Chapter XIII. The Strangest Family

"C'mon guys, the sun's shinning in the sky! It's a sign for all of us get up and enjoy life!"

Pierre carries the cheerfulness of someone who just had an eight hour sleep and not a night full of drinking root beer and playing Just Dance and Uno with how loud he's clanging the pots in the kitchen.

"Who put happy drugs in his cereal this morning?" Charles asks in a gruff voice which is still heavily lidded with sleep (kinda obvious because he has just woken up) with his hair all over the place, a prime example of a bedhead as he walks out of his bedroom to the open kitchen.

"He's a happy drug himself." Mijoo grumbles out from where she is sitting at Charle's kitchen table at 7:30 am in her neon green (and slightly stained) shirt that is a sight for sore eyes.

"I hate happiness." Vivienne grunts from where she is laying on the couch, her grumpiness stemming because of the hangover from the night before.

"Especially in the morning when it's coming from Pierre." Janice joins their conversation with a prolonged yawn and just then Charles girlfriend, Alexandra also walks in the room, all dolled up (also probably because it is her and Charles apartment) and looking ready to go wreck havoc in the frat boy dorms while the rest of them look like crusted crabby patties.

"I'm standing right here, you guys do know that, right?"

Pierre's rhetorical question goes unanswered as all five of them finally gather around the kitchen table, starting different tasks.

All six of them are scattered all around Charles' kitchen. Alexandra is making breakfast, the only one out of them all (other than Vivienne) who's a reliable cook while Charles has his arms wrapped around her waist as he stands behind her, while Janice and Pierre are goofing around in the midst of washing dishes because god knows how drunk they were the last night to dirty all the plates with cheeto crumbs and melted marshmallows which are borderline burnt too. And Vivienne is sitting beside Mijoo who's eating Fruit Loops straight from the cereal box, occasionally throwing one in Vivienne's mouth too.

It's a slow morning but Vivienne doesn't mind it all.

Looking around at them, it's times like these which makes Vivienne appreciate these people she has in her life, all five of them are her best friends, holder of her secrets, all so entirely different from each other; from Charles' puppy like nature to Alexandra's quietly affectionate habits to Pierre's sunshine personality and Janice's motherly affection along with Mijoo's crude personality and cynical jokes to lift up the mood, all of it fits like puzzle pieces as if the six of them are meant to be soulmates, the platonic ones, the ones no-one actually cares about in this world full of romances.

They're trying to make Vivienne a 'Welcome Home, Vivi' cake.

"Charles!" Vivienne exasperatedly calls out while Mijoo feeds her another piece of Fruit Loops, "For the umpteenth time, stop smooching Alex and get to work!"

Vivienne is truly living up to her title of Miss Perfectionist.

Though it might be because she's the only one who knows how to bake a cake and the rest of them have banned her from helping them and without Vivienne, she doesn't how they'll be able to make a cake safely.

"Be nice to him," Mijoo grumbles out, "He's already stressed thinking about how he'll crash into me next time on the track and he's relieving his stress through our poor Alex."

Charles groans at Mijoo's remark while the rest of them snicker at the grudge the Korean-Monagasqué had been holding after the Japan race where Charles had spun and crashed into Mijoo, getting both of them dnfed.

Vivienne shakes her head, though even she admits that it's funny to see her brother so bothered.

He opens his mouth to contradict Mijoo's remark with a jab but before he could, Janice is rushing to where Charles and Alexandra are and wrenching him away from her. She strictly tells Charles to not be seen in a 5 metre radius around Alex or else she'd ban him from having date nights with Alex for a month.

Both Vivienne and Mijoo snicker at Charles who looks like a kicked puppy making him narrow his eyes at them before he gets back to making the cake alone while Janice moves away to help Pierre with the leftover dishes.

Silence washes over them.

For a moment it's peaceful but then Pierre opens his mouth.

"Why isn't she doing any work?" He asks pointing his chin towards Mijoo who's now bobbing her head to some Kendrick Lamar rap while eating Cheerios.

"Baby privileges, Pierre," Alexandra sighs as if it's the nth time they have had this conversation, which in fact they had, "We've talked about this before."

When Pierre's sure that Alexandra's back is turned towards him, he discreetly sends a middle finger towards Mijoo's way to which she retaliate by throwing a Fruit Loop at him. These baby privileges she has are because of her being the youngest. Janice had insisted the group needs someone to baby and because Mijoo was born later than all of them, she automatically became the baby of the group.

But Alexandra had seen Pierre sending a middle to Mijoo and she smacks him upside down on the head with her KISS THE CHEF apron.

The offended look on Pierre's face makes Vivienne laugh loudly. It also makes Mijoo and Charles snicker while Janice grins.

"Do it again—"

Mijoo is so rudely cut off as Alexandra smacks her with the same apron she has just smacked Pierre with two seconds ago.

"Behave." Alexandra says in a warning tone making Pierre mimick zipping his mouth.

Everyone flutters around the kitchen, going on about theit tasks with ocassional groans but Vivienne adores all of it and watches over her friends with a smile. When the cake is finally in the oven and the breakfast is served, they're all sitting on the table eating while chatting animatedly with each other.

It's a heartwarming sight.

Vivienne thinks that she wants all of her summers to be like this; a kitchen wrecked with love, a table overflowing with baked goods warming the already warm air and Janice's chicken pie that tastes absolutely disgusting but all of them eat it anyways because she makes it with so much adoration. After the pots are stacked, the dishes cooled and the counter wiped clean, she hopes to never be rescued from this mess she had come call her second family.

Her second family.

Family.

The word sounds strange as she associates it with these guys but it fits with them like the last piece of an unfinished puzzle.

She thinks about how all of them have become each other's safe space. How Janice's hands shake but she hold the phone up so Pierre can watch the video from six feet away. How Alexandra always emails her the recipe of her beef stroganoff at 6 am in the morning with the comment, Woke up and didn't want to forget to do this! How on the highway, Pierre sings so loudly because he likes the way Vivienne's face lits up at his silly singing even though he loses his voice by the end of every trip. How Charles never misses any important event of their life even though he's the busiest person out of all of you and how Mijoo kisses all of them good night and tucks them in bed before going to sleep.

Over the course of their not-so-epic adventures, Vivienne has gradually come to realise that all of them had found the loving home and the family they had all been desperately searching for, in each other.

Because sometimes a family is just that.

Its a strange family, but Vivienne wouldn't switch their weirdness for anything else in the world.

The topic of their conversation flits from one subject to another and somehow it ends up being Vivienne's love life.

"So Pedri..." Pierre begins.

"What about him?" Vivienne questions in a nonchalant manner but from inside she's freaking out.

Her eyes catches Charles' gaze who also looks alarm. In this room, he's the only one who knows that Pedri and her's relationship is fake and PR based.

"Another footballer, huh?" Pierre's cheeky voice breaks Charles and Vivienne's eye contact as she turns to glare at the Alpine driver.

"Pierre." Janice calls out warningly but when has Pierre ever listened to anyone.

"I think our Vivi has a type." He continues as he ignores Janice who kicks him in the shin. Even Mijoo lets out an undignified snicker at Pierre's statement.

Vivienne opens her mouth to chastise him but before she can even say anything, her phone starts ringing. With a rude gesture aimed at both Pierre and Mijoo who are still making fun of Vivienne and her boyfriend, she stands up from her chair and goes to pick up her phone.

She grabs her phone and looks at the caller id and to her surprise, it's Pedri who's calling her.

Unknowingly a smile creeps upon her lips as she watches the contact name fake bf glinting on her phone screen. Something giddy bubbles in her stomach the longer she stares at his contact name.

"Hi." She picks up the phone as she moves away towards the balcony to talk to Pedri privately.

"Mi vida, I miss you!" Is the first thing Pedri says to her dramatically. "When are you coming back?"

A laugh bubbles in her throat as she listens to his incessant whining, "I just got here, Pedri."

A huff is heard from the other side of the phone as Pedri mumbles something that Vivienne can't quite catch.

"Can't you come back?" Comes his hopeful question.

"You know I can't, I have work."

"But I'm missing you so much. You know I can't even look at pomegranates the same way. They remind me of you."

The tips of Vivienne's ears get redder the longer she listens to Pedri's exclamations of how much he misses her and how he wishes she was here with him in Barcelona.

"I would've offered for you to come to Monaco but even you have games." She sighs out and suddenly the line goes silent.

"Uhh...about that-" Pedri's voice is cut off as Mijoo bursts out on the balcony with an evil grin on her face and just from one look at her face, Vivienne understands that the younger girl is about to do something vile.

"Um mon chéri," Vivienne hastily says into the phone, "I'll call you later, I have to go right now."

"What? Wait, did you just call me mon chéri?! Aww, call me mon chéri again-"

It's at that moment, Vivienne cuts the call and hurries out of the balcony eager to get away from Mijoo and whatever evil plan that has been brewing in her brain.

She hears Mijoo and Pierre's laughter echoing behind her as they start singing on the top of the lungs while running after her.

"VIVI AND PEDRI SITTING IN A TREE K-I-S-S-I-N-G! FIRST COMES LOVE! THEN COMES MARRIAGE! THEN COMES A BABY!