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When March said she wanted to go clothes shopping, this isn’t what she had meant.
It all started during her first day on the Express. After being rescued from a chunk of Six-Phased Ice, gifted a set of cozy pajamas, and granted free-rein of the train, March somehow found her way into a storage car. She’d been rifling through the cardboard boxes when she stumbled across a goldmine. It seems someone on the Express held a magazine subscription at one point and had racked up an impressive stash of glittery, hot-pink fashion zines. With stars in her eyes, March immediately reclaimed the magazines as her own and began reading.
According to the wisdom of various fashion journalists, an individual’s sense of style—along with their bedroom decor and phone layout—tangibly showcases one’s personality. As soon as March finished reading about the importance of individualism, she sprung into action. She’d joined the Express with absolutely nothing to her name—she didn’t even have a name at all—so she was stuck raiding the other passengers’ closets. Mr. Yang’s suits swallowed her whole, so those were out. Himeko had the most ladylike choices, but March quickly grew annoyed with the sleeves falling down her shoulders every two seconds. Dan Heng’s clothes were closest to her size, but it was extraordinarily difficult to put together creative outfits when his only options were light gray, medium gray, dark gray, and slightly darker gray.
She desperately needed clothing of her own.
Clothes shopping—according to the myriad of pop culture magazines she’d spent the week studying—is supposed to be a fun, feminine social activity. Girls her age should spend hours flitting from store to store, toting a bag on each arm. By now, she should’ve memorized the layout of at least two different malls and joined no less than four rewards programs. Unfortunately, March had no such experience—and if she ever did, she couldn’t remember it—so she was at the mercy of Himeko’s wallet.
Luckily, Himeko was just as enthusiastic about the idea of clothes shopping as March—maybe even more so. After pitching the idea to Mr. Yang (who, for some reason, seemed really embarrassed when March showed him the magazines), they charted course for the closest merchant spaceship. Naturally, Himeko planned to accompany her, but then Mr. Yang insisted on tagging along, which meant Himeko had to drag him with them as well.
Dan Heng was… strange, to say the least. March didn’t know what to make of him, and he seemed equally uncertain about her. His constant flip-flop between dry honesty and impenetrable reticence sent March reeling, and he was wary of her energetic, loud, and nosy disposition. Aside from his rundown of the Data Bank on her first day, they’d mostly avoided interacting—much to Himeko’s chagrin. She believed people similar in age should gravitate towards each other, and March wouldn’t be surprised if she was cooking up a scheme to force them together.
Case in point: the present. Despite how insistent they had been on joining her shopping trip, Himeko and Mr. Yang instantly get distracted chatting with another customer. March taps her foot for about five minutes before going off alone—or as alone as she can be with a certain somebody shadowing her. To his credit, Dan Heng does an excellent job fading into the background at first, but as soon as March notices him, his presence becomes impossible to ignore. Seriously, does he have no awareness whatsoever? What would spectators think of a tall, brooding guy silently staring at a young, spirited girl?
After receiving numerous concerned looks from other shoppers, March reluctantly decides to strike up a conversation. The last thing she needs is somebody getting the wrong idea. “You look incredibly creepy right now.”
Dan Heng crosses his arms, which only contributes to his ominous appearance. “It’s my duty to ensure no harm comes to the passengers of the Astral Express.”
She raises her eyebrows at him. “I highly doubt anyone’s gonna attack us in a clothing store.”
He tilts his head downwards, causing his bangs to cast a shadow over his eyes. “Complacency creates opportunity.”
Oooooookay, March thinks, this guy’s a weirdo. She gestures vaguely. “And your paranoia creates… annoyance. In me.”
“Pretend I’m not here, then.”
March has to consciously restrain herself from doing something childish—like stomping her foot or decking him in the face. “That’s kinda difficult when you’re, you know,” she waves her hands wildly, “staring at me?”
He lifts his shoulders in a half-shrug. “I told you, I’m ensuring you don’t do anything foolish—both for your sake, and the sake of the other customers.”
“Wow, screw you too.” Scoffing, March turns back to the shelf in front of her, ghosting her fingers across the rows of sunglasses. She picks up a pair and turns them over in her hands. Glancing around for a mirror, she clicks her tongue when she fails to find one, and her gaze eventually circles back to Dan Heng. “Well, I suppose you may as well make yourself useful,” she says, snapping her fingers and beckoning him over. “Come here.”
“I’m not a dog,” he protests, but he approaches anyway.
The image of Dan Heng as a guard dog pops into her mind, and she stifles her laughter. “Could’ve fooled me.”
Before he has the chance to react, she slaps a pair of sunglasses onto his face and bursts into laughter. The shades don’t flatter his face in the slightest—though to be fair, March can’t imagine them looking good on anyone. Doubled over and struggling to breathe, she wheezes, “You look so lame!”
Sighing, Dan Heng removes the sunglasses and examines them. The lenses are cut into perfect circles, rimmed with a lilac wire. Even someone with absolutely zero fashion expertise—like Dan Heng—can tell they clash terribly with his grayscale, teal-accented clothing. “These don’t match your tastes.”
“How would you know?” March retorts, snatching the sunglasses from his hands. She considers them for a moment out of stubbornness, but yeah, he’s right; she doesn’t like them. She sets them back on the shelf.
Dan Heng turns towards the stand, glancing around before picking up a different pair and holding them out to her. Even without her memories, March is positive the sunglasses in his hands are the ugliest thing she’s ever laid eyes on. Thick, rectangular frames in an egregious shade of neon green line yellow-tinted glass. They’re horrendous. They’re repulsive. March can’t think of a strong enough adjective to describe how much she wants to pour bleach into her eyeballs, and Dan Heng has the audacity to ask, “Do you like these?”
She stares at him. He stares back. March genuinely cannot tell whether he’s messing with her or actually believes she’d consider buying the fashion-atrocity in his hands. “Don’t even insult me like that.”
“I’ll take that as a no,” Dan Heng says, thankfully setting the offending objects back onto the shelf. “Why exactly are you looking for sunglasses? Shouldn’t you be searching for necessities first?”
“Pretty girls need pretty sunglasses, duh,” she replies, bending down to inspect the lower shelves. After a bit of searching, she gasps loudly, grabbing a pair of sunglasses buried in the back and shoving them onto her face. Dan Heng vigilantly holds out his hands as she pops up, a set of heart-shaped shades lined with a swirly pink and blue frame perched atop her nose. “Look at these! Aren’t they perfect?”
His hands hover awkwardly in the air for a moment before he reaches forwards to straighten the lenses, brushing her cheekbones with the sides of his fingertips. “They suit you.”
The wires of March’s brain short-circuit, sending sparks down her spine. Dan Heng and affection are like socks and sandals—they just don’t go together! The universe is unbalanced! Quick, he needs to insult her again! “O-of course they do!”
“Vain much?” Dan Heng quips, and March releases a breath. Phew. Everything’s back to normal.
She takes off the sunglasses and checks the price tag, letting out an embarrassing squeak at the number. Dan Heng leans closer to read the figure. “Don’t worry about the price. Himeko said she’ll cover whatever costs you require.”
She knows. Himeko made it abundantly clear that she’ll support her in whatever manner necessary, but March still feels guilty for taking advantage of her kindness—even if they both know going clothes shopping isn’t just about the clothes. She squirms, and Dan Heng backs away. “Why are sunglasses so expensive?”
He lifts a brow. “You’re the one who insisted sunglasses are a necessity.”
She shoots him a withering glare that doesn’t seem to intimidate him in the slightest. “Fine, I won’t get them.”
“That’s not what I said.”
“Then… then I will get them!” she exclaims, stomping away with the sunglasses in hand. Aeons, he’s confusing! One minute he’s dissing her every move, the next minute he’s complimenting her glasses—all with the same stoic, matter-of-fact attitude. Trying to make sense of him hurts her brain almost as much as trying to remember her past does.
Simmering in frustration, she busies herself with rifling through the clothes racks, searching for, as Dan Heng put it, necessities. Though some decisions take her longer than others, she successfully curates a selection of various styles and colors, draping the fabric over her arm to bring to the changing rooms. For her final addition, she discovers a high-waisted, pleated skirt in either cotton-candy pink or deep blue. Stuck, she bounces between the two options. The pink version matches her hair color, but the blue one offers a darker contrast to the rest of her soon-to-be-bought clothes. What if the pink skirt doesn’t match her other pink clothing? Is the dark blue compatible with a wider array of colors? But she’s already chosen a lot of blue…
Swallowing her pride, March sighs loudly, peeking out the corner of her eye to check if Dan Heng is looking her way. He’s not. She sighs again, louder this time, and his gaze finally snaps to her, eyebrows raised in exasperation. “Pink or blue?”
His eyes flick between the two skirts. “Both look fine.”
Predictably, he’s about as helpful as he always is—meaning not at all. “I can’t get both. Pick one.”
“Why can’t you?”
She stamps her foot. “Just pick one!”
With a small shake of his head, he scrutinizes the two skirts again. Eyes narrowed, finger lifted to his chin—it’s almost comical how he treats even something as mundane as clothes shopping like a matter of life and death. He arrives at a conclusion, nodding to himself. “The pink one compliments your hair.”
March hums in agreement, then promptly plucks the other skirt from the rack. “Blue it is.”
Dan Heng blinks rapidly, which is about as dumbfounded as his facial expression can get. “Why did you ask for my input if you’d already made up your mind?”
“I didn’t make up my mind,” she corrects. “I just planned to pick the opposite of whatever you chose.”
Dan Heng pinches the bridge of his nose, heaving a sigh. “Why?”
“Because you’d probably chose wrong. Boys don’t know anything about fashion.”
He glances down at his outfit. “My clothes suit me just fine.”
March hums doubtfully. “You’re wearing slacks and sneakers.”
“Sneakers are practical,” he argues.
“You only wear one bracer. How is that practical?”
He doesn’t reply. Smug, March revels in her victory as she parses through her stack of clothing. As the silence ticks on, her triumph fades into a feeling of unease. Something’s wrong. It’s too quiet. Dan Heng always has a sardonic retort for every sentence that comes out of her mouth.
She glances back up. He’s turning away from her, jaw hardened and arms held rigid by his sides. Now, March may not have much tact, but she does like to believe she has above-average emotional intelligence; immediately, she can tell she struck a nerve. “Hey, asymmetrical accessories are totally in right now, even though I personally don’t get it,” she jokes. “But if you want to have crappy fashion taste, then you do you!”
“Just stop talking,” Dan Heng grumbles, and March’s mouth clicks shut. Pivoting on her heel, she turns back to the clothing rack and pretends to look through the items just to give her hands something to do.
They don’t speak much after that.
Even Himeko and Mr. Yang pick up on the tension when they eventually regroup. As Dan Heng brushes past them to find an open cashier, Himeko sends March a look that seems to ask: what did you do? “Did something happen between you two?”
March groans loudly, following after Dan Heng and pointedly ignoring Himeko’s remark to Mr. Yang about the trials of youth.
What the magazines failed to warn her is that shopping bags are heavy, and March, who’s basically building an entire closet from scratch, has a lot of bags.
Despite her quivering arms, she stubbornly refuses Mr. Yang’s offer of help and slogs her way back to the Astral Express. Spreading her legs to distribute her weight, panting like she’s scaling a mountain, and blinking back tears as some of her bags slip off her arms and tumble to the floor—she must look utterly pathetic to the rest of the crew. It’s fine. She’s got this. Pretty girls are strong and independent and can carry their own shopping bags— and she nearly jumps out of her skin when Dan Heng appears behind her out of nowhere and picks up the bags she’d dropped.
“Do you get a kick out of scaring me?” she asks, laying a hand over her pounding heart. Dan Heng stares ahead at the Express, ignoring her. Huffing, March sticks her nose in the air and falls into step with him.
Although she’ll never admit it out loud, having an extra set of hands makes carrying her bags infinitely easier. Dan Heng refuses to look at her the whole trip, so March takes the time to brainstorm apology scripts. They set her bags in the middle of her newly finished room, and March rubs at the angry red lines in her arms from the string. Without having said a word, Dan Heng moves to leave. March calls out, “Hey, wait.”
He stops in front of the door but doesn’t turn around. She plants her hands on her hips. “Cmon, can’t you at least look at me? I don’t want to apologize to your backside.”
Sighing, he turns to face her. “If this is how you plan on apologizing, you’re already off to a bad start.”
And just like that, all her apologies violently fly out the window. “You make it so difficult to want to be nice to you.”
He quirks a brow. “That was your idea of nice?”
“You— ugh.” She balls her hands into fists.
Dan Heng watches her simmer with barely-restrained anger for a few seconds before sighing and shaking his head. “It’s fine. I don’t expect you to apologize for something you know nothing about.”
Her face scrunches in confusion. What’s that supposed to… oh. Oh shit. Guilt pools in her stomach. She may not have known the crew for long, but she’s still picked up on some unspoken rules: never pour Himeko’s excess coffee down the drain, never walk over the floor Pom-Pom just mopped, and never, under any circumstance, ask Dan Heng about his backstory.
“Does your bracer have something to do with your past?” He stiffens. “It does, doesn’t it? In that case, I’m sorry for insulting it.”
“You don’t sound sorry at all.”
It takes every ounce of March’s willpower to keep from strangling him. With nothing but intuition and the wisdom of teen magazines to guide her, March can only stumble blindly through social situations and pray she’s heading down the right path. How is she supposed to relearn proper etiquette when Dan Heng ridicules everything she does? How is she supposed to get along with him when she has no idea if she’s ever gotten along with anyone else? How is she supposed to know how to apologize properly when she can’t even remember her own fucking name?
She brings her fists up to her forehead, pressing her knuckles into her temples. “You should be glad you have something to get offended over. I’d kill for a memento from my past.”
“You— you have no idea what you’re—” He cuts off abruptly, turning on his heel and stalking towards the door. “Never mind.”
“Where are you—“
The door slams shut before she can finish her sentence. March stares at it for a moment in stunned silence before screeching, digging her palms into her closed eyelids hard enough to see colored spots. Fine, yes—she may have gone too far. As a matter of fact, she definitely went too far, and she makes a mental note to ask Mr. Yang for tips on how to apologize correctly later. For now, she has far more pressing matters to attend to—namely the pile of shopping bags scattered haphazardly across her floor. With a bone-deep sigh, she plops onto the hardwood, pries open a bag, and tries to ignore the regret churning in her stomach. It seems forgetting, in an ironic twist of fate, is the one thing she’ll never forget how to do.
Time flies by as she sorts her clothes and organizes the layout of her new closet. Before long, Pom-Pom is knocking on her door and dragging her out for dinner with Himeko and Mr. Yang. Dan Heng swings by only to silently pick up his plate and return to the Archives. She takes the opportunity to ask Mr. Yang how to apologize, and he somehow turns her simple question into a long-winded life-lesson lecture that she almost falls asleep listening to. He’s still talking even as she slowly backs towards the door and escapes.
March returns to the daunting task that is sifting through her clothes. Eventually, she’s forced to stop when she runs out of hangers. Pom-Pom probably has more, right? Stretching her muscles, she makes her way to the dining car, hoping to find the conductor. Instead, when she walks in, she finds none other than Dan Heng, who’s leaning against the sink with a glass of water in hand.
March slumps over. “Ugh.”
“Hello to you, too,” he says, not even sparing her a glance.
March wanders further into the car, draping herself over the countertop. “What are you doing here?”
“Am I not allowed to get a glass of water?”
“Am I not allowed to get a glass of water?” she repeats in a screechy, mocking tone.
He scrunches his nose. “Why are you still awake?”
“I was looking for Pom-Pom,” March replies, smushing her cheek against the cold metal, “but I ran into you instead.”
He pauses to swallow a sip of water. “Pom-Pom is most likely asleep by now. It’s very late.”
“How would you know?” she asks, gesturing limply towards the window. An ombre of blue and violet stardust paints the ether. “You can’t tell time here.”
“Which is why Pom-Pom keeps the Express on its own internal clock.” For the first time since she entered the kitchen, he looks over at her, eyebrows furrowed in something like concern. “Did they not install one in your room?”
“Uh…” she lifts her head, thinking. “I don’t… think so?”
“I’m sure they’ll be able to set one up for you tomorrow,” Dan Heng concludes. “For your information, it’s one A.M.”
March’s eyes widen. It’s that late already? Guess her hangers will have to wait until tomorrow…
Now that she thinks about it, she did do a lot today: walking around the mall for hours, lugging heavy bags, arranging her closet. She deserves a reward for all her hard work!
“Excuse me!” she says, and Dan Heng steps to the side, granting her access to the cabinet behind his head. She reaches past Himeko’s collection of coffee mugs to swipe the largest bowl she can find, setting it on the countertop with a quiet clink.
Over the rim of his glass, Dan Heng watches her flit around the kitchen with practiced ease despite having only been on the Express for a handful of days. “Remember to clean up any mess you make.”
“Yeah, yeah.”
She crouches to rifle through one of the lower cupboards, and Dan Heng squints down at her. “You do know how to operate the dishwasher, right?”
Head buried in the cabinet, she waves a hand in his general direction. “Himeko showed me. Gosh, I’m not that stupid.”
He lifts his cup to his mouth with a small shrug. “If you say so.”
She leans back to shoot him a dirty look. “I was going to offer to share my world famous sundae with you, but now, I don’t think I will.”
“World famous sundae?”
She nods, pulling a bottle from the shelf, checking the label, then putting it back. “Maybe I used to live as a famous ice cream maker who traveled the galaxy to share my recipe.”
Dan Heng makes a noise that March—if she didn’t know any better—would call a laugh. “I doubt that.”
In truth, she’d been sobbing on the floor of her new, unfurnished bedroom when Himeko found her. It was March’s second day on the Express, and everything crashed into her at once. Himeko had brought her into the kitchen, shown her where everything was, and taught her the intricate art of sundae-making. She’d said March had a natural talent for it, though, so maybe…
“Well,” she huffs, a bit too much vitriol in her voice, “until my memories inform me otherwise, my backstory can be whatever I want.”
He glances away, and her bitterness hangs uncomfortably in the air. As she stands back up, a container of sprinkles in hand, he admits, “I don’t remember everything about my past either.”
March pauses. They… actually have something in common. She’d thought they were fundamentally incompatible—he’s stoic, she’s expressive; he’s calm, she’s high-energy; he desperately wants to escape his past, she desperate wants to know hers.
She looks at him, really looks at him; he adamantly refuses to meet her eyes, elbows tucked close to his torso. His whole body is held with a familiar, uncertain stiltedness, and March… gets it. Neither of them know what they’re doing, where they’re going, who they are—he’s just better at hiding it.
“I guess we aren’t that different, huh?” she murmurs, lips pulled into a soft smile.
His eyes flick over to her, immediately darting away again when they make eye-contact. Stiffly, he brings the glass up to his mouth. “I wouldn’t say that.”
Aaaaaaaaand whatever tranquility had fallen over them abruptly shatters. She huffs a laugh, tilting her head back to stare at the ceiling. “Just let us have a moment, Dan Heng!”
He hums noncommittally, downing a mouthful of water to avoid having to reply. Shaking her head, March places the sprinkles on the counter beside her other toppings and pops open the lid of the chill box. They speak at the same time.
“I’m genuinely sorry—“
“I apologize for—“
They both cut off. Half-hanging off the edge of the chill box, March cranes her neck to look at him, confused. “What are you apologizing for?”
He twists around to rinse his now-empty glass. “I left unexpectedly earlier.”
“In my room?”
He nods. March turns back to the freezer, rummaging through the chunks of ice. “Well, I pissed you off. I don’t blame you for storming out.”
His brows knit together. “I left before I got angry, not after.”
“Huh?”
He shuts off the tap. “My composure was slipping, so I left to avoid saying something I would regret later. I apologize for leaving before you were done speaking… and unintentionally leading you to believe I was angry with you.”
Her legs kick back and forth as she leans further over the edge of the box. “Then why’d you avoid me at dinner?”
“Avoid you?”
“You took your food to the Archives.”
“Yes, that’s a common occurrence…?”
She stops moving. So… that had nothing to do with her? He hadn’t been avoiding her? “Oh.”
He raises an eyebrow, looking her up and down. Realizing how stupid she must look right down—arms buried to the elbow in ice, legs dangling limply in the air—she turns back to the freezer and hauls out a container of ice cream. “Why are you apologizing again?” Dan Heng asks. “I already told you that I don’t expect an apology.”
“Uh, because I feel bad?”
“Don’t,” he answers plainly. “I’m no longer offended.”
“But you were at first,” she points out, and his eyes dart to the side, suddenly fascinated by the floor. “I’m sorry for insulting something that means a lot to you.”
Simple, straight-forward, and directly related to the problem—she did learn something from Mr. Yang’s lecture after all! Dan Heng, however, needs a lesson on how to aptly respond to an apology. “You didn’t know.”
“That doesn’t make it—“ She cuts off and takes a deep breath. “Just accept my apology!”
He sighs, resigning himself to his fate. “I accept your apology.”
“Good. Now, what’s your favorite ice cream flavor?”
“Vanilla, why?”
She blinks at him. “You’re joking.”
“I have no reason to joke.”
Out of all the ice cream flavors in the world, of course he chooses the most bland one as his favorite. She rolls her eyes, plunging her hands into the ice once again. “I guess I’ll add your plain, boring vanilla to my sundae.”
“Are you calling me plain and boring?”
She grins. “Are you saying you aren’t plain and boring?”
“Yes.”
She laughs, and he crosses his arms. “Is something funny?”
March just shakes her head and giggles to herself. Figuring he won’t get an answer out of her, Dan Heng turns back to the sink. While he dries his glass with a towel, March pries the container of vanilla ice cream from the freezer’s depths, humming to herself as she sets it amidst her other ingredients. She cracks her knuckles before getting to work.
Dan Heng wanders over, watching with a mix of intrigue and horror. She points to a drawer. “Grab two spoons.”
He does as asked, returning as she dusts her hands, smiling at her creation. Her sundae, complete with no less than four flavors (including Dan Heng’s plain, boring vanilla), is splattered with an ungodly amount of whipped cream, chocolate syrup, at least three different kinds of sprinkles, gummy worms, chocolate chips, the whole nine yards. One spoonful could probably kill a man. It’s beautiful. Dan Heng eyes it like it’s the grossest thing he’s ever seen. “Am I expected to… consume this?”
“Yep!” March chirps, plucking one spoon from his hands. She jabs it into the bowl, takes as much ice cream as she can manage, and shoves it into her mouth.
Dan Heng grimaces, hesitantly dipping his spoon into an unblemished scoop of vanilla at the edge of the bowl. March helpfully shoves his hand forward, ensuring he picks up at least two toppings. His eye twitches, and she shoots him an encouraging smile as he slowly eats the spoonful. His face looks as though he bit into a lemon instead of ice cream. Swallowing roughly, he mutters, “I think I’ll get my own bowl.”
March snorts, pulling the bowl closer to herself as Dan Heng prepares his own considerably smaller serving of vanilla. She hops up onto the counter, and Dan Heng leans against the table beside her. They munch on their sundaes in companionable silence.
In a weird way, March thinks she learned a lot about him just from how he eats his ice cream. The same tongue that hurls insults at her all day also eats plain, boring, and soft vanilla at night. The same Dan Heng that refuses to get close to anyone also compliments her sunglasses, carries her bags, tries her ice cream despite clearly not wanting to, and stays behind to help her put all her toppings away. His mouth may be full of acid, but gentleness oozes from his actions like chocolate syrup dripping down whipped cream.
All bark and no bite, March thinks to herself, shoving another spoonful into her mouth as she swings her legs back and forth. Just like me.
The next morning, March spends at least ten minutes consoling a heartbroken Pom-Pom, who profusely apologizes for forgetting to install a clock in her room. She manages to calm them down long enough to receive her extra hangers, and she finishes putting away the last of her clothes before breakfast. After all that effort, she can finish what she set out to do: style an outfit for herself.
She strides into the Parlor Car decked out in pink, blue and white. Her long-sleeve shirt tucks into a pleated blue skirt adorned with shimmery diamonds. Himeko claps as she spins to give them the whole view.
Dan Heng looks up from his notebook. “Is this the skirt I indirectly picked?”
“Yep!” She twirls again for good measure. “Looks much better in blue, doesn’t it?”
He hums neutrally and turns back to his food, repeating her words from before. “If you want to have crappy fashion taste, then you do you.”
March freezes. Himeko and Mr. Yang shoot him strange looks, and after a couple beats of silence, he glances back up with widened eyes. “That… was a joke.”
A deafening silence follows. March blinks at him. “I didn’t know you could make those.”
He glares at her, and she sticks out her tongue. Shaking his head, he lifts his pen and resumes writing. “It looks fine.”
“Just fine? Can’t you think of a more creative adjective?”
“Of course I can.”
March waits for his response, but he doesn’t add anything else. Rolling her eyes, she turns to Himeko. “Himeko, you like my skirt, right?”
She smiles sweetly. “Isn’t your opinion the most important of all?”
March throws up her hands, plopping in her seat. “None of you are helpful—you least of all, Dan Heng!”
She pokes him, and he swats at her finger without looking up from his notebook. “The pen of the tongue should be dipped in the ink of the heart.”
“What— what does that mean?” Dan Heng expertly evades eye contact, even as she incessantly jabs his arm with her finger. “Did you just insult me with a proverb? What does that mean?”
He shoves a chunk of pancake into his mouth in an attempt to hide the smile blooming across his lips. Himeko muffles laughter behind her hand, and Mr. Yang covers the bottom of his face with his newspaper. Even though March isn’t entirely sure what’s so funny, she can’t help but laugh along, trying and failing to school her expression into one of annoyance. Dressed in her new outfit and surrounded by friends, March, for the first time since joining the Express, feels confident that she’s right where she’s supposed to be.