Worst / Decision · 3:21pm Nov 14th, 2016
They were less than ten minutes away from pulling up to the house, but the young man had some regrets for not getting himself a drink when they stopped by the drive-through on their way back from the pharmacy. He took a few glances away from the road to eye the cup Aria was holding and sighed at his lack of forethought.
"You...want a sip?" Aria asked, having noticed the car's minute rightward sway followed by a less-than-smooth centering on the lane every time he looked over.
"Since you're offering, sure," he said, tilting his head a bit and pursing his lips to take a drink. He remained looking at the road, so Aria brought the straw over and gulped almost in time with the young man. "Huh. Not bad. Thanks."
"Yeah," she said when she returned the cup close to her lap and then eyed the straw with a fierce blush coloring her cheeks. Just as she leaned in to quickly savor the taste for herself, a mess of blue hair blocked her path and the sound of noisy slurping filled her ears.
"Oh wow Aria, this diet soda is way better than I thought it'd be!"
"Guh, Sonata!" the twin-tailed girl growled and sneered. "Worst!"
After smacking her lips Sonata continued to lean forward from the back seat and looked at her irritated friend with an oblivious smile. "What's up? You say something?" she said then took a bite of the burger in her hand.
"Worst!" Aria repeated herself and pulled her soda out of Sonata's clutches. She puffed out her cheeks and eyed her drink as if it had betrayed her. With a click of her tongue she removed the top and gulped down what remained, leaving only ice cubes to clatter inside the cup. She quickly placed the cup down when she sensed the car slow to a halt. Aria was confused when she didn't recall the familiar left turn into the driveway and looked at the driver for an explanation. "Hey, what's the big deal?" she squeaked out and immediately clasped her hands over her mouth, spilling fries and ice cubes all over her seat and the floor.
"Haha, Aria!" Sonata teased in an equally high-pitched tone, then realized she too had shrunk.
---
Taking back the now-empty glass of water, the young man sighed. "You're such a problem child, you know that?"
"Shud ub." Despite her tone Adagio let the man change the bag full of water sitting atop her head for one filled with ice. She openly let out a sigh of relief while simultaneously clutching the heavy blanket draped over her. Her hoodie provided some measure of comfort, but the blanket managed to keep the rest of her from freezing in the slightly-warmer-than-room temperature environment.
"Is having your powers back even worth all of this? First turning small, now getting sick...magic just doesn't seem as...magical anymore." He proceeded to bring a thermometer towards Adagio's face and she opened her mouth and stuck out her tongue as she had been instructed before. Once the device was set under her tongue she waited patiently for the next step. "So I guess this means I can expect needing to take care you two, next?"
"Yep."
"Yeah huh."
The other girls each answered in turn with helium-pitched voices, their bodies having shrunk to that of elementary schoolers like Adagio had before. Both of them displayed varying levels of excitement at the prospect, despite the implications. "If that's the case, you two deal with Adagio." With expert timing he retrieved the thermometer and looked at the measurement. He nodded at reading, happy to see some progress of the girl's fever going down. "I'll be in my office getting next week's assignments ready."
"Ooh, can I help?" Sonata eagerly chirped out while raising her hand.
Aria, meanwhile, was more concerned about the man's comment. "Wait, what? Why?"
"I'm not gonna put my health on the line just to end up getting sick myself," he said, handing the thermometer to her. "Especially if it's guaranteed that you two are gonna turn out the same way. I can't afford to take any days off from my job this early on. If this happened a bit later on, when I've proven that I'm a good worker, then it'd be a different story." After arranging all of the medicine, boxes of tissues and the like on the bedside table, he made a show of spritzing some hand sanitizer on himself. "I'm not trying to be mean, or anything. I just don't want you girls stuck on the streets again. Anyways, I'll be back to check on you around lunchtime. Until then, you two are responsible," he said, pointing to Sonata and Aria before leaving the room and closing the door behind him.
As the wall clock ticked by the passing seconds, they realized that it had been quite awhile that all three of them were alone together.
"So..." Sonata was the first to speak out. "...been a while."
Adagio sniffed. "Yes. Id has." She then closed her eyes and slowly lowered herself onto the pillow behind her, carefully holding onto the bag of ice on her head so it didn't slip off. When she felt it was centered well enough she tucked her exposed arm back into the warmth of her blanket. "You do are free do do whadeber. I can dake care of myself jusd fine, dank you."
"Likely story, Adagio," Aria chuckled out. "You just wanted him to take care of you, huh?"
Her eyes snapped open and she stared right at Aria, her face flush. "Your poind?" Adagio asked with simmering annoyance punctuated by sniffles.
Aria was taken off guard by the quick response, but Sonata happily cheered. "Yay! You don't hate Crescent Moon anymore!"
Adagio and Aria shared a knowing look before the bed-ridden Siren replied. "I guess that's true, in a sense."
"So what are we going to do now, huh?" Aria asked. "It won't even be a month until we all have our powers back. Just like before. What then?" The others didn't have an immediate answer. While Adagio busied herself by wiping her nose and Sonata made a show of pondering the girl's questions, Aria added, "Are we gonna stay here or use this second chance to finally go home?" This time the question weighed heavily on the girls' minds.
Both pictures drawn by RileyAV
I love this mini story series so much