Cayenne's hands shook as she looked up at Vivi, who stared back at her as if a word was on the tip of her tongue, but she just couldn't remember. Cayenne felt a mess of emotions, excitement, happiness, sadness, but the most she could feel was regret. She shouldn't have come up to her. She shouldn't have run up, hopeful. She felt tears well up in her eyes, but spoke anyway, "Do you remember me?" She murmured, shaky and unsure.
When the young girl had approached her, it was like Vivi was seeing her through a pink fog. Something about the cherry hair and devil horns, or the way she had looked up at her with such a look of joy and excitement mixed with mischief…Vivi knew her, but she just couldn’t place it. Definitely, this was someone from her past.
She had only been awake for a couple of days, and the only people who had come to see her had been her parents…they had mentioned a family she had been close to before she lost her memory, a family by the name of…
“Oh, Pepper! Are you one of the Pepper triplets, then?”
Cayenne felt a twinge of regret at her words. She knew Vivi didn’t remember her, but had still felt her heart break at Vivi’s words. However, she kept her composure and smiled brightly at Vivi, pretending it wasn’t painful for her not to remember.
“Yeah! I’m Cayenne! You used to babysit for me and my siblings before… Whatever happened here,” She noted, running a hand through her curly red hair before speaking again, “I used to get in a lot of trouble, but you let me have fun, heh. That was a bad idea!”
Vivi felt her worry start to fade away as the child smiled up at her. If the devil horns hadn’t been a dead giveaway, her playful words gave way to the mischief nature hidden behind her teary eyes.
Still, even if she wore a smile, Vivi could tell there was still something aching behind it.
“I’m really sorry I don’t truly remember you, Cayenne. You feel familiar, like…family. And family gets in trouble together. What’s the point if you don’t have a little fun now and then?”
That felt right. Something about her reminded Vivi of home, something even her parents hadn’t brought about in her. Cayenne had been someone she was close to, someone she had loved dearly. She must’ve been a damn good babysitter back in the day.
She looked back down the hall and towards her room, somewhat sidetracked.
“Honestly, I’m not sure what happened myself, Chica. No one will know until that man I came in with wakes up…”
Cayenne felt herself brightening slowly as the ice between them broke a bit. Vivi looked at Cayenne as if she was a lost photograph finally found, she was only a glimmer of an old memory. Of Lewis. She wanted to tell her about him, though she knew she couldn’t.
“I guess, but I think he’ll wake up soon! Arthur always pulls through..” Cayenne flashed Vivi one of her old toothy smiles reassuringly.
Cayenne felt herself calming down now, and reverting back to her normal self as she remembered her old hijinks, which usually ended with the police being called.
“I mean, I guess if ‘trouble’ means getting stuck in a sink for four hours, and having the police called! We used to get into so much trouble, I can’t wait to tell you them all!” Cayenne gave her another toothy grin, clapping her hands together excitedly.
Vivi felt the bubbling of laughter overwhelm her with tiny giggles, laughing for the first time since she had woken up. She crossed her arms over her stomach as she answered.
“You definitely sound like my kinda kid!” She crossed her arms over her stomach as she answered, mimicking the smile on Cayenne’s face, “We’ll definitely have to sit down and talk about it sometime, I might not remember much but I love hearing stories from people I love!”
Still, something wasn’t quite right. This girl was familiar, yes, but there was something else about her. A connection. Someone else she reminded Vivi of. Laughter calmed, Vivi looked behind the girl in search of someone else, someone related. At first glance, she couldn’t see anyone.
“Say, Cherry Cola, is your family around here anywhere? Like your sisters…Pap…Paprika and Belle, right?”
Cayenne smiled, happy that the tension between them had dissipated. It was nice to hear Vivi laugh again. Cayenne had only seen her a few weeks ago before the accident, but now it felt like years.
“I have so many! I can ask if you can come over to Pepper Paradiso when you and Arty are out!” Cayenne babbled, before going on, “You’re so lucky, you’d get to have a second first taste of L- My parents cooking! Do you think that your taste for it stays even if you lost your memory?”
Cayenne inwardly cringed at herself for almost accidentally bringing him up. She could tell that she reminded Vivi of him. Vivi wasn’t allowed to know about him, no matter how much Cayenne wanted to tell her about how grossly cute they were, no matter how much she wanted to tell her about how much she missed him.
Cayenne however kept a smile on, making sure not to let her demeanor slip. “Yeah!! They’re in the mess hall- Is that what it’s called?- Pappy and Belle and my parents!”
The eagerness and happiness of Cayenne was contagious, and even if Vivi’s curiosity was still tugging at the edges of her mind she figured it was best to push it aside for now and enjoy the company of an old friend of hers.
“I’m sure we’ll make it by. From what my parents tell me, Tempo isn’t very big anyway, and maybe someplace familiar will help me bring back some of those pesky memories, huh?”
But still, that feeling just wouldn’t go away. Reluctantly, she pushed further, letting her voice drop for reasons she couldn’t quite say.
“Say, Cayenne? Do you have any other family I was close with? A cousin, maybe?” Vivi studied her face, eyes somewhat frantic, “I can’t quite shake the feeling that there’s someone I’m missing in all of this, and you remind me of them.”
Cayenne’s heart swelled with the excitement at the prospect of showing Vivi around Tempo and being with them again. She missed being with them and their babysitting sessions with her and her siblings. Vivi would always go grocery shopping for dinner, but when she came back Arty had already made them PB & J and fell asleep watching reruns of crappy animes with them. Cayenne missed that.
“We will of course! I hope we all get to hang around like a family again. I missed it,” Cayenne’s voice softened as she remembered everything, and felt her lip quiver. She missed everything, but most of all she missed her big brother. She missed Lewis.
However, at Vivi’s words she couldn’t help but look down, tears threatening to spill out. Vivi can’t ask about him, not now. Cayenne’s stomach filled with dread as she wiped her eyes and composed herself, thinking up a lie.
“I’m sorry Vivi, I just was so worried about you.. I thought you were gonna die!!” Cayenne murmured, not lying, but buying time for herself to think up one. “Y-you might have been thinking about.. uhm.. Belle! I mean I know you know who she is, but maybe you’re forgetting how close you were?”
Cayenne knew the lie wasn’t good, but had to try it anyway. While she couldn’t tell Vivi about Lulu, she also wasn’t ready to talk about him. Lewis was her big brother! She couldn’t deal with even thinking about him right now.
Vivi could see the tears on the outskirts of Cayenne’s eyes, and she felt terrible for nearly making this kid so sad. She hadn’t thought that such a small question would evoke such a response, but then again there was so much she didn’t know. And this all had to be very overwhelming, what with Vivi with amnesia and Arthur missing an arm and in a coma.
She pushed all of her cares aside for a moment, kneeling down so that she might look Cayenne in the eyes, “I’m sorry, I should’ve saved a question like that for later. I’m sure it’s one of your sisters, silly me.”
Then, she pulled Cayenne in for a well needed hug and held her tight. Somehow she hoped the closeness would help them heal.
