A/N: The title comes from this beautiful French proverb: "Aimer, ce n’est pas se regarder l’un l’autre, c’est regarder ensemble dans la même direction," which translates to, "Love doesn’t mean gazing at each other, but looking, together, in the same direction."

This is loosely inspired by karou and her fried chicken adventures. I hope you enjoyed the chicken and have come out of your food coma :3

Jessica is absorbed in her calculus homework, frowning over a particularly hard function to derive, when she hears something like her name called in a muffled voice. She pauses her music and waits, but she doesn’t hear the sound again, so she dismisses it and returns to her worksheet.

“JESSICA!”

Okay, that was definitely something. She sighs, spins around in her chair, and calls back in a raised voice, “What?”

“PHONE FOR YOU!”

Her sister is usually pretty quiet, so it’s not good news that she’s reaching a Tiffany-esque volume. It must be an urgent call.

Jessica looks at the door, sighs again over how far it is, and slowly gets out of her chair and paddles to the door. Just as she reaches to open it, it’s flung open and she’s met with the full force of Krystal’s glare.

“Didn’t you hear me calling for you?”

“Yeah. Don’t you see me coming to get the phone?”

Krystal rolls her eyes and s the phone at Jessica like she wants to stab her with it. Man, she remembers when her little sister was a sweet kid who tagged after her everywhere and thought she was the coolest person on earth. How the times have changed.

“It’s your girlfriend,” Krystal says shortly. “She sounds pretty drunk.”

“What, like, in a giggly way or a stumbling around wasted way?”

“Find out for yourself,” Krystal says, although her tone is no longer so frosty.

“Tiff?” Jessica says into the phone. “What’s up?”

“Jes-si-ca!” Tiffany enunciates each syllable of her name like they’re individual words. “Hi!”

Jessica smiles involuntarily. “Hi yourself.”

“I just had the most amazing fried chicken in the universe.”

Her smile widens. “Yeah?”

“Yeah! It’s a-ma-zing. I think chicken was put on this earth to bless our taste buds.”

Out of the corner of her eye, Jessica sees Krystal walking toward the door, a small smile on her face, like she finds Jessica and Tiffany amusing. Before she leaves the room, she mouths whipped and then high-tails it out of there, closing the door behind her.

Jessica misses her sweet little sister.

“Jessi?”

“Hmm?” She presses the phone against her ear and regrets it when Tiffany repeats the question with triple the volume. “I’m here.”

“Why didn’t you come with me?” Tiffany whines, referring to the field trip she’s on with her Spanish class.

“Because I’m not taking Spanish.”

“Oh, right.”

Jessica smiles again. “Why are you drinking on your field trip?”

“I’m not drinking,” Tiffany says indignantly. “I’m eating fried chicken.”

“With beer?”

“No! Why do you think I’m drinking?”

“Because you sound drunk.”

“I am,” Tiffany says brightly. “On chicken.”

That elicits a sound from Jessica that’s half a snort, half a laugh, half something else. Wait, that doesn’t even add up to one. Oh, whatever, she’s never been a math whiz, that’s probably why she ended up writing f’(x) = f(x) with plastic surgery instead of finishing the calculations for the problem she was stuck on.

“Jes-si-ca!”

“Huh? Oh, sorry.”

“You zone out all the time and I don’t ask you if you’re stoned.”

“You see me, like, every minute of every day. When do I have time to get stoned?”

“I’m not seeing you now.” She can hear the pout in Tiffany’s voice, can almost see it on her face. She wishes she could. Tiffany’s only been gone for a day, and Jessica misses her already. “You could be stoning right now.”

“You mean smoking? Stoning sounds like I’m inflicting that barbaric form of punishment on somebody.”

“Barbaric punishment,” Tiffany hiccups. “I love it when you use big words.”

Jessica laughs. “Are you sure you’re not drunk? What was in that chicken batter?”

“I don’t know, but it’s delicious,” Tiffany says solemnly. “Was delicious? Was? Is? I don’t want to use past tense. I mean, I know I ate it already, but that doesn’t mean it stopped tasting good just because it’s in my stomach.”

“I think given that you ate it in the past, we should be talking about it in the past tense.”

“You’re so smart, Jessi. Why didn’t you take Spanish?”

“I’m taking French, remember?”

“Yes, I remember.” Tiffany hiccups again. “But I want you to take Spanish. With me. Then you could be here. With me.”

Jessica’s fingers tighten around the phone. “You’re coming back tomorrow. You’ll be with me in no time. And – you’re having fun there, right? You were looking forward to going for so long.”

“I’m having a lot of fun!” Tiffany says brightly, and then she’s chattering about all the places she went and the people she met and the things she learned, and Jessica just listens to her and smiles even though she can’t make out everything Tiffany’s saying because of how she’s talking a mile a minute. “—and they have this fried chicken event going on here and we’ve been going around trying all the best places!”

“Is that why you’re so—drunk on chicken?”

“Yeah! I didn’t know that fried chicken could be made so many ways. It’s amazing. The world is an amazing place.”

“It sure is,” Jessica says, her voice torn between fondness and amusement. That’s a reaction she has a lot around Tiffany.

“Jessi?”

“Yeah?”

“Te extraño.”

“What does that mean?”

“You’re smart. You can figure it out.” Tiffany sounds like she’s smiling. Jessica wishes that she could see it. Tiffany’s smiles are—she has no words for them, not in any language. “I have to go now. My teacher is looking for us. I think he fell asleep.”

“Make sure you don’t,” Jessica cautions. “I know you’re probably entering a food coma, but it’s not safe to fall asleep in the middle of a strange city, okay?”

“I don’t think it’d be safe to fall asleep in the middle of our city either.”

“Of course it’d be safe. I’d be with you; I’d protect you.”

“Jessica.” Tiffany’s voice has gone all soft and liquid the way it does sometimes. It makes Jessica feel soft and liquid too, as sappy as that sounds. Tiffany does that to her. “If your French class has a trip, don’t go, okay?”

“That’s pretty selfish of you, Tiff,” Jessica laughs. “You get to have your getaway and I don’t get to go anywhere?”

“I don’t want you to go anywhere. Not unless I can come with you.”

“What if I moved to…Australia?” She names the first distant country that jumps into her mind.

“Then I’d move there too.” Tiffany says it so assuredly that it’s like she never even considered another answer.

Jessica smiles. “Okay.”

“Okay.”

“Tiff.”

“Yeah?

“Je t’aime.”

Tiffany doesn’t ask what that means. Jessica thinks she knows enough French for that.

“I really have to go now,” Tiffany says regretfully. “I wouldn’t want to get left behind by the bus. I’ll see you tomorrow!”

“Okay. Have fun and be safe.”

“We’re going to another fried chicken place for dinner,” Tiffany says excitedly.

Jessica laughs. “Don’t get too drunk.”

“I make no promises. Bye, Jessi.”

“See you tomorrow.” The bus for Tiffany’s class wouldn’t be returning to the school until two hours after school ends. Jessica wonders what she should do for those two hours.

“See you tomorrow,” Tiffany echoes, a smile in her voice. “Oh, and—Jessi?”

“Hmm?”

“I love you too.”

Krystal comes in a few minutes later to tell Jessica dinner is ready, and is slightly creeped out by the way Jessica’s just holding the phone and smiling.

She misses her cool older sister.

A/N: "Te extraño" means "I miss you," and "je t'aime" means "I love you."

I'm pretty sure the plastic surgery derivative joke came from my Gr. 12 math supply teacher, so I will just credit him here. Not that he'll ever read this, of course. Hopefully @_@