Amidst The Stars

Unexpected Meeting

  The tray of mooncakes was glossy, rich and made the entire kitchen smell of lotus paste. They were fresh out of the oven, resting on a cooling rack before they could be eaten. Ling had taken one of her magazines and was flapping it over the round cakes in an attempt to make them cool faster. Next to her, Yao was trying to guess what type of flower each mooncake was printed with. "That one has a peony on it," he said, pointing to a mooncake at the corner of the rack, "and that one next to it is an orchid."

  Vicente was at the sink, cleaning the baking equipment he'd just finished using. "You bought the moulds. Shouldn't you know what flowers are on them?"

  "Listen, I just got the cheapest moulds I could find. I didn't really look at the design, just the price tag." Yao nodded approvingly at the mooncakes. "They still turned out great, though."

  Leon, who'd been washing dishes for the past twenty minutes, took a knife and walked towards the working bench. "Let's hope it doesn't only look good." He picked up one of the mooncakes and promptly put it back down, wincing. "Ow!"

  Ling swatted him in the head with her magazine. "These were in the oven five minutes ago, you idiot. In case you didn't know, that means they're still hot." She started flapping faster.

  A few minutes later, she handed the magazine to Vicente. He waved it over the cooling rack for five minutes more before Leon attempted to pick one up again. This time, it'd cooled down enough for him to hold for longer than five seconds, and he put it down on a plate. He took his knife, poising it over the mooncake. "I'll cut this into quarters, all right?"

  "Cut it into fifths. The extra piece will come in handy."

  None of them had noticed Yao's disappearance. He was standing at the kitchen door with a wide grin, and there was someone half-hiding behind him.

  "Kiku!" Ling ran towards the door, pushing Yao away to tackle their stepsister in a hug. "How the hell did you get here?"

  Kiku nearly fell over from the hug, smiling weakly as she wriggled away from her stepsister. "Trofilos is only fifteen minutes away from my university," she explained. "And don't touch me."

  "The Kiku we left two months ago would never do spontaneous stuff like this," Leon joked. "You sure you weren't replaced by your alter ego or something?"

  She stumbled into the kitchen towards Leon. "No, I can assure you that I am very much myself. Is it really so out of the ordinary for me to want to visit my siblings?"

  "Well, you never visited before."

  Kiku crossed her arms and huffed, "might I remind you, I'm in my third year of university, which is the same thing as being in Hell. I haven't had a good night's sleep in two months and my workload is insane." She pointed to the shadows under her eyes. "Anyways, I heard you had food."

  Vicente gestured to the plate holding the mooncake, waiting to be cut. "Yeah. These are still hot, they just came out of the oven fifteen minutes ago."

  "Are these mooncakes?" Kiku peered at the plate. "I remember seeing some back in Arlingdale when I first moved there, but I've never had any before."

  "Lucky you, then." Vicente picked up the knife and sliced the mooncake into five pieces, handing one towards her. "You visited at the right time."

  Ling took a slice and nibbled it. "It's good," she commented. "Could use a bit more syrup, though."

  "Of course you'd say that." Leon placed the entire piece of mooncake into his mouth. "You could be eating a block of sugar and say it wasn't sweet enough."