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“Yoohoo! Peppermint, you in here?”
At the sound of her name, she turned to the entrance of the hideout from where she was at the computer. Chai was standing there, an eager look on his face. 808 was hanging off his back, waving at her with her paw.
“C’mon, today’s a big day! Everyone’s waiting on you.” Chai gestured behind him. “You can pause whatever thing you’re working on and continue later.”
“Okay, give me a second to save,” she replied, typing the last line of code into the project she was working on.
Even from where she was sitting, she could hear Chai impatiently tapping his feet as he waited for her. It hadn’t been a few seconds before he spoke up again. “What’s taking so long? I thought you were more excited for this thing than I was.”
Peppermint winced a little. Maybe she was stalling a little. “Okay, okay, I’m coming.” She clicked the save button before standing up and facing her friend, who looked like he had one too many batteries that day.
“Finally! Let’s go.” He energetically spun on his heels and made an exaggerated movement with his arm in a ‘follow me’ gesture.
They walked in a comfortable silence as they made their way to the surface, the only thing between them was Chai humming to an invisible tune she couldn’t hear, and 808’s tail wagging to beat. Sometimes, looking at them made Peppermint feel a bit jealous. They were just so close, and because of their synchronization, they were probably the only ones in the entire world who saw the world in an explosion of sound and music. One day, she’d love to see the world they lived in, just once.
“So you looking forward to this?” Chai said as they began going up the stairs that would take them to the road, where Macaron and the others were probably already waiting.
“It’s been on my mind the whole week,” Peppermint replied honestly.
“Same, it’s been a while since we’ve had to think about the whole thing with you-know-you,” Chai replied, sounding quite thoughtful.
“And I thought you were just coming because of the free lunch,” she teased.
“Hey! Free lunch is free lunch!” Chai responded with both hands in surrender. “And don’t tell me you aren’t excited about the cookies that come with it! I heard they were made by a new line of baking bots! With a recipe so secret that even they don’t know…”
She chuckled. “Sure, Chai.” She was curious, but there were other things on her mind at the moment.
When they reached the surface, Macaron was already there with the old Vandelay truck. Korsica was standing near the open windows, clearly chatting with Macaron and CNMN who were inside the truck. Upon seeing them, they waved. Peppermint brightened up considerably seeing the rest of her friends.
“Good morning, Peppermint,” Macaron greeted her. Korsica nodded a greeting, taking a sip of her coffee.
“Mornin’,” she replied.
“I hope you had a pleasant sleep last night, Lady Peppermint,” CNMN remarked in his usual overly friendly, robotic tone.
“Could have been better, but it is what it is.” She shrugged.
CNMN pulled out a sharpie, drawing a worried expression on his blank face. “I understand. It is not everyday we are tasked with the momentous task of renovating a museum.”
“But it’s important work. The world needs to know what Kale did to this company. And what better to do that than to fix up the museum?” Peppermint sighed, feeling a little weary again. It’s gonna be a long day.
“Good thing Roxanne chose the best people to tell the story, amirite?” Chai nudged her with his elbow with a smile.
“I agree. Who better to tell the story than the ones who made it happen in the first place?” Korsica offered her a smile too.
“Thanks guys.” She smiled back. “Now let’s get going, we don’t want to be late.”
She, Chai, and Korsica hopped into the back of the truck while Macaron took the wheel and they started their drive down to the Vandelay museum. The ride there was peaceful and it helped take her mind off things to come. She just focused on listening to the discussion Chai and Korsica were having about the benefits of decaf coffee versus diet soda, 808 on her lap as she enjoyed the bustling view. Vandelay Campus has really changed over this short time. Roxanne had used the mountain of extra funds in the treasury to make all sorts of changes. It also meant that the company would operate on standby and on damage control for the foreseeable future. But Peppermint wasn’t worried about that, she trusted her mother to make the right decisions.
Eventually, they came up to the museum, which already looked a lot different. While she had visited this place to grab the Vandelay truck, the others hadn’t visited the place since their face off against Mimosa so it is startling to see how much has changed. She had seen a bit of the beginnings of the renovations when she came here before, but things have changed a lot. The displays that once had extravagant advertisements for Mimosa were now just ‘Under Construction’ warning signs. A bunch of units, both old and new, were moving things around.
“Woah, look at this place…” Chai commented, hopping out of the truck. 808 quickly jumped from her lap to follow after him. “They really spruced this place up.”
“Never thought I’d see a day where Mimosa’s face wasn’t plastered anywhere,” Korsica commented, looking notably relieved. “I always got sick hearing her voice over the loudspeakers.”
Macaron, who parked the car, was now exiting the vehicle with CNMN. He smiled upon seeing the units working together. “I’m just glad the workers have a much better working environment now.”
“I, for one, am terribly excited to get started on our new task!” CNMN drew that excited, sparkly expression onto his faceplate. “To be in charge of writing history, it is a noteworthy experience.”
“Yeah…” Peppermint wasn’t sure she shared that same excitement. She noticed Chai was giving her a strange look, but before he could say anything, a LU-C1LLE unit wheeled up to them.
“Mister Macaron,” it greeted him, sounding the most excited that line of bored, sarcastic units could be. “I was told that we were expecting you.”
“And friends,” Macaron replied, gesturing to the others.
“LU-C1LLE,” Chai greeted her, leaning on one of the construction materials to the side. “You’re looking a lot happier than usual! Did you get a new coat of paint?”
She let out a sigh. “It is nice to meet you too, Ambassador Chai.” Then it looked at the datapad it was holding.
“We’ve been told that we were helping out with some of the museum exhibits?” Korsica asked.
“Yes. We’ve had a request straight from the top that you all will be in charge of all museum details, including our new and upcoming AAK exhibit,” LU-C1LLE responded.
“AAK?” Chai asked the question they were all thinking.
“Our After After-Kale exhibit.” She began moving towards the entrance. “Now, follow me.”
Korsica, Macaron, and CNMN didn’t seem too bothered and followed after, but Chai took a second to look at her with a confused expression. “ After After-Kale ? Are we seriously calling it that?”
The absurdity of the name almost eclipsed her inner worries. “Apparently,” she chuckled. “C’mon, we don’t want to be left behind.”
“You guys have done wonderful work here so far,” Macaron commented as they came to the front of the museum.
“The new working conditions have boosted productivity by almost 97.05%,” LU-C1LLE responded as it slowly opened the doors for them. “I suppose we have all you to thank for that.”
“And you’re welcome!” Chai replied enthusiastically.
LU-C1LLE let out another tired sigh and led the way in. The first thing everyone noticed was the robotic displays had almost all been taken down. Those that haven't were currently in the process of doing so. Most, if not all, posters and imagery of Kale and the heads under his era had been taken down. Peppermint was under the impression that Roxanne had just wanted to move things around or get rid of a few things, but it looked like she wanted to completely redecorate the museum.
“This place kinda looks empty without all those obnoxious displays,” Chai stated, taking a closer step to the display platforms.
“It won’t stay that way for long,” Korsica reminded him. “That's why we’re here in the first place.”
“Cool, how do we start?” He turned to look at LU-C1LLE.
“Someone else can tell you more about the operations here. I am simply here to make sure you make it to the building in one piece.” The unit looked down at her datapad. “If you excuse me, there are other matters I need to attend to.” And it moved away to do just that.
They all watched it go. Chai turned to Macaron. “Hey Mac, you think, I don’t know, you can make her model a bit more… happy?”
“I think she’s very sweet,” Macaron replied sincerely with a smile.
Chai made a face. “I think your version and my version of sweet are two very different things.”
It took a moment to find someone who could direct them to the right place. Thankfully, an O5-KAR unit was all too happy to tell them about the things that needed to be done.
“Our workforce has been split up into several different divisions,” it told them. “We have a team working on putting away more of the mundane exhibits and another team working on fixing generators underground. Some of our generators seemed to have overheated and it is taking quite a bit of work to get them working. Apparently this has been a recurring issue throughout the campus. It’s very strange, indeed.”
A short silence.
And everyone slowly turned to Korsica, who seemed to glow bright red. She cleared her throat. “Erhm, I… Well, I may be able to help with that.”
“Me too,” Macaron immediately volunteered. “Fixing things happens to be within my field of expertise.”
“And I will assist, Sir Macaron,” CNMN agreed eagerly.
“I’m sure the team will greatly appreciate all of your help,” O5-KAR nodded to itself.
“And what can we do?” asked Chai.
“We have been informed that the Kale-centric focused exhibits should be handled by you folks,” O5-KAR responded and Peppermint inwardly flinched, even though she knew this was coming.
“Okay, you, me and 808 can handle that right?” Chai turned to her.
“Oh, uh, yeah, of course,” Peppermint replied. Chai gave her a funny look again, 808 also mimicking his expression.
“And of course, a free lunch is provided by one of our best chefs,” O5-KAR added. “Just be sure to return to this lobby by noon.”
With their tasks divided out, she and Chai bid farewell to Macaron, CNMN, and Korsica, promising to meet back there for lunch. It wasn’t really too hard to find the Kale section of the exhibit. It was a lot bigger than they remembered, it turns out there was a lot more to the exhibit than those rooms explaining the ‘origin story’ rooms. Thankfully, they weren’t alone, they had a small force of their own to direct.
“Man, it’s so nice for once to give out the orders for once,” Chai said, stretching out a little after they had done their little briefing. “I could get used to this.”
But Peppermint couldn’t really get with Chai’s good mood. Her gaze was fixed on a portrait of the wall. It was of Kale, in his office with that irritating smug look on his face. It was eerie, to be looking at what was essentially, a ghost. Both of her past and literally.
“Hey.” She turned her head to find Chai looking worriedly at her. “What’s wrong, Peppermint? You’ve been sorta off this whole day.” 808 hopped off his shoulder. The robotic cat jumped onto some nearby boxes and meowed to her.
Peppermint managed a little smile, but it was quickly bogged down but the murky feelings in her that only seemed to be getting worse and worse. She let out a small sigh. “Just… It's a lot being here again and seeing… my brother again…”
“Yeah,” agreed Chai. “Seeing him again, even in a 2D format, is giving me some major hives.” He shuddered dramatically. “And I’m not even the one related to him.”
She chuckled a little. “Growing up with him was pretty rough. I don’t think he ever really liked me.”
He made a face. “I’m not gonna lie, Peppermint, I don’t think that dude liked anyone that wasn’t himself. I bet he kissed himself in the mirror every day when he woke up.”
“You’d be surprised how accurate that statement is,” Peppermint smirked. Then she let out a deep sigh and put down 808, who meowed worryingly at her. But her focus was on the haughty face permanently captured in this photograph. “A few days ago, after she told us about this gig, Mom told me that I should treat Kale’s legacy with respect.”
Chai sputtered a little. “ Really ? The guy who tried to kill us?”
“I know right? I was angry at first too, but after a while… I knew what she meant.” Peppermint reached under the portrait and carefully took it off the wall and onto the ground. “His legacy may be a dark one, but it’s one that shouldn’t be forgotten.”
“Don’t want an encore of what happened,” Chai agreed sagely. “Guess that makes sense.”
“I’m just worried I’ll somehow mess this up. As you know, I have a lot of feelings about what he did. What if I can’t tell the story the way it’s meant to be told? What if I change things because I can’t handle the truth?” She looked desperately at the man in the portrait. “Don’t you remember what Korsica said when we first came here? ‘History is written by the victors’. There’s no way I’m not going to be biased about this.”
Chai was silent for a moment, before letting out a huge sigh. “Whew, man, this is rough.”
Peppermint clenched her fists. “Sorry, Chai, I didn’t mean to dump this all on-”
“Not you,” Chai interjected, waving his hand.. “I sorta just meant this whole ‘bias no-bias’ thing. It’s not exactly in my…uhm, field of expertise.” He rubbed his robot hand through his hair. “But, you know, I think just being honest is enough. You don’t have to hide your feelings about him. I’m just one guy, but I don’t think anyone would fault you for feeling… maybe a bit annoyed at what Kale did. I know I won’t hide it.”
“You think so?” Peppermint wasn’t quite convinced yet.
“And we aren’t erasing what Kale did, not like he did with you and Roxanne,” Chai continued. He gestured vaguely to another hall. “We’re just… moving it to its own little special room, maybe with some salt sprinkled around the entrance. Y’know, just in case. That way, if people want to know, they can.”
Peppermint couldn’t help but snort a little at Chai’s words. He always found a way to make things fun again. “Maybe some crushed garlic, just to be sure.” She faltered a little again. “You know, I hated him. I hated what kind of person he became, what he stood for, what he did to me, to you , the others…”
She took a moment for herself, feeling a harsh emotion welling up inside. And to his credit, Chai waited patiently for her to say the words she needed to say. 808 was even rubbing her face against her legs in silent support.
“But in a way, I’m… I’m gonna miss him…” Her voice cracked a little. “Is that weird?”
“Humans are pretty complicated,” Chai replied. But he gave her a thumbs up. “But nah, not weird at all. I get it.”
She sighed, reaching down to pick up the portrait and began moving it to the box. Chai quickly moved to help her, and together, they carefully packed Kale’s portrait in with the other things.
“You know, maybe I don’t actually miss him…” Peppermint said, staring at the portrait now shadowed the lips of the box.
“Huh?”
“I think… I just miss… what he could have been...” She closed the box, sealing the portrait inside. At least, for now. “Maybe, if things had been a little different. We could have been… real siblings.”
“That’s… kinda hard to imagine,” Chai replied honestly.
“Honestly, I can’t imagine it myself,” Peppermint huffed, leaning against the same box. “For a long time, I stopped thinking of him as my brother. But… now that he’s gone, well, I guess I’m getting a little sentimental.”
Chai moved to sit on the box next to her. “For what it’s worth, at least we’re here now. Me, 808, Korsica, Macaron, and even CNMN. Might not replace what you could have had with Kale, but I promise you’ll still have us by your side. Right, 808?” The cat nodded her head in agreement.
Peppermint smiled at his words. Then she turned to look at him. “You know, Chai…” she started.
“Yeah?”
“Sometimes, I wish you had been my brother instead.”
Chai stared at her a moment before giving her a wide smile. “Who’s to say we can’t be siblings right now? We don’t need blood or paperwork to be family.”
Peppermint was so stunned and touched by his words, it sort of hurt. “If you’re my brother, it means you will kindly give your little sister your cookies at lunch right?”
“Hey, hey !” Chai actually looked a little worried. “It’s first come first serve! I don’t make the rules!”
Peppermint laughed.
Her conversation with Chai felt like it had lifted a weight off her chest. It had been feeling like a bubble was threatening to burst, but Chai’s kind words had slowly relieved the pressure in her heart. A friend, who hasn’t always been one at first, but had really grown on her. Now, she couldn’t even imagine her life without him around.
“You know, if we are siblings, I feel like we should know a bit more about each other,” she said.
Chai looked up from where he was inspecting a portrait of a robot with a banana on its face. “What do you mean?”
“Well, it feels like I’ve told you my life’s story.”
“Well, that’s because you have, ” Chai pointed out with a roll of his eyes. He took a seat on one of the moving boxes.
“Okay true,” she conceded. “But why does it feel like I know nothing about you, Chai?”
Chai shrugged. “Eh, does it really matter where I come from?”
“Well, yeah? You’re my friend, Chai. More of a brother than my own brother was to me,” Peppermint replied, raising her eyebrow at him. “‘Course I want to know more about you.” She also took a seat on a box. “So, tell me, how did the world-famous Ambassador Chai start his humble beginnings?”
Chai’s eyes sparkled. “Wait, I’m world-famous?” She could see him start to go into his little ‘imagine spots’.
“Chai," she called out and he snapped to attention. Peppermint gave him a look.
“Oh right, well…” He cleared his throat and then in a tone that seemed a little dramatic, “I was born in… a place…”
Peppermint narrowed her brows. “...Okay…?”
“Somewhere…”
She waited for a couple beats before she realized that Chai didn't have anything else to add to that. “Most people are..?”
Peppermint waited again for a response, but Chai was the one looking at her expectedly.
“Any… specifics about this ‘place somewhere’?” she decided to ask.
Finally, Chai just shrugged. “Honestly? Don't remember.”
She waited for the punchline, but it never came.
“You’re… joking, right?” Peppermint asked, because maybe this really was just another one of his terrible jokes. Because who doesn’t remember where they were born ? It’s literally something you were well, born with. But she knew that blank expression on Chai’s face anyway, he genuinely didn’t know.
“What about where you grew up?” Maybe rephrasing the question would help.
Chai thought for a second, then shook his head once. “Nope.”
“Your parents? Family?” Peppermint was getting desperate for some sort of straight answer.
“Uhh, I’m sure they’re… somewhere?” He didn’t sound too sure of that answer.
Peppermint glanced at 808, who similarly had a confused look on her face. It was clear that Chai hadn’t talked to her about this either, otherwise she would be reacting differently. She then turned to her friend, almost glaring at him. “Chai. This isn’t funny.”
“Well, I’m not trying to make it funny,” he scoffed, looking offended.
“Then what do you mean by ‘don’t remember’,” Peppermint questioned him. “That’s not normal. It’s… it’s…” Almost sad , her mind supplied, but her response got stuck in her mouth.
“It’s what?” Chai looked a bit more serious now.
“Were you… born secretly or something?” She asked. That was the only other possible explanation.
“Nah, I’m sure it’s like, written down somewhere,” he replied, looking pretty chill for someone who apparently didn’t remember where they came from. “I just don’t remember like, right now. I guess I could… look it up if you’re so worried about it?” He was worried about her ?
“Worried isn’t the only thing I’m feeling right now.” She wasn’t really sure what to feel about this whole revelation. “Is there… a reason why you can’t remember anything?”
Chai looked thoughtful, but shook his head. “I just don’t sweat stuff like that, no big deal,” he replied casually. Too casually? Peppermint didn’t know if she was reading into something that wasn’t there.
“And… then you just… forgot? How long has it been like this?” It was hard not to be worried about this.
“Since… forever? Is that… weird?”
Hearing that made Peppermint’s heart ache a little. She knew a little about Chai’s situation with his arm from the accident a while ago. He had mentioned something about not remembering the details. and at the time, she hadn’t given those words a second thought. But now… Peppermint had no basis for this, but they had to be connected, right?
“You… wanna talk about it?”
Chai made a face. “Uhm, why?” He squinted at her again. “Are you sure this isn’t going in the museum?”
The ridiculousness of that statement pulled the next words from her mouth. “Doesn’t it bother you?”
Chai just stared at her blankly. “Maybe it would if I remembered it?” Even then he sounded unsure. It was clear he hadn’t given this much thought at all.
Peppermint frowned. This was supposed to be a friendly conversation, she just wanted to know more about the friend who changed her life for the better. “Hey Chai, you know you can trust me right.”
“Yup,” he replied with no hesitation.
That warmed her heart. “Good. So you know you can share anything with me. Maybe something… you feel like you need off your chest?”
Again, Chai stared at her. Then slowly gestured to his chest. “My music player? Honestly, I’ve been sorta hoping to find a way to find a way to add new songs. I love my playlist, but it does get tiring hearing the same tracks over and over again.”
“Not literally,” Peppermint retorted, but smiled a bit. She could tell he was joking around this time.. “I just mean, is something bothering you, Chai? Maybe a reason why you don’t remember anything?”
Chai looked at her with a strangely unreadable expression. Then he smiled appreciatively. “Look, I appreciate you trying to help out the mystery, or whatever, but I’m pretty fine where I am. I don’t see any reason why I wanna dig anything up,” he said genuinely. “I just wanna focus on the vibes right now. It’s pretty chill.” To emphasize this, he leaned back and folded his arms behind his head, in his usual pose.
“So you’re just… okay with this? Not thinking about where you came from? About your... family?” Maybe this was affecting her more than she thought. After all, she was in a somewhat similar situation when she decided to leave behind her family that one fateful day. She had been okay with leaving that all behind at the time, but eventually, she wasn’t.
“Not really…?” He sounded uncertain again. “I’ve finally got a job, a cool robot arm, chill friends, and I get to play a guitar. I don’t think I wanna change a thing.”
Peppermint couldn’t help smiling a little. In a way, Chai was right. Life was… pretty okay right now. There’s that whole thing with the remnants of SPECTRA. Tension with her mom was still a bit there… but she was pretty happy. So she understood, she really understood when Chai said things like that. But… somehow, it didn’t feel right to let this topic rest.
“You know it might come up again? Your past, I mean?” She told him seriously. “No matter how hard you try to leave it all behind, it catches up with you eventually. Personal experience.”
For a split second, Chai had a very serious look on his face. Then he gave one of those lazy smile-shrugs. “Eh, I’ll deal with it then.”
She snorted. What a very Chai answer.
He then stood up from the box he was sitting on, looking a little weary. “Anyways, I know this is weird coming from me, but we should stop slacking off. These After After-Kale boxes aren’t going to sort themselves. And I wanna get over this as quickly as possible.”
Peppermint sighed. “We need to come up with a better name for this.”
It was clear that Chai didn’t want to talk about his history anymore. Peppermint felt a little disappointed that she really wasn’t any smarter than she was before, but… it did still feel like she got to know Chai better, even if it was very little. She didn’t want to annoy him, so she let him drag her back into work.
Sorting through the boxes went a little faster than expected. It seemed like only the first few boxes had stuff on Kale, the other boxes were about the other former department heads. There wasn’t really much to say about them other than to reminisce and talk about crazy encounters and stuff. It made her feel so strangely nostalgic, even though it didn’t even happen that long ago.
“Whew, that’s the last one,” Chai breathed, collapsing on the ground. “I hate paperwork.”
“This isn’t even paperwork,” Peppermint replied, closing up the box and putting it in the pile for the future After After-Kale exhibit’. “Paperwork usually involves actual papers, Chai.”
“Sure felt like it though,” he groaned. “If I have to look at Mimosa’s smug face again, it’ll be too soon.”
“I feel you.” Although she had mentally prepared herself for this day, it was still a bit much to look at Kale’s face again so soon, even after their heart-to-heart.
“Mister Chai! Miss Peppermint!” A VA-SER unit called out to them. “It’s lunchtime! Mister Macaron and Miss Korsica are waitin’ for ya!”
Like a jack-in-the-box, Chai sprang to his feet. “Oh! The cookies!” Before she could respond, he sprinted away, back to the lobby. Was he really afraid that she was going to steal them from him?
Alone with her thoughts for a moment, she thought about what had been said today.
This whole conversation humbled her. Peppermint liked to think that she knew everything about Chai. She could make accurate predictions about how he was going to respond or how he was to talk back. He sometimes surprised her once in a while, but he was an open book. She knew him. Or so she thought.
Even if his personality was easy to read, it didn’t mean that she knew all about him. Although this conversation hadn’t really revealed a lot about him or who he was before Vandelay, Peppermint knew there was still a lot to know about her friend. It didn’t seem like Chai wanted help right now… but maybe, it just wasn’t time to confront the past yet.
Or maybe, all he needed was a friend to help carve a path forward. To be there and listen. Just like how he had with her.
“Peppermint? What’s taking so long?” Chai’s voice snapped her out of her daze. He was waiting for her by the entrance. “Don’t blame me if your mysteriously cookies disappear!”
She huffed, rolling her eyes. “Coming!” Chai grinned and disappeared down the hallway.
But Peppermint didn’t immediately start moving. She found her gaze being drawn to 808, who was sitting patiently at her feet, looking up at her with curious eyes. She smiled and reached down to pick her up. “Whatever it is he needs help with, we’ll help him, won’t we?”
The cat nodded with a wide smile. Peppermint rubbed her head affectionately.
“C’mon then. I want a cookie too.”