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Day 1 - Queen - “Just kiss me.”
Cyan has this list. She started it years ago, when she was still in the orphanage with Luo. Luo came back from sneaking out one night and went on and on about all the things the Director wouldn’t let them have. Video games, phones, flashy clothes — he said he spent hours just staring through the windows at the displays, cycling through awe, sadness, and a deep rooted anger at the system that put them in this specific orphanage.
Or it’s my own shitty luck, he joked, which cut off in a wheeze when Cyan elbowed him in the ribs for talking so negatively about himself. They had an agreement, a very real, very adult understanding between them: Cyan couldn’t get too down about feeling trapped by her good luck, and Luo couldn’t blame every terrible thing in their lives on his bad luck.
Anyway — the list.
She’s written down all the things she missed out on as a kid. No matter how silly or trivial, if it was something she wanted to try, she added another bullet point in her journal. Luo helped, too, especially for things that were improved by bringing another person along, like going to a fancy restaurant and ordering everything on the menu, or playing Mario Kart 38.
When she joined DOS — and even before then, when she struck out on her own as a busker — she had plenty of opportunities to start crossing things off. But it never felt right, not without Luo by her side to share in the joy of discovery. So when she got him back, when he came home with her, she was relieved he was just as eager to tackle everything together.
They’ve gone to amusement parks and ridden the tallest rollercoaster; they’ve waded out into the ocean until the sandy floor suddenly dropped out from beneath their feet; they’ve tried every single flavor of ice cream at the local shop (even past the point of feeling sick with it).
And now… now it’s come to this.
“Wait, you can’t be serious.”
Luo’s laid out on his stomach on her bed, legs in the air with his ankles crossed. The journal’s spread out in front of him, open to a mostly blank page — they’re coming up on the final bullet points they need to hit, and Luo’s determined they get them done before Cyan’s twenty-first birthday. She doesn’t exactly get why that’s so important, but she’s been game to indulge him anyway.
Well, until he—
“You’ve still never kissed anyone?”
—got so hung-up on this particular childish whim.
Cyan crosses her arms and slumps down in her desk chair, avoiding eye contact. “You say that like I’m a freak for not doing it by now.”
“No, no, I mean—” Luo scratches at his cheek, chagrined. He’s pestered Little Johnny with enough questions to know some people just don’t go in for romance like that. “You’re pretty enough, and you’ve had crushes before, so it’s not like you don’t want to, right?”
Pretty enough. Cyan has to keep from laughing by biting the inside of her cheek. She knows how many people just assume that she and Luo are together; she dedicated her career as a hero and a singer to him, and he’s been such an integral part of her life, so she can’t exactly blame them for jumping to that conclusion. And, yeah, once upon a time she wondered if the sunshine-warm feeling beneath her ribs that only surfaced around Luo meant she like-liked him… but she’s learned a lot about herself since leaving the orphanage, and she’s sure now that as much as she loves Luo, it’s never been romantic.
“I do,” she admits, swiveling back and forth in her chair. “I think about it… kind of a lot.”
“Okay, so… what, you’re too busy? There’s no one you like right now? I can’t imagine anyone turning you down, so I’m guessing you’ve never even, like, confessed.”
Cyan stamps her foot down, stilling her chair. “How could you possibly know that?”
Luo just grins and spreads his hands. “Because you’re a damn romantic, dumbass. And that means you’d have planned a really flashy confession. Built up the whole moment and acted like you were proposing instead of asking them out. There’s no way I wouldn’t have heard about it from Little Johnny.”
Cyan… can’t exactly refute that.
Another thing she’s discovered about herself: She likes cheesy rom-coms to a somewhat unhealthy degree. There’s something so infectious about the unparalleled joy people in those movies feel when they reunite with their one and only, overcoming every obstacle to find each other, however many times it takes.
Sometimes she’s sitting there as the credits roll, tears streaming down her face, hugging her Big Johnny plush to her chest, and she thinks No wonder people think Luo and I should date. We’re a walking rom-com.
The problem, of course, is that it’s Luo. Her Luo, the boy who first convinced her that her powers weren’t infallible, that they didn’t have to be a curse. The boy she watched grow into a lanky, unwieldy teenager. The boy—
The boy. The boy.
That’s the real sticking point.
Luo is great, and wonderful, and kind, and she loves him. But she isn’t attracted to him, and she knows in her heart of hearts she never could be.
She knows that because she— well. Because she knows what that feels like, now.
“I know that face,” Luo says, and Cyan blinks rapidly, refocusing on him. He’s pushed himself up onto his elbows, face screwed up in concentration as he studies her. Heat prickles at the back of her neck, a precursor to the ugly blush he used to tease out of her when they were kids.
“What face?” she says, twisting around in her chair to face her desk. There’s a pile of half-finished music sheets they’ve been picking at over the last week, a handful of Lucky Cyan-themed guitar pick samples she has to approve, her computer screen — paused on a video of a dog beating up a group of thugs that Luo insists is very shitty CGI. Nothing pressing enough that might convince Luo to let this go.
“That face. You’re all — blotchy. And your cheek’s sunken because you’re chewing on it. And — oh my god. Oh my god. You’ve got a crush! Holy shit!”
Sometimes Luo’s friendship is a curse.
“Shut up.”
“Who is it? C’mon, give me a hint.”
“Luo, shut up!”
“It can’t be Johnny, he’s puppy-dog cute and that’s never been your thing. God, who else do you even know aside from me? And it’s definitely not me — or I hope it’s not because then we’re going to have to have a very awkward conversation and I don’t have any beer on hand—”
“Luo, I swear to god—”
“Oh, am I interrupting?”
Cyan and Luo both turn at the same time, startled, and there’s Queen standing in the doorway, her hand poised to knock on the open door. She’s dressed down in a long, floral skirt and a sleeveless white blouse, her hair loosely braided and looped over her shoulder. She’s got her glasses on, too — the ones she only wears when she’s been staring at her tablet for too long and the words are starting to go fuzzy and indistinct. She’s tall and imposing as ever, as intimidatingly beautiful as ever, but she’s also… soft. And lovely. And even from here Cyan can smell the vanilla perfume she’s wearing, the one Cyan bought her because the packaging made it look like it was made for her hero persona.
Cyan swallows. Audibly.
It’s too late for her to take it back — Luo’s head snaps around so fast she’s shocked nothing breaks in his heck, and he stares. He stares as she squirms, twisting nervously in her chair. He stares as Queen looks over both of them, curious and confused. He stares even as Cyan silently begs the universe to blow up their phones with some emergency that calls for Queen to come and put a stop to it.
She’s always said Luo’s bad luck is a good balance for her own good fortune. Sometimes he even manages to tip the scales, especially now that he’s started to climb the ranks as a hero.
And right now? The gods of luck have fucking abandoned her.
“Nah, you’re not interrupting,” Luo says as he smoothly rolls himself off Cyan’s bed and gets to his feet. He snags the journal in the same movement, and Cyan’s eyes go wide. She tries to get up, to lunge for him him, but her foot slips on a stray sheet of paper and it’s all she can do to windmill for balance while Luo strides up to Queen and hands the journal over with a shit-eating grin. “You came at the perfect time, actually. You can help Cyan with her list.”
“List?” Queen’s brow creases as she thumbs open the journal. It falls open — naturally, because the spine is broken and it easily sags under the wear of pages heavy with ink — to one of the last pages. The one Luo was looking at only a few minutes ago. “Oh, is it something like a bucket list? Little Johnny has one. Most of his involve visiting foreign countries and eating strange-sounding food, though.”
“Somethin’ like that,” Luo says. He leans up on his tip toes to point at the halfway point on the page. “This one’s been giving her trouble, and I don’t think I’m really up for the task.”
Queen tilts her head. “You’re her best friend, aren’t you?”
“Sure am. But I think you’re, ah, uniquely qualified for this one.”
“Me?”
“Mmhm. Just ask Cyan about it. Right, Cy?”
Two pairs of eyes fall on her, inquisitive. Burning. Spiteful in Luo’s case. Because, she realizes, this is revenge for that time she let him get drunk and confess to the room at large, using ridiculous cowboy-esque slang, that he wanted Miss Matchstick to step on him.
“Uh,” Cyan says, because her mouth just. Opens. Like it’s obeying one of Queen’s Rules and has no other choice but to produce sound.
“You two have fun!” Luo pats Queen’s shoulder as he slips past her, whistling My Fucking Color on his way out the door. Leaving them alone with Cyan gaping like a goldfish and Queen squinting down at the latest thing Cyan would like to cross over her list.
“I know social cues aren’t… my forte,” Queen says, slowly, deliberately. She doesn’t look up from the journal. Cyan is kinda, maybe not breathing as she waits her out. “But this feels like a set-up.”
“It’s… not… not a set-up?”
“Mm.”
The book closes with a snap that Cyan feels like a punch to the gut. Queen crosses the room in three quick strides, barely giving Cyan any time to react beyond blind panic and a fistful of excuses that get stuck in her throat, and spins Cyan’s chair around so that they’re face to face. She stands over her for a moment, and there’s that expression Cyan’s come to know during her time at DOS. Queen working through a problem in real time, the gears clicking into place one by one, her features relaxing in corresponding increments.
She lowers herself suddenly, kneeling — and Cyan starts to stand, to urge her to sit on the bed because Luo always wears his shoes in her apartment and he tracks dirt all over the place and Queen’s skirt is so pretty she can’t bear to see it ruined — until Queen lays a hand on her forearm. Applying just enough pressure to tell Cyan to stay put.
She does. Without hesitation.
God, she’s down bad.
“Luo said I can help with this,” Queen says, looking up at Cyan from beneath her lashes. “He said I’m uniquely qualified. Was he right?”
Cyan thinks, very briefly, about lying. It would hurt to do it, and Queen would know it’s a lie, but she’d let her get away with it. Because it would send the signal that Cyan doesn’t want to talk to her about this, and Queen would respect that even if she doesn’t understand why.
She swallows again. Breathes in and gets another delightful whiff of that perfume, as sweet and sugary as fresh-baked cookies. She says, “Yeah… yeah, he was right.”
Queen blinks, once, twice.
And then she smiles.
“Good.”
“...Huh?”
“Just kiss me, Cyan. I can make it a Rule, if you’d like. Although I’d have to think about the ethics of that—”
A Rule isn’t necessary — would never be necessary for something like this. Cyan just needs permission, as awkward and scared and panicky as she feels right now.
She leans forward, cups Queen’s face in her slightly-shaky hands, and closes the distance between them.
It’s a soft thing, their first kiss. Lips sliding against lips. Gentle warmth. It’s slow and syrupy because Cyan just wants to get it right — she wants her luck to work for her for once, for her instincts to be trustworthy. And Queen is patient, and kind, and maybe a little bit inexperienced, too, if the frustrated noise she lets out when they bump teeth is anything to go by.
When Cyan finally pulls back, she knows she looks like a mess. Flushed down to her collar, red and green like an ugly Christmas tree. Queen only has a light blush staining her cheeks and the very tips of her ears. Her lips, though, are — shiny. Damp. Distractingly so. And when her tongue glides over her bottom lip Cyan unconsciously mimics her, and she tastes — vanilla.
Like the perfume. Like her gift.
“Oh,” Cyan says, breathless. “Oh, okay, so this is… this is happening. Wow! I’m totally not freaking out a little.”
“You shouldn’t be,” Queen laughs. “But it’s cute. Not that that’s anything new; you’re always cute.”
“Oh my god.”
“I’ve never seen you this red before. Are compliments all it takes?”
“No. No way, I’m not— it’s—” It’s because it’s you. “Can you just… can you just kiss me again? Please?”
Queen’s mouth curls up at the corners. “If you ask so nicely… I don’t see any reason to refuse.”
Their second kiss is a lot like the first. Testing the waters, still, Cyan guesses. It involves hands this time, fingers in Queen’s hair, a palm around Cyan’s hip. And when Cyan makes her own noise — higher, keener, so much more mortifying than the one Queen made — Queen chases it down with her tongue.
Their third kiss is — hotter. Wetter.
Their fourth makes Cyan’s head spin.
Their fifth—
Cyan owes Luo that copy of the new Zelda game he’s been eyeing for months. After she tackles him into a bush.