A Summoner's Duty [Chapter 1]

does seem like you’re just using coffee as a crutch.” Chasun mumbled, her voice muffled, due to her arms crossed and on the table, her head rested on the wood in the gap between her arms and her body, like naptime in kindergarten. A mug of tea was in front of her, the steam curling and dissolving into nothing in the air. “Mmm.” Her younger sister, Yeonhong, hummed, not really paying attention to her surroundings. Her knees were tucked up under her chin and her heels rested on the edge of her chair. A spiral sketchbook rested on her legs, a pencil firmly held in her right hand as she shaded a certain spot in her drawing. She was a gifted artist, even at 14. “You’re unusually quiet today, Yeon.” I noted as I finally found the blueberries I was looking for. I turned to look at her as I closed the refrigerator door and stood up. “I bet she’s drawing ship art again.” Orion threw the basketball he was bouncing about into the hoop I had installed on the wall earlier that week. I sighed and started making my pancake batter. “I’m not even surprised, anymore. I just wonder who the unlucky victims are this time.” I didn’t even have to look at the bowl as I mixed my flour and milk. Lapis finally gave up, realizing she couldn’t argue her way into making coffee, and got out the jar of cocoa powder. “…not shipping…” Yeonhong managed to say through her concentration. I replied back that if she wasn’t she would say what she was drawing. “I’ll find out!” Lushen piped up. Before anyone could tell him not to, he appeared behind Yeonhong for just a second before returning to his chair. “I’m betting Tony and Colin.” Lapis shouted, watching her mug turn in the microwave over and over again. “Nope! It’s Captain America and the Winter Soldier!” Yeonhong slammed her sketchbook down onto her spot on the table. I looked at my pancake batter with a disappointed and disgusted look. “If he were real, Captain America would be insulted.” I told her as I laid the whisk into the sink. Yeonhong jumped up in rage. “OH YEAH? WELL SPIDERMAN ATE THE NINJA TURTLES!” Chasun raised her hand in the air. “Actually, it was the Power Rangers, Yeon. They took the Triforce and then Mario got mad and then the Power Rangers ate the Ninja Turtles and then used the leftover shells to be thrown at Mario, who then promptly summoned a five star Darth Vader who he awakened into Kylo Ren and then used it in a real-time arena battle. The Power Rangers won, though, because they banned the one monster Mario used, AKA Kylo Ren.” I leaned over to the doorframe that connected the kitchen to the dining room just to look at Chasun in horror. “…Are you OK?” Chasun let her arm drop. “It would be better if you directed that question to ol’ Friggy over there.” I looked over, and surely enough, Frigate was slumped on his chair, head tilted up towards the ceiling, a hand on his forehead. “How ‘ya feeling, buddy?” I asked. “…Hungover.” He managed to groan out. “I can understand why. It’s never to a good idea to try and play the Xbox 360’s Alone in the Dark in one sitting while drinking to keep yourself awake. Hell, it’s a bad idea to play it in general and a bad idea to drink.” I shrugged, pulling out my pan and putting it onto the stovetop, turning up the heat. “…don’t really care, got to drink.” Frigate said, barely loud enough to hear because that would ruin his head even more than it already hurt. “Drinking’s bad for you, Frigate. Remember? I wrote a haiku about it and everything?” I was just watching Frigate as I made the pancakes. I didn’t even need to look at what I was doing, I was just that good. “Ah yes, how could we forget such wonderful rhymes such as ‘A beer on your face, you drink it to numb the pain, but it makes you rot?’” He retorted back, his voice dripping with sarcasm. I sighed. I was pretty much the only one who could write a haiku; much less understand its rules. I decided it was worth it to talk about the rules again and started. “Frigate, a haiku is a Japanese poem. It’s not meant to rhyme, but instead have the first line be five syllables, the second line seven, and then the third line another five syllables.” I don’t even know why I attempted to reason with him; when Frigate was hungover all he would do was butt heads with everyone. I went back to making pancakes, stopping once more when I heard the all-too-familiar cracking of a can. “Frigate. You just got back from some serious drinking. You need to chill out with the beer for, like, forever.” I reprimanded. “Sara, you can’t have a hangover if you don’t stop drinking.” Was his line of logic in between huge swigs of beer. “And by that same token, you can’t have a hangover if you don’t drink.” Satisfied with my imaginary microphone-drop, I was done talking unless I needed to intervene. This allowed me to eavesdrop on Yeonhong as she composed herself and started actually being able to talk again. “Orion? You got a basketball you don’t need?” Yeonhong asked. Orion stopped for a moment to turn his ball around to look at her. “…No.” “I just need it for a moment.” “No. You can’t have it.” “But I need it.” “Life or death situation?” “Yes.” “No it’s not.” “Just give it to me.” “No!” Orion jerked away as Yeonhong stood up. It wasn’t nearly enough to stop her, though. I guess that’s what happens when you’re mad. I later learned that she jumped past him, grabbed the ball and threw it at Lushen’s face. It hit him on the forehead, bounced off and towards the wall, bounced off the wall, changed direction, and hit Su in the face, which caused the entire table to erupt into “ohhh”s and laughter. Just a typical morning in my house. “Guys! Calm down! I’m trying to make pancakes! Do you want me to freaking burn the food you’re going to eat later?!” I was really irritated at this point. I will say it again: It’s 6 in the morning on a Saturday, Frigate is drinking again after a terrible hangover, Yeonhong is shipping Captain America and the Winter Soldier of all people, and Lushen and Su just got hit in the face with the same basketball. Wouldn’t you be irritated at this point? “Calm down, Sara, it’s just flour, milk and blueberries! You’re getting berry mad over some pancakes!” I groaned at Lushen’s horrible pun. A few minutes later, the table had quieted down, nearly everyone was sitting down, and the pancakes were out on the table, and I was left with no pancakes because I was out of milk. After debating if I wanted to eat the most likely stale bagels tucked in a far away corner in the fridge that probably leads to a portal that sucks everything that’s breakfast-related into Narnia or something, I eventually said “screw it” and decided to have some leftover chicken alfredo from last night. After all, there’s no bad time to have chicken alfredo as a meal.

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“Now then, we’ve got a whole two days of free time before Platy has to go back to work at the buffet, and before we have to go back to having a boring life!” Orion pushed away his plate. I looked up from my now empty plate that once held chicken alfredo, and saw that he had picked out all the blueberries from his pancakes. “Orion, I may be your Summoner, but I’m no one’s mom, so I can’t believe I’m saying this, but you are not leaving this table until you finish your plate.” Orion suddenly flounced down on his ball, arms crossed and lower lip stuck out. “I’ll eat the blueberries when we figure out what to do today.” I sighed and just gave in and told my plans. “I was hoping we can do shopping today, honestly.” A collective groan came out of everyone sitting at the table (including Frigate, because someone took his beer away and the headache was killing him.) “Sorry, guys. Summoner always wins if she dislikes other options.” I stood up, clearing everyone but Orion’s dishes. “But we don’t wanna!” Orion shouted. “And I reserved a spot as a guest for the next episode of Drunk Gaming with Frigate.” Yeonhong, who had been drawing for the past ten minutes, chimed in. “And I’m honestly too hungover to even move from this chair.” Frigate managed to slur out. If there was one thing I was glad about, it was that his hangover meant he couldn’t do any videos for his YouTube channel anytime soon. Basically, when Frigate gets his hands on a camera, controller, games and a bunch of beer cans, it’s impressive when he doesn’t destroy at least a hundred dollars worth of stuff that day. “Look, I know you don’t want to, but we have to, Orion. If it makes you feel any better, you can all buy a maximum of ten things, as long as it’s under a hundred dollars, and no alcohol. I have my back turned to you, but I’m looking at you, Frigate.” All of a sudden, everyone seemed more willing to go. I smiled slightly. I knew what had to be said to get everyone’s attention. “Alright, just let me finish cleaning the dishes and we’ll go.”]]>