Away from the North

Chapter 16

"You are allowed to go visit North Korea for a week to go and talk to your parents. We would allow you to stay longer but we are still in the middle of fixing everything up and living conditions aren't the best," I read aloud from the letter.
Jul looks up at me and smiles. His dad was always really nice to him, even though he was usually out fighting a lot. I look over at Lilac and see her smiling nervously.
"You want to meet my family?" I ask her. She nods and smiles. Jul walks upstairs to go wake Dali up, even though it's already two in the afternoon. He's the only one that she won't snap at when she wakes up, probably because he's her boyfriend.
They come back downstairs, Dali 's hair all messed up. She sits down and I slide the letter to her. Lilac sets down a cup of coffee beside her as she reads over the letter.
"Cool. Guess we're going to North Korea then," she says. Jul nods and sits down next to her. I lean my chin on my hands and stare at the table. Most people being gifts when they visit family.
"Want to make them cookies?" I ask everyone. They nod and we get up from the table. Dali runs upstairs and gets see see before bolting back down.
We get into the car and Jul drives off to the store. Lilac taught me and him how to drive and the government gave us all more money than we know what to do with.
So now we both have pretty nice cars. He parks in front of the supermarket and we walk inside. I grab chocolate chip cookie mix and Lilac grabs sugar cookie mix. Jul grabs a can of chocolate and vanilla frosting from the top shelf and throws them in our cart.
Dali comes back with the butter and then we all go to grab the oil. Once we get the oil we walk to the check out and wait in line. We get to the register and Dali pays for it all.
We walk out nd back to Jul's car. I put the stuff in the trunk and then get in. He drives back to the cloth shop and parks. We get out and grab bags from the car to take in.
Me, Dali, and Lilac still keep the shop open, loving working there, even if we don't need the money. Jul works at the restaurant as a head chef now and makes a lot of new recipes that we get to try out.
Dali moved in with us and I moved into Lilac's bedroom. Lilac puts a sign up to say that we will be gone for a week starting Monday. It's Saturday so we only have today and tomorrow to pack and get ready. Not that we'll do much packing today.
I put two bowls on the counter and take out cookie trays. We decide to back the sugar cookies first so we can decorate them while waiting for the chocolate chip cookies to bake.
We make the dough and start putting it on the cookie trays. We play 'Scrabble' while the cookies bake, Jul always standing up to take them out when they're done. The sugar cookies are finally done so we add up our scores on 'Scrabble '.
I end up winning and I smile. We make the dough for the chocolate chip cookies and add extra chocolate chips in because why the heck not? We put the first tray in and then set up the frosting in the middle of the table.
We start frosting the cookies, me and Jul using the chocolate frosting and Lilac and Dali using the vanilla frosting. Lilac takes out sprinkles and we add those on a few of the cookies.
The chocolate chip cookies all finish backing and I stand up and put them in a container. It takes two to hold all the chocolate chip ones so I take out two more for the sugar cookies. We start putting the sugar cookies in the containers, the ones with chocolate frosting in one and the ones with vanilla frosting in the other.
We finish with the cookies and I set the containers down on the counter. Dali tapes them shut so they don't open in the suitcases while we are on the plane.
We walk out to the living room and put in a movie, deciding that we will pack tomorrow. Our plane is at midnight so we need to get up kinda early to pack. Dali doesn't look to happy about waking up early but she calls down when Jul kisses her.
We put a movie on and watch it while eating some candy that we had from our shopping spree when the government paid us. I wrap my arm around Lilac's shoulder and she leans into me.
I kiss her quickly and she pouts. I point at Jul and Dali who are sitting in the corner. She nods reluctantly and I kiss her on the forehead. She snuggles further into my side and yawns.
She falls asleep a few minutes later, the loud noise of the movie playing not bothering her one bit. I stroke her hair while I watch the movie with Jul, Dali also had fallen asleep on the couch.
"Love having sleepy girlfriends," he says. I laugh quietly and nod. It gets late an I decide that I'm going to carry Lilac to our room so she's more comfortable.
I pick her up off the couch and hold her bridal style. I say goodnight to Jul, who is also carrying his girlfriend to bed. He smiles back at me and carries Dali on his shoulder to their room.
I shake me head and take Lilac to our room, softly setting her on the bed. I walk over and close our door. I change into pajamas and brush my teeth before walking back in our bedroom. I change Lilac quickly and then lay down in bed with her.
She snuggles up to me in her sleep and I smile softly.