Super Fake Love Song - David Yoon Page 0,29

Sometimes, they even switched geographic locations. Therefore, what was a team but for uniform color combinations and logos?

But now, seeing how Cirrus batted her hands together and marveled at the aluminum trembling with thunder beneath our feet, I wondered: If being where you were when you were was but a wobble of physics, and all else was equal—Ravager or Avenger—why not belong?

Why not join in?

People, I realized, rooted for teams not necessarily because one was somehow fundamentally better than the other. They did it mostly just to belong.

Because it was nice to belong to something, or someone.

I glanced at Cirrus, who had glanced at me, too.

White-with-red football players erupted from a large decorated paper hymen and streamed onto the field between two lines of jittering lunatic cheerleaders. On the opposite side, red-with-white football players did the same.

The crowd instinctively steadied their applause to keep time with the music now, and I figured what the hell, and clapped along. Cirrus held her hand up so we could clap together, which was surprisingly difficult. We managed a few claps, quickly got out of sync, and wound up shoving pressed palms oddly back and forth like we were some kind of silly machine. We learned chants. We high-fived strangers. We yelled, and our cheeks became red in the deepening cold of the night.

“Go, Avengers, go!” yelled Cirrus along with the crowd. “I mean go, Ravagers, go! Sorry!”

She teetered, and I caught her with both arms.

When the Rancho Ruby High Ravagers—our side of the field—ultimately lost, Cirrus and I joined the crowd streaming down the bleachers and watched as parties dissolved into the night with murmurs and backslaps and hugs.

We’ll be back, they said. We’ll get ’em next time.

“I’m a Ravagers fan!” said Cirrus. “I loved it!”

I did too.

* * *

—

The ride back was flat and quiet, and the rows of dewy centenarian sycamores standing sentinel layered the sky above with all the velvet colors of night foliage: Edward greens and funeral teals and spotted charcoal. I had never quite realized how beautiful the ride home was until now.

Until Cirrus.

Her hair blew into her face, so she bicycled hands-free for a moment to deftly tie it back.

“All the Ruby High people looked so sad by the end of the game,” said Cirrus.

“And for what, right?” I said, gearing up for ridicule out of sheer habit. I would’ve gone on, but this time I stopped myself.

“They really believed in their team,” said Cirrus. “They belonged to them. It was nice to see.”

My mind flicked over to an image of Milo and Jamal and back. I belonged to them. We were a team. Cirrus was new. She had no team.

“I could belong to you,” I said.

“You could belong to me,” I said.

“We could belong to each other,” I said.

Scratch, scratch, scratch. I found I could say nothing. Cirrus filled the silence.

“So I’m settling in pretty well, thanks for asking,” she said, tossing a wry smirk at me.

“Oh my god, I am inconsiderate and self-centered,” I said. I squeezed my eyes. “You settling in okay there, Cirrus Soh?”

We both stood on our pedals to allow a speed hump to pass.

“Having you around makes it easier,” she said.

Her words made me abnormally warm. Everything she said and did made me abnormally warm.

“Having me around makes you, uh,” I said, painting myself into a syntactical corner.

Cirrus glanced at me. “You are strange,” she said.

“Your mom’s butt is strange,” I said.

“Not that she’s ever around for us to examine it,” said Cirrus with a puff.

A moment appeared, and began to stretch ominously in length. I knew so little about Cirrus’s home life. Imagination tended to fill voids in unpredictable ways, so I began spinning scenarios again: Her parents didn’t exist, Cirrus was really a runaway, and so on.

I wanted to ask. But from the look on Cirrus’s face, her parents seemed like a sensitive subject. What if I broached a subject so sore it wound up driving her away?

So I just quipped, “We’re not seriously talking about your mom’s butt,” and when Cirrus laughed, the ominous moment snapped in two and whipped clean away.

I was lightly sweating by this point. I unzipped my hoodie, let it billow with night air.

“Whoo, got a long uphill ahead,” said Cirrus, and klonked into a lower gear. “So I heard the Immortals were practicing yesterday.”

I sighed, something I did whenever I got nervous. “You did?”

“Jamal told me,” she said. “I think that guy is in love with me.”

“Wouldn’t surprise me,” I said.

“I think