It’s a yuri emergency!

Anna and I were driving towards Gazette's place. Fien sounded really upset. If the information I got from that short phone call was correct, Gazette and Elodie were about to break up because their mothers announced they wanted to get married. I felt a little angry. I was almost in my kitchen. Almost getting ready to make something delicious, when that troublesome phone call came in. Why did Fien think I would be able to do anything about this? That girl really put me on a pedestal. Well, I had to try, didn't I? I am sure I would not be able to suffer Fien's disappointed gaze.

Suddenly Anna opened the car window and put a magnetic flashing light on the roof of the car. I looked at her questioningly. She said “Perks of becoming an official government agency, and this is a yuri emergency. It's not like I use it to get take-out.” She never stops amazing me. That woman went out and did something outrageous again. Her wording convinced me she already used it to get take-out.

We arrived with screeching tires at the address Fien gave us and made our way up to the apartment.

When the door opened, Elodie overwhelmed me with a hug and started crying. I could not make heads or tails of what she tried to tell me through her sobs. This situation seemed to be direr than I thought. I don't think I ever saw anyone in so much pain then Elodie was right now. There was nothing left of the happy puppy-like personality we usually saw.

Anna and I entered the apartment on Fien's invitation, and we were led to the dinner table where we were introduced to Rosa and Sandra.

It was better to know exactly what had happened, so I let them tell us everything. Sandra told us the story from her perspective. How Gazette had brought her back into contact with the love of her life, and how it had just clicked instantly. It was very clear that they were serious about getting married. They seemed to be afraid that Anna and I would try to come between them, so I immediately set them at peace.

I asked Anna to talk with them some more, while Fien brought me to Gazette's room. I knocked, but there was no answer. I sent Fien back and set myself down on the floor against her door and started talking. “Eline, it's Claire. Won't you talk to me? I'll be a friend to talk to. I won't judge.” I heard some stumbling and a click, and then her door opened.

Gazette looked awful. Her eyes were red and swollen from all the crying. When I got in, she locked the door again. I noticed a big pile of shredded pictures on the floor. They were pictures of her and Elodie. Why did she do that? It is not like Elodie could do anything about all of this.

Gazette started telling me the story of how she grew up.

“As long as I can remember my parents were always fighting. Usually, I ended up in the middle of it. I felt like I had to perform the entire time to keep my parents happy. God knows I tried, but at one point I failed, and my parents got divorced. To me, it's evident that my dad blames me. He often does not come to see me on the days he is supposed to visit, and that is only one day a month.”

It was clear to me, that she was blaming herself for a lot more than she should. Nobody is responsible for their parent's relationship. Well, at least I thought so. I never had to face arguing parents, since I never knew my dad.

“After we moved, mom was always never home. Not just work, she avoided being home with me and used every excuse she could to get out of the house. Probably because I reminded her of dad.”

She then started crying again. I let her use my shoulder, and just let her cry.

“I decided I would never have a relationship like them. Build on a flawed basis. If Elodie and I can't get married, what's the point?”

Here, I failed to follow her. I could not connect the two.

“Can you help me understand a little better? Can you explain to me why not getting married is such a problem?”

Gazette looked at me, to see if I was being genuine. “We can't have kids if we aren't married. I want a happy family. If we aren't married and something happens to the one that gave birth, the other one would not get custody, because there is no way to claim the child as a parent if we are sisters.”

Gazette sure seemed to know a lot about this stuff. Marriage had been mentioned to me and Anna, but to actually seriously consider it to the point of looking up laws seemed like a thing for the far future to me.

“But the two of you aren't blood. Isn't that law there to prevent inbred?” I asked.

“That law is also there to protect the family and to avoid competition within the family structure.”

Gazette was a sweet girl, but her mind was occupied with some strange constructions. I felt I needed to say something to her. I thought about how the heroines in my yuri novel would solve the issue, and immediately adapted it to the current situation.

“Eline, I think you are giving up too soon. Have you learned nothing over the last few weeks?”

Gazette looked a bit angry now like she wanted to interrupt me, but I continued.

“Your mothers aren't married yet, and you are giving up already. Furthermore, Elodie really truly deeply loves you. You should have seen how devastated she was.”

Now Gazette looked guilty, not what I wanted either.

“But most importantly, you have friends to count on in these situations. I have learned that we can do anything with the girls at the FBY if we put our minds to it. Haven't we done some pretty crazy stuff already? Let us help you, don't give up on the beautiful yuri love that has blossomed between you and Elodie and fight until the last second. The way I understand it, that is exactly how your mothers got into this situation.”

Gazette looked like she wanted to be angry at me, but I could see she did not want to give up herself.

“Let's work together. It might be hard, but I am sure that if someone can, it's all of us together.”

Gazette hugged me and said “You really are the best friend a girl can have, you know that. I will put my faith in you. If you pull this off, you will be my bestie forever” I blushed a little at her words. Nobody ever called me “best friend”. Did she really see me as her best friend? Isn't doing your best for each other's happiness something all friends do? It felt like that was only natural.

I released the hug and opened the door. “I think there is someone that needs your attention more right now.”

The realization of tonight's events hit Gazette like a brick. She looked defeated at the pile of shredded pictures. “I hope she will forgive me.”

“If anyone will understand, it will be her. I am sure of it.”

When we came into the hallway, Elodie was standing there and instantly hugged the two of us.

“Thank you, Claire. I consider you our best friend too.” What, wait... She was listening?”

Then she turned to Gazette. “I will forgive you for everything tonight, but there is one thing that I won't forgive so easily. You will have to make it up to me.”

“What's that?” Gazette asked.

“That you decided to talk to Claire, but not to me!”

Elodie pushed Gazette back into her room and closed the door. I heard the lock click. “Oh, and those pictures! What have you done!”

I heard them start a necessary talk. I decided to go back to where the others were to give them some privacy.

When I arrived back at the dinner table, I noticed them all sitting in front of Anna's laptop and Anna was wiping away a little tear. Then Fien suddenly hugged me“Your words were so inspiring, like always! I know you won't disappoint us.” she said.

“How?” But then I noticed the laptop on the table. How the hell did they set up gear to follow what happened in Gazette's room?

“With the FBY app for easy communications, I can access everybody's webcams. Haven't you read the terms?” Anna said. I wondered how many of these outrageous projects she had going on...

I had promised to solve this, but to be honest, I had no idea yet how to go about it.

Rosa and Sandra looked at me and Rosa said. “I never realized Eline felt that way. I noticed she did her best, but I thought she was happy. I did my best to make her happy.” Then she hugged Sandra and started crying.

Sandra was doing her best to comfort Rosa and said “ The two of you will need to have a long and deep talk where the both of you are honest with each other.”

Half an hour later Gazette and Elodie came into the room. They seemed to have made up, but I could see that at the same time things weren't all right yet either. Something had broken that hadn't been fixed yet. I felt I had taken up a huge responsibility.

Anna and I agreed that for today there would be nothing more we could do tonight, so we decided to go and start working on this new Y-file tomorrow with all we had.

When I was sure we were out of sight, I gave Anna a big hug. I had gotten myself into trouble by making promises I did not know if I could keep and needed some support. “I hope they won't be hurt even more if I fail,” I said

“If we fail, you mean. We are all in it. You said so yourself. We at the FBY can do anything if we work together. That was so inspiring! We need more of that in this society!” Anna's speech was making me feel a little better but was interrupted by my stomach growling. I felt myself starting to blush from embarrassment.

“That's right, we have not yet eaten,” Anna said.

She checked the time on her phone. “It's really late already. I will take you somewhere special for dinner.”

I had lost my chance to cook dinner, hadn't I? Again, I felt a bit defeated.

Anna drove us to Jette to a famous Barak Friture where you could still get a real pack of french fries with mayonnaise. These days it was rare to find a place where they still scaled and cut potatoes on the spot, but here the parents of the people running the Barak still sat there scaling and cutting potatoes the whole day long, and the place was popular because of it. Anna and I took our order to a bench in the nearby park and decided to eat there.

Getting some food into my system helped me raise my mood again. Even though I wasn't the one cooking, I was happy to share a meal with Anna under the moonlight.

After we finished eating, Anna told me to stay still. Since we were in the park, I thought some bug or something was crawling over me, so I froze, but then, she wiped a little mayonnaise that got stuck on my cheek and licked it up. That little gesture created a hot rush through my body. I pushed her back, so she sat down on the bench and got on top of her lap, and kissed her.

All my worries left my mind at that moment as I could only think of Anna.

Belgian Trivia:

Jette: At one point 19 towns fused together with Brussels. Jette is one of these towns. Considering how Belgian politics go, of course, all of these towns still have their own mayor and local government, and come together under the Brussels capital region, with their own government, ministers, etc. included.

Barak Friture

There are a lot of these all over the place in Belgium. They are modified trailers where they sell french fries with mayonnaise and other deep-fried stuff. It is not unusual to see a list with over 20 kinds of mayonnaise-like sauces available in these places. Almost everyone I know has a fixed day in the week to go and get take-out from one of these places.