1.23 – House Meetup

“Hold on, let me turn the defense systems off.” Alicia stopped all of them in front of her house, clicking something on her watch. The turrets, which were hidden on the roof, clicked and beeped as she defused them or added them to the ‘allowed’ part of system or whatever. It was scary stuff.

Nathan wondered what the law would be if somebody broke in and immediately got shot at by those things. Were they lethal even? It was one of the things he had never asked, and he wasn’t quite so sure he wanted to know the answer.

“Well, somebody is loaded.” Aiko guffawed, pointing at the whole house. “At this point, you could probably buy the school or every teacher in it!”

“Yeah, this is just some scary stuff. I dig it.” Minato nodded to himself as if appreciating the display.

“I can’t buy anything; it’s my parents’ money.” Alicia smiled, defusing the tension that permeated the group ever since they met back in the shopping mall. They talked about whether to go somewhere outside or just come here, but in the end they decided to come to one of their houses.

Apparently, Minato had three siblings, who were constantly at home, so that was out of the question. Aiko lived further out of the city and not in Tokyo itself, so she was out as well. With Nathan living in one of the rooms in Alice’s home, it was probably the only solution unless they wanted to go somewhere else. Nathan didn’t mind going to a karaoke or something of the sort, although he didn’t have much money to spend. And he was unsure how ‘fun time’ worked here in Japan. It still didn’t seem like a bad option, but the others were set on this, and so now they were here.

Alicia stared daggers at him whenever the talk of where he lived came into question. Her look carried a simple message: “Tell them that you live here and you are fucking dead.”

He had no reason to fight her on that one.

Much to Nathan’s surprise, Aiko was a really pleasant person to be with. She wasn’t a brute or anything of the sort. Her pink pixie cut and tall stature made her look a bit tomboyish, but she seemed to be anything but. Even the clothing she had had a certain punk look to it, and Nathan found himself feeling inspired about how he could choose some of his own options. Not that he knew the bands on her t-shirt nor the pins that were attached to her bag.

They arrived in the living room of his and Alicia’s shared home, and Nathan immediately headed to make some coffee. The others didn’t want any, and so he just prepared a cup for himself. By the time he came back, the others already held a bottle of water and some snacks in hand.

They sat in a circle, one place left for Nathan.

He had never been at a small house party like this before. He didn’t even drink, unless he was at a big party that he was used to. Clubs and concerts, there he did used to drink some, but this felt nicer.

He sat down; Minato was on his left, Alicia on his right, and Aiko opposite him. He placed the coffee cup on the small coffee table a few feet away and then tried to join the conversation.

“So what do you think about all of this stuff?”

“The Red Lily, you mean?” Aiko laughed as if it was a funny thing. “They’ll get caught eventually. I think every damn superhero is on them at this moment. Barrage was not a weak hero, and he was valuable. They made a statement, and they’ll have to pay for it.”

“Really? I don’t know if I agree.” Alicia shook her head.

“Of course you don’t! I’m not going to talk about this once again.”

Apparently, these two had discussed this point of topic already, but he couldn’t say the same, and judging by the scratching of his chin, Minato didn’t either.

“Let’s change the topic, please. I think we are all kind of sad and on the edge because of what had happened.” Nathan tried to steer the conversation away, deciding that this really wasn’t the time and place.

They would still feel the impact of the last week and a half in the months to come. No need to make themselves nervous because of trying to guess about where it would end up. They couldn’t change much on their own anyway. They were all E or F class, after all.

“Fine, I wanted to ask you two, though.” Aiko pointed at him and Alicia, “Are you two a thing, or do you—”

“We are not a thing,” Alicia said, perhaps a little bit too quickly.

Hey, Nathan wasn’t that ugly of a guy! He noticed the slight blush over her cheek, still the glare that she was giving Aiko.

“Oh yeah, I wondered the same thing, but Nathan said that they weren’t. Apparently they just, I don’t know, spend a lot of time together,” Minato said, thankfully.

But Aiko grabbed his shoulder, pointing at the two of them once again. “I don’t know, man. I just… my senses are tingling. You want—”

“Can you stop, please? We are not anything, and it’s making this a little bit uncomfortable.” Nathan tried to steer once again, but unsuccessfully this time around.

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He kind of knew why he minded that much. Alicia was pretty, but it would make all of this far more complicated than it had any need to be. Hell, she was the person responsible for him having a house, and he didn’t want to ruin the first friendship that he had by trying to force it into a romantic relationship that he had no experience with. And that was besides the fact that he wasn’t sure what Alicia thought of him in turn.

“Aiko, stop!” Alicia groaned, standing up to punch the taller woman. Aiko just laughed, finding the whole situation funny, apparently.

“You are so cute when you blush! You know that? Well, alright, alright, I’ll leave it be.” She stopped, looking into Nathan’s eyes now. “Anyway, what do you do for a living, Nathan? You are not from here, right? Alicia said she is from Europe, but where are you from?”

“I’m from the US. And as for living…” He stopped, and tried to find a nice way to say that he was a bum that was crashing at Alicia’s home, without actually saying those exact words, but he found no way to do so. “I’m unemployed.”

“Well, that’s okay, I guess.” She smiled, looking away.

Minato’s turn to speak. “Oh, same. I crashed at my parents. No point in getting a part-time job if you plan to be a hero, right? Better focus on all the school stuff. Can focus on romance if you spend all your time in school or work anyway.”