you can't get cherry soda 'cause they've got to fill that quota

junie day :3 (late [of course] but still)

The only difference is time, really. Reyn takes a little longer to gravitate to their usual spot at Giorgio's stall because he's busy with Juju and Sharla (and Riki too), and Shulk's so endlessly walking on the beach with Alvis, and Fiora herself has just spent a quiet moment with Melia up in their other usual spot, Outlook Park.

Once they're seated, though, there's hardly a beat of the terrible, horrible, grippingly awkward silence that Fiora had feared. Reyn's started in trying to bargain for extra paratha, and Shulk is sitting up straight, wryly attentive, instead of hunkering down under the furiously waving beefy arms, and of course Fiora's not just sat off on the sidelines, prim and proper as can be - she's playing both sides of the bargain just to get on Reyn's nerves, and then make him break and laugh along with her just the same. Maybe Shulk'll join, or maybe Paola will distract him with questions.

Eventually, since they are all hungry, they'll set in eating, Fiora mixing everything together into a grand stew and Shulk keeping everything separate, while Reyn's patterns are...indistinguishable.

But enough about each one in turn, huh? That's a little boring and a little sad, honestly.

"Are you still going to stay in the Defence Force for life, Reyn?" Fiora asks daringly, waggling her spoon licked clean of curry and kicking her feet up against the base of the bar.

Reyn shrugs, cracks yet another paratha in half. "Maybe. I might not, though." At the moment, no one can quite remember whether or not Ol' Square-Tache did in fact explode, despite it all. "Maybe I'd do alright helping Shulk out with his research now, anyway."

"And would you let him, Shulk?" She's already swiveled to face both of them, but turns away and back just because she can.

Shulk, yet focused, laughs. "Of course! I was always a little disappointed when we stopped spending as much time together, as we got older. This whole new world is a new chance for all of us, to be whoever we want to be."

"Still on that, eh?" With his free hand, Reyn reaches over to ruffle Shulk's hair (he ducks, of course, but only a little bit). "Sure it is! But it don't have to be all so dramatic, like that. I mean, you haven't changed that much, have you?"

"If I'm still in love with you? Not a chance, Reyn."

Giorgio smiles, probably rolls his eyes at least a half turn over, but leaves them be. Kids will be kids, except when they turn into adults. And that's alright, with enough time.

As they begin the short walk back to the residential district, Fiora with hands locked behind her back and Reyn with arms about both sets of shorter, blonder shoulders, Shulk tries to explain the more inane intricacies about his unified theory of all he's learned from Alvis, and of course they listen, but they don't listen, you know? And he doesn't really need them to, after all.

"Whatever we do, I think we should help people," Fiora concludes at last, after a sizable lull has come in the cricketed, dragonflied summer (whatever a season is, for them) night air. That's what she had been trying to do, she swears it, when she'd crashed the mobile artillery, and died, and all, and she'd never have thought that she'd get another chance after to do just that, albeit with a goddess's soul in her body, but it's all the clearer now.

"Yeah, that's what I mean! Maybe I'm useful in the Defence Force, and a top gun, and all," (he's not, they know he's not, but he is in their hearts, just like the old cliché goes), "but if we don't need a Defence Force, so much, now that the Machina, or the Mechon, or whichever, are on our side, well, then I'll pick up something else to do."

"Like fishing?" Like fishing, of course.

"Well, yeah, if Riki'll let me on with it! I'm telling you, he hasn't let up with that 'smelly Orluga' bit once since I met him. I mean, do I really smell that bad?"

Shulk and Fiora share a glance, deliberating, prompting an already beleaguered Reyn to tack on a frantic "Honest! Come on, guys, be honest!"

Now, they lean closer, take their evidence, lean back, and make their judgements.

"Hmmm," Fiora says, tapping finger to chin, "I don't think so. Maybe a little like rust, and a little like salt, but that could be seawater just as much as it could be sweat. And a little bit of Sweet Wasabi. You're lucky Shulk doesn't hate that quite as much as Dunban does."

"Fiora!" Secretly, he's trying to recount just how much of it he'd speckled atop his curry.

"Come on, Reyn - do you seriously think I'd mind if you did smell like rust? I imagine you wouldn't be able to avoid it, anyway, if you did start working with me."

"Oh, so you're saying I've got a reason to beg out, now. What's a guy gotta do?"

"Reyn!" Maybe there's something more than a little bit contrived about all this talk of switching occupations, but there had been something to it, really.

Fiora giggles. "Okay, Shulk, now it's your turn. Say something outrageous, so we can get all flustered about it."

(They didn't actually have this routine of joke, before, caught somehow halfway in between too self-conscious to let anything slide and too naïve to actually get annoyed at anything. I needn't compare incessantly between then and now, but it's only true. Maybe it's even a little bit interesting.)

"Oh, I don't know. I don't usually say outrageous things, do I? What about..." He points limply at a lamppost as they're passing by. "Check out this massive plant?"

"Shulk..."

"See, I couldn't do it."

"But you can do just about everything else," Fiora grins, "and that's why we love you."

"Fiora, you know that's not true."

"Hey, a little loving lie never hurt anyone! To me, you're like..." Reyn notices, absently, that instead of reaching up to twirl her finger in her hair, her hand goes to the back of her neck. Only difference is time, and she's had enough that she's out of the habit.

But, regardless. "Like a Heropon," is what she produces from that speculative stint.

Is that meant to be a good thing? Have they got some special in-joke whereupon it isn't actually a bad thing? That's anybody's guess!

"Oh, now you've done it. He's bright crimson, see there."

And then they kiss his cheeks both at once to make it worse, even, because of course they do. That will never change with any amount of time. Can you believe that?

the title choice is irrelevant i just like this song