Chapter Text
(You can do this,) she thinks desperately, trying to psyche herself up for what has to be the hundredth time that day even if that doesn’t even begin to count the number of times since her Mother sat her down before all this began. The young woman stares at herself in the mirror, determination practically etched onto her face.
She’s already texted the cab service, she has her luggage, what little of it she actually needs, she has… everything. (Please just do this,) the thought becomes a plea as she pushes herself away from the mirror in the airport bathroom, catching only a glimpse of her resolve crumbling to nothing while she makes her way outside.
The airport is only just crowded enough that she has to work to avoid being jostled, but not enough that it’s overwhelming. Visually, anyway; the sounds of people talking and reuniting with loved ones are lost to her, drowned out entirely by the buds in her ears, blasting Japanese voices and electronic music.
Outside she has to shield her eyes against the bright mid-morning sun, but the sight beyond the airport stops her dead in her tracks; it’s breathtaking. She had, until this moment, only ever had the idea of California, but pics and vids don’t hold a candle to the real thing. The scent of salt on the air, a cool breeze that feels like ocean waves splashing over her skin, and she’s still miles from the beach? “No way this is real,” she mumbles, soft and shocked before movement at her periphery reminds her that she is standing in a doorway. She mutters an apology and quickly steps down and searches for her taxi.
It isn’t a long search and the driver is even kind enough to help her get things settled in the back ( Damnit, can barely talk. Here’s hoping he doesn’t like eye contact either! But at least I thanked him. I… fuck, I think I thanked him .) before they’re back in the car and driving away from the airport.
Along the way, she stares out the window, marveling at the new sights so radically different from the suburbs she grew up in, or the urban sprawl she and her mom live in now. From the style of the buildings, to the beach they practically drive right past, to even the nature that entwines everything and threatens to encroach the edges of the town; it boggles her mind how a place this perfect can exist. ( Money, probably. Thanks, cousin. )
The buzzing of her phone jerks her from her current song and thoughts, and she thinks to finally stop her playlist and check her texts. Mom is at the top of her phone, along with part of the message and her grip on the phone tightens just a bit with the flash of a memory.
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“Sweetie, can we talk?”
She looked up from her game, pausing in the same motion. Mom was in the kitchen, right off the living room, cooking up stir fry. Truth be told, she’d only just gotten back from your job at the restaurant half an hour ago; she was all geared up to cook something she had seen the sous-chef make, even! But Mom had said she wanted to cook, she even had all her favorites, so she relented and decided to cool down with some game.
“Sure Mom,” she replied while getting up and walking over to join her in their tiny kitchen. “What about?” It kind of sounded like it was serious. Was she going to try dating again?
“Well, first off, do you remember your cousin Jesse? The one who moved to California?” She looked over her shoulder while pushing food around the wok. (Technically my wok but, eh).
Truth was, she barely did. She kind of remembered a guy twice her height with dark brown hair, thin, kind of sullen looking. Always tired, too, but he was quick to greet her 10 year old self with a bright, “Hey, Cuz!”. He was just that sorta dude at the family BBQ’s and get-togethers, before we all just kind of drifted apart after graduations, moves, divorces and...
Her chest clenched up tight and she took a sharp breath to rebel against it. Fight the dark thoughts. ( No. No, I fucking refuse to go down that route. Not right, not over a memory of a memory. ) “Ye-yeah, I do. He was a real sweet guy. What about him, though?”
Mom’s smile went a bit tight and she turned back towards the food, going silent and leaving them with just the ambient noises of food cooking and the radio on low to fill the space. She waved over with a hand. “Help me with rice? I need to add it in--”
“Sure thing, chef,” she replied quickly, drilled in instincts mixing with a little mischief. She shot her daughter a rueful smile before seeming to relax.
“See, the thing is, summer is just around the corner, and he has this apartment just kind of sitting open.” She got a questioning look like, ‘Jesse had that kind of cash?’ which was quickly answered with the shake of her head. “It’s not like that. He’d paid up for a couple of months, but then he and his girlfriend decided to move in together. And I’ve been talking to him in the great big family group chat and… well, you came up.”
She tried not to be suspicious, but it did hurt a little to hear that her own Mom was talking behind her back. At least it was just cousin Jesse - hopefully. She stirred up the rice after getting it out of the steamer, ready to start scooping it into the wok. “Only good things I hope,” she half-joked, half-probed.
Mom laughed, but it sounded a little forced. ( Looking back, I should’ve been more suspicious. Ah well. ) “Mostly good. I-- well, you see,” she started, only to trail off, hesitating in her cooking as well. With a sigh, her daughter quietly took over and nudged her to prep instead. There was some brief resistance, but finally she nodded, looking thankful. “I was going to ask if there was anyone around here you were interested in.”
Ah. That again. She knew her Mom as something of a matchmaker; always had, but when it came to the two of them, neither had much luck. She grimaced. “No one at the restaurant really appeals, if that’s what you mean.”
“So you haven’t been on any dates?”
“Nope.”
“Not even a group date? Or a get-together with some friends?”
“I-- well, do my raid night hangouts in Discord count?” She asked, hopefully.
Her Mother sighed in defeat, spooning the last of the rice in which her daughter was happy to finish stirring all together, adding in one last splash of soy sauce. “I’ve heard those “hangouts”, sweetie. You’re not exactly opening up to anyone except maybe a raid boss.”
Now it was her turn to sigh, but she shifted the noise into a deep breath to steel what little nerve she had left. “So what does this have to do with cousin Jesse?”
And on that topic, she steered her daughter over to the table to help her plate. “He’s offered to be the ‘love coach’ for you that I never could be. Especially since where he lives is a bit more open and safe when it comes to meeting people.”
“And where does my so-called love coach of a cousin live again,” she asked, trying not to laugh out loud; the image of Jesse being in a relationship sounded totally impossible. “Pretty sure Lyria City is perfectly safe… during the day, anyway.” ( Fuck, I sounded lame. Compared to this place, the LC might as well be a viper pit. )
“It’s a little beach town called Verona Beach. Lovely place, like something out of a postcard. Plus, Jesse found a lot of luck out there; he’s grown into a very wonderful person, I swear.”
She grimaced a bit, before finally relenting and nodding. “Okay. So basically you want me to drop everything, job included, and just go away for two months to stay alone in an apartment for the first time in life with the sole goal of meeting people and making relationships that I’ll probably have to break up as soon as I come home?”
That seemed to make her Mom give pause, before she smiled timidly and nodded. “That about sums it up… but hey! If you can stay in touch with your, uh, clanmates over Discord, you can stay in touch with the people you meet in VB!”
… Yeah, there was no real fighting that logic, but it still made her groan quietly. A ball of anxiety had begun to tighten in her stomach and was spreading its tendrils up into her chest, so she quickly took the wok over to the sink to wash it out. “How long do I have to think about it?”
Mom hissed and seemed to go quiet, so her daughter looked at her, frowning a little.. “I… might have already said yes for you.” The frown got deeper. “And booked your flight.” Her jaw dropped. “And called your work to make arrangements for you to go on extended leave.” She wheeled on her Mother. “And also messaged your clanmates about it and they said they would be cool with “changing the static rotation” - whateverthatmeans.”
What followed was a lot of yelling, eating, crying, and more yelling before she finally, finally asked in the quietest voice as they laid curled up on the couch, watching some show to distract the both of them from what was a draining evening.
“Do you really think this will help?”
And without missing a beat, Mom hugged her little girl tight. “I do, sweetie. I only want you to be happy. And I-- I don’t think I’ve seen you happy since just before you dropped out.”
She turned her head into her Mother’s shoulder, demanding the tears not start again, begging her past to stay in the past. In the end, all she could do was swallow the lump in her throat down and croak out a soft. “I guess I’ll start packing.”
“Way ahead of you, pumpkin spice.”
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She stuffs her phone back in her bag for now; after everything that happened between the two that night and the tense week that followed, the only way she gets through this is by ignoring her Mom’s maddening mix of emoji, puns, and good vibes. For a little while, at least.
This whole plan might be supportive, even above and beyond, but it still hurts how much of it they had been keeping secret from her, only to spring it all on her without warning or asking her opinion; she wasn’t even allowed to really say no! So, for now at least, she’s going to sulk and be the angsty 25 year old the media says she is.
“Hey, lady,” the driver speaks up, snapping her from her thoughts. “This the place?”
She scrambles to pull her phone back out and flip to a note she’d made for the trip, rattling off an address before looking out the window; it looks exactly like the pic Jesse had sent Mom. “I think so, y-yeah.”
“Alright. Lemme just help you get your luggage out and-- oi, hold up. There’s some guy coming over.”
Before she gets the chance to ask, she sees who her taxi driver is talking about: full figure, flannel shirt, hawaiian-themed board shorts, tons of body hair, glasses, beanie hat with the curly dark brown hair peeking out from underneath. It’s just like how Mom described, but she can barely recognize her own cousin. She gets out of the car without thinking, despite the driver’s warning.
“Er, Jesse?”
A huge smile spreads across the taller, older man’s face and he opens his arms while stopping just short of her on the sidewalk. “Sup, Cuz! Wow, you really grew up; way taller than before. I mean, your Mom shared pics, but I can hardly believe you’re the same person.”
A relieved smile spreads across her own face as she steps in those last few steps to hug her cousin as tight as her scrawny arms can manage. “Can say the same about you. Last I saw you were thin-- er, not taking nearly good enough care of yourselfnowaitthat’sworse.”
But Jesse just laughs it off and looks more bashful than anything as he pulls his baby cousin back to look her over better, which only makes her cheeks heat up all the more. “Nah, you hit the nail on the head. Five plus years of better living can undo a lot tho, even if I’m not quite the beanpole I was at graduation~”
She laughs with him and shakes her head, smiling as genuinely as she can manage. “I think it suits you, Jesse. You definitely look happier. Like- way happier.”
His grin speaks volumes and he lets go of her so they can both have some space to breathe. “I am. Especially since me and Samantha got together; you would not *believe* how much having her around has helped with everything.”
And that’s all it takes to remind her of this trip’s true purpose and she gives him a dagger-sharp look to tell him so. “Real subtle, cousin. Next you’re gonna tell me dating can will help me pay my rent— wait, shit, you paid the lease. Er… my subscription fees?”
Jesse looks sheepish, but still manages another laugh at her awkward landing. “Funny you put it like that, but yeah, you caught me. I guess your Mom spilled the beans about all of this already?”
“Yeah,” she replies cooly, composure sliding back. ( For now. ) “Because trying to keep it a secret and framing it all as just some big vacation for me would’ve been, you know, super manipulative and shitty.”
The big guy looks wounded, but recovers quickly when the taxi driver clears his throat and waves to get both family member’s attention. “So, I shut off the meter because I’m nice like that, but either of you gonna get her luggage out, or am I gonna have to sit here all day while you hash out your drama?”
She blushes at that and starts to answer but Jesse is already heading over to open the trunk and start getting her bags that were too big to carry with her into the back of the cab. “Nah, I got it. Thanks a ton for getting her home safe,” he says before slipping the guy some extra cash.
The driver nods. “Good. Have a good day and, hey,” he looks her right in the eye and she freezes for a moment. “You enjoy your summer, yeah? Yer only young once, trust me.”
And with that, he rolls up his window and drives off, leaving the elder and younger cousins standing on the sidewalk with armfuls of luggage. Jesse jerks his head towards the building door. “Maybe I should just show you inside. Get you settled?”
She nods dumbly, still kind of shaken from that brief encounter. “Lead the way.”