❝ To catch an Aquarius's attention
you must truly be someone different ❞
IT TOOK ONLY THREE days to finish the paperwork and get me back into school. I didn't tell anyone I was coming back because I wanted to surprise everyone and see the looks on their faces.
Well, that was a wrong move.
When Sky saw me in my normal seat during culinary class, she looked more confused rather than happy.
"Char? What are you doing here?"
"I'm officially a student of Terebellum Rho. Again." I grinned.
"I thought you were staying with Mars?"
"It's a long story. I'll tell everyone at lunch, I have so much to talk to you guys about."
Sky's face fell a little, "Um, actually, we don't really sit together anymore. Noah sits with his student gov friends now and Kingston's always with his boyfriend."
"Noah's in student gov? Since when—wait a second, did you say Kingston's dating someone? Who?" The last time we suggested about setting him up, he threatened to kill us in our sleep.
"Yeah. There's a lot to catch up on." She shrugged and the conversation kind of died. So I decided to bring up a new topic to lighten the mood.
"So what are we cooking today?"
"Actually. . . Daphne's my new cooking partner." Sky bit her lip nervously.
"What? Really?"
At that exact moment, Daphne walked in and when she got to us, she looked at me expectantly. Like I'd just give up my seat.
"But I'm back. Come on, Sky, we gotta bring back the dream team." I joked but that just made the situation even more awkward. Neither wanted to call me out, all they did was share a silent look—something Sky and I did to other people.
Luckily, Mr. Fernando saw that I was back and saved me from just sitting there with a dumbfounded look on my face.
"Charlize, you can partner up with Veronica for today. She can catch you up on what we've been doing the past month." He told me and I nodded while grabbing my backpack and heading to the very front.
"Why are you back?" Veronica asked bluntly. No how are you doing, no nice to see you again, not even a simple hello. How I missed her daily dose of rudeness.
"Long story," the room started to fill up and I looked around, "Don't you have a partner though?"
"No, I work alone. Besides, I'm the best cook here, everyone would just slow me down."
"If you think I'm gonna sit back and let you do all the cooking, you're wrong." I stood my ground and for a second, I thought she was going to argue with me. But instead she just nodded.
"Okay."
Okay? That wasn't a typical Capricorn response.
Class started and Mr. Fernando started his pre-lecture before we started getting our aprons and measuring the ingredients. We were making some seafood dish that the Pisces had invented a long time ago. Personally, I wasn't really a fan of fish since I could never get the funny taste out of my mouth. Also, everything was supposed to be eaten raw, so I didn't have high hopes for today.
Once the lecture was over, everyone started rushing towards the front to grab the many ingredients that the recipe called for.
"I'll get the dry ingredients if you get the wet ingredients." She said and I nodded. We grabbed separate trays and waited in line.
After I weighed the fish, blue rice, seagrown veggies, sand fruits, kelp cubes and salt flakes, I walked back to our kitchen, where Veronica had just come back with the thirty different liquids to make the four specialty sauces.
"I'll do the sauces, you mold the rice." She instructed and I didn't object; I loved getting my hands dirty.
After mixing everything together but the garnishes, I flattened the ball with my palms and molded it so it looked like a rainbow. Getting each rice rainbow to stand on its own was the only challenging part. About a third of them would collapse and I'd have to really squeeze everything together.
"Some of them aren't staying up. And the fruit's falling out."
"Try coating them with a dash water. If that doesn't work, put some salt on your fingers. And if that doesn't work, cut the fruit into smaller pieces and use less rice."
"You have an answer for everything, don't you?"
"Did it work?" She asked instead as I followed her advice.
"Like a charm."
We worked in silence for a few minutes so I took the time to eavesdrop on Sky and Daphne in the kitchen across from us.
"I thought she was staying with Mars," Daphne was saying and I didn't need to ask who they were talking about, "Did she tell you why she came back?"
"She's going to tell me at lunch." Sky sounded very faraway—not just physically but also emotionally, like there was a big gap between us now.
"Maybe they got into a fight or something. I mean, why else would she come back? You said yourself that she chose to leave you guys behind." Sky didn't have anything to say to that. "I bet he shut her out after his dad died and she didn't want to handle it. Or she got too honest with him and he snapped at her. You know how she is."
Since Daphne was one of my good friends, I gave her the benefit of the doubt. She didn't know what I was going through, but I didn't like how she was talking behind my back.
"Are you almost done?" Veronica asked and I snapped back to what I was doing.
"I just have five more. What about you?"
"I'm on the last sauce but it won't mix. I keep getting three layers."
"Try heating it in the microwave."
"Okay, I'll try it."
Another ten minutes later and we were both done. We touched up the food a bit and took some pictures before taking a few bites. For some reason, I assumed it would taste okay like every other recipe we'd made, but this one was actually delicious.
"Wow, that coral bean sauce is good."
Veronica nodded and spoke after chewing thoroughly, "I like the purple ink sauce myself. The coral is too spicy. Although, the root paste isn't bad."
"How's everyone doing? Still wrapping up?" Mr. Fernando asked the class. We looked around and saw that half of the room were still preparing the sauces.
"You know, we make a pretty good team." I commented casually. "Our food came out great." She was actually pretty cool, albeit hard to impress when it came to everything else.
"That's only because everything was raw—we just had to mix it all together and not screw up the measurements."
"Yeah, but we were still the first ones done."
"Tell me again when we're using the stove."
Like I said, hard to impress.
»» ─────── ─────── ««
The first thing I noticed when I walked into the cafeteria was that our usual table was taken over by Bennett, Patricia, and the other student government members. Noah was arguing with Bennett about something, his hands moving dramatically in the air.
I looked around for Sky and finally found her at a long table with Daphne, Jill, Zoe, and a bunch of other girls.
"Hey Char, welcome back," Zoe smiled at me.
"I thought you left to live in Regulus?" Jill asked.
"Yeah I was, but I decided to come back because—" I hated lying but I wasn't brave enough to tell them the real reason I left. "Because Mars needed time to grieve and help his mom out." It wasn't a total lie.
"Oh, really?" Daphne asked and Sky gave me a questionable look.
"Yeah, he has four younger siblings to look after so I felt like I was invading their space." I later added, "I also missed everyone too much."
"Aww, that's sweet," Zoe cooed.
"Yeah, so how's archery club going?" I changed the subject to save myself from anymore lies.
"Good! We have twenty-two new members." Daphne said proudly.
"Impressive. What about our current members? Are they still coming to meetings?" My thoughts involuntarily went to Cade. He was surprisingly good at archery, I hoped he was sticking with it.
"Yeah, most of them are still active. I'd say about ninety percent still come." She nodded. "Don't worry, Peter and I got this."
"Peter took my place?"
"Well, yeah. He's actually gotten better. You wouldn't believe it."
"You're right, I don't." Sometimes I joked and asked if Peter was actually a true Sagittarius because he was as blind as a bat with a bow.
A Leo sat down at our table and started talking to Daphne and the others about buying tickets for the autumn play, making it the perfect time to talk to Sky alone.
"So I'm guessing Kingston got impeached?"
"Actually, he left on his own. He said he didn't want to argue with Bennett anymore. Plus, he wanted to spend more time with Konor." Sky explained.
"Konor?"
"His boyfriend. Remember him? He used to do the morning announcements until Kingston and Bennett took over."
"Yeah, I forgot he still went here." Konor was pretty reserved for a Sagittarius, some even suspected that he was born a Capricorn, so I was a little surprised since Kingston loved drama and needed someone to keep up with him.
"Yeah, so that happened. . . Then Noah volunteered to fill in as president for a few days until Bennett figured things out. They must've loved him though because the next thing I know he's being promoted there permanently."
"That's good, right?"
She squished her lips to the side. "I thought so too, until he didn't have time for me anymore. He forgot our confirmation anniversary."
"What? Why didn't you tell me?"
"I figured you had enough to deal with. Besides, I vented to Daphne. I needed someone who wasn't biased." A touch of sadness coated her voice but she tried to sound neutral. "Anyway, I told him I needed more time for myself now that I've been skating again and he agreed."
"And you're okay with that?"
"Yeah. We'll sort it all out after graduation."
I opened my mouth to ask more of my burning questions but the bell rang and we had to go to class. I figured I'd just call her and get the four one one after since I had bigger things to deal with.
Like how it was finally time for chemistry, the one class I had today with Cade. And Angelina.
Yeah, this wouldn't be awkward at all. . .