Four Of A Kind

Chapter 35: [2.8] A Normal Person, For a Change

The boba shop was called “Bubble Dreams” and it looked exactly like the kind of place that got three million views on TikTok for no discernible reason.

Pink neon sign. Minimalist white walls. Plants hanging from the ceiling in macramé holders. The whole aesthetic screamed “we charge eight dollars for flavored milk and you’ll thank us for the privilege.”

I parked the Lexus in the strip mall lot, between a nail salon and a dry cleaner, and stared at the storefront through the windshield.

The late afternoon sun slanted through the windows, casting long shadows across the dashboard. My gym clothes had mostly dried during the drive, but my shoes still made an unfortunate noise every time I shifted my feet.

I grabbed my phone and checked the list one more time.

Taro boba. Less sugar. Extra pearls.

Strawberry milk tea. Extra boba. Chewy things.

Buldak ramen, 2x spicy.

Pocky, chocolate and strawberry.

The ramen and Pocky would be easy. The Asian grocery store next door had those. But the boba orders read like they were written in a foreign language by someone who assumed I spoke it fluently.

What the hell are pearls in this context? Are they different from boba? How would you put less sugar in something that’s already ninety percent sugar inherently? And what exactly qualifies as a “chewy thing”?

I got out of the car.

The bell above the door chimed as I walked in. Lo-fi hip hop played from a speaker mounted near the ceiling. The air smelled sweet. Milk and something floral. Maybe taro.

I didn’t actually know what taro smelled like.

The shop was nearly empty. One table occupied by two girls taking photos of their drinks. Another table with a guy wearing headphones so large they looked like they could pick up satellite transmissions.

Behind the counter sat a girl.

Early twenties, probably. Short dark hair that curved against her jaw. She wore the shop’s uniform, a pink polo with the Bubble Dreams logo, but she’d pushed the sleeves up to her elbows. Her attention was locked on a textbook spread open in front of her. A pencil tapped against her lower lip.

She hadn’t noticed me yet.

I walked up to the counter. Stood there. Waited.

The pencil kept tapping.

I cleared my throat.

She glanced up. Her expression shifted from focused irritation to something else as her eyes tracked over me. The gym clothes. The Hartwell crest on the shirt. My hair, which had dried into whatever shape it wanted because I’d given up on controlling it.

“Oh.” She straightened up. “Hey. Sorry, didn’t see you there. What can I get you?”

I pulled out my phone and read from my notes.

“If you have it, some Strawberry and Chocolate Pocky. Double spicy Buldak. Taro boba. Less sugar. Extra pearls.” I scrolled down. “Strawberry milk tea with extra boba and…” I squinted at Harlow’s message. The emoji she’d included did not clarify anything. “…the ’chewy things.’”

The girl’s smile widened. “Ah, a newbie.” She leaned forward on the counter. “Chewy jelly things isn’t on the menu. Do you want popping boba or crystal boba? What flavor for the jelly? Lychee? Mango? Passion fruit?”

I stared at her.

I looked at my phone.

I looked back at her.

“I genuinely have no idea what any of those words mean in this context.”

She laughed. “Let me guess.” She grabbed a cup and a marker. “You got sent on an errand.”

“Yes.”

“For a girlfriend?”

I shook my head. “Nah. Not a girlfriend. Just… employers.”

“Employers, huh?” She started punching buttons on the register. “Must be nice employers if they’re sending a guy like you out for boba runs.”

Her eyes dropped to my shirt again. Specifically to the Hartwell crest embroidered on the chest.

“Hartwell Academy?” She pronounced it the way people pronounced names of places they’d heard about but never visited. “Fancy. Rich kid?”

“Scholarship.”

Her eyebrows rose.

“Even fancier.” She resumed entering the order. “Smart kid, then.”

I didn’t confirm or deny. Seemed like unnecessary information to volunteer.

She grabbed two cups and started working. Ice first, then tea from large dispensers behind her.

While her hands stayed busy, her eyes kept drifting back to the textbook on the counter.

She sighed.

“Hey, smart kid.”

I looked up from my phone.

“You any good at math?”

The question hung in the air between us.

I could have said no. Would have been the smart play. Less troublesome. I had errands to run and employers waiting and a month long trial period that could end at any moment.

But the textbook was turned toward me now. I could see the problem from here. Integration by parts. The function was ugly, a product of a polynomial and an exponential that required careful selection of u and dv. She’d started the work in the margins but had hit a wall about halfway through.

“Slide it over.”

She pushed the textbook across the counter.

I picked up her pencil. The tip was dull from overuse. I grabbed a napkin from the dispenser and started working through the steps, my handwriting cramped to fit everything on the small surface.

“You set u as the polynomial because it simplifies when you take the derivative.” I wrote it out. “Then dv is the exponential part. When you integrate that, you just get another exponential with a coefficient adjustment.”

I worked through the next two steps.

“Now you apply the formula. u times v minus the integral of v times du. The new integral is simpler than what you started with.”

Two more steps. The answer emerged clean on the napkin.

“And that’s it.”

I slid the napkin back to her.

She was staring at me.

“Wait.” She set down the shaker. “You’re in high school and you can do this?”

I shrugged. “Calculus is just patterns. Once you see them, it’s not that hard.”

She looked at the solved problem. Then back at me. Then at the problem again.

She let out a low whistle.

“Okay, scholarship kid.” She resumed making the drinks. “You’re officially my favorite customer.”

She finished the taro boba and set it in a carrier. Started on the strawberry milk tea.

“I made executive decisions on the jelly situation. Went with lychee. If your employer complains, blame me.”

“Noted.”

She added the extra boba. Sealed both cups with the machine that made a satisfying thunk sound. Placed them in a cardboard carrier along with a small paper bag.

“Pocky and Buldak are in there too. I grabbed them from our snack shelf. The 2x spicy, right? That stuff will destroy your insides.”

“Not for me. For one of the employers.”

“Smart. Keep your organs intact.” She pushed the carrier toward me. “Total’s eighteen fifty.”

I pulled out my wallet. Handed her a twenty.

While she made change, she spoke without looking up.

“You know, if a guy did my homework and ran boba errands for me, I’d probably marry him on the spot.”

I took the carrier. Tucked the change into my pocket.

“Then you need better judgment when it comes to romance. The bar shouldn’t be that low.”

She laughed. “God, you’re a smartass.” She grabbed a marker. “I like it.”

She reached across the counter and took one of the cups from my carrier. Before I could protest, she scribbled something on the side of the taro boba and returned it.

“I’m Mira.” She capped the marker with a click. “Come back when you need more help with your ’errand’ orders. Or if your employers get boring.”

I looked at the cup.

Her name. A phone number.

Mira.

“Thanks for the help,” I said.

“Thanks for solving my problem.” She was already turning back to her textbook. “Good luck with your employers, scholarship kid.”

I walked out.

The bell chimed behind me.

The late afternoon had shifted into early evening while I was inside. The sky had gone orange at the edges, the sun dropping toward the horizon like it was tired of the whole day and wanted to clock out.

I got back in the Lexus. Placed the carrier carefully in the cupholder, arranging the cups so they wouldn’t tip during the drive. The paper bag with the snacks went on the passenger seat.

I sat there for a moment.

Looked at the name on the cup.

Mira.

A normal girl who worked at a boba shop and struggled with calculus and gave her number to customers who solved her homework. A stark contrast to the world I was driving back to. A world of shower ambushes and cryptic texts and purple eyes that saw too much.

I started the engine.

Better judgment for romance, huh?

I pulled out of the parking lot and headed back toward the Valentine estate.

My phone buzzed.

A text from Harlow.

Did you get the chewy jelly things??? The ones that pop??? Or the ones that are like gummy bears but not??? IMPORTANT DISTINCTION!!!

I typed back with one hand while navigating a turn.

Got lychee jelly. If that’s wrong, blame the cashier.

Three dots appeared. Disappeared. Appeared again.

LYCHEE IS PERFECT!!! You’re the BEST assistant-kun!!! 💕💕💕

Another buzz. Sabrina this time.

ETA?

I checked the GPS.

Twenty minutes.

Her response came immediately.

Acceptable.