako. A shudder threatened to run through him just at the memory.

As Ava finally stood up, she saw her little brother gripping onto Luke's legs nonchalantly and laughed, with Ryuu rolling her eyes.

"Kai," Ryuu said, causing the boy who was a minute younger than her to let go and face his sisters, "Why are you hugging the giant?"

"Because," Kaito responded matter-of-factly, a striking resemblance to Ava in his tone, motioning to Luke, "You were hogging Ava, and I wanted to hug someone. Plus, he's more handsome than Uncle Ian."

"Kaito!" Aya scolded, but her sternness faltered as a chuckle left her lips. She looked back at the two other adults, making no move to actually enter the apartment. "Sorry, he's going through his no filter phase. And his clingy stage. Although I'm not sure either are exactly just phases."

Ava got back up from the ground and leaned gingerly into Luke's side without even fully taking notice, their bodies colliding mellifluously like that's how they were meant to be. It had been something that she was so used to, falling into him and him catching her. Old habits sure did die hard, and so did vibrant, everlasting, perennial feelings that nagged them in the back of their minds and sparked the most crippled of veins in their hearts.

Catching Luke's fingers dancing at Ava's hip, barely touching them as his arm nearly snaked around her waist, Aya's sentence trailed off. She furrowed her brows, then covered it up, clapping her hands together tightly.

"So. You must be Le—La—Luke, right? I'm really sorry I am not good at names," Aya apologised and feeling like he was about to be interrogated, he brought his hand away from Ava's. "I know we met at Thanksgiving, but that was...whew, ages ago, doesn't it feel like?"

"Yeah, it does. And you're right, I'm Luke. It's nice to see you again," he offered a handshake, hoping that his charisma and charm would be enough for him to pass the universal Sister Test that most guys had to go through, whether they were romantically involved with said sister or not. He hoped his hand wasn't sweaty.

He assumed that the test was still thing, but again, what would he know about sisters? All he knew was that right now, he could see where Ava had gotten her intimidating personality from.

Aya reached up to take his hand when Ryuu beat her to it, grabbing his hand (which was humongous compared to her tiny ones) and she brought attention to Luke's ring.

"Hey, there's one like this on Ava's finger!"

Kaito took the opportunity to seize his sister's hand, lifting it up the same time Ryuu did to show that Luke and Ava were both wearing their matching promise rings. Luke was sure that he was a bright crimson, never feeling so innocently embarrassed since the second grade when he forgot to do up his belt and his pants fell down during recess—or that one time he had almost kissed Ava and she sneezed in his face.