Upon a Star
A/N: I broke this chapter into 2 because it was getting waaaay too long like lol 9k words??? So it will be continued next week! For entertainment and narrative purposes, 'Disneyland' is a combination of all Disney attractions and rides across the globe including Disneysea. Unfortunately for you Bakers, Cuppie is a whole-hearted Asian who hAs NevEr been out of Asia eVeR before omg rare species (jkjk)?? Therefore the only Disneys I've ever been to are in Hong Kong and Tokyo. As for those who've never been to Disney before, I will be posting a mini collection of the attractions and rides that our cute couple and Giselle will experience in the chapter(s) on 'hisangelchip'.
*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*
There was a certain quaintness in a hospital on the other side of the country. Serene, perhaps; for its patients seemed to enjoy the tranquility of the beautiful spring that had just begun.
Along with the beauty of spring; came the light of peace and remedy. And this—the patients of the hospital were quick to understand. For it seemed to be an attractive time to admire the flowers in the garden, indeed.
And that was exactly what a young girl of one of the many rooms in the hospital, decided to do.
There was a strange skip in her steps; light as her feet were—as if she was no longer afraid of falling, or fearing that there was something in front of her.
Perhaps it was, really, the fear of the unknown darkness.
For that was what she had been facing the past few years.
But despite the success of the surgery, Giselle understood—that it was impossible for her to see things exactly as she did before. Her new eyes needed some time to adjust to its equally new owner, and perhaps this would account for her inability to focus well on certain objects in her central vision.
There was an excited gratitude that beat in the depths of her heart.
For her Sun had returned.
There was the warmth of his light;
And then of course,
She could see cupcakes again.
*
[Chip]
Her eyes were a dark, earthy brown. It was the first thing we noticed when we saw Giselle after her surgery, and for a moment, we didn't know what to say. I cried. And through my tears, could tell that Xander was trying hard not to. His sister had stared at us for the next couple of minutes, probably wondering what or who we were—a bunch of adults weeping by her bed, red-faced and weak at the sight of her, or that she could, for all intents and purposes, see us.
We had found her laying on her side the moment we entered the ward, staring out of the window. At the time then, the nurses had said she'd been still ever since she woke; refusing to respond or move. It was only an hour later that we received a call and rushed down to the hospital to see her state. To Xander and I however, she was beautiful just by being alive.
It surprised us, then, that she had turned at the sound of our footsteps and actually—for the first after a painfully long time—looked us in the eye.
For some reason, she identified me first. When I had asked how, Giselle had said that it was the sound of my tears. Which was really funny and adorable. Also low-key embarrassing, since that meant that I cry fairly often. She had reached out for my hand and asked for a hug, which I obliged willingly.
The very next thing Xander's sister had admitted was that she was 'scared'.
"Too many things to understand," she had said with a frown, which reminded me that she shouldn't be doing anything that strained her eyes or the muscles around them. I calmed her down by producing a box of fresh strawberries. "Red." Giselle had identified, running her index along the tiny grooves of the strawberry.
She'd looked up then, and seemed to spot Xander who stood a distance away. Silent and unmoving.
"Xandie's still a statue?" Giselle had lowered her gaze back to the strawberry in her hands, looking at it strangely—as though not knowing what to think of it. "Everything was white when I woke up."
"It was white and white and white and I don't know who was who and even now, I can't see you or Xandie very clearly but I can see your hair. It's cornfield. I like the color cornfield. I don't know how I know it's that color but I do. It look like sunflowers. You're a sunflower. You're a sunflower."
She had bit into the strawberry after saying, and then smiled at her feet.
"It's sweet."
We had hugged her then, unable to resist the urge to do so and she had said very cheekily then how Xander was secretly upset because we could no longer have sex in the living room which I blushed really hard and glared at my husband, while he glared at his sister, and his sister only laughed.
The nurses had come in then, telling us that it was time for Giselle's meal. They brought in a tray of food specially catered towards her recovery diet and left us to spend more time with her. I had fed her sweetened porridge, to which she said wasn't as good as the kind I made. I had promised to bring whatever she would like the next day, and the next couple of days she'd have to spend in the hospital. She wasn't very picky, and agreed.
*
It became part of our routine—the visiting and all. We'd taken turns to spend the night in the hospital for the past week, unable to leave Giselle's side until about a week later, when she took towards a certain female nurse and started to declare that she could take care of herself. Xander would come during his lunch breaks, in which I would take the opportunity to zip back to the bakery and check in on everyone. Other than that, I'd spent most of my time with Giselle, reading Disney fairy tales while she stared at the pictures.
"Do the voices," she demanded one day after lunch as I was reading 'Snow White' to her. Giselle was supposed to feel sleepy after lunch, but recently she's been starting to get more active after it. "Do the voices. I want to hear it."
"B-but," I started protesting, but the look on Giselle's face meant that I had to do it anyway. So I tried. She laughed like never before, and I was surprised she had the strength in her lungs to do so. "Calm down, Giselle! You're going to get a fit if you laugh like that."
"Do the evil queen. Do it," she prompted next, kneeling on the bed as she stole the storybook and held it a distance away from me. "I'll hold it. Do the fairer fairest fair thing."
I reasoned politely that there wasn't a magic mirror I could use but just like her brother, Giselle didn't buy most of my excuses. No surprises there.
Gotta be evil, gotta be eevil...
"Mirror, mirror on the wall, who's the fairest, of them—" I was trying my best to embody the most evil disposition and express a certain cunning intent on my face while reciting the lines when all of a sudden, the door opened to reveal my husband. "Of them...X-Xan?"
Giselle groaned, as though her favourite TV show had just switched to a commercial break. "Xaanndieee..."
"What? I just got here," my husband placed a bouquet of flowers on Giselle's beside table. "These are from Hansel. He told me to give them to you when I dropped by the bakery just now."
"Oh. Prince Hans."
"Yeah. Him."
She stared at the mixture of white and pink roses, then turned to me. "Do the evil queen thing for Xandie."
I did a double take. "W-what? Now?" Xander appeared low-key excited. He was smirking and I could tell.
"Yess," Giselle dragged the word, hugging Fluffy which Xander had brought to the hospital days before so that his sister could sleep. "Do et."
I did it. Don't ask me how embarrassed I was at that point of time because it must've been 11/10. A++ tomato-level embarrassed. It didn't help that I wasn't apt at the evil thing.
"I rate 10/10 will bang," Xander was, of course, the first to say that sort of thing after I'd finished my embarassing re-enactment of 'Snow White'. "You were like an evil strawberry. Husband approves."
Giselle claimed that she wasn't satisfied with the level of evil, and insisted that the evil laugh was somehow necessary to the characterization of the queen. I was too tired to do it.
"That's okay Angel, we all know you're the fairest of them all."
I had to take Fluffy and hide my face from the cheese because Xander (as usual) was getting far too cheesy for my threshold.
*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*
"Giselle?"
She turned only after a moment's pause to look at me. We were seated on an old-fashioned steam train on our way to Disneyland, Xander a row behind. "Are you hungry? The trolley lady won't be coming any time soon...I brought some red velvet cupcakes along. Just in case." I unzipped my backpack and produced a transparent lunchbox, tapping the cover to bring her attention to it. "Do you want some?"
Giselle stared at the lunchbox, frowning a little before nodding. "Yes!"
My husband had finally given in to his sister's persistent requests of visiting Disneyland only a week earlier, having booked the tickets online on the day of her discharge. Simply put, she was ecstatic and had been in a good mood for the past week—speaking only of the trip and nothing else. I handed her the box of cupcakes and she took them eagerly, popping open the cover and taking one.
"It doesn't have cream," she noticed almost immediately, frowning at the red velvet. "Are we on low-fat diet?"
I laughed. "Adding cream cheese is really filling! There's white chocolate inside the cupcake, so the flavour's still there," I reassured, returning the lunchbox to my backpack and zipping it once again. "I was afraid you'd be too full by the time we got there to eat all the cotton candy and popcorn."
"I eat a lot," Giselle declared, taking a huge bite of the cupcake. The chocolate ganache inside started to dribble out, and I wiped it off her hand before it could get all over her clothes.
The train breezed past the countryside in a blur of black and blue, leaving Giselle a little confused as she stared out of the window. "Why is it so dark?"
"Because it's really early," I told her. "The sun isn't up yet! We have to leave early because it takes about three hours to get to Disneyland. And we want to get there early, don't we?"
"We're going to be the first," Giselle said with confidence, "no one's going to be as early." I laughed, not wanting to dash her hopes but knowing she would be disappointed with the queue.
"I hope so!"
*
Xander looked terrible the moment we arrived at the station, his face dark and scary. I almost squeaked when he came up from behind his sister and I, so while we waited for the bus and Giselle had her second cupcake, I asked him what was wrong.
"Did something happen on the ride?"
He sighed. "The man sitting beside me wouldn't stop leaning on my fucking handrest. He was literally inches away, breathing in my face the whole entire journey and when I asked him—very politely—to fuck off, he said that I was being unreasonable." Xander looked about a hundred percent done when he finished his story, downing several gulps of his water as soon as he did so.
"W-well, it's your fault for being so good-looking. Maybe he just wanted to have a conversation with you!"
My husband looked at me as though I had announced my pregnancy. He laughed anyway, so I guess my joke worked. Yay, I'm not that bad at jokes after all!
"We all know that isn't the case, Angel," he kissed me on the forehead, and Giselle who was now able to see what we were doing blinked aggressively. I recall when she would stare at our matching rings for the first couple of days after surgery. "In any case, I learnt that being nice and patient is the hardest fucking thing in the world."
I stuck a tongue out at him. "You'll learn."
"Do you want to sit with Giselle on the bus? I can...um, take the seat behind you guys. Especially if the seats at the very back are taken already." Xander declined my offer at once.
"No. That's worse. Everyone would be all over you in a second—they wouldn't be able to resist." I rolled my eyes, nudging his, uh, tummy/abs. I don't really know. If I could term it, I'd say 'wall'.
The bus arrived in a couple of minutes and thankfully for my husband, it was near empty. We embarked on yet another hour's ride to a station near the city, where we could then take a shuttle bus to Disneyland. The entire process was long and protracted, considering the waiting times and the fact that we woke up at half-past four in the morning just to catch the first train. Xander was the one who's pretty much used to all-nighters (which wasn't a good thing, mind you, because he had insomnia for the past couple of years u-until, you know, we got together again) while Giselle on the other hand, remained knocked out every time we got onto a new form of transport.
I wasn't that far off, but I guess having Xander as my husband meant pulling all-nighters anyway, s-so.
"I hear music," Giselle announced as soon as we neared Disneyland, halfway through a really long walk to the gates. "There are a lot of people."
I nodded at her commentary, noticing that sounds were still key to Giselle's understanding of the world. "Yes! It's Disney music. This is the Pinnochio theme, 'when you wish upon a star'."
"Ooh."
I prepared the online tickets that Xander had booked for the three of us, handing one to each of them. "You just have to scan the QR code over here to enter," I pointed out the black square of dots to Giselle. "I'll go with you."
She looked a little confused so I repeated it again and this time, she got it. "It's okay. I can do it."
We stood for a good thirty minutes at the tremendous queue outside the ticket gates and when the opening hour finally came about, we were actually excited to get our bags checked. After all, it wasn't just Giselle's first time at Disneyland, it was mine and Xander's as well. Excited was clearly an understatement.
"Good morning! If you'd open your bag please, yes thank you! Next please..." Uwa, this is so exciting for some reason??
It was hard to contain my overwhelming excitement even though I was well aware of my age. Disney seemed to possess that sort of magic. At least that was what I thought, until Xander got hold of a foldable map of the park and suggested we go to the Tower of Terror as our first ride.
Giselle liked the sound of it.
"Terror!"
"Awesooome," she said along the way, watching as a couple of kids sprinted ahead of us and joined a bunch of people who were somehow moving in the same direction, anxious to beat the crowd for their first ride.
"Are we sure about this?" I asked nervously, tugging at my husband's sleeve.
Xander was the one who insisted; and knowing him, I sort of guessed that it was the scariest ride. I was right. And for important reasons, it was also the one that tended to have the longest queue (which was the very excuse my husband gave in order to drag me and his sister along).
Giselle didn't seem to mind that our first ride was going to be on the extreme end. In fact, she seemed unfazed. The three of us joined the queue that had already started to form at the Tower of Terror, and I had to admit, the architecture was one of the best I've ever witnessed. It looked like a gothic-style hotel, and if not for it's creepy backstory I'd actually like to live in it!
"What's that?" Xander's sister asked, pointing out what seemed like a crash-site of an elevator as we waited in line.
"Part of the backstory. The man who owns the hotel died in there or something," my husband explained and I froze all over. What exactly was this ride about? Wait...I don't know a thing about it. It's just a tower right? I mean, at least I can confirm that there's no 360-turn. The tower can't possibly house a ride that scary, right?
Show me the exit. ;-;
"Angel, you okay?" Xander tickled my earlobe (he likes to do that whenever he knows I'm not feeling very well don't ask me why).
"I-I'm ogey," I breathed. Inside, I was trying to factor in the waiting times and persuade my inner weakling that going on the ride with the longest queue first had to be worth it. W-worth...it.
After all, how bad can it be? It's probably going to cute like that Winnie the Pooh honey bucket thing that Gretel raved about last month. There will be plot. I like plot. It's just a dark plot! With thriller. And some cool sound effects and um, evil things...a-and an elevator??? I did a double take as soon as a cast member ushered us into this huge, cargo-looking elevator that had about twenty seats.
"Wha...what's going on?" I pulled on my husband's shirt and he took my hand, leading me to a seat between Giselle and him. He even did my seat belt buckles. Yes, they were seat belts. There wasn't a single heavy-duty brace that they usually had for rollercoaster rides.
I was getting really anxious by this point. "Why is it only a seat belt?"
"Have a safe ride!" The cast member said with a smile as soon as she finished checking our seats and bags, waving while the doors of the elevator began to close.
"Because it's fun that way," Xander laughed and I wasn't even in the state to register his words because the lights were cut all of a sudden and something was showing on the screen before us.
"Say your final goodbyes!" It said. Say your final goodbyes, it said??
I did, either way.
Thanks for the warning.
*
The three of us stumbled out of the ride. I wasn't even standing anymore; Xander was my only form of support.
"Holy shit, that was some elevator. The turbulence—that was some good shit."
I managed a vague 'wha?', somehow expressing my concerns about the part where the elevator shot up and plunged at a terrifying speed. My butt wasn't even touching my seat for a total of eight seconds! So much for seatbelts.
"Well, it all escalated quickly," Giselle declared with a straight face, turning to her brother and I. Her pun was strangely comforting.
*
We decided to retrieve fast passes for the next thriller—Big Thunder Mountain. It wasn't exactly Xander's decision this time, in fact it was only upon his sister's insistence that we went. She had seen the huge structures of red rock from afar and heard the terrifying screams of those who dared challenge its twists and turns. I wasn't one of them.
"C-can I sit out...?"
"Don't worry Chocolate Chip, I'll protect you," Giselle reassured as she made Xander collect three fast passes from the machine. "It's going be awesome."
I couldn't refuse—not after seeing the spark in her eyes. It was strange how the passion in her eyes remained the same despite having been masked all these years. Deep down, her heart was still the same.
"Teacups while waiting for our fast passes to activate?" My husband sugested as we were walking away from the collection point, heading towards the neighboring land that was about a fifteen-minute walk from where we were. Giselle wasn't really used to reading without Braille, so she handed the map back to me for checking.
"It's quite a walk, but Giselle likes Alice so it's going to be worth it," I scanned the foldable map and was delighted to see that there was a store selling churros not far away. "B-before that, do you think we could get some churros...?"
Xander laughed. "You get one of those every time we watch a movie together!"
"I can't help it," I protested quietly. "There are different flavors in Disneyland, mind you. At least that's what Hansel said." My husband gave in eventually (mostly because he has a soft heart for my pleas hehe).
We were making our way to the churros stand when Giselle spotted one of those souvenir stores that were littered across the park—the kind that sold character headbands and Disney-themed merchandise like keychains or plushies. It wasn't all that big, but Xander's sister insisted on getting a crown she'd seen from afar, so we had to oblige.
The three of us walked unsuspectingly into the store.
*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*
[Xander]
The very first thing that caught my eye was a pastel-colored section labeled 'Easter'; and under that, dozens of pairs of bunny ears attached to a fluffy headband. It came in every single fucking pastel color a human being could imagine. Okay, fine—four, to be exact. Obviously, that wasn't my point. Instantly, I answered my calling.
"Giselle, there's an Easter section right over there," I said to my sister who was holding onto my husband's hand. "Don't you want to check it out?" The crucial moment called for high-leveled sibling-telepathy and various non-verbal gestures that I prayed my sister would pick up.
Initially, she didn't. "What? No. I just said that I—oh." A single glance in the general direction of the 'Easter' section had her (just as I was) sold. "Okay. Let's go there." I had to admit, Giselle wasn't entirely cut out for acting. To an expert like myself, my sister looked as though she had been brainwashed by my words and was drifting blankly towards the 'Easter' section like Aurora to the spinning wheel. Chip however, didn't seem to notice at all.
He allowed himself to be dragged towards the bunny-themed character headbands, explaining that he'd heard something about it being the Easter season and that Disney had special merchandise and parades just for its celebration.
"Look, Chocolate Chip. These are cute," Giselle reached up to remove a pair of pink bunny ears from the rack. As expected, I raised her well. Honestly speaking, I have a knack for raising kids. I mean, if all of them grew up to be like Giselle then, woah, I'd have an army by my side ready to protect my angel—
"Let's all wear these," my sister dropped a bomb as soon as I was about to shower her with praises in my mind. I stopped short.
"Wait, wait wait. Hold up," I held up a hand, and the two of them turned to me with a curious tilt of their heads. "All of us?"
Giselle nodded, a clueless look on her face and I swore to take back every single word I said because this girl is the spawn of satan and she should never be crossed. Look at that face! What in the fuck, she's definitely planning somethig beneath that innocent smile holy shit she's good at this. Damn it. I lose.
"That sounds like a great idea!" Chip was, naturally, all for it. He'd side Giselle over me any day and my scheming sister knew it. She knew it, all along! It was part of her evil plan.
"Yay," she rejoiced with a smug look on her face. "What color you want, Chocolate Chip? I think you should take white." Giselle presented my husband with a pair of white bunny ears attached to a furry headband. It was super soft to touch. "This, too."
And with that, I had lost to my sister for the second time of the day because her sharp eyes had spotted—hidden at a corner of the section—fluffy bunny tails. Attached to rainbow-colored ribbons so that one was able to tie it around their waists. It was the cutest shit I've ever seen. Sigh.
"O-oh, this?" Chip looked very embarrassed all of a sudden, tips of his ears blushing a shade darker. "It's a bunny tail. It's like a ball of fluff! Haha, but, um. I don't think I'll be able to pull it off...it'll look better on you, Giselle!"
"No!" "Nah." We said at the same time, and my angel blinked cluelessly. "Wear it," I prompted, taking the headband out of his hesitant hands and placing it on his head for him.
"Uwa!" He struggled a little, but gave in after a single word from Giselle.
"Good."
By this point, my sister was winning our sibling rivalry hands down and I figured that upping my game was somewhat necessary. Chip suggested that I get the grey pair and obliging was the only thing I could do to make him happy.
"We match!" He smiled shyly, pointing to the grey bunny ears on my head. "Are you getting the tail?"
"Well, we could get one for you and Giselle," I tried my best to avoid the tail at all costs. Nevertheless, I had to admit that it would come in handy during our...night activities. Dammit Xander, you're at Disneyland thinking about sex. Worst human being to ever exist. I made a quiet apology to the skies above and my innocent husband beside me, who probably didn't have a clue what I was secretly planning.
The little devil Giselle on the other hand...
We ended up with three pairs of bunny headbands; pink, white and grey. One tail. Only because I told Giselle that she wasn't getting any ice cream sandwiches if she emptied my wallet all at once.
"We look like a really cute family," Chip glanced up all of a sudden as we walked out of the store, whispering as he smiled sheepishly.
#fucKiNGwOrtH
*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*
A/N: See you next week! :x I might take a picture of me wearing the bunny hoodie I purchased in Disneyland and post it on Instagram, the one I mentioned in the Flight School version! It's so fluffeh OvO I love fluffeh!!
-Cuppiecake
Bạn đang đọc truyện trên: AzTruyen.Top