Loop Two - Chapter Thirty-One - Lily and Yuri

“So, is your name really Yuri?” Jade asked Yuri.

“Yup. Written with the kanji for pear. It’s actually my grandfather’s name,” she explained. The seven of them were heading out of the Academy, towards the base where apparently there was a bus into Norumbega.

“Your grandfather?” Jade asked. “I thought it was a girl’s name.”

Yuri nodded. “Oh, it is, unless you’re Slavic, in which case it’s a boy’s name. My grandpa was from somewhere in the USSR, but he moved to the US and met my grandma, who was a Japanese expat.”

“Huh,” Jade said. “That’s a cool story for your name.”

“Thanks!” Yuri said. “I like it, it sends the right message, I think.” Then she winked at Jade, and Amber noticed Jade’s cheeks warming up.

I have no idea what they’re talking about.

“Wait, your name means pear?” Wendy asked.

Yuri shrugged. “It uses that kanji, yes.”

“But you’re not pear-shaped. If anything, you’re more... asparagus,” Wendy said. She gestured straight up and down with her hands until Yuri punched her in the shoulder.

“I’m an hourglass, thank-you-very-much.”

“A very thin hourglass,” Wendy muttered as she rubbed her arm. Then she smiled. “It’s okay! I do think you’re pretty.”

Yuri’s face flushed red and she turned back, then Lily was rubbing at her back and muttering something that Amber only barely caught. “It’s okay. It’s okay. Wendy’s like that.”

Amber shared a look with Jade, and she discovered her smaller companion smiling knowingly back. “I think I see what’s going on,” Jade said. She tapped the side of her nose. “My senses are tingling.”

“What senses?” Cassy asked.

“Nothing you need to worry about,” Jade said sweetly.

I feel like that’s blatantly untrue.

They arrived at the bus stop, which was placed right next to the army base built alongside the Academy. A bus was already there, picking up a surprising number of students. It seemed that Friday evenings were a popular time for magicals to head out into Norumbega. As team Svalinn and Wendy’s team boarded the bus, they found themselves somewhat split apart and forced to squeeze in three to a row.

Amber was next to Jade and Morgan, the taller girl by the window and Jade squeezed up between them. Wendy Lily and Yuri took the row next to them, Wendy herself squished in between the other two. Cassy, the odd-woman-out, just sat on her broom with her feet placed firmly on Amber’s shoulders as if that was the most normal thing in the world.

The bus was soon packed far past capacity, but no one seemed to really care, and it took off with a rumble towards Norumbega.

“I didn’t know there would be this many people heading out,” Amber said.

“There’s a few things you can’t buy at the Academy that you can pick up in the city,” Lily said. She was on the corridor end of the bench, like Amber. “Plus it’s the best place for dates.”

“Dates?” Amber asked. She had a sudden flashback to spending time with Cassy in town. But that, she decided, hadn’t really been much of a date at all.

“Would you want to go on a date with someone at the Academy?” Lily asked. “I mean, there’s shops, and maybe you can spend time working out at the gym or at the library, but it doesn’t feel really romantic compared to Norumbega, does it?”

“That’s true,” Jade said. “Plus the Academy is filled with other students.”

“I think this bus has a fifth of the student population in it,” Cassy said.

“Yes, but once we arrive I imagine most of them will disperse. Can you imagine being on a date and no matter where you look it’s just other students? It would make for an awful atmosphere, I think. Dating should be more... intimate,” Jade said.

Cassy laughed. “Sure, you’re the expert.”

“Oh, I’m not an expert,” Jade said. “Just a casual fan of romance.”

The topic, fortunately, changed to something less complicated as Cassy asked Lily what clubs they were in. As it turned out, the entire team was in the fitness club together, and then each of them had their own little side-interests. The missing member of the team was currently part of the student council, which meant that they were always busy. Wendy didn’t have a second club since she was currently acting as a teacher, Lily was in the gardening and gossip club, and Yuri was on the school’s Volleyball team.

“Gardening and gossip?” Amber asked.

“It’s a single club, not two,” Lily confirmed.

“What do you do?” Jade asked.

Wendy sighed quite dramatically. “I went once, and it was awful! All they did was sit around in a stupidly-warm greenhouse the entire time, drink tea, and talk about who’s giving eyes to who and who was caught in which closet with someone else, it’s boring.”

“I think the club enjoyed having you over,” Lily said. “Though it’s okay if it isn't for you.” She patted Wendy’s hand comfortingly, and Wendy grinned.

Amber glanced out of the bus and noticed that they had already arrived on the outskirts of Norumbega. The path down to the city was a winding, switchback road that had the bus doing wide turns at every curve.

The bus came to a stop next to a bus-stop with a parking space next to it. The roads of Norumbega were mostly too narrow for a full-sized bus to travel through, so Amber imagined that the entire bus route was really just from the Academy down to where they were now, and back up.

All the magicals filed out of the bus in a disorderly mess. A couple teleported right out--why had they ridden the bus then?--and some managed to slip out of the windows, landing on the sidewalk or the road with easy grace.

“Alright!” Wendy declared once they were all free. “Ice cream!”

“Shouldn’t we show the new girls around the city a little first?” Yuri asked.

“That sounds like a nice idea, doesn’t it?” Lily tried right after.

Wendy blinked, then nodded. “Okay, yeah, sure. Come on! Follow us. I know all the best places.” And with that, Wendy grabbed her teammates by the hand and dragged them off, leaving team Svalinn to scramble after her.

“She’s a himbo,” Jade said as they caught up. It was just loud enough for the team to hear without alerting Wendy and her friends.

“A what?” Amber asked. “Also... who, Wendy?”

Jade nodded. “Oh yeah. It’s obvious. Yuri and Lily are totally into her, but she’s too emotionally stupid to notice.”

“How would you know that? We met them all like, an hour ago,” Cassy said.

“I just know,” Jade said.

“Maybe Wendy isn’t gay,” Morgan said. “Just because she’s a magical girl doesn’t mean she’s, ah, a magical girl. There are plenty of us who are straight.”

“Oh, yeah, that’s possible too,” Jade said. “But I think she’s just clueless and both Yuri and Lily are trying something. If they’re third years, then they must have been playing this game for a while.”

“A game?” Amber asked.

“Romance is a game to some people,” Jade confirmed.

“Wait,” Cassy said. “Does that mean that this whole thing, dragging us down here, is some sort of set-up for those two?”

“Probably. But they seem nice, so I think they’re just multitasking. Also, just because they’re chasing their himbo doesn’t mean that they’re not also trying to help her be a good teacher and help us learn about the city. A good shipper can multitask, you know?”

“What’s a himbo anyway?” Cassy asked.

Jade smiled. “It’s someone who’s attractive but not, ah, smart in some ways. Usually they’re a bit dense.” She gave Amber a pointed look.

Wait, what?

Before Amber could ask--and she really wanted to ask--Wendy cheered and she snapped her attention ahead. They’d crossed through an alley and walked across a block of quaint little homes on the outskirts of the city. Wendy was pointing to a corner store which was predictably on the corner of the block.

It was an older wooden building, with a porch out front with a few rocking chairs, an old sleeping dog, and windows plastered in colourful modern ads that clashed with the decor.

“This is the place!” Wendy said. “Come on!”

Amber followed the others into the shop and discovered a surprisingly large space. There was a rack of bread to one side, a small kitchen space on the other behind a half-wall where a pair of women were busy baking something, and a number of stand-up racks with baked goods. The place smelled heavenly.

She also noted a wall of very American candies and chocolate bars as well as a till that looked like it was entirely modern. The store’s decorations kept clashing, at once very old and then sometimes entirely modern.

“They make their own ice cream here, and it’s fantastic!” Wendy said. She moved to the back of the store where a few fridges sat with rows of tubs inside them. The tubs had words written on their sides in permanent marker, and Amber could make out the names of a few creative ice cream flavours.

“So,” Amber said as she tugged Jade closer. “Himbo?”

She noticed Cassy turning to stare, but then Morgan grabbed onto the end of Cassy’s broom and dragged her away.

“Ah,” Jade said. Her cheeks instantly went pink. “Well, maybe not a himbo,” she said.

Amber narrowed her eyes. “I’m not clueless, Jade. And I don’t think I’m an idiot.”

“Um,” Jade said.

Amber rolled her eyes. “I know what I am. But come on. New school, new world, new powers. Not to mention all the issues that come with that. I don’t have time to think of romance. It’s... not high on my list of priorities, alright?”

“Ah, yeah, that’s fair,” Jade said. “Sorry?”

“Apology accepted.” Amber smiled. “But it’ll be accepted even more if you get me some of that peanut butter ice cream they have over there. It looks really good.”

Jade smiled, nodded, then somewhat shyly and very awkwardly, gave Amber a quick hug. “Thanks. And I will. And... uh, yeah, sorry again. Sometimes my shipping instincts get ahead of me.”

“It’s fine,” Amber said.

“I’ll stop trying to push you and Cassy together for a bit, even if you’d make a cute couple.”

Amber sighed. I should have seen that coming, but I didn’t.

***