Drawings in the Air

“How many of these did you get?” Khepri asked.

“Enough,” Lio said.

The two were outside in the courtyard, along with Juno, who watched from a nearby lawn chair.

“Too bad Master Judah won’t be joinin’ us tonight,” Juno smirked. “Hart’s got him all wrapped ‘round his fingers.”

“Literally,” Lio added.

Khepri and Juno laughed in unison.

“Let’s go, Lio,” Juno said, waving his hand. “Git to it. Light the sticks.”

“Sparklers,” Khepri corrected.

Juno rolled his eyes. “Whatever. Sparklers, sticks, same thing.”

Lio chuckled. “Are you going to light one?”

“Now, why would I go ‘n do that?” Juno huffed. “You volunteered for this.”

“It’ll be fun,” Lio told him. “If you don’t want to light it, I’ll light one for you.”

“You don’t even have to run around with it,” Khepri said. “You can just hold it.”

Juno didn’t seem any more interested than he did previously—at first, anyway. His eyes lit up a bit when Lio lit the first sparkler and handed it off to Khepri, who began drawing little hearts in the air.

When Lio lit a second and held it out to Juno, he hesitantly took it, holding it out and away from his body. Khepri wasted no time after his first one burnt out to grab another unlit one. Lio obliged.

He lit another and handed it off to Khepri.

“Try drawing with it, Juno,” Khepri said.

Lio watched as he spun around and danced, sparkler in hand. He lit another when he noticed Juno’s go out. “Yeah, Juno, draw with it.”

Juno frowned but waved the sparkler around in the air. To neither Khepri nor Lio’s surprise, a slight smile grew on Juno’s face.

“There we go,” Lio smiled. “Just have fun with it.”

“I know how to have fun,” Juno said.

Lio shook his head. “I ain’t sayin’ ya don’t.” Juno laughed at his attempt at his accent. He was fairly good at it since he spent so much time around Judah.

“Lio, can I light one?” Khepri asked, and Lio nodded. He watched protectively as Khepri lit his next sparkler, smiling when he did it with ease.

“Come on, Juno,” Lio said, mimicking Juno’s tone from a bit earlier. “Get up, have fun.”

Juno scoffed but stood from his seat. “Fine,” he said, “gimme another. I’ll dance around with it.”

“All right,” Lio replied.

He enjoyed seeing Juno and Khepri having fun. He was surprised when Juno lit another sparkler and held it out to him.

“You ain’t just gonna sit there and do nothin’ while we have all the fun.”

Lio chuckled. “Okay, okay.” He took the sparkler and drew in the air.

“Lio!” Khepri giggled. “Couldn’t you draw something cuter?”

“What?” Lio grinned, “Dicks are cute!”

Juno laughed and did just as Lio was doing. “I can’t argue with that.”

It didn’t take long before Khepri was doing the same. The three of them spent a good while outside, dancing around with sparklers in their hands, drawing all kinds of shapes in the air. There was no peep from Judah or Hart from inside, but that made no difference to them. It was Mochi Moon time, and not too long after that, the fireworks began.

The trio sat in the courtyard, watching the bursts of colour in the crystalline sky. They were all out of sparklers, but that didn’t matter now. They had fun, and as the fireworks above brought in the new year, they smiled and watched on.

“I think we should do this again next year,” Juno said as the fireworks died down.

Lio nodded. “We can definitely make a tradition out of it.”

“Maybe Judah and Hart will join us next time,” Khepri said.

“Maybe. For now, let’s go get some drinks. All this smoke is stuffing me up.”

“You want sum help with that?” Juno teased.

Khepri giggled. “You two are too much.”

“Or not enough,” Juno replied with a wink.