forever bulletproof { a d a m }

Camp was slowly coming to a close, and Tomie was feeling the time slipping away. Hadn’t they only just gotten here?? A part of her wished that she’d been able to sign up for the whole summers’ worth of camp, but she was pretty sure that Shelby was the only friend of hers who’d still be here next month. Benny, at least, would be at home, and while Tomie loved Shelby, she did miss spending all of her time with him. They were neighbours at home and neighbours at school, but here Tomie was finding herself pulled in a few different directions.

She brushed some crumbs from her lips with the back of one hand as she skipped down some stairs. Hopefully Benny was free this afternoon. Or JR, she supposed. She paused at the bottom, though, catching sight of something cool on the concrete. The sounds of the skateboard echoed off the building beside them, and Tomie slowed to a stop by the wall, her eyes drawn to the young man skating around in front of her. She took the last bite of her finger bun and scrunched the paper bag she’d gotten it in into a ball, which she popped into her pocket.

The witch had seen people on skateboards before. She only lived in zone two or something, so it wasn’t like she’d never seen a muggle on a skateboard flying by or whatever. But she definitely didn’t remember seeing any around Hogwarts, and none of her friends at home knew how to skate. She watched him manoeuvre around on it with ease, thinking that it didn’t look too hard while simultaneously thinking that it looked super cool. She scuffed her sneaker against the hard ground a couple of times “That’s really cool,” she said, trying to be casual after a moment of hovering.

Eventually, Adam had tracked down this spot: not a real skate park by any means, but a swath of concrete with stairs and railings, and (best of all) without those bastard little metal things that people liked to put on all their shit these days to keep punks like him off it. He’d have looked like a goof if he’d brought his board all the way to Vermont only to not use it at all.

He’d never tried to do something like this before, meeting more wizards his age from all around the world, and it was strange the commonalities he’d been missing out on. He’d met his first Vietnamese wizard -- some dude from Actual Bona Fide Việt Nam who went to the Japanese school, who had absolutely nothing in common with him but who spoke the language and had a lot to say about Chinese food -- and his first international magbobs -- they called them muggleborns in Britain, whatever the hell that meant. Adam had felt sort of dwarfed by the vastness of this world, by the breadth of the experiences he shared and the breadth of the experiences he’d never had. More than that, he’d been comforted.

It was fuckin’ weird here, was what it was. So, inevitably, he was back at this dump. Drab and rugged (he’d scraped up an elbow already, so he knew this for a fact) and trying to eke out some familiarity from Stowe, Vermont. This wasn’t ugly San Jose, but it was ugly -- that was good enough for now.

At some point, Adam had become aware that he was being watched, by one of the little kids from one of the other schools. Not that he minded; in fact, he was sort of taking this chance to show off a little bit. He’d come here initially to just loaf around, but if this random little kid wanted to see a frontside flip, by God, she would, he’d spent ages learning that. He hadn’t really expected her to actually try and talk to him, though -- he screeched up to a stop and said, awkwardly, “Thanks.”

That felt like a dumb place to leave off, so he added, “What school you from?”

“Welcome,” Tomie said politely, but her smile was more amused than polite, and she gave a small shrug. She tried to guess his accent from the five words he’d said, but she wasn’t very good at that. He sounded American to her, but she’d grown up in inner London and spent most of her time with other Asian-British kids; the first time she’d heard an American talk was on this trip. The only thing she was totally sure of was that he wasn’t from her school. She would have noticed. Because reasons.

Now that he’d stopped skating, she kinda wished she hadn’t said anything. “Hogwarts,” she answered. Since like, half of her year had come on this trip it had almost been more of a school camp than an international summer camp for Tomie. She hadn’t talked to that many people outside of her group, so this was kinda cool.

“Is it hard?” she asked nodding at his board, far more interested in steering the conversation back to skating. She wondered distantly if she could angle some way for him to teach her or something. Was there a way to do it without being annoying? Was she being annoying now? “I’ve never done it,” she added, “but I kinda wanna.”

Ah, Hogwarts. Adam was still a little wary of them -- his first year he'd heard a lot about Hogwarts rounding magbobs into jail -- but he’d liked most of the Brits he’d met. “My bunkmate’s from Hogwarts,” said Adam. “Dude named Killian.” This was presumably enough for her to go on, if she knew him -- how many people in the world could have a name like Killian? He jerked his head slightly -- “I go to Ilvermorny.”

He had to stop making split-second judgments of people -- but her accent hadn’t sounded British to him. Not that Adam really knew anything about British accents, he supposed; he could barely pick out a Texan accent. (He’d been assured that it was different from a Georgian one but he really didn’t know.)

As always, Adam was torn between nonchalance (oh, it’s not hard at all) and bragging (so hard) so he compromised with, “Pretty hard. Depends on the tricks you do, if you’re not careful you can smash your brains out. But I’ve been doing this a while, like seven or eight years.”

She’d never skated before, but she kinda wanted to -- how the hell was he supposed to interpret that? Adam was not inclined to let random people use his board -- he’d let his sister on it one time and she’d barked her shin on a park bench immediately. (He’d made her get back on it and try again and that afternoon, he’d taught her how to skate. She still sucked at it.)

“Want a go?” he said grudgingly; he stepped one foot off the board to roll it in her direction, careful not to lose contact with it (lest she think he was enthusiastic about this arrangement.) He didn’t have another helmet but -- whatever -- it wasn’t like he was going to show her how to do jumps. Adam had more sense than that.

Killian? Wasn’t that the name of Josie’s friend? The kinda boring one? She couldn’t ask that though, so she said – “Kinda tall? I think he’s in my house.” She nodded when he said he went to Ilvermorny. Of course an American would be skating around, all cool like.

“Wicked,” Tomie said, leaving ambiguous as to whether it was the brain-smashing or the eight years of skating that she was responding to. She hadn’t ever had a very good measure of how dangerous something was. Was skateboarding really that dangerous? Like, brain-smashing, potential-death level dangerous? She doubted it. It sounded like the kind of thing she’d tell Claire or Evelyn to seem cool but keep them off her back at the same time. Her and Benny’s little sisters were more gullible than her, though, she thought.

Then again, it wasn’t entirely not-working. She did think he seemed pretty cool.

He didn’t seem overly enthusiastic about sharing, but Tomie didn’t mind; she was pushing off of the wall immediately, dusting her hands off on her shorts. “Yeah,” she said, trying to seem as nonchalant as he was, and absolutely failing. “What foot do I put at the front?” she asked with a happy smile, already putting one of her feet on the board just to get a feel.

“He’s not that tall,” groused Adam, though Killian was -- at least -- taller than he was. (And his hair was even taller.) At least she didn’t seem as impressed by Killian as she was by Adam; he was impressed by how readily she’d accepted the smashing brains out stuff. That’d been enough to make his sister wimp out. His sister had, to be fair, also been there for Adam’s one and only major skating accident, which had needed like a hundred stitches. He thought about telling this little girl about it (what was her name? was it weird to ask?) but that felt like it was trying too hard.

The coolest thing that’d ever happened to him (admittedly it hadn’t been very cool at the time) was only cool if it came up casually. Adam lived by a simple conversational rule: never, ever, appear to care.

She was way too quick to admit to wanting to skate; oddly that made him trust her a little more. At least she was enthusiastic. She put one foot on it, testing it out. “Usually you put your left foot forward,” Adam said with apprehension. “If you do it the other way we call you goofy. Just test your balance first.” He took his foot off his board to demonstrate, knees bent, a little awkward when he was on the actual ground.

He stuck his hands out warily, in case she immediately shot his board across the asphalt and needed to grab something. He was starting to feel uncomfortable with her lack of a helmet -- “You gotta hat or something?” he said. His helmet was definitely bigger than her head but a hat might help.

Also -- “What’s your name?”

Not that tall? Tomie shrugged. Mostly everyone was taller than her; she wasn’t sure she’d seen a single person in the years above her that was her height, and out of her friends only Benny was smaller than her. She wasn’t very good at judging who was or wasn’t tall. Tomie followed his instructions as she stepped up onto the board, feeling confident with the first part, at least. Balancing wasn’t difficult for her – maybe because she wasn’t very scared of falling.

With two feet on the board, left foot forward, she bent her knees a little. Seemed easy enough. “Not on me,” she said, giving him an amused look, then glancing back at her feet. She had to remind herself not to get smart with older teenagers when she wanted them to like her, or when they were doing something nice for her like sharing boards. Her short time at camp – and hanging out with Josie, probably – had really amped up her cockiness, and she really needed to tone it down before she went home.

“Tomie,” She told him, pushing forward slowly with her back foot. “Yours?” she asked. She wobbled a little, but wasn’t going fast enough to have to stop. “I think…” She got off, then swapped feet so her right foot was at the front. The girl pushed off, more confidently this time. “Yeah, this is better,” She said with a quick smile over her shoulder. The skateboard hit a small rock and she tumbled forward, tripping, flailing a little, but up again so fast anyone watching might have imagined it. She hoped.

The girl laughed as she brushed her hands off, a little embarrassed but in a well-natured kind of way where she wasn’t really embarrassed that she’d fallen, but just embarrassed enough in case he was gonna make fun of her for it. "Probably should watch where I'm going," she said lightly, skipping back to the skateboard to give it another go.

Smartass. Adam grinned, hands held a little warily in front of him, in case she fell. “Think I’d feel better if you had like, a helmet,” he said -- he rapped on his with his knuckles, but it wasn’t like he was going to let her do anything dangerous. She was probably like ten; he’d barely let his sister go down a ten-degree slope, her first time.

“Tomie?” he repeated -- that was an odd name. Maybe a nickname. He wondered what kind of Asian she was (was that racist?) but it didn’t seem like a question to ask straightaway, and in any case she seemed to care more about the skating than him. She pushed off, before he’d even suggested she try it; feeling mildly insulted by how quickly she was picking it up, he said, “I’m Adam. Nguyen.”

Tomie got off the board before he could tell her to -- she’d been as aware as he felt of her unsteady footing, he supposed -- she switched her stance cheerfully, and immediately knocked herself down. She hadn’t made it far -- she was back on her feet before Adam had reached her, and he was only about two steps away -- but the skateboard rolled away.

“Hey!” said Adam, as Tomie beelined back toward his board. He stopped short, a little helplessly (what had he gotten himself into?) She didn’t seem hurt but he was starting to feel like she might brain herself on a rock, and he’d totally get in trouble for it.

“Yeah, but you gotta wear a helmet too. I got a hat you can wear under this one if you want.” She reached the board before he did, but he jumped in front of her before she could take off again, swung his backpack off his back to find his old A’s cap and hand it to her. He’d once been the kind of kid to not take helmets seriously; she seemed the type as well, so he stared her down until she took it, then unbuckled his helmet and took it off.

“So,” he said, finally, “Uh, your stance was good. But go more slowly this time.”

Hey!

“Sorry,” Tomie said automatically, but she made sure to smile to let him know that she was okay, actually, and hadn’t twisted an ankle or something when she’d fallen over. When he offered, Tomie took his cap, putting it on backwards automatically. When he held out the helmet, though, she waited a moment, as if he might just be suggesting instead of demanding. When he didn’t take the helmet back, she reluctantly took it and put it on her head, barely holding back a grimace as she clipped the chin strap together. It was still a little loose, and she had to wonder how much safer she actually was.

“Okay,” she breathed, thankful for the compliment and impatient to improve. She didn’t have that kind motivation when it came to academics, but she could feel just a touch of her quidditch-brain kicking into gear here. How cool would it be to have a skateboard of her own, and to skate around Islington with Benny? The brunette held her arms out a little and pushed off, bending her knees instinctively for balance. The concrete was smooth, and she only got a little wobbly just as she was slowing to a stop. She stepped off the board lightly.

“So Adam… you go to Ilver,” she said casually, using the nickname Josie had used for the American school. “But like, where are you from?” Tomie glanced at him as she turned the skateboard around with her foot like she’d seen him do, albeit far more clumsily. It was the kind of pointed question that felt kind of weird and awkward coming from a lot of people – most people – but felt a lot more okay coming from someone who looked like, well, him. She didn’t consider that other people might have different perspectives to her, or that it could still be uncomfortable, even though they were both clearly... some kind of Asian.

Tomie stepped up onto the board again, exactly as she just had, and pushed off with a little more force this time. Again, she stayed still until it came to a natural stop.

The helmet was a little bit too big for Tomie’s skull -- he frowned, wondering whether he ought to mess with the straps for her, but it didn’t seem too likely that it’d come off, so he doubted it would be a problem. Better any helmet than none at all, right? That made sense.

She did better on her second try; her pace was much slower, verging on almost too slow -- he put his hands back in his shorts pockets as she stepped off. He wondered, idly, if she was a magbob or not -- she didn’t seem like one of those wizards from fully wizard worlds -- or, at least, her ability to dress herself normally suggested not -- but he’d realised over time that there were a lot more wizard/no-maj family structures than he’d given wizards credit for.

“Ilvermorny,” he corrected. He wasn’t sure if she’d asked him where was he from in, like, the normal way or the kind-of-racist way, but she was pretty clearly Asian too, so it would make sense if she’d wanted to know what kind of Asian he was. “California,” he said, “Like, near Silicon Valley. Lot of Vietnamese out there.”

There! He thought he’d played that off well enough. She stepped onto the board again, sailed with slightly more speed across the asphalt. Adam, now content to just chill and let her dick around, stayed put where he was -- he could probably move fast enough in an emergency anyway. He raised his voice, to make sure she could hear him: “What about you?”

He knew exactly nothing about Britain -- Killian had tried at some point to explain where Scotland was in relation to England and Adam felt like he’d come away with even less understanding than he’d started out with -- but, hopefully, she’d know to answer in kind. He didn’t think she was Vietnamese -- call it a hunch -- but her family was probably from somewhere in that area.

“Ah,” she said. Vietnamese. There was an older Vietnamese couple on her floor, but she didn’t think she’d ever spoken to them. She was half-hoping he’d say he was from the Philippines; she’d have needed to skip off and tell Benny if that was the case. 

“I’m from London,” she said with a casual shrug, as if it were obvious and rather uninteresting. Any British person could probably tell; her accent was very London-y. “Islington,” she added, too caught up messing around with his skateboard to consider that he probably had as much of an idea about where Islington was as she did Silicon Valley – none. California… had a beach? So it was either east or west, but that was about as well as she could do for American geography.

“Lot of Indonesians in the Netherlands,” she said, copying his phrasing without noticing. She paused for a moment, one foot on the board. “Well, I mean my mum is like Indonesian-Indonesian but my dad’s family is Dutch-Indonesian.” She glanced at him to make sure he got it. “Do you speak Vietnamese?” she asked, before returning to her task. She was getting increasingly confident in the two-feet-on-the-board thing. Tomie was a Gryffindor, after all; she was fearless.

“Are there lots of Vietnamese people at your school?” she asked, unabashed in her curiosity as she wobbled along. “There are like no Indonesians at Hogwarts. But my best friend is Filipino, so. Not the same, but more similar than, y’know. Most.” She felt the one of the wheels hit a small rock and had to jump off of the board just then. Luckily, her knees had been bent and ready to spring; she didn’t fall off this time.

London was one of about three English cities Adam could name, so he nodded in recognition (not that he’d have nodded in any other way, even if he hadn’t recognized the town she’d named) and said, “Cool.” Islington must have meant to her what lEast meant to him. She was from a city too, then; San Jose was more sprawling than he thought London was, at least based on like, the Mary Poppins movie. That was set in London, right?

Would this kid know what Mary Poppins was, if he asked? Was it rude to come out and ask if she was a magbob? Did it matter in the first place when she’d probably asked where he was from because she wanted to know what type of Asian he was?

She was the Indonesian type of Asian -- gratified that he’d been kind of right about the general location (he’d thought she was Filipino, if he’d had to guess) he nodded. He wasn’t entirely sure if Dutch-Indonesian meant Indonesian but living in the Netherlands, or Dutch but living in Indonesia, but he definitely wasn’t going to ask if she was like, part white. That seemed even ruder than the magbob thing.

“Yeah,” he said, only barely resisting the urge to say duh. “I grew up speaking it. What about you, do you speak Indonesian?” He wondered if that, too, was something weirdly universal, the alienation of being raised in a different language. From the looks of it, that was common with some of the other schools; he was lucky he’d gone to an American elementary. He laughed at her question -- “No way,” he said, “At least I’m one of the only ones I know.” There was an Ng a few years down but he thought she was Malaysian. He was saved the trouble of asking about Hogwarts, though the answer wasn’t a surprise. At least she had one Asian friend.

“I got a friend who’s Thai,” he said. “She’s a magbob too.”

He’d been paying more attention to the conversation than her skating -- his priorities jolted back into place when she hopped off the board. “Ay-yi-yi,” he said; she seemed fine, so he chased down his board, brought it back and set it back down at her feet. “Watch where you’re going,” he said.

“Thai,” Tomie repeated, nodding as if she knew all about Thailand. Sometimes it felt a bit like she did, even though she didn’t. She knew more, probably, than most white people, and less than any actual Thai people, or even, like, actual Indonesians who lived in Indonesia. For a moment, the girl felt a weird feeling in her tummy, an uncomfortable twist of self-doubt relating vaguely to that thought in particular. She shrugged it off, though, nodding distractedly at magbob, too, as if she knew what that meant.

Tomie straightened up from her almost-fall smoothly, an excited smile on her face as she felt the rush that came with a near-miss. “Right,” she said, trying to be sheepish about it all but having a bit too much fun to pull it off. “Sorry.” For a moment, she’d thought he was going to take the board away, but he set it down by her feet instead, so she hopped back on enthusiastically. Benny was gonna flip when he heard about this, she thought. She wondered vaguely if Adam would acknowledge her if she waved to him at, like, lunch or something. She’d make sure to do it in front of her other friends.

She pushed off confidently, wobbling a bit as she shot off a little faster than she was expecting. She went in a pretty straight line, then hopped off and turned the board around so she could come back towards him. “I have another friend who’s half Korean,” Tomie offered, pushing off, her thoughts still lingering somewhere around the whole ethnicity part of the conversation. She didn’t specify what the other half was.

She didn’t look sorry; Adam hesitated before he set the board back down, and she was right back at it. He was still wary — felt like maybe he should be guarding her, or protecting her, or something, but she wasn’t his little sister, so he couldn’t let her hold his hands for balance and in any case she didn’t seem to need it. She was picking it up faster than he had, initially — he decided to believe that it was because he was a good teacher, rather than any less flattering reason. (He’d mostly taught himself, at least, helped along by a crowd of his friends also teaching themselves. It was a very different way to learn than this.)

Tomie beelined away, and then back; she was keeping pretty straight on, so Adam gave her an approving mental check-plus and folded his arms. She was a real talker — he wouldn’t have minded if it weren’t becoming rapidly uninteresting. He was running out of friends he could counter her with. “All my other Asian friends are back at home,” he said. “No-maj’s. You guys call them — uh — Moggles, or something, right?” He would have to ask Killian again — it was something stupid like that. “I got a cousin who’s only half Vietnamese, the other half is Chinese.”

This was as much personal insight as Adam could stand to share, so he scratched at his head — without his hat, the sun was boring into his skull and he was starting to feel gross. He watched her skate for a little bit, worrying that she might get bored of this and want to learn a trick that would inevitably skin her knees and get his skateboard taken away for the rest of camp. Not — he looked around the little stretch of concrete — like this place was any good for cool tricks anyway.

But there was something purely fun about just skating — no tricks, no stunts, just moving on along — on a board. Like gliding. He thought it was the closest he’d ever come to understanding what it was wizards liked so much about flying (he, himself, though he’d been on a broom and he knew it didn’t really feel like sitting on a stick, couldn’t rid himself of the psychological knowledge that he was.)