A Magical Bond | 16

During Cassie's first couple weeks back in San Myshuno, she and Sione only left the apartment when strictly necessary and usually alone, preferring to get to know each other more intimately than ever before behind closed doors before stepping out into the world as a bona fide couple. Finally, Sione suggested the time had come for him to take her out on a proper date. "I want to show you off!" he had exclaimed that morning in bed, absently stroking her hair while she lay drowsily against his bare chest. "That is, presuming you're planning to stick around."

She smiled up at him impishly. "I thought I might hang out for a while," she replied, a faux-blase note in her voice. "That is, presuming you aren't already sick of me."

"That's a silly presumption to make," he said and leaned in to kiss her. Even though they'd done it countless times over the past several days, the sensation still felt novel. For a long time, they'd both resigned themselves to the fact that a single awkward and one-sided teenage smooch was all they might ever have. "I know the perfect place." Later that evening, they walked to the Fashion District hand-in-hand until they reached the petal-strewn sidewalk leading into the Romance Festival. Even though the festival happened at the same time every year, it somehow felt like it'd been set up just for them.

First, they headed for the sakura tea fountain, where they generously filled up their cups with the pink-tinted liquid. According to the festival flyer, this was the beverage of choice for those seeking romance in any form. It was said to instantly boost the flirtiness of anyone who took even a single sip. "What a crock of shit," Sione remarked with a chuckle, carelessly downing his drink in one gulp.

Cassie sipped at hers more cautiously, holding the glass up close to her face to examine its contents, which seemed to glow faintly from the right angle. "I wouldn't be so sure," she warned him. "I admittedly half-assed my alchemy training, but I still know a love potion when I see one."

"Oh, please," Sione scoffed disbelievingly. "I hardly need a potion to tell me how crazy I am for you. God, you're beautiful. Come here." He grabbed her around the waist and hungrily pulled her closer, nuzzling a stubbly cheek against her neck. Cassie smiled indulgently, choosing to let him live in the fantasy that this abrupt display of intense passion was all his own doing, despite the fact that he was suddenly very obviously glowing like a light bulb.

Next, they headed to one of the international food stalls scattered across the premises. Cassie, too stubborn to simply ask for a fork instead or even resort to using her hands, held her chopsticks clumsily, stabbing ineffectually at the maddeningly slippery morsels of sushi on her plate. Sione watched her struggle with a dazed, lovestruck grin on his face. "It's amazing how adorable you look when you're angry," he mused.

She violently skewered a hunk of tuna and shoved it into her mouth. "Shut up," she muttered between bites, though she couldn't deny that she was starting to feel the effects of the sakura tea, too. If she had less control, she knew she would be falling right into the mesmerizing dark brown pools of his puppy dog eyes.

"I almost forgot," Sione said, suddenly stopping beneath a conveniently-positioned wedding arch, "I wanted to give this to you." Then he whipped out a gift box that she had no idea how he'd been keeping hidden the entire time.

Cassie glanced up at the arch suspiciously. "Please don't tell me you're proposing right now."

"God, no!" he replied quickly. Then, realizing how his immediate denial sounded, he hastened to add, "I mean, not that I wouldn't want to. Someday. In the future. Far from now. But not too far. If that's what you wanted, too."

She laughed and grabbed the present from him, putting him out of his sputtering misery. "Good. Because you clearly need time come up with a better speech."

"It's not really anything special," he muttered, feeling a sudden rush of self-consciousness as he watched her slowly lift the lid. "I just saw it and thought of you, is all. I don't even know if you'll like it..."

Nestled between several layers of tissue paper, she found a small pendant on a dainty gold chain, a moon in the center encircled by tiny stars. She lifted it out delicately, feeling its weight in her palm. It was simple but well-made and probably expensive. "It's beautiful," she said quietly. "I love it."

He plucked the necklace from her hand and came around behind her to carefully clasp it at the back of her neck. "Not as beautiful as the girl who's wearing it, of course," he told her, leaning his chin against her shoulder so that he could gaze across into her eyes. In a few hours, the tea would wear off and his soppiness would fade with it, but she thought she could get used to this side of him, so open and generous and sweet. It was a far cry from the selfish and careless Sione she'd known when they were in college.

The next morning, Sione woke up with a groggy heaviness in his body not unlike a hangover, though he couldn't remembering drinking anything other than the tea. It must've been spiked with a little something extra, he thought. Then he remembered what Cassie had said about it being a love potion and chuckled lightly to himself. He was able to suspend some disbelief when it came to magic - after all, he'd watched Cassie nearly burn his entire apartment down with his own eyes - but his rational mind had to draw a line somewhere. All he knew for sure was that they'd had a lovely night. There was even a framed photo they'd paid to have taken propped up on the shelf behind him to prove it.

By the time he'd finished scrambling some eggs, Cassie was up to share not only breakfast with him but the last lingering remnants of last night's supercharged flirtiness. "So now that we've been on a date, can I officially call you my girlfriend?" he ventured.

"I think you've earned that right. I mean, aren't we practically living like an old married couple already?"

Her assessment of their relationship wasn't exactly off-base. Very quickly, they'd settled into an easy routine with one another, as if there had never been any long period of separation between them at all and this was exactly how things had always been. This only grew truer as the days and weeks and, ultimately, months passed. Aside from Sione's work hours, they spent every single moment together. They "walked" their pets together, which really meant Sione walked Cosmo while Inkblot, who refused to let her paws be roughened by the city concrete, was devotedly carried around in Cassie's arms like a queen.

They went to the gym together, where Sione agreed to attend yoga classes simply to make Cassie happy, even though sitting hunched over a computer so many hours a day at work was hardly doing his body any favors and every time they switched into a new pretzel-like position, it felt like a mild form of torture.

At least he could always use these torturous yoga sessions as leverage later to rope Cassie into indulging him by serving as his gaming opponent for an hour or two, even though she moaned and groaned about what a wasteful time-suck it was every time.

Of course, despite her supposed disdain for gaming, she was ruthlessly competitive and, half the time, ended up goading him into extra play time so that she could pinpoint the perfect moment to take advantage of his weaknesses and wind up beating him despite her lack of experience. He was a sore loser, convinced the only way she had possibly beat him was by cheating. "Come on! There's no way you could've won that one! I know you're using that mysterious black magic of yours to get ahead!"

"Aw, poor baby," she always taunted him back. "You're so embarrassed to admit when you've been bested you have to fabricate a total fantasy to make yourself feel better."

On weekends, they often made plans with Sione's parents, who weren't shy about admitting they were totally banking on a future where the two of them would be together forever. In their eyes, it was a foregone conclusion and no other outcome seemed remotely plausible. As much as Sione and Cassie hoped they were right, they tried their best to temper his parents' expectations.

One Saturday morning, Nani insisted they accompany her to the flea market to scope out rock-bottom bargains on some gently-used furnishings. "We both know Sione hasn't exactly got a flair for interior design," she told Cassie, in plain earshot of her son. "I thought you might like to find some things that better fit your own style, you know, make the place feel more like home."

Cassie smiled back at her patiently. "I appreciate the thought, but it's not like we're going to be living there for the rest of our lives. I don't see much point in going all in on the decorating when we could be saving that money towards a down payment on a house instead. Hell, we might not even decide to stay in the city!"

"What?" Sione exclaimed, his eyes widening in surprise. "You don't want to live in the city?"

Cassie shrugged noncommittally. "Is that so unbelievable? Once the skyscrapers and subway trains are out of sight, you'd be astonished how quickly your mind clears. The countryside is so peaceful! It's the perfect place to raise a family... if that's what we decide we want to do, of course."

"Sounds like you two have some wrinkles to iron out in your plans for the future," Nani said, wiggling her eyebrows meaningfully. She gestured toward an unoccupied bubble blower in the corner. "Isn't this how the kids get loose these days? I'll leave you to hash it out while I go haggle for a lampshade or whatever it is us boring adults are into."

Sione laughed, rolling his eyes at his mom's over-the-top sarcasm. He glanced at Cassie, who was already fiddling with one of the contraption's hoses, pulling it experimentally to her mouth. "Do you really want to talk about any of that stuff right now - money, kids, real estate?"

"Fuck, no," she exclaimed immediately, taking a generous hit and moments later releasing a chain of perfectly-formed bubbles from between her lips. She giggle-coughed and then went back for another lungful of the stuff. "That's all, like, a million years away."

"A million, really?" he asked, feeling slightly crestfallen.

"Well, maybe not quite," she replied drowsily, "if you play your cards right..."

"Damn, this stuff is good," she murmured and then, before either of them could get another word out, she dozed off under the narcotic effects of whatever mysterious elixir she had ingested. Sione was too on-edge to touch the stuff himself. She was obviously exaggerating, but did their future together actually feel that impossibly distant to her? In his mind, it had already begun, and he'd assumed she felt the same. But now he worried she was only partly invested, one foot in and the other foot out the door. The moment things grew too routine, would she run off on her next adventure without him? He had to come up with some grand romantic gesture - spontaneous, daring - to prove he was worth sticking around for.

A few nights later, after a fancy dinner date, they found themselves on the roof of the Myshuno Meadows Museum, one of the few places in the city that could accurately be described as intimate, far above the bustling sidewalks. "The view of the sunset is beautiful," Cassie remarked quietly as she took in the shifting pink, purple, and blue hues of the skyline. "But, surely, that's not the only reason you dragged me all the way up here."

He offered a tight-lipped smile in return, revealing nothing. "Just wait," he said cryptically. "Any minute now..."

All of a sudden, a massive firework exploded over their heads, bright and loud, its echoing boom seeming to carry across the entire city. For the next several minutes, a dazzling light show followed. They watched together in awed silence, holding hands as they craned their necks to the sky. It wasn't yet the miraculous spectacle of perfect romanticism he'd been silently brainstorming for days, but it served as a more than adequate prelude to whatever grand scheme he hoped he would eventually concoct.

As the sky darkened, the fireworks became even more vividly illuminated and the mood grew almost unbearably sensual. Cassie glanced toward the observatory tucked into the corner of the roof and whistled appreciatively. "Up for some stargazing?" But she didn't even give Sione a chance to respond before tugging on his arm and all but dragging him into its pitch black interior. Soon, they were busy making their own fireworks, flawlessly timed to the light show's grand finale.

Although Cassie and Sione had easily slid into peaceful cohabitation, Inkblot and Cosmo were slower to warm up to one another. Each of them had grown accustomed to being the only pet in their respective owners' lives. In other words, they'd been coddled and spoiled rotten for too long. They hardly knew what to do with themselves now that they'd been abrubtly forced to share the spotlight. "Come on, guys!" Cassie exclaimed, gesturing at the abstract painting of them she'd been recently working on. "Look at how much fun you could be having! You should consider yourselves lucky. Sometimes I wish I would've had a sibling growing up!"

It took a few more days, but one morning she finally caught them in the act of play-sparring, swiping and leaping at each other while trading friendly barks and meows. Maybe they would grow to love one another after all.

As the weeks continued to fly by, Cassie began to feel like she was getting the hang of city living again. At any rate, it was far easier to sell her paintings here than it was on the quaint, sleepy sidewalks of Old Windenburg and in Glimmerbrook's even quainter, even sleepier village square. For one thing, there were about 10 times as many people milling about at any given time on any given day. For another thing, a reasonable percentage of those people had actual disposable income to spare on frivolous things like art. There were enough eccentric rich weirdos constantly in search of the Next Big Thing and desperate to be able to say they were the first to discover it for her to pocket a decent chunk of change. There was no harm in exaggerating her potential for a few extra bucks, even if she only saw herself as a hobbyist at best.

As much as she appreciated some aspects of the city, others left something to be desired. She missed the unpolluted air, wide open spaces, and abundant flora and fauna of the countryside. The closest thing to wildlife that existed in San Myshuno were the filthy, oversized rats that infested the subway stations and occasionally scurried out into the broad light of day. She could spend as much time as she wanted at the waterfront with her fishing pole, but no matter how many times she cast and recast her line, there was nothing to catch besides sickly-looking minnows and tangled clumps of trash. She tried to ignore the encroaching restlessness, but she could feel it in her bones that she couldn't stay here forever, not even for Sione. She needed the freedom of forests and fields for her own sanity.

Meanwhile, Sione found himself putting down deeper roots in San Myshuno every day, especially as his boss called him into her office one afternoon to offer him an unexpected promotion that came with both a fancy new job title and a significant raise. When he'd first started the job, he'd told himself it was only a stepping stone to something bigger and brighter, but now he could see himself sticking around for the long haul. It may not be the most buzzworthy tech company on the block, but it had a healthy environment, good benefits, and the potential for further upward growth. What else did he need? Stability mattered more than adding impressive entries to his resume, especially if he had a potential future family to consider.

Sione couldn't wait to rush home and tell Cassie about his promotion. He expected her to be as thrilled as he was, but though she offered her congratulations and said she was happy for him, he couldn't help but notice that her enthusiasm level seemed disappointingly low. All through the rest of dinner, she said little and barely ate, just stared silently down into her bowl and pushed the noodles around with her chopsticks listlessly.

Her abruptly melancholy demeanor made Sione nervous, but he didn't dare ask what was wrong. He wasn't ready to burst the bubble of total bliss they'd been living in for months now. He knew it was unrealistic to expect their relationship to be all peaks; the valleys would have to come eventually, and the real test of their commitment to each other would be in whether or not they could navigate those lows successfully and come out stronger on the other side. But, for now, all he wanted was to celebrate his promotion in the most uncomplicated way possible. Cosmo barreled into the kitchen, scrambling up onto his hind legs to beg for scraps. "You're happy for your old man, aren't you, buddy?" Sione asked, crouching down to give his head a scratch. "Of course you are! After all, it means I'll be able to buy you all the treats and toys your heart desires!"

Later, Cassie joined Sione on the bed as he was peeling off his work clothes. She flashed a tentative smile and placed her hands on his permanently hunched shoulders. "I'm sorry for reacting so weirdly to your news earlier," she began, her fingers gently kneading the knots out of his muscles. "I'm proud of you, I really am. It's just... everything seems to be going so well for you here. You have a job and family and friends. But it's not home to me like it is for you, and I'm not sure it ever will be. I don't want you to feel forced to choose between me and everything else you love."

Sione sighed and reached up to squeeze her fingers. "That's not how I feel at all," he insisted. "It's not that I'm opposed to moving. There are things about the city that bother me, too, you know? But it's a big conversation and an even bigger decision. It's a little bit intimidating to think about."

"Don't you know I'm scared shitless about the future, too? We don't have to decide today or tomorrow or even the next day. But we also can't hide from the parts of being a couple that scare us forever."

"At least we'll be scared together." Out of the corner of his eye, he glimpsed her most recent painting. It was a landscape piece, a seaside beach house surrounded on one side by tall pines and on the other by a swath of endless blue. "That does look pretty relaxing," he said, nodding his head toward the canvas. "Maybe we could plan a weekend trip to Windenburg soon. No pressure, no big plans, just a fun little getaway. You can show me everything you like so much about the place." Despite the casualness of his suggestion, the wheels were already turning in his brain: that grand romantic gesture might finally be brewing.