I laid down on my bed, staring up at the ceiling. What was I going to do? Last night, my father had pretty much confessed that seeing me become Prime Minister was his dying wish. What kind of person throws away their father’s dying wish? The ceiling wasn’t giving me answers. Bastard.

I rolled over, noticing my WaComm on the bedside table. I picked it up and put it on, the heat of my skin powering it up. I had a message.

Want to meet me for breakfast?

It was Mea. Oh god, I wanted to. There was nothing I wanted more. The last time I’d seen her, I decided I wanted to ask her to become my girlfriend, to even give her an expensive gift of a new WaComm. Life had become complicated as of late, though, and I hadn’t gotten the chance to see her since then or do any sort of planning for that. I wanted to make her mine so badly, but I didn’t know if I could go through with it. Not when my father was telling me what he had been.

Sure. Same café?

Dumbass. Why did I reply? I should cut myself off from her, pretend we’d never met. Maybe then I’d be able to live with myself if my father left this world.

See you in an hour

Fuck. She was a spider, and I was the fly caught in her web. I’m so stupid. What kind of idiot lets himself be trapped like this? She was drawing me in, and I had no escape. I just wanted to know if being with her would be worth throwing all of this away. I had to know.

~

Apprehensive, I entered that same café where we’d met for breakfast all that time ago. I remembered how she had shared a snippet of her culture with me, how afterwards, we’d started a protest together. It made me realize while I had heard about the struggles of the Nari’e, I really hadn’t seen it before. As someone who never had to experience those problems, it was easy enough to push them away. They didn’t directly affect me, so I never thought about it too much. Mea opened my eyes to that, at least, and now I knew it was something I ahd to fix. Again, the memory reinforced how much I needed to be Prime Minister, someday. I needed to fix this for Mea, for everyone. Injustice couldn’t be tolerated.

She hadn’t gotten here yet, but I was a few minutes early. I couldn’t wait the full hour, knowing it would only take a few minutes to get there by car, so I ended up arriving nearly twenty minutes too early. But that was alright; I would order us some Kinipopo, the drink we had that first time we’d met here. I hoped she’d appreciate the gesture that I remembered. Though, truth be told, it was the only thing on the menu I recognized. The Nari’e language was so flowery and beautiful, but I knew none of it.

I sat down with my drink, warm in my hand. Was it so strange that I had never learned any of the language? It wasn’t as if I needed to seek out the Anri’e, they were the ones who had sought out refuge here, not the other way around. They should speak Arugan, because we are their host country. It’s their duty to learn our culture, our way of things, if they want to live here, right? I settled in, getting both comfortable and lost in my thoughts. What would I do if I were to be stuck in another country? I wanted to think I would improvise, adapt, overcome, learn the language, and thrive, but deep down I questioned it.

I wondered if the Nari’e really just wanted their homelands back, or if they would prefer to live here, in Aruga. By now, most of the Nari’e had been born here, lived all their lives here, like Mea. Would they even want to return to their ancestral islands? Even if that natural disaster hadn’t entirely ravaged them, made them unlivable and filled with crazed, nuclear twisted wildlife, would they even want to return? I suppose there was no way I could answer that. I vowed that if I ever became Prime Minister, the best thing I could do was give them the option.

Feeling rather proud of myself, I didn’t even realize Mea had arrived until I looked up to notice her standing in front of me, a slight smile lifting the curve of her mouth. She wore her hair in braids today, thick twists that just met her shoulders. They were decorated artistically with beads, placed just so. They glistened and sparkled in the light, clearly made of some kind of shiny metal.

“Hey stranger,” she said. “Lost in thought?”

I smiled sheepishly. “Better to be lost in thought than to have none at all, they say.”

“There are worse things,” she allowed, sitting down across from me. “Is this mine?” She gestured to the drink in front of her, the Kinipopo still steaming.

“Yep!” I said, still pleased with myself. “Kinipopo.”

Her smile grew. “So, how have you been? It’s been a while since I’ve seen you.”

My smile faltered. “Erm, not so great I suppose. My dad’s sick. I’m a Lord now.” Suddenly, I remembered the gift I had brought along with me. It wasn’t quite the big to-do I’d wanted to be, but I’d bought it for her, and wanted to present it to her. It wasn’t coming with the big question I’d initially intended it for, but that could still come in time. I hadn’t decided yet. I fished the package, delicately wrapped, out from behind me and placed it on the table. “Oh, and I got you this.”

She blinked, surprised. “You got me something? Why?”

I flushed. “For no reason. Cause I could. Cause I wanted to. Just open the damn thing,” I said, embarrassment flooding my face. Was this a mistake? Oh, fuck, if it was, it was too late now.

She picked at the paper that covered the box, her fingers deft and nimble as she unfolded the paper, unsticking the tape and keeping the paper largely intact. As she finally revealed what was inside, she stopped and looked up time.

“Torven, this is too much,” she said, her cheeks reddening. “There’s no way I can accept this.”

“Please, for me.” I smiled back at her through the blush. “Now it’ll be easier for us to talk.”

She caressed the box gently, staring at it. “A new WaComm? It’s just… so much. Are you sure?”

As I watched her face, her genuine appreciation and overwhelming sense of gratitude and awe, I knew I was surer than anything in my life. This girl had her hooks in me, and I would do everything I could to keep them there. “I’m sure,” I answered.

“If you say so,” she said. She lifted the tabs on the box and removed the WaComm from it, turning it this way and that to see it catch the light. “So pretty.”

“I know it’s a lot…” I said, watching her as she powered it up, admiring it. “But I feel as if I’ve known you for a long time. You know?”

She looked up at me, smiling. “Yeah, it’s strange, isn’t it? We really don’t know much about each other, yet here we are.”

“I’d like to know more about you,” I said. “I’d like to know…. Everything.”

She smiled, mischievous now. “Everything about me?

“And then some.”

She grinned wider, her teeth sparkling. I shivered.

“Come to my place tonight, and I’ll show you whatever you want.”

I swallowed hard. “Uh, er I have dinner plans, tonight.” I cursed myself for making plans with Alyss. “With, uh, my stepmother. Cerise. Mind if I come over after?”

She flicked a braid over her shoulder and leaned in close, elbows placed on the table. Her eyes bored straight into mine. “As long as you don’t keep me waiting, Lord Montgomery.”