WHO: Sebastian Finegold + Eugenie Abler WHEN: Today WHERE: Some side street (~handwaves) WHAT: Exes run into each other. Eugenie does a brief vanishing act. WARNINGS: Brief discussion of pot chocolate, otherwise none.
She knew that she couldn’t hole up here forever, but
She knew that she would have to leave her room at some point, follow through on promised meet ups with old friends, stop using her non-existent jet lag as an excuse, although
Maybe she could be like those young men she’d read about in Japan. Hikikomori. Still, that was a fantasy. She was a runner and that helped her cover ground on her problems. She could mentally shrug them off along with her jeans, leave them in a messy pile on her bed as her sneakered feet pounded out their rhythm on the streets.
She was already feeling the itch.
It would have to be sooner or later, so why not sooner? Comfort found in that logic, she was soon taking to the streets, ponytail bouncing across her shoulders as she sprung off the sidewalk.
Sebastian, on the other hand, absolutely loved leaving the confines of his home. When in the studio apartment, he always felt like he should be doing something, whether it was work related or trying to practice new ways to use his powers. Most of the time, home felt like work, so any excuse to get away from there was normally taken with gusto.
Of course, he wasn’t expecting to see his ex-girlfriend who just rolled into town when he went out this afternoon.
For a brief moment, he actually considered climbing back in his car and pretending he was was getting ready to leave. But then he thought perhaps Eugenie had already seen him and that would just make him look like a bigger idiot than usual. Unfortunately, the only thing to do was wait until she got closer and wave when she made eye contact.
Which was exactly what Sebastian did.
“Sebastian! Hey!” She slowed down, catching him up in a hug (and silently appreciating that she hadn’t worked up too good a sweat yet). “How goes?”
He shrugged against the hug, but ultimately returned the gesture. “It goes. Taking a little break from work stuff. You?”
“Figuring out where to from here. You know.” Oh no. He did not know. No one knew, and she would do her all-time best to keep it that way. She stepped out of the hug, smiled this side of rueful. “I guess at our age I was due a quarter life crisis, you know?”
“Oh, trust me. I know,” Sebastian answered with a small snort as he pulled back from the hug. On the surface, he could have been talking about life after college, but under that he meant much more. “Coming home after college isn’t all it’s cracked up to be, but we do have that quarter life crisis to look forward to next year. So at least there is that.”
“Oh god, it’s such a let down, you know?” Eugenie empathised. “I’m going to be one of those people who never stop talking about how much better everything was where they came from. I just know it.”
And of course, there was the obvious underlying question. If Italy had been so good to her, why had she ever returned?
“Speaking of things that are better elsewhere,” she added, “we never did hear back from you on the hemp chocolate. Holly was concerned.” Well no, Holly had never expressed any such sentiment. But she’d have thought Sebastian would be all over that.
Sebastian smirked. “I may or may not know a guy who has some that will actually work. Small batch and artisanal and all that crap. Good stuff, but you can’t have too much in one sitting.”
“I’ll try to restrain myself,” she said with a mirror of his own smirk. Eugenie had never been one to partake. Though whoo boy, did it seem tempting now…
“How’s the freelancing going?”
“It’s going. Steady, but I’m not exactly tech rich or anything right now.” Perhaps once he got things under control, Sebastian could make it Tech Rich. “How are things now that you’re back in Repose for more than just a holiday?”
“Oh, they’re-” Eugenie waved her hand vaguely, then blinked in and out of sight. “They’re coming! Maybe you just need a pair of AllBirds or something. That’s part of the Silicon Valley uniform, right?”
Instead of answering, Sebastian simply stared at Eugenie, unsure of what exactly he had just seen. Well. He knew what he had seen, but he wasn’t sure if that was because of the lack of sleep or something else.
“Yeah...” Uhh. “Not really planning on buying those anytime soon.”
“Well maybe that’s the ticket.” She laid a finger alongside her nose, the universal (or near) gesture for Insider Information. “Get a pair of those, you’ll be zipping around in one of those little white buses in no time.”
This was weird, right? He was getting weird. She was being weird. She just wanted to—
No, self. Don’t vanish.
“Anyway! Better keep going before my legs lock up. I’ll see you around, right?”
“Yeah...” His brain was still trying to process what had just happened and it wasn’t doing a very good job of it at the moment. “Totally see you around.”
“It’s a plan! Bye.” She bobbed up to give him a quick kiss that landed somewhat awkwardly on his jawline (oh that was right, people didn’t do that here) before speeding away, and if nothing else, at least she had a legitimate excuse for literally running away from her ex-high school sweetheart and the mortifying turn the conversation had taken.