"There's no escape," Emilia complained, "they're already on about higher education applications at school and then I get home to my parents telling me I need to pick a job as if 'I don't have a clue what I want to do with my life' isn't an answer." As she said it, she realised it wasn't an answer, but she also knew Felix would get what she'd meant. Only half the lights of his small video game shop were on at this hour, Felix himself in the back somewhere as he shut the place up for the evening. The shop itself had long closed but he didn't count Emilia as a regular customer, more a friend or a niece, and he was well aware of the comfort she got from talking to him. Emerging behind the counter once again, he turned up his sleeves past his wrinkled elbows before leaning on the old converted bar, Emilia sat on the right of the two floor-mounted stools. They were high enough that her feet couldn't touch the ground, something she remembered thinking would change when she grew up, but after going to Felix for advice for the past seven years it hadn't.
"I remember being your age," he started, Emilia able to trust it would become more relevant as he spoke. "I was set on becoming one of those people who does the lights for stage shows."
"No way," Emilia muttered, finding it hard to see the lanky and awkward sweater-vest donning old man in front of her working in theatre rigging. He'd been so immensely dedicated to the shop the whole time Emilia had known him that she couldn't imagine him doing anything else, but she supposed she'd never stop learning new things about him.
"Yes way," he smiled, "and now look at me. I wouldn't want to be doing anything else. You'll find your calling too, might even find several." Somehow from him it felt less like surface level comfort and more realistic. "Change isn't a bad thing, it's human to become someone new as you grow." He drummed his fingers on the counter before scurrying off again, behind her this time as he folded away the first cardboard display stand, Emilia wondering if he actually needed to close things this much or if it was just something to allow her to stay longer.
"I always appreciate your wisdom," Emilia thanked him, hopping off the stool and checking the time on her phone. Six-twenty-eight, she'd long overstayed her visit and her parents would definitely start the stream of texts and calls asking after her if she wasn't back within the next two minutes. "I should definitely be at home right now though."
"I'm open anytime," Felix replied, and despite the exaggeration it felt as good as true. As Emilia left the shop that night she wondered if he ever got lonely there, if he welcomed his regulars as friends just for the company, if he had a family at home or maybe just a dog or something. She could picture him with a ratty little terrier, the idea making her laugh slightly as she walked the most well-lit route back home, fortunately not too far from the shop or well, anywhere really.
Her family lived nearly in the centre of the city, much less of an issue now of course, but the sacrifice of convenience was being the target of the attacks as were. It had been years since they'd seen a mech or a shark soldier on the streets, the cat long gone too, and the damage nearly repaired. She still avoided the darker alleys out of habit and potentially irrational anxiety, her mother seemed to think so at least, but there was no harm in taking the streetlight paved roads home. Everything in the city was built upwards, Felix's shop tucked in under a flight of stairs opposite one of the city's rooftop gardens, and several flights of stairs up from the actual ground. As she started the descent down the many, many steps, her phone ringing in her pocket was as good as a half-six alarm.
"Hi Mum, I'm on the way home right now," she immediately said, without needing to even look at the contact calling her. The wind caught her as she started down the second staircase, brushing away the loose strands of hair from her face, signs of where the day had been less gentle on her originally-neat plait.
"Dinner's already on the table," her mother replied, a predictable hint of irritancy to her tone that Emilia would've been surprised not to hear. Routine to her evenings had been established now, the start of the week especially due to her unbreakable commitment to using the library's extra hours before heading over to Felix's.
"I'm sorry, I got caught up, lost track of time." It was the same excuse every time she was late home, but it had never failed yet and tonight wasn't about to be the first occasion of its downfall. "I'm on the way back now."
"Alright, don't be too long." Emilia questioned what her mother would do if she did take 'too long', but she didn't want to find out enough to try it. Besides, there wasn't anywhere else worth stopping off at on her route home.
Endless use made the apartment block Emilia lived in as decrepit as it was modern, but there again the whole city wasn't that old. She was certain that her parents would be able to tell her all about moving after it had first come into existence, but she wasn't the kind of person who could pay attention to a story as long as her mother could make it. The fluorescent tubes lighting the staircase hurt her eyes especially relative to the warm darkness she'd just come out of, but it was yet another reason she counted herself lucky to only live on the fourth floor, the uncomfortably steep stairs being another considerable factor. Running up the first three sets of stairs had become a habit every time she got in if only to get out of uncomfortable lighting, but it always made Emilia too out of breath to continue it the rest of the way up.
Relative to the silence of the stairwell outside, the space Emilia called her home was even harder to navigate after the day she'd had. School had become impossible for the rest of the day after the lights had gone wrong in physics first thing and by her last class of the day, Emilia had wanted nothing more than to press her pillow over her head and stare into the darkness, but it hadn't been a luxury she'd been granted. In the small open plan apartment, nothing was safe from the stress of her mother's cooking process. Emilia was unable to pinpoint exactly where the noise and fuss was actually originating from, every light in the house switched on when realistically that was unnecessary even in the darkest winter months, but she made every effort to ignore it all until she'd had the chance to ritualistically wipe her feet on the mat inside their door, and drop her backpack on its hook between her brother's schoolbag and her mother's tote.
"Emilia, catch!" She'd got used to her brother throwing random objects at her without warning just as she'd got used to Daniel faking it to get a laugh out of her panicked response. It was how brothers were she'd always supposed, so when she reached out a startled hand in preparation to receive anything between a tennis ball and a cheese grater, she wasn't too surprised to hear him laughing when nothing went flying towards her anyway. Sighing in amusement and irritation equally, Emilia continued inside properly, hesitating as she took in the stress of the house and assessed how to act on it based on what the rest of her family was up to. Alex was the only one missing from the main room, her other brother probably in his bedroom away from the stress.
"You're back just in time, Crystal's just finished laying the table," her father commented from where he sat in his preferred armchair in the corner of their living room, the coffee table he'd claimed ownership of up against his knees and he hadn't even looked up from his laptop as he'd said it. Emilia couldn't tell if he was working on something productive or just using it as a reason to avoid the kitchen space, just as she was unsure whether or not he'd been passive aggressive in speaking at all. Unlikely for it to be a catalyst for anything seriously argumentative, she could remain uncertain. Emilia's sister and youngest sibling Crystal was already sitting at her place at the table, watching as her mother finished taking the casserole dish out of the oven, her legs swinging back and forth under the table. There wasn't time for Emilia to consider it worth going to her room, perching on the sofa arm instead before Dan sat beside her, uncomfortably close as she waited for him to say something, do anything to be mildly antagonising like usual.
The heavy fall of the casserole dish her mother took an uncomfortable level of pride in made Emilia jump, and she almost didn't want to look over at the table in case she was met with a shattered dish and a ruined dinner, but her mother was yet to actually scream so she figured everything was okay.
"Okay! Dinner's ready." Her mother always spoke so much louder than she needed to, and with the added annoyance of an obviously stressful evening, whether it had actually been stressful or she'd just accelerated it to be, her voice was almost painful. Alex emerged from his room at the announcement of dinner, Daniel jumping up from the sofa only to push past him to get to the table first even though there was absolutely no threat to the casserole or his usual seating spot. He pulled the main serving dish in front of him before the rest of the family had even sat down, putting his phone on the table beside his plate while typing back to someone or other. It wouldn't be easy to guess given how noticeably busy his phone always was.
"How's your girlfriend, Dan?" Alex chirped, leaning over to look at the phone screen between them to get a look at the messages before Daniel could turn it off and push his brother's face away.
"Shut up." Their tiny fights were so commonplace that they were totally ignored, Daniel finishing loading his plate and pushing the casserole dish back towards his parents, his mother serving herself next. After her father had passed the dish onto Emilia with a sympathetic smile at her weariness from both the day she'd had and the loud family she was sat with, she moved it towards Alex and Crystal, prioritising them both over herself. Even she had become unsure over the years if she actually preferred taking the last of the food that was left, or if that was the routine she was comfortable in now. As Alexander passed it back, she was challenged to serve herself the last of it before she was completely drowned in the noise of chewing, the whole family equally bad for it. Sitting at the dinner table Emilia hoped she'd be able to head to her room when she'd finished, trying not to snap at her family for their total lack of etiquette. If she brought it up, it would only keep her there longer for the lecture.
"Have you looked at higher education much?" her father asked midway through finishing a mouthful of her mother's finest beef casserole, both the question and his lack of consideration making her want to scream.
"Ooh yes, open days will be happening soon, you should get thinking about it," her mother added.
"I don't even know what I'd want to do anywhere I might look at," Emilia said for what felt like the hundredth time, especially recently. "Let alone where I'd want to go for my surprise course." Where her parents had given her a day off from talking about the next year of her life, her school had been hammering open days and applications and internships into her brain.
"We're just trying to help Emilia," her mother replied. Yet again she'd taken Emilia's words to be more hostile than she'd meant them to be. There was no point in actively arguing, she already knew from experience it would only make things worse. Again, their disagreement had produced an uncomfortable silence, quickly filled with Alexander scraping the end of his portion across his plate, the painful metal-on-ceramic screech accompanying it that only Emilia seemed bothered by, realising that if she expressed any of her discomfort she'd just provoke another disagreement with her mother. Emilia didn't want to go down the gloomy thoughts route, especially not while trying to survive a meal with her family, but some days more than others she felt like she was the problem child her parents had never expected to have to raise. Her younger sister would grow up to be everything she wasn't, she could see it already, and even if she didn't Emilia felt like Crystal had been a lot more blessed. Their age difference made her either infinitely irritating, or a close friend, depending on the day of the month, the position of the moon, and the direction of the wind it seemed. Alex was basically a child genius in every area of the curriculum, be it science and maths, or music and arts, with every option under the sun open ahead of him and a clear mind to decide exactly what he wanted from it when his first set of options would come up for him at the end of the year. He didn't need his parents to remind him every minute. Daniel was already well on the way to success in sports, and what he didn't have planned wasn't ever questioned. He was just the kind of person who wasn't crossed or questioned by anyone, something Emilia greatly envied.
"Alright, thanks for dinner," Dan said, standing up from the table and sliding his phone into his pocket as he left for his bedroom, hopefully for the rest of the night like usual.
"Can I leave?" Crystal asked, Emilia hoping at a table of empty plates that it would mean the end of the meal for everyone, Alexander giving his parents an equally hopeful look.
"Of course," her mother replied, Crystal leaving her place to continue watching whatever she'd left on her phone across the room as usual, stretched out along the length of their whole sofa, Alex going back to his room. Piling her plate on top of her sister's, Emilia stood up too, adding her parent's plates to the pile and taking the first four over to the sink, hoping to use the favour as an escape route as she left them in the sink momentarily to collect the other two.
"So, what are you planning to do next year?" her mother called, her father in silent agreement to the conversation if only for the fact he didn't challenge it. So much for the way out.
"I don't know yet," Emilia repeated, deciding against loading the crockery into their dishwasher if it wasn't actually going to stop the existential-inducing conversation her mother was set on, and leaving the plates in the sink. "I've only just started this year."
"The sooner you get higher education applications started, the more of a chance you'll have."
As her father sat in complete silence, Emilia quickly understood how their conversation was going to go. She returned back to the table without adding anything, for there was nothing to add. Without anywhere to apply to or a course to apply for, starting applications early was irrelevant. "Tell her Joseph, you get these applications all the time."
"I get job applications, there's no deadline for that," her father said, always leaning a little more in Emilia's favour, or maybe just more reluctant to twist facts. Sometimes she wished he was the one at home all day, and her mother was out being the local boss of a financial advisor's, or whatever it was he actually did. Every story he came home with made it seem like he could've been a financial advisor, an accountant, a tax officer, a lawyer, and sometimes she questioned if he had enough experience to actually be in the police force. That was how some of his opinions had come across at least, in the past few years especially.
"Can I leave now?" Emilia asked, avoiding sitting back down until she was told to. She didn't need to prompt a continuation to the conversation, but she highly doubted the answer would be positive. Between the lighting of the room, and the leaking sound from Crystal's endless videos, she was starting to feel claustrophobic and significantly less able to focus.
"Emilia, this is a serious conversation," her mother sighed, somewhere between annoyance and acting as if they were friends. "This is an important time for you, and you know I just want what's best." What was best for her in the moment was an escape from the existential crisis that an impossible talk about the future would give her, somewhere dark and quiet, and her pyjamas instead of the shirt that had started to feel itchy on her arms. Regardless, she sat back in her place at the table, one leg tucked up to her chest, her foot on the seat of the chair. Her mother looked disapprovingly at her, in a way that strongly communicated her seating position could be pushed under a heading of 'inappropriate' but that Emilia was also too old for that to be something for her parents to correct.
"If you don't have anything you want to do, what about the things you're good at?" Not once in any of the similar talks that had happened between the family over the past summer had Emilia even come close to indicating there was nothing she wanted or could enjoy at higher education, just that she hadn't found it yet. Every time it was brought up, the conversation was a repeat.
"Antonia, she's good at everything." Emilia had started feeling as if it would be an easier conversation for all three of them if she wasn't present for it. She didn't need to be pressured into applying anywhere for the sake of it, nor the pressure of being known for little more than her academic successes, pinned to them with an expectation for consistency. Her parents could argue about her future just as easily without her having to hear it.
"I'll start thinking about it this month," Emilia promised, something she wouldn't actually put any thought into, but if it meant getting out of the socks constricting her ankles it was worth lying about. "See what my best subjects are and think about applications based on that."
"I'd be happy to help you with any applications though Emilia, higher education or work placement," her father offered, and she got the feeling he'd seen her exhaustion a little better than her mother ever would. "Whatever you decide on for next year."
"Thanks," she said, leaving it at that. There was no way she was going to risk adding anything that would reignite the discussion when the end of her day was so nearly in reach.
"No, thank you," her mother replied, here came the big deal out of nothing. "You're going to make us so proud."
Her bed felt like heaven to her as she was finally left in peace to plug in her headphones and lie face down into the darkness of the covers. The synth notes of her favourite lofi playlist hit her eardrums in all the right ways, her fingers gently tapping her quilt in time with all her favourite rhythms, all memorised by now. Upon discovering a set of pyjamas she wasn't constantly aware of, she'd bought five pairs, their soft fleece sinking into the background of her senses as she mentally recharged herself for the following day before going to sleep. Tomorrow might be a new day, but she wasn't sure how much of a relief that would be when it meant yet another day of trying to feel normal. Though she supposed normal didn't mean all that much in Ninjago City.