hexes for exes

chapter seventeen, detente

"IT WORKED," REMIEL murmured as they left the restaurant and headed into the car. "See? My gik jeung fa works."

"Your method sucks."

"Yet it worked."

"We're still not friends," Livia said, eyeing her cousin warily. "We just don't want to kill each other the moment we see the other, that's all."

"That's one step closer to friendship then you were before."

"Why are you so insistent on this?"

"To make your life easier," Remiel said with a shrug. "Like, it'll be way easier to be friends with him at university then to have to actively avoid him. That, and my own selfishness. I just don't want to see you two like this."

Livia glared at her cousin for a while. "You've screwed me, Remiel."

Remiel rolled her eyes. "Oh please. Zeth said you two seemed to be getting along fine."

"He didn't even see us talk."

"He knows you two better than anyone else in the world. If he says you two are getting along fine, you two are getting along fine."

"That's just not how it works," Livia said earnestly. "Like, just no."

"You don't get to decide how it works."

Livia did not bother arguing, simply got into the driver's seat. "I'm driving back, fuck you."

"Had no intention of driving on this return trip anyways," Remiel said mildly. "Back to the Wong house we go!"

And so they did. Everyone was still awake at home, of course. Auntie Xu had only just left them for the night, and the two girls were immediately greeted with some leftovers from their family's dinner, despite their protests that they were already all extremely full from their meal with the twins. The word full did not exist in the vocabulary of Chinese parents. In their eyes, their children could never be too stuffed, only not stuffed enough. There was always a way to force food down.

But because the pork actually looked delicious, Livia had some reheated and enjoyed an after-dinner meal anyways. It was absolutely scrumptious, and Livia could not wait to properly enjoy it the next day.

Pamela encountered her as Livia made her way upstairs (Remiel had gone up earlier, leaving Livia to do the dishes). "How was it?" she asked, raising a brow. "I heard you went to eat with the Calvert-Egerton twins." Pamela knew that Livia had already made up with Zeth, of course. She was asking about Amphion, and Amphion only.

"We talked," Livia said curtly, leading Pamela towards her bedroom so that no one could overhear anything. She hadn't told Remiel everything about the conversation, and she wanted the rest of her family to know even less. After the door had shut behind them, Livia continued, "We're on talking terms now, but not friends, if you get what I mean."

"You didn't argue?" Pamela asked curiously.

"Not when we actually talked," Livia confirmed. "But before that, a few jabs were thrown. As expected, you know."

"Of course, of course." Pamela nodded understandably. "But you're okay now?"

Livia tilted her head, thinking. "I wouldn't say okay... but it's an improvement."

"He didn't apologise."

"He was quite insistent that it was both of our problem."

"It is," Pamela murmured, "but his problem bigger than yours, I think."