HAZE

CHAPTER 7

CHEMISTRY

On the third day of the holiday, Nana was seated on the counter while Griff counted the money he had collected from the day's sales. As a temporary cashier, he had to take the money to the bank daily after closing the shop. It was more of a responsibility than anything to do with trust issues.

"I miss the squad." Nana sighed dramatically.

"They are having the time of their lives. Haven't you seen Nine's and Norbert's Instagram posts? Vacation at the coast is doing them well. They look so happy."

"Yes, I feel sad for little Ken, though.' His parents 'are having fun on sandy beaches, and he is somewhere probably planting maize or weeding beans at the moment."

Ken was always considered Norbert and Nine's child as he was always with them unless they wanted to do "couple things." They even started calling him baby until he owned up the name despite being older than them by a year.

"I have an idea; why don't we take turns to sleep in their houses? We will feel their absence less when we are where their presence is most felt." Griff suggested.

"That is ridiculous."

"Is it, though? Nana, have you ever thought about why most African communities destroy and construct a new house after someone passes on? They are afraid that the ghost of the dead is still in the house, and their presence is highly felt. So they do away with that to help the dead remain in the other realm. It also helps them forget about the dead faster."

"And you want us to do the reverse."

"I always knew you were a smart woman." He said while looking at her sternly and quirking his lips. Nana caved in and went to implement his absurd plan.

"How will we get to their houses anyway?"

"I have keys to all of them."

"What???"

"Rick has a copy of all our identity cards, and I made a copy of all your house keys. You never know when it comes in handy."

"That is an invasion of privacy," Nana complained as a frown formed on her face.

"Stop acting like you are innocent. We all know you synced all our phones' locations to your phone."

Nana flushed in embarrassment at being caught. She had been very careful while doing that to ensure no one found out. She wanted to know where her friends were all the time because sometimes, she would leave class late, and the rest of them would be hanging out somewhere and would not pick calls. She hated missing out, so she had to sync the location to find them herself.

"What weird thing do Ken, Norbert and Nine have on us?"

"I cannot snitch on a homie. It's in the bro code."

"Nine is not a bro."

"Oh, she is!"

"How does she get to be a bro, and I'm not one?"

"That is because she is dating one of the bros, and you are not. So calling her bro is like marking territory. She is Norbert's, which means she is off limits while you are not."

"I am off-limits," Nana replied in a girly voice while feigning seriousness.

"You wish."

"So you are not going to tell me what they have on us?"

"Of course not, just know it's worse than keys and identity cards."

"That is over the board."

They laughed and concluded that their friendship had serious co-dependency issues that they needed to work on when the semester resumed. So they sealed the deal and decided to start the sleepover at Nine's place. Nana was determined to go snooping while Griff slept to see if she could find anything to clue her in on what they had.