The Many Problems of Luka Erebi | Sapphic Romance | Chapter 11
Wren is trapped in the typhoon with Luka
Knockknockknockknockknockknock!
Wren growled as she got up from the couch, annoyance plastered all over her face. Who was the fool with the incessant knocking? She didn’t bother to look into the peephole, figuring she could always just punch the weirdo outside the door if they tried anything funny.
Turned out, it was just Luka. She gritted her teeth, her nose scrunched up. Even though she heard from her cousin that Luka might be coming over, she wasn’t really expecting her. Before she could berate Luka for her crazy antic, she saw the desperation in her eyes.
“Are you just gonna stand there?” Wren asked and stepped aside.
“T-thanks.”
Bellamy, who had been watching from her room, came out with a towel and wrapped it around Luka.
“Did something happen?” She asked.
Luka looked at Bellamy, then Wren. She stayed quiet. Until the sneeze came. “Achoo!”
Her cousin led Luka to the dining table, while Wren turned to the kitchen. She brought out a small pot sitting on the drying rack. Then she grabbed the dark chocolate bar and milk she bought a couple days ago. Simple ingredients for hot chocolate.
Melting the chocolate in the milk, she added a few teaspoons of sugar, a pinch of salt, and a drop of vanilla extract. After giving it a couple of taste tests and finding it just right, she poured it into a mug and brought it over to Luka.
“Oh. T-thank you, Wren,” Luka said, her hands wrapping around the mug.
Wren noticed Asher was already under the table, rubbing against Luka’s legs. He was always attuned to people’s emotions, so Wren could only assume that whatever was happening with Luka, it had shaken her up good.
Not that it was Wren’s problem.
She moved away and sat back on the couch, gritting her teeth as the dull pain jabbed her abdomen. Her eyes moved to the two of them. Bellamy was whispering something. Luka only shook her head and gave a strained smile.
Whatever the issue was, if Wren did care, they didn’t seem to want her involved in it. A low grunt escaped her lips. She picked up the remote and continued the cooking show she was watching.
The man on TV was making butter chicken, something Wren intended on making today. She figured it was another easy step for Bellamy, since she liked the tandoori chicken she made yesterday. The ingredients were already in the fridge and shelf, waiting to be made.
Back at home, Wren cooked for herself since her mother and step-father weren’t fond of “food made for rats.” With Bellamy, although her taste buds were very similar to Wren’s parents, she was at least willing to give it a try. That being said… Wren was still disappointed when she saw how gleeful Bellamy was when she made her a full English breakfast the first morning of staying here.
Wren glanced at the clock above the TV, noting that it’d been an hour since she set the chicken aside to marinate. She better get started on dinner.
She grabbed a tomato and onion from the fridge and cashews sitting on the table. The onion and tomato would be cut, sautéed and then placed in the blender with the cashews and a splash of water. It’d be blended until pureed. After, Wren grabbed the chicken out to let it go down to room temperature.
The marketplace close to the apartment sold ingredients more for the taste of Hispanics, so Wren was able to grab cumin there, but for most of her spices—like kashmiri chili, garam masala, cardamoms, kasuri methi—she had to drive to a local Indian market about five kilometers away.
Green chilis sat inside the fridge, awaiting Wren. Though Wren was having second thoughts. She could deseed it to make it less spicy, but she figured someone like Bellamy probably had no spice tolerance. The best she could do was to cut it up and leave it on the side.
She put the whole spices and butter in a pan and turned up the heat. Once the fragrance became noticeable, she added in the ginger garlic paste and lowered the heat.
Behind Wren, she heard Bellamy say, “Did you know Wren goes to the Culinary Institute of Insecta?”
“Oh, wow. I didn’t know that,” Luka said. “So she’s like a professional.”
Wren turned off the heat and stirred in the rest of the spices, forcing a chuckle all the while. “Yeah, right. If I was a professional, I wouldn’t be working in a tiny cafe as a prep cook.”
“Wren! You shouldn’t talk about The Cusp like that. It’s in the top fifty restaurants in all of Insecta,” Bellamy said.
“Let me guess, it’s number fifty.”
Wren poured the puree into the pan and gave it a mix while she turned the heat back on.
“I remember Ms. Danaus was happy about the fact that we were now the fiftieth.”
“Out of hundreds,” Bellamy added.
Wren scoffed. “Still nowhere near the level of the best chefs who graduated from the Institute.”
Once the sauce began bubbling, she lowered the heat and partially covered it. She set the timer to ten and turned around to see the two women staring at her. Bellamy had moved from the dining table to inches away from Wren. Luka was seated still, but her mug was empty.
Because of her time in the Institute, having a crowd watching her didn’t break her nerve. But, it felt a little awkward knowing Luka was here. Her eyes glanced at the bowl of marinated chicken. After she heard Luka might be coming over for dinner, she ended up cutting enough for three.
She would’ve never done that if it wasn’t for Bellamy. When her cousin had her little chat with Luka this morning, she returned with renewed vigor. Wren remembered her words clearly.
“I’m sorry for trying to push you to get to know my friends,” Bellamy said to Wren. “I know Ari can be… herself, but I don’t like the fact that you lump Luka in with her. I admit that I don’t know what happened between you two, and I won’t push you to talk about it if you don’t want to. But Luka has been kind to me, and she even treated me as an equal. So please don’t be too harsh on her.”
After the shit that half-Invader pulled, Wren was in a bad place—one that even Asher couldn’t pull her out of. She couldn’t help but think about Luka and what she did all those years ago. The Luka now could just be an act, waiting for the moment to strike. Even if she was clueless about the conflict between the Natives and Invaders. She was still the one who had almost killed Wren.
Those who had done it once were always capable of doing it again.
…
Wren couldn’t trust Luka… but she should try to trust her cousin. She was the reason why Wren was able to leave her mother. Not even her mother would outright deny an Apis. At least, for now.
Ringring!
It was the timer. The sauce should be ready now.
———
Wren wasn’t surprised to see Luka being the one who added in the green chilis, but she was a little glad that it got its use in the end.
Bellamy’s eyes beamed at the plating. She snapped her fingers and said, “Oh! I know this. I remember my uncle giving me this once. It’s uh… chicken tikka masala, isn’t it?”
Luka gave her an expression that was a clear “oh no…”. That was how Wren interpreted it anyway, because right now, she resisted the urge to groan. She shouldn’t be too rude to her cousin.
“No, it’s not,” Wren said. “Now eat it.”
Bellamy took a spoonful of rice, curry, and chicken. She squealed at what Wren could only assume was an explosion of taste in her mouth.
“This is really good! I like this a lot better than the tikka masala.” Bellamy turned to Luka, who was already making a dent in her food. “Have you tried this before?”
“Y-yeah, but I don’t really eat Indian food too often.”
If Wren remembered correctly, Luka once said her mom often made mapo tofu at home. Wren never tried making that before, but she‘d consider it.
Finally, she took a bite of her own cooking. It was good, but it could’ve been better if she had fried the green chilis. The same went with the chili powder. She had lessened it for her cousin’s sake. She should’ve marinated the chicken overnight. The flavor was there, just not strong enough. Her professor would’ve given this a seven out of ten, which was a barely passing grade.
Dinner passed by with Bellamy pulling conversations out of thin air. Wren didn’t mind it, since it distracted her from her own silence.
Once everyone was finished, it was Bellamy who offered to wash the dishes. Well, more like she went and did it before Wren could.
“Hey, Wren,” Luka said, sitting across from Wren. “Thanks for the hot chocolate. It was really good.”
“Yeah. Sure.”
Wren sat sideways, her elbow pressed against the table and head resting on her palm. She glanced at Luka, noting her hung head. Luka was staring at the back of her hands. They weren’t making eye contact, and Bellamy was distracted with washing the dishes, so Wren found herself staring more than she usually did.
She hadn’t realized the eye bags underneath Luka until now. Had it always been there? Did Luka just have a terrible sleep schedule, despite having morning classes?
Or…
Wren thought about the time before Luka’s rather desperate knocks on the door, when she asked Wren to walk her to school. Such a mundane task, and yet she showed the same desperate expression as she did at Bellamy’s front door.
She exhaled, letting herself sit in this moment. When she inhaled, the sharp pull in her ribs reminded her she was going to regret this. If her mother was here, she would be disappointed in her.
But she wasn’t here right now.
“What the hell is going on with you?” Wren asked.
“Hm?” Luka finally looked up. “W-what do you mean?”
“Don’t play stupid.”
Wren heard the water to the sink stop. Her cousin had finished washing the dishes. She walked over to Luka and placed her hands on her shoulders.
“I think you should tell her,” Bellamy said.
With a push from Bellamy, Luka finally spoke. She told Wren about her issue with a stalker, who had been leaving lunch boxes in front of her door step. That explained the sudden door camera, though that didn’t deter the stalker as Luka found a lunch box in her fridge today.
“So whoever this person is, they have access to your apartment,” Wren said. “And you didn’t see them entering through your front door.”
She eyed Luka, who pursed her lips. “You know what that means right? They’re going through your porch.”
“Y-you think so?”
“Do you have a third entrance that I don’t know about?”
“Luka can’t stay there anymore,” Bellamy said.
Before Bellamy could continue, Wren raised her hand to stop her. “Do you have any idea who it is?”
“Um… I’m not sure.”
“Seriously? Not even an idea?”
She clicked her tongue, which made Luka flinch. It was a clear sign for Asher, who jumped onto Luka’s lap. Luka ran her fingers through Asher’s short fur. Wren could hear the purring machine across the table.
Bellamy pouted, though it was directed at Asher’s undivided attention on his patients. Then she turned to Wren, and said, “Don’t push her, Wren. She’s been stressing a lot about this.”
Wren sighed, and got off her seat. “Whatever. It’s your mess, not mine.”
She headed to her room, and closed the door. Asher wasn’t immediately at the door yelling, so that was how she knew he was in work mode. She’d come back out once he was done. Until then, she began her workout routine.
The workout was meant to be maintenance for her body, and also a distraction, but she couldn’t help but think about Luka’s issue.
“One… two…”
When Wren moved ten years ago, she understood how gentle Locust Town was compared to the viciousness of Pachi City. The moment she stepped in that city, she became a target for all those the Vespulas had wronged. It was the first time she met her grandmother—Lantana Vespula—who made her mother seem easygoing.
Apparently, after Wren’s hospitalization, it was her grandmother who told her mother to return to Pachi City. According to her, Pachi City was the best place for a Vespula to grow up in. That it weeded out the weaklings from the strong and capable.
In a way, Lantana was right. The old Wren died in that hospital in Locust Town, and the new Wren bloomed in Pachi City.
The kids who followed her around school and destroyed her possessions or attacked her when the teachers weren’t seeing; the adults who made it their mission to harass her around the city; all cowards who would rather pick on the one not holding the power. Just like that half-Invader and the Mantina woman with a sledgehammer for an arm.
She’d dealt with people like that for so long that she hadn’t thought about how she used to be… until Luka.
“Fifteen… sixteen…”
Wren remembered how terrified she was to leave her house and have eyes with malicious intent following her everywhere. She begged her mother for them to leave Pachi City, but her mother wouldn’t budge, not when Lantana’s words were final. She cried, and cried more knowing that no one around her would pity her.
No matter how much her muscles burned through her workout or how the bruises on her abdomen stung, she couldn’t stop these thoughts.
When was Asher going to come begging to be let back in?