SHE DIDN'T TELL anyone. Not a single soul. Not even Pamela, or Remiel.

Nothing changed, but everything did as well. Livia went out with the twins and the Carmen/Anderson sisters to a beach festival in a nearby town a few days after that day in her bedroom that had ended with swollen lips and a craving for more, Sarah rejecting the invitation all together even though Brie swore she'd invited the redhead as well.

Livia thought she was to blame.

At the festival, as Zeth and the two sisters busied themselves with festival games that Livia had little interests in, Amphion pulled her aside and pressed her against one of the stalls, out of view, and they made out for what felt like hours, but was really just a few minutes.

She swatted him on the arm afterwards, warning him that people would find out. He only laughed.

"Let them."

This was nothing, she reminded herself. This was them acting on their physical urges, and it meant nothing else. There were no promises about the future or even the present. They could kiss, they could make out, and that was the end of it. That was where it stopped. She would not allow herself to fall into more, to wish for more, even though it was damned difficult.

This was all a mistake.

But she supposed an arrangement like this one was the best she could bargain for in this situation. Allowing them to both act on their mutual attraction, yet without the risk of it all erupting in her face and ending with her crying her eyes out on her cold, bathroom floor.

This was everything she'd been scared of. But she was enjoying the game of make belief far too much to actually stop him, to call it off before it became anything else. This was the kind of thing she'd dreamt of last year.

She could do this. She could make it out with her heart intact. She just had to remind herself not to fall, not to get too attached again.

They were adults. Plenty of people were friends with benefits. No reason she couldn't do the same.

But, well, most people who got into those sorts of arrangements didn't have eighteen years of history between them.

It was their little secret. No one needed to know. Even if it all blew up, no one needed to know why. They wouldn't ever be gathering like after this summer anyways.

They sat by a bar on the beach. Livia ordered a mojito, allowing the cool drink to calm her down. It wasn't all just the heat that had gotten her all in her head. Brie sighed, leaning back, placing her head on Livia's shoulder. Livia patted her in return. "Tired?" she asked, grinning.

"Exhausted. But it was fun."

"I can tell."

She didn't look at either of the boys. She was scared that she'd give something away if she did. Zeth and Amphion were different people, sure, but they were still twins. Most people couldn't tell them apart, though their closest friends never had any problems with that. They acted very differently. Amphion went everywhere with an aura of superiority, of confidence. Zeth was far more down-to-earth.

Lila leaned on Brie, and Livia shuffled slightly so that she wasn't getting squished. "Oh my god, summer's over soon. I hate it."

"Back to school," Brie sighed. "But university will be fun. I hope."

"Better than sixth form, definitely," Amphion said. "It's a brand new start."

"Those tend to mean little," Lila said. "We can never truly cut off everything."

"It's a figure of speech," Amphion shot back.

"Alright," Zeth cut in. "I mean, we're all excited for university. It'll be nice, definitely. Being away from home, our parents, all that stuff."

"First time I'll be here at a time rather than summer," Livia murmured, scratching her neck.

"Not in Briarville, though," Brie pointed out. "The UK is shit, you'll be wanting to head back to Hong Kong within days."

"The weather?"

"The food too," Lila pointed out.

"I plan on cooking my own," Livia replied. "There's plenty of Chinese supermarkets and Chinese restaurants where I'm going."

"That'll be busy," Lila mused. "You might not have time for that."

Livia shrugged as best as she could while two bodies were leaning on her side. "I'm not going to cook every single meal. I don't know how to make anything super complicated anyways. Should be okay."

"Can I steal some of your food sometimes?" Amphion suddenly asked.

She shot him a glare. It would mean much more to him, of course, than it did to anyone else. "Fuck off."

He smirked.

"What am I going to eat?" Zeth pondered aloud. "I don't want to eat canteen food every day, that just sounds like a shit idea."

"You're probably going to have to, unless you're planning on takeaway for every meal," Amphion pointed out.

"I can learn to cook," Zeth scowled.

"Or get a cook," Lila suggested. "You have the money for it. Get someone who makes you meals every day. Or like, just lunch and dinner. You know."

"My parents would never agree," Zeth moaned. "They want me to be independent and all that shit."

"I mean, that's half the point of university," Livia pointed out. "Just learn how to cook. Not that difficult to make like, a spaghetti. I can send you some easy Chinese recipes if you want."

"I can barely make British food," Zeth said ruefully. "I doubt I'll be managing Chinese ones any time soon."

Livia faked a gasp. "British cuisine exists? Never knew."

All four of them rolled their eyes in response.

"You've overdone that joke too many times," Brie told her. "Sorry, it just isn't that funny anymore."

Livia scoffed. "It's a timeless joke. I don't know how you people survive here all year round."

"We don't eat British food every day," Zeth pointed out.

"But most of the time you do. And you Brits manage to make international cuisine taste worse than it does anyways. Literally, I do not get it."

"Thank you so much," Lila said, one brow raised, but it was clear the girl was amused. She used to agree, whenever Livia cracked a joke like that. Clearly, times had changed since then. Maybe Livia had overdone it, just a slight bit. But it was true, and it was funny.

To her and Pamela, anyways. And her parents. Food was one thing they'd worried about, sending Livia here to study by herself. But she knew how to cook, and she'd already looked up all the Chinese restaurants near her university, and there were plenty. Too many Chinese students studying there, probably, so the demand was high.

"Okay, like, fish and chips are decent," Zeth drawled out. "It gets boring, but it's not bad by any means."

"Okay. And what else is there? Beef wellington? Shepherd's pie? What else is there?"

Zeth was silent for a moment. "Okay, but like, we're talking about the most iconic food. There's not that much for every country."

"There's more iconic food from Hong Kong just by itself, and heaven knows that's just a tiny, tiny miniscule dot in China," Livia scoffed. "And before you say that's because it's an international city and thus there's food from everywhere, I'm about to raise Shanghai, Beijing and Sichuan all as examples."

"I have no idea what the iconic food from any of those places are," Brie admitted.

"Peking duck? Xiao long bao? Cong you bing? Dumplings? The massive list of spicy food that is, okay—admittedly, most of you have probably never touched food before from Sichuan? But like come on."

Amphion raised a brow. "Bad example. Chinese history outdates us by about four thousand years, give or take."

"Four thousand?" Brie spluttered out, blinking.

"Well, technically speaking," Amphion murmured, "I believe the first piece of written history dates back to about three thousand and five hundred years. Is that correct, Livia?"

Livia nodded. "Shang Dynasty. But the usual saying is that China has five thousand years of history, but most of the stuff before three thousand and five hundred years is half-myth. We were already in the Song Dynasty by the time the Normans came knocking on your doors. To give context, the peak of Ancient China is considered to be the Tang Dynasty. Which precedes the Song Dynasty by around fifty years." She wrinkled her nose. "Wait, Amphion, when the hell did you learn so much about Chinese history?"

"You used to rant about it a lot," Amphion reminded. "I googled some stuff up sometimes, you know. And I took History A-Levels."

Livia blinked. That was unexpected. It was a pleasant surprise. Livia had realised three summers ago that most of her friends had never even heard of the Opium War. It had been horrific for her to learn, as something so intricately and sensitively a part of Hong Kong and Chinese history as a whole, and yet the descendants of the instigators were completely unaware of it. She'd spent a long time trying to explain it to them, but she doubted they remembered anything at all about it now.

It was tiring and quite sad, but there wasn't much she could do about it as an individual.

"But yeah. I guess it does kind of make sense. We had at least two thousand and five hundred more years to develop our cuisine than you did." She sighed. "Well then. Fine. I will leave British cuisine alone for the meantime."

The sun was starting to set. The sun had transformed from light blue to a darkening red. She turned to her friends. "We need to head back soon, don't feel like driving in the dark."

Amphion frowned. "We could stay for dinner." They'd taken Amphion and Zeth's car, and Zeth was the one driving, so she supposed if they thought it was alright to drive once the sky darkened, she had no reason to complain either.

"Fair enough," she remarked. "What are we eating?"

"Don't tell me you're already hungry," Brie said with narrowed eyes, finally sitting back up straight okay. Livia felt the weight on her shoulder disappear, and she shook her body slightly to remove the numbing sensation. Dear god.

"I'm not," Livia protested. "I just want to know. You know what I'm like, I don't like not knowing things in advance."

"I have no idea what we're eating," Zeth muttered. "Any suggestions?"

They all just stared at each other and then turned away, shaking their heads. Oh dear. Without another word, Livia whipped out her phone, biting down on her lower lip. "What cuisine are we hoping for?"

Lila tilted her head. "I'd actually quite appreciate some sushi."

Livia narrowed her eyes.

"I know. I know. You think most of the sushi here is shit. But that's why I want it while you're here. So you can tell me what's not shit."

"Fair enough," Livia replied. "Let me look."

A few minutes later, Livia had located one nearby sushi restaurant that seemed to be owned by a Japanese person, and had decently good reviews on her Asian takeaway app. Everyone else agreed, since no one else had any better ideas and they'd never been here in the first place anyways.

An hour and a half later, they sat in a restaurant as it finally dawned upon the owner (with some disappointment) that Livia was not Japanese, and did not speak the language either. Livia almost felt bad for a moment, watching the owner's face fall. Must be lonely here sometimes, being so far away from home. She got that feeling.

She ordered a pork katsu, one of her personal favourites.

"Livia," Brie groaned, shoving the menu towards her, "I have no idea what any of these are."

"I'm not Japanese," Livia reminded.

"Yeah, but you've eaten far more Japanese food than I have in my entire life," Brie pouted. "What should I get?"

"What do you usually get?"

"There's this one chicken rice I really like."

"Fried chicken? Or teriyaki chicken?"

Brie squinted, deep in thought. "I think it's the latter."

"Yeah, it's teriyaki," Zeth suddenly added. Livia glanced at him, one brow raised.

Zeth didn't look away. "What? She used to order it from Itsu."

Brie didn't glance at him, but Zeth didn't look embarrassed. He just shrugged and glanced back down at the menu. "I'll order a teriyaki chicken for you then, Brie," Livia told her. "You'll like it. It tastes good. Better than any you've had at Itsu, I assure you."

"I trust you."

"I'll get Tonkotsu ramen," Lila said. "That's like, normal ramen, yeah?"

Livia nodded. "Amph? Zeth?"

"I'll get chicken katsu," Amphion said. "Always loved it when they served it at school."

"You are so not comparing school chicken katsu to this."

Amphion shrugged nonchalantly. "Similar enough to me."

"Right," Livia glowered, turning to the final member. "You, Zeth?"

"Eel... donburi?"

"Eel donburi, got it."

Livia was the one who ordered, naturally.

"I wish I was thirteen again."

This wouldn't be odd coming from anyone else's mouth, but the source of the statement was Lila. Livia glanced at the pretty brunette, one brow raised. "Seriously? Me, I'm more hoping to be fifteen or sixteen again."

"No," Brie pulled a face. "Those were GCSE years."

"Nothing to do with me," Livia grinned. "And by the time it was summer everything was already all over."

"The summer of sixteen, sure," Brie agreed. "The year? Hell to the no. I still remember slaving away at my Sciences. Never touching any of those again."

"You don't have to," Amphion agreed. "Me? I remember vividly, far too vividly slaving over Drama. Still don't know why I ever took it."

"Hey, I took Drama," Lila said with a wrinkle of her nose. "It's not actually that bad, except for the while when you actually have coursework. But that's just a couple of weeks."

"Those couple of weeks were far too much for me," Amphion admitted. "But then again, I might just be lazy. And my group mates were shit heads."

Zeth snickered. "That they were. Talentless band of jackshits."

"We all saw the performance," Brie sighed. "You were the only one half-acting. And I mean, half-acting."

"Hey," Amphion protested. "I tried my best."

"Your best," Livia replied curtly, "was not enough. I remember that recording. You sounded like you wanted to leap off a cliff and pull your group with you."

"That was precisely what I was feeling," Amphion agreed. "My acting, unfortunately, at age sixteen, was not enough to cover up the inner turmoil I was going through during that exam."

Zeth snickered.

Lila shook her head. "My performance was fantastic."

"Your mum's an actor," Amphion shot. "You had plenty of help. And it's in your blood. It's not in mine, I assure you."

Lila pulled a face. "You're just shit at acting."

"Unlike you, the resident drama kid," Amphion retorted. "We're uncomparable."

Brie looked unimpressed. "Yeah. Sure. I saw Lila practice. I doubt you practised at all."

"I rehearsed multiple hours a week," Amphion protested. "This is just bullying. You're all jumping on me. I'm not that shit at acting, I still got a nine for Drama."

"That's not difficult," Lila told him. "Like, Drama is one of the easiest GCSEs to get a high score in. Nothing to be that proud of."

Amphion rolled his eyes and said nothing.

Livia didn't comment, of course, because she hadn't done GCSEs or A-Levels and thus knew little about it past the absolute basics.

She had no need to know anything else anyways, those days were long past her now.

Someone kicked at her feet then, and Livia scowled as she pulled her feet closer to her chair. It took no genius to put together who the culprit was. Amphion was sitting opposite her, and he was smirking like an idiot. Livia bared her teeth.

He pouted.

Livia scowled.

He shrugged.

"Fuck off," she mouthed.

He shook his head.

She'd forgotten he could be this immature. There was a reason they argued so much, and it wasn't all because they were both natural born leaders. Sometimes, it was just because he was an immature brat.

No one else noticed. The attention was elsewhere, as Brie and Lila discussed Ben Carmen's latest pursuits at university and Zeth listened tentatively. His eyes never remained on Brie for longer than they ought to, though. He seemed to be over it, at least on the surface.

Brie still seemed a bit uncomfortable around him. She never addressed him directly and tried to avoid all eye contact. That was understandable. She'd gotten hurt by someone she truly cared for, someone who didn't deserve any of her love. And she didn't want to lose her friendship with Zeth. It would take some time to recover.

If it needed recovery at all. Livia highly doubted they'd be calling each other to meet up for any future dinners once the summer was over. In smaller groups, perhaps.

This was fine. No one hated each other. Everyone at least got along, at least could be civil to each other on the surface. They didn't need to go back to those days when they were thirteen or sixteen. That time was long past.

They could move on while still remembering each other and the good old days when they were an unbreakable unit, forever an entourage making their way through Briarville without a care in the world. Those days before everything had come crashing down, before adulthood had hit them square in the face and all the teenage angst and secret crushes that should have never seen the light of day.

They were all realising now that everything was going to be just fine, even if they weren't the ones accompanying each other to the end of the world.