The Many Problems of Luka Erebi | Sapphic Romance | Chapter 10
Luka is trapped in a typhoon
The typhoon hit overnight and hadn’t let up. Rain lashed the windows sideways. The street below was empty, the bikes and bins long moved inside.
Most shops and schools closed during a typhoon, it was the obvious thing to do. Although Luka could hear the complaints of her classmates now about how it just had to happen during the weekend. Unless you were crazy, no one would go out during this. Not even the trains were running.
So, Luka expected to spend her weekend working on a couple side projects she’d been working on with her cousin. What she didn’t expect, was to have a guest over.
Bellamy knocked on her door this morning. Luka didn’t even ask her what she needed. She just saw the look on Bellamy’s face and told her to come in. Now, the young woman was sitting on her tiny dinner table with a towel draped over her.
The walk over didn’t even take thirty seconds and Bellamy was drenched. At least, Luka hoped it took less than thirty seconds and not Bellamy standing in front of her door for a while before knocking.
She wasn’t sure what to say, so she just made Bellamy a hot cup of tea. Then she figured she might as well get one herself.
“Thanks,” Bellamy said.
Luka sat on the other side, watching her stare deeply at the contents of her drink. She’d never seen Bellamy this down before. Would it be okay to ask? Luka wasn’t sure.
They’d been friends for almost half a year now, but Luka had only just found out about Bellamy’s family history. At most, she knew that Bellamy was a cheery, altruistic young woman who was the talk of the Academy. She never bothered to ask about her family, but the same went with Bellamy.
Deep down, Luka figured that the both of them didn’t want to talk about their family. It was a distance they both were comfortable with. A distance that shrank because of Wren.
…
I might have an idea on why she’s like this.
“Bellamy,” Luka began, “um… did something happen with you and Wren?”
Bellamy didn’t take her eyes off of her tea, her fingers laced around the ceramic cup.
“I’m just… a little upset and confused.”
A little is certainly a choice word.
“A-about Wren?”
“Not just Wren. Ari, too. They got into a fight yesterday.” She released a long exhale. “I just wanted Wren to get to know you two so that she doesn’t have to feel so isolated. But now she’s making me think about whether it was right for me to befriend Ari or not.”
Luka thought back on Bellamy’s retelling of how she and Ari met. She never said the specifics on why they became friends.
“W-why did you become friends with Ari?”
Finally, Bellamy looked up at Luka. Her eyes a somber wave, something she seemed desperate to hide with a smile.
“Ari is half-Native. Her other half is… well… do you know what the term Invaders mean?”
“Uh. I know what the definition is.”
“It means families with ties to the original Spanish and British colonizers.”
“Oh.”
Bellamy giggled, covering her mouth with the back of her hand. It appeared she found Luka’s dumbfounded expression amusing. Eventually, she became melancholy. “I saw myself in Ari when I found out about it.”
“What do you mean? Are you also half… uh… Invader?”
“Only a quarter, but even that’s enough to earn ire from the older Natives. It’s probably why my parents made sure to keep that part a secret. I… I haven’t even told them that I’m letting Wren stay with me.”
Luka blinked. This whole Native-Invader thing was starting to go over her head, but at least she understood what Bellamy was implying. Wren was from a family of the island’s “bad guys.” Suddenly, Luka realized why all the other kids would pick on Wren at the playground. Why she kept getting asked if she knew that Wren was a Vespula. She never knew Wren had to deal with this her whole life.
“Anyway,” Bellamy said, “You know how I said Ari stole my wallet during the Assembly and I tracked her down? I found out that she owed some bad people money, so I told her that I’d pay her debt. In exchange, I wanted her to live a normal life and to not lie to me.”
Bad people? Oh… now I get why she was getting beat on last Christmas Eve. But wait, if her debt is already paid then…? Let’s not think about it.
“I thought everything was going fine. Then she went and hurt Wren.” Finally, Bellamy took a sip of her now lukewarm tea. “But maybe it’s my fault for ignoring the signs. I shouldn’t have left Wren alone with Ari.”
She still wasn’t sure what happened yesterday, besides the fight, but Bellamy seemed to take it hard on herself. Luka wasn’t sure how to comfort her friend.
So she thought about Ari. Had she also ignored the signs? She heard the rumors. She witnessed the fight on Christmas Eve, and even got herself involved in it. She always told herself that she only hung out with Ari because of Bellamy, and even Ari said something similar four days ago. It didn’t mean that she thought it was a drag to hang out with Ari. In fact, she was starting to enjoy her company.
Luka was certain that Ari was serious about her stalker problem. Ari even made sure that she wasn’t lazing around and actually installed the door camera before the storm came. Although she did write a rather ominous message…
Ari is a Weaver: Heavy storms are when all living beings rush indoors. Even the lowliest of insects will try everything to slip through the cracks of your wall.
Was that just her intuition? Or something she’d learned? Luka wasn’t sure.
What she was sure, was what she was going to tell Bellamy.
“Ari hasn’t made fun of me for my current… issue. I wouldn’t even have told you about it if she hadn’t pushed me. So I think she has a good side to her. She just doesn’t really care for people outside her circle.”
Bellamy pondered on this in silence. Luka finished up the rest of her tea, and went to wash the cup.
Once she finished, she heard Bellamy say, “Thanks Luka. I’m glad I talked to you. I’ll head back in a bit, but I wanted to ask you one last question.”
Luka dried her hands, and walked back to her seat. She waited for Bellamy’s question, though something in her gut told her that she wasn’t going to like it.
“What happened between you and Wren?”
It seemed her gut was right.
Luka’s eyes downcast, her hand touching her arm. A phantom pain resurfaced as if ten years was just yesterday. She remembered the broken arm, but not from the fall.
“Did Wren say something?” Luka asked, wanting to see how much Bellamy knew.
She shook her head. “No, I just see it from the way you two look at each other. Especially how you both reacted when you saw each other again for the first time. I’m sorry.”
Luka raised her hands in a panic. “I-it’s not your fault. In fact, it’s mine. I’m the reason she’s like that. She… s-she could’ve died that day.”
Bellamy’s eyes wide, she repeated that word. “Died?”
Her throat tensed, like her own body was telling her to shut up. No matter how she tried to clear it, she couldn’t get the words out. So she swallowed it.
“Sorry, but… you’ll have to ask Wren about it.”
Bellamy shouldn’t have to hear the story from the perpetrator’s side first. That was Luka’s conclusion and how she interpreted her body’s unwillingness to speak.
“Okay.” Bellamy nodded slowly. “I hope you two will be able to make up.”
The only way they’d make up was for Luka to apologize and never bother Wren again. Unfortunately, it seemed she couldn’t do either and time was running out. Wren probably wasn’t planning to stay in Locust Town. She was going to take flight to the other side of Insecta and Luka—the girl who was homebound—would never see her again.
Maybe they were doomed to stay like this forever.
Still, Luka was glad to see Wren again. Just knowing that Wren was still alive was good enough for her.
Luka saw Bellamy out, and then she was alone. She pressed her ear against the wall, listening for the door to Bellamy’s opening and closing. There was some muffled talking, but she couldn’t hear with the rain crashing against the roof. Her ear now away from the wall, she turned around to look at her apartment.
Her tiny kitchen to the right, with only four counters—one occupied by the sink—in the shape of an L, a small fridge, and a stove. The two-person table was a few inches away from the kitchen, and her room not far from it. Her living room was in the center with just a TV, coffee table, and couch.
Luka cleaned up Bellamy’s cup of tea, then grabbed the laptop from her room and planted herself on the couch. She usually worked at her desk, but figured she might as well work in the living room instead. Seeing the rain against the window pane was rather comforting.
When she was young, her father’s company tended to work even during a typhoon and even slept in the office if it went for days. It was one of the times when Luka was without him in the house. Even better if it cut into her school days.
Finally, she could get some work done for her cousin, Liang Ling. Liang worked in a digital agency that often took on more client projects than they could handle, so he would ask Luka to “ghost-develop” for him. At first, Luka wasn’t very keen on this idea, but he paid her fifty-fifty, which gave her a decent chunk for her savings.
She only got into computer science because it was what her father wanted. Luka spent day and night learning different types of code for her supposed guaranteed job in cybersecurity with her father’s friend’s company. If that didn’t work out after her graduation, it would certainly feel like a waste of her time. These were skills she wouldn’t use in her day-to-day life.
Web development, on the other hand… Luka never thought she’d actually enjoy coding that. Even if she wasn’t paid fifty-fifty, she would still do Liang’s work just so she could practice.
She was close to zoning into the project, but her hands slowed at the sound of what sounded like an argument muffled by the storm. At first, Luka thought it might’ve been Wren and Bellamy, but the voice was deep and it was coming from the left side of the apartment.
“—told you to stop—”
The wind picked up, swallowing the rest. Luka’s fingers hovered over the keyboard.
“—don’t care what you—it’s not—Luka—”
Her name. She was almost certain that was her name.
“—sick, Mosca, you’re—I don’t want to hear—again—”
Mosca’s voice rose, then broke. Luka wasn’t sure if she heard crying or just the rain hitting the pipes.
“—the bridge—you think I don’t know—”
Crash!
Something hollow hit something solid. Then nothing.
Luka sat still, her laptop screen the only light in the room. She gulped. This was the first time she’d ever heard the man yell like that. She didn’t even know that he knew her name.
She figured their marriage wasn’t exactly… perfect. But this? Luka wasn’t sure what she should do with this information. So she just shook her head in an attempt to forget. For now, at least.
With the voices now quiet, the rain and wind drowned everything else out. Two hours was all Luka needed to complete the project. Only then did she notice the messages that Bellamy sent.
Bell.A: Have you eaten yet? Last time I remember, you told me you usually eat outside and those pre-made meals.
Luka thought back on the spoiled lunches she threw out a couple days ago. She’d been too busy to restock, and with the typhoon… ordering delivery would be cruel to the drivers.
Bell.A: Do you want to come over for dinner?
Bell.A: Wren’s cooking is really good!
Bell.A: I think Asher would be happy to see you too.
Bell.A: Because he definitely doesn’t care about me :(
From the way Bellamy wrote this, Luka presumed she settled with Wren. Whether Luka wanted to go or not…
Luluka: I’ll think about it.
Bell.A: Okay. I’ll let Wren know.
That pretty much means I’ll be coming if you tell her!
Not that Luka had much of a choice if she wanted to eat today. Her fridge was pretty much empty, and the idea of fasting for two days wasn’t exactly what she had in mind for the weekend.
Absentmindedly, she closed her laptop and sauntered to her fridge. Even though she knew, she still wanted to check. Maybe, she would find an unexpired pre-made meal in the corner. Then she wouldn’t have to come over.
Her fingers wrapped around the handle, she opened the fridge and peered inside.
BAM!
She slammed the door so fast that she even scared herself. But that wasn’t what got her riled up. She squeezed her eyes shut, took a deep breath, and pulled the door open again.
A wrapped lunch box sat in the center of the almost empty fridge.
Luka closed the door, then reopened it.
The lunch box hadn’t moved or disappeared.
W-what?! How did this get here? Who?!
She took out her phone and opened the app for the door camera. There were no signs of activity through yesterday night, and a few of her neighbors walking past on their way to work. The only one who stared at the camera was that man… Mosca’s husband.
Her heart was one beat closer to breaking through her chest. Her body trembled, even when she formed fists to try to keep it at a minimum. She exhaled, her breath shaky.
This place was now a trap. Luka couldn’t stay here any longer. She rushed into her room, grabbed her backpack and laptop, shoved a few pairs of clothes, and ran out the door.