la vie en rose • {shelby, tomie}

It had been lucky that Hazel had blown up at the mere mention of Archie - Shelby had been blushing a furious red by that time in the conversation. How had it all gone so sideways? It was just so supposed to be tea on their break! But everything that she said seemed to just, like, dig her into a deeper and deeper hole of embarrassment. Imagine if Hazel had given her a chance to explain why Archie would be a good match for her according to the charts - Hazel would have laughed at her again, and worse, so would Tomie.

Shelby knew that she wasn't Tomie's best friend - that was either Benny or JR, easy, they all liked Quidditch and just got on better amongst each other than Shelby did with any of them individually. Still, she had managed to hang onto that group over the year since running into them on the train, and the three of them were important to her. Especially Tomie. Even if she had more in common with Wendy or Trudy, just by housing together for nine months and generally getting on well, there was something that the other Ravenclaw girls didn't get about Shelby. Something about the blonde hair. Shelby felt outshined by them. With Tomie, it was just, more, comfortable.

Until today.

She had made some excuse about wanting to get to Science early, just so she didn't have to sit in silence with Tomie after Hazel left. She would have to see her later, anyway, they had signed up to room together, so she was looking for as long a break as possible. Science was fun, of course, but Shelby found herself drifting in and out of focus throughout the lesson, dropping an egg on an older girl (Gryffindor, Quidditch, intimidating) shoes and earning a harsh glare. Rion helped her clean up the mess, which was nice of him, but Shelby still felt embarrassed.

At the campfire that night, Shelby made a point of sitting away from both Tomie and Hazel. Everything felt weird and bad, or at least she felt weird and bad. Archie had been more than willing to let her sit next to him and Simon, and with Wendy and Trudy on her other side, she could almost forget her other friends across the circle. Almost.

She had slipped away from the fire early and had already showered by the time Tomie came back to their room. She didn't exactly ignore Tomie coming in, but she certainly did not look up from the book in her lap. It was on Metaphysics - someone foreign in Science had lent her. Did she understand any of it? Absolutely not. Was she going to pretend to so she could have a little more time to sulk? Absolutely.

“Um, are you okay, Trickett?”

Of course, that was one of the things that Shelby really liked about Tomie. She cared so much, and she was so much better than Shelby at intuiting people's emotions. If the positions were reversed, and Tomie was sulking at her, it would take Shelby a lot longer to figure it out.

"I'm fine," she tried to lie, but it sounded whiny the minute it came out of her throat and did not seem like it was going to fool anyone. She shut her book, staring instead at her thick woollen slipper socks. The pattern looked sort of like a cat. "Well, I mean, I'm like, kind of out of it, I think, but it's fine." Nope, still wasn't even fooling herself. Maybe she would get lucky and Tomie would drop it.


@Donna West @Hyperion Hollyoake @Archie Macnair  lmk if I should change any mentions

She tilted her head to the side, glancing back up at Shelby, her towel and pyjamas and a box of assorted wrapped chocolates in her hands. “Well, that’s cool because you just seem a bit…” She hesitated, tilting her head the other way, like a puppy trying to triangulate sound.

Tomie got up from where she was crouching and took a few steps over to the bunks. She thought about sitting down beside her friend, but the idea of someone getting into her bed all covered in dirt and bits of ash and marshmallow made her want to throw up, so she just plopped herself down in front of Shelby instead, sitting cross-legged with her towel by her side. “You know, not fine.”

She had the feeling that she’d done something wrong. She’d seen Shelby on bad days before, and she didn’t act like this. Then again, maybe Shelby just had her period or something; that seemed to make people act all crazy. And she didn’t feel like she’d done anything wrong. She couldn’t remember doing anything wrong.

“Chocolate for your thoughts?” she asked, holding the box out for her friend. Realising that Shelby had probably just brushed her teeth, she added, “there are mint ones?”

Yep, Tomie saw right through it. Of course, she did! Tomie was so good and nice! Usually! It almost made her angry, that Tomie was being so nice now when she had been so not nice before. Like Tomie hadn't even noticed that it had suddenly been Tomie and Hazel So up against Shelby, instead of Tomie and Shelby together up against Hazel. But it was hard to hold onto the anger when Tomie had just sat down on the floor in front of her bunk, looking up at her with a face like she was trying to solve all her problems with a cool Quidditch move.

She hesitated when Tomie held out the chocolates - she had just brushed her teeth, but mints and tea were in a sort of nebulous "okay before bed, sometimes" category and they looked really good. "Thanks," she said, plucking one of the green wrapped candies from the assortment box. It was probably the mint one, right? Shelby unwrapped it and popped it in her mouth, holding it in the pocket of her cheek while she thought about what to say.

"I think," Shelby said slowly around the chocolate, "that I didn't like when you were making fun of me with Hazel." She pulled her knees up, hugging them close to her chest. It was rough enough that she felt out of sorts with her own body (her height growth had slowed down, but the rest of her was changing in ways she didn't love) but she didn't want to be out of sorts with her friend, too. "I dunno. It's okay if it's just us, or like Benny and JR are there too, that's, like, whatever?" This didn't really make sense, the words were all scrambled on their way out, Shelby felt stupid just trying to say what was on her mind. "But it was Hazel, you know?"

“Okay,” Tomie said diplomatically, feeling her heart beat a little faster in her chest. Her first instinct was to get defensive, but she recognised that one and squashed it as best she could while she listened to Shelby talk. Tomie was fairly intuitive when it came to other people’s feelings, but she definitely did not have a good handle on her own. Her temper, especially, was frustratingly unpredictable; it was just cool, cool, calm, fine, cool, and then bam, hot fury, and she wanted to smash stuff and cry.

Thankfully, she didn’t feel like that at the moment, though.

She tried to imagine it from Shelby’s perspective. Tomie hadn’t felt like she was making fun of her Ravenclaw friend with anyone; Dumbledore had been a pretty hilarious answer, what was she supposed to do? Agree? Yeah, Hot Dead Grandpa Albus Dumbledore, what a dreamy guy... Besides, she’d been dunking on Hazel too, hadn’t she? Tomie liked to tease – it was just how she was. She grimaced a little at her own thoughts, feeling them get a bit defensive in tone again.

“You felt like I was on her team, against you?” Tomie guessed, not even realising she was drifting towards the quidditch metaphors instinctively. The brunette placed the cardboard box on the ground, and plucked a chocolate out at random, intentionally not looking as she unwrapped it so that the flavour would be a surprise. It was a habit. She leaned back, resting her hands flat on the floor behind her. Her dark eyes darted to the side while she mulled this over. Tomie got it, kind of. She didn't think she'd been doing what Shelby was describing, but her friend obviously felt like she had. She wasn't sure what the balance of intentions-versus-consequences meant when it came to these things, and a part of her felt a lick of typical Gryffindor protectiveness over her own just intentions. But she also didn't want Shelby to feel bad.

"I didn't mean to," she said, then, "sorry." Tomie bit her lower lip, gaze returning to Shelby's, trying to read her. After a beat, she offered, "I'll crap on Joey extra hard next time the three of us are together?"

Tomie contemplated the mess of feelings that Shelby had let loose, then came back with an eloquent, sporty summary of the whole thing. "Yeah, exactly," Shelby replied, swallowing some of the chocolate as it melted in her mouth. "It doesn't really make sense, I guess." Now that she had said it out loud, it felt like such a stupid thing to be upset about. It had just been a silly conversation, why was she so worked up about it? "Dumbledore was a pretty dumb answer, I guess," Shelby conceded, burying her head in her knees, "but I don't know all the Quidditch players, and, I don't know. It just felt weird that you and Hazel agreed, I guess." This was maybe the opposite of clarifying. Ugh.

She didn't raise her head back up until she heard Tomie say sorry. She hadn't really expected that, especially the more she thought about it the more certain Shelby was that this was all in her head. She peeked her eyes up just a little bit, meeting Tomie's. "S'okay," she mumbled, then snorted at Tomie's next suggestion. "Hazel might explode if you do that," she said, picturing the other girl's face from today but redder and angrier. "Which would be really funny."   

Tomie shrugged at the Dumbledore comment, though of course she privately agreed. Dumbledore?? Out of all of the wizards who existed? Shelby hadn’t even picked someone who was alive. Maybe that was something she could tease her about later, when she didn’t look so miserable. The young Gryffindor nodded at the bit about agreeing with Hazel, though. She reflected on the moment they’d said the same words at the same time. That had been weird. She wasn't sure what to say to all of it, so she didn't talk for a moment.

When she sensed her in, though, she leaned into it. Her expression brightened mischievously. “You know,” she said, leaning a little to one side as she pointed at her friend as if she’d just had the best idea in the world, “I think Sterling is really the one to go for. Did you see the way she flew to his defense? Can’t understand it, personally,” she added, throwing an eye-roll in there for good measure. “I look at that guy and feel nothing at all.” Hazel could do with a bit more ribbing on the topic, she thought. The Slytherin was just so fun to tease.

“You know,” she said again, more seriously this time. She sat up straight again and brushed a bit of dust or dirt from where she’d had her hands on the floor. “When I first met Hazel, we got along pretty well. For about the length of one herbology lesson.” She paused, then nodded, mostly to herself. “I thought that we might have... been better friends,” she said, glancing to the side as her tone shifted, “Because, well, you know.” She looked back at Shelby, giving her a look, and a self-conscious shrug to soften the subject matter she and Shelby hadn’t ever really breached explicitly.

Shelby had to smile at Tomie when she pointed at her. It felt like Tomie was letting her back in - not that she hadn't been in, before, but it was validating all the same. "Sterling's real bright, but I don't see it either," she said, keeping her voice low like she was sharing a secret. It was just what she said earlier when the Slytherin Prefect had come up, but now when it was just the two of them it felt less like she was trying to stay afloat and more like she was in on the game, too.

Tomie suddenly shifted away from the playful tone to something more... serious. Shelby nodded - they had never talked about this more than that first conversation on the train about their mums and occasional sharing treats that came in the mail, but it was always there in the background. "Yeah?" Tomie and Hazel seemed so at odds now, but she could understand the desire to be friends with someone like yourself. That was the whole reason Shelby had approached Tomie and Benny back then, anyway. "I kind of hoped the same thing, the first week of school," Shelby admitted. She shifted, slipping off the edge of her bunk to join Tomie on the floor. It felt weird to be looming above her right now. "Like, who else is Korean at Hogwarts, you know? Me, Hazel, Ingvar," Shelby raised a finger for each of them. "I like Wendy and Trudy and everyone in my dorm, but they don't..." What was she looking to say? "They're so, you know," she made a face, "blonde." She glanced over at the door, where her shoes were still drying from the afternoon's boat class. "And they don't take off their shoes inside."

Tomie smiled forreal when her friend joined her on the floor. She reached for the cardboard box beside her, tempting her friend with a little wiggle of her wrist. She grabbed another one for herself too, but played with it for a bit, twisting and un-twisting it for a while before eating it.

“Just three for me too,” Tomie agreed with a nod, dropping the chocolate into her other hand and holding up three fingers of her own. “Me, Kembara... Oh.” She paused, her eyebrows shooting up. “I guess just two?” She’d forgotten that Matt was finished now, and wouldn’t be coming back next term. She shrugged with a bit of a self-conscious smile, a part of her wondering what she’d do when Ara was gone too and she didn’t have anyone to speak indonesian with at school anymore. She ran a tongue along her teeth, checking for bits of chocolate, and swallowed.

Tomie nodded at the blonde thing, although she would have just said white. She felt a bit weird acknowledging it so directly, though. Wiltrud and Wendy were both really nice and super pretty. “Gah! I’ve been trying with the other girls,” Tomie complained, rolling her eyes. She half-smiled but there was truth in her complaint too. It didn’t matter that Korea and Indonesia were basically nothing alike, didn’t share languages or many cultural touchstones, and people from Korea didn’t look anything like her, like, at all – Tomie understood. She understood the shared sense of camaraderie with the other girl; she felt it too.

“Can I, uh, tell you something, Shelbs?” She asked, leaning forward with a glint in her eye.

Tomie wiggled the chocolate box in front of her, and Shelby was suddenly aware of all the marshmallows she hadn't actually eaten at the campfire and how much she deserved some extra sweets. She reached for a dark pink wrapper - she'll just brush her teeth again at this point - and popped it into her mouth, letting the raspberry filling coat her tongue. Her mouth was full when Tomie came back with her language count, so she just nodded sympathetically. At least, if Hazel stopped being so... Hazel at some point in the future, Shelby would have someone to practice Korean or share jeon with. Tomie, when her other brother graduated, would be all alone.

Shelby stifled a giggle at Tomie's exasperation. At least this they had in common, across their cultural divide - disgust for the indoor shoe thing. Ingvar had had to warn her to not take off her shoes in the common room, but it just felt wrong. "It's got to be worse in your dorm," Shelby mused, leaning and knocking her shoulder against Tomie's. "Ravenclaw girls come back with research about shoe customs around the world, but I feel like Gryffindors would just stomp around with extra mud on their shoes." The modified - white Ravenclaw, white Gryffindor, didn't need to be said.

Tomie leaned in closer to her, and Shelby's heartbeat sped up just a bit. The other girl smelt like roasted marshmallows and campfire smoke. "Um, yeah?" Shelby replied, then repeated herself more. enthusiastically. "Yeah!"

“To be fair, I do the stomping too,” Tomie confessed, her eyes darting to the side for a second. She grinned, “but I have slippers!” She was just wearing her normal socks now – mismatched, of course – but after she showered she’d be into her slippers for sure. "My mum would die if I sat on the couch with my shoes on. Like, literally combust. Just – poof!"

Tomie noticed something puzzling in Shelby’s expression, but she wasn’t sure what it was. She just wanted to tell her a secret, was all. It was an apology gift, or something. A peace offering? None of that felt right, but it was something – a special thing just for Shelby. “But it’s a secret so you can’t tell anyone,” she said, still smiling but raising her eyebrows and ducking her chin slightly, resisting the urge to point at her friend again to convey the importance of it all.

She gave a dramatic sigh. “Tomie’s not my real name,” she said, getting the words out quickly. “And not like, just my English name – do you have a Korean name by the way? – but like, it’s not even my name at all.” She gave a small shrug, as if she hadn't just dropped a massive conversational bomb, but gave her friend a sidelong glance to check her reaction.

Shelby laughed. "The slippers are important! You can stomp in slippers, not mudshoes!" The idea of Tomie and, like, Kitty, marching around in their dorm room, one with boots on and Tomie in her socks made her giggle. "My mum is the same way - one time Dad forgot to take off his shoes and she Jelly Legs Jinxed him in the doorway!" Oh, maybe she shouldn't have shared that story - it seemed kind of extreme now that she had said it out loud. But Dad had been about to walk on the carpet!

Oh, a secret! Shelby leaned in, eager to hear it. Shelby didn't normally get told many secrets. "Cross my heart," she said, drawing an X over her chest. She'd do an Unbreakable Vow if Tomie asked her to, and if either of them knew how to cast one.

On the reveal, Shelby blinked, processing the news. "Uh, yeah, my middle name is in Korean - what do you mean Tomie's not your real English name?" It was that piece that really stumped her. If Tomie wasn't Tomie's name name, like she had a name in Indonesian, like how at home Shelby and Ingvar were Shin-hye and Shin-young just as often as they were, well, Shelby and Ingvar, that would be fine, but how could Tomie's English name not be Tomie? "What's your real name then?" Shelby's mouth had dropped open - thankfully after she had swallowed the rest of the chocolate.

“You can’t tell anyone,” Tomie insisted, her grin widening at Shelby’s shock. Tomie had known that coming to school would mean reinvention; at home she wore dresses, for Merlin’s sake. And her name was just so… Ugh. She didn’t want to be known like that. She milked it a bit, biting her lip as she teased the moment out.

“It’s…” She paused for effect, “Wilhelmina Mayrizka.” It was such a mouthful. Before Shelby could say anything though, she launched into a rant that their friend Benny was familiar with. “Can you believe that they named my stupid brother Kembara Laut, which basically means–” she put on her airiest, most poetic voice, and spread her palms in the air in front of her dramatically “–wanderer in the ocean, and they named me Wilhelmina after my stupid dad – Willem?? Ugh!” she gave Shelby a look. “Really, Wilhelmi-bleurgh.” Tomie went to say her name, then covered her mouth, like she was about to throw up. She came out grinning, though.

"I won't! I won't!" Shelby repeated, eager to be let into the secret. Tomie seemed to revel in the drama of it, but Shelby didn't mind it either.

Wilhelmina Mayrizka. Shelby mouthed the syllables as Tomie went on her tangent. Tomie had a point, her brother's name was certainly more poetic, but there was something very alluring about Tomie's name, it sounded almost musical the way the syllables flowed together. She laughed as Tomie fake-vomited. "I dunno, I think it's kind of a nice name? It sounds really pretty" Shelby leaned back, squinting at her friend. "But you don't fit it. It's got too much going on, it's too," what was the word she was looking for? "Too, like, flouncy?" Shelby nodded. "Too like, society girl. How did you get from -" she lowered her voice, mock-whispering, "Wilhelmina Mayrizka, to Tomie?"

Really pretty, Shelby said, and Tomie wanted to throw up for real. You don’t fit it. “Gee, thanks,” Tomie said, bumping her friend’s shoulder with her own (maybe a bit too hard??), but her grin was open-mouthed now and her eyes were all crinkled with delight. She’d been thinking basically the same thing anyway.

“Merlin, Shelby, do not say those words ever again,” Tomie said, the smile disappearing momentarily as she gave her a friend a look and played mock-offended. She wrinkled her nose, internally repeating society girl. “I just... picked it?” she replied with a shrug, her expression cheeky now. “It’s from a comic,” she admitted.

After a beat, she added, “It’s not that weird, in Indonesia. To mess around with your name, I mean. Lots of people don’t even use surnames.” These things were true, but most of her family had been born in England, so it was a teeny bit of a stretch. “I don’t even know half my aunts and uncles “real names”,” she added, doing little air quotes with her fingers.

Tomie's pushups and other training were clearly paying off - Shelby almost fell all the way over from the force of the shoulder bump. She could have stabilized but chose instead to let gravity win, falling onto her side on the floor of the room.

"I solemnly swear to never say those words again," Shelby intoned, as formally as possible, before giving in to a short burst of giggles. When she had calmed a little bit, Shelby nodded. Just picked it, huh? Shelby wished that she was that cool, able to pick a name that just felt right. Even if it was from comic books. "You should lend me that comic sometime," Shelby said, rolling onto her back. "It would be cool to see like, the origin of your identity. Or whatever."

She listened to Tomie's explanation. She didn't really get it, but it seemed true enough. "That's pretty cool, actually," Shelby said after a moment. "It would be nice to skip surnames, sometimes, I think." Being a Trickett, especially with so many of them running around Hogwarts, seemed exhausting some times. She felt like she should say something about her name, too. "My Korean name is Shin-hye," Shelby offered after a moment. "Ingvar's Korean name has the same first syllable - it's like a generation thing, I think." She knew, but she didn't want to seem too weird about it. "Names are weird. Dad's side does all these Old Norse names, even though they're English as anything."