Adjusting to the new life (Part 2).

We picked Mila up and went to a supermarket as planned. We had to buy a lot of rice and pasta. Fruits and vegetables, too, but not too much to avoid them going bad. Milk, eggs, coffee, bread… What else? Beans, canned stuff…

“How are we on salt and sugar?” Alice asked me, walking beside me as I pushed the cart.

“We’re good, but we might as well throw in some more. Some pepper, too, now that I think about it,” I told her.

Sarah added a few bottles of juice and some sodas. Mila threw in cereal and yogurt. Noelle reminded us that we were almost out of butter. Grace… mostly looked around.

“What are you thinking about?” I asked her.

“That I think this is my first time going grocery shopping…” she said. “As far as I can remember, everything I needed was always at home.”

“Right, you had staff at home, didn’t you?” Noelle asked.

Grace nodded. “I always made sure to clean my own room, but they did everything else around the house. From shopping to gardening and cooking.” She sighed. “It’s not like I’ve never stepped inside a supermarket… but I’ve never had to think about what I was missing at home. Nothing was ever missing.”

“Sometimes I wonder how you turned out so… competent in most areas while growing up as a spoiled princess,” Sarah said without malice.

“You know… I wonder about that, too,” Grace admitted with a nod.

“She hates being looked down on, so I bet she matured purely out of spite,” Mila said.

Grace snicked. “You know what? It’s likely.”

No one can tell it to you like it is like your closest friends, huh?

It ended up being about as expensive as I expected, which is to say very expensive. Still, we’re talking about a household of seven, and I suppose a big reason our pantry emptied up so quickly was due to the amount of guests we had. Our family gathering alone was like 20 people.

As we went back home, Mila looked back at the girls from her seat at the front of the van and asked, “So? What are your plans for the weekend?”

“I’m going to Alex’s shop next Monday,” Alice said. “He asked if I could help with some stuff.”

“I have no plans, really, and I blame Oliver for it,” Sarah said.

“What? What did I do?” I asked, frowning.

“I used to spend my weekends going out and spending them with friends, but now I mostly stay at home. You’re a bad influence.”

Mila snickered. “Yeah, I blame him for it, too.”

“You’re all free to make your own plans. You even have your own cars. I have nothing to do with it,” I said.

“Yeah, but staying at home is fun, too…” Sarah admitted with a sigh.

“Welcome to the better side of life,” Noelle said, grinning. “We indoor types have always known it’s the superior lifestyle.”

“I mean, I used to go out on weekends, too, but now I live with almost all the people I used to hang out with,” Grace said with a shrug. “So what’s the point of going out?”

“That, and our other friends now come to our house,” Sarah said. “And when they don’t… It’s hard to say no to spending a full weekend just fucking.”

I chuckled, but… she did raise a good point. Not about fucking on weekends, which was also valid, but about going out.

“As much as I like staying at home, we should probably make an effort to go out and do other things,” I said. “Like going to see a movie or going on hikes.” Which reminded me… “On, and speaking of… Um… Noelle, have you heard of an anime convention happening in two weeks?”

“Hm? Oh, yeah! Mandy was asking if I wanted to go with her. I told her I’d see if I could because I wasn’t sure if we might have some guests at home again. Why? Do you want to go, too?”

“My classmates want us to perform there on Sunday,” I said. “I… agreed. We’ll form a band for that day and put on a 30-minute show.”

“Oh, then I’m definitely going!” Noelle said, giggling and taking out her phone. She started texting. “And I’m bringing Fern with me.”

“If you’re playing, then we’re going, too,” Mila said. “Right, girls?”

“Of course,” Alice said. “We’re not gonna miss it.”

“You… don’t really need to, you know?” I said. “It’ll just be a 30-minute show, and the convention is all about anime and stuff, so…”

“What, are you embarrassed that we’ll be watching?” Sarah asked, smirking.

“A little bit, yeah,” I admitted. “It’s not likely to turn out great. We only have two weeks to practice. Besides, we’ll only be playing J-pop.”

“Come on, we want to watch, Oliver. How could we not?” Alice said. “And you just said we should make an effort to do other things.”

She got me there…

“I’m surprised they got you to agree,” Grace said. “You’re not big on J-pop, are you? And to play in a band on top of that.”

I sighed. “Well… I guess it’s an opportunity I didn’t want to say no to. These people… They’re all really good. They’re better than me. I guess I want to give it a shot at least once. We really might suck, though. They’re all good, but playing in a band is different than playing on your own.”

“Nah, you guys will kill it,” Mila said. “I mean, I don’t know how much I believe that the others are better than you, but you’re already super good. So if the others are at your level, then there’s nothing to fear.”

I wish I could believe it as much as she did. Eric had gotten better since high school, Luna and Ruby had a lot of experience, and Steven was already 10 times the guitarist I wish I was. I could only hope I wouldn’t hold us back. But then again, agreeing to go into this even knowing it might be a huge mess… Maybe this is a type of confidence, too?

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