1 L'Ambiance du Café

A piercing whistle echoed for the twenty seventh time this rush hour. Milk steamed for the twenty seventh time. Clinking glasses and mugs, ambient chit-chat, stainless steel coffee spoons scraping against varnished pottery obscured by the over-priced liquid contents. The occasional presence of calloused finger pads tapping habitually on the worn keys of a tired laptop welcomes this regular chain establishment as a home away from home, for anyone from caffeine-addicted insomniacs to mothers escaping the chaos of their children for an hour or two. Perhaps they are the same.

"Apollo-MoChou." An irritated tone punctuated her grave address. Sincerity was evident in the intensely caffeinated air between them; she had used his real name.

"Yes, of course." He smiled hesitantly, apologising with his pitiful expression. Avoiding verbal apologies was his speciality, he liked to keep them for when he needed them most.

Jada replied with an expression he had grown used to being scolded by but never grown to fulfil. "I know, I'll try harder."

"I need us to be okay, Appo." Her sincerity extended to pleading. "I don't have much else at the moment, and I just need this right now."

He knows.

"I'll be more present. I promise." She has always had to work twice as hard as her brother and he knew it. He also knew that she never found what she deserved. She had been discarded by passive friends, the number of which he wouldn't know, with no one to fall back on. Apollo knew but never acted.

"Okay." Jada watched as Apollo tore his attention from the café counter to give her what she needed. It only hurt her more that it required so much effort to be acknowledged. He's trying his best.

"So, what's new?" Jada prompted the conversation on his behalf, she had already told Apollo her news while he was still away. She wasn't going to repeat it again.

The involuntary wince in his right eye signalled her that he was at least giving the conversation some thought. "Well… I moved to a new house." Pulling at a pierced tan earlobe to ease his general anxiety of the circumstance, the older brother reached for his neglected luke-warm espresso left neatly placed from when they first sat at their cosy table in a far corner of the Parisian café. The bare sunlight of the fresh early Spring morning outlined Apollo's features like the bold line-art of a semi-realist artist's portrait; just enough to resemble a person but too perfect to be real.

With a suppressed cough from choking on her peach iced tea and a little bit of unflattering saliva spurting from her unprepared reaction, "You moved to a new house?"

"Yes, ma'am." He was older in age; she was older in feeling.

"When?"

"A few days ago."

"Where ?"

"13ém arrondissement. Quartier chinois."

"T'es fou?" Jada calmly set down her glass and asked the question with a casual yet serious tone. She was genuinely questioning her brother's sanity. Apollo uttered a rhetorical sigh and eyed her with an expectant look as though to say 'Elaborate, please.'. To which his sister replied accordingly. They may not always be on the same wavelength, but they were still both Jiang-Flammia children. "In English then: are you crazy? You were living in the 7ém arrondissement after getting ridiculously rich off your new book and now you're telling me that you moved back to Chinatown?"

"Correct."

"But- what are you looking at?" She cut herself off after realising his attention had wandered off once again.

Apollo didn't reply.

Jada would usually scold him for getting distracted or make him pay the bill. But this was different. She could finish the prior conversation any other time, this conversation needed to be talked over now. The more responsible Jiang-Flammia sibling followed the strayed gaze, a gentle glint passing through Apollo's hazel-green painted irises. A crystalline string ran from his fixed, intrigued pupils, attaching him to the other end. Jada grinned.

"You've never showed any interest in any human other than yourself before." The candid statement carefully broke Apollo's comfortable silence. He turned his head hesitantly to face his younger sister who sat staring with a bashful grin that could only ensue chaos. An outburst of hysterical laughter eased Apollo's fear of his sister's disapproval. "Your face is so red right now, as red as a cherry!" Jada's poor joke only provoked one of her brother's signature frustrated sighs. A scorching hot hand immediately covering his equally as blushing face.

"Just say it." He mumbled into the palm of his uncomfortable sweaty hand.

"Say what? I'm happy that your showing signs of not being a complete and utter narcissist?" The amused lilt in her tone lifted the tonne of solid brick off her brother's shoulders. "What d'you want me to say, Appo? A hundred lashes and a dozen Hail Marys for your sins?"

Jada's obnoxious laughter began to subside into a fond giggle as Apollo parted the two fingers covering his eyes to peer at his ecstatic little sister. Leaning forward with a firm and reassuring grip, she gently pulled his hand away from covering his face. "No, I just mean- I don't know…" Sigh.

"Apollo-MoChou Jiang-Flammia. We are mixed in every single way possible: ethnicity, race, faith, creed. You name it. Why would I care about who you get distracted by when we can have our weekly coffee breaks together every week?"

Apollo wiped the tears he had not noticed from his flushed face. He smirked. With a steady hand he picked up the espresso he had discarded amidst the momentary angst and downed the remaining contents in one gulp. The familiar ambience of caffeine and mutual catch-up chit-chats continued as though nothing had happened. The whistle of the fifty fourth steamed milk turned into the first of the next rush hour as the second-hand antique clock stood still and ticked them into the next moment, resuming its purpose of continuum.