The party was in full swing as people swarmed in, out and around their house. There were two barbecues roaring in the gazebo, which also contained the beer fridge. Eskies scattered about contained even more booze—no one touched Erika Asano’s kitchen fridge.
She was dressed as the Riddler, complete with green bowler hat. The long, green coat covered in question marks helped with the winter cold, although the roaring barbecues kept the gazebo toasty and there was a fire pot on the patio.
“It’s probably for the best,” Ian said, lifting off her green bowler hat to kiss the top of her head. He was dressed as a pirate. “Your dad would be enough to set her off,” Ian said, “but he brought his brother with him too. I think he was trying to cause trouble.”
“Yeah,” she wearily agreed.
“Look at it this way,” Ian said. “Emi is staying at Ruby’s house, your mum isn’t here to get in a fight with your dad. You have two dozen people here who love you and all your potential friction points are gone. You can just have a drink, and then another drink and have a nice time.”
“How do you always know what to say?”
“Well, you’re smarter than me, so I just wait for you to get tired and then be as supportive as possible.”
“You’re a sly one, Ian Evans,” she said.
“I had to be, to get the best woman in the world to agree to marry me.”
“Charmer.”
“Sadly, she died and I had to settle, so you lucked into all this,” he said, gesturing up and down his body. She flicked him on the nose.
“Ow!”
They made their way around the guests, Erika receiving birthday congratulations as she checked out the various costumes. Most were store-bought or thrown together with minimal effort. She felt a longing for her big parties in Melbourne. On balance, though, she liked where she was. The costumes might have been better in Melbourne, but she preferred the people inside them here. Old friends and family were better than media executives looking for networking opportunities.
“Greg’s done well,” Ian pointed out.
“Oh, that’s an impressive Iron Man outfit,” she said. “That’s Greg in there?”
“Yep.”
“That must have taken him weeks.”
“He’s very lonely.”
“Just because he can spend so much time on an impressive costume, that doesn’t mean he’s lonely.”
“Must be a coincidence, then.”
“You’re so bad,” Erika scolded.
“Who’s that in the Sith outfit?”
“Not sure,” Erika said. “The lightsaber’s a bit naff, but the rest of the outfit is incredible. That cloak seems really spooky.”
“There is something about it, isn’t there?” Ian said. “Shall we pop over and say g’day? See who’s under there?”
They made their way in that direction, but the person somehow slipped away unnoticed.
“Did you see him go?” Erika asked as they arrived at the spot he’d been standing in.
“No,” Ian said, looking about in confusion. “I could swear I was looking right at him too.”
Jason spent most of the party in the shadows, using a combination of his cloak and subtle aura projection to make people overlook him. He watched his sister and her husband, glued to one another the entire night. He watched his father, Ken, who brought Hiro but left early. He had gone next door to watch his grandchildren while their parents joined the party.
Kaito wore a pale suit and pastel shirt. Just as Jason had rejected his mother’s attempts to impart Japanese culture, Kaito had rejected their father’s attempts to impart pop culture. Jason observed that his brother’s grasp of classic pop-cultural knowledge still appeared to begin and end with Miami Vice. Kaito’s wife, Amy, was dressed as the Fourth Doctor from Doctor Who. This permitted her a long coat and longer scarf to hold off the winter chill.
Amy had wavy brown hair and fair skin. She was pretty, but only by Earth standards; compared to the supernaturally beautiful women of the other world, she was rather plain. Nonetheless, Jason was stopped dead as she walked into view. Feelings he had convinced himself were long dead surged up within him.
Jason and Amy, the girl next door, had been best friends going back as far as Jason could remember. They were inseparable growing up and careened together into the confused hormones of adolescence. She had a crush on Kaito from an early age, which only complicated Jason’s already complex feelings towards his brother.
As she had matured and moved past Kaito’s disinterest, she had eventually come to reciprocate Jason’s feelings. It was only years after it came crashing down that Jason came to accept that he had been the one pushing their relationship in that direction. He realised that she went along as much to avoid losing him altogether as anything else. If they had been older and wiser, they both might have handled things better. He certainly wouldn’t have leveraged their friendship the way he had, a shame he carried to the present day.
It was the end of their first semester of university when things came to a head. They had both moved to Melbourne to study, him at the University of Melbourne and her at La Trobe. She returned home for the semester break, while Jason stayed in Melbourne to revel in his newfound freedom.
Jason was unsure exactly what happened between her and Kaito during that semester break and had no interest in learning more. The fallout had been bad enough. Jason had dropped out but stayed in Melbourne, while Amy transferred to a university in Sydney.
Aside from one disastrous trip home in the immediate aftermath, Jason had not returned to his hometown until now. He watched his brother and sister-in-law from the shadows, unseen.
Erika and Ian looked for the man in the strange cloak, asking their guests if they knew who it was, but no one could tell them. He wasn’t seen again as the party wound down. In the aftermath, Erika stood in the lounge room, taking stock of the mess. She tiredly rubbed the back of her neck, and when she looked up, the man in the cloak was standing at the far end of the room.
“You kept vanishing on us,” Erika said.
He hit the spring action on his plastic lightsaber.
“The dark side of the force is a pathway to abilities that some would consider… unnatural.”
Erika found the voice familiar but couldn’t place it.
“The party’s over and it’s time to go home,” she said. “Who are you?”
Jason pushed back the hood of his magical cloak.
“Hello, Eri.”
Erika stood stunned as Jason waited, not saying any more as she stared at him, wide-eyed. She took one hesitating step forward, then another, before hurriedly shuffling across the room.
“Jason?” she asked, her voice soft as if afraid that speaking too loudly would scare him off.
“G’day,” he said with a warm smile.
Her hands went up, unsure whether to hug him or grab him or just poke him to see if he was real.
“How?” she whispered.
“It doesn’t matter,” he said. “There’ll be plenty of time for explanations.”