Rosie's Chapter

I take a swig from the bottle Sienna bought me. I've never cared for beer, but right now it'll do. I've never really had a crush before. I either went all in on love or pure lust, and only one of those was ever returned. I figure I need to learn the etiquette from... Well, masters is putting it generously.

"I literally don't understand what your problem is." Marie sighs. "You like a girl, it was pretty obvious even to me. This is literally how attraction works. Dating 101 over here." She points out, stirring her own drink with a straw. We've convened at a pub in lieu of any of our places. Apparently Marie could do with some time out of the house, and Sienna heard my parents were planning on going to the bar beneath her place, so no chance of that.

"Leave her be, sometimes the feelings hit out of nowhere, happens to the best of us." Sienna argues, tussling Marie's hair. "But she does have a point, you lose nothing by making a move and gain nothing by keeping quiet." She adds, taking a sip from her own beer.

I growl at my cousins' ignorance. "If I knew a damn thing about her, sure, but we're barely friends, I can count the number of conversations we've had on one hand." I argue. "Which means I like her because she's hot, and that's just pathetic. It makes me no better than those buzzards from her first day... And I don't want her to think of me like that."

Sienna waves away my concerns. "That's the point of a date, isn't it? To see if you like the person? I admit I usually skip to the third date, when the fun stuff happens, but the theory's sound." She ponders, at which point Marie nudges her, directing her gaze to somewhere else. Before I can turn to look, Sienna declares boldly, "Oh dear! Look at the time! Gotta be getting Marie here home! You can get back, right? ROSIE!?"

I'm taken aback by Sienna practically shouting, Marie downing her drink, and the two shuffling away from our table before I have a chance to get an answer. I simply stare, dumbfounded, until I hear a voice.

"Does that mean this seat is free?"

I turn to sneer at the chair vulture, but I see the last person I expected... Though given my luck, I really should have. "Sora! I didn't know you were here." I ramble, gesturing to offer a seat. Those fucking traitors must've left as soon as they saw her, made all that commotion to make sure I'd be spotted.

"Well, yeah, this is my aunt's pub." She explains with a smile, sitting next to me. "When she came back from Korea, she bought it. I mentioned it to Marie, did she not tell you?" And so the penny drops. They brought me here on purpose. I'm going to kill them.

I take another sip from my drink to calm my nerves. "You know, she didn't! Which is just like her." I chuckle. "Not that it's not great to see you." I add on quickly, don't want to sound dismissive.

"Oh, that's odd, she was telling me all about you when we chatted in class." She tells me nonchalantly. Is Marie an evil genius or something? Oh, right, forgot who her mother was. "Like, you being triplets and moving from France and... About your grandmother. I'm sorry about that." She offers sincerely. So sincerely that she places her hand on mine.

You ever get tinnitus? You know, that ringing sound after an explosion? Yeah, that's all I can hear. I can feel my cheeks going the colour of my hair. "Oh... I... Well... You know... We... That is..." I stumble before taking another sip of my drink, unable to move my hand if I wanted to. Chill out, girls hold hands, she's being friendly, not sapphic. "It was tough, but we worked through it. We never really met her, so it was mostly just keeping an eye on our parents... What about you? Have you had much trouble moving from Korea?" I ask. Good call, let her tell you things, that way you can learn things about her. I like knowing things about her.

"Huh?" Sora asks with a confused look on her face before a lightning bolt strikes her brain. "Oh, no, I haven't lived in Korea since I was a baby, I just lived in London with my parents until recently. My aunt moved here, so... Well, I needed to be away from my parents for a while. They're not exactly the most open-minded people." She explains, with a tinge of sadness.

The first thought through my head is: Oh my god, did I just make a massive assumption based on her race? Am I a racist? Oh fuck. Then I realise she doesn't seem that upset about it and is still holding my hand, so I guess she wasn't too concerned.

The second thought I have is that her parents aren't open-minded people, which doesn't indicate anything in particular, but to my mind the thought goes like this: Ahem. Gay, gay, lesbian, sapphic, girl-kisser, yesyesyesyesyes.

"I'm sorry to hear that." I reply, silencing the thoughts in my head, and taking my turn to hold her hand. "Has it been better since you came here?" I ask, sticking to my plan of learning more about her.

She smiles at my interest. "Much better, some people in particular have been a highlight." She adds, sweetly, her eyes meeting mine. Oh shit, she's actually flirting with me. What do I do? I didn't think I'd get this far.

"Yeah, Marie's a riot." I joke. What? No! That's the worst thing I could have done! Why would I think that's a good idea? Who would make a joke right now!? ...Rufus. Fucking Rufus. Add him to the kill list at the end of this. To my surprise, she giggles at my faux pas.

"You're not used to this sort of thing, are you?" Sora laughs, honestly. "I'll make it easier for you. My name is Choi Sora, and I'm very attracted to you. Could we go for a drink sometime?" My mind is split between two thoughts, the first being, thank fuck she's decisive, or this could have been torment. My second thought is much more straightforward.

This might be the best evening of my life.