At first, there was silence in the room. Certainly a rare occurrence in Kit’s room, even rarer when there was an active video on the television. Kathryn couldn’t find words to say, though. All she could do was stare down at the shattered glass on the floor, her mouth slightly open, her eyebrows pushed together slightly. It was almost like she thought if she stared hard enough, it might go back to normal. There wasn’t a chance in hell, though. Sadly, whatever deity there was, had looked down on Kit with distaste that day.
Knocked gently from the table, landing on the somewhat thin carpet in her room, the bong had exploded into a million tiny pieces. No one, not Kit, nor even a master glassworker could repair it. It, and whatever it meant to her… was gone forever. For all intents and purpose, Kit seemed as broken as the piece of glassware now on the floor.
While Kit stayed silent, the ever present Assistant in the room had a different idea. There was the sound of speakers turning on…
Hana’s first thought was that Kit had terrible taste in music; and this was coming from someone who liked to listen to Top 40 from time to time. The second thought was that someone was being a bit over dramatic over a bit of paraphernalia. Yes, Hana could admit that the accidental breaking was her fault, but other than that it seemed like a harmless incident. But of course Hana knew far too many drug users and if there was one constant it was that anything that got in between them and their stupid, meaningless, idiotic high was the end of the goddamn world.
”Kit, I’m sorry! It was an accident. I’ll reimburse you and get you a new one.” Hana’s apology was sincere but if there were waterworks she couldn’t be held accountable for the rolling of her eyes.
“You can’t replace memories.” Kit said with a numb, tired voice as she looked up at Hana and shook her head.
“Don’t worry about it. Echo, turn the music off. That’s not funny,” Kit stood up from the chair and walked over to the bed, and laid down as the music was turned off and it was silent in the room. She adjusted onto her back and folded her hands on her stomach, staring up at the ceiling. With a long and drawn out sigh, Kit’s mood had been sullied.
There weren’t waterworks, but Kit seemed as upset as if Hana had just kicked a puppy.
“Sorry. You can leave early if you want.” While Kit’s voice normally carried throughout the room, and she normally had a certain ‘energy’ behind her words, it was gone now. She was soft spoken, and her voice was flat and
dead, so to speak.
It was just a stupid
bong. This was a reason why Hana always looked down on the people that came to her looking for their fix. She never partook in what she sold which allowed her to, from her perspective, judge the users who needed illicit substances to get through a day while claiming they could quit whenever they wanted. Kit was acting like a child in Hana’s great estimation. What memories could she even have? She was like barely out of diapers and Hana sincerely doubted Kit started smoking when she was still in diapers. At most she started in junior high or during her first semester as a Freshman, it wasn’t like she was Snoop Dogg.
”Well, alright then. Sorry about the thing and I guess I’ll see you around.” Hana apologized twice now. Her due diligence was done. Even so, Hana was going to have to order a bong for Kit when she got home - hopefully Abby wasn’t the kind of sister who snooped on her younger sister’s purchase history.
”You might want to watch out for glass on the floor.” “I intend to leave it there. I don’t want to throw it away. It means a lot to me. I guess meant? Since it’s gone now.” Was this what the doc had been talking about when he’d said not to meet your heroes? Wait, that wouldn’t even make any sense — the Doc couldn’t have possibly known that Hana was going to destroy one of Kit’s most prized and sentimental possessions. That wouldn’t have made any sense.
“Sorry that I’m upset and our night is ruined now.”Shortly after Kit spoke, Hana’s phone buzzed in her pocket with a text message.
From Hailey:
How is it going? I can only assume it’s going well.
Well, if Kit wanted to shred her feet then that was her right. Maybe she would do it when she was taking a trip down the rabbit hole with her good friend Alice which would at least dull the pain of stepping on glass with a bare foot. Hana was almost to the door when her phone trilled and the telltale chime of it being from Hailey made her stop and respond right away. It wouldn’t do well to make Hailey wait or, worse, leave her on
read.
From Hana:
It was. Then she started being mopey and depressed because her drug thing broke. I really don’t want to hang out with druggies again. Pick me up, please?
The response wasn’t as fast as Hailey’s normally came, though the app showed Hailey was typing for a moment. Almost as if she were either writing one large text, or if she was writing things and deleting them over and over. Finally, the text came through.
From Hailey:
I’m sorry, what? You broke her glass? Hana… I can’t pick you up until you’ve made it right or your time is up. I’m sorry. I know that you don’t understand, but if she’s reacting strongly it’s very possible she simply has a lot of fond memories attached to the piece — maybe she spent time with her family and used it, or… I don’t know, something. It’s not as simple as ‘a druggies drug thing broke.’ Also, I do smoke; so you might not want to hang out with me anymore… I guess I’m a druggie by your reckoning?
From: Hana:
You’ve never smoked around me and it’s not like you’re popping pills or powders like your brother or half the school. I already apologized and am going to get her a replacement. She’s just going to stare at the ceiling no matter what I do or say. I can’t make it any more right than that.
Just to check that her text was accurate, Hana looked over towards the strung out Kit and let out a very audible, quite exaggerated sigh.
”Are you just going to lie there?” From Hailey:
Well, good luck.
Kit turned her head over to face Hana and frowned.
“Are you mocking me? That’s not cool, dude. You broke my thing!” For a brief second, there was a fire relit in Kit’s voice and she sat up in her chair, shooting a glare at Hana,
“you broke something that was really important to me and like you don’t even care!””I’m not mocking you, but you’re being dramatic. I apologized. Twice. Sincerely. I’m getting you a new one which is me taking responsibility for what was an accident. You’re throwing a tantrum What, was that bong given to you by your dead grandmother or something? It’s a bong, Kathryn. People have like five of them if they’re serious about their ‘hobby’.” Hana didn’t know why she was getting heated or why Kit was being the walking definition of extra. She put the thing out when she wasn’t even going to
use it in the room, it was thus at least a quarter of her fault too.
“Not my dead grandmother, no. It was a gift from my father. And he got it from his father, and then he gave it to me when I got old ‘nuff and it was the first one I ever used and now it’s gone forever, and I’m probably gonna get excommunicated becuase I broke like a family heirloom and now the Doc is gonna hate me and everyone is gonna hate me. And don’t call me Kathryn. It’s Kit. K. I. T.” Kit huffed, standing up from the bed and stomping over to the closet again.
“I don’t want a new one.””Your family heirloom is a bong?” Hana didn’t say it exactly, but her bullshit alarm was firing on all cylinders. She was pretty sure there was some kind of law against that - and she was in prime position to know. Plus if it was an important heirloom why was she keeping it in the closet?
”Look, Kit, the Doc, your dad, isn’t going to hate you. No one values a possession more than their child. I guarantee he broke a bong or something when he was your age and he didn’t get ‘excommunicated’. It’s not the end of the world. Did you get mopey and depressed when you lost your first serious match in…” Hana quickly looked at the poster from earlier for the name.
”Tekken? Remember when you said you were fifteen and not twelve? Well you’re acting like the latter, and I’m pretty sure they don’t allow twelve year olds to be streamers.” “Well, it’s pretty important to me.” Kit called over her shoulder, not turning to look at Hana at first as she kept digging for something.
“That might be right, but it’s still not cool to break something that’s been around for three entire generations. I’m a problem child now. I don’t lose.” Kit said, finally looking over her shoulder to glare across the way at Hana after she mentioned twelve year old thing.
“I’ll just go over to your house and… and break the first thing Hailey ever gifted you.” Kit said, then she got back into the closet, and finally turned around with two fight sticks in her arms, which she brought over to the desk.
“Face me in a fighting game. If you win, you get to go home and never talk to me again. If I win… I get a kiss. And I’ll never mention the shattered piece of my soul that you knocked off of the table ever again.” What? She wanted a kiss.
“Deal?””You act like I did it on purpose. If you want me to tell your dad that I broke it, I’ll do it, but don’t act like I did it knowingly! That’s not what a friend does.” Hana didn’t think it pertinent to mention that the first thing Hailey gave her, other than a kiss and attention, was presently affixed to her neck and wasn’t likely to come off.
”If you break anything at my house my sister would arrest you.” She wouldn’t, but Kit didn’t know that.
”You do know I have a girlfriend, right? You’re basically asking me to cheat on her over an accident.” “Just don’t lose? It’s not hard, Hana.” Kit shook her head as she set the two sticks up side by side, plugging them into USB ports in the wall. The sticks lit up and Kit looked up at the TV screen, which automatically changed from LEGO Harry Potter to an input test. She hit all the buttons on each stick to make sure that they were functioning.
“I have circle gates. I hope that’s cool. Also, it’s not like Hailey has to know. She’s not actively watching us.” Kit squinted at Hana.
“...is she?””Yes. She does have to know. And she will know. And she’s probably going to break up with me when I tell her so if your goal was to destroy something important to me then congratulations, you’d have succeeded.” Hana knew this was a bad idea from the start and now with tensions at such an all time high she was starting to feel justified in her initial apprehension.
”And don’t try and let me win because I’ll know and that would just make me feel worse.” “So… are you agreeing to my terms, or what? I have a new game I’ve never played before. I thought we’d play that. That way it’s not me just smacking you around.” Kit said, scrolling through the big picture mode before landing on her target: Dragon Ball FighterZ.
“I watched the cartoon some the other night and it was pretty rad so I thought ‘why not buy that game with a bunch of high scores on steam?’ Then, I did it. I know, I know. Mad lass. Are you in or what?” Kit asked, holding her hand out to seal the deal.
Hana couldn’t claim to be familiar with the game or the series it was based on but it seemed like something Hailey would know about. Anime wasn’t really Hana’s area of expertise outside of that one about depressed jazz cowboys in space or something which she found to be stupid and boring as far as science fiction went.
”Why do all the guys look the same? Is that purple haired person a girl?” The deal was sealed via Hana taking the stick and sitting back down, though the way she was holding it didn’t inspire confidence - she was claw handing it.
“I dunno.” Kit said as she loaded up into the game. From the main menu, she found her way to the local multiplayer after a bit of fumbling around in the weird hubworld of a menu.
“Okay, got it! Oh, sweet. It’s 3v3, like Mah-vell.” Kit mused, flipping through the different characters she could choose from.
“Is this dude like a beetle? I wanna be this beetle. Cell. I am Cell.” One selected, two to go.
“Dude check out this fat pink guy! I’m gonna be this fat pink guy.” Two. One left. This one was the fastest, as it only took Kit a matter of seconds to scroll over to her selection.
“This guy’s a cat! I’m gonna pick this cat.” This game owned.
Hana didn’t know what a ‘Mah-vell’ was and she wasn’t about to ask. The concept of a three on three wasn’t foreign, though, that was like ranked PvP only she doubted this had a problem with DoTs and shitty PUGs. Her selection took a bit longer given her lack of familiarity with the source material.
”Why does this game have like four versions of the same guy?” She made sure not to pick any of the versions. Her first pick was
”This blonde girl that looks tough.” It was her second and third picks that took time, until she realized there was a timer.
”Uh...this pink alien girl and this purple alien guy?” Her selection locked in with a second to spare.
“Arcade rules is what I play by, so if you’re winning you can’t switch characters. And you get best of three. So first of us to win two is the winner of the bet. Got it? Okay, good. Do you want to look at move lists?” Kit asked as she selected the stage and they loaded in, looking over at her soon to be friend. There was no way that Kit lost, so it was almost a guarantee that she’d get a kiss and a Hana.
”I’ll figure it out. It’s 2D so that is easier to understand.” Hana wasn’t speaking with confidence but this was hardly her first rodeo - though she at least wanted to get a few hits in this time. The playing field was comparably more even this time, which had to count for something.
”Let’s just do this.” “Alright, dude. But like I offered. Just remember that when you’re cryin’ after I smacked you around.” Kit said, shrugging her shoulders before the round began. Kit was testing inputs. Up + Fours, Down + Threes, that sort of thing. She had to know how the game worked, after all! The end result of her taking a round to practice was that she… actually lost.
“Hey, don’t get cocky. I’m just gettin’ started.” Kit said, waving her fist in Hana’s direction as she got ready for the next round.
“This game is pretty cool…”Assuming Kit ever made her way to the grand stage at EVO, Hana would always take comfort in knowing she took a round off of her. Of course, as the game loaded its second round it became clear that the comfort would be small indeed. The second round was lost about as quick as a blink and the third was even quicker. If Hana were an angrier sort then the stick she was using would have joined the bong in pieces on the floor, instead she simply sighed and accepted the loss.
”How come your characters got to do weird beam stuff and mine just punch a lot.” “What? I’m not telling you how to play the game. You said you didn’t want to look at your moves! I offered the chance. It’s okay, you got one more chance to beat me.” Kit said, selecting the same three characters, though this time she changed their colors.
“Well, I mean… technically, you have two, but… yeah. Just pick your dudes.” Kit said, waiting rather impatiently.
“I gotta watch the rest of this show!” To her credit, Kit seemed to have a lifted mood already; playing games was seemingly distracting her, if nothing else.
The grand strategy was simple: Pick different characters.
”Well I guess I’ll pick one of the...Goku?” She picked the one with blue hair before also selecting a man in green armor who had a similar hairstyle to Goku and for the third she picked
”The older Gohan has to be better than this dumb teen Gohan right?” And with that her rebound team was chosen.
“I dunno, I’d date Teen Gohan. Dunno about the old one.” Kit replied as the map loaded up,
“and remember. You said not to let you win.” Kit said, waving a finger before the round began. This time, Kit knew more or less what she was doing; while Hana hit the buttons randomly and hoped for the best, Kit juggled her around the stage for three rounds, and then stood victorious 3-0.
“And just like that… it’s over. Kit Thomas reigns supreme, she came in with the clutch, with the curbstomp, and now she’s the beaten Vanilla Sunrise one on one and cla —”“Congrats, Kit. You beat someone who doesn’t play fighting games after pouring thousands of hours into them. Well done. Want a medal?”“Shut UP, Echo!””It has a point. It would be like if I challenged you to a PvP duel in the games I make guides for.” To Hana’s credit she was taking the loss fairly well, as if the outcome was inevitable.
”You’re in a better mood, so mission complete.” “‘It?’ Dude. She. Echo is a girl.” Kit shook her head, waving her hand away to brush Hana’s claims off.
“I’ll take my prize now, if you wouldn’t mind.” Kit said, throwing a wink in Hana’s direction.
”No tongue. Five seconds.” Hana was technically in no position to make demands, or requests, but if she was going to go through with this she had to make it as platonic as possible - and short of a kiss to the cheek or a simple peck this seemed the best way to go about it.
”And then we’re even.” “What? That’s super bummer! Five seconds isn’t even that long, it’s like, blink and you’ll miss it tier.” Kit sighed, but she gave up. Slowly, Kit leaned closer to Hana, tilting her head to get ready to go for the kiss. It was almost too easy to see that she was moving torturously slowly on purpose, as if she was giving Hana a chance to reconsider — whether the reconsideration was for the situation they were in, or the length of the kiss was for anyone to decide.
Hana was thus quick to roll her eyes and take it moderately seriously. She didn’t move slowly, she closed the gap and took matters into her own hand by placing her lips on Kit’s. One second. She really hoped that - two seconds - Hailey wouldn’t get upset - three seconds - and she wasn’t going to lie since - four seconds - it would only make matters worse - five seconds. Hana pulled back after the five seconds, the debt paid.
”Did you blink? Huh. That wasn’t exactly what Kit had been expecting; she’d thought there would be more of Hana pulling back and dramatically declaring that she couldn’t do this she was in love with Hailey. On the one hand, she got to kiss
the Vanilla Sunrise. That was a bucket list moment checked off. On the other hand, Hailey might get upset and that wouldn’t be good for Hana
or Kit! On the other
other hand, there was no tongue. So it wasn’t even that much of a kiss! No one was gonna get mad over this, right? Surely.
“Well… yes, but I did get to blink twice. So I guess it wasn’t that bad.” Kit said as she straightened back up in her chair.
“Maybe it’s a bit longer than I thought. Still, no tongue? Geeze, what are you? A nun? Your debt to society is repaid, I guess.””I’m not a nun, I’ve just got a girlfriend who I’m pretty sure doesn’t like to share. Why is it that as soon as I’m taken suddenly people want to kiss.” A question for the ages and one that was incredibly hypothetical to boot.
”That’ll be the last time we do that.” “Well, I mean… I’ve always wanted to kiss you.” Kit muttered, before she grabbed the cake pan and cut a chunk out, putting it on the plate and pushing it in Hana’s direction,
“Here, you should take this with you. It’s good, I swear.” She said, waving the cake around.
“You can eat it on the road.””Come again?” She had, of course, not picked up what Kit had said but such was the case when it came to mumblers. Regardless of how it happened the end result was that Kit was no longer sulking like a child denied dessert because she didn’t finish her broccoli and that had to be worth something. As it turned out, it was worth cake. That was...acceptable.
”I think I’ll share it with my sister. She could use something other than donuts and cup noodles.” “Nothing, nothing. Uh, it’s about time for you to go, innit? Take the whole cake.”As if on cue, Hana’s phone dinged with a text message from Hailey.
From Hailey:
We’re here.
Member
Khyron Shadowfang,
Festive,
Aces Away,
Crimson Flame,
Red Helix,
mattmanganon,
Kaithe Dame,
OfTheValley,
Marlowe,
LovelyComplex
