How did the Christmas shopping go for you this year? Did you bring a friend or go alone? Who do you be-gift? Or did you not need to buy presents because you don’t celebrate Christmas? What about Secret Santa events organised by Whitebridge U? Did you join?
Bisi is the kind of person to buy Christmas gifts all year. When people mention certain things they’d like, he gets them right away and then waits for the next gift-giving occasion.
On top of that, this year he organised and participated in Whitebirdge’s Secret Santa event. So he did buy a few things here and there, but due to not being at Whitebridge anymore after Thanks Giving (he never came back after visiting Hana’s parents in Maine), he probably will give them to people in January when he’s back.
Do you know how to play tunes? Would you want to learn something new?
Bisi plays a couple of instruments, yes, but he’s not greater than average on any of them. Most of them he learnt on a whim or because they were on his Spoon List. However, if he wanted to get very skilled at one, he’d most likely ask Hawk to help him. Hawk’s traits: Perceiving, skilled, relentless and sharp-tongued show that they wouldn’t let Bisi get off the hook. They’d teach him until he’s getting better, perhaps even perfect, as I assume they’re not someone to just let him give up. Bisi could benefit a lot from that.
Planning to go see Hana’s parents over the holidays, Bisi wants to dress as normal as possible. This is his definition of toned-down.
The bag and the shoes are probably some designer stuff, and the jump suit mostly looks like pants while he has his hoodie on top. As he’s not so big on Christmas, he wouldn’t dress up festively, except if Hana asked it of him. He will however dress up warm, as he’s definitely not used to really cold winters. Not depicted in this picture are therefore the blankets in which he will be wrapped into for most of the holidays.
Which other skeleton would your muse call before an exam or a job interview? Who would they ask to drive them, or to drink a tea with afterwards to calm their nerves?
Someone he trusts. Someone from the Volière, as there’s not really anyone else in the whole world he’d trust in his most vulnerable state. Someone who isn’t anxious themself and wouldn’t talk down to him. Someone who’s quiet themselves with clarity in their head. Someone who would understand and help without being all over him and giving him no air to breathe. So I’d say Swallow.
How deep into Christmas are you? Are you excited? Will you care?
Bisi used to love Christmas sooo much! But since he found out about his fathers’ lies, he’s not so eager for this family holiday to come around anymore. Especially this year, with all the new secrets being unveiled to him, he definitely doesn’t want to go home. The plan is to snatch a Bird and go to Ireland, somewhere far away from home.
Modern, clean, impersonal, perfect. So perfect. Way too perfect. Bisi let out a chuckle and shook his head. “Where do I start? There’s so much to say!”
And so much to veil. As long as the questions remained broad, his answers would, too. Bisi was known to babble a lot, to share almost everything about him. It kept most people from even realising that there was so much he didn’t speak of.
“My fathers were both in Yale, Papa being one of the youngest Yale Daily News Editors in Chief ever, if I remember right.”
Of course he was remembering this right. He had listened to his fathers’ story over and over again.
“They met on Papa’s first day there, you know. Dad was the President of the newspaper and not really a fan of Papa joining, considering that he was not only young but also a scholar. Dad doubted that Papa would be able to handle the amount of work required, while simultaneously keeping up with his classes. He even tried to sabotage him more than once, can you believe?”
Bisi laughed, just like his fathers always did when they told the story.
“But eventually he found himself charmed by Papa and even helped him with his campaign to become Editor in Chief. Isn’t that sweet?”
They had lost sight of each other after his Dad, Thomas Larson, had left Yale, meeting again only six years later at a random press conference, employed by rivalling newspapers. Hitting it off immediately again, this time with more than just amicable feeling involved, they decided to move together, and because this required for at least one of them to quit their job to move across the country, they decided to both give up their jobs and start a whole new newspaper: The Honey Daily News. The internet had started becoming more popular then, and seeing its potential, his Papa, Damien Rochester, suggested to make their newspaper an exclusive and mostly anonymous online-accessible portal for the high society of the East Coast. He kept right.
“They’ve been together ever since, building their business with great success. Though, one thing missed to make their lives perfect: me. It was adoption, obviously, but they always called me a love child. Isn’t that precious?”
What a perfect story.
If only it was true.
He never ever wanted to believe lies ever again.
“How often do you go home to visit them?”
“Way too rarely,” Bisi laughed.
Never, would’ve been the appropriate answer. And why would he? They had a broad enough audience, they didn’t need him to listen to their stories, too. Sure, they kept calling to ask him if he was going to join them for Thanks Giving, or at least Christmas, but Bisi swiped their names on his phone away, ignoring them blatantly.
His sounded so light and cheerful now, though. “I’m just always so busy, you know! This Thanks Giving I’m going to my friend’s dinner party, and then right afterwards, I go to another’s friends place. She wants me to meet her horses. Insane, huh? I guess next year is still a year to celebrate with my fathers. I’ll send them a card, though!”
He really would. After all, he was perhaps being silent about certain parts of the truth, but he definitely didn’t speak lies.
He never wanted to become like them.
In a way, he feared that he already was too much like them.
“Virgil says something about sleep being death’s brother,” Sylv mused idly, taking the fork. She speared another strawberry, “If I ever stop, consider me to be finished.” The brunette chewed the fruit, considering the question. “Likely, but I don’t think my reputation begins and ends with my loyalty to an engagement with an eye glasses company.”
“Hmm, sounds like this Virgil dude and I need to hang out some day. We already share at least one ideal,” Bisi said, surprisingly deadpan for how he usually cracked up at his own jokes. “What do we do when you’re finished? Donate you to a charity or hang you up in a museum?” Cutting a piece of his pancake, he glanced at her, stuffing the bite into his mouth as he thought whether to ask or if she’d offer by herself. “Nah, it probably won’t. If anything, making yourself rare makes you more of a myth and legend.”
her eyes closed when he kissed her temple and they didn’t easily reopen. she was warm and with timer blaring the completion of their lunch she had no pressing to move. “everything is lighter and shaken off.” less stresses crammed within their cage, less bullets flying around inside of it. hana nodded. “fluttering about like i always do.” she had her days, she always had grounded days as much as she had airborne days. both came and went in alternation, sometimes by the week, sometimes the day, sometimes the hour or minute. he drew her to his eyes and she felt the brush of his nose, heard the question. “i don’t like the word bound. bound is the opposite of free. it’s a useless and unneeded word.” live and let live; do what you want and need on your own conviction without that useless word. “still sounds free, yes, in theory if what you want is to not have what you want then…” yes, naturally. and with that the timer sounded.
“i want to suffer, and i want to be happy about it.” hana jests, kissing his forehead before she flew from the blankets and went slowly to get the timer off.
“I’m glad,” Bisi hummed, combing his fingers through her gently, watching her as she spoke. He’d have loved to hear her explain all of it; so many things in his life still needed explaining, but the alarm rang, and before he knew, she’d slipped away. His hand fell to the pillows beneath, and for a moment he lay still, looking at the high ceiling in silence. There was a joke and a kiss, but he barely paid attention to either. In the cold her absence left, a heavy thought settled in, and while it would take Bisi a few weeks to figure it out, he knew then already that he’d not get around to confront it eventually.
“You still owe me one jump,” he said, as he finally followed Hana into the kitchen, smirking a little.
she nodded her head, deciding to let herself relax a little. she was sore and tired, but why not play along? why not see if he’ll respect the rules she gives. she’ll respect his, she always respected rules, even if she was finding loopholes she still did what she wanted to do, without really breaking rules. she followed them, but also never crossed them just stayed right on that line that people thought she might cross. so she listened to his rules, eyes looking to the front of them, and then behind them, to the side of them, and then looking back to jess. “okay, so rule four: we’re only allowed to go north.” she says, pulling out her phone, checking on it, before looking at jess once more a soft smile playing on her face. “rule five: we can only drive in the left lane, “ she says smiling softly at him before thinking of the next rule. “rule six: you have to lose the car behind us. it’s been following us for the last twenty minutes.” she tells him, looking out the mirror once more to see that same car that she knew oh so well.
“so you’ve never done a road trip before?” she asks him, before nodding her head as she listens closely to what he is saying. “what if its been awhile since you did something, and you forget you’ve already done it?” she asks, before she was frowning softly at his next question. “my life is an adventure in itself.” she tells him, smiling softy at him, before she was looking out the front window and then back to him. “i’ve always wanted to learn to fly.” she says shrugging her shoulders. “think it would be pretty cool to fly a plane, don’t you?”
“A’ight!” Bisi laughed. They were already headed north, so he shifted the gears, pulled over to the left lane, and then did what he was best at: speeding. There was no greater feeling than leaving your soul behind while your body rushed forward so fast, too fast. “Rule number seven: We have to stop at at least seven gas stations and buy a treat we’ve never tried before. And rule number eight, we can’t stay at a motel or hotel. It has to be a bed and breakfast, or a private location.” Eight was such an ugly number. He looked at her. “You can make up the last rule.”
“Not with you, no.” People, too, were adventures. He chuckled at the next question. “Do you often forget the stuff you’ve already tried?” he asked, teasing a little. When she said the thing with the plane, his smile turned into a grin, before it turned very soft. Ah, he had just figured out something very big, and very beautiful. This was going to be fun. “It would be, yeah,” he said, smiling softly still. “Where you would fly to?”
her and bisi were opposites more than she thought they realized at times. it amazed her when she saw the proof of it unfolding or heard it like now unraveling in his words. it pulled her eyes closed and brought a small smile to her face, closeness and warmth and the blankets, the presence of a friend and the presence of pillows. his presence poked at times through grayer clouds but that was the thing with gray clouds wasn’t it? there was still blue behind them or a sky full of stars. her mind followed the paths his fingers chose and her eyes stayed on his, smaller hand running up to brush his hair off of his forehead before she let out a content sigh. “see and i….would have told that in the opposite way a little bit. reverse those roles from a mental and emotional perspective and see if you can see the ways it makes sense that reversed too.” she admits, her smile spreading a little more. “i love how perspective is like that.” she did, so much she loved how two people different and yet similar in the same scene could see things so differently. bisi was more active in his adventures yes, moving and moving, road trips and day trip and night trips and the world and hana less so, content where she was and happy, while it was her mind that soared on adventures instead of her body so much, her mind that pulled apart her classes or explored a relationship or thought about getting a job at seven places just to say she did had seven different folders of trade open in her mind at once, one for every day of the week. “a seed planted grows up, roots need the soil sometimes. going places physically…doesn’t always mean going places mentally or emotionally i suppose. i’m not missing or losing anything i don’t think, no regrets so that has to be a good thing.” or something like that, she realized she wasn’t putting her entirety of talent into this explanation. “i feel more like….there’s as many places to go that don’t require me to fly right now, and yet still i’m flying. it’s….hard to explain.” she mutters, meeting his eyes with a soft smile, admitting it was hard to explain. “a person can go so many places and do so many things but…at the end of the day you’re happy right? you feel whole? safe? like you’re flying or like you’re shooting up with a rubber band wrapped around you that’s going to snap you right back down? slow stretches can be a good thing.” she meant ‘you’ in the general sense, not bisi directly or herself. her lips pressed to his forehead and she hugged him close, comfortable and now possibly dreading the sound of the timer for that very reason; she would have to get up. “the world is always scared of something that it can’t contain or control.” hana points out in hindsight. “i know i need myself, but i also have myself. needing someone else isn’t a bad thing. doesn’t even have to be a need but first a want; a want is what can form the strongest of needs. it’s possible to find someone who doesn’t change the things you need and want for yourself but wants to witness those things with you, the same way you want to witness their things.” a soft smile spread on her lips and she let her eyes close. “i’m more free than people realize. it’s a large error to think i might not be.” her lips pressed to his shoulder and she lifted her head only a little bit to see that he was snuggled in the blanket good enough. “not being bound to anything you don’t want to be bound to, that’s free, right.”
“I never said it’s a story of the presence,” Bisi smiled, gently. “Perhaps it’s only the first half of the story, and you need to tell me how it ended.” In a way, Hana then did. Everything she said sounded like the continuation of his story, and he pressed a kiss to her temple. “Are you flying again, Hana-Sun?” he asked, because he remembered how only a month ago, she had struggled with her wings, with the weight on them making it hard to fly, with the responsibilities tying her to the ground. When she lifted her head, his hand drove into her hair, drew her face closer to his to look into her eyes. “That’s free, yes.” He let his nose brush against her. “What about ... not being bound to what you want to be bound to? Is that being free too?”
Not all dreams have to stay dreams. His hand gripped the steering wheel a little tighter, and then he released one to shift gear. The car took speed again. “A proper map?” he chuckled, for now ignoring the answer that Bisi had given him. “Do they even still print them?” He shook his head, “but, no thanks. I’m good. Worst of it we get lost in some town in Maryland.” He shrugged as if it was just a minor thing.
For a little while he said nothing else, finishing his sandwich instead and minding the road. He would slow down in those parts where it was more likely to run into police cars, and then he’d pick up speed again as soon as they were safe to go. They lost the exit for Baltimore and now the signed warned that by keep going they would leave the state. “So is that your dream?” he asked, then. “Getting Starbucks and companies like that to go green?”
Oliver didn’t react to what he’d said, but for many reasons, Bisi thought it was the most elegant way to let this conversation run out. There was nothing to say to all this, not really. It wasn’t something you said for an argument, or for an exploration of the topic. It was something you said because you knew it would settle into the other person’s mind, into their skin. It would resurface when time would come, Bisi knew that, just like he knew that Oliver was well aware enough of it too.
“They do,” he chuckled. “And it can be quite useful. You never know when you run out of net or bat or something.” It surely wasn’t a scenario Bisi was a stranger to. But it was just like Oliver said. In the worst case, they’d get lost in Maryland. Or ... whatever state Oliver was driving them to. In silence but not in indifference, Bisi watched. The chai was soon finished, so was the sandwich and cupcake, and their wrappers and the infamous paper cup were tossed to the back seats to the rest of the wrapper-and-cup cemetery there. He didn’t stop Oliver from continuing. If he was honest, he was glad Oliver was aiming for somewhere farther away than the ‘’suburbs’’ of Whitebridge, and something more unusual than DC. Actually, he was also almost relieved. It meant they’d be on the road for longer, didn’t it? His smile was soft and very private.
And then the topic resurfaced. “Define dream?” he asked, before answering anyway with: “My excuse,” and a nod. He nodded because yes, some called it a dream, even it didn’t quite fit his own definition of a dream. But he knew what Oliver meant, and he didn’t want to be complicated. He appreciated the gentle curiosity too much. Especially after all this silence.
his comment brought along a gentle glance and a small smile, the halter hanging on her wrist and rope in hand. “her less than me.” she would give the animal the benefit of the doubt on having more patience than hana had, of course, hana’s mostly shined solely because of her ability to turn her ears off and pretend she didn’t exist where she didn’t want to. she’d never not been called a little spoiled in her life due to that nonchalant attitude but then she hadn’t cared about that either. stubborn was perhaps a little accurate.
eos had her eyes on the two of them, the rope in hana’s hand, she trotted their direction and she slowed when she reached her so that she could reach and slide her fingers down the velvet of her nose, under her chin to rub there. the animal didn’t nibble her at all, standing very well behaved in the company of a stranger to her. “manières.” she took a step back from the horse to give her room as she brought her front right leg up, keeping the left straight and firmly planted she rocked her weight back and bowed her head, a formal bow for bisi. “bonne fille.” a pat was given to her neck and brought eos back up straight. “we’re going to need a saddle, unless you want to ride with me over to the stables?” she didn’t want to help bisi on by himself without the saddle but with her at least he’d be much more secure.
It didn’t matter that there was a fence between them, that the horse was well-mannered and even knew how to bow - to Bisi its mere presence was positively terrifying. He tried not to show it too much, or act in his habitual dramatic way, simply out of fear to startle the horse with brusque movements, but gosh, was he scared. “No, definitely no riding, no, nopidy nope.” He didn’t mean to be rude, and hoped Hana knew that. His clipped voice really just came from a place of high tension.
the smile still lingered on her lips as they continued to drive. she had no idea where they were going, and frankly she didn’t give a damn. she was too tired and too sore to ask questions that wouldn’t actually get an answer to. so instead she smiled and listened to jess while her eyes just watched the scenery go past. hearing his questions though mack shrugged her shoulders, eyes turning back to look at him. “a car, and a road defines a road trip. nothing else really matters if you don’t have the both of them.” she puts simply, not really one for overthinking too much on a topic like this. it was simple enough. you could have a road trip by yourself, because you would be in fact going on a road trip. “though going to the next street obviously doesn’t count as a road trip. more of a long distance thing.” she adds, before she was looking out the window once more. her eyes straining as she tried to take note of the scenery, but then she just decided to look ahead of them.
a chuckle left her lips now, before she was shaking her head. “not at all. i’m just saying. i feel like if you stopped moving yourself. you wouldn’t be living. you’re like the earth in that sense. it needs to keep rotating to survive.” she says, her eyes soft on him, before she was listening to his next words, nodding her head letting him know she was in fact listening. “how do you keep up with all the things that you’ve done? or do you also repeat the things you’ve done? so you take like spontaneous trips and things?” she asks him, her eyes looking around them once more before landing on the front window. “i’ve never been able to go out exploring the world. but i believe if you’re living in it, and doing what you want, that makes you happy. then you’re exploring enough to know the beauty that the world has to offer. not many people get the luxury of just road tripping it, or going across to europe to see the beauty there. but they still manage to see the beauty in their back garden. because it’s the most beautiful they’ve ever seen and they know. they’re the lucky ones to have seen it.”
“Boo!” Bisi complained, in this blunt way of his, which didn’t mean to insult, but which was the result of a lack of filter between his brain and mouth. “Boring. C’mon! You get the unique chance to define something here! Be creative!” He was grinning, excitement in his voice as he continued: “Let’s make up all sorts of rules, and try to break none of them. I start. Rule number one, two and three: A car, a road, and being in-slash-on both for longer than five hours! Now your turn.”
Bisi didn’t say much to that. He had understood the first time. “I try not to repeat my adventures, no,” he nodded. “I don’t need to keep up with them. I just need to know, in the moment itself, this is something I’ve never done before, something beautiful that the world has to offer, something of which the existence I didn’t waste by being too lazy, or too tired, or too-...” Dead. Too dead. That was how the sentence would end, if Bisi had had the courage to say it. Instead he chuckled and shook his head. “You’re going on an adventure now, no? Tell me, what is something you always wanted to do, and what we can do in the next, hmm, 24 hours?”
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