Sandalwood’s life was pretty simple. He’d get up, go to school, hang out with girls, talk with them about environment, piss off several people on the internet, laugh at their stupidity, and go to the gym to get ready for the imminent armageddon. All of those were rather predictable. That was why he raised his eyebrows when he walked into the gym and saw Indigo Zap on the rowing machine.
“What is she doing here?” he asked Bulk.
“She wanted to see me training,” Bulk replied. “Also, she managed to row two thousand metres in barely above seven minutes.”
Sandalwood’s eyes widened. “Impossible.”
“Oh, please.” Indigo stopped rowing and stood up. “You may have been lucky with a draw in soccer, but there’s no way I can lose in rowing.”
“I’m not sure if we even have a rowing team.” Sandalwood shrugged. “Besides, who is even interested in rowing?”
“I am!” someone behind him exclaimed. Sandalwood turned back to see the blonde girl with yellow eyes, dressed in a blue training outfit. It didn’t escape his attention that she was accompanied by Flash Sentry.
“Well, Muffins, you also play a saw,” Sandalwood said. “One could easily notice that your hobbies are rather… alternative.” He turned to Flash. “Also, what is it? Bring your girlfriend to the gym day?”
“Actually, she’s not my girlfriend,” Flash muttered.
“Yet.” Muffins smiled, embracing Flash.
“Also, Sandalwood, you could’ve just brought Sugarcoat here,” Bulk said.
“She gets out of the hospital tomorrow. Don’t you know?”
Indigo nodded. “Yeah, she’s pissed that she had to stay there for three days. Anytime we visit her, she rambles about being put in a room with smelly old people who should’ve died already. So far all she achieved were old people slipping laxatives in her drink.” She looked at Sandalwood. “By the way, I haven’t seen you visiting her…”
“I sent her a message.” Sandalwood produced his phone. “‘Hi, Coatie, I’m glad you didn’t die’.”
“And what did she do?” Flash asked.
Sandalwood scrolled the list of messages. “She sent me a photo of her…” He cleared his throat and showed the phone to Flash and Muffins, who tilted their heads, staring at the screen.
“Eww…” Indigo winced. “If that’s what I think it is, I don’t want to see it.”
“One’d think you already did,” Sandalwood said, hiding his phone. “I mean, you shower together after matches…”
“Yeah, but we don’t stare,” Indigo replied. “Except Lemon Zest, but she tries not to be intrusive. You do?”
Bulk looked at Sandalwood and moved away from him. “I’m not showering with you anymore…”
“Nevermind,” Sandalwood said. “We’re not here to talk, we’re here to exercise, right?” He walked on the treadmill and turned it on.
“A propos Lemon Zest,” Indigo said. “I made a promise to her and now it seems that we’re spending my birthday in a furniture store. At night. Illegally.”
“That’s crazy,” Muffins muttered. “I always wanted to do that.”
“So you’re the second.” Indigo shrugged. “Someone else? Remember that it can’t be a big group.”
Bulk smirked. “Well, I can’t miss your birthday… Also, that can be fun, if we don’t get caught.”
Indigo waved her hand. “Oh, don’t worry about that. I asked Sunny Flare to do some reconnaissance and I’m pretty sure she took the scientific approach…”
It was late afternoon, but the store was still full of people who had finished work and decided that they definitely needed a new couch or bed. As usual in such stores, the workers were used to every kind of customer. A teenager in a school uniform, walking around, talking to herself, and typing something on a wrist device was just another person who was probably in a dire need of furniture.
“Crikey…” Sunny Flare muttered to herself, standing in front of the large shelf. “A whole wall full of toilet seats. Toilet seats everywhere, from the floor to the ceiling. Impressive.” She looked around. “No cameras, of course. Too expensive to cover such a large area and it’s not like someone’s gonna run off with a wardrobe. For small stuff, theft detectors are enough…”
She walked down the alley, checking out her wrist device. “Beds and stuff, comfortable stuff, but we can’t touch most of those, it’s not ours.” She raised her head. “Oh my God, a kangaroo onesie!”
Some girl, a few years younger than Sunny, looked at her and chuckled.
“Blow me, pleb.” Sunny took the kangaroo onesie and hid in the shortcut leading to one of the showrooms before the girl’s parents could take a good look at her. Seeing that the showroom was actually a quite stylish bedroom, she smirked, thinking of all the things she could do in there.
She sat on the bed, putting the kangaroo onesie next to her and pushed the button on her wrist device. The gadget started to beep for a while, before someone responded in slurred Japanese.
“Hi,” Sunny said, playing with the hemline of her skirt. “What’s up? Fck_d4_p00r here. I just thought that it’d be cool if you came here one day. I found a cool place to hang out.”
Her interlocutor muttered something in response.
Sunny immediately stopped massaging her thigh. “What do you mean you haven’t left your room for two years?” She shrugged. “Time to do that, I guess.”
More Japanese followed. Sunny furrowed her eyebrows, focusing on getting the gist of it.
“What do you mean it’s 5 AM in Tokyo?” she exclaimed, but the only response was beeping coming from her wrist device. “Damn timezones, how do they work?”
She stood up, straightened her skirt, grabbed the onesie, and left the display, trying to find the way out. After twenty minutes of navigating through the shortcuts while creating the map of the store in her wrist devices, she managed to find the cafeteria.
“Sunny Flare?”
Her heart racing, Sunny turned to the person who said her name. She saw Sunset Shimmer sitting at the table in the far corner, a large portion of meatballs, potatoes, and lingonberry jam in front of her.
“Hello,” Sunny said. “Umm… What’s up?”
“Oh, I just bought a new table,” Sunset replied. “Pinkie broke the old one, you know. And now I’m trying those.” She stabbed a meatball with a fork and ate it.
Sunny nodded and approached Sunset, reminding herself that she was, in fact, ambivert. “Yeah. And I was just buying, umm… a kangaroo onesie.”
Sunset raised her eyebrows. “I didn’t know that side of you… Well, we met only twice and neither Friendship Games nor the match were an occasion to talk, but you don’t look like someone who’d want a kangaroo onesie.”
“I do what I want,” Sunny replied. “And I buy what I want, too. Though my parents don’t want to buy me a new car, after I wrapped the last one around the tree…”
“If that helps, my parents never bought me a car either.” Sunset grabbed another meatball. “Hmm, that’s pretty good. And I don’t even eat meat that often.”
“You don’t?” Sunny asked. “I was on a diet once and didn’t eat it, but I like it too much.”
“My parents weren’t fans.” Sunset shrugged. “Well, no one around ate meat, in fact.”
“Some kind of hippie sect?” Sunny smirked. “Sugarcoat has a hippie boyfriend. If I had to live with more such guys, I’d probably turn violent.”
Sunset nodded slowly. “Yeah, you can call it that. We lived pretty far away from here… In India, in fact. Took me a while to get used to beef, you know. Some of my best friends were cows.”
“Sounds sad,” Sunny replied.
“They’re great listeners,” Sunset said. “And those here don’t ta– I mean, they taste great.”
Sunny looked at Sunset’s almost empty plate. “I wouldn’t be sure it’s beef.”
“Good,” Sunset muttered. “I don’t have friends among pigs.”
“They say it’s made of horses.” Sunny smiled. “Didn’t you hear?”
Sunset suddenly paled, covering her mouth.
“What’s wrong?” Sunny asked.
Sunset overcame the gag reflex and took a deep breath. “You don’t know, do you?”
“What? You were raised by horses now?” Sunny chuckled. “No wonder of all the people you can use–” She looked around and mouthed the word “magic” quietly.
“More or less,” Sunset replied. “Though I wasn’t raised by horses. That’s ridiculous… But as for magic… May I?” She reached and grabbed Sunny’s hand.
“What the–” Sunny recoiled, nearly knocking the plate off the table.
“I just wanted to check something,” Sunset muttered. “You really don’t know.”
“I don’t know what?” Sunny furrowed her eyebrows. “Also, how do you know–” She raised her finger and pointed at Sunset, her cheeks red. “You can read minds, can’t you?” she whispered.
“A little.” Sunset blushed. “Maybe I shouldn’t–”
“Well, you caught me a bit off-guard,” Sunny said. “But holy twat-waffle, you can read minds!”
“Shh,” Sunset muttered. “No one needs to know.”
“True.” Sunny lowered her voice to a whisper. “You know, there’s some serious money in there. I can hack computers, you can hack minds, together we can rule the world. You know, first we’ll have to–”
Sunset raised her eyebrows, pushing her chair slightly back. She looked around and tried to get up, but Sunny caught her hand.
“And that way, in two decades, I’ll be in charge of the biggest fashion brand in the world, while you’ll be running for president,” she said. “On a side note, what did you see in my head?”
Sunset realised her mouth was hanging agape, so she closed it and took a deep breath. “Some kid throwing up.”
“Ah, that’d be me.” Sunny Flare’s expression faded. “I thought of it when you were about to puke. But I got pills and therapy for that, and now I eat normally, no matter what Indigo says.” She looked at her wrist device. “Gotta go now. See you around.” She stood up and stormed off the cafeteria.
Sunset Shimmer focused her gaze on the last remaining meatball. After a short struggle with herself, she skewered it with the fork and put it in her mouth and swallowed quickly.
“They want to have a sleepover here?” she muttered to herself. “Geez.”
“I don’t know,” Flash said. “That Sunny Flare looks a bit stuck-up to me... “
“Oh, that’s because you don’t know her that well.” Indigo grabbed a kettlebell and lifted it above her head. “She can get pretty, umm… eager. And she doesn’t know how law works.”
Muffins grabbed another kettlebell and yanked it upwards in a way prompting Flash to stay back. “How so?”
“She thinks that if your parents are rich and famous, you can get away with anything,” Indigo replied.
“I’d say that exactly how law works,” Flash muttered. He searched through remaining kettlebells, settling for the heaviest one. However, he immediately swapped it for a weight half as heavy.
“Watch out with those,” Indigo said. “I’ve seen a guy swinging a kettlebell straight into his–”
“Nose?” Muffins asked. “I once almost hit myself in the face.”
“No, that definitely wasn’t nose…” Indigo chuckled and put the weight on the ground. “I guess he wished it was…” She turned to Bulk, who was lying on a bench, pressing a barbell. “Do you need help with that?”
Bulk put the barbell on the rack and sat on the bench. “No, this one isn’t that heavy.”
Indigo looked at the barbell. “It’s twice as heavy as me.”
“Well…” Bulk looked at his arms. “If you tried to spot for me, you wouldn’t be very helpful then…”
Indigo’s face reddened. “I said it’s twice as heavy as me. I didn’t say I can’t lift it.”
She walked to the bench, grabbed the barbell, and groaned. “Okay, I can’t.”
Bulk chuckled and hugged Indigo. “Doesn’t stop you from trying, huh?”
Sandalwood jumped off the treadmill and walked to them, wiping sweat from his forehead. “Chill out with those exercises,” he said, smirking at them. “Also, I guess it’s a common thing among Crystal Prep students. Indigo tries to lift things she can’t handle. Meanwhile, if Sugarcoat saw a big, red button labelled ‘Don’t push. May cause the end of the world as we know it’, she’d happily push it. Twice.”
“Well, in my case it’s overconfidence,” Indigo said. “In her case, it’s being a bitch.”
“I’d say those are both Crystal Prep values.” Sandalwood shrugged. “Ask your principal about that. On a side note, I wonder what is Sugarcoat doing…”
Sugarcoat pushed the red button next to her bed, and looked at the door. For a few minutes, nothing was happening, but then the door opened and a nurse walked in.
“What do you want this time?” she asked.
“Four minutes and twenty-two seconds,” Sugarcoat muttered. “I could have died before you came here.”
“You called us fifty-seven times just today,” the nurse replied. “You’re fine and you’re gonna be released tomorrow. I can assure you that you’re not dying.”
“Who knows?” Sugarcoat shrugged. “I probably got a hospital-acquired infection.” She raised her phone. “Like, I could’ve gotten pneumonia, diarrhea caused by an antibiotic-resistant Clostridium difficile, sepsis, Legionnaires’ disease… My parents don’t believe in vaccines, I may have hepatitis, and I never had chickenpox. I’m also afraid that I’ll get Neisseria meningitidis and become deaf and retarded, if not dead. Have you even heard of any of those diseases?”
The nurse sighed. “I work here for ten years, not to mention the university. We received your complete medical record and you apparently got all your vaccines on time, and had chickenpox at the age of seven. Hell, being vaccinated against hepatitis is required if you want to apply for a place in Crystal Prep.”
“How do you know where I go to school?” Sugarcoat asked.
“You were brought here in a soccer outfit,” the nurse replied. “You were also vaccinated against Neisseria meningitidis, and I’ve yet to see a teenager who’d get Clostridium without having serious problems with their immune system. Which you don’t have, by the way.”
“How about sepsis?” Sugarcoat shuddered. “My friend’s mother died of sepsis.”
“It’s unlikely you’d get it,” the nurse said. “And no, you’re not gonna get a single room because your roommates are plotting to kill you. One of them is ninety-six and the other had a stroke and can hardly move.”
Sugarcoat checked out her phone. “Do you know that the oldest axe murderer was a hundred years old? Ninety-six is still young…”
The patient lying on the bed next to Sugarcoat’s opened her eyes. “Oh, thank you, dear.” She blinked and looked at the nurse. “When does she get released? We’re not plotting to kill her, but we may start.”
“Oh, don’t worry,” the nurse said. “Tomorrow. As for today, we may turn off the Wi-Fi.”
Sugarcoat raised her eyebrows. “Do you know that UN declared access to internet a fundamental human right?”
“Oh really?” The nurse smirked. “Funny that you’re accusing us of violating human rights since you ended up here…” She left the room and closed the door.
“Geez…” Sugarcoat shrugged. “How did Sour Sweet stay in a hospital for so long and didn’t get crazy?” She looked at her phone. “I may as well ask her…”
“It was much calmer than my house.” Sour Sweet put the phone back on the nightstand and sat on the couch.
“Who was that?” Lemon Zest asked. She was sitting cross-legged on the couch in her room, wearing a football helmet.
“Sugarcoat,” Sour Sweet replied. “She’s bored. What the hell are you wearing?”
“Ah, it was just lying around.” Lemon took off the helmet and put it by the couch. “Not sure where I got half of these things. I gave up on cleaning my wardrobe after finding three traffic cones.”
Sour Sweet shook her head and pulled Lemon in a hug. “One day, we’ll clean it… My dirty girl…”
Lemon clenched her muscles, trying to move away from Sour Sweet.
“What?” Sour asked. “You don’t like me anymore?”
“No, it’s not that.” Lemon tried to free herself from Sour Sweet’s hug, but she found out that it was too tight. “I mean… It’s fine that you’re with me and stuff, but I sometimes–”
“You think I’m a freak?” Sour Sweet pushed Lemon away. “But of course. Well, in case you didn’t notice, you’re a freak too. You just keep hiding from anyone behind your headphones!” She leaned closer to Lemon. “Freaks have to stay together…”
“That’s it,” Lemon muttered. “You never let me say anything! You always interrupt me and assume something I don’t even think about! And everything always has to be like you want!” She rolled her eyes. “‘You’d better clean your room, Lemon;’ ‘Let’s eat pizza because I’ll punch you if we order burritos, Lemon;’ ‘It doesn’t matter that you killed your mother with your cold, school started and we need to go together!’ Damn you, Sour Sweet!” She crossed her arms and turned away.
“I– I do that?” Sour Sweet shuddered. “Damn, Lemon, I’m sorry! You know that I… I’m a– You know. I don’t mean to do that!” She hid her face in her hands. “I screwed up again, didn’t I?”
“Yes,” Lemon replied. “And you keep doing that.”
“I know.” Sour Sweet sighed. “But you must understand–”
Lemon Zest groaned. “And yet again, it’s me. You must understand? Why not, ‘I’ll try to change?’ Or maybe you’re not trying to change because it’s convenient for you? You can always play the vic–” She recoiled when Sour Sweet slapped her.
“Shut up.” Sour Sweet gritted her teeth and rubbed her temples.
Lemon looked back at her. “Out.”
Sour Sweet raised her eyebrows, staring at her right hand as if she saw it for the first time in her life.
“Get out of my house,” Lemon muttered, standing up. “Or I’ll tell your parents how fucked up you are…”
Sour Sweet stood up. She was taller of the two, but Lemon didn’t seem to be intimidated. “You won’t dare…”
Lemon backpedalled towards a shelf. She reached back and grabbed a baseball bat from it. “Get out, or we’ll check what exactly is in your head.” She took a deep breath. “Come back when you rethink your behaviour.”
“Fine.” Sour Sweet sighed. “Goodnight, Lemon.”
She walked out of the Lemon’s room and closed the door. She could hear the sounds of Lemon’s father’s guitar coming from his home studio. It didn’t take long before another sound joined it, the one Sour Sweet knew well – Lemon Zest sobbing in the pillow.
Sour Sweet turned towards the door, her hand inching closer towards the handle. Then she turned back and ran out of Lemon’s flat, stopping on the next floor, resting her hand against the wall and panting.
“Again…” she muttered to herself. “You just had to…”
She clenched her fists and punched the wall with all her might. A wave of pain nearly caused her to black out; she felt that something in her palm went loose, but she didn’t care. Smirking, she went to her flat.