The scent of spring was thick in the air, mingling fresh grass, blooming flowers, and the faint metallic tang of the city’s ever-present hum. The world seemed alive again, shaking off the cold grip of winter, and nowhere was this more apparent than at Alley’s Scoop Shop, a tiny, hole-in-the-wall ice cream parlor tucked between two towering structures. The neon sign flickered erratically above the entrance, buzzing like an old radio caught between stations.

  Inside, Ezra and Julie sat across from each other in one of the few booths, remnants of birthday cake-fvored ice cream melting in their cups. Ezra was savoring his st few bites, while Julie had devoured hers with reckless abandon, now licking her spoon with an air of smug satisfaction.

  "See? This is why you take your time," Ezra said, gesturing toward his nearly full cup. "I still have ice cream, and you don’t."

  Julie rolled her eyes, slumping dramatically against the booth. "And yet, I am satisfied. Because ice cream is meant to be eaten, not hoarded like some dragon’s treasure."

  "It’s not hoarding," Ezra countered. "It’s strategic consumption."

  Julie smirked. "And yet, here we are. Me, content. You, still holding onto something that was meant to be enjoyed in the moment."

  Ezra blinked at her, then frowned at his melting ice cream. "…I don’t like that you just made a really deep point about dessert."

  "You’ll get used to it," Julie said, stealing his spoon and taking a bite before he could react.

  Despite his protest ("Julie! That’s theft!"), the moment set the tone for the rest of the summer.

  Ezra stared in horror at the empty spoon Julie had just swiped from his hand, the stolen bite of birthday cake ice cream already melting on her tongue. She had the audacity to smirk at him, eyes glinting with unapologetic mischief as she chewed with exaggerated slowness.

  "Julie," Ezra said, voice ft. "That was mine."

  "Correction," Julie replied, licking the spoon clean with an infuriating amount of smugness. "It was yours. Now it's mine."

  Ezra groaned, slumping against the booth. "You are the worst kind of person. You belong in a maximum-security prison for that level of theft."

  Julie shrugged. "Worth it. Your suffering makes it taste better."

  He narrowed his eyes, staring at the meager amount of ice cream left in his cup. Then, without breaking eye contact, he reached for his spoon, took a slow, deliberate bite, and sighed dramatically. "Mmm. Wow. This st bit? Probably the best ice cream I’ve ever had. Too bad some people will never experience it."

  Julie raised an eyebrow. "Oh yeah?"

  "Oh yeah," Ezra said, smirking now. "It’s like… if the universe itself crafted the perfect bance of sweet and creamy, a celestial masterpiece only meant for the most worthy of souls. Which, tragically, does not include you."

  Julie snorted, shaking her head. "You really think that’s gonna make me jealous?"

  "No," Ezra admitted, then grinned. "But it makes me feel morally superior, and that’s what matters."

  Julie rolled her eyes, but she ughed anyway, bumping her shoulder against his. "You’re such a dork."

  "And yet, you keep stealing my food."

  "Well," she said, fshing a grin, "you do make it look delicious."

  Ezra sighed in mock defeat, shaking his head. He should have been mad, but somehow, with Julie, frustration never quite took hold. No matter how much she teased, how much she pushed his buttons, he couldn’t help but enjoy it—because beneath all her antics, there was an unspoken trust between them. A quiet understanding that, no matter how much they bickered, neither of them would ever really let the other go hungry.

  And in the grand scheme of things, losing a few spoonfuls of ice cream seemed like a small price to pay for that.

  As the days stretched long and golden, Ezra and Julie made it their mission to explore every corner of the city that they were allowed (and some that they weren’t). Museums became their second home, vast halls of history and science offering endless debates and discoveries.

  Julie would pull Ezra toward artifacts from ancient civilizations, her eyes practically glowing as she ran her fingers over gss dispys. "Can you imagine living back then? No digital archives, no history on demand—you had to remember everything, or write it down by hand."

  "Or just make it up," Ezra mused. "That’s probably how half of history happened."

  Julie groaned. "Don’t say that. That’s exactly what the White Coats want—for people to think history doesn’t matter."

  Ezra shrugged. "I’m not saying it doesn’t matter. I’m saying that, statistically, at least one king probably exaggerated his war stories just a little."

  Julie stared at him for a long moment before nodding. "Okay, yeah, I’ll give you that one."

  In turn, Ezra dragged Julie into exhibits on space travel, bck hole physics, and gravitational manipution. He would unch into excited expnations about how wormholes might be real, how gravity was less a force and more of a curvature in spacetime, how—

  "Ezra," Julie interrupted one day, "you talk about science like it’s a fairytale."

  Ezra blinked. "Because it is," he said simply. "Every discovery is like turning the page of a book you didn’t know existed."

  Julie stared at him for a long moment before saying, "You’re weird."

  "Thank you."

  Despite their wildly different interests, their curiosity and sense of adventure bound them together. They made an unspoken deal—Ezra would let Julie ramble about ancient civilizations as long as she let him wax poetic about space, and somehow, it worked.

  Their walkie-talkies, once used for childish games of hostage negotiation in the past, became their lifeline during the humid summer nights. The city would quiet, the buzz of activity dimming to a low hum, but their voices crackled through the static like secret messages from another world.

  "Okay," Julie said one night, voice softened by exhaustion, "hypothetical scenario. You have to live in any time period except this one. Where do you go?"

  "The future," Ezra answered immediately.

  "Ugh, that’s cheating."

  "It is not cheating," he defended. "You never said I had to pick the past. The future is unknown, full of potential, and I want to see how far we go."

  Julie huffed. "Fine. But what if the future sucks? Like, what if everything colpses and you end up living in a tin shack in the middle of a radioactive wastend?"

  "Then I’d figure something out. Science always finds a way."

  "You put way too much faith in science," Julie teased.

  "And you put way too much faith in history," Ezra shot back.

  "History has answers."

  "Science creates them."

  There was a pause before Julie admitted, "Okay, that was kind of a cool response."

  Their personalities, once seeming at odds, now complemented each other in ways neither of them fully understood. Julie’s fire pushed Ezra to think beyond his comfort zone, while Ezra’s steady logic grounded Julie’s wild ambitions.

  One night, in a moment of unfiltered honesty, Julie confessed, "I always thought people just saw me as some rich girl who only cared about fancy parties and expensive vacations."

  "I didn’t," Ezra said, no hesitation.

  Julie blinked. "Why not?"

  "Because you care too much about things that matter to waste time on all that."

  For once, Julie was speechless.

  Seth saw the changes in his son over the summer—the confidence in his voice, the ease with which he debated and dreamed. He watched the way Ezra would come home from their adventures, eyes bright with ideas, voice animated in a way it never had been before.

  "You two are quite the pair," Seth mused one evening, watching as Ezra and Julie sat at the kitchen table, poring over an old map of the city’s pre-colpse ruins.

  "She’s a menace," Ezra said fondly.

  Julie smirked. "And yet, you keep me around."

  "I tolerate you."

  "Oh please. You love me."

  Seth chuckled, ruffling Ezra’s hair as his son rolled his eyes. "You know, kid, you’re lucky to have a friend like Julie."

  Ezra looked at his father, expression sincere. "I know."

  Julie sat up, crossing her arms. "And Ezra’s lucky to have a friend like me."

  Seth ughed. "That’s exactly what I just said."

  Ezra smirked at Julie. "She just likes hearing it twice."

  Julie kicked him under the table.

  Ezra twirled the st remnants of his ice cream with his spoon, eyes distant as he mulled over their ongoing debate.

  "You know," he said, grinning slightly, "I think part of the reason I love science so much is because it feels like magic you can actually learn. Like, rolepying a wizard is fun and all, but imagine if you could actually control gravity. That would be—"

  "—pretend," Julie cut in, wrinkling her nose. "I never got the appeal of pying pretend. It always reminded me of the White Coats."

  Ezra blinked, caught off guard by the sudden shift in tone. He tilted his head. "The White Coats?"

  Julie rolled her eyes, stabbing at the table with her spoon. "You know. The people who act like they own history. Like my dad always says—'They don’t just rewrite history. They manufacture it.'"

  Ezra leaned in, intrigued. "Okay, you might need to expin that one. I mean, I know they’re rich, I know they control the news and all, but…'

  "They don’t just control the news, Ezra," Julie said, folding her arms. "They control what people think. They started popping up a few centuries back, but their whole thing is making sure people remember history their way."

  "And that’s different from normal historians because…?"

  Julie’s face contorted like she was personally offended by the question. "Because normal historians actually care about finding the truth! White Coats? They just make stuff up!"

  Ezra frowned. "Okay, give me an example."

  Julie didn’t even hesitate. "Bajookiend."

  Ezra’s eyes widened. "Oh no. Not Bajookiend."

  Julie threw her hands up. "YES! BAJOOKIELAND! The greatest, most powerful empire that never existed! The White Coats push this absolutely unhinged narrative that, while Rome was fumbling around with wooden spears, Bajookiend was out here waging wars against gods and riding dragons into battle!"

  Ezra started ughing, but Julie wasn’t done.

  "They say Bajookiend had cities bigger than Rome, bigger than anything, but oh—conveniently, not a single artifact remains! Not one! No ruins, no texts, no graves—just ‘lost to time’ because of some vague catastrophe."

  "To be fair," Ezra wheezed between ughs, "it does sound kind of fun."

  Julie groaned. "Ezra, you cannot take them seriously!"

  "I don’t take them seriously, but come on! Bajookiend is kind of a meme at this point."

  "A meme that makes people dumber," Julie shot back. "People believe in Bajookiend more than they do actual history. No one wants to read about ancient Rome struggling with bad plumbing when they could hear about Bajookiend's golden airships powered by soul magic."

  "You made that st part up," Ezra accused.

  Julie grinned. "Yeah, but you believed it for a second, didn’t you?"

  Ezra opened his mouth to argue—but she wasn’t wrong.

  They sat in silence for a moment before Ezra finally sighed, nodding in reluctant agreement. "Okay. You win. The White Coats are ridiculous."

  Julie beamed, and before he could react, she threw her arms around him in a quick, triumphant hug. "Good. I’m rubbing off on you."

  Ezra stiffened for a moment before awkwardly patting her back. "Uh… gd I could… see the light?"

  Julie pulled away with a smirk. "As a reward for your enlightenment, I guess I could help you study for real history."

  Ezra raised an eyebrow. "Oh? You mean actually study, or is this another excuse for you to come over and py pretend?"

  Julie gasped dramatically. "How dare you suggest such a thing! I am a serious academic!"

  "Right," Ezra said dryly. "So serious that the st time you ‘helped’ me study, we ended up building an entire fictional kingdom where you ruled as Empress Julie the Unyielding."

  "Hey, at least my kingdom had realistic infrastructure. Unlike Bajookiend!"

  Ezra burst into ughter again, and Julie joined in, shaking her head at the absurdity of it all. Maybe she hated pretend, but she’d make an exception for Ezra—because unlike the White Coats, he never tried to rewrite reality. He just wanted to make it fun.

  And if she had to endure a little make-believe to keep hanging out with him, well… she supposed that wasn’t so bad.

  As the days grew longer and their dreams grew bigger, one thing became clear—this was only the beginning.