VIOLET SKY, takigawa chris yuu

━ chapter four

act i

this shouldn't be happening.
( oh but it is. )

chapter four

❛why don't you get me a hot girl's number?❜

━━━━━━

"Pick something, Luna, we've been here for an hour already."

Her little sister is unperturbed. "Black or pink?"

Amara sighs. "Does it matter?"

She immediately regrets saying anything at the scandalized look that paints itself over Luna's face.

"Yes, it matters. You've been so mean since you came back . . ." she grumbles as she flops down beside Amara on the metal bench, bending down to take her shoes off.

Amara huffs at the words but doesn't retaliate. There is some truth there, even if she loathes to admit it.

After all, here she is, back in San Antonio for the remainder of August, while Jurojin High, the school they faced in the finals, breezes through the rounds in the National Tournament. (Not that she's keeping up with them, anyhow.)

Ugh.

She checks the prices on the box as a distraction, narrowing her eyes at the high prices on both of them despite being from the clearance wall. Whatever. It's a necessity.

She sets the boxes back down, not wanting Luna to notice her appraisal of the prices; she doesn't want her to feel guilty about it. Instead, she leans forward to watch as Luna squeezes her feet into the new shoes.

"Black looks better," she murmurs. "Are they tight?"

Luna jumps up from the bench and paces a few times. It's difficult since the store is busy in anticipation of the new school year beginning in a few weeks, mountains of orange shoeboxes piled high, fussy moms and belligerent teenage boys thronging together.

"All good!" She grins, a wild contrast from her vicious — but regretfully true — words a minute ago.

"Are you getting something?" She asks, sitting back down on the bench and kicking off the new shoes, replacing them with her worn white Converse.

"Yeah, I'll find something." With her money since the mission today was to get Luna shoes for the new school year and their mother didn't give her extra money.

Though it's not technically her money, it's the money her host mother, Eiko, gave her — generously, since she's a pediatric general surgeon. She'd told her to get something while she was here.

Amara stands, mindful of the people traversing up and down the clearance wall in front of them.

Her phone vibrates two times and she glances at it, finding a new text from Rena, asking when she's going to be picking her up. She takes a minute to reply.

"That guy is staring at you." Luna's words jar her. She's speaking unsteady Spanish, which raises a red flag for Amara. She rarely speaks the language, preferring English — hence why she holds the classically white American accent better than Amara and everyone else in their family — and using it now says . . . something is off.

"What?" Amara pretends nothing is wrong, switching to Spanish fluidly, too, but Luna is pursing her lips now, turning her eyes to the floor.

Guys staring at her isn't an uncommon occurrence, nor are the uncomfortable passes that they try to make on her, but she hates when it happens with Luna around. She's a tiny nine-year-old girl and Amara doesn't want to stick her onto any pervert's radar.