AMICITIA

LAURA

“HAPPY BIRTHDAY, DEREK!” everyone cried.

He grinned. “I thought we were doing this later?”

Laura shrugged. “Maria and Dad had something come up, so we decided to do it early.”

“Besides, this is payback for my party,” Akane said, playfully punching him in the shoulder. “Now you know how it feels.”

Ling smiled, shifting her present under one arm. “Hardly the same thing.”

“Come on,” Laura said, pushing past Derek and out of his room. “They're waiting down at the park.”

He glanced around, a small frown beginning to form. “Where's Lizzy?”

“Sorry, that's my mistake,” Flynn apologized. “I forgot to tell Ling until the last minute, and she wasn't able to get a hold of her.”

“She's in the middle of something with Turgay anyway,” Ling added.

Laura bit her lip. “Have we met Turgay?”

Ling shrugged. “Adam has, and Lily already knew him. I don't think the rest of you have.”

They finally managed to reach the elevator and headed downstairs without any more incident.

“How's that new job treating you, Flynn?” Derek asked before the silence had a chance to become uncomfortable.

“Good actually,” Flynn said. “The kids are great, and it gives me something to do.” He grinned a little. “I'm not like you guys. With my skills, I really shouldn't be wandering the streets looking for monsters to slay.”

“Got that right,” Akane muttered, her beads clicking as she pushed her hair back. Laura noticed that she was wearing the onyx earrings Flynn had bought her for her own birthday earlier in the month. Good for her.

Adam frowned as the elevator doors opened. “You're... teaching 'sarian kids sword fighting, right?”

They all piled out into the lobby, past Emily, who was still reading one of her magazines. “General self-defense,” Flynn said. “These are eight and nine-year olds. Too early for swordplay.”

Akane shrugged as they walked out the front doors. “I started when I was five.”

“You're hardly normal,” Lily said with a giggle. “Most kids aren't from samurai houses.”

Derek gave her a look. “Don't be mean.”

“Technically, it was a ronin house at the time,” Akane muttered. When she realized she had spoken aloud, she blushed and turned away.

Seena rolled her eyes under her daygoggles and patted Akane on the shoulder. “You're among friends. Why are you still all meek?”

Simon smiled. “Probably this one here,” he said, indicating Flynn with a nod of his chin. When Akane glared at him, he held up his hands. “Whoa, I'm not judging. I'm just saying.”

Laura rolled her eyes. “They're waiting for us at a park a couple blocks north. Come on.”

Everyone dutifully followed, but Adam was hesitant. “It's getting a bit cold. Is this really the best time for a picnic?”

“We can move inside if we have to,” Laura said. “Right now, this is the plan.”

Adam grumbled a bit, but didn't say anything else.

There was a bit of an uncomfortable silence for the next few minutes, as they walked out of the campus, to Kagurazaka Park. Luckily, that didn't last too long.

“Kids! Over here!”

Maria had already secured a table and laid out everything. Laura's dad was nowhere to be seen.

“Victor will be back soon,” Maria said. She started pulling the presents they had given her earlier out of a bag and placing them on the table. “Come, sit, sit.”

They crowded around the big concrete table set on the grass. There were a few, scattered around. It wasn't the most comfortable seat in the world, but it was better than using anything lighter. People would just steal the tables.

“Who else are we waiting for?” Derek asked. Laura ended up next to him, mostly to make sure that Akane sat next to Flynn instead. A little juvenile, but they were acting like twelve year-olds, so she didn't have a choice. Not to mention they still needed to keep her away from Simon.

“Robyn's not coming,” Laura said. “She's busy again.”

Akane shook her head. “After my party, she promised to make time.”

Laura shrugged. “Guess she didn't. It's no big deal, though.”

Derek grimaced as he accepted a soda from his mother. “She's been like this since we were kids. She's terrible with schedules.”

Did you know this story is from Royal Road? Read the official version for free and support the author.

“You shouldn't talk about people when they're not here,” Maria admonished lightly, as she passed sodas around to everyone else. “Besides, with Isaac as that girl's father, I think it's a miracle she remembers to eat.”

Derek sighed, recognizing the hypocrisy but wisely choosing not to mention it.

“Where is Dad?” Laura asked, trying to deflect the conversation back to kinder subjects. The two were normally attached at the hip; if he was off alone, it had to be for something important.

“Just getting some more sodas,” Maria lied smoothly.

Ever since Laura had gotten her power, she had noticed them doing that a lot.

“I think we have enough,” she said as calmly as she could, nodding to the cooler chest. At the same time, she tweaked Derek's kneecap through his jeans. That was the signal. He should be smart enough to not immediately act on it.

“So long as he actually buys them, I guess there's no harm in getting more,” Derek said. “There are a lot of us, after all. Though I hope he's not too late.”

“Not too late at all,” Laura's dad called from the direction of the street. He had four cases of soda cans in his arms. More than they needed. “Sorry, the line was long.”

And that was another lie.

You understood on a general level that your parents lied every once in a while. It was quite another to know that they did it all the time.

Laura sighed, and made sure to tweak Derek's knee again, though he had probably figured it out for himself. It wasn't fair, really. Parents shouldn't keep big secrets from their children. Okay, maybe that wasn't true, but she had a sneaking suspicion these lies had to do with Butler, and in turn the screamers. That was something they needed to know.

Maria clapped her hands. “Now that everyone's here, we can start presents!”

Everyone started; Adam nearly choked on his soda.

“Now?” he asked. “I thought the plan was lunch first?”

“Well, we forgot the food,” she lied with a wink. “So I guess those sodas are all we're getting.”

The presents weren't anything special, though Laura wrote them down out of habit. Some grenades and a bandoleer from his parents, a durable watch, a jacket, a new game, so on and so on. Once they were done, Laura's dad got the cake from the car.

As usual, Gloria Nervi had outdone herself. Laura was glad that hadn't changed while she was hiding in the north. Nervi always claimed that cakes were beneath her dignity as a chef, but Laura had no idea if that was an obscure Italian thing, some baker/chef rivalry she didn't know about, or just a lie.

But she always made an exception for Derek Huntsman. People did that quite a lot.

It was a beautiful cake, nearly as wide as the table, and covered in light brown frosting. The words “Happy Birthday” were written on the top with blue icing—the same shade of blue as Akane's ribbon.

In all honesty, the cake looked a bit plain. But it tasted divine. It had the perfect amount of sugar density, and the cake itself was as light as an angel's breath.

Despite its size, everyone's first servings went fast. Laura was picking through her second slice when her dad started talking.

“So Derek,” he said. “Any plans for today?”

Derek shrugged. “Catch up on some reading. Not much else.” The second was a lie, and she would have known even without her power. He was still stewing over the hypnotism plan. And he would say yes eventually, but he wouldn't like it.

“What about the rest of the week, then?” Maria asked casually. A little too casually.

Derek noticed it too; he swallowed carefully before speaking. “A few more missions. Just making money and such. Why the sudden interest?”

“No reason,” Laura's father lied through his teeth. “We were just—”

Laura got up and left. She couldn't take it any more.

She heard people calling after her, and she heard Derek tell them to calm down. A moment later, he followed her at just less than a run.

Laura waited until they were far away from the rest of the group, definitely out of earshot, before speaking.

“Every word out of their mouths is poison,” she whispered, trying as hard as she could not to cry. This was all her power gave her? She would give it up in a heartbeat, if she could. “They lie, and lie, and lie...”

“Not everything,” he said, quietly. “Not everything, right?”

She blinked away tears that she refused to shed, not willing to turn and face him. “Maybe. Or maybe that's just what's slipping past my filters.”

Derek shifted on his feet. “It's possible... nothing. Nevermind.”

Laura closed her eyes. “It's possible they're doing it on purpose. Testing my limits.” Which just made it worse.

“Yeah,” he said quietly. “That's what I was going to say.”

She started crying.

She wasn't sobbing. Her shoulders weren't shaking. She wasn't facing him, so he shouldn't even have been able to tell.

He walked over to her other side so he wouldn't have to turn her to face the others, and pulled her close.

It was strange, and she couldn't figure out why. It was the same as the last time she remembered, when they were eleven years old. He was still warm, and powerful, though perhaps a little bit less warm, and a little more powerful. It was comforting, but there was something wrong...

That was it.

She hadn't been hugged by anyone for seven years. Not since this idiot, the night before they started middle school. She hadn't let anyone so much as touch her if at all possible. Not even her own stupid father.

Then she started sobbing.

He whispered into her ear that it would be okay, kept whispering for however long it took for her tears to stop flowing, and dry in tracks on her cheeks.

She didn't know how long it was. But it was too soon when Derek spoke. “Everyone's waiting for us.”

That. Moron. She was seriously considering shooting him in the face. She wasn't a tsundere like Akane; she honestly would be doing the world a favor to take this crazy bastard out of it. Seriously, who told a crying girl her time was up?

“Um, Laura?” he whispered. “It's just that hugs give me headaches, and...”

She frowned. “Headaches? Really?”

“Yeah. And we should probably go back soon anyway—”

“Then we can stay like this a little while longer,” she said quietly.

Headaches. Not quite as final as a bullet to the brain, but a fitting punishment for now.