Archive of Our Own ^beta

She brings Clara's forehead to hers with her hands, their eyes now closed, but aware of how close they are.

"I love you, sweetie." 

Clara sighs and smiles.

"I love you too, Mom."

She unbuckles her seatbelt and makes her way out of the car. Both hands holding her backpack, she merges into the crowd of children, slowly swarming through the school doors.

Calli sighs.

I hope she'll be alright…

Clara weaves and bobs her way between students making their way to the door. Inside of the classroom building, she's delicate with her movements, she carefully places herself between backpacks and slouched arms, speeding to her classroom without bumping into a single person. 

As usual, she's the earliest to the classroom line. The window of the classroom door shows that it is still dark inside, but patiently excited to be filled with students ready to learn. Clara places herself a fair bit away from the actual door. Calculating the placement of people by last name, she distances herself so that there would be around 15 people in front of her.

While she leans on her military-green Fjällräven Kånken bag, she ponders a little longer on what her mom was telling her in the car. Looking up at the tall roof of the building, Clara replays what she heard from the driver's seat as she stared into the distance:

"This is your childhood... you should be looking back on this part of your life with nostalgia!"

This is my childhood…?

She focuses on the tiny ridges in the ceiling, reflecting deeper on her mother's words.

I mean... I'm having fun as a child right now. I have a bunch of games I want to play, I have a bunch of books that I plan to read, I have a bunch of TV shows that I still need to watch... Like, what is she trying to say? Is she saying that I DON’T like my life right now?

During the process of Clara trying to sort her thoughts out she feels a clock inside of her head ticking. Every second inside feeling like minutes, the sound of it lingering in her head like flies swarming around a trash can. At the same time, she notices the aura of people starting to congregate around her. Not only through the perfect amount of people accumulating in front of and behind her but the indiscernible chatter that grows louder and louder with every student.

“That kid you’ve been talking to recently, Irene?”

“...Bring her over sometime, okay?”

Bring Irene over, huh.

She crosses her arms in contemplation.

Maybe if I actually brought Irene over, she’d see that I’m actually having fun! Yeah! If I brought someone else to have fun with, maybe then she’ll think that I’m enjoying my life right now! That’ll show her.

Clara can hear louder murmuring coming from her left side, but tunes it out.

She sighs.

...But I barely even know her! The only reason that I know her is because she’s number one in the class. If I were to bring her over, I wouldn’t even know what we’d do-

“Uh… are you gonna move?”

Clara snaps out of her trance of spiraling thoughts as someone taps her on the shoulder. Most of the classmates in front of her had already entered the now-lit classroom. She had spaced out so hard, the kids behind her started getting confused as to why she herself wasn’t moving. 

She shakes her head awake before responding to her classmate,

“S-sorry, sorry.”

Clara now situates herself in her seat at the back of the classroom, her backpack hunched over by her side of her desk, unlike her classmates. While everybody else is chatting with each other, she quickly pulls out the math homework from last night, already knowing her teacher is going to slowly collect their work, one desk at a time.

Tiredly, she once again rests her cheek on her left fist. The fourth-grader’s tired eyes try their best to stay awake as class starts, expectedly, with the teacher asking about last night’s work.

“Alright class. Who did their math homework?”

The entire class raises their papers to show that they did the assignment.

“Hahaha,” The teacher smiles as the students put their work down. “Are there any questions that we need to go over?”

Every student’s hand seems to raise instantly.

With seemingly everybody and their grandmother raising their hand, the teacher decides to go through each multidigit problem step by step. The teacher effortlessly works out numbers in the hundreds without a second thought, her hand moving across the paper faster than some of the students can even process. Along the way, she tries to review with the class, asking the class what they think the answer is before fully saying it.

A lot of the time, the students that are raising their hands don’t have the right answer. They will try to get extra participation points to boost their grade, but will always be corrected by the actual answer that the teacher writes on the board right after. 

Even though Clara knew each answer immediately, she still refuses to raise her hand, just in case of the risk she does actually get it wrong. Instead of just going for it she sits there with her face perched casually on her palm. Groaning to herself every time the answer in her head matches the one eventually written out on paper. 

While the teacher starts to go over more multi-digit problems with the class, Clara continues her reflection from where she left off outside. The words that her mom had told her not only stuck to her but overtook where she was right now. 

That kid you’ve been talking to recently, huh.

She stares blankly at the projected image on the board. The numbers that the teacher writes on her desk and projects onto the screen are passing by her eyes without any thought. Normally, she’d be five steps ahead of what they’re doing in the moment, but right now? She’s two steps behind. 

I’ve never brought anybody to my house before. Am I supposed to like, have a meal ready if I were to invite somebody over? But then I’d have to force Mom to make some food for her… what kind of food would she even like?? What if we made some food and she actually just doesn’t like it?! Would she just leave??

hhhhhhhhhhhh

She splats onto her desk.

I don’t know.

Clara, wanting to get her mind off of the topic, lazily fumbles in the knee pocket of her cargo jeans. She's been ahead of the school routine so many times, she can't even count it on three pairs of hands anymore. So, to combat this issue, and the boredom that comes with working past most of the class...

She brought her Nintendo 3ds.

With her having one of the highest grades in the class it's surprising how laid-back she can be. Speaking of laid-back, Clara now leans back in her chair, silently opening up the screen so that it doesn't make any noise. Once she's in the clear, doing a few up and down looks from the teacher to her screen, it's now time… for some Nintendogs.

Opening up the game, she beams as she’s greeted by her tiny shiba inu, Toast, named after his coat being similar to a toasted marshmallow. He lies down on the floor, peacefully sleeping in the form of a crescent shape. The perfectly baked croissant that he is, he slightly opens his eyes, awakening at the sight of his owner returning with a fresh bowl of food ready for him.

The orange-yellow-haired fourth grader grins at the sight of her tiny dog eating his meal of the day. 

At the same time, a girl to her left sees Clara’s attention being drawn beneath her desk. Curious of why she isn’t holding up her paper like everyone else, the girl asks,

“Erm, are you playing Nintendogs?”

Clara slightly jumps out of her chair. 

She puts her hand over her heart and sighs, thanking whatever being in the sky that she wasn’t caught by the teacher. Instead, she catches the attention of Irene Watson, the number one student in her class. 

A purple bob, blue eyes, and pointy ears standing at a mere height of 4'2. The girl shares equally similar features between her moms, Amelia Watson and Ninomae Ina'nis.

"...Yeah?" Clara replies suspiciously. "Why?"

"I love Nintendogs," Irene replies softly. "I have a shiba inu just like yours." 

Clara gasps quietly, her suspicion immediately dissipated by their shared interest in dogs. "Oh my gosh!! What's their name?"

"Her name is Kiko! With the way that she was jumping around the playpen when I first chose her, I felt like it fit her really well."

"It does!”

Irene is a kind, reserved, and soft-spoken girl that would try to escort a fly out of a building instead of killing it. However, while this trait is admirable by many, it has its downsides as the smartest person in the class. 

One too many times, she'll have a classmate come up to her, asking her how to do a certain problem, whether it be math or science. Eventually, as she continued to help more and more people, almost half the class could be seen crowded around her desk every day. Only after the teacher puts her foot down to leave the flustered Irene alone is when she regains her peace and quiet.

The teacher and the rest of the students are still discussing problems from the homework for what seems to be years. 

The purple-haired student curiously takes a closer glance at Clara’s screen.

“...Toast, huh.”

“Yep!” Clara replies, still looking down at her 3ds. “I named him because his color reminded me of a toasted marshmallow." She turns to Irene, "Plus, I didn't wanna name him something dumb like Bread. That'd be extremely silly."

Irene grins lightly. "I think that Bread would have been a very silly name. But Toast is definitely much nicer. I think it fits him very well."

"Thank you!!"

And before they know it, the recess bell rings.

Exiting the building, Clara takes a brisk walk to one of the far benches with tables. She's seen way too many movies set in high school where bullies pick on those who fail to keep their secrets hidden; bruises, wedgies, broken glasses… she doesn’t even have broken glasses but she fears she’ll have them nonetheless. Despite this though, she quickly seats herself down, opens her notebook to the last page she left off on, and places her wooden pencil onto the paper.

Dear diary,

I didn’t think that I would ever say this, but I just had a full on conversation with someone about something other than school!!!!!!!!!!! Honestly? I feel like I never would’ve seen the day. For the longest time, I’ve always just thought that I’d be living in my own world. While everyone else is out there playing soccer or basketball or four squares, I’d just be enjoying myself. Reading “Dork Diaries.” Playing “Nintendogs.” But no!! It’s funny actually. We were actually just talking about “Nintendogs” earlier and how she also has a shiba inu in game as well. We’re literally twins!! Maybe not actually. Her dog is a girl. Kiko to be specific. It’s such a pretty name! I feel like it’s such a nice name to call out your dog. Like, “Kiko! Kiko!” is just a name I’d enjoy pronouncing every time I’d want Toast to come to me. Oh shoot!!! Gotta hurry!! The bell just rang!!! Talk to you later!!!!

clara mori :]

p.s.: When you come back for later, don’t forget to ta

As she looks up to gauge how much longer she can write for, she realizes only a few kids are left walking to the door. At the speed of light she slams her diary closed and dashes for the entrance to the school building, trying the best that she can to run in sneakers. For the people still behind her, she holds the door open, smiling with huffs and puffs trying to catch her breath.

After an uneventful writing lesson and lunch, Clara is back at her desk. Bored. once again slouching like a shrimp in her chair. Her left foot continuously bounces on the foot of her desk, the physical impatience leaking through a knee moving up and down. She can feel each millisecond passing by as the class struggles to settle down, and again. Clara really isn’t expecting much:

The teacher tells them to whip out the reading packet, pretend like she’s working on the assignment for the day, in reality, draw tiny little stars that subsume the “Name: Date:” headers over the span of twenty, thirty minutes. 

The only thing that is going through Clara’s mind is Just get through the day. And then, boom. it’s over.

Irene patiently waits in her seat. Her hands are gently placed on top of one another, softly resting their palms in the lap of the purple-haired student. The two of them could be compared to yin and yang the way Clara hates how talkative the class is, while Irene finds a certain beauty in the tamed noise.

She breaks the noise-filled silence between the two of them,

“So, did you study for the test?”

Clara’s eyes widen in dread. 

In fact, she’s now expecting anything and everything to go wrong. 

Even though she is one of the smartest people in the class, she has a giant tendency to overthink everything. She might be ahead of the curb in terms of homework, but she’ll always be ready in time for the test. A rule that she put in place for herself was that she needed to study at least the morning before to make sure she’s refreshed on the subject. There’s a lot of things that go on in that little girl’s brain, and just being able to have the material fresh in her head again gives her that peace of mind before taking the test.

However, the rare forgetfulness that does strike her every once in a while has struck her once more. This time, in the most unfortunate way. The fact that she isn’t sure about everything that might be on the test now has her in a flurry inside of her head, trying to scrap as much knowledge she has of what she learned a week or two ago between the hours of playing games and goofing off. Every scenario is going through her head, imagining putting down an answer that is off by just a single number, rounding a number up instead of down, writing down the wrong answer even though she literally had it right on the paper. Imagining feeling confident about her answers once she turned in her test, she would end up getting her scores back and realizing that she got even less than the average student.

Clara is starting to go down a rabbit hole of her thoughts. Her hands are resting on her head, her gradient-colored hair being pushed out of her face, she’s filled with panic, confusion, and anxiety. What about her spot on the class leaderboard? What if everyone starts thinking she’s dumb? What if they ask her about what happened? What will my moms think of this?? At this point, she has no idea if she should cry into her arm, scream in frustration, push her desk to the ground, or crumble to the floor. 

“Hey, Clara,” Irene stops her from spiraling even further. “Do you want to study a bit before the test?” 

She takes Irene’s hands into her own with sparkling eyes.

“DO YOU MEAN IT???”

Irene gives her a patient smile back.

“Of course! You seemed a bit panicked when I asked, so I was wondering if offering a hand would help you in any way.”

Clara sniffles.

“Hey Clara, are you…”

She’s about to burst into tears. Happy tears this time, though! Happy tears.

“Yeah,” Clara sniffles a little harder. “Thank you so much.”

Irene asks, “Is it okay if I move my desk a little closer, though? I don’t think I could review with you while having such a distance between the two of us.”

“Oh of course!!” Clara lifts her backpack onto her desk. She scoots her desk over to the left a little bit, the sound of her desk being dragged across the floor followed by it crashing into Irene’s.

A few students look back to see what the slight commotion was happening in the back. And all there is back there, is just two girls, giggling and studying together. 

For the five minutes the teacher gave the class before the test, Clara and Irene made the most out of what they could. The two of them pulled out their notebooks and went over the things that they had a fair bit of trouble with. Clara, being the goofball that she is for not studying at all, asked a majority of the questions during their little study session. Confused with identifying the different types of angles, she couldn’t seem to wrap her head around how to tell what was an obtuse angle, an acute angle, or a right angle. 

So, Irene, being the kind soul that she is, delicately ripped out a piece of paper from her notebook for them to work out problems on! Irene would draw a line of a certain angle, ask Clara what she thought what type it was, and based on whether she was right or wrong, she would circle the angle to come back to later.

Their notebooks sprawled out as a reference for the orange-yellow haired student to dart her eyes to, the two go hard at work to make sure that Clara was prepared for the test. While Irene definitely had a few confusions of her own, she knew that trying her best was all that really mattered to her. And that helping another person was much more of a priority in her head than any grade on a test.

After what felt like the longest study session ever, it was finally time for them to take the test. The teacher slowly makes her rounds to each student, placing a test sheet on the right of each person’s desk.

Clara stretches her arms out into the air.

“Ahhhhhhh!!!” She sighs. “Thank you so much for helping me!! I don’t think I would be able to make it back home without your help.”

“Of course!” Irene replies quietly. “I couldn’t have just sat there and just watched you take the test in the state that you were in. I don’t think that I would have felt alright with myself for a bit if I looked over and you were having trouble with the angles.” 

“No DEEEEEEEEEEEFINITELY. Like, if it weren’t for you being so kind and patient with me, you would see me bouncing my leg the entire time. But this time, it wouldn’t have been my leg bouncing out of boredom. It would have been out of panic.”

Irene replies, “I get that. What even happened anyways?”

“So I was going to study for the math test. Right? I had like a whole thing planned out where I was going to go over the stuff that I was even slightly confused about.”

“Okay…?”

“If I’m slightly lost on something when taking the notes I’ll write down like a little question mark on it to go back to it later right okay anyways. So I was planning on doing it, I had everything ready for me to start studying, but just as I started looking at the material, I-”

The teacher interrupts them with a paper sliding onto their desks. She stares at them with a patient, impatient smile.

“Ladies.” 

She tilts her head.

“Sorry,” they say quietly in unison.

As the teacher passes by them and they leave her field of view, Clara and Irene giggle at each other.

“I’ll talk about it more later. Good luck!!!” Clara whispers quietly. 

Irene smiles. 

“You too, Clara.”

—-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Unlike the rest of the class, Clara takes the test in somewhat of a quick succession. Instead of feeling powerless and unable to do anything, she speeds past problems without any struggle at all. Her mind identifies each angle with ease now, her pencil seemingly able to match its speed with how fast she moves from one question to the next. The quick review that she and her classmate were able to have in less than 5 minutes felt like the best lecture she had in a while. Short, sweet, and to the point, while also having a bunch of example problems coming straight from the tutor herself. 

As she gets up from her intense focus on the test, she looks over at the classmate to her left to see… she’s doing tricks with her pencil?!

HOW LONG HAS SHE BEEN FINISHED FOR???

Irene continues to do intricate flips with her pencil. The thin piece of wood dancing between her fingers, like a magician making his deck of cards fly from one hand to the other. Irene looks up at Clara from her desk and asks about the test with a simple thumb up into a thumb down, a mellow look of innocence painted all over her face.

Clara is still looking in shock by the way.

Moving on, she puts her test over by the black basket by the door, and makes her way back to her seat. Plopped and slouched in her chair like she had just ran a mile. She basically did run a mile in her head, though. Going from contemplating her own life to panicking about a test can really get to the mind of a fourth grader with many thoughts.

“How was the test?” Irene inquires in a hushed tone. 

She replies at the same volume, “Oh I think I did pretty well on it! After reviewing the lesson over with you, I think that it felt so much easier to discern which angle was which. For some reason, I was just so confused on how to tell which angle would be a reflex and which one would be obtuse, a right versus an obtuse, like truly I couldn’t have done it without your help.”

“It was nothing, really! I was just doing what I do to memorize things better, and that’s to teach!”

“Huh?” Clara asks, confused.

“Normally, I try to study by looking over the notes that I take during class. Somewhat in the same style that you were talking about earlier, except I just look over everything I wrote down.”

“Go on…?”

“Then, I’d take those notes, and try to pronounce it like I’m reading out a script. It doesn’t matter if I’m looking down at the notes to read it at first. I just need to be familiar with talking about the material as a whole.”

“Ohhhhhhh. So kind of like a play!”

“Exactly!” Irene exclaims silently. 

“After a couple attempts at that, I’ll try to memorize the material inside of it so that I’d be able to talk about it without having to look at my notes. And once I’m able to compress the information and simplify it enough to say it confidently out loud, that’s when I feel that I’m ready.”

“Wowwwwwww!!!” Clara says, an amazed sparkle twinkling in her eyes. “So like, you learn something so that you’d be able to teach it to a baby?”

“Something like that, yeah!”

The two of them stay silent for a little bit. The ambiance of pencils writing answers consumes the room, people one by one getting up and down to turn in their test. Irene loses herself in the act of constant pencil tricks once again. Clara, on the other hand, is drawing tiny little stars on her desk. She knows it’s not allowed to draw on her desk but, what’s the harm in a little fun? Plus, she’s always able to get rid of the evidence with the smear of a fist. 

“I am curious about something though…”

Irene asks, “What might that be?”

“Who are you teaching?”

“My plushies!”

“AWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWW”

“Yeah, I’ll just try to give a lesson to my octopus and squid plushies at home, just like how I was teaching you.”

“YOU HAVE OCTOPUS PLUSHIES???” 

“Yeah! Plenty of them. They’re like a little audience that I get to perform my little speeches to. I do say though, I feel like it’s kind of embarrassing when I say it out loud…” Irene shrinks herself a little.

“Hey!!!” Clara interrupts. “That’s not embarrassing! I think that it’s super cool that you’re able to take information like that and be able to inform somebody else about it. It’s like you’ve already become a teacher before you can even drive!”

“I appreciate that a lot,” Irene replies. “I guess that it really can come in handy when it comes to tutoring others.”

“Like just now!!”

“Haha, I guess so! I never actually tried educating a person, so I’m glad that you were able to do well from the little session we had.”

“You were so good at tutoring me with the little time that you had. Even with how panicked I looked, you were just laser focused on helping me. And I couldn’t thank you enough for that!”

Irene assures her, “Don’t worry about it, really. I just did what I was told to do: ‘Help others, even if you might not get anything in return.’”

The dismissal bell rings, marking not only the end of the test, but the end of the school day.

Clara exclaims,

“Well, let’s get out of here!”

Irene smiles back fondly.

They start to take the long stroll down the hallway. 

Clara asks,

“So how long have you been playing Nintendogs for?”

“I’ve only been playing for like a few months. I got it as a gift from my parents out of the blue. One day, I just came home from school like usual, but when I got to my room, I found a flat square on my desk. And lo and behold, there it was!”

“That’s so sweet! How did they know that you wanted the game?”

“I think they immediately took the hint that I wanted it,” Irene says. “I never ask for much at all, so the moment that all I asked for from them was a game for $30, they got on it instantly.”

The two of them turn to the right and open the doors to where the main parking lot is. 

Seemingly transported into a New York of sorts, there are children and cars moving out and about everywhere the eyes could see. Parents waving at their children, yelling names out like attendance but in a frenzy of tire screeching, loud chatter, and roller backpacks dragging their wheels across the concrete. Elementary school may seem innocent, but leaving the school gets serious out here.

They situate themselves down on one of the unoccupied plastic benches. Irene’s Kiki’s Delivery Service-themed backpack is placed cradled in her lap, while Clara lazily throws over her bag to her right. The two of them add to the presence of the moment, but mainly spectate the noise around them.

Clara sighs as she sits down.

“Man, it’s really nice outside.”

“It is, isn’t it.”

The orange-yellow haired girl pauses for a little bit.

“You said earlier that you don’t ask for much?”

“No,” Irene confirmed. “I feel really bad for spending money that isn’t mine. It’s weird. In my head, it kind of feels like I’m stealing.”

“I don’t think that it’s stealing! It’s your parents! I’m sure that they would be totally fine with you asking for things. You’re a child, after all.”

“Maybe… I’d just feel bad because it’s money that they earned. They had to work hard for that money. They put their blood, sweat, and tears into it and I’m just, using it…”

Clara assures her, “Don’t look at it like that!! I’m sure that they would do perfectly fine if you asked them for something sometimes. I’m not saying that you should beg your parents for something every other day or so, but splurge a little! Have fun!”

“I couldn’t… It feels really selfish for me to do it.”

“Come on!! There’s no harm in being a little greedy every once in a while! A fair bit ago, I asked my parents if I could get a new backpack.”

Irene looks suspiciously at Clara. 

“And did they say yes?”

“No, but it was at least worth a shot, y’know?”

Irene giggles with her hand over her mouth. While she tried her best to hide her laugh, it could still be seen by the look in her eyes. It seems that Clara’s tiny attempt to lighten the mood had worked successfully. 

“Oh my gosh, I’m so sorry.” Irene says, now with a giant smile on her face. “Why did they say no?”

“It was because the backpack was… seventy dollars…”

“Seventy dollars!?”

“Look okay!!! It was a bigger type of version of the backpack that I have right now. I was thinking, y’know, maybe it would be nice to have a little change every once in a while. Especially when I’ve had this backpack for almost three years now."

“I can definitely see that. If I found something that I really really wanted, I’d totally want to get it too.”

“It was really funny though. Like, I distinctly remember my mom saying something along the lines of ‘That isn’t in our tax bracket’ LOL”

“Hahaha!!!” Irene bursts into laughter once more. This time, Clara joins in on the contagiousness of her joke. 

She lets out her hearty chuckle that came straight from the heart, with a round of applause looking back at how funny the moment actually was. And while she definitely was losing her breath the more and more that she laughed, she wouldn’t have wanted more than this feeling she hasn’t felt in a while.

“Hey, you little bugger!! Get over here!!”

The two of them look over at a pickup truck with Clara’s mom, Calliope Mori, waving enthusiastically out of the window. The child of the pink-haired housewife, however, is much less excited to hear her nickname be called out in a place like this. Now everybody’s gonna know that she gets called a little bugger at home…

Why does she have to do this at the worst time possible…

“I’m… gonna see you later,” Clara says.

“Ok! Bye Clara!” Irene beams happily, gesturing a gentle goodbye as Clara bolts towards the car.

“I told you not to call me that in public!!!” She pouts angrily as she opens the door to the backseat.

Her mom laughs back in response. 

“Sorry!! I just couldn’t help with how happy I am to see you!”

As her mom begins to start the car, she can still see her classmate looking at her, softly waving goodbye at her from the bench. Returning the favor, she leans out the window and waves her own hand with joy.

The car begins to move, and Clara can hear her mom start to play “Frontin” by Pharrell Williams. That four count signature of his production, the glittery staccato guitars, and that hard-hitting drum paired with Pharrell’s falsetto vocals. It’s just the perfect song to match the sunny, cloud-free, moderately-warm weather that brightens the day. 

Clara’s always so impressed by how well she’s able to match the mood of wherever she is. A summery beach day? Some relaxed, laid-back jazz funk. Fall? Some soft, reflective indie. The more and more that her mom continues to surprise her with her complex taste in music, Clara wonders if she really was a DJ in her past life. She did say that she wanted to become one during college, but to this level? It’s honestly wasted potential.

Settling down, she puts herself into the usual sitting position whenever she sits in the car, or most seats in general. At her desk, in the car… just most places where she won’t be seen as much. Her left ankle riding right beneath her thigh, with her hands gripping her left ankle. It’s a very interesting position to say the least, but she makes it feel like the most comfortable thing in the world. 

Though, she notices something weird about her mom this time around; she… isn’t speaking. Clara’s waiting for Calli to be going crazy to the music. Representing her passion and love for music by somehow moshing in her seat and pointing out the smaller details within the sounds. But no. She’s just giggling. Giddy and all.

She’s giggling?? 

Has she ever giggled before in her life!? 

Did I say something funny? 

I swear that I was just sitting down, and there DEFINITELY wasn’t anything funny that happened in the song. I’ve heard this song too many times to know this song is just vibes. Maybe it was something that she saw outside, right? Yeah! I’m sure that she probably just saw a funny squirrel or something waiting for us to pass by. 

“So how was school sweetie?”

Clara’s back straightens immediately.

“It was nice!”

Clara looks at Calli grinning at her cheesily through the rearview mirror.

“That’s great honey!”

The two of them continue to ride back home in an awkward silence. It’s mainly more awkward for Clara, because she feels like something has to be up. She just can’t seem to put her finger on what it is.

hmmmmmmmmm

Clara puts her hand to her chin, eyes closed and thinking.

She’s swinging her head left and right like usual, but it feels so much more different. She isn’t even telling me about anything in the song! In fact, she’s barely talking to me about anything at all!!! Like hello??? Your daughter is right here?! This isn’t an Uber or anything…

She opens her eyes to see her mom completely absorbed in the music. Closed eyes like hers just a moment ago. Unaware that she is being heavily perceived by her daughter further in suspicion that something is up.

And most worryingly of all…

She’s swaying eagerly. 

To try and break the silence that seemed to consume her, Clara blurts,

“I had a test today…”

“Oh that’s nice!” Calli instantly responds. She now bops her head to the shiny, sparkly beat of “Stay With Me” by Pharrell and Pusha T. “How did you do?”

Oh gosh. Now how do I try to turn this into a bigger conversation…

“Haha, you know… I’m a bit unsure about how I did…”

“Oh that’s alright honey! As long as you do better next time, that’s all that matters!” Calli replies, somewhat absent-mindedly. 

“To me, at least. You know how it is with your mom and all, haha.”

The driver leaves the conversation at that.

She just killed the flow right there! Now I feel like I’m just suffocating in this silence. There’s sound that’s filling up the car, and yet it feels like I’m in the car with a complete stranger. It’s really starting to feel like an Uber ride with how I’m just silent waiting to get to my destination. 

Man, I forgot how good this chorus is… anyways, I’m sure there’s no harm in asking, right? Right???

“Are you okay?” She finally pops the question. “Is something up?”

Her mom chuckles and waves her hand back, like a queen dismissing her subjects. 

“Nonono!! I just went shopping and found some stuff that I wanted, that’s all.”

Uh huh. Some stuff that you wanted, huh. 

Clara squints doubtfully.

You must be really excited for it the way that you’re absorbed in waiting to get home. That’s really mean actually. I don’t mean that. Haha, mean and mean. 

“Are you sure…? You really seem awfully happy for some groceries.”

“Yeah of course!! I just get really happy sometimes, haha.”

hhhhh

“Alright…”

Defeatedly, Clara places her elbow on the car’s armrest, sporting the same cheek-resting position she’s had many times throughout the day. “Beautiful” by Snoop Dogg and Pharrell continues to match the energy of being in the perfect outside weather. On the other hand, looking through the window, she sees trees and clouds that pass by her view in a blur. Her eyes focused on both nothing and everything at the exact same time, lost in what her mom is truly thinking. 

She takes a deep breath in and sighs.

I’m sure that something really good just happened to her…

—---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

After a few more radio classics from the early 2000s, they arrive back at their driveway. Like mother, like daughter, they open their doors at the same time and grab the respective items that they had on them. Calli’s fifth flask of oolong tea for the day, her phone, and the car keys. Meanwhile, Clara hoists her bag onto her shoulders and loops around the car to catch up with her mom. After the stone-slab pathway to their porch, they open the door to be greeted by Chonkers and Tutu!!!

“Aww, Chonkers…”

Clara lovingly rubs the cat’s fluffy back, as Chonkers responds to the affection with a low-droning purr.

Calli lazily tosses the keys onto the stand by the door. She looks at her daughter with a bright smile shining from her face. 

“Hey, Clara.”

“Yeah?” She stops petting the cats and looks up at her mom, the cats now walking back to continue with their days.

“Before you start working, go turn on the Switch for me. Just to see if it works.”

Clara gives her a weird glance before answering,

“A-Alright then..?”

The kid’s turned the console on and off a billion times over. All of a sudden, she’s being asked by her mom to turn it on in front of her. 

Huh… Is she trying to see how it’s supposed to work? Hasn’t she, y’know what. I’m just gonna do it.

She walks over to the left and kneels down to open the cabinet. In there, she sets her sights on the Nintendo Switch and the few controllers that they have inside. Clara grabs one of the controllers, gently closes the cabinet, sits herself lazily on the couch, and presses the home button a few times to turn the TV on. Tapping on the home button another time, she opens up the main menu to see that there’s a new cover plastered at the very front of the library- The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom.

Clara calmly places the controller in lap before clasping her hands over her mouth, now agape out of shock. An indescribable amount of happiness and surprise is rattling through her bones. She had been saving up money from her monthly allowances and other things, just so she could buy the game with her own money. But now…

There’s no way. There’s no way! There’s no way. There’s no way There’s no way!!!!! There’s no way there’s no way there’s no way THere’s no way ther’es no way theres’ now ay there’s noway there’s no THERE’S NO WAYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYY 

“Mom… Oh my gosh, you shouldn’t have…”

I don’t know whether I should cry or scream or laugh. I’ve watched so many videos of people playing it over and over, but I’ve never actually played it myself, but it’s always looked so pretty and literally the best followup to Breath of the wild. I’m literally speechless. I think all of us knew that this game would have been the next game that I’d play but even then though, like…

In the middle of her internal freak-out, she feels a pair of arms wrap around her. Slowly, as Calli envelopes her in a loving grip, it finally clicked together in her mind. Clara realized what her mom had been happy about this whole time: seeing her happy. That could be another thing that could make her cry right now as well.

“Love you, Clara,” Her mother whispers with contentment.

Clara leans her head onto Calli’s body. 

“Love you more, mom.”

Her eyes closed, the tenderness of her mom’s embrace; She wishes that she could have stayed in that moment for ever so slightly longer. 

Unfortunately, however, everything good must go at some point, and this came in the form of Calli getting up from her hunched position, cracking her back and showing the age that she so desperately wants to hide. As much as she wants to disregard the fact that she’s 30 years old, it catches up to her at some point. 

Now then… 

Before Clara can even think of clicking her user to formally open up the game, she’s interrupted by Calli shouting from across the kitchen. Snapped from her excitement, she hears,

“Hey, remember what we always say! Work hard, play hard.”

Clara sighs. 

“I know, I know.”

She slides herself off of the couch and opens up the cabinet once more. This time, though, she does it with more enthusiasm than normal. There’s a motivated excitement that bubbles within her, thrilled at the thought of playing for hours at a time, watching the sun come down as she gets lost in the world that is the Zelda series. 

Moving to her bedroom behind the TV, she gets ready to move into full home mode. Clara had tossed her backpack to the left so that she could reach for whatever might be needed. Notes, paper, a stress ball tucked away in the very front pocket…? Whatever gets rid of the boredom at school.

Snug in her pajamas, she’s ready to begin working on the assignments due tomorrow. It feels almost ritual-like, the way that she needs a certain organization of her desk so she can even start trying to focus. Her desk completely clean except for her work and her pencil, old Kendrick Lamar playing from her iPod on low volume, and her fan spinning just fast enough so that she’s not freezing, but still can hear it in the background.

Clara’s eyes are lit with a fire to get ahead on some more homework!!!

To start, she pulls out the math packet her teacher gave them a week ago. It’s a really large packet that spans multiple units at a time, so the teacher doesn’t have to constantly waste money printing things every year. On top of this, the packet is a class set, passed down from year to year for more than a decade now; the teacher finds it really funny that she can say the packet is older than every kid in the class. 

Clara seems to be doing well on the assignment! A few lessons ahead, she already knows that they’ll be using protractors to find the actual value of angles.

ok so if the longer side has a length of four, and the shorter side has a length of three, that means that four times three twelve ok so the area is twelve…

Right now, she’s working on the different areas and perimeters of rectangles, calculating using given values for each side of the extended square.

and then three plus four plus three plus four is… seven, ten, fourteen ok fourteen

wait im actually so dumb its literally just three times two plus four times two

For this set of problems, she had no trouble remembering what she learned a fair while ago. The private tutor that Kiara had hired for Clara during her last few months of third grade had given her a sneak peek as to what would be ahead in the coming grade; in turn, she was able to get through these units with relative ease. Her wooden pencil’s horrible eraser had no need to be used, with how absolute and unwavering every answer seemed to be. 

Adding and multiplying numbers left and right with her humongous handwriting, she’s having to turn her pencil over every fifteen seconds, just to get her led to look the way that she wants it to.

Though, as the meaningful words of the young Kendrick Lamar continue to run right over Clara’s tiny brain, she begins to look back on the massive day that just happened. For once, she wasn’t just sitting around bored, her mind idly wandering anywhere and everywhere except for the classroom environment. She didn’t have to constantly be calculating inside of her head how many times she’d have to sing a song internally before the dismissal bell rang.

Instead, she was enjoying herself. Conversing with one of her peers of which she had never thought she’d ever cross paths with. It’s not that she was afraid of the people in her class, or that she had hated the kids around her. She just felt like the tiny conversations she would have working together with classmates was something that she didn’t prefer, over simply living the dreams she had inside of her head. She seemingly just had this natural affinity for keeping her imagination to herself.

She loved taking all of the imagery that she collected from TV shows and movies and documentaries and picturing herself inside of them. The fourth grader can still see herself as the cameraman for a nature documentary, watching an animal in its habitat peacefully living its life in slow motion. She can imagine a deer prancing through the forest, its innocent eyes searching the forest around it for whatever food that it can manage to feast on. The brown bear, taking a fish that jumps out of the water and eating it as its first meal. Not meaning in any way to maliciously rid of the fish’s life, but as a means to continue living. 

Clara always wished to absorb herself in the things she enjoyed. So, for somebody to be able to break that ice and get her to feel content with being in the same room for around six hours was a miracle. In the moment, she had no time to think about any of this. But looking back on it she’s surprised at how much she was able to bond with somebody so deeply over their first proper interactions. How friendly and warm and easy-to-talk-to the number one student in the class would be.

!!!

She looks at the time.

Look at the time!!

She looked at the time.

More than an hour had already passed since she had started her work!! Hurried, she quickly wraps up the last few problems left on the page and continues on to the English packet she was given alongside the math homework. This teacher and her money-saving tactics…

The class is currently being taught about the helpful mechanics that are the basic types of punctuation. Commas and periods are the most essential part to preventing a student from creating run-on sentences. So, to prevent a person from running out of breath when trying to read a student’s essay, Clara’s practicing the proper places in which she needs to use a comma or a period. Specifically, they need to rewrite a sentence with commas where they’re needed.

Clara taps her pencil lightly over each word as she whispers the sentence aloud,

“‘Complete your homework’ my mom exclaimed ‘then you can tidy your bedroom.’”

“Sooo”

She hovers over the blank line before she starts the sentence.

“A comma after ‘homework,’

a comma after… a comma after ‘exclaimed?’”

She erases the comma and replaces it with a period, 

“Complete your homework,’ my mom exclaimed. ‘Then you can tidy your bedroom.”

Clara looks at the directions a little closer. “Rewrite the sentences inserting commas when needed.” 

im literally She erases her period after “exclaimed” and replaces it with a comma. Clara facepalms herself lightly, im literally the dumbest girl alive

The thing about Clara is that once she gets stuck on a problem, she has a hard time trying to overcome it. Like the moment that she had earlier today, that same kind of problem replicates itself every time that Clara can’t do something. Instead of trying to work around it, she’ll just sit there, doing nothing but mindless idling. 

hhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh

Tapping her pencil, she’s drawing cute little cat and dog faces around the perimeter of her lined sheet of paper. At this point, with the amount of times she’s drawn the same cat over and over again, she should honestly accumulate them into a mosaic piece, and she could earn even more money for the family. It’s already a Sistine Chapel-level painting just waiting to be made: The Feline Chapel. Or The Sistine Meow-pel. It’s in the works. 

Back to the issue at hand, on top of her being distant from her work entirely, she’s thinking even deeper about what she discussed this morning. The second time today, she’s looking back on what her mother said to her; the somewhat off-hand advice given by the morning Uber driver, surprisingly stuck with the passenger more than the original speaker thought it would. 

“I can definitely see that. If I found something that I really really wanted, I’d totally want to get it too.”

"Her name is Kiko! With the way that she was jumping around the playpen when I first chose her, I felt like it fit her really well."

“Don’t worry about it, really. I just did what I was told to do: ‘Help others, even if you might not get anything in return.”

“You too, Clara.”

“Bye Clara!”

She felt such a large jolt of joy hearing that. She couldn’t help but just smile at the thought of it.

GAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH

Amidst the chaos is her really good day flashing in her mind, overwhelmed and overstimulated, she pauses her music and gently takes out her earbuds. All that she fixates on now is the comforting silence, only occupied by the slowly-spinning fan, and, surprise! Smoothie quietly purring in her bed.

She smiles at the sight of her cat, who is satisfied coexisting with Clara during her academic endeavors.

Feeling better than she did just a good thirty seconds ago, Clara pulls out her journal to release the thoughts she has out of her brain. It’s always such a helpful way for her to prevent being incredibly overwhelmed to the point of tears. A tactic that she actually had learned from the sporadically-thinking CEO herself, Kiara.

Clara opens her notebook to the page that she left off on. Andddddddd……

“p.s.: When you come back for later, don’t forget to ta…”

“What was I trying to say???”

Anyways. Onto the next page of her journal. 

Dear Diary,

What a day it’s been, huh. Y’know, I really never thought that I’d actually enjoy being in class for once. I think I already talked about this last time, so we can just skip over that for now. But Kiko! Such a cute name. I should’ve honestly thought of that kinda name when I first got the game, but I just named him the first thing I thought of when I saw him: a piece of toast. Good job, 1st grade me. You really hit it home with that one. Y’know, I should honestly ask her to bring her 3ds to school so we can be friends on “Nintendogs!” That would be SO CUTEEEE AND THEN ME AND HER COULD HAVE OUR DOGS MEET oh actually… hm. I don’t know if she’s the type of person to sneak things to school. I feel like if she can’t bring herself to ask for things every once in a while, she probably couldn’t live with sneaking things into school. Mmmmmmaybe! I can always ask her tomorrow. 

………………

Studying and talking and all that was so much fun. Maybe it was because it was her specifically, but she was just so chill and so fun to talk to. I really didn’t expect her to be the type of person that would teach octopus plushies but, I think I told her earlier but I think that’s so cool!!! Like, educating your tiny plushie companions who are just open to listening as much as you like? I should honestly do that with my kotori plushie. Just like, sit her down on the desk and give a speech to her while pacing back and forth. I think that would be so cool.

………………

Man.

Having a friend really is fun.

clara mori :]

Satisfied, she closes the notebook and places it back into her backpack. Clara looks over at her cat, calmly asleep on the edge of her bed. Clara takes out her 3ds and lies down next to Smoothie, acting as if she never had any homework at all. Tiptoeing over her cat, gently lifting her fuzzy blanket, and sliding herself into a comfortable position… she’s really doing some true sleepyhead activity, without any of the sleepyhead. Instead, she feels the need to get her mind off of things by tending to her dear dog. Living out her fantasy of actually owning a shiba inu, without the chaos of having one amidst her four cats. 

Picking up from where she left off earlier today, she takes Toast on a walk around the city. The most basic form of exercise that her dog can truly get. Toast seems to have Clara take a relatively simple route for today: a simple stroll over to the gym, then the park, then back home. That should be enough time for her to have her fun, take care of her dog, and then get back into doing her homework. 

She’ll probably bump into one of the neighbors along the way and get trashed on because “hEr doG iS toO rOwdY.” Well… sorry, Alan. Sorry that Clara’s dog is excited to go for a walk. You and your dog must really be the life of the party. 

Anyways. 

Clara makes a route on the map for where they plan to go. A fairly fairly long walk to the gym, then a cooldown lap looping around to the park, and then a final tiny trek back home. Not too much for Toast nor Clara. Just a simple little task so that Clara, at the very least, can get her mind cleared and ready to finish her homework. 

Alright.

Let’s go!!

It’s not that energetic… though it’s always exciting to start something fun!

The unstoppable duo’s journey to the park finally begins with going to the gym. The chipper, upbeat tempo and bitcrushed guitars of the background music quietly marches from the speakers of her 3ds. But to her surprise, Toast is acting much calmer than normal; seemingly complying with the silence coming from Clara. What would normally be an average sunny day, barking, stopping and starting a sprint is now a calm stroll. The pitter-patters of Toast’s paws sound as they make their way through the well-lit town.

She might not be showing it in her voice, but her brain is melting from the sheer happiness. There’s a tranquility that comes with her dog matching her energy of being zen. One that makes her even more comfortable in bed, lying down next to her sleeping cat. It’s surprising, for sure. But a good surprise. Like a package from a few months ago that came in the mail in time for Christmas. 

This continues for a fair amount of time. Around the halfway point, Toast and Clara meet their first of many surprises; a range of events which can vary from an encounter with a neighbor and their dog to the owner’s dog giving them a present. The tiny dog stops and barks before he dashes over off screen. A few seconds pass before he comes back with a gift box, white and wrapped in red.

It’s a disposable camera!

“Awwww Toastt!” she whispers softly.

Toast barks with a wide smile on his face. Innocently pawing at the screen, wishing to jump right into Clara’s arms.  

Again, she could cry wishing he was real.

“I love you too, bud.”

They keep going along their tranquil walk to the park. It’s still such a surprise to Clara that Toast is behaving so well today. Earlier at school, he was showing signs of him following the regular routine, energetically running around the house and barking like he’s arguing with a ghost. But today, he’s calm. He’s happy and healthy, but calm. 

The little girl yawns as she and Toast come across another surprise event. The shiba inu once again goes through the same sequence of pausing and barking, running offscreen and then coming back with another surprise. Pawing at the screen again, asking for reassurance for… something a little less cool than a camera……

“Oh… A juice box.  …Niiiiiice”

She keeps reading the description this time,

“Anddd it’s open………”

Clara is much less impressed than before. A disposable camera had somewhat of a value to it. The potential photos that might have been there, being able to catch a glimpse into a world that might never be recovered. But a juice box is a much different story. Not much of a story at all, to be honest. Just something to be used, and disposed of after being used. 

She yawns again, this time smacking her lips in exhaustion. All those thoughts that kept swirling in her head were just too much for Clara. It’s a lot for any kid in fourth grade trying to figure things like this out. Instead of being fixated on what she might be having for dinner tonight, she’s thinking too deeply about making a friend in a day. So, to compensate for this excessive amount of brain power used today, she gives herself some grace. In the form of falling asleep with her 3ds on. 

———————————————————-

A few hours pass, and Clara wakes up in an absolutely terrible state. 

Right now, half of her blanket droops on the floor. Her kotori plushie lies down halfway across the room, facing away from fourth-grade Sleeping Beauty, in sadness that she was treated this way. The fan had been turned off with the door being more closed than before. Calli probably came and checked in on her at some point, but gave her compassion to see a peacefully snoozing daughter instead. If it’s anyone who knows Clara’s gonna get things done, it's Calli. At least, that’s what she thought.

Sleeping in the afternoon always sounded like a fun idea in her head. Relieving herself of the stresses of the world, not having to worry about work and simply relaxing under the covers. If she boiled it down to its bare bones, it’s escapism at its finest. Just her, her sheets, her plushies and the cold sides of her pillows against the world. 

However, everything must have its consequences, and taking a snooze at the improper time is no different. She wipes her forehead and finds billions of sweat beads resting on the back of her hand. The sun has fallen down, and it’s signified to her that Clara feels like she’s in a swamp because of her own wrongdoings; falling asleep for much longer than she should have on a school day. Instead of being satisfied, she’s hot, she’s drenched, she has a bit of Smoothie’s cat hair in her mouth… It's bad. It’s very, very bad.

whyyyyyyy did i have to do this to myselfffffff

whyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyy meeeeeeeeeeeeee

To add insult to injury, her house had begun to smell entirely of food. She can smell the fragrance of garlic that wafts throughout the house, the slight crack of yellow light signifying somebody is active in the living room. Clara hears Kiara’s music obviously blasting from the outside, but… Kiara doesn’t get home for a little bit…

Her stomach growls.

oh no

Clara feels the hunger pang really kick in.

oh no

She’s helpless. Clara’s stuck in a position where she’s torn from feeling multiple things at once. She’s hungry, but she’s too lazy to even roll out of bed. The poor girl is exhausted from sleeping too much, but is also unable to go back to sleep because of how much she slept. She wants to take off her blanket because of how hot she is, but is also comfortable in a weird way. 

She feels weird. 

She doesn’t know what to feel.

Clara stares feebly at the ceiling.

why did i do this

why am i doing this

how did i get into this situation

She knows exactly how she got into this situation, she just doesn’t want to admit it.

After what felt like a billion years, continuing where she left off on Nintendogs for what seemed like her last minutes on Earth, Clara hears the calling from the heavens above. Her unanswered prayers were finally given a response, the gods in the sky finally granting mercy to the poor little girl. It was as if the higher power in the sky had been watching over her as he tested her patience and faith, rewarding Clara for her steadfast determination with the greatest gift that she could have asked for.

“Dinner’s ready!!!”

Clara lifts her head up gently.

FINALLYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYY

“Coming!!!” 

Her careless excitement almost shook her cat off of the bed. The food waits for no man except Clara and her family, and yet she’s still in such a rush to eat. For good reason, though. She doesn’t know what dinner has in store for her, behind the light that beckons her to the dining table. All that she knows is-

foodddddd…

She closes her incredibly bright 3ds and places it beneath her pillow for later. Strategically, she moves herself above the cat that has stayed asleep this entire time. Clara tiptoes, one careful foot at a time, until she can safely move out of her room without awakening the fluffy beast. 

Once she makes it onto the floor, she rushes towards the door. She opens it a little more, wide enough that she can slide through, and the living room lights don’t flash in Smoothie’s eyes. Before she goes to wash her face, she looks back at her cat, who has been unbothered and at peace since she had started her homework.

“I’ll see you later, alright, Smoothie?” Clara whispers gently. 

Her question is unanswered with words, but soft purrs. Semi-curled up, somewhat surviving the storm that was Clara when she slept.

she,s… sniff… so cute..,... 

“Bye smoothie…!” She whispers to her silently-purring cat before slowly closing the door.

Clara freshens up a bit in the bathroom between her room and the CEO’s office. The little girl turns on the faucet all the way to cold. She cups the water in her hands gently, waits for the water to fill it up entirely, and then splashes her face with it very hard. It’s not enough to make her panic, but enough to give her that rush of adrenaline to spring her back into shape. She rubs her face heavily, pats her face dry, and walks over to the living room, refreshed and ready to have whatever’s been tempting her stomach for the past five years.

Just as she turns off the bathroom lights, she spots a familiar face at the door. 

!!!

A 5’8 CEO (with heels), with orange hair, teal peeking beneath just behind her shoulders and feather earrings. A textured, button-up blouse reveals itself beneath a dark gray blazer, and a miniskirt of the same color matches perfectly with the slim-fit top. Tights, the heels that give her the extra needed height, and some square-framed glasses; not because she has bad eyesight, but she just  thinks that she looks good in them. 

Calli personally doesn’t like the glasses, but what is she gonna do? 

Stop her? 

Kiara’s the multi-millionaire here.

!!!!!!

“Mom!!!!!!!” Clara sprints towards the door and hugs Kiara tightly. 

Kiara looks down at her excited daughter, embracing her in return.

“Guess you missed me, huh.”

“Of course I did!!!” C’mon, let’s go eat!”

Calli asks from across the room,

“Uh, hello? Is anybody going to set the table?”

The orange-haired CEO giggles with warmth, seeing Clara’s face still pressed against her. 

“Let’s go help out Mom now, okay?”

She lets go, beaming with glee. “Okay!!!”

The family has reunited once again to set up for dinner. Calli rounds up the cats to eat together with them, calling for their names as she brings the skillet of pasta to the table. While Calli grabs the plates and brings those over to the dining table, the tails of the fluffy kittens can be seen trickling into the living room, one pair of ears at a time. 

Kiara is helping the way that her family has just accepted her doing– a spoon and knife on the left and a fork on the right respectively. She pays careful attention to make sure that the utensils are in line with the mats that hold the plates. Though, it is questionable how productive her methods are. The way that Kiara tries to be precise with her movement, constantly adjusting and moving each utensil back and forth, it feels like Sisyphus pushing the boulder up the hill. But, it’s with, tiny pieces of metal, being pushed, left and right…

And Clara is filling up glasses with water! She had grabbed a stool from the pantry so that she could reach up to grab the glasses in the first place, trying her best to reach on her tippy-toes without losing her balance. The little girl fills all three glasses with varying amounts of ice and water based on: little ice for Calli, lots of ice for Kiara, and then just the perfect middle for Clara. Which also happens to be a lot of ice. 

This is where Clara started to make a mistake, though. Where her curiosity to challenge herself had gotten the best of her. A majority of the time, this hunger to try and overcome these challenges she makes for herself gives her a sense of pride and accomplishment, but not this time. Oh, she was clearly mistaken. See, Clara had hit a crossroads in her head while filling up the ice and water. She knew that she had the responsibility at that time. Being by the fridge, seeing the tissue roll in the corner of her eye as pieces of ice clink out of the fridge’s dispenser, she thinks about challenging herself. 

What if she carried all three cups of water, while also carrying the tissues?

Carrying three cups of water was already enough as it is. One cup, easy. She can hold it in one hand (or both if she’s feeling cute), and bring it over without any trouble. Two cups, she can hold one in each hand and carry it to the table again with relative ease. But three? Not even she knew how it would be possible. But, she knew, somehow, there was a way. There’s always a way. 

First, she rips out one piece of tissue for each person at the table. She cautiously stacks the three tissues, and clutches them tightly between her right pinky and ring fingers. Next, Clara puts her cup and Kiara’s cup in her hands, scooping up Calli’s cup and holding it to her chest with the support of the two main cups. Slowly, she steps down from her stool, takes the cups and pieces of tissue-paper, and makes her way over to the dinner table. 

oh my gosh, this is not going to happen 

This plan is not going as well as she thought it would. 

As she took the first few steps from the kitchen, it finally registered to her that filling the cup close to the brim was the worst thing she could have done. While she walks she looks down at the cups and the chaos that ensues with her somehow balanced but unbalanced movement. The water inside each of them sloshes back and forth wildly, each inch of progress that she makes becomes a storm that shakes the ice-filled seas. 

aahhhh ! ! !!! 

aahhhhhh i cant i cant i canttttt

Clara’s trying her best to keep composure, but it’s really, really hard. She’s feeling anything and everything all over again. Her hands are beginning to sweat. There’s a slight condensation from Kiara’s cup that’s wetting her shirt. She’s starting to heat up out of embarrassment. Her shaky hands aren’t doing anything to help this situation out either. 

From Kiara and Calli’s perspective, however, it’s absolutely hilarious. 

Clara slowly waddles towards the two wives in distress out of her own volition. She juggles the tissues in her fingers, the cups moving slightly, two sways away from splashing all over her. She moves slowly and carefully, her movements like a ninja that doesn’t fully have their stealth down yet. The couple feels almost like two queens watching a jester at work, doing his job almost too well. Kiara and Calli are holding back their laughter because of how stressed Clara looks, but it’s really, really hard.

“Nice balancing act you got there, sweetie!” Calli is smiling so wide, and it leaked into her compliment.

Clara sighs deeply as her journey to the table of dining had come to an end. She plops the cups onto the table, and places the tissues to the left of each plate. 

finally, ohhhh my gosh i thought i was gonna die

“Let’s eat!” The nine-year-old jester declares with pride.

Now, it’s time to officially begin dinner. For tonight’s meal, it’s “Marry Me Chicken” with pasta! A mouthwatering combo of sun-dried tomatoes, garlic, parmesan cheese, cream, and much more. Rich, creamy, tangy, with not too much prep! The only things that took Calli a little extra time to do were the tomatoes baking from earlier, and some basil from the backyard greenhouse. Other than that though, it was an easy thirty minutes for Calli to put herself onto Kiara’s music taste.

The cook now spoons a fair amount of pasta on each person’s plate, putting a little more on Kiara’s and Clara’s than her own. After she sits herself down, the three of them dig their fork into the dish, looking at each other in unison. They acknowledge each other, give each other a silent nod, before raising the food to their mouths and tasting it. In an instant, their expressions change from seriousness to smiling. 

Without saying anything, the customers get up to hug Calli. The chef does nothing but accept the physical praise with a constant nod of her head, saying a rhythmic mhm as she prides herself in making a dish she clearly knew would be good. And would get the exact reaction from her wife and her child,

“Thank you so much…” 

But they expressed their gratitude through sniffling. 

Calli grins and pats their backs.

Clara and Kiara go back to their seats. The three of them slowly make progress on finishing the dish, each of them going at a pace of their own. 

Clara’s eating her pasta extremely quickly in small batches, the fork of hers moving at a speed so fast even she didn’t realize she’d finish her plate. No eye contact with her parents when she finished her plate, either. Straight gobbling up her food and taking even more, one piece of pasta at a time.

Kiara’s in tears and snot. She’s eating at the same rate that Clara does, gobbling up her food one tiny bite at a time. The CEO’s prim and proper appearance at work immediately dissolved the moment she’s surrounded by family. With no tolerance for spice in the slightest, she had to dash to the fridge and grab herself some milk. Filling up her empty cup with milk to save herself in this near-death situation. The other two didn’t even comment on the fact there was still ice in the cup, because they get it. They’ve had their fair shares of the same experience.

Kiara looks up at Calli with two thumbs up. The left holds a fork with a piece of half bitten pasta, and the right grips Clara’s tissue, now filled with sweat and tears and a lot of snot.

Unlike the orange-haired girls, though, the pink-haired chef appreciates the chaos that is accepted within the household. The yellow light shining from the dining-table chandelier creates an illumination that works perfectly with the night. The quiet inside of the house is interrupted by the noises of sniffling and chewing, free to enjoy their food without the worry of judgement or perception. Simply being together, seeing her wife hard at work, and her kid doing amazing in school, knowing that they are grateful for what she does… the tenderness of moments like these are what Calli lives and breathes for.

shoot!!! i still have work to do!!!!

Clara quickly spoons the leftover sauce on her plate into her mouth. Her plate is now vertical in the air, the sounds of a spoon scraping down the dish reveal what she’s doing with zero words spoken. After declaring to herself that she is finished for the night, she rushes to stack her utensils and glass on her plate, walk to the sink and place it softly inside. 

“Thank you so much!!!”

She places her hands together and bows to the cook, now dashing back to her bedroom.

Calli reminds her, “Don’t forget to brush her teeth!!”

“ughhhhhhhhhhhghghghghghghgh” she groans in response, stopped right at the entrance to her sanctuary. She aggressively pulls the bathroom door handle open and storms inside. Her aggressive little stomps mistaken as cuteness from the parents at the table.

She can hear her parents still talking while she squeezes toothpaste onto her brush. “She’s really funny, isn’t she,” Kiara chuckles in her chair. “Oh yeah,” Calli replies. “Really, there isn’t a day…”

The sounds of Clara brushing her teeth and the view of herself in the mirror take over her sense of hearing for a brief moment. She recognizes the fact that there is speech going on in the background, but for some reason, the feeling of the brush, the feeling of the toothpaste turning into foam, and the sounds of the bristles just grabbed all of her attention for the time being.

Until she started to hear “when she was just a baby, and she put spaghetti on her head pretending it was hair-”

“STOPPPPPPPP!!!! I CAN HEAR YOU FROM HERE, YOU KNOW!!!" 

She couldn’t let that one slide. She knows that conversation would’ve gone on forever if she let them keep going.  

“Hahahaha!!!!” Clara hears an apology from afar. “Sorry, sorry.”

She keeps going on about her business, flossing her teeth, washing her face, moisturizing and all. Generally winding down and freshening both her body and her mind, then locking back into homework. This will be the break she needed in order for her to get back on top of things. For certain. 

The kid keeps a sharp ear out. Just in case they try to say something else about her again, but they don’t seem to make fun of her at all. Something about Clara’s comedy, something about getting it  from Calli, something about jokes in college. Stuff that she’s just going to tune out in the background again. She rubs moisturizer on her face, puts on her fuzzy headband, and moves back over to her cove.

She’s back at it again. Clara’s fan back to its slow, consistent swinging. Her desk once again occupied by nothing but her homework and her pencil. Instead of putting on some more music to try and help her focus, however, she uses her moms’ conversation as noise to put on in the background. Not to say that all music she hears is white noise, but she does tend to tune things out when focus is absolutely necessary. She knows Kendrick Lamar’s lyrics. She’s just going to listen to her parents’ podcast-level conversations instead.

In the beginning, she’s doing fine! Clara uses the previous problem that she did before as a reference for a majority of the sentences on the assignment. The quotation marks that surround the phrase a person says is a clear indicator for where to put one of the commas. Using this strategy, she was able to, like the math homework, go through with relative ease. The sounds of fast writing showing her productivity. Her hand moving from problem to problem giving her that slight boost of dopamine. The idle chatter going on in the background being a motivator for her to keep going.

“...cancel class because he had some explosive diarrhea-"

??? 

“HAHAHAHA I REMEMBER THAT!!!”

hello????

She’s just going to ignore that.

Though, there is something that is stopping her from completing her homework and calling it a night. A majority of the sentences were just the same structure. Swapping themes and topics and names around to make it look different, but at the end of the day, it was the same thing– a quote, ‘so and so’ said, and then another quote. But there were these two sentences that didn’t really click with her. Not fully, at least.

Two of the sentences on the homework looked more like lists than actual quotes. Instead of having to modify some sort of made-up line in a book, she’s contemplating whether she needs to put a comma for one of the words. One of the sentences she was struggling on was “This summer, my favorite songs were ‘Sunflower’ ‘High Hopes’ and ‘The Middle.’” Pretty simple on paper. She was confident about placing a comma right after “Sunflower,” being like okay that makes sense, but she wasn’t fully sure about whether she needed a comma after “High Hopes.” 

She’s seen both happen many times before. There’s been too many instances where she’d come across a list of three or more things, and it would either show one or the other. “Me, myself, and I.” “Life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.” Too many inconsistencies for Clara to know if or when to use a comma on the second word in the list.  And so now she’s torn wondering whether there should be a comma or not. Because this isn’t just for one sentence. It’s two.

Now Clara’s back at it again. The pencil constantly dinking against her desk is constant and confused. There’s an intense stare at the incomplete work she has in front of her. She needs to pick a side so badly, but she’s torn between looking back on her experience with reading and what the teacher might think. The kid is not waiting for anything anymore; she feels genuinely stuck and doesn’t know what to do. 

That’s when she hears the footsteps of her parents slowly approaching her door. The dragging of her mom’s kotori slippers across the floor, accompanied by the clacking sounds made by the weary CEO. Before she knows it, there’s that familiar, gentle knock of Calli’s hand, opening the door ever so slightly. Just enough so her head can peek in and let in some of the leftover light from the kitchen.

“Hey Clara, what’s up?” The pink-haired housewife asks.

Clara sighs. She contemplates whether to tell them everything for a second, but resorts to keeping the topic relevant to what’s at hand. Her visible struggle.

"I just can't seem to understand this English homework. She leans back in her rolling chair, her arms crossed in defeat. “For some reason, I’m just so unsure of where to place a comma to make sure something isn’t a run-on sentence.”

Calli invites herself and the CEO into the room. "I'm sorry, sweetheart. I really wish I could help. But English was never really my strong suit. Though, if you ever need any help with history, just ask the person who-"

"Y'know what," Kiara interrupts with a hand on Calli's shoulder, "I think it's time for you to go to bed."

"Okayyyyyyyy..." 

Clara yawns. She raises her arms in a stretch, before lazily pushes herself up with the armrests; her unexpectedly long day had tired her out more than she thought. Each of the wives on either side of her, they gently escort her to her bed and tuck her in together. The hardworking student now turned into somewhat of a snug bug in a rug. A blanket, actually. A snug bug in a blanket.

She shifts around in bed, putting herself back in a comfortable position fit with Smoothie and her collection of stuffed animals. She’s not done with her work, but she’s sure that she’ll get it done by tomorrow morning. The fact she gets to see her new best friend fills her with immense joy as it is. Thinking of more games to talk about, potential homework to do together… nothing could compare to this newfound feeling. This feeling of happiness. This feeling of joy. This feeling of connection.

Clara lets out one final yawn, and closes her eyes.

Kiara bends down to give her a gentle kiss on the forehead.

"Sweet dreams, my little angel.”