An American Tribrid in London

Chapter 2: SK

A/N: Italics for Tamil Dialogue translated into English

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

SK looked at his outstretched hand, which none of the girls returned. He immediately dropped his hands and his head in embarrassment.

Hope after some time went near him and introduced herself. "Andrea Kenner."

"Andrea, you say?" SK's face suddenly brightened up with a smile.

Hope chuckled, "Yes."

"We actually had this actress/singer with the exact name where I'm from," He replied with dilated pupils.

"Josie Saltzman." Josie joined the 'let's introduce each other' party.

Hope had to come up with an alias 'cause she  knew her original name always landed her in trouble.

While Josie was mostly free to say her original name and her parents' original name, Hope had to lie about her dad. While it did pain her, it was for the best. The last time she told her real name to a guy, her mom ended up dead.

"My dad, Jackson Kenner and my mom, Hayley Marshall, are both dead." Hope informed.

SK had a pitying look on his face.

"No, don't do that. I don't need your pity." Hope had to be strong. Always and Forever.

"Well..." SK was interrupted by a phone call and he internally thanked Lord Shiva for it.

It was a video call from his mom and dad.

"Hello, my sweet little boy."

"Mom, I'm not a little boy," He whined.

"You will always be our little boy," His parents replied in a chorus.

"Have you reached London?" His mom asked him.

"Yes, mom. In fact, I'm in my dorm room at the college"

"How is the room, by the way? Do you have any roommates?" His dad enquired, after which SK looked at Hope and Josie with a sheepish grin. They looked back at him, puzzled 'cause they could not understand the head or tail of the conversation.

"I do. I have 2 roommates but they are not here." He lied and gritted his teeth.

"Surya, we are your parents. We know when you're lying to us. Now, where are your roommates?" His mom caught him red-handed.

"OK. They are here. But promise you won't flip out or freak out," He warned his parents before unveiling Hope and Josie.

The girls waved at his parents on the phone. Both the elders forced out the gentlest grin they could muster and waved back at them, after which he turned the phone back to his face.

"Girls? Really? Come back home right now." His dad ordered.

"Mom, Dad, they are actually still here, please. Let's talk when I'm alone somewhere else, at least. Both of you trust me, right?" SK managed to muster his puppy dog eyes.

"We do. We just don't trust them. Especially the one with red hair," His dad reasoned.

"Dad! Trust me alright. They are ok," SK reassured his dad.

"Alright, son. Still, take care. Western culture is still widely different from ours. We do trust you." His parents ended the call on a positive note.

Huh, that call went a lot better than he expected.

"You know, parents, how they are." SK grinned sheepishly at the girls while internally cringing.

Hope and Josie sighed.

"Josie!"

"Yes Ho-" Josie almost slipped up as Hope's eyes widened, but the siphon quickly corrected herself while internally wishing that SK hadn't noticed the slip "A—Andrea"

"We have to go to that girls thing, right?"

"What thing?" Josie asked with a frown.

"That thing." Hope subtly rolled her eyes towards SK.

Josie, now having understood that Hope wanted to talk alone with her, grinned. "Yup. That thing."

Then both witches were out of there.

It was now SK's turn to sigh. His parents were right. These western girls surely were weird.

He now called back to his parents, reassured them and begged them as a last resort to not take any rash decisions just for having 2 girls in his dorm room. The desi boy told them there must have been some sort of mistake or something else and he would find out what it was. He also talked to the photo of his older sister, which was covered in a jasmine garland, and vowed that he would make her proud.

Hope and Josie, who were outside the room, discussed their course of action, with Hope still overhearing SK's conversation.

"Well, how do I drink my blood supplies?" Hope had the million-dollar question.

"Discreetly," Josie replied and giggled, for which she received a gentle pat on her shoulder from Hope.

"Josie. Seriously. Having another roommate means we can't do a lot of supernatural stuff. And it is honestly dangerous for him too... Plus, how did we get a male roommate?" Hope was in her own battle of being worried.

"Hope, this college has gender-neutral dorms. Which means they may put men in the same dorm as women. Also, we are here to be normal and away from supernatural stuff, right? I'm guessing that's why mom sent you here," Josie reasoned.

The one good thing to come out of the SK shock was that Josie had forgotten about her slight anger toward Hope for killing her sister. Having calmed down, Josie realised her sister loved being a heretic, anyway.

After hearing SK stop talking, Hope gently tapped on the door.

"Can we come in?" Hope asked.

"Yes," the boy replied, and the girls entered.

Hope and Josie now immediately scattered to arrange all their things near their respective beds, and Hope muttered the glamour and cloaking spells to hide the magical items from prying eyes.

Josie explained the gender-neutral dorm thing to SK, and all three of them vowed to make room-sharing arrangements work.

Each of them was to respect their boundaries and not invade each other's personal space, but SK did feel left out 'cause he was a boy in a girls' den.

"So, I'm from Madurai, Tamil Nadu, India. My mother tongue's Tamil. Well, that's the language you heard me speak with my parents." SK sensed a bit of animosity and the indirect hints which Hope and Josie dropped when making room split-up plans.

"Oh. Good to know," Hope replied.

"And my parents are Ram and Sita," He added.

"Like RRR right? My dad and I absolutely loved that movie." Hope went a little thoughtful. In her mind, her original dad, Klaus Mikaelson, was there. It was the last movie they saw together and always had a special place in her heart.

"Like Ramayana. It would have been perfect if I were named Lava or Kusha, but I guess Surya is a close third," SK corrected her.

"Also again, sorry about your dad and mom."

"It's ok. You're not at fault. I am."

SK wondered why she was blaming herself for their death but chalked it up to grief for now.

In Limbo

"So, what's the plan?" The brunette girl asked nonchalantly.

The blonde man replied, "We need to pay a visit to the ferryman."

"What's a ferryman?" The girl asked again.

"You'll know soon enough." the man replied with his game face on.

Then the three of them walked away from the fireplace in search of the ferryman.