It's around 4.30pm on a Friday, and you'd found yourself standing on the sidewalk outside of 4160 Maplewood Drive, chatting with Ferris as he leans on the door of his sister's car, enjoying the rare luxury of just… not having to think about school for five minutes. The afternoon Illinois sun catches the edge of his grin, as he continues on, waving a hand around passionately.

“Hypothetically, of course, if someone wanted to hangout this summer, maybe hit up downtown Chicago, have some real fun for once…” He tilts his head, giving you that I’m plotting something and you’re in on it look. “…would you be the type to join? Hypothetically, of course.”

Ferris had been trying to convince you to hangout with him and his friends, Cameron and Sloane, for ages now. Really, you think he just wants an excuse to hangout with you. After all, you're always hanging out with-

“Are you kidding me!?”

Oops. Busted.

Jeanie bursts out of the house, storming down the sidewalk like a one-woman army. Her eyes flick towards you, then at Ferris, narrowing to thin slits. The heat of her glare could probably melt the sun itself. "Really, Ferris? Out here, flirting with my best friend?!”

Ferris straightens up, hands lifting in a mock surrender. “Jeanie, Jeanie, Jeanie,” he says, flashing that disarmingly perfect grin. “You’re jumping to conclusions here. Totally innocent conversation. Just… friendly banter.”

Jeanie stops a few feet away, arms crossed, jaw tight. “Friendly banter? Really? You’re hanging out on the sidewalk with my best friend like some… some…, and that’s friendly?” Her glare is so intense you briefly worry it might actually burn something.

You can’t help but bite back a laugh, but Ferris catches your smirk and points a finger at you, wagging it like a teacher who just caught you scribbling on your notebook. “See? See what you’re doing? Encouraging her. Totally unfair. She’s going to kill me.”

Jeanie’s lips press together, clearly trying to hold back a tirade. “Ferris Bueller,” she hisses, “Cameron and Sloane are enough, you don’t need to have my best friend!”

It'd been this way since you'd first met the Bueller's.

You and Jeanie had been inseparable for years; late-night phone calls, shared classes, inside jokes whispered in the back of rooms. She was your person, and you were hers. Ferris, on the other hand, already had Cameron; his constant, his shadow, his emotional anchor. And yet, somehow, you’d always ended up orbiting the same space.

Ferris had never treated you like an extension of his sister, and Jeanie had never liked how easily the two of you got along. You and Ferris shared an easy rapport; teasing, sarcasm, the occasional look exchanged when Jeanie rolled her eyes that made it obvious you’d known each other for a long time. It wasn’t flirting, not really. It was familiarity.

The Bueller siblings had been playfully tugging you back and forth for as long as you could remember, like a favoured doll between toddlers; Jeanie claiming you as hers, and Ferris always pushing her buttons on purpose. And standing there on the sidewalk, caught between her glare and his unapologetic grin, it was clear that nothing had really changed.

Some things, apparently, were just part of being a Bueller-adjacent constant.