Chapter 65 Bottle Episode
“So we don’t have enough budget for the finale battle, what should we do?”
“Why don’t we just cut the production costs on some earlier episodes so we can spend them all in the finale?”
“You’re a genius. Do you think this will spawn a genre defining episode format that will influence culture for decades to come?”
“It’s accounting, who cares?” - A conversation somewhere sometime.
Jun was staring at him. Eyes red and bleary bore deep holes of scrutiny as she sipped her hot chocolate.
Aiden, just awoken, saw the noon sun outside, then her. “Is there something on my face?”
She shook her head, “No, not at all.”
Then Jun tore open a bag of chips, poured it into a bowl, then threw the emptied bag onto the floor, all while staring directly at Aiden.
A piece of rope slid out of his sleeve, picked up the bag and tossed it into the nearby bin with a lazy throw.
Jun loudly chewed her chips, leaving behind a trail of crumbs as she walked to the couch. Aiden eyed the crumbs, then Jun. He rubbed his brow, felt his flu headache worsen then with a small sigh he asked, “Jun, is there something you want to talk with me about?”
She plopped onto the couch, her weight displacing the cushion as she snuggled in with her blanket. Still loudly munching her chips, she said, “Nope. Nothing to talk about.”
“You’re making a mess to annoy me, I am not blind.”
“Rather self-centered of you to think, given this is my own house I’m ruining- hack!” She coughed, beating her chest as the chips went down the wrong hole. A rather poor design choice in the human blueprint, Aiden had always thought. Especially given now that both their noses were blocked.
This story has been stolen from Royal Road. If you read it on Amazon, please report it
He grabbed her hot chocolate, swirled it a bit and found it too thick, instead Puppet Rain offered him a warm glass of water. He stared at the Rain alike for a moment, before he took the glass and offered it to Jun, a small peace offering which she swiped out of his hand and drank.
Airways sufficiently cleared, Jun leaned back into the couch as Aiden sat down. He didn’t ask anything, instead simply waited as they each occasionally coughed and loudly blew their nose.
After a few moments, Jun simply asked, “Aiden, are we friends?”
Aiden, throat hoarse from coughing, took a sip of water before responding. “What prompted this?”
“That’s not an answer,” Jun replied back, still staring at him.
“The nightmares the flu gives you don’t mean anything,” Aiden sighed, even as he saw the blank book he and Jaiden shared. “You should know this.”
“Stillnotananswer-” she paused, then said slower, “That’s still not an answer Aiden. Are. We. Friends?”
An answer rose quickly to his throat, but he stopped it, Aiden held his tongue and bit his thumb as Jun watched. She took off her mask, returned it to a mere symbol on their hand as they curled into a ball and waited.
Aiden had to think, for the first words to come to mind were more hasty and thoughtless than anything resembling truth. He arrived at a conclusion quickly, they were friends. An old withered part of him came alive when he was around them, and he knew that Jun had become one of his chains.
It was the third realisation that kept him from answering. If he had answered thoughtlessly, then he would’ve easily answered yes, for he was a great liar of others and himself. It was when he had arrived at the truth with a moment of thought that he could not answer anymore.
The third realisation was the sinking of his chest, a heaviness around his heart, of a dread that gnawed slowly at him. He looked at Jun, someone he unequivocally knew a friend, and instead saw a glassy eyed corpse, bound to a hospital bed with more needles and drips than hair, an emaciated hand slowly losing strength as it slipped out of his hand.
He could lie and say yes, but he could not say the truth and say yes.
His thumb was bleeding again, he noted with the taste of iron in his mouth. Jun was offering him a bandage. It was utterly unnecessary, for he healed quickly.
Even still, Aiden offered out his hand, and let Jun treat him.
“Yes,” Aiden said once, and knew it was the most difficult thing he had ever done in this life. “We are friends. You, Ranpo, everyone else…” his voice broke, as quiet tears fell down, which he wiped as soon as they came. For Aiden Lu had lived life knowing tears were useless things, wastes of water that did not accomplish anything. The body of Aiden Bu did not know this, and was thus far more prone to crying than he was.
Jun took out their phone, untangled their headphone wires and offered one earbud to him. “Wanna listen to synthwave?”
And Aiden took it, together they laid there on the couch in silence, and Aiden thought, perhaps tears was not so terrible a thing.