Chapter Text
Emira Blight is charming, funny, effortlessly charismatic, and by far the best of her family at relating to people. She's used to her charms making people fall at her feet, whether she wants them to or not. Which makes it all the more frustrating that the one guy she really cares about seems not just immune to her charms, but actively scared of her.
"Why did my life have to turn out such a nightmare," Edric wails, collapsing over his desk and into his half-finished essay that he's been ignoring in favor of complaining for the past hour. Emira groans. Edric is such a drama queen. Granted, she feels the same way, but at least she's not saying it.
"It's not a nightmare. A girl doesn't like you," Emira says.
"She's not just a girl, Em," Edric says, all full of wounded outrage that even his sister won't put up with this bullshit for any longer. "She's Viney Sohal."
Edric continues on a long rant about how pretty and smart and awesome she is, and soccer or something, and her dog, which Emira tunes out.
Edric's melodramatic whining aside, they are in the same situation here. Jerbo Quinion is in her English class. He sits at the front, wrapped up in a black hoodie, and doesn't talk to the other students, but once in a while he raises his hand to answer a question and suddenly he's like a brilliant scholar, someone who knows even more than the teacher. No, better, Shakespeare himself, come back from the afterlife to explain to a class of high schoolers exactly what he meant by that one bit in King Lear with the bears. Also, his eyeliner looks even better than Emira's, which she didn't know was possible.
Emira is not a sap, but just think about how perfect they'd be together! They could do each other's eyeliner, and work on essays together, and he'd impress her parents with his elocution so much that they'd forget all about the "no boyfriends, ever" rule. He's actually perfect. It's nothing like Edric's stupid crush on Viney.
Okay, maybe Edric's suffering is not completely ridiculous.
"But then I tried to talk to her and I failed," Edric groans, and Emira sighs.
"Of course you failed. You just sat down at lunch period with her and started rambling about how you thought dogs are secretly smarter than humans, until you were late for class. Very seductive."
"Her dog is cute!" Edric protests. "And besides, it's not like you did any better."
Emira throws a pillow at him instead of answering.
She did, in fact, fail spectacularly. She sat down next to Jerbo in English instead of her usual seat a row behind him and three desks over, and gazed at him seductively through her eyelashes.
"Hey, Jerbo."
"Hi," Jerbo had muttered, and put his head back in his book, but Emira was not so easily deterred. She commented casually on the weather and complimented his jacket and tried to make small talk, but none of it worked. Jerbo had answered her questions by nodding or shaking his head, retreating farther into his hoodie, and then almost ran out of class when the bell rang.
"The point is that we both need a better strategy," Edric says, and Emira groans at him.
"Strategy? This is not one of your dumb videogames, Edric."
"I'll have you know that videogames make an excellent preparation for romance," Edric says indignantly, "but that's irrelevant. In order to date them, we need to figure out what they like, by successfully talking to them."
"We already tried talking to them, and we failed spectacularly," Emira points out. Edric pouts and looks like he's thinking, and Emira waits. At this point she might as well just resign herself to dying alone, with nobody except her torturous siblings for company in her old age.
"I got it!" Edric says triumphantly. "We can't talk to them ourselves, so we switch!"
"Switch what?"
"I talk to Jerbo, and you talk to Viney, and once we've figured out everything about them, we bring the information back to each other!"
Emira opens her mouth to tell Edric that it's a dumb idea, then closes it.
Maybe it's actually a good idea. She can be polite and considerate and a good listener and befriend Viney instead of scaring her, and then get all the information she needs about Jerbo. She'll find out how he operates and what he likes, and she'll use that information to come up with a clever plot to date him.
"Good idea," she tells Edric, and he looks surprised. He's not used to her supporting his crazy plans.
"Okay, so we have a plan. You befriend Viney, I befriend Jerbo, and together we get a girlfriend. And a boyfriend. Time to put it in writing."
Their mom has always enforced her lawyerly declaration that any agreement that isn't written down is entirely unenforceable. Including all agreements to pick them up from school or make dinner for them. Apparently, it's to make them learn quickly, and now they write up little contracts even when it's just the kids agreeing to something, because verbal agreements are breakable.
Emira picks up a piece of lined paper and scrawls down.
I, Emira Blight, do hereby declare that I will:
Make reasonable effort to befriend Viney Sohal, and acquire information on her.
Provide all information acquired to Edric Blight, to aid in his own efforts to win her over.
I, Edric Blight, do hereby declare that I will:
Make reasonable effort to befriend Jerbo Quinion, and acquire information on him.
Provide all information acquired to Emira Blight, to aid in her own efforts to win him over.
Not be so weird that Jerbo thinks we're all like that and avoids Blights forever.
She signs the bottom of it and pushes it across to Edric.
"How weird counts as too weird?"
"Only talk about the dog thing for ten minutes, maximum, or less if he tries to change the subject."
"You drive a hard bargain," Edric laments, but he signs it. "Secret sibling handshake?"
They're too old to be doing the secret handshake they came up with when they were five, but Emira is too thrilled about actually having a plan to care. They snap and fistbump and flick each other's noses, and Edric whoops in glee.
"Blight twins forever!" he calls, and she echoes it.
Blight twins forever. They have an epic plan, and Emira is going to be the best wingwoman ever, and then she's going to get the best boyfriend ever, and they're going to rule high school the same way they always have.