AN: Hey, guys! I hope that you like this story. I'm going to be doing a bunch of little clips of what I think the Potato life is like and stuff like that. I might write a story sometime if I can fit one more book plot into my brain. I have about four more running around in there. Btw, I love this fanart. I didn't make it, but shoutout to the artist! Anyway, this is my very first fanfic, so comment below on how you like it. Enjoy and ciao!!
"Shah, I swear. If you skip back to "How Far I'll Go" one more time-"
"Relax, Brynne," said Aru. "That was only four rounds!"
"Yes, but why?" Aiden asked.
"Because," Aru gave them a sly smile. "It's crabulous!"
Everyone groaned while Aru threw back her head and cackled wildly.
"Why are you like this, Shah?" Aiden whined.
Aru gave him an evil grin and turned back to the screen where Moana was playing.
It was Saturday night in the Museum of Ancient Indian Art and Culture's dome theater. The space was usually used for documentaries and the occasional conference, but the Potatoes used it from time to time watching movies. But tonight it had taken them an hour to choose what to watch (the official record!) only for Aru to take advantage of her authority and skip back to all of the songs and replay them over and over and over.
"Next week, we're going to my house." Brynne groaned as Aru started singing along.
"Hey, it was you're idea!" Aru shot back.
"I didn't think you would skip around so much! We might as well just let Rudy control the remote."
Rudy turned his head to look at Brynne from a few rows down. "Why do I feel like that's an insult? I'll have you remember that I'm a-"
"WE KNOW, RUDY." Everyone yelled.
"Just making sure you remembered. Also, what is a coconut?" Rudy asked. Mini sighed loudly from next to him.
"Ruuuudyyy. You own a beach house. How could you possibly not know what a coconut is?"
"The servants are the ones that cook, not me! Is it like that other kind of food that you put in trail mix?"
"You mean almonds?" asked Mini.
"Yes."
"Kind of. Except you don't eat coconuts. You drink milk from them."
Rudy looked shocked and slightly disturbed. "You mean milk doesn't come from the cow?"
Mini blinked and pushed her glasses further up her nose. "Yes, but it-"
There came a big "SHHHHH!" from the rows above.
There was quiet in the room for a few more minutes as they watched Moana discover the hidden cave of her ancestors (AN: lol I'm just moana fangirling here!). At the part where Moana's grandmother dies, Aiden looked over at Aru, shocked to see tears streaming down her face.
"Shah, are you crying?"
Aru glared and punched him in the shoulder. "It's not my fault that my face doesn't react well to this scene."
Aiden stifled a laugh as Brynne and the others started snickering next to him while Aru made a big show of wiping her eyes like she was in a Bollywood movie.
Ten minutes later, everyone was asleep. Well, everyone except for Aiden. He scanned the room, seeing if anyone was awake and his eyes snagged on Aru, who was sighing softly in her sleep next to him. Her thick eyelashes fluttered every couple of minutes in time to her breath. As she was sleeping, a hair blew onto her face.
Aiden hesitated for a couple seconds, then softly brushed the hair from her cheek. The tip of this finger stroked her skin slightly and an electric sort of shock raced through his finger when their skin met. Aru sighed and muttered in her sleep. Aiden blushed and looked away.
And he stayed that way for the next few minutes, staring straight at the screen, not daring to look back. He slowly relaxed as he listened to the cute way Aru breathed while she slept, in through the nose and out through the mouth.
I wish she knew how much I like her, he thought as Maui CHEEHOO!ed loudly on the screen in front of him. I wish I could just get up the courage to tell her. But instead I just sit around and act like I don't know her half the time. She probably thinks I hate her. In fact, she probably hates me.
But sometimes we make the wrong assumptions when we're young.
Aru's POV:
Aru slowly woke up, the kind where you're awake before you even open you're eyes and you try to go back to sleep, but it's too late so you just decide to wake up.
She slowly opened her eyes to see Moana go hurling into the depths of Tamatoa. Aru looked around to see all of her friends asleep, except for Aiden, who was leaning forward and staring intently at the movie in front of them, muttering quietly.
She felt slightly disoriented, like she always did when she woke up from a nap, and her hair probably looked like a Walmart crow had made a nest in it. She silently sat up and stretched. If Aiden noticed she was awake, he didn't show it.
She lightly tapped his shoulder, still half asleep. He jumped and his head whipped around, like he wasn't expecting her to be awake. She chuckled softly. "What do you call it when Moana loses a fight?" she asked blearily.
Aiden looked kind of confused for a second. "What?" he asked in bewilderment.
"Te Feated."
Aiden rolled his eyes and grumbled under his breath "Why, Shah?" as he turned back to the movie. Aru giggled and slumped back to sleep against his shoulder far too gone to feel his arm, slowly and tensely, settle around her.
Brynne's POV:
If you didn't count waking up, Brynne's dream would have been great. But then, all dreams are like that. She was halfway through a cooking championship, beating everyone else along with her egg whites. She sprinkled garlic into her pasta sauce and checked the rolls in the oven. Glancing up at the clock, Brynne cried out in alarm. Only ten minutes left! She quickly poured the rest of her dry ingredients into the bowl and whisked at the batter of what would be her extra-extra-chocolate brownies. If she had enough time, that was.
She was just tossing the pan into the oven when life decided to pull a little trick on her. She suddenly found herself in a star-lit forest, surrounded by graceful trees with twinkling threads of stardust hanging from their slender branches. She would have yelled out loud with frustration if it hadn't been for the three figures, running toward her through the trees.
As they got closer, she saw that it was Mini, Nikita, and Sheela. Once they reached her, they doubled over panting. "How-gasp- do you...get-gasp -tired in dreams?" Mini gulped between breaths.
Nikita was the first one to recover, standing up straight, and inspecting Brynne over her upturned nose. "You look like a hobo." she sniffed delicately.
Brynne scoffed and looked down at her olive green overalls worn over an ochre yellow shirt. Then she looked back at Nikita, who was dressed in an elaborate violet ball gown, complete with a parasol and a smirk plastered onto her face. "Did you really invade my dream just to insult my style? I was about to win the cooking championships!"
Mini and Sheela sat up from where they had been gasping for breath on the ground. They looked at one another and then stood up. "No, we have a different problem. Have you seen what's going on outside our dream?"
"What's happening outside our dream?" Brynne asked, feeling the hair rise on her arms a little.
A little mirror glistened into view a couple feet away from them. "That." Nikita said.
A Brynne got closer to the image she saw herself snoring in her seat. And right next to her was...
"Oh. My. Fricking- are they snuggling??" asked Brynne, examining the dream glass. Aru's head was rested on Aiden's shoulder and and Aiden's arm was around her. They both appeared to be asleep, but still...
She looked at the other girls, her mouth wide open. Mini squealed and jumped up and down. "Isn't it adorable? I mean, I knew that Aiden had feelings for her, and Aru has had a crush on him since, like, forever, but-"
"I think they're adorable." said Sheela timidly.
Brynne just stared at the glass, her mouth still hanging open.
They all sat down on the grass. Nikita waved her hand and a bush of navy blue roses sprouted out of the ground in front of her. As the four laughed and talked they didn't see Aiden lifting his head from Aru's through the misty haze of the dream glass.
Aiden's POV:
In that moment, nothing could have been better. Aiden was fast asleep, with Aru next to him and his arm around her. Then Brynne laughed loudly in her sleep and he was awake. Aiden looked down to see Aru snuggled up against his shoulder. Being careful not to wake her, he gently peeled his arm from Aru and rested her head against the back of her seat. Then he sat up and stretched, looking around. Everyone else was still out and the movie was over, the ending credits moving down the screen as Alessia Cara's voice blared from the speakers.
He sat there like that, watching the ending credits for the next twenty minutes. Finally everyone else woke up and started standing up and stretching. Mini kept on giving him weird looks as she and Rudy shuffled down the aisle to the door. "What?" he asked. She just smiled and shook her head as if there was some sort of private joke as she continued walking. Brynne woke up Aru and the very first thing she said was, "HEI-HEI!" and shot up out of her seat.
Everyone started laughing as they picked up their blankets and candy wrappers. They all walked out to the lobby talking groggily and stretching their arms above their heads. And with his friends around him, Aiden felt...happy. Happier than he had felt in a while. In fact, ever since he'd met the Potatoes, his life had been going a lot better, besides all the training and daily attacks from demons. He was glad Aru had entered his life. He only really felt this way when he was around her. It was like taking a sip of hot tea on a rainy day. And it was almost as amazing as Brynne's lasagna.
And that was saying something.