test drive | • a n n e

Anne shrugged with a smile. "I hated them when I was younger, but I think I got used to them. My parents never quite forced food I didn't want to eat on me, but Arthur is picky and sometimes I just wanted to look more responsible than him." Anne loved her brothers, but she really did take on a semi-maternal role with them quite often, despite the fact that Andries was only three years younger than her and Arthur only five. She just wished they weren't getting to be taller than her.

Anne picked up a little bit of everything onto her rice, and added an egg for good measure. The sauce was a little bit redder than she was used to eating on her food, so she grabbed a bit and put it on the side, without mixing it. "Thanks," she said seriously and quietly. She could tell her friend was distracted, but Anne wanted Rémi to know that she appreciated all of it. The food, him answering her questions, letting her visit. She mixed well, leaving the sauce to mix in later if necessary, and on his cue moved to the staircase.

Climbing carefully on the tight and steep stairs since she only had one hand, thankful for her passion for ice skating, Anne stopped and turned around when Emma's mother addressed them. Anne raised her eyebrows briefly. Anne didn't even use his Korean name--she knew it was reserved for family. Rémi hardly considered Emma's mother his family. Amélie, was that her name? The ever-polite girl winced a tiny bit at the shortness in her voice, but although normally she would thank someone for the invitation, she felt she had to stay in Rémi's corner, as the only one who appeared to be. Her shooting any kind of apologetic smile would just make Rémi's behavior look bad, so she continued up the stairs.

Settling down cross-legged on the attic floor in a bit of empty space, she tasted the sauce. "Good, but a little spicy," she issued her verdict, and mixed half in. "Mission successful?" We didn't get trapped anywhere, she insinuated with her tone.

Seriously, he hated them. He hated the way that Emma and her mother seemed to get along so well with his dad, with him the odd one out. What the hell did his father even see in Amélie? She was an artist, a painter, and he was basically a treasure hunter and scientist. Rémi’s dad was clearly far superior in intellect than Amélie or her daughter (just like Rémi was far smarter than Emma, he thought), and didn’t Jonghyun want to be challenged intellectually? Rémi admitted grudgingly that she was okay looking, but she was also years younger than his dad and far less wealthy, so there was something in that dynamic that he didn’t like anyway.

He stayed silent as they went back upstairs, mulling all of this over moodily. Maybe he shouldn’t have been so short with her. Maybe he shouldn’t have said her name with such crisp sarcasm every time he spoke to her. Maybe he shouldn’t speak to her in that “polite” sort of tone where his words were perfectly fine but there was an undercurrent of something more snarky, more needling. It probably would have helped if he’d helped them move in rather than lock himself up here in his tower listening to angry music too. Instead, he was rude, apathetic and unhelpful. A part of him had enshrined his mother’s memory in a way that didn’t leave space for new family and his father had obviously not done the same - the difference was painful.

Rémi followed his friend’s lead and sat down on the floor, crossing his legs and poking at his food thoughtfully. “Hmm? Oh yeah, successful,” he agreed distractedly. After a pause, he said, “How do you feel about spicy food in general?” Rémi was trying to come back to the conversation but every time he was forced to interact with them he ended up in a bad mood. “I like spicy,” he added.

Anne could read the frustration and anger and maybe even hatred curling around Rémi's face and shoulders like a dense fog. She could almost see the quantum quivering of excited atoms reacting to his presence. The Ombrelune girl wanted to get her friend to open up about it--even if only to spit out some of the feelings--but she didn't think he wanted to, and she wouldn't push him, no matter how she felt. It was an interesting mirror between the two of them. Anne felt sympathy roll over her, but she let her emotion go in favor of clean action. Rémi let his emotions imprint on his actions, although sometimes she wasn't too sure how willing he was to acknowledge and submerge himself in everything roiling within him. Then again, her emotions were much easier to deal with than his in this case.

"I like it to a point," she said. It was too vague, so she clarified, "I like that it adds another dimension to food, and amplifies the flavor. But I also think it's easily used to minimize or obscure other flavor, in which case it becomes too much. Food needn't be associated with pain," she laughed. "That conditioning would be rather detrimental to my health, I'm afraid."

Scraping the last bit of rice from the bowl, she looked carefully at the little bits that remained, and remembered the warning about how they were charmed to be hot on the inside. Pulling out her wand and shrugging at Rémi, she siphoned off the grease with a quick "Tergeo" and followed with a "Scourgify!" Not that Anne considered household charms a particular pride of point, but they came in handy on the Hofstede farm sometimes, and the bowl looked clean.

"Do you want to make a show of going to bed, if we're going out later? Am I just camping out here?" 

He liked the way she spoke. The words she used to describe things, the way she picked apart her experiences with intelligence and careful thought. “I’d agree with that,” he said, “though my threshold for spice-related pain is higher.”  He’d always admired that about her. Remi was articulate and clever too, but there was a sarcastic sort of flavour to his sentences that she just didn’t have.

“Oh they’ll want you in the spare room,” Remi said, rolling his eyes. The Korean boy thought for a moment and came to the conclusion that the adults were probably trying to deter them from doing something like sneaking out and exploring the city, rather than something like having sex. He figured that most parents of teenagers were worried about the sex thing, but his dad had always parented him in a way that he didn’t see reflected by most other parents. Before she had moved in, the young ombrelune had often spent nights alone at home. Rémi’s dad trusted him with autonomy and treated him like a person, not like a child. Regarding the sex thing, he predicted Jonghyun would probably just want him to be safe and responsible, and if it came up they would talk about things like consent and making sure that no one was being pressured into doing things.

His dark eyes fell back onto his friend and he swallowed, feeling uncharacteristically embarrassed by his thoughts. It was one thing to think about sex in the abstract and another to think about it with her right there as he told her to sleep in another room. “I’ll take you down,” he said gruffly, getting to his feet and brushing the dust off his pants. The boy checked his watch as they went down to the second floor and he let her into the room next-door to Emma’s. “I’ll come get you in maybe an hour?” He asked, quirking an eyebrow in her direction and hoping that it wasn’t too long a wait.

Anne smiled. "It likely takes a certain degree of habituation. I might attempt to raise mine for the sake of greater enjoyment." Perhaps an expansion of her food palate was in order. Beauxbatons' cuisine was quite extensive, but that wasn't to say that she always took everything that was offered.

"Not unexpected," she laughed quietly. Her mother would never let Rémi take her floor if he visited. Partly it was courtesy--guests should be afforded excellent accommodations, including a bed and privacy. Partly it might be because she wanted to protect her young daughter. A faint heat tinged her cheeks involuntarily at the idea. She rather thought her mother always assumed the worst of her and maybe of people, and it was quite embarrassing for the decorous fourteen-year-old. Not that they ever talked about the subject, but there were certain offhanded comments or faces her mother made that Anne did not find difficult to interpret.

She stood up gracefully and picked her lightly-packed bag up from the floor and followed him. Her eyes swiveled to what was undoubtedly Emma's room as they passed it. Would the Swiss girl wake up at their exit? She hoped the Bellefeuille wouldn't cause any trouble. More than she already did by existing in this space, that was. She nodded to Rémi. "That should be perfect. I brought a book," she smiled. Anne liked to have some reading material at her side, and especially when settling into somewhere different. "And I'll change into something a little warmer. And more suitable for movement," she said quietly. A faint rare mischief hovered around her eyes.

The door closed behind him and Anne set to unpacking a little bit. Within minutes she had laid out a new outfit and was buried in a biography of Rosalind Franklin. Just 43 minutes until she needed to change...

[fin]

“Of course you did,” Rémi said with an entirely genuine smile. Anne loved reading, just like he did. Somewhere in the back of his head, Rémi wondered if Emma had ever read a whole book in her life… Maybe trashy teen fiction, he thought. It suited her. “Cool, I’ll come get you then. We’ll probably have to go out my window,” he said in hushed tones. The Ombrelune gave a short wave and moved back to close the door. Then he trotted down stairs, steeling himself for having to interact with them. “Anne’s gone to bed,” he told his Dad, expressionless. He ignored the step monster. “I’m going too.”

Remi gave another wave, this one with much less affection before making his way back up three flights of stairs to the attic. Back to his safe haven. The boy got changed into his PJs - might as well be comfy for the next forty minutes - and then sat in bed surrounded by a few of the space science magazines he was subscribed to. The boy checked his watch, slowly counting down the minutes. Not long now, he thought.

[fin]