Little peak into someone else’s lives! Charlotte and Shanna now in the Fashion District of San Myshuno, in an apartment tower. According to them, their flat is small, and nowhere near as glamorous as the Fashion District stereotypes, but their view is to die for.
Shanna jokes that their building is so tall, they can see my home from theirs. Well, I don’t know if she’s joking. She just might be telling the truth, actually.
What surprises me more is that somehow, Charlotte convinced Shanna to actually have a bright pink bedroom.
If that’s not love, I don’t know what is.
And that’s nothing compared to the room Charlotte has re-purposed as her “office”, aka her wardrobe, and the place where she designs her looks. She does work in the industry after all.
The girls and I went out together tonight. It brought back many memories of that one last time before we moved out, after Shanna’s break-up. We went to Windenburg this time, at the club in front of the library where we graduated.
Getting together again is awesome. I can tell them about my engagement face to face, and Charlotte tells us about her glamorous job at Pizzazz Magazine. Shanna is a journalist now, but she tells us she’s been thinking about getting into politics.
Marie doesn’t talk much. We manage to pull it out of her that she and Romain are trying to make a break into the music industry. It’s clear from her tone that she’d rather change the subject, so we do.
In any case, we can’t afford to mess up our sleep cycle as we used to, so by 1AM we leave the club and head back home.
Windenburg by night! We all agreed on going someplace “new”. And by new, I mean, not our usual spots. there is nothing new about the center of Windenburg.
Do you become more comfortable in older neighborhoods the older you get? Naaaaah…
I missed the girls. Hopefully we can hang again soon.
We were going to actually turn this apartment into a place where you’d sort of want to live.
Of course we need to start with a good breakfast to gather our forces.
Pancakes. Pancakes are the best breakfast.
And then we change into old clothes, and we get painting.
In Hugo’s clothes, that just means putting on normal clothes, but you get the point.
It’s worthy to mention that we did invest some of the money from our recent job promotions into a high-quality, fancy bed. It looked so out of place in that bare, boring, sad room.
Painting the walls blue. Hugo is as clumsy as I am, so… many covers on the floor.
I finally unboxed the painting Grandma made me. It used to be in my room at the Air Complex. Somehow having it in this room helps complete the home.
Why are we both painting the same wall? WHO KNOWS.
And this is how you get a comfy room to sleep in. With a slight fresh paint smell.
And Hugo has already managed to leave his clothes where they do not belong.
It’s been some weeks now. We are still shaken by this whirlpool that shook our routine, but we’ve been supporting each other. We’ve grown closer. Been kind to ourselves and each other.
We haven’t socialized with other people in a long time, but it’s in each other that we take solace at the moment. So when Hugo proposes that we order take-out and have a candlelit “date” on our floor, I don’t think anything is odd about it.
The food is tasty, the ambiance soft, warm, and sets a special kind of mood.
As it turns out, this was sort of what Hugo was going for.
We’re cuddling on the bed, when I hear him take a deep breath, then sink to the floor in front of me, on one knee.
Hugo giving himself a pep-talk in the mirror before going to get our food.
While he’s out, I take my daily half-hour of pouring my feelings out into my faithful diary.
The remnants of our dinner abandoned on the floor, we go to the couch and prepare to digest the excess of calories.
I digest better with a good cup of tea. Hugo knows; he prepared one for me. Love, people.
And then…
He tells me maybe we weren’t ready for a three-people family yet; but we can already be a family, just the two of us. And then, out of the pocket of his stained pajamas, he pulls a beautiful golden ring, and pops the question.
We stay in again that night, and we talk. For hours on end. The good, and the bad, what we can do and what we won’t, everything about every choice that we have.
In the end, the outcome seems clear to us. It took us until dawn to figure it out, but it is clear. We finally get to bed and sleep a more serene sleep.
Canned soup and hugs for dinner. We’re both wearing our most comfortable jammies, because for this type of conversation, you might as well.
We’re honest with each over, and cover very point we can think of, and we drink a lot of hot cocoa.
And then as the sun rises, we agree that however tough things might get, we’ll be there for each other.
Hugo has a day off, so in the morning he kisses me goodbye, wishes me good luck, and as soon as he sees me disappearing into the subway, he gets to work.
Later he explains that while the news upset us both, he wanted to make things easier for me, so that when I came home that evening I’d come home to a home.
So he finishes assembling our furniture, goes downstairs to the Spice Market to find some hidden treasures in the mysterious boxes that keep popping into existence, and he decorates accordingly. He even gets a potted plant to bring some greenery into the flat.
He also tells me that it’s helped both keep his mind busy and reflect on some things.
Smug look around the room for Hugo.
Very, very smug.
Our work area, looking more like a work area and less like, well, boxes and pillows on the floor.
He intercepts me as soon as I step off the elevator.
And pulls me into a hug. At this point, I’m already wondering what he’s burnt.
Not only has nothing burnt up, but I get a back rub. And I love the new decoration.
You don’t expect to be the one unlucky soul out of a hundred. Well, surprise.
Creating a three-people family was nowhere in our year-plan. We’d never even decided on when we might start to consider it. We both wanted to focus on our careers, and our dreams first.
But I couldn’t tell how glad we are to be done with living with four other people.
It’s just the two of us, in a routine we both love and settle nicely into. I have quickly found a job at Simpple, the computer firm where you need to work to be at the very tip of innovation. Hugo got hired at as a game developer for an indie studio.
Our hours are basically the same, our workplaces are at the same subway stop. We go to work and back home together, and then at night we talk about our days, while we watch whatever Myshuno Channel is broadcasting on our tiny, tiny TV screen.
We’re in control, and even though we are seriously procrastinating the fixer-uppering of the place, we are happy.
“Do you think we should finally repaint the walls?”
“Yeah sure, tomorrow!”
“Wait no, tomorrow Simdr is on TV, we can’t miss it.”
I realize that at this point I have emphasized the privileges of being a Stewarts enough. And for the past few years, you’ve seen me live in a place that’s just a step under a mansion. So you might be surprised to learn that the flat Hugo and I move into… is not exactly peak luxury.
It’s a dump. I mean a fixer-upper, it’s a fixer-upper.
I’m tired of gaining what I have and being who I am through my ancestors and the centuries they spent working to become memorable. I want something that’s mine, and I want to earn it for myself.
Actually, scratch that. Hugo and I want something that’s ours, and to earn it for ourselves.
So we’re happy, as we move into this flat. It’s got a small terrace, a beautiful view on the Spice Market, and even though it is a fixer-upper, it’s already our own.
Hugo hard at work trying to build furniture, while I move boxes of stuff and put said stuff away.
The caffeinated soda can on the floor was not his first. We’re both supposed to be geniuses, but Simkea is not our forte.
Our kitchen! The counters are rundown, the plates old and cracked, and the fridge is still empty, but you know, it’s good enough for pancakes, so it’s good enough for me.
Our bedroom is one uncomfortable bed, a few boxes, and holes on the wall. Oh, and the notes for my and Hugo’s big project. When we stop cleaning the flat, late at night, this is what we talk about before collapsing on the mattress.
Really, the bathroom is the real problem in this flat. Look at all that water damage.
At least we have an inside clothesline?… And a bathtub. Yes. Having a bathtub is good.
The laundry room, with its exposed pipes and ruined wallpaper…
The dining area, living room, and door to the terrace. All very empty for now…
It’s not much, but it is ours. I snap a pic at Hugo, who’s happy and proud, and doesn’t notice the GIGANTIC spider crawling on the wall.
The Stewarts Family (and other shenanigans) 