After we finished eating, Lucia and I went to her room whereas Lucia’s parents decided to move into the living room, and Ameil and Anne went to Ameil’s room. 

When the two of us made it to her room, we decided to play a card game that I was somewhat familiar with.

Essentially, we were playing go fish except the fish was replaced with bears. 

“Nope, go hunt again.”

She said before gesturing for me to pick up a couple of cards.

In response, I just did so before double checking what exactly I had in my hand and how many piles of cards I currently had in my possession. 

“Uh, do you have any sevens?”

I asked while staring at my hand. 

“Yeah, here you go.”

She said before handing me a pair of sevens, just enough for me to create another stack of cards. 

“Ugh, is that your fifth stack, already? How are you so good at this?”

“Back where I’m from, I had a lot of free time, so oftentimes I just played card games like this one against myself.”

I said with a hint of confidence in my voice.

“Did it ever get boring? And do you have any eights?”

“Not really, no. Also, I don’t have any eights, go hunt.”

At the very least, it beats playing solitaire.

I could never really get into that one, as it always seemed to remind me about how little friends I had back then.

And because of that, I never felt like I could truly win the game, which kinda took the fun out of it.

“Damn.”

Lucia said before picking up another card from the deck.

“Well, that was lucky.”

She said before putting down a stack of eights on the floor.

“And here I was thinking that you also inherited a fraction of your ancestors' horrible luck like Ameil.”

I said with a bit of a grin on my face.

“Fortunately for the both of us, that isn’t the case.”

She said with a bit of a relieved expression on her face.

“Hah, yeah. We’re kinda stuck together until… well, I don’t know, when one of us dies, probably? So, it wouldn’t really help if one of us was cursed by Lady Luck.”

“Don’t go dropping death flags like that, Otto!”

Lucia replied with a hint of annoyance in her voice before pinching my cheeks a little.

“There’s still tons of things we haven’t gotten to do yet!”

“Like what? Also, do you have any kings?”

“I dunno, like kayaking or something like that? And no, I don’t have any kings.”

“You wanna go kayaking?”

I said before picking up another card from the deck, which unfortunately didn’t match any of the other ones in my hand.

“I didn’t get the chance to do it last spring break, so I was hoping that we could do something similar this time. And uh, do you have any queens?”

“Nope to the second question, and sure, that sounds fun. Do you have a place in mind?”

“Hmm… probably Glen Springs, from what I’ve heard, the waves are pretty calm there.”

Lucia said before picking up the last card in the deck, and putting another pile of cards down on the floor.

“How far away is it?”

“Not too far actually, if you were to try and walk from here to there, it’d take you about half a day.”

“Cool.”

I said simply before double checking the two cards that I had in my hands.

“Do you happen to have any aces by the way?”

“Fuck, I lost again.”

Lucia said with a pouty look on her face before putting the two cards that she had in her hands on the floor.

They were aces.

“You’ll do better next time.”

“That’s what you said the other two times.”

“Well, during this game, you did get one more pile than you did last time.”

“I suppose.”

Lucia said before yawning a little.

“You tired?”

“Yeah, let me use you as a pillow.”

Lucia said before moving closer to me and resting her head on my shoulder.

“You’re not even asking for permission anymore.”

I said with a smile on my face.

“That’s because nowadays I already know what your answer is gonna be.”

Lucia replied confidently.

“Oh, that reminds me, did you ever find out whether or not your parents are alright with us sleeping in the same room?”

“Ah, yeah they’re probably fine with it.”

“Probably?”

“Well, we’ve had the door closed for the past thirty minutes or so, and neither of them have barged in and told us to keep it open. So, they probably trust you enough to have you sleep in the same bed as me.”

Lucia said nonchalantly.

“Huh, in that case, do you wanna head to bed now? I think that you’ll be more comfortable lying down in your bed than you are sitting on the cold wooden floor right now.”

“That’s fine by me.”

Lucia said before getting up from her seat and moving to her bed.

Then with one swift motion, she dragged me into the bed with her.

And the moment that I got in the bed, Lucia tightly wrapped her arms around me, and completely immobilized me.

“You know, it’s kinda scary how quickly you can render me motionless.”

“I took a bunch of self defense classes when I was younger.”

“Yeah, that tracks. Just don’t attack me with any of the moves that you learned, alright?”

I said sarcastically before completely giving into Lucia’s embrace.

“I wouldn’t even dream of it.”

She said with a bright smile on her face before drawing me in closer.

And then we kinda just stayed like that for the next 10 or so minutes, until I decided to break the silence.

“Hey, Lucia?”

“Yeah?”

“I love you.”

“I love you too, Otto.”

Lucia said before giving me a kiss on the cheek.

It’s times like these, that I wonder how exactly I managed to go on for so long without her.