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“There are my girls!” Sunshine burst from Bobby as he waved a handmade ‘Huntr/x’ sign high in the air, purple glitter flashing like a beacon amidst the sea of people rushing through LAX.
“Bobby!” Zoey, Rumi, and Mira cheered in unison as they rushed up to him, suitcases rolling behind with the sound of a joyous stampede in miniature.
Trailing behind them, Celine breathed a silent sigh in relief. Bobby‘s open, smiling face was always a welcome sight, but especially now.
While there were a lot of things she missed about the Sunlight Sisters, eleven-hour trans-Pacific flights that left her jet-lagged and staving off the opening strains of a migraine were not one of them. She was drained and wanted- no, needed to sit down, catch her breath, and quell the pounding in her head.
But a retired Hunter still had to abide by their code (had no choice, it was engraved in her soul) and not give in to such weaknesses, and she had young Hunters to chaperone. So she’d stepped briskly across the terrazzo floors as she reminded the girls about the importance of making a good first American impression ("Don't look so anxious; you're Idols, remember.” “Stay close; the media will pounce if any of you get lost an hour after stepping off the plane.” "It doesn't matter if no one recognizes you here, Mira; they will soon enough.") while helping them navigate the labyrinthine airport.
Fortunately the task was made easier by Zoey the California native, who beautifully played the dual part of tour guide and scout for Mira and Rumi, both visibly overwhelmed by the cavernous airport that made the one in Seoul a sleepy farm village by comparison. Still, after baggage claim, security, and three people rushing up to Celine in bubbling excitement only to trudge dejectedly away upon hearing that, no, she wasn’t the Channel Six weather woman (finding her American fame had faded more than she thought stung a little more than she would have hoped), she was keenly relieved to finally locate Bobby, with his cheer and support and waiting car to take them to the hotel.
“And how was the flight?” Bobby, with an impossibly wide grin, asked as hugs and greetings were passed around. "Get any shut eye?"
"A little," Mira shrugged. “They had a ton of movie options.”
"Ooh! And!" Rumi bounced on the balls of her feet, a giddy smile stretching her lips. "We watched our phones change the date when we crossed the International Date Line!"
"The calendar went backwards!" Mira elaborated as if Bobby hadn't made this same trip earlier in the week, sharing in Rumi's enthusiasm for watching them essentially travel back to yesterday even as the plane continued east.
Giggling, Zoey sidled up to Mira and Rumi, miming holding a microphone like a reporter conducting a red-carpet interview. "So ladies, where are you from?"
"Well," Mira assumed a nonchalant pose befitting a celebrity mildly bored with being interrogated about their glamorous life. "Korea, obviously."
"But," Rumi took the reins, wearing her practiced press smile. "More importantly..."
As one, all three girls dropped the press-tour act and struck a pose ripped out of an American action movie poster, hands on hips and chins lifted like they were humanity's saviors (which, actually...). "THE FUTURE!!!"
Bobby laughed and clapped, as delighted as if he'd witnessed the successful rehearsal of an elaborate new routine. "Fantastic! You girls are guaranteed to be a hit!"
Celine sighed, biting back a groan. At least they were doing this before they became America-famous. “Girls, we've been over this-“
"Oh! And also:" Zoey, as though Celine hadn’t spoken and saying they hailed from 'THE FUTURE' was part of Making Good Impressions, reached into her carry-on and whipped out a notebook, cover festooned with doodles of palm trees and 'California Ideas' written in colorful, chunky letters. "Going over my list of things we have to do while we're in California! Starting with...." The lines of writing scrawled on the paper blurred as she flipped pages. "Lunch! What do you girls wanna try? We can do pizza or burgers..." (never mind they had burgers back home, there was nothing like an American cheeseburger).
"So." Bobby fell into step beside Celine as they let the girls walk ahead in a cloud of rapid, giddy chatter, Mira and Rumi’s daunted silence from when they first arrived having dissipated in the face of Bobby, the remembered rush of time travel, and the prospect of a decadent lunch. "The whole 'catch an overnight so you’ll have the whole day to prep for tonight’s appearances we can sleep on the plane’ idea didn’t quite work out like you hoped?"
"No." Celine deigned to let a note of weariness slip into her reply (Bobby wouldn’t tell), watching the girls, all three as awake as if they hadn’t just gotten off an eleven-hour-flight where only (maybe) one of said hours was spent sleeping. “They're a little excited about the trip."
Bobby chuckled as pizza and cheeseburgers were decided on ('a little excited' was an understatement). "Can't blame them! First American appearance is a big deal."
Celine sighed, suitcase hanging lower as her shoulder drooped. “Perhaps, but-“
“Hey! It’s the channel six weather woman!”
This time Celine did groan, pinching the bridge of her nose as what was now the fourth person who was a bigger fan of local meteorology than award-winning girl groups gawked, feeling her ego bruise further. She didn’t have the energy for this...
A shriek snapped her attention back to the girls. Through some chain of events she had completely missed, Mira had hoisted a wriggling Rumi onto her back, piggyback style, as Zoey held out her phone at arm's length and tried to angle it in a way to capture the three of them plus an oversized sign welcoming travelers to America. “Hurry!” She laughed, readjusting her grip as Rumi protested ("I'm not camera ready!" "It's candid you're not supposed to be!") “The hostage is trying to escape!”
In response Rumi puffed a breath into Mira’s ear, causing her to yelp and stumble just as Zoey clicked the shutter.
She didn’t have the energy for this either.
“Oooookay,” Bobby, valiantly keeping a straight face both at the case off mistaken identity (while he couldn’t imagine not recognizing Celine, he had seen that weather woman) and the way his pocket pinged with what was most definitely one of his new favorite photos of the girls, took Celine’s suitcase from her unresisting grip. “Well. Since you look- and I am saying this from a place of care- terrible, I am not going to say I told you so.”
“Thank you Bobby.”
“I will say that I got everything sorted out ahead of time and you are one twenty-minute car ride away from a luxury hotel suite where you and the girls can rest up so you’re fresh and ready and distinctly not the Channel Six weather woman for the evening talk shows after a hiccup-free day.”
Celine fished up a wan but genuine smile. “You take good care of us, Bobby.”
“That’s all I’m here for,” he beamed as the electric doors whooshed open and they stepped out onto the sun-drenched sidewalk, where the girls were peering searchingly up and down the curb.
“Um, Bobby?” Rumi asked, shading her eyes from the glare of the morning sun. “Where’s the car?”
The frown dropped back onto Celine’s face, puckering the tentative ease she’d started slipping into as she joined the girls in noticing the lack of a waiting conveyance, “Bobby?” This was not her idea of hiccup-free...
“Okay,” he grinned sheepishly. “There was one hiccup: the ride canceled short-notice and I couldn’t get another. But!” He cut off the quartet of disappointed groans and motioned for Celine and the girls to follow him into the parking lot. “I got the next best thing!“
He threw his arms wide like a game show hostess presenting a prize, revealing an unassuming dark blue station wagon sitting humbly in the lot, like it was waiting for nothing to happen to it. “A rental!”
The brightness of Bobby’s grin was directly proportional to the clouds crashing down on Celine’s face.
“Bobby,” she said while the girls ran over to the car, Zoey clicking pictures in between helping Mira and Rumi load up the luggage after Bobby popped the trunk. “While I appreciate your problem-solving skills, have you considered-“
“Don’t worry.” He held out his hands in a placating manner. “I fully stocked it with everything we’ll need if Mira gets carsick.”
“That doesn’t happen anymore!”
“I appreciate that,” Celine continued, ignoring the glare that Mira was directing their way (she was only handling so much right now). “But who’s going to drive us?” Adding in an undertone, after sketching a furtive glance at the girls, “It certainly can’t be me.” Was she proud of never having bothered with a drivers’ license? No. But in her defense she’d had a Honmoon to maintain, an Idol career to run, and then Mi’s child to raise; she knew how to prioritize.
Plus Mi and Siheyon had both tried to teach her during touring breaks and days off, and the only thing they all learned was that Fate had, in all likelihood, put Celine in a position where she never had to drive herself anywhere on purpose.
Zoey’s suitcase hit the asphalt hard enough to give the dozen plushie keychains dangling from it road rash. “ME!!!!” Her hand hand shot up in the air before Bobby could pull out his wallet and show how he’d spent the day before in anticipation of exactly this. She zipped, allegro, to Celine and Bobby. “Me me me me me meeeeee!!!!”
Celine blinked, taken aback. She was used to Zoey’s exuberance by now, but this was...a lot. Even for her. “Er...” She glanced at Bobby, who was just as confused. “Zoey, do you have an American-“
Before she could finish an American driver’s license was shoved in her face, bearing Zoey’s unmistakable picture (a good one, in defiance of convention) and a date that was still several years in the future.
She...was surprised, to put it mildly.
“You can drive?!?” The remaining suitcases became closely acquainted with the parking lot asphalt as Mira and Rumi rushed over.
“Whoa!” Mira marveled, taking the license from Celine’s hands and peering at it with the amazement afforded an ancient treasure. She gave Zoey's shoulder a congratulatory shake. “Nice!”
“You never mentioned this,” Rumi remarked, taking her turn examining the all-powerful piece of plastic.
Zoey blushed modestly. “You never asked. And, I mean, it’s not that big a deal...”
Mira and Rumi, themselves members of the 'never needed to know how to drive' populace, assured her it very much was.
Shining with her fellow Hunters' praises, she pivoted back to Celine and resumed making her case for being the day’s appointed chauffeur. “I got it right before I left! And I’m a really good driver! I won't use my phone and won't try to make the yellow lights and come to a full stop at all the stop signs and I’ll let you pick the radio station-“
“She’ll just choose oldies.” Mira interrupted with a smirk from where she and Rumi were helping Bobby load up the suitcases.
“I like oldies.” Zoey stood at angelic attention as Celine elected to ignore that remark too, doing her best to look like a model teenage driver. “I’ll do a really good job, Celine. Promise.”
Celine was going to say ‘no.’ She really was. They had a performance tomorrow, their first one in the States, and a television interview tonight. Plus Hunters followed their instincts, and hers were screaming that permitting someone who wasn't yet the American drinking age to drive them around was a bad idea. The girls needed to focus, and it was hard enough amidst the excitement of travel without adding the high to be had from driving.
But then Zoey batted her eyes, long lashes fluttering over milk-chocolate irises in a starry-eyed plea. "Please?"
It suddenly occurred to Celine that having what many had dubbed “the cutest maknae ever” had its drawbacks.
Celine wound up in the back, sandwiched between the two-thirds of Huntr/x who couldn’t drive. An uncomfortable position, but she had reasoned Bobby who knew the way to the hotel would be needed up front. As for the back row occupants...well. Perhaps it was sentimental of her, but she wanted Rumi and Mira to enjoy their first drive through America as much as possible, and window seats were a key component of that (as well as certain people being able to say they didn't get carsick anymore, not that they'd admit to it).
Hence, she was in the unenviable middle seat. Which was fine. Honestly, she would have chosen it anyway if group dynamics hadn’t forced her hand. The middle seat only had a lap belt, and should her instinct prove correct she wanted the girls to have as much protection as possible.
“Okay!” Zoey chirped, hands tapping a giddy tattoo on the wheel as she beamed into the rear-view mirror. “Is everyone buckled in?”
Various sounds of affirmation scurried through the car, Mira, Rumi, and Bobby's enthusiastic responses rising above Celine’s far more tentative one.
“Great!” Zoey cracked her knuckles, snatched up the keys, and spun them around a finger with a jingle that matched her sunburst expression. “Then let’s roll.” Turning the key in the ignition, Zoey revved the engine like someone straight out of an action movie, stepped on the gas, and-
Sedately eased out of the parking space.
“Turn signal here,” Zoey narrated merrily as they eased to a stop at the exit to the parking lot and she flicked a switch that summoned a plodding clicking sound to fill the car. “Check for oncoming traffic....” Leaning forward, she looked left, right, then left again. “...All good. Now enter the lane like so.”
With waterlike smoothness, the station wagon flowed out of the parking lot and into the road, the engine purring with a sedate and untroubled hum.
Celine...was impressed. Mostly surprised. But impressed too.
“Wow, Zoey!" Bobby whistled as Zoey skillfully navigated a risky-looking left turn into oncoming traffic without so much as batting an eye or slamming a brake. “You’re a pro!”
“Check it out!” Rumi leaned forward to give Zoey’s seat an excited little shake. Celine quickly pulled her back, but her admonishment to "not do that” failed to dim Rumi's enthusiasm. “Our maknae’s driving!!!”
Mira drummed a prancing beat on the back of Zoey’s seat and started up a chant. “Mak-nae dri-ving! Mak-nae dri-ving!” Rumi and Bobby quickly joined in so before the on-ramp for the freeway came into sight the whole car was practically shaking with celebratory cheers.
“Aw, guys...” Zoey giggled, not taking her eyes from the road like the best of drivers as she merged onto the freeway.
“So, Zoe.” Mira pattered out a drumroll on the seat once the chant ebbed and the car settled into the rhythm of sixty miles per hour. “How about some tunes?”
“Ooh, good idea!” Zoey glanced into the mirror at Celine in the back row. “Any requests?”
"Whatever you want, Zoey." Celine found she was unable (or perhaps unwilling) to check her own grin in the face of the others' unbridled smiles, Zoey's obvious pride, and the fact that, just this once, her instinct with its dire predictions was wrong.
As the bubblegum beat of an American pop song from Zoey's favorite station started to bounce through the car, Celine let herself relax into the seat. The tension and stress of the trip started to roll away with the kilometers (or, she supposed, miles), to the soundtrack of the radio and Mira and Rumi's back-and-forth about the cityscape spreading out on either side of the freeway. She shut her eyes, slipping into a light doze. Not something she'd normally do during a drive, but Zoey really was a model driver, keeping both hands on the wheel and eyes on the road, applying the laser focus she’d displayed during rehearsals and lessons in combat to the all-consuming task of driving safely. She could let her guard down for a few minutes.
The migraine pounding away at her skull started to ebb. She supposed she shouldn’t have been so surprised. All the girls were competent, capable young women, on-stage and off, and she trusted them with things of a far greater magnitude than a station wagon. If Zoey said she was good to drive, then she was good to-
“USE YOUR BITCHASS BLINKERS!!!!”
It was as though blood-curdling microphone feedback had just screeched in Celine’s ear. She bolted upright, head yowling. Next to her, Mira barked out a startled laugh. What-?
“YEAH YOU!!!” Hands white knuckled on the wheel, Zoey, fury coming off her in waves, glared brimstone down on the car in the lane right in front of them. Rapidly, she flicked the blinkers on and off, the ‘clicks’ pattering like hailstones through the car. “LIKE THIS YA MAVERICK!!!”
“Zoey!” Bobby was the physical manifestation of the shock seizing Celine’s chest as the alleged maverick tossed an ugly face into his rear view. “What-“
“HE JUST SWERVED INTO MY LANE WITHOUT USING HIS BITCHASS BLINKERS!!!”
“Yes,” Bobby said with the placating tone typically reserved for talking down a person on the cusp of a rampage. “I saw. But that’s no reason to-“
“OH YES IT IS!!!”
All appearance of the model driver was gone as Zoey frothed at the mouth and railed at the driver for not using his bitchass blinkers, displaying a fury that even the demons she threw her shin-kal at didn't know.
...If she hadn’t known better, Celine would be questioning if this really was Zoey and not some demonic doppelgänger.
"You doing okay, Zoe?" Rumi asked, leaning forward and resting a hand on Zoey's arm (she knew Zoey could get intense, but this...this was new).
Mira swallowed the laugh she was stifling and tapped Zoey's other shoulder. "Yeah. You good?"
“I was until someone swerved into my lane without signaling,” she grumbled, the fury seeming to subside somewhat at Rumi and Mira's touch. “Thinks he can do whatever he damn well wants...“
“Just focus on your driving, kid,” Bobby said as Celine once again pulled Rumi back into her seat. “Remember: you can’t control the other guys out there, but you can control your-“
“HEY!!!” Zoey, with all the ferocity of a tiger spotting its prey, zeroed in on a battered minivan that entered their lane. “WHAT THE HELL D’YOU THINK YOU’RE DOING?!?” She leaned on the horn, blasting a loud, irritated blare that drowned out the radio and stuffed itself crassly in the passengers’ ears.
Evidentially, she had decided the end of Bobby’s sentence was ‘volume and choice of expletives.’
“I don’t get it.” Rumi leaned forward to look around at the minivan which, to her eyes, had signaled properly (at least, she assumed considering Zoey wasn't mentioning bitchass blinkers). “What happened?”
“THEY’RE GOING TOO SLOW!!!” Zoey leaned on the horn again; the air dithered. “PICK UP THE PACE ALREADY BEFORE I HAVE MY FUNERAL OUT HERE!!!”
Celine, after pulling Rumi back for the third time, glanced, out of curiosity, at the speedometer, then over at a speed limit sign blurring past. A pit opened in her stomach.
This is why she didn't go against her instincts.
“Zoey, the problem’s not them. You’re going-“
“With the speed set by prevailing traffic!” Zoey snapped. “That’s how we do it in LA, and Miss-" she paused just long enough to peer at the license plate- "Wisconsin up there is going TOO SLOW!!!”
“You tell ‘em, Zoe!” Laughter twined around Mira’s words; having decided that, since multitasking in the form of driving and yelling was within Zoey's skill set, she was free to enjoy seeing Zoey's fiery temper on full display.
Celine cut Mira a warning glare that had zero effect, then turned back to the bigger problem. “Zoey...“
“Fine!” Zoey snapped, throwing her head back, almost like she’d heard this lecture before. “I’ll pass them.”
She turned her attention to the passing lane to her left and flipped on her signal, waiting for an opening. None appeared.
“Come on...” she muttered, tapping the wheel. “Just need an opening...” She leaned on the horn, a quick tap that drew the attention of the driver of a pick-up truck in the passing lane, riding high on tires that looked as much filled with testosterone as air.
She flashed her blinkers, unambiguously asking to be let in. The truck driver frowned and turned back to the road.
Celine could feel the anger rising in Zoey, it was so palpable.
Zoey leaned harder on the horn, longer, louder; a dog’s rising snarl as it curled its lip from its fangs. The driver glowered and rolled down his window. “No room!” He shouted over the roar of the freeway.
"Oh that's it..." Quickly, Zoey rolled down her own window so eighty-mile-an-hour wind whipped through the car. “THERE WOULD BE IF YOU AND YOUR OVERSIZED DICK MADE SOME!!!”
“Zoey!” Celine and Bobby cried in scandalized unison over Mira's whooping cackles.
“'Dick?'” Rumi with her textbook-taught English glanced out Mira’s window at the vehicle where the driver was yelling in all the colors of the rainbow. “Is that a type of truck?”
“I’ll tell you later,” Celine cut off Mira, eyes glinting with a wild scandalous delight, before she could respond (there was a time and place for conversations like that; this was neither).
Zoey blasted the horn again, drowning out the man, and sidled the car almost close enough to touch the gigantic tires in a threat.
With a scowl, the man relented and made room, letting them in.
“Don’t let me in the passing lane I’ll show you,” Zoey grumbled as she stepped harder on the gas, Celine falling back against the seat as the car surged ahead, leaving a trail of decried drivers in their wake. After passing an eighteen-wheeler whose driver "WAS A GODDAMN ASSHOLE" for not realizing he was hugging the dashed line on account of staring at his phone, Bobby spoke up.
“Our exit’s coming up. We should start getting back over.”
Celine’s stomach clenched. She had quickly decided that she did not enjoy Zoey’s technique for changing lanes.
Bobby clearly felt the same, but understood the necessity of the evil. However, being Bobby, he set to work doing what he could to mitigate it. Celine followed his gaze as he scanned the cars in the next lane, peering critically at their drivers and gauging them against the question of 'Who would be least likely to offend Zoey?'
A station wagon, not unlike theirs, with a bevy of bumper stickers calling for readers to ‘Coexist’ and practice ‘Peace’ and ‘Tolerance,’ caught his eye. The driver was a short, unassuming lady, older than her, bobbed haircut streaked with gray. The sort of driver she could not imagine drawing the ire of their maknae.
Perfect! (and, if she was proved wrong, perhaps Zoey would get a hint from the bumper stickers).
Bobby indicated an opening near the wagon, and Zoey flicked on her right blinkers.
The woman looked at them...and didn’t budge.
Admittedly, Celine’s imagination had always been wanting, because that was all it took.
“Zoey...” Bobby wheedled as that now familiar furious look rose into place, trying to stave it off with a winsome smile. “You never know what other people are going through. She looks like a very nice lady who might just be having a bad day. So-“
“HEY!” Zoey snapped at the woman, rolling down Bobby’s window and admitting a hurricane into the car. She gestured at the lane opening. “Make some room!”
The woman‘s response was not to make some room. It was to give them the finger with a sneer that slapped as hard as a scathing album review.
“OH, YOU WANNA SHAKE THINGS?!?” Zoey shouted. “FINE! HOW DO YOU LIKE THIS?!?” Leaning as far as her seatbelt would let her, Zoey snaked an arm out Bobby’s window and-
“I don’t get it.” Rumi looked puzzled at Zoey’s hand, fingers raised in a gesture she didn't recognize but that turned the other lady purple. “What’s-?”
“I've got this one Celine.” Mira stopped laughing and leaned across her mentor with an absolutely feral grin (so far, America was proving to be a blast). “It means-“
And because Celine knew how to prioritize, she didn’t stop her.
“Zoey!” Leaning forward, she yanked on Zoey’s seatbelt as Rumi flushed and choked on air courtesy of Mira’s graphic description of that lovely hand gesture and, while she was on a roll, saved Celine the trouble of defining ‘dick.’ “Get back in your seat! The last thing we need is-“
“AHA!”
Rubber screaming against asphalt, the car dove into an opening the woman reluctantly made with a speed that sent Celine loosing an uncharacteristic yelp and crashing-“OW!”- sideways into Mira.
“Yeah!” Zoey smirked triumphant at the leading car’s taillights as Celine mumbled a distracted apology and picked herself off of Mira (not that Mira seemed to care; bruised elbows aside she was really enjoying herself). “See what happens when you don’t let makae in!”
“...And we missed the exit. That’s fine.” Bobby mustered up a wobbly, not at all worried grin as he tapped on his phone. “Perfectly fine. Not a problem. We’ll just take the next-“
A convertible with oversized spoiler and no muffler suddenly roared up the passing lane, beeping and blaring at them to- how ironic- let it in.
And Zoey, Zoey who had fought with tooth and nail for her spot in the main lane of traffic, didn’t budge.
“Shouldn’t you let him in?” Rumi leaned forward, then back as Celine again grabbed at her shoulder. She wasn’t sure about the rules of the road, let alone those in California, but if she had learned anything from their drive so far, it was that when someone wanted to be let in a lane, you let them.
“No.”
“Zoey...” Celine said warningly as the sports car continued to press for an opening.
Zoey didn’t bat an eye and turned the radio up, as if to drown out the convertible's repeated demand.
Celine raised her voice, tone sharpening. “We’re here to make a good impression-”
“Okay, next exit.” Bobby sat taller in his seat, looking for an opening to the off-ramp.
“-which means being courteous to the American people-”
Zoey rolled down her window, strands of hair escaped from her buns whipping around her face.
Mira sat straighter, eyes jumping from Celine to Zoey, alight with anticipation. From her spot on the passenger side Rumi did the same, biting her lip.
“Including-“
“HEY!!!” The driver of the convertible spat over the freeway din before Zoey could say a word. “LEMME IN!!! OR DO YOU NOT SPEAK ENGLISH YOU PACK OF-“
Celine winced. Well. There was a word she hadn’t heard in a while.
A match thrown into a brazier of oil flamed slower.
“Wait...” Rumi blinked as Zoey launched into a show of just how well she spoke English. “What did he just call us?“
“It’s a slur!” Mira answered curtly, rolling down her own window, cheeks crimson. “Means he thinks we’re shit! Jerk!” Carefully removing her glasses lest they join the odd sneakers and backpacks littered along the freeway, she leaned out the window and lobbed every English curse she knew along with several Korean ones at the driver, who was all too happy to get into a shouting match. Rumi, never one to abandon her fellow Hunters in a fight, leapt into the fray without a second thought, seat belt cutting into Celine’s neck as she leaned across her lap to demonstrate her newfound prowess with obscene gestures.
Bobby watched the exit pass.
Celine groaned, not even bothering to try and regain control of the situation (if she even had any to begin with...).
Trials were part of a Hunter’s existence; learning to put plaster over the cracks so they never showed no matter how they hurt, putting up a brave face when fear roiled in your gut, and sacrificing all of yourself for the greater cause of the Honmoon, no matter what you lost in the process.
But this one...
“YOU MAY AS WELL GET COMFY!!! LIKE HELL I’M GONNA LET YOU IN, YA PRICK!!!”
She could only take so much.
Celine supposed she should be impressed. Not every trio of young ladies could effectively win a road-rage shouting match against some racist idiot (a match that she could not fully condone nor condemn at a speed of eighty miles an hour).
Cheers erupted from Mira and Rumi as the driver of the convertible, with a final blazing look, roared off to find some “PEOPLE WITH (Celine wasn’t even going to repeat that in her thoughts) BRAINS.”
“Yeah!” Mira whooped as Rumi flashed one last middle finger at the man’s tail lights before settling back in her seat. She reached over to high-five their lead singer. “That’s what he gets for messing with Huntrix!”
“Serves him right,” Zoey muttered darkly, too far down the road of rage to celebrate anything. “Where’s our exit, Bobby?”
“Well, it was about five exits ago,” he said, forcibly keeping the upbeat note in his voice. “But now it’s right-”
“AGAIN WITH THE BITCHASS BLINKERS!!!”
For the first time since Celine had known him, Bobby looked like he was reaching the end of his (she had thought) infinite rope, slapping a hand across his face as a Jeep cut into their lane sans warning. “-Behind us.”
As California blurred past the windows Celine increasingly felt like she was trapped in some sort of hellish loop. Without fail, the same cycle of events kept happening: Bobby would indicate a coming exit, Zoey’s temper would flare at someone for any one of numerous offenses (half the time something having to do with BITCHASS BLINKERS), Mira and Rumi would leap to their friend’s defense when a shouting match inevitably began, and they would miss the exit.
“...And there goes another one,” Bobby sighed, watching his twenty-second choice of exit fade into the rearview mirror as Zoey railed at the person she was tailgating to “PICK IT UP ALREADY I’VE SEEN FASTER TOMBSTONES!!!”
Headache now pounding a beat to rival the blaring radio, Celine glanced out Rumi’s window, tracing the rippling lines of the Honmoon, beautifully intact.
“MANIAC?!? EVER LOOKED IN THE MIRROR CHUMP???”
For once, she almost- almost- wished there was a tear in the celestial strands, just big enough to draw Zoey's attention and pull her focus away from the freeway; anything to get her out from behind the wheel.
“OH I’M A BITCH AM I?!? AT LEAST I’M NOT SOMEONE’S FAILSON!!!”
This car ride, Celine decided as the car lurched and swerved as Zoey warred with a BMW over who was or wasn't allowed into the passing lane, couldn’t possibly get any worse.
“Um...Celine?”
Mira’s quavering voice snapped Celine’s attention back to the car. Mira had a hand to her throat, face pale and brow beaded with sweat. She swallowed, licking her lips portentously. “Um, I-”
It was only then she realized Mira had been unusually quiet during the last shouting match.
Oh no.
Dread slammed into Celine as Rumi, with a Hunter’s lightning reflexes, undid her seatbelt and threw herself across Celine’s lap to attend Mira, shaking open a plastic bag from Bobby's tote of Emergency Supplies.
And as Celine, just as quickly, grabbed ahold of Rumi to prevent her from crashing to the floor with Zoey’s next abrupt driving decision, she decided something.
Eleven-hour trans-Pacific flights really weren't that bad.
Fortunately (or perhaps ironically), the sudden resurgence of Mira’s motion sickness brought that other trial to a screeching halt. At the first retching gag Zoey roared to the next exit she spotted, zoomed down the exit ramp without so much as shaking a fist at several drivers’ blaring horns and abuse of blinkers, and brought the car to a skidding but merciful halt in the parking lot of a decrepit Seven-Eleven.
Never in her life had Celine been so glad to step out of a car.
Leaning against the cooling and clicking hood, Celine watched with what was easily one of the worst headaches of her life as Zoey sat next to Mira on the filthy sidewalk, rubbing her back soothingly as the older girl nursed along a ginger ale. There was no sign of the rage-fueled traveler of the California freeway, only their sweet and smiling maknae.
Amazing.
It reminded her of a ‘scary’ movie Sihyeon once made her and Mi watch, about a man who drank some sort of concoction and changed into a twisted and demented version of himself, ruled by his most sadistic impulses. She’d scoffed at the television set as Mi made adorable little ‘eek!’ sounds and clutched her arm, saying that there was no real terror in the tale because no one could so thoroughly switch from one personality to its polar opposite like that.
Clearly, she had been wrong.
“Hey Celine.”
She fairly jumped at the sound of Bobby’s voice at her side, not having heard him return from his supply run (wonderful; she was sufficiently frazzled that she was making mistakes she hadn’t made since she was a teenager; this day really was terrible). He held out a cup with a grin like a familiar and comforting melody. “I got you some ice.” (he decided not to mention the ‘feel better soon’ wishes the clerk had sent for the apparently ailing Channel Six weatherwoman).
She smiled gratefully as she took proffered cup and pressed it to her throbbing temple, heaving a sigh as icy relief bloomed cool and refreshing across her skin. Bobby really was good to them.
He settled next to her sipping a cola and watching the girls as Rumi sat on the sidewalk next to Mira and offered her a saltine. “You know,” he said after a bit. “I always thought that if one of the girls would have anger issues, it’d be Mira.”
Celine hummed, enjoying the ice in silence for a moment longer before getting back to business. “How far are we from the hotel?” Because as much as she didn’t want to think about it right now, they still had an agenda to keep to and a televised appearance tonight (hopefully none of the people Zoey had flipped off or cursed out would be watching...).
Bobby sighed. “Well, considering how many exits we missed and this little detour...two hours.”
The cup of ice splattered to the ground.
Two hours?!?
She had known they’d have to drive back to the hotel, of course, and she had known it would be a bit longer than Bobby's initial twenty minutes. But two hours...
Two hours of swerving and speeding and Zoey yelling at the top of her lungs at every single motorist they passed on the Los Angeles freeway, not caring about courtesy or the Huntr/x image or basic highway safety, focused only on lobbing every swear in the book at someone who left their bitchass blinkers on after changing lanes...
For the first time since Mi's death, Celine’s Hunter fortitude broke.
Dropping her head in her hands, Celine was helpless to stop a whimper- an actual whimper- from threading itself between her lips and weaving through her fingers. Shameful, she knew; Hunters were to never show such weakness, but she could not stand the thought of spending one more minute in the car with Zoey at the wheel, let alone two hours...
She’d have to tell her 'no.' No, she was not driving to the hotel. Which she could do, technically, but...
Celine pictured Zoey’s face, sparkling smile crashing to the ground, lip trembling and eyes filling as she asked Celine if she’d been a bad driver.
No. No she couldn’t do that.
But she just as much couldn’t take two more hours of her driving. She just-
“I’m driving back.”
Celine’s head snapped to Bobby, eyes blown wide. Did he really just say what she thought? “What?”
“Zoey said she wanted to ride in the back with Mira to the hotel.”
“She did?” Hope tangled with disbelief trembled in Celine’s chest.
Bobby nodded calmly. “In case Mira gets carsick again.”
Celine thanked every Hunter of the past that the girls cared so much about each other. And that Mira’s tendency towards car sickness hadn’t fully cleared up yet.
She sagged against the car, fighting back tears of relief. “Thank you Bobby. You are a lifesaver.” Really. She could have hugged him.
He grinned in that warm, open way of his that never failed to make the world seem like a bit of a better place. “It’s what I’m here for. I also took the liberty of calling your lawyer.”
Celine stiffened, the pit in her stomach from earlier burning anew as she thought back to all the people they passed, all the shouting matches, and all the chances for someone to recognize the girls and post a reputation-tarnishing image to social media. “You did?” Please don’t let there be a scandal brewing...
Bobby nodded again. “Yes, and as of five minutes ago Zoey’s contract specifies that so long as she’s with Huntr/x, which I hope and pray will be a good long time, she’s banned from driving.”
She really should give Bobby a raise