Solarity: Away From Home

011: Sofira

011: Sofira 

"Sofira!" Jae peeks his head into my room after knocking a few times.

Getting flustered from him appearing out of nowhere and getting caught for doing literally nothing, I stutter for a bit before going, "How do you do?"

To this, Jae scrunches his face in confusion before laughing. "Are you okay?"

"Yeah, I don't know why any of that happened but let's not speak of it again." I shake my head at myself, slightly amused at my own antics.

"Alright, well the mentors told me to show you how we do the chores since it's my turn this week. Come on, let's go." He doesn't wait for a response and walks out the door.

"What? Now?"

"Wear something you don't mind getting water and dirt on!"

☀☀☀

"So what are we doing?" I ask once we get to the pool. I have a feeling I already know what we're doing but it's always safe to ask.

"We are cleaning the pool. Mostly you, since I'm teaching you," he answers. I guess that makes sense, Water signs' chores would involve water while Earth signs' would be to maintain the garden. I can only wonder what the Fire and Air signs' chores are.

I sigh. I hate doing chores. Chores were always my least favorite thing to do at home, which is why my parents would basically throw a party every time I cleaned my room. Not that my room was very messy to begin with, but it could always use some tidying.

"Why do we have to clean it? Nobody's used it once since I got here."

"Exactly. We need to clean it. Stay here, I'll get everything." He leaves for a few minutes and comes back with pool maintenance tools. "Let's get to work."

He teaches me how to drain the pool with the pool filter, and as soon as it empties enough, I sweep the walls of the pool to scrub it clean of any algae and mold, working in silence. It looks like the pool hasn't been used in a while.

"Come on, you have to do at least try a little," he bugs playfully to fill the silence, even though I'm doing it just fine. He did tell me he hates awkward silences a few days ago, though.

"Shut up," I roll my eyes. "Do this with me."

He takes a second brush and helps me sweep the other side, and in no time, we're done.

"So what are we doing next?" I ask. Better to get this done and over with.

"We're cleaning the pool covers," he says, grabbing one blue tarp while I grab the other. "Let's go to the garden for this." I follow his lead as we head outside. He stops next to a pond and a hose and gets to work on rinsing the tarp with the hose.

"I have a bad experience with these," he says casually as we douse blue tarps with water and soap.

"You do?"

"Yeah. I almost drowned when I was younger because seven-year-old me decided to be a little rascal and scare the shit out of my parents."

"What did you do?"

"I just thought it'd be funny to jump in the pool while the covers were in. I gave my parents quite the heart attack," he gives a sheepish smile. "I mean, luckily they were with me when it happened, but they've never cried and yelled at me so much in one day. Not one of my fondest memories as a child, but I survived it so it's funny to talk about now."

"Oh my god," I laugh, and then quickly realize he almost died so I stop immediately. "Why would you do that?"

"I don't know! I guess I just thought it'd be funny. But I learned very quickly it was not. Haven't you ever felt something like instant regret?"