Yours

Aftermath

It was hard to come down from last night’s emotional high. 

Earth spent the first few moments of his day staring at the ceiling, trying to recall the details of everything that happened the night before. It was one of the best nights of life for a lot of reasons, and he wanted to relive it for as long as he could. Actually, he was thinking about one person in particular. Rarely could anyone stay on his mind like Kao did. There was something really mysterious about him, and Earth wanted nothing more than to know what was going on in his mind. 

“What if Prem was right?” he asks, talking to himself. “He didn’t even deny that he was checking me out… WHAT DOES IT MEAN?? UGH!”

He needed more evidence and, remembering the dozens of photos he took and the dozens more that Fluke sent him, he reached for his phone. 

The young man is jolted wide awake from the avalanche of notifications from every single possible source. It was a bit strange, being flooded with messages from people he didn’t know. He only had to read the first message to know that he didn’t need to waste his time opening the other ones. It made him get out of bed with a scowl on his face. 

Hi, is this K’Earth Katsamonnat, the friend of K’Fluke Natouch? I’m K’Ploy from Channel 31 News, and I was wondering if you were interested in having an exclusive interview for a special we’re doing about K’Fluke. You’ll be well compensated, of course. Name your price.

“Name your price??” He exclaims. “Did you really click on my stunning pfp and see the face of a sell-out? No, Ms. Ma’am. Sorry, not sorry.”

He quickly deletes the message, but ten new ones easily take its place. Earth scrambles to private all his accounts and regrets that he didn’t take the advice to do it last night, just like K’Kao told all of them to. 

The daily commute to work was boring, as usual, except for the fact that everywhere he turned, people were on their phones reading about Fluke and the Prince. Every headline was filled with their smiling faces and his heart filled with happiness. He couldn’t think of anyone who deserved this adoration more than his best friend, but having to share his best friend with the entire country certainly was going to take some getting used to.

Getting off the bus and walking to the cafe was strange. It was way more crowded than usual, and there was a buzz in the air that didn’t usually accompany his morning shift. He notices that this wasn’t a random assortment of people, but these were people who were waiting in line. The line snaked from way past the bus stop, through the next four blocks, making its way up the street he was walking on.

“Is there a sale or something?” He thinks to himself, as he rounds the corner. His heart drops to his stomach when he realizes that the line stopped at the door of the cafe. 

“Holy shit.”

Murmuring immediately started once Earth made his way to the door. The young man was clutching his bag close to his chest to comfort himself. Being alone in this potentially chaotic situation was making him sweat buckets. 

“Excuse me,” one of the older women in line says. “You work here, right? This is where K’Fluke Natouch works, too?”

No one even waited for his response before the crowd started to throw a million questions at him. 

“Is he coming in today?”

“Is the Prince coming with him, too?”

“Were you there last night?”

“What’s your name?”

“Why can’t I tag the cafe on my post?”

With shaking hands, he reaches into his pocket for the keys. This didn’t seem like it would disappear on its own, and he would need a plan to fix things. Taking a deep breath and clearing his throat, he readies to shout as loud as he could to his captive audience.