"Oh, come on!" laughed Jess, pulling the platter black towards himself with one hand, his half guzzled drink still clutched tight in the other. "Who are we kidding? We're still as childish as we used to be. And if anything, this meeting here in itself should be testament enough to that."
"Not to mention the subject matter," said Becka with a smile, glancing across all the other faces around the table. Maintaining her dark and enticing smile, she looked again to Ryan who still looked, unflinching, at her. "So what do you think?" She asked again. "It'll be just like the old days. Costumes and candy, tricks and games."
"And Becka already has some things in mind!" Ming-Yuu chirped up, proud of the fact that there was something about her best friend that she knew before all the others.
Everyone else exchanged glances for a moment before they all shift their sights to Becka, looking at her puzzled as she toyed with the rim of her glass, her long, painted nail gently dancing along its edge. She nodded, a faint twinge of rouge to her cheeks as she kept her eyes lowered, that little bit of shyness from her youth finally peeking through.
Of course, being that Becka and Ming-Yuu had practically been born on the same night and their mothers best friends even before their two were a thought, it was written in their fate, as Becka would have said it, that the two of them be BFF's for all times. And they liked that. It was the thing that made the two of them unique in the group, rather than their simply being labeled as the "cute chick" and the "ditz." This was why Ming-Yuu had been so adamant about transferring to Becka's college when she had found she could take the same classes there as she'd already been taking elsewhere.
Though, there were other reasons, too, reasons that neither of them spoke of, much less anyone else in the clique. It was why they'd all drifted apart those few weeks before graduation, and the reason why they'd all but lost each other until just recently.
"Liric," Ryan murmured beneath his breath, his eyes still locked hard onto Becka's face who only nodded solemnly as he spoke the name aloud.
Everyone fell silent at that, as if death had touched them all in that instant, rendering them motionless and without a voice. All eyes seemed to avert then, as if there was a sudden wave of embarrassment or shame that had overwhelmed them all. Ryan could sense it, the pain and the grief and the sorrow—so thick it could be cut with a knife.
"So I wasn't the only one thinking of Liric," he said aloud, his narrowed eyes watched them all shiver at the mention of her name. Just how long had it been since it all had happened? He couldn't quite recall. But he could feel the pain of it, still, as if it had only happened yesterday. "I'm not ashamed to say that I've been thinking of her, and none of you should feel ashamed either." Looking again to Becka, he waited until she finally raised her eyes to meet with his at long last, blinking slowly, trying to avert them again. Though her efforts were to no avail.
Instead she pursed her dark lips, nodding in the hopes that it would bring him to break his hold on her. Her own cross to bear was being reveled, and she could feel it. Like a great and unseen burden that was being lifted from her shoulders she could feel it, and she breathed in deep, as if she hadn't breathed in years. It was why she'd went away, why they'd all gone their separate ways and had stayed away for so long. She knew it, Ryan knew it, and the both of them were ready to confess to it. "It's why I wanted to do this," she confessed at long last, turning the glass around slowly atop the table, her eyes still locked with Ryan's. "Liric always liked those half-assed parties we threw together. All the games, the childish antics. It was her Christmas, to say the least." Taking another breath, Becka forced a smile, turning to look at long last to Ming-Yuu, who sat now nibbling at her lip. But it was only as Becka offered to her a reassuring smile that Ming-Yuu returned the gesture. "For years we'd just forgotten about the one thing we all used to love doing together. The one thing that gave us more joy than shopping sprees and weekend clubbing."
Everyone started to smile at that, save for Ryan, his expression still dour.
"I just couldn't go another year without doing what we all used to do, not because of something so stupid--!" The words had escaped her before she could think them, and she quieted herself before going on, giving herself time to think and gather before going on any further. With her hand she raised from her lap, she gave a surrendering wave, wordlessly asking them to forgive how her words had come out. "Not to say that what happened to Liric was stupid—though, in my opinion it was... I just--," Pausing again she breathed and offered another smile, dark strands falling into her face as she'd given a shake of her head. "I just think it tragic that we've stopped doing what we all loved to do together. I just think that we should make do with what we have and be narcissistically nostalgic for a time; even if only for a night. I even have ideas—things that I've been studying--,"
Ryan listened as Becka went on, recalling what all Ming-Yuu had told him only a few days prior when she had tracked him down at long last to talk to him. She'd confessed to him then and there her other reasons for transferring mid-semester as she had, and what all Becka had gotten her into once she was there and settled. She confessed how she'd seen, back in high-school, the way Becka had, in an instant, been entranced by this new little clique in school, one that none of them had really paid much attention to before the accident. How they had called themselves a coven, though, to Ming-Yuu, she had thought nothing more of them then than just another clique spouting poetry that they referred to as spells and incantations, and speaking of mixtures and concoctions that they called potions and the like. She confided in him that she hadn't thought much of them then, an had told herself that it was nothing more than a comfort and that Becka would be out of it just as quick as she was in once she was past her initial state of mourning.
Of course, that wasn't the case, and the more that she'd dismissed it, refusing to tell the rest of their little clique about it, the deeper Becka seemed to fall into it, completely romanced by the idea of casting spells and summoning lost souls. And it wasn't until she had gotten a call from Becka some time down the road that she, herself, was found falling head-long into the thrall of it, sitting in with the others that Becka had fallowed into the off-beat college of art and the study of self. She had gone in worried for a friend, and was now a part of something that she still didn't quite understand. And it scared her.
Even now Ryan could see it on her face, the worry over Becka and what all was being taken into consideration. And frankly he had to agree with the concern that she had expressed, believing right along with Ming-Yuu that it was all just—too far fetched to even attempt, at least from what little Ming-Yuu knew. And he watched her as she nibbled more and more at her lip, a nervous habit that she had had for as long as he had known her; a vice that she had clearly never been able to shake. "If ever there was a telling sign of nervousness..." commented Ryan, a statement that caused Ming-Yuu to look up at him with wide eyes, blushing.
"So what is this thing in mind?" asked David, popping another sauce-drenched chip into his mouth. He laughed. "What are ya planning, a séance or somethin'?" he joked, taking a gulp of his drink.
To this, Becka gave a solemn and simple nod, to which everyone at the table fell silent as they all looked to her in puzzled why-wonder, unbelieving of what they were—or weren't hearing.
"You're kidding?" laughed Jess, a ring of nervousness in his tone, unsure if the joke was on him, or the group of them as a whole, played on Becka's behalf. His eyes narrowed, his looked to David, then to Becka, searching her face for any sign of jest or sarcasm. "Really, Becka--," He laughed out loud again, more boisterous this time than before as he leaned back where he sat in the booth. He was speechless, shocked, unsure of what next he should or could say that would stand as acceptable amongst them. He didn't want to fall into the joke, if a joke was what it was. Likewise, he didn't want to laugh in her face, if seriously was how she wanted to be taken. Shaking his head, fallen back as he was, able to survey each and all of their faces from the way he sat, arms crossed secure across his chest, Jess waited for someone else to step in and save his ass from complete and utter embarrassment.
"I really think that we could" spoke Becka, her eyes cast out of the window and to the lights of the city night. "At least, I think that we could try. I mean, not so much as a séance, but something like it." She smiled softly, turning again to look to Ryan, offering to him a smile that he understood better than anyone else. "You know, something for old times sake."
Scoffing, Ryan glanced away, opting to say nothing rather than anything.
Glancing between Ryan and Becka, Ming-Yuu tapped a dark, manicured nail upon the surface of the table, speaking her thoughts out loud as she thought them. "I don't think that it would be all that smart... Not with so many of us unsure of what we're doing. I mean, there are only two of us who've really looked into anything even remotely close to what you're asking here."
"You've looked into this too!?" said Ryan, his eyes a light with shock or frustration as he fixed his attention now on the other girl.
Ming-Yuu took to biting at her lip again, casting her eyes to the side. "A—a little..."
"You said yourself that it's nothing to be ashamed of!" Becka barked back in defense of Ming-Yuu. "At least we're trying to cope outwardly with the way that we're feeling rather than suffering on the inside and letting it eat us alive from the inside out!"
"Becka, chill..." started David, holding up his hands as if in surrender. He forced himself to laugh then, hoping to lighten the mood. "Let's—just think this all through, okay? I mean, we all came together for a reason. It being the first of the month and all. I mean, what else were we going to do on an October first meeting, play Scrabble? Really, guys, we've all been thinking the same thing, bringing our old ways back one way or another, be it spiritually or—spiritually..." he stammered.
"You mean figuratively, Dave..."commented Jess with a bit of a laugh. This bringing all the others to, at least, crack a smile. "All those years of college education, and you can't even form a proper thought."
To this, David scoffed, shaking up his drink a bit from where the ice had melted and settled. "You're a fine one to talk, Keg-King..."
"Two years running!" stated Jess, proudly puffing out his chest.
Everyone laughed, the mood finally lightened.
With all of them settled back into a light-hearted mood, they began to throw out rough ideas and the like for their party in the making. The when's and the where's, what all they were going to do and how they were going to go about doing it. And for the first time in as many years as they could hold in a single hand, it was like old times all over again
For hours, it seemed, they went on, talking of old times and speaking of good ideas and party themes past. How, way back when, they often found themselves doing the 'anti-party' thing, trolling around the neighborhood and the like, most of their parents kind of iffy for their being out on a night when strangers gave out candy laced with sweets of another kind; the kind of night that Becka's mother tended to refer to as a "pedophiles dream." And so they'd pick a house belonging to one of them and bunker down for the night, trick-or-treating when they were younger, and as they got older, dancing and passing out the candy. However, no matter which, the number one rule remained the same: costumes were a must!
"So what should the theme be for this year?" Asked Jess, toying with the think paper wrapping from his straw with one hand as the other reached up to flag over the nearest waitress. "I mean, if we're gonna' have a theme amongst us, then we better make it good, and we better make it quick. We've only got like—thirty days, after all."
"Thirty days is plenty!" chirped Ming-Yuu with a smile; and David agreed. "I mean, I'd feel insulted if you guys didn't let me work my magic on the costumes we're all going to wear."
"Yeah!" Becka laughed. "I mean, she hasn't been studying fashion design and taking home-ec in middle school for nothing." Both girls giggled. "And I think it would be great, to test out her skills and see what she's learned in our absence."
"Mint Julep," David said to the waitress as she looked to him for his order before turning his attentions back to everyone else. "And as long as I was in the drama department, and the years after of studying photography and film-design, I think you guys should give me a little more credit with my makeup-magic ways."
"Yes, of course, great Max Factor god!" joked Ryan, dramatically bowing to the false idol. "How could we ever forget? You only rubbed it in our faces every year in high school just how much of a genius you
thought
yourself to be!"
Embarrassed before the waitress, David coughed and scratched his brow. "Yeah, well..." he stammered, unsure of how to recover.
"Yeah, but we still love you." Commented Ming-Yuu as she leaned across the table, placing a kiss to his cheek, sending everyone else into whistles and taunting cheers. With a bounce she flopped herself back down into the seat as she looked over the page of scratch in Becka's notebook that they had all been contributing ideas to. "But no matter the talent we all have between us, we still don't have a theme."
"And the theme's the most important thing," Jess pointed out before looking to the waitress to place his order. "Black Devil."
Becka arched a brow as Jess had placed his order, a quieted laugh escaping her as she looked up to the waitress, her voice escaping her throat in a velvet-rich and raspy tone. "Black Magic."
