Roommate Wanted. No Betrayers.

Chapter 24

It had been a snow-covered December morning, the kind where the sky was a clear blue and the sun shone bright. Sana remembered it perfectly, from the feeling of uneven packed ice underfoot to the smell of the grit. Mostly she remembered the two of them walking side by side, hands stuffed in mittens and ears covered by woollen hats.

"You're leaving?" Ina had parroted back to her after Sana had told her, her voice full of disbelief. "To where, for how long?"

"I don't really know." Sana had shrugged. In her defence she was eight and she didn't remember place names too well.

"Will I see you again?" Ina had asked.

"Of course!" Sana smiled. "We're best friends right? I'll definitely see you again."

"Promise me?" Ina said, sticking out a pinkie finger.

"I promise. I'll be back as soon as I can." Sana vowed, taking the proffered pinkie in her own.

She would never fulfil that promise and for all that time it had eaten away at Sana. Every time she moved after, the unfilled promise of that day echoed through her mind. How could she ever make a similar promise again? The answer was she couldn't. The people she made connections with didn't deserve such an empty platitude and she didn't deserve to be able to exit from their lives in such an easy way either.

But then. Almost two decades later, there they were. In the same room. Face to face.

"Kept me waiting long enough." Ina chuckled, taking a step forwards and opening her arms.

Sana felt tears stream down her face. She ran into her long lost friend's embrace and squeezed her tight. "Sorry about that."

Behind them, two girls peeked unnoticed into the library.

"Another job well done." Bae smiled, puffing their chest out in pride.

Irys just smiled and nodded.

"Huh?" Bae was startled. "No snippy put down? No one-liner?"

"Not this time, no." Irys giggled. "I figure you deserve your moment."

"Aw shucks." Bae scratched at the back of her head bashfully. "It was a team effort."

"Yeah, and one I did most of the work for." Irys laughed. "Honestly, did your plan really have to involve me messing with Sana's tarot card readings?"

"Of course it did!" Bae protested. "I've known Sana for eons, this was the only way."

"We could have not used chaos magic to engineer the situation." Irys shrugged.

"That leaves too much up to chance."

"And invoking raw chaos doesn't leave anything up to chance?"

"Not when you are chaos itself." Bae said, giving a toothy grin.

"I swear..." Irys sighed. "Sometimes I wonder if you're gonna be alright as a human."

"I'll be alright if I have you." Bae said, giving her wife a quick kiss on the cheek.

"Gross." Irys chuckled, before immediately returning the gesture.

Two days later in Chaos coffee, two girls sit in plush red seats.

"You're staying after all?" Fauna asked, a little surprised by the immediacy of the statement had been given. "Why the sudden change of heart?"

"Yeah..." Sana scratched a little at her face with her right index finger. "I've had to come to terms with a lot of stuff about myself very suddenly."