Everything Burns Crimson on the Inside

Zuro had no reason to believe the second half of the school year was gonna be any different than the first. And of course it is.

CHAPTER ONE:


One hundred and fifty-seven minutes. Two hundred and forty-seven minutes. The loading bar sits in front of Zuro, barely filling up at all. 17.7MB and not even one GB completed. Zuro stares at the screen, his face in disbelief. His gaze changes to the clock on the wall of his game room. 6:58 am. He needs to leave for school in two minutes. “ Are you serious right now?” He says to himself. “ I’ve been waiting for this entire hour just for it to not even move ONE GB?” He drags his hand over his face in aggravation. “ Whatever, I should’ve expected this. Why would I be able to play the DLC for The Human Spider I’ve been waiting to play for five months before school anyway?” His mom comes into the room.
“ Zuro? Zuro come on what are you doing? You can’t play games now you have school!”

“ Yes I know mom.” You think I don’t know that? I was trying to see if this was gonna load or not!
“ I don’t need sass in your voice. Just turn off your Zbox and let’s go!”
“ It’s a PH4 mom, not a Zbox.”
“ Whatever. Same difference. Are you gonna move or do I have to turn off the thing for you?” Zuro gets up, turns off the device and puts his controller away. So much for trying something different. Zuro goes into the kitchen and puts his shoes and backpack on. He’d already eaten breakfast and goes into his mom’s car to be driven to school. As they drive there, he imagines what the content of the DLC could possibly be like. He knows that they added in some news suits for the Human Spider, like the old movie costume fans had been wanting since the game came out. But what about the future foundation? Are the rumors of the anime Spider in there too? He’ll have to put his wonders aside for the next eight hours. Not like that’s SO hard for him. Zuro, unlike many kids including some of his own friends, actually likes to try and learn. “ If I wanna not be dumb then learning new things should be helpful” is what he always tells himself. It’s been a useful motto to motivate him to go to school in the first place. Why else should he go?

As his mom goes down the streets nearing Larxs High School, they pass by a group of three boys talking and laughing. One of them is holding a vape. “ Don’t even think about doing that with them Zuro.” His mom says. “ I know Antwon, Patrick and Marlan smoke, from what you’ve told me, but that doesn’t mean I’m gonna let you.”
“ Yes I know. I never said I was going to.”
“ You were thinking about it that one time.”
“ Yes, when I was more upset than usual and I was probably not thinking straight either!” The car parks next to the sidewalk and Zuro opens the door.
“ I know honey, it’s just… That stuff hurts you, it really does. Even if everyone is doing it around you, you know it is bad and you won’t do it. Right?” Zuro steps out of the car.

“ Yes yes mom, I don’t even want to try it.” Out of everything I’d wanna do with them, that’s the least of my desires. He waves his mother goodbye and heads down to school. He loses sight of his friends he’d seen earlier. Perhaps they were behind him? Should he wait for them? He notices them across the street, still discussing something. He waves, trying to get their attention. They keep on moving, not even a slight glance in his direction. Zuro watches their backs as they get smaller and smaller in the distance. He sighs and checks his phone. A picture of a red armored warrior with a pink energy sword flashes on his lock screen. Alpha, from RoboProtectors. It’s 7:17am. Zuro runs up the side of the dirt hill upon which his school stands. He has nine minutes to get to math class. Luckily it’s in the closest building to his drop off location.

As he arrives at the class door, the final set of kids are just now walking in. Sometimes Zuro’s early, other times he’s almost late. At least when compared to the others. He gets here at the same time every day, so how does it shift like this? He walks in, wobbling past his classmates as they get down their chairs to begin the day. He walks past a girl setting down her pack. She has caramel long hair, glasses, white skin and freckles and blue eyes. As he sits down at the front desk, someone calls to him. “ YO Zuro! Come here mate.”
“ Yes?” Zuro answers, standing in front of a tall kid at their desk. He has white skin, brown eyes and blonde hair, and a jokingly perverted smile. At least Zuro hopes it’s jokingly.

“ So dude did you finish the Human Metamorphosis?” He asks.

“ Yeah? Why?”
“ You know why. Gimme.”
“ Did you really not read the story again? What is this like the third book in a row?”
“ Fourth, actually.”
“ But why?”
“ Simply put, I don’t care. It’s not like our teacher’ll do anything about it. Anything she would try I can just ignore. However I can’t ignore them tests. Like the test we have today, so gimme that knowledge por favor.”

“ Dude… Necesitas saber el libro!” Zuro says.

“ Don’t tell me ‘ I need to know the book’ like I’m not about to find out with a little help from a friend.”
“ Markis… Ugh. Fine but this is the last time ok?”
“ Sure sure.” Markis sits back, looking smug. Zuro quickly tells him what happens at the end of the Human Metamorphosis. He sits back at his desk. The teacher is about to start class. Where is Zuro’s partner? “ She usually gets here before I do. Is she late? Or is she just getting another award for animation again? That’s what it was on Friday.” He thinks. As he gets out his school edition Ipad and turns it on, a girl sits down next to him and does the same. She has brown long hair, tan skin, and yellow eyes. Today she’s wearing her usual green hoodie. Zuro looks at her and she looks at him.
“ Good morning!”...

Here she is.

The Golden Angel.

This person, this girl right here.

Here’s the one that makes me squeak.

The girl that makes me bundle up with joy.

Staring at me, with those suns for eyes,

Chocolate rivers for hair,

And a simple jacket like mine.

What about her?

Sinthia Scarlet.

How come this particular person,

Gets my heart?

YOU’RE HEART? What a joke. You’re not in love.

No. I am.

Normally I agree with you,

Never have I ever seen love.

I thought it to be useless fodder

Only for kids to slowly but surely destroy themselves.

Why should I be with anyone that way?
It’s just a waste of time after all.

So why are you so caught up in Sinthia?

That’s a reason I can’t yet decipher myself.

It’s only begun last month. Halfway through this year of Sophomore.

I’ve seen her for so long,

Yet I never once felt a thing.

Just a partner…

Until that day.

When you two happened to sit together at the Rally?

Mhm. The rallies are garbage,

But our conversation that day was anything but.

It was just a talk! Like any of the girls you sometimes speak to!

Sure, but the heart is weird.

As mysterious and infuriating as God himself.

My heart decided something on that day,

And every day forward.

This girl,

Sinthia,

Would feel like something more to me.

So what happens now? There’s a universe of problems here.

We know this, don’t act like you don’t know it.

I dunno what happens. Nothing usually happens outside of class.

Someday I’ll figure out what’s going on with me.

You’ll need to know how she feels first,

Then you can justify your crazy thoughts.

The first period ends, and the bell rings. Kids swarm out of the math building’s doors. Zuro walks out the door shouldering his backpack. As he makes his way for the bathrooms, a hand taps his shoulder. He turns his head to see Sinthia next to him. They both have their hoods on over their heads. “ H-hey Zuro! Um…” She gets caught up on her words. “ So you know the field down there, next to our school right? The one you can get to through the hole in the fence that they never patch up?” Zuro nods, his head getting fuzzy. Why does she stand out from everyone else? Markis is tall as hell and HE doesn’t even do this! Or Heathria, even though she’s usually the most nerdy looking.

“ Well. Uh. I think I may know of the location of something cool… A-and I wanna show it to you!”

“ Me? What… What is it?” Zuro says. Sinthia seems to realize what she had just said and goes red.

“ I-I mean only if you WANNA see it! Hehe… But it’s from that meteorite that fell. Remember? Last week?”
“ Uh… It was last week?” Zuro barely watches the news. The only times he’s seen it with his father weren’t very nice. He’d watched a decent amount of news about the end of the Techno War, seven years ago, but not so much since then. “ What about it?”
“ I heard my friend Meranda says things about a piece being in the field. So I checked down there before school and-” A boy slaps Zuro on his shoulder.

“ Dude stop talking to your GF and move. We need to get to class! You know how upset our history teacher is if we’re one second late!” It’s Antwon. He has tan skin, blue eyes, and blonde hair. Zuro and Sinthia both go red.

“ Yeah… Yeah ok. I’m going. Um… uh Sinthia can we just uh… talk later or?”
“ Actually… Could we meet down there at the field after school? I wanna show you if you want! Bye!” She rushes off to class, and away from embarrassment. Zuro walks with Antwon to History class.

They get to their seats as the bell rings. The teacher walks up and puts notes on the board and begins his lecture. To Zuro’s left are Antwon and his friend. He’s dark-skinned, with a seemingly religious and Indian getup. He has a pink cloth wrapped around his head. Antwon and Tarshi were friends long before they had a class with Zuro. Zuro had never chosen to sit with them, it was by random choice at the beginning of the year. But now he can’t imagine this class without them. They take their notes, and use each other’s help to finish the in-class assignment early. They upload the files to the teacher’s website from their Ipads. Zuro wouldn’t be able to figure out some of these questions if he didn’t have help from his friends. Once they’re done, Tarshi stretches. “ I still think it’s stupid how just after WW1 finished we had WW2 like only a few years later.”
“ Bro just blame Hitler. He was the one who wanted revenge and had that dumb ‘ Germans are the best since we are descended from Romans’ ideology.” Antwon says.

“ But he was so angry because we completely beat down his country and didn’t offer help afterward.” Zuro says.

“ Bro, did anyone ask for your opinion?” Tarshi asks.

“ Too bad I’m giving it to you anyway.”
“ Mate chill.” Antwon says. “ More the merrier. More interesting discussions.”
“ Only if we have smart people with us! This kid right here, is not a smart man.” Tarshi points to Zuro.

“ Ok dude. I’m telling you things I know you forgot. Things we covered in class already and you’re saying I am the stupid one? Makes total sense. No it really does.” Zuro says. They laugh. Antwon looks to the closets at the back of the class.

“ Guys, I got an idea. See those? We should go over there, and see what’s inside. We’ve never seen if there’s anything cool in there plus we have time now. Teacher lets us do what we want after we finish our work this semester remember?”

“ Yes. Even though that’s a terrible idea.” Zuro says. “ Although it hasn’t gone that badly so far.”
“ You know it will man. Let’s check it out.” Tarshi says. The three of them get up and head over to the closets. The teacher is watching a video and doesn’t notice.

Antwon opens the first closet door and looks around. On some shelves are some old world war weapons. Pistols, rifles, and bullet containers. None of them are full now. The three boys look at them in shock. “ Yo teach, you have this?” Tarshi asks.

“ What? They’re just for show. Remember when I showed you those for our WW1 lesson? That’s all.”

“ You did?”
“ Mate you didn’t even remember THAT?” Zuro laughs. “ Bro how do you have a good grade in this class.”
“ Ok be shush Zuro. I have an A-. That’s higher than you.”
“ It is not actually. I have a 92 currently.”

“ That is literally just one percent above me.”
“ Guys check it.” Antwon pulls something out of another closet. It’s an old war book. The pages are completely worn out and yellowing. “ There’s also an old globe in here. I can barely read the country labels!”

“ Hey can you three NOT touch my stuff? That’s easy to ruin you know!” The teacher says.

“ I can only read Calif.” Zuro says looking at the globe at his state. “ He should really buy some new things.”

“ Just like you need to buy some new games.” Tarshi says.
“ Hey! I like the stuff I play. Ok? I know Speedash and Forbidden Planet and whatever aren’t popular but still!”
“ You need something like Calls To Arms or JourneyNight.”
“ No, those are garbage.”
“ Our teacher does smoke guys.” Antwon says. “ See there’s a smoke in here. Wait wait, is this from 1989?”
“ Do you guys think this is a history class for no reason?” The teacher asks.

“ He’s right, stop questioning everything Antwon.” Tarshi says. “ You certainly don’t when Jemia is around.”

“ Jemia?” Zuro asks.

“ Yeah, my girlfriend.” Antwon says casually. That’s another thing he has that Zuro doesn’t. Besides all As, a driver’s license, a quality soccer reputation on the sports team and good looks to top it all off. Zuro can’t help but feel some pang of jealousy, even if he tries to suppress it.
“ Dude there’s also old gum in here what the hell?” Tarshi says. He picks up a pack of fifteen year old bubble gum. “ Teach can we trash these? Seriously the smell alone is killing me!”
“ Oh those? I forgot about those. Yeah get rid of them, might help with the stench in here.” Some other kid called out something about some other kid named Jerry smelling like a*s too. Tarshi throws the packs of gum away. The bell rings and the students put away their Ipads and rush out the door. Zuro turns to do the same.
“ Yo dude.” Tarshi says. “ You know those plans for a soap bomb that were leaked to the school website chat room? The first general one?”

“ Mhm? I mean I barely go on there, but I’ve seen it.”
“ Yeah cause you afraid of something. But anyway, those plans are being put into action today. Come by the English building’s restrooms during almuerzo to see us wreck the place!”

“ During lunch? I dunno, not sure if I wanna associate with that.”
“ At least six of us are gonna be there.” Antwon says. “ It’s your choice.”
“ IF you’re a cool person, then you’ll do it. Though I KNOW you ain’t cool.” Tarshi says laughing. He playfully slaps Zuro and they go to get their things.

As Zuro passes the bathrooms to get to his English class, he notices a boy standing nearby, typing on his Ipad. A quick glance showed a chat room discussing soap types. “ Should I go?” He asks himself mentally. “ Seems like another… Cool Kid Thing To Do. How come all the Cool Things are the dumbest ones? Just last week, or two weeks ago, they deactivated the gym room’s electrical system so they couldn’t do any activities! I mean, we all hate that class, but still. Now they wanna try this bomb again? Last time time it didn’t even work, so how in the hell are they gonna make it work? You can’t tell me that these dumbasses really took the time to figure out the inner workings of it to change the substance combination and igniter to fix it. Plus…. Didn’t the old man english teacher a few doors down from mine bust them?... I dunno. I don’t think I’m gonna go.” But then you won’t be a cool person and you won’t move up the list for some of your friends. “Whatever Darizon. A ‘list’ doesn’t matter to me! Not if I get hurt!” All you’re focused on is your weird habits and Sinthia. “Her? Are you saying she’s more important?” Of course, we know this now. You won’t do anything that would ruin your chances with her. You’ll be a gooood booyy! “Shut up. I don’t even know what that means, or what it means to her.” You need to talk to her more then, you can’t possibly have a good relationship with someone if you barely talk to them. So go to that after school thing in the field. So what if it may be a bit outside of the rules? “Hm… We’ll see.”

Zuro sits down at his front desk in English. His partner, Alix, waves hi as they stare at each other. “ Hello.”
“ Hola. Ready for this examen?” Zuro asks. They take out their Ipads.
“ Class go to the website listed on the board!” The teacher says. “ And don’t try anything! I am watching each and everyone one of you on my computer. You go to one other place and you’re failing this test! And it’s worth points! For your grade!” As the page loads up, their Ipads become locked on screen. They can’t go to anywhere else, none of the buttons even work except for the off button. This is how the school keeps kids from cheating during the test. Zuro can list many times where the Ipads had short circuited, turning off or glitching during testing times. Kids would have to restart late or even come in during lunch to finish it because of a problem they couldn’t do anything about. It hadn’t happended too much to Zuro though it has happened to Alix, and Jemia and Meranda, the two girls sitting to his right at the back of the class. As Zuro takes the Human Metamorphosis test, his mind wanders. Back about three weeks ago, when he was sitting in this same spot except Meranda was his partner. The conversation they had about history, and what books they like to read. Such as Konomiba, I Fear No Good, and so on. He’d had no clue that this person had such similar literary interests as him. He’d considered even asking her to do something with him after school one weekend. Zuro cringes as he remembers the response he got in the school’s private chat rooms. “ Hey, would you wanna go to the zoo together? Just for fun?”
“ Sorry, I don’t think of you like that.” That had made his friends laugh at him. He remembers what Presis had mentioned about that. “ Wow bro, that’s unfortunate.” Unfortunate indeed! It also gave his sub-conscious another reason to bother him. Girls like this aren’t worth it. This is why you shouldn’t even attempt to try romance now during high school. Since they’re all idiots, none of them understand how such a relationship works. Zuro does agree with himself on that statement. If they’re assuming something that’s clearly, at least to him, not true, then why should he even try? He finishes his test and uploads the doc to his teacher. Once everyone finishes the test, a class discussion begins about the book.
“ So what did everyone think of it?” The teacher asks.

“ It was ok. Kinda creepy.”
“ I think the family is flatout stupid. They should at least call 911 or something.”
“ Yes exactly! Also why would they just accept that he’s a bug now and act like he’s a family pet? I wouldn’t do that.” The kids were saying. Zuro has some thoughts, but he doesn’t say anything. He’s too scared of messing up his words when he’s talking, or for people not to agree with him. His mind tells him these things over and over, causing him more hesitation.

“ I hated the ending.” Says Jemia. “ They should’ve tried to reason with him or something instead of being so mean to poor Jacob that he ran away! Sure the story says that he may have come back, but still.”
“ I think it said the family went to look for him and then they could come back together.” Meranda says.

“ Well why do you girls think that’s the case?” The teacher asks.
“ I dunno, maybe to show that getting away from the same old life can be a good thing?” Jemia says.

“ But why getting away and running away from your problems? That’s against what they tell you.” Meranda says.
“ Well I think it’s supposed to be like that.” Alix says. Of course he’s more willing to talk publicly than Zuro is. “ Maybe the author wanted us to go against the norms and try getting away first? Figure out the issue and then come back to solve it once we have the answers?”
“ Possibly, though it never stated they fixed his issue.” Meranda says. The bell rings and everyone gets up. Another discussion you should’ve been in but you weren’t.

As Zuro exits the class with Alix, he overhears something.
“ Yeah I think we’ll put them in the bathrooms, just as a test. Then we try the other building!” Jemia says to Meranda.
“ You’ll get caught you know that.”
“ Maybe? Think of it as just a prank. Plus these are meant to be put up, give this bleak world some more flavour.” Zuro leaves the room, puzzled.

“ Bro, did you hear that?” He asks Alix.
“ Them? I heard it, but I didn’t comprehend what they said.”
“ Seriously.”
“ Yes. Why? Are they threatening to call in a bomb squad again or misplace the teacher’s desks?” Alix asks.

“ I don’t think so. Something about putting something somewhere?” Zuro says.

“ That’s very specific. How about you try NOT to be like our test and actually explain what you’re talking about?”
“ I dunno what it was exactly! Also about another building.” They walk across a street towards the main quad.

“ Ok well look Zuro. You know what you should do.”
“ Nothing?” Alix stops to throw a piece of tinfoil away.
“ Yup. Unless you’re trying to get in trouble. I mean usually you ARE smarter than most of the kids here, and by that I mean you seem to have some brain cells.”
“ Whatever that means. If me having brain cells is worth mentioning, then this generation is fucked.” Zuro says.
“ It’s been fucked since 2019 bro. Even before that.”
“ How do you know? That was a century ago!”
“ I can tell, it’s not hard to do that. But just don’t have anything to do with them, it’ll make life a bit more… Easy to tolerate.” Alix goes up some stairs to his math class.” Zuro waves bye and heads to his next period, biology.

This class always felt the weirdest to him. First semester he hated it, and now this semester it’s one of his favorites. “ Not my fault I had a change of feeling.” He says to himself as he enters the class. “ I just get more intrigued by what we’re learning this semester, I guess. Evolution, Ecology, Genetics… Whatever is coming up after Ecology. I guess it helps to fuel my writing. And understand the world better? I remember Tom saying something about how the wolves have been shown to hunt humans more now, using some kinda camouflage like Lizards do. Lizards? Or Iguanas? Something like that. Are those even true? Or those reports of birds gaining the ability to eat each other since the forests and fields have become too industrialized to find their original source of food? I mean… No one else besides me seems to have any interest in this, at least in my class.” None of your friends too. You’re alone in the series of things you enjoy. “I guess? There are some small things we share in common, the main being idiocy.” Zuro enters bio class.

This time they do an outdoor activity to explain how Geekfeazels evolve. The kids are split up into seven groups, and are killed based on certain environmental changes. Zuro was killed immediately. He had to wait ten minutes before a girl from group seven took him to their group. Turns out that the traits this group has are the best set of traits for survival. Zuro realizes this girl is Jemia. When he gets to the group, he asks a dark-skinned kid with barely any hair about it. “ Dude, Presis. Since when was she in our class?”
“ Whadda mean since when? She’s been here the whole year!  Don’t tell you haven’t noticed. We literally worked together the three of us on that one project in first semester, about the plant cells or whatever.”
“ We did?”
“ Yes! Go ask her if you don’t remember!” Presis says. Zuro looks at Jemia, laughing about a cum shot joke with her friends. He could ask. But you’re not going to. You’re afraid.

“ No, I’m good. I’ll take your word for it. IF you’re being trustworthy right now.”
“ Of course I am. If I’m not I’ll tell you.” They head back to finish the period’s work.

During lunch Zuro sits down at a table underneath the library. He has his everyday usual for school lunch: two slices of pizza and a cookie. Sure, it’s overpriced, but he actually eats it. He has more trouble eating than he admits. Not like he knows, and neither does his doctor. Last year he’d always sit by himself once his good friend had left him. Then this year he was invited over by Alix to this table and decided to try it. Ever since he’d been grateful for the switch. Tom, Marlan, James and Patrick. Four kids he’s known but hasn’t hung out with too much. He met them in middle school and forgot about them last year. This year:

“ Hey do you guys remember animal farm?”
“ From last year? Jesus that book was weird. Why use animals to represent people?”
“ To be kid friendly! Why else? Gotta make it tame so the children can read it!”

“ Then they’ll start believing that that’s what actually happens in farms.”
“ I would hope the f**k not. What age range are we discussing?”
“ How about ten and up?”
“ You’re thinking ten-year-olds can read properly.”

“ Of course not they’re all dumbasses! I mean besides Marlan. He started last month.”
“ Hey! Reading bores the hell outta me ok?”
“ He’d rather play Paths of Infinity or WatchSquad probably.”
“ Yes, those are more fun.”
“ Mate they just waste time!”
“ No they don’t. Not any more than Speedash.”
“ Why’re you bringing up that game?”
“ Because you love it Zuro!”
“ DO I? Or are you just assuming again?”
“ I think we all know who’s the real disgusting person here. It’s James. He likes anime.”
“ Ok Alix shut the f**k up. You’re just a hater to everything, even your own fandoms!”
“ I don’t HAVE any fandoms! They’re all gross!”
“ That makes no sense!” In the midst of their intense discussion, a loud BOOM sounds from the English building. The kids turn to look. Some others rush through the quad to check it out. They know it’s the bomb. “ Someone’s getting busted. I think we’ll need to resort to other bathrooms for a while.”
“ It’s still idiotic how they won’t let up. How do they even keep making those things?” Tom asks. None of them know, probably. Not like they really care that much either, as far as Zuro can see. Despite all the stupidity that goes on during his lunch sessions, he still prefers it over here than chosen isolation. The bell sounds and he heads off to PE.

This class makes no sense to him at all. He goes into the changing room. Zuro puts on his pe shorts, hiding his normal shirt underneath his hoodie. “They won’t notice this, they don’t even care. The PE teachers don’t give two craps what we do. They just get paid to lounge around while we run for the whole period. At least I have my two men with me.” He thinks. The two men arrive. Presis and Camoran. Camoran is among the class of kids Zuro calls the ‘Tall People”. Zuro’s father claims that he’s a good height. When compared to a person like Camoran, he’s nothing short of a midget.
“ So then I told him I had in fact used the toilet paper to masturbate and they freaked out!” He was saying to Presis. They stand next to Zuro, not putting on their clothes.
“ That’s insane. Anyway, Zuro are you ready to do the thing?” Presis asks.

“ What thing?”
“ You know…” He looks around, making sure no one’s looking. “ We’re gonna get some good food.”
“ OH we’re really doing that? I thought that was a joke!”
“ No no. See we cool folk are too busy to buy our own food outside of school.” Camoran says. “ So we gotta do it now. This really is the best time for it, I mean the teachers don’t mind so.”
“ Oh, aren’t you bluffing?” Zuro asks.
“ Nope. Who’s bluffing? Come on!” Presis and Camoran put their packs into the lockers, sneakily hiding their credit cards in their pockets. “ You a cool person, right? Or you can stay here and suffer the eternity of nothing.” Zuro considers. He would like to make this class more interesting, and spend more time with these two. There’s not really anyone else who’ll make this fun for him.

“ Ok. Where’re we going then?”
“ To the MONS, just down the street. If we run we can be back before class ends.” Camoran says. “ IF you two can keep up that is.”
“ If you weren’t so fast we could!” Presis says. “ Oh and Zuro no worries about the staff. Remember they don’t know what attendance is? When was the last time they even did that? Like months ago if even.” Zuro laughs.
“ That’s true. Alright, let’s try this. If we’re gonna get in trouble though I’m blaming peer pressure on you two.” They run out the school’s back gate as the others gather up on the blacktop…

Breaking the rules, going on rebel.

Past the eight hour confines, onto our own desires.

You know this isn’t right! Why be so dumb?

You are bound to get caught messing with the system.

What system?

The one they barely follow?

If such a system meant to control really worked,

We wouldn’t so easily be able to leave,

Would we?

Of course not, they’re less competent than you are!

Turn back dumbass! Or you’ll pay the price!
Only price I’m paying is for chips.

Besides, we’ll be back,

No harm’ll be done.

It’s not like they care,

That’s for sure.

You never know! You could finally

Get bad luck.

You’ve never done this before, why now?

Because… I want to.

I want to.

I don’t wanna be alone here.

If my friends that I trust are doing this,

I want to do it also.

Even if this is scary,

I still want to.

Good luck. If you’re busted don’t say I didn’t warn you. Cause you will be.

Sixth and final period, Spanish. Zuro had gotten into the class mere seconds before the bell rang. They’d taken more time at the market than he’d thought. As he sits down and takes out his Ipad, he looks around, seeing if anyone noticed his absence. Nothing. “ Right, course they wouldn’t. None of them are even in my PE class to begin with, I don’t think. None of the other people while I ran over here said anything. Am I good then? Wow… It actually worked out.” Don’t figure this’ll always work out for you. The teacher steps up and begins. Today they do a simple exercise, where Zuro and his partner Leaan say some things to each other in Spanish, using the context the teacher gives. After this is done, they transfer to another student and continue. Zuro happens to get partnered with Heathria, the girl from his math class.

“ Holas, como estos?” She says.
“ That’s not right… You didn’t even write it down the correct way.” Zuro says.

“ I Know! I know I’m sorry I’m just bad at this subject!” She turns red.

“ Then study and practice.”
“ But I’m not from a Spanish family!”
“ Neither am I.”
“ What? Really? Oh… Well still this is hard!”
“ Times up! Switch!” The teacher says.

“ Hey Zuro, got a question for you.” Says his final partner. She has blonde short hair and green eyes and white skin. “ I saw that you saw Meranda and Jemia talking about the thing?”
“ What thing?”
“ The sprites?”
“ Sprites?”
“ Milisha and Zuro, do I have to tell you to get work?” The teacher calls.

“ Ok sorry! Yes that Zuro. Meranda knew you were listening.”
“ Oh god, how? Am I really not that subtle?”
“ I dunno, but she told me that you should come with us.”
“ Uh.” Zuro takes a moment to consider this. “ Wait so-” The bell rings.
“ I’ll tell you again tomorrow!” Milisha gets her things and rushes out the door.

“ Go WITH?... Why?” Zuro confusedly leaves the class.

CHAPTER TWO:

The burned field. There’s a small path that leads to it that anyone can get to from a large hole in the fence. Zuro isn’t sure how said hole was made, but the only thing that’s for certain are two things: 1.) the school is never gonna fix it. 2.) kids sneak down to the field to be alone to smoke and have fights while completely ignoring all warnings from the staff. Zuro himself has never been down to the field, only seen smaller groups on his way home from school. One time when he was going to a furniture store to buy a new chair for his room, he noticed a group of boys down there. One of them seemed to be apologizing for something while the other, larger, boy went over and struck him across the face. He remembers how he wanted to do something, but he didn’t. He wanted to help that hurt boy out, get him out of the situation, but he didn’t. Why? He was too afraid. “ But nothing like that should happen this time right? I mean, can’t we just say that the ONE time I choose to go down here is also the only time there’s no one else?” He thinks as he carefully makes his way down to the open area. As Zuro steps onto the flattish ground, Tarshi walks past him, going back up the slope of the hill. “ Hey bro, what’s up?”
“ Why’re you here?”
“ Just had to pick up something I left down here yesterday. Hey, don’t bust me for this alright? I can bust you too now.”
“ I know I know, I won’t. What was it?”
“ Bro do you have to know?”

“ Uh, I guess not, just curious is all.”
“ Well then keep your curiosity, tell it to leave.” Tarshi continues on his way. Zuro looks after him and shrugs.
“ I wanted to know…” Well you’re not going to know, so move on! See if Sinthia is really here or not. “ I know, shut up.” He walks onward.

For the first five minutes, Sinthia was nowhere. Zuro had been walking around aimlessly, trying to spot her. It’s a big field, but if there was someone there, he thinks he should be able to find them.

“ Goddamnit, was I lied to?” Zuro sighs. Maybe you were, maybe you’re just being played like a fool! “ Jesus shut it Darizon! Why don’t you help me for once?” I am by saying you should leave here before you’re found out by the staff! You know what’ll happen if you’re seen here! “ Ok? So? I wouldn’t be here without reason! Now help me for f**k’s sake. Did Sinthia say anything that would give a specific location?” A specific location? Stop acting like you’re in an adventure like The Human Spider or something. No, she said nothing besides just to meet here. What else? “ I dunno! Maybe-”
“ ZURO!” Someone calls. He turns around quickly, seeing a figure in the distance wave their arms to him. OF course she’s right over there. Good job dumbass. Zuro runs over.

“ Hey! Sorry I wasn’t being smart…. Meaning I’ve never been down here before so I wasn’t sure where you’d wanna meet.” Zuro says awkwardly. Sinthia has a small shovel in her hand. There’s a patch of white dust accumulated in a single spot, with the normal dirt surrounding it.

“ Oh no no it’s my fault actually! See, I never uh, t-told you where exactly to meet so it’s my fault. Sorry!” She’s blushing. Zuro notices her nervous attitude. Do you think that means...? Or is she just embarrassed from messing up? Then again she wouldn’t be THIS nervous would she?

“ Oh uh, really? I thought you might’ve said something. Maybe I just didn’t remember right. School takes up too much of my brain power.” He says. Sinthia lets out a laugh.
“ Yeah, I think the staff KNOWS they’re doing that, and just want to ‘prep us for life’ without actually prepping us for life.”

“ True, though let’s face facts here… The staff has absolutely no clue of what the hell they’re doing.”
“ You know I think you’re right. We probably shouldn’t s**t talk them here, they might hear us.” They both laugh. Why does it feel so good to laugh with her? Is it… No. Well maybe? Just move on with what you’re doing!

“ So uh… What exactly did you want me for? The meteorite rock?” Zuro asks. Sinthia nods. She brushes her hair away from her face, before just putting on her hood. Seeing this Zuro realizes how cold he is and puts on his own hood.
“ Oh right, well right there,” She points to the white dust. “ Is, I think so anyway, a forsaken piece of that space rock that flew over us.”

“ Forsaken huh? Does it costs way too much money?”
“ You mean, more than the base meteorite itself?”
“ WITH more dlc that’ll cost even more.” A snotty Paths of Infinity reference. She won’t laugh. Sinthia bursts out laughing. I stand corrected, you don’t have to feel so stupid now. She thinks you’re funny.

“ I guess so. But if there is a piece of the rock here, then I have plans for it.”
“ Really?”
“ Yes! So, I was talking to my friend Meranda about this little project. It’s uh, a small gun.” Sinthia says.
“ Gun? What kind?” Certain level functional guns have been made legal over the past century, with restrictions. Any kid willing enough to use their family’s software and tech pieces can construct a tool to do almost anything. Militarized weaponry is heavily forbidden, and if a kid is found making one… Zuro heard once that a kid got jailed in less than a half hour. With so much technology readily available, no one is safe from watch.

“ Well to uh… Manipulate gravity!” Sinthia looks around. “ To move objects, you know like change the forces affecting them and such to be able to push them around within a limit determined by the strength of the ray kinda thing?”
“ Uh….. Sure I know what you mean. Except I don’t. But it sounds lit!” Zuro says. He’s never been too good with building tools. His however dad does so for his workshop. Zuro himself just likes to write.
“ Oh really? I mean... I-I’m kinda excited at the idea of it.” Sinthia says. She seems a bit withdrawn now, as if talking about her own work makes her nervous.
“ Hey I get that. I get excited about my own work too. Outside of school.”
“ What work?”
“ Writing.”
“ Really? You… Wait.” Sinthia turns around for a second. “ Ok I think I hear someone, we need to hurry.” Have we really been talking for so long? Guess time flies when you’re having fun. Or with someone you really like. But does she feel the same? Actually?

Zuro waits while Sinthia hastily digs out the space rock. She grabs it with a triumphant “ YES! Here it is!” She holds out a blue piece of… Something. It feels cold and sort of wet to Zuro, yet it doesn’t appear to be moist at all.
“ What is this?”
“ No clue. It looks like a chunk of cement, but the feel and look… I dunno.” She says.
“ So how’ll this help with your gun?”
“ I um… Actually can we head off? I don’t wanna get caught.”
“ Oh, sure.”  The two of them run back towards the dirt hill, up the slope and onto the sidewalk. There’s no staff around, only some kids getting out late. It's near three forty now. Almost two hours after school. They really had been down there a long time. Zuro begins to cross the street to head home.
“ Hey Zuro!” Sinthia says. “ It was nice talking in the field!” Zuro stops and looks at her. She’s smiling, but her eyes tell a different emotion. You know what she wants. She’s wanting something. She started looking like that as soon as you walked away. Walk home with her!

“ Uh… Y-yeah it was nice! And actually um…” Zuro steps off the street and back to Sinthia’s side. “ Do you wanna tell me more about your gun? Is that the only thing you do?” Sinthia’s face seems to light up, and relax a little.
“ What? O-oh! Yeah I-I have some things I can say… Or I mean, I’ll tell you about it! What did you wanna know?” They start to walk together towards her house. Zuro’s gonna be home alone today until seven pm when his mom comes back. So he has time. He would rather do this, which is worth his time, than hurry home anyway.

“ Yeah, just about what you d-do, if that’s ok?” Zuro says. He stays close to her, but not too close.
“ Right ok! Well… Did I tell you in math class that I animate?”
“ Hm… Well, I don’t remember? Or wait, do you remember me telling you about my writing?”
“ Nnnnno? I’m trynna think…” They both walk deep in thought. Finally they admit to not remembering. “… Sorry. But Uh, I make animations. So like a picture but it’s moving. Also 3D stuff, with models that move around and do stuff. Like that.” Sinthia says.
“ Oh wow really? So like JMOD?” Zuro asks. Sinthia nods. She still seems nervous. “ I’ll be honest, that’s impressive. I’ve seen some of like, those videos people make on YouTube, and from the small bits of the creation process I’ve seen, that is hard stuff.”

“ Y-yeah, it certainly takes a while to do them. But I think uh, I think it’s worth it to finally come out with something not only you can enjoy, but others also. You know?” Sinthia has the face of someone who needs the other person to understand, or it’ll break them. Luckily Zuro does understand, he thinks.

“ Oh yeah totally! I would get bored fast doing it that’s for sure.”

They turn onto Sinthia’s neighborhood, Jarma…

Oh. My. GOD!
I’m actually walking with her!
Talking to her!
Exchanging personal information with her!

Laughing with her!
How is this real?

Since the dawn of my intrigue,

I never pictured nor dared this to happen!

And now that my… Dream? is happening…

I’m gonna mess up.

Are you for real? That’s what you’re thinking about??

Come on, you are with your lover,

Can’t you just enjoy it?

It’d be easier without you bitching every two seconds.

No bitching,

Just making sure you know exactly what’s going on.

If you don’t know, you’re unaware,

Unawareness leads to regrets.

Ok, but I’m not letting that get to me,

I can’t or else it’ll ruin the best walk home of my life.

What about those looking at you? Those other adults,

They smile at you,

As if you’re a couple already.

That bothers you right?

It’s awkward, so stop.

NO! So what if they look?

Others’ visions won’t stop my own.

This is great,

Somehow She’s interested in my work,

And me.

I’ll walk her home, then I can go home.

Whoever said this wasn’t worth it as soon as I stepped onto the field?

CHAPTER THREE

The next day, Zuro steps into the math class. Sinthia is already in her seat, doing the morning’s warmup on her Ipad. He sits down beside her, remembering what happened yesterday. They got to her house, and said goodbye. Sinthia turned to walk up her driveway, but tripped over a bump. Zuro without thinking at all, grabbed her as she turned herself around to try and catch herself. They were there, him holding her and her looking at him. It was like an anime scene. You two should’ve kissed. However you had to chicken out and back away. You p***y. Zuro tries to ignore himself as he takes out his Ipad. They finish the warm-up and wait for the teacher to begin class. Somehow they always seem to be the first ones done with the early morning assignments. Zuro starts to get out a book from his pack. These things have become ancient in the 2100s, mostly due to online literature being the absolute norm. Zuro always reads books for English on his Ipad. His teacher says it’s easier this way. His mom bought him a real paperback book for his last birthday. For some reason, he likes reading from the physical copy. It has a sense of personal attachment. He’s just finishing a paragraph when Sinthia speaks up. “ Hey Zuro, about yesterday. You remember the gun thing?”
“ Uh?” Zuro puts his book down. “ What?”
“ T-the force gun? I’m working on a tool gun that can-”
“ OH wait yeah I know. Sorry I was just focused on reading. What about it?” He says. Sinthia realizes her mistake and blushes.
“ U-uh… Oh so I’ve got most of it done… I-I think. So uh… Uh..”
“ What?” Zuro watches her eyes dart about anxiously. She has a question that won’t come out.

“ I was just wondering if you’d wanna… Um… After school maybe, or tomorrow actually! To-”
“ Ok class we’re starting now. Is everyone finished with their warmup?” The teacher announces.  “ Markis! What are you doing on your pad??”
“ Nothing ma’am!”
“ I can see you’re logging onto a game site right now.”
“ No I’m not.” Markis switches back to the class work page. “ Sorry.” The teacher sighs and moves on. Ask her after class what she wants. She’ll probably tell you anyway. I think I may know! But don’t ask now, can’t interrupt the precious flow of our school system!

On his way to history, Zuro stops to use the bathroom again. Once he comes out, he jumps as he finds Tarshi staring at him. “ Dude what the f**k is wrong with your hair.”

“ My… What?” Zuro checks his head and finds a piece of rubber. “ Ok the hell? How and why?” Tarshi laughs.
“ No clue man, but move your asscheeks real quick. I need to use the bathroom.” Tarshi slips past Zuro and through the door of the restroom.
“ Ok…” He turns and slams into Sinthia. They both stagger back, with Sinthia colliding into another girl. She apologizes as Zuro rights himself.

“ My god I’m sooo sorry! Are you ok?” She asks him. Zuro rubs his face.
“ Yeah, I think. That was probably my fault but...So what’s up?”
“ So, about earlier. Um, tomorrow, Saturday… Would you wanna… See my- I mean the gun? Force gun? That’s what I’m calling it hehe.” It’s obvious how nervous she is. Zuro can see her feet shift constantly.

“ Oh, I see. Well uh… Sure! I said I was interested… Or that I thought it was cool! Yeah… So where then?”

“ We can do it here at school if you want. Or uh…” You know EXACTLY where she’s trying to get at! Go for it! Don’t regret it. Zuro rubs his head nervously. The other kids walk past, he needs to get going.

“ Right ok, so how about er… Wait are you trying to say like, your house or something?”

“ O-oh! Is that ok? We don’t need to, I know it’s weird…” Sinthia’s red face is shadowed by her hood. All I see is adorableness.

“ It is weird. That’s why I’d wanna see it there if K.” Zuro says. “ Also we need to go, class is about to start I think.” Sinthia looks at her Ipad.
“ Ah ok. Well… I’ll text you? You gave me your phone number right?”
“ Oh right. Ok sure. Talk later then, I really need to go. Sure you do also.”  They hastily say goodbye and rush off to class. Well then, Mr. Smooth. Going to her house? We’ll see what happens. No funny business. What if you told one of your friends about this?

He decides to tell Alix. This decision is further confirmed after he finds out that all they’re doing in English is watching a movie version of The Human Metamorphosis. As the movie plays, Alix loads up a different movie on his Ipad. It’s Endless War. Zuro leans over and watches it with him. The teacher doesn’t care about things like this during movie times. She knows kids won’t pay attention or learn anything, but it’s part of the curriculum.

“ So dude, something interesting is happening to me.” Zuro says to Alix.
“ Really? And what would that be?”
“ So do you know Sinthia?”
“ Uh, Sinthia Heartfilia?”
“ No.”
“ Then no, no clue at all. Why did you two accidentally f**k in the cafeteria?”
“ What the hell?”
“ What did you boys say?” The teacher asks.
“ Nothing!” They start to whisper.

“ No I mean we were hanging out a bit after school and now she wants to show me a thing at her house!” Zuro says.

“ Oh, ok. Good luck with that.”
“ Is that all you’re gonna say? Say something else for once!”
“ Like what? How long are you gonna keep saying that to me? You know that it doesn’t help. Besides that I can’t change myself.” Alix says. Zuro sighs in a bit of frustration. Ever since he started really talking to this kid, he’s realized something he didn’t know before: Alix has a set opinion, or lack thereof, and that’s it. No matter how hard Zuro tries to change that, he can’t! It’s best if he moves on.
“ OK, fine. Well it’s cool and all, I mean I like her, as in like like… But the real issue is my head.” He says.

“ Your head? Is it spewing crap? Cause if it is, then just don’t pay it attention.” Alix says. “ See, if you give it too much attention, it’ll get to you. But if you don’t, then it can’t. That’s what I do, plain and simple.”
“ But not everything is so simple dude! I’ve tried to ignore it! Sure sometimes it works. I guess.”

“ Eh, simple or not, I’d say keep trying what I just said.” That’s all he’ll get out of Alix. Ignore me? You can’t, you let me get to you too easily! That’s why you’re not as happy as could be. But try it, I dare you! They finish their movies and the bell rings.

In P E, Zuro’s met with another ultimatum by Presis and Camoran. He knew he was gonna get one as soon as he saw they weren’t dressing up again. They have odd stick shaped things in their pockets. Camoran has one, and Presis has two. “ Ok Zuro, we’re gonna do something really cool. Wanna come?”
“ Does it involve leaving the school again?”

“ Yup! But it’s more of a game that were playing.”
“ A really LIT one.” Camoran says. They both laugh. Was that a pun?

“ How so? Would it happen to include that there thing in your pocket?” Zuro asks. Presis nods and takes out a medium sized blue Energy Pulser. It has two buttons on the side, one to turn it on and off, and the other to shoot out little bullets of pure light. It doesn’t hurt, it just looks cool.

“ Light Pulsers! You have one right?”
“ Uh, I used to. Like a year ago before I lost it at a park and couldn’t find it.” Zuro says. It was a small pink one his mom had bought for him. He still believes the old man who was stalking him at the time had taken it. Maybe it’s best he never found it. “ SO we’re just leaving school to play light tag?”
“ Not tag, a battle! We’ll set the rules as well.”
“ EVERYONE LINE UP AT THE BLACK TOP!” The coaches announce throughout the locker room.
“ Wanna come?” Presis asks. Zuro looks at the blue stick of light. This should make this period more interesting. We haven’t used this in a long time.

“ Sure! Just don’t cheat.”

As the three boys leave the school, yet again, they head up into a small wooded area across the street. They won’t spend too much time here, and they should be able to get back before the bell rings. It really does help when no one notices you. As they walk, Presis brings up a question. “ DId you finish that story you were telling me about?”

“ Story? I don’t write stories.” Camoran says.
“ He’s talking to me.” Zuro says.
“ Oh, sorry.”

“ But uh, the one with the Dog and Cat who go adventuring? Domination Dog?” Zuro asks.
“ THAT’s the name? What’s he dominating, your mom?” Camoran says. They laugh and Zuro tells him to shut his face.

“ Yeah, that one. Seemed interesting. Weren’t you gonna publish it in an official form?” Presis asks. Zuro thinks. He did say that before.

“ Well, I was. But then I had a realization.”
“ That your mom is cheating on your dad with a dog?” Camoran asks.

“ Yes, but shut it.” Zuro says jokingly. “ No, I mean about the whole publishing thing. I decided that, just being able to make whatever I want, feel good about it, and then upload to sites where anyone else can enjoy it too, for free even… That’s good enough.”

“ Yeah it’s like payment in of itself.” Presis says.  

“ But with that logic you ain’t gettin’ paid.” Camoran says.

“ True, but that’s what jobs are for.” Presis says. “ IF you can find something that you enjoy. That’s the hard part that people usually talk about.”

“ Right, but it can’t be impossible. Just keep trying till you find a job at least decently enjoyable. Then you have another thing that not only gets you money, but experience as well.” Zuro says. “ I feel like then I’d have both bases covered. I can have my passion hobby, and a work I can enjoy, at least decently.”
“ It’s not so easy as said.” Camoran says. “ That’s like me being all ‘ oh I can just do sports for fun and still get paid!’”
“ Eh, sort of? Not really. But still, if you keep at it, it can happen.”
“ Besides Camoran you’re already ridiculously good at sports, you can’t complain a bit.” Presis says.

“ I know, but still. Zuro your idea sounds fine, just remember it’s not easy. Doing school and a hobby now is already fucked up. With a job? It won’t let up, or even get worse.” Camoran says.

“ True true, but I can try. Isn’t that what life is about?” They reach a small clearing within the patch of woods. Presis gives Zuro an Energy Pulsers and begins to explain the rules.

Two other kids emerge from the trees, interrupting the briefing. They are Markis and Tarshi. They also have their own Energy Pulsers. Blue and Pink. They see Zuro and his friends and approach. “ Yo guys, you out here playin’ too?” Markis asks. They say yes. Tarshi asks if they could all do a game together. Camoran decides yes and they all decide to agree. Might be fun with more.
“ Ok guys, so here’s the gist of it.” Presis explains. “ We get into teams and fire. Whoever is hit three times is out and must remove themselves from the battlefield.”
“ How do we know when we’re hit?” Zuro asks.
“ Have you never played this before?” Tarshi asks. “ It’s when you SEE the light HITTING YOUR BODY!” He specifies loudly.

“ Ok jesus, but can’t you just cheat with that?”
“ No, since the shooter and the person getting hit need to see it and call it.” Presis says. “ If you don’t both agree then you move on.”

“ It’s a simple version of laser tag in a way. We’re just here for fun.” Markis says.

“ Ah, ok. So what teams?” They have five people, uneven.

“ Ok well obviously, Camoran is gonna be on the side who has the worst players.” Markis says. “ Since this man is sexy strong, and they’ll need the help.”
“ Excuse me what thy f**k?” Camoran asks. Markis laughs.
“ Then he’ll come with me and Zuro.” Presis says. “ I’m pretty sure we’re the worst ones.”
“ You’ve never played here?” Tarshi asks.

“ Not really, I just use my Pulser to prank my sister.”
“ How so?” Markis asks. Presis shuts him up and they move to opposite sides of the clearing. Zuro, Presis and Camoran vs. Markis and Tarshi. Zuro can’t help but get a little nervous. He knows he’s gonna lose.

The game begins. The kids fire at each other, rolling and jumping out of the way of return fire. Light blazes all across the dirt, sending out flares of yellowish orange glow throughout the area. Anyone walking by could see it happening. If anyone did notice, they didn’t do anything that affected the kids. They keep going. Zuro gets tired way too fast and is sniped in the head by Markis and second time by Tarshi. “ BOOM! Gottem!”
“ Yeah yeah, I was tired ok?” Zuro tries to run away, but Markis shoots at Camoran, who Zuro just so happens to be running in front of. He’s hit a third time.
“ Tired means nothing in the midst of war.” Markis dodges out of the way of a bullet from Presis. Zuro sits down next to a tree out of the way. He watches his friends play. Camoran gets Tarshi in the stomach, and Presis is hit by Markis, who is hit by Camoran. Camoran lets out a victory screech that makes everyone else’s ears bleed. This keeps going on until Camoran gets the last shot on Markis.
“ It’s nice,” Zuro thinks to himself as Markis body slams into Camoran and they start wrestling for no reason while Presis and Tarshi laugh their asses off. “ To be able to have this chance. I’m not down there like the other kids. Stuck in class with no one to talk to or play with. Or like the ones who do have friends, but it just isn’t the kind of time they’d prefer to have. DO I even prefer this? I guess so, I did come here after all. I guess I should appreciate these moments more. Never know when I’ll never be able to have them again.” Zuro gets up and walks with his friends back down to the PE area, just as the others are going back in to change. One teacher sees them, and calls them down for a talking to. Markis and Tarshi run away, while Presis and Camoran alongside Zuro get a harangue by the coach. “ You boys know better than to leave school and…” Zuro tunes him out. Wouldn’t it be nice to have Sinthia here too? Then she could join us! Would she even like to play Pulse games? Maybe she has a Pulser of her own, or not. We could ask when we go to her house tomorrow. Should we even go? Maybe we won’t. No, we can’t be so scared. After the useless coach’s speech, the kids head back inside the school.

Zuro had completely forgotten about the sprites. During Spanish all the class does is a few exercises in their notebooks. For Zuro “es fácil” or easy. He gets confused when others tell him how sick they are of Spanish class and wish it didn’t exist. He thinks the whole logic of the language is intriguing. Sure, it’s more complicated for them since it’s a second language and it has things like gender rules to help make it hard to remember, but for him, it’s not so bad. He just studies it and practices some sentences every day and As come with every test. He tries to tell his partners when he can about just trying to make it seem interesting. Whether or not they listen is a different story. He wonders if Sinthia would enjoy Spanish? If she even takes it. He’d have to ask.

After he finishes early with his work, someone taps his shoulder. Behind him is Milisha. She’s wearing a red and white dress, and her pockets are stuffed with what seems like small bags. “ Hey, remember what I said yesterday?”
“ UH. No?”
“ The sprites! Some fun? Make this place look nicer?”
“ When did you-”
“ Milisha! Are you going to the bathroom or not?” The teacher asks.
“ Y-yes! Sorry!” She quickly looks at him again. “ Come down to the restrooms, it’s time you stopped being so good.” As if that was a normal thing to ask, she leaves the class happily. Zuro stares after her. That can only mean one thing. She wants to do something with you in the bathrooms. Why or what exactly? I dunno. Maybe it has to do with whatever these sprite things are. However, you are a bit too good. Plus this school IS looking quite disgusting recently. If the office won’t make it look good, why not us? They barely give two craps what happens in their bathrooms anyway. Zuro sits for a while longer, figuring out what he should do. After three more minutes, he raises his hand to ask to use the lavatory. The teacher sees no issue with this and lets him. Zuro gets up awkwardly and heads down to the nearest girl’s bathroom.

He stands in front of the doorway. There is no one else here for now. He considers going back to stop looking like a pervert when Milisha appears next to him again. “ Sorry, I thought you were at a different one. Good you came! So what we’re doing is taking these,” She pulls out two bags of custom character pixel sprite pictures. Ones from Speedash and Forbidden Planet. The colorful anthropomorphic creatures smile and pose. “ And post them all over the walls! I have glue we can use. That should work. People have put stuff in there before so.”
“ Wow, that’s a lot of sprites. But why me? And why here?” Zuro asks.
“ Oh because the girls are more likely to leave it instead of stealing them. Also it’s not a secret that you’re too good of a student.”
“ I am?” Zuro blushes. “ And why would you happen to know this?”

“ Well simple. Meranda tells me. She hears it from Sinthia, who’s apparently been watching you.” Milisha says. Zuro feels his face become hot.
“ W-what?” Milisha lets out a laugh.
“ I’m not joking. I dunno about the whole ‘watching you’ thing, that’s just what Meranda tells me. Reason why I’m doing this now? Uh, I figure again the school needs it, and you’re too good to tell on me. Also too good to where it’ll help you release yourself to do something ‘bad’.”

“ I’m very confused. I COULD tell on you.”
“ But will you?”
“ Um…” Should he? He should, but he does agree with her. Maybe doing some bad might help us balance out. Following in other’s footsteps all the time can get suffocating. “ W-well. OK. So we’re just posting these things on the walls? You realize how wrong it is for a boy to enter the girl’s place?”
“ Yeah right. Do you see anyone in here? I’ll have you cover the stalls, so that way you’re locked in there and no one can see you. I can let you know when it’s safe to come out when you’re done in that spot. Got it, amigo?” Milisha hands him a bag. There are about twenty sprites inside.
“ Oh… So I’m acting like a girl. Great.” They head into the restroom to start posting.

Zuro’s incredibly nervous the whole time this is happening. He accidentally gets glue drops on the floor and he stains his shoe when he tries to wipe it away. Why did it have to be blue glue? There are four stalls, so he puts up five sprites in each one. In a way, it’s cool to see his favorite characters up on the walls of his school. Deep down Darizon tells him that he’ll get busted for this. He might, but it’s still fun anyway. Even the sensation of being somewhere he’s not supposed to be. He feels naughty, but excited at the same time. No one besides Milisha would know it was him. Would she tell anyone? Just embrace the good feelings. Once he’s finished, Milisha and him head back to class.
“ You feel good about what we did?” She asks.

“ I uh… Guess so yeah. Oddly invigorating considering I’m the biggest pervert in this school now.”
“ No you’re not! That’s nothing to judge that by. I’ve seen boys try worse. Like that kid Markis? Ew… But anyway, I got another proposal for ya.” They stop by the steps leading to Spanish. “ So you know the Lax House Supplies? The building next to the shopping center down the street?”
“ Hm. I think yeah. Been there once. Why? Oh wait don’t tell me.” Zuro says. “ You’re gonna want me to-”
“ Post more sprites in there?” They look at each other.
“ I have many questions regarding that question.” Zuro says. They laugh. “ Ok so, just us?”
“ Look look. Us and Meranda. She has way more sprites than I do. I got the ones we just used from her. We’ll go in, and post said sprites in one corner of the building! Just that one corner, make it look cool. That place is bland anyway. The building’s under construction right now anyways. So we can sneak in now, during their downtime when no one’s working on it, and then it’ll look a bit better.”
“ Aren’t they working on a top floor?”
“ Mhm. So whadda say? Wanna feel more bad?” Zuro considers. You are CERTAINLY getting busted if you do this! The place doesn’t need it! This is just stupid teen bullshit. If you wanna be like them then do it. Just know you ain’t gonna have a happy ending to that venture. But the thought of feeling more like he did in the bathrooms… That feeling of doing what he wants and not what others tell him is ok…
“ Why not. I’ll try this out a bit longer. Surely nothing so bad could happen.”

During his walk with Meranda and Milisha after school towards the Lax building, he gets a text. It’s from Sinthia Scarlet. “ Hey! So um, this is your number right Zuro?”
“ Yes. Sup?” He replies. A few moments later:
“ So, I was still thinking about you coming over tomorrow to see the gun. I’ve invited Heathria, that girl in our math class too. Is that ok?”

“ Oh sure! The force gun thing right? That should be interesting.”
“ Oh you think?”
“ Yup!”
“ I hope so. I just finished painting it, and my parents aren’t home tomorrow so we can do what we want.”
“ Ok cool. What time?”
“ One pm work? Till whenever you need to go. Before nine that is hehe.”
“ Ok sure! Cya then.”
“ Till then Zuro!!” He puts his phone in his pocket and keeps walking. Meranda had mentioned something, but he was preoccupied. Still choosing to go over eh? You have Heathria there so no funny business! Besides, we aren’t even sure if she’s down for that. Then again she did want your ok on Heathria coming over in the first place. Plus she may have been flustered when you said the idea of the gun was cool? I dunno for sure. Let’s just focus on not getting caught today, and this tomorrow. Would our parents even let us go if we get caught? We could just leave once they leave tomorrow. They walk onwards towards their destination...

The Lax Supply Building.

A place for furniture, cooking tools, and general house additions.

What a boring place to work.

Only a low level and desperate person would work here.

Then it should be ok to mess it up a bit, right?

Course not. But we’re doing it anyway.

What’s driving these two girls to do this?

To slander and ruin the corner of the building

When they could not even risk it?

For that matter why am I risking it?

Perhaps it has something to do with teen curiosity.

What the hell does that mean? Everyone’s curious!

True, but teens like us seem to have it worse.

Adults may get their curiosities and act on them,

But would they do this?

Post game characters on the wall like this?

Maybe, maybe not.
I can’t judge what others do.

Especially when I’m a current culprit.

Lucky no one’s here to see us.

We can satisfy our odd desire in isolation.

Do it be that we’re caught,

We’ll simply move on tomorrow.

Tomorrow always lets you move on.

Does it not?

So much fun can’t be contained.

Not contained but not without punishment.

CHAPTER FOUR:

The next day, Zuro wakes up in his blue and white bed. His parents are gone, and he has the day to himself. He remembers the Lax Building, and how he and the girls were found out by a worker who’d been there at the wrong time. Honestly we got out easy. He didn’t even contact the school or our parents. Have it had been someone else, you wouldn’t be so lucky. You were just kicked out and that was it. Funny how you can get off too simply at times. Same times you shouldn’t be. Zuro gets up to begin his day. He has three hours until he goes to Sinthia’s house. The thought of it still reverberates through his mind. First he decides to play some games. “ Hm, what today? Might do some more Forbidden Planet. Posting those sprites certainly made me interested in the game again. Or maybe Paths of Infinity? I still need to finish up that raid with those guys. Or wait… Didn’t they do it without me? Yeah, they did! I’d caught them doing it without me the other day! Ok, then I can do some PVP? I guess, why not. Or wait what about DeltaTale? The Jester sure wants another beating from me, even though I hate that fight I still wanna play it again. I’ll just play Forbidden Planet for a while.” Zuro always takes a long time to figure out anything he’s gonna do. To him, a decision isn’t well made if it’s not mulled over at least a little bit. Sometimes that makes his life more stressful. But you wouldn’t be able to deal with yourself if you didn’t think so much huh?

Two hours, six levels of Forbidden Planet and five games of Paths Of Infinity later, Zuro is bored. “ Ok now what? Still got an hour left… Why does time have to move so slowly when I don’t want it to?” He considers his options and eventually chooses to write some more of his current story. He sits down in his backyard at the dusty and dirty table his family never uses. He’d taken an odd liking to using this spot recently. Doesn’t make him feel so cluttered. About an hour later, Zuro stops his progress on Parked Panic and gets ready to leave his house. If there was one thing he didn’t think he’d be stressing over, it’s his clothing. Normally he cares not about his “style” but today, for some reason, he is. Wanna look nice for the girl don’t you? Just admit it. You barely even have nice s**t to begin with, visually. Just slap on something you’d take a picture in and move on! This rate you’ll be late! Zuro settles on a blue long-sleeved shirt and dark blue pants. He puts on his black shoes, grabs his phone and wallet and tells his Co-op on his phone to direct him to 12234 Jarma, Sinthia’s address.

It’s a beautiful day outside. Birds are singing, flowers are blooming. On days like these, kids like Zuro...Are gonna completely f**k up their opportunity. Zuro tries to just enjoy his walk down the streets while also combating his inner voice. How many possibilities are there this’ll go wrong? Let’s see: you can be awkward and she’ll end it early. You can be perverted and she’ll end it early. You can not say much, or you can do too much. You could try and make a move and it won’t work out. Or you could not go at all and chicken out. “ Shut it I AM going!” He tells himself. Does anyone else have this issue with themselves? Sure he’s heard other people do, but he’s never heard any other kids talk about it before. He manages to steel himself enough to reach the house. It’s bigger than he thought it would be. Two stories, with a color scheme of light blue and white. The front doors are a dark brown. The driveway is empty. Is she home alone? Oh wait, I think she mentioned that she was. What about Heathria? Is it weird if we’re here before she is? Wouldn’t help to just stand here like an idiot. Zuro feels a tension rising in his chest. It’s fine, they’re just gonna play with the tool and that’s it right? Just like how he would invite Presis over to play some games and try out some new air painting tools. Nothing weird about it. It’s only weird if you make it weird. He walks up to the doors, and presses the bell button. He hears someone moving around upstairs, feet running down said stairs, the sound of someone falling, and finally, the door opens. “ Oh h-hi Zuro!” Sinthia says. She has some pretty casual clothing on. A simple purple T-shirt and black sweatpants. Her hair falls lazily down her shoulders. Hey hey! You said you wouldn’t stare! Zuro quickly shakes his head.
“ Huh? Oh hey! Um… You look uh-or, you seem pretty casual?” He sputters, feeling himself go redder by the second. Sinthia looks herself over. He notices her cheeks turn a tad red.

“ A-ah, well. I mean I dunno, I didn’t think this was a very uh… Professional meeting?”
“ That’s good, I wouldn’t want it to be. Professional meetings suck.” They both laugh nervously.
“ Yeah, well uh… Wanna c-come? I have the gun out in the backyard w-with some things we can try it out on!” She stands aside for Zuro.

As he steps in, he takes in the scene. In front of him across the way is the glass sliding door to the backyard. He can see a pool with a table and grill. To the left of the slide door is the kitchen, and to the right is what seems like a hallway. “ We have snacks if you want. Would you wanna go outside now or?” Sinthia asks. She fidgets nervously next to him. She isn’t sure what to do, afraid of making the wrong move. Behind her is the staircase, which Zuro assumes leads up to the bedrooms and such. To his left is the entrance to the living room. He can see a large TV hung up on the wall.
“ Uh… We can do whatever. W-when is uh, Heathria? She’s coming right?” He asks.
“ She said she was. Last time she texted me was a half hour ago. Hopefully she’ll get here soon.” They both want her to arrive. Just them alone is a bit too much.
“ I see, well how about the backyard then? I see you have a pool. Lucky!” Zuro says.
“ Really? It’s just uh, been there? It’s been there since we moved in. I guess the previous owners liked to have back house parties or something.”

“ Does your family ever use it?” Sinthia walks over to the glass door. She thinks for a moment.
“ Not too much. I dunno why, we just don’t have much need, or I guess want, to swim in it.” She slides it open. “ You first.” Zuro walks past Sinthia and out into the backyard. As he passes her, a smell fills his nostrils. That smells amazing! Does she have something on? Like perfume? Why would she wear perfume for something so casual? He stands near the pool’s edge, looking at his reflection in the water. Zuro can hardly believe he’s even in a girl’s house right now. Especially this one.

“ So this it right her-” Sinthia stops mid-sentence. Zuro looks over to see her staring at a blank spot on the outside table. “ Where is it? I put it here earlier, and now…?” She looks around and lets out an aggravated sigh. “ Hold on, sorry. I need to check where my stupid a*s put the Force Gun.”
“ Ok. I guess I’ll stay out here.” Zuro says, letting out a small laugh. Even she cusses and isn’t afraid to make fun of herself every so often, we can see that now again. Good. Perfect Princesses aren’t interesting. Sinthia rushes back into her house and Zuro sits on one of the table’s chairs. The whole thing seems cleaner and more used than his. He takes out his phone and goes onto ComCord, an online chatting app.

Zuro remembers when he first got this app. He’d seen it on YouTube, being promoted left and right by creators. At first he didn’t think much of it, until he heard of a specific server being held. A server for Forbidden Planet. Originally he’d thought if he joined he could snag a chance at talking to one of the makers of the game. The idea had excited him enough to try it and make an account. Unfortunately, he learned that this direction communication with the creators wasn’t what he’d hoped. The server itself was rather toxic. He couldn’t even talk about his video game crush without being threatened with a ban! And he’d seen people get kicked out for some pretty dumb reasons. So he did the safest thing, and left. By that point he’d met some friends on there who’d given him a reason to stay on, and his curiosity led him to other servers that he’s still apart of today. Zuro only cares to partake in two servers. Normally people have dozens they’re in. He sees no reason in such. Only two servers, where everyone there is friendly and makes for interesting times. That was all he’d been looking for. And out of said servers came three specific online friends that Zuro is beyond thankful for meeting. He brings up their usernames on his phone. Nikkolah33, Windish and Splish. One boy and two girls. Nikkolah is fourteen, while Windish claims thirteen, and Splish claims fifteen and a half. That makes Zuro the oldest out of them, being sixteen. He’d met these three by the most random of circumstances. Pretty much just by getting into a conversation with them on a general chat and hitting it off enough to switch to private chats.

Of course the two girls had nothing romantic towards him and neither him for them. Once there was a time where Windish had confessed “feelings” for Zuro, which he shot down quickly. They established it was for the better to avoid romance while they just knew each other online only. Being good friends was enough for Zuro. We know you WOULD want to try it, but you don’t wanna feel like a clown pretending you have something with someone you can’t even touch. Not like that matters anymore. Remember where we are? You don’t have to worry about online love. Just not screwing up the chance at a real one. Zuro enters the chatroom for Splish. She’s probably the “weirdest” out of the three. Zuro’s been sent some erotic things from her, and vice versa. Most people would get turned off by this. He however, enjoys it. But would Sinthia like that kinda s**t? It’s possible, but we don’t know for sure yet do we.
“ Yo Splish, I’m in dangerous territory right now.” He texts her.

“ Why? Are you stealing drugs?” She responds.

“ Don’t bring that up, it was only a thought!”
“ A bad one yeah. Not that I wouldn’t have thought the same. Sorry what are you doing? I mean what’s up?”
“ So do you remember Sinthia?”
“ No?”
“ The girl I may have some feelings about.”
“ OOOOOH yeah! OOH I know!” Zuro feels himself blush.

“ You do?”
“ Yup! You’re in her house right? Or out on a date? If you’re dating then stop texting me playboy!”
“ Hey hey! No! I’m at her house tho yeah. She just wants to show me this force manipulation tool she made. A friend of hers is also coming over. So no funny business.”
“ Not unless you get rid of the friend and back her into the corner.”
“ Splish what the hell?? LOL.”
“ LOL JK. for how long?” Zuro is in the middle of his text back when the back door opens again. Sinthia comes out, with the Force Gun and some bags of chips and bottles of water.
“ Gtg.” He puts his phone away.

Sinthia sets down three bags and three bottles on the table, along with the Force Gun. It’s shiny bronze plating gleams in the sun. Bits of orange light spill out from in between the metal. It seems like something out of an alien shooter game. “ Ok, sorry I took so long! I thought we could have something to eat. Plus I didn’t realize how crappy my room is.” She rubs her arm anxiously. Zuro stretches and yawns.
“ Oh, well it’s fine. No rush or anything. I’m not in one.” He says. Sinthia opens her mouth to reply but the front door bell goes off. She runs back in, seeming a tad upset. A minute later and she’s back with Heathria. Standing next to Sinthia Zuro really sees for the first time how much smaller Heathria is. Her whole figure just screams middle school petite girl, even though she’s in high school. She has a light green dress with black shoes. Her light orange hair is straightened out down her back. Her glasses twinkle in the sun. She sees Zuro and smiles faintly. “ Hello! Sorry I’m late! My dad had to do some last minute grocery shopping without telling me.” The two girls walk over and sit down at the table side opposite of Zuro. His heart pounds. Ok so we have two girls in close proximity to us. We’re fine we’re fine! Don’t be an idiot and we’re good! Heathria’s here so the pressure should go down, right? Maybe not. Regardless, just do not be stupid! It’s easy! Go along with what happens and be yourself! He waits patiently. Sinthia takes hold of the Force Gun, showing it to the two of them.
“ So, lemme explain this and I’ll let you guys try it. See those boxes? They’re both empty. If you want once we’re done I was thinking we could head to the park?”
“ Park? What would be there?” Heathria asks.

“ Oh, just the usual, but I think it’d be fun…” Sinthia gets a bit of a devilish look on her face. Fun? Zuro can’t help but admit he’s interested.

The basics of the ‘Proto Force Gun’ as Sinthia calls it is what Zuro expected. Aim at something, hold down the trigger, and if the thing in question isn’t too big for the power of the gun to handle, it’ll float up and you can move it around. Then release the trigger and the thing’ll succumb to gravity again. Sinthia demonstrates by stacking the six medium-sized boxes on top of each other. She’d be the most able with it naturally. “ Now, who wants to go first? Also, don’t ruin my boxes please. My parents still wanna use ‘em.” Zuro took too long to say something so Heathria gets first go. She aims the gun and holds down the trigger. Nothing happens. “ Sometimes it’s finicky. Try to get an EXACT aim on it!” Sinthia says. Heathria tries again. This time the top box floats away when she moves the gun. She swirls it around in the air like it’s JMOD. Zuro watches her make two stacks of boxes and gently move them around. One falls into the pool. “ AH! S-sorry!” She attempts to pick it up. Sinthia stops her, taking the gun and offering it to Zuro.
“ Here, would you wanna try and get it out of the pool?” Her eyes lock onto his. At first, he doesn’t want to do it, but her smile, gleaming eyes, and willingness to trust him make him decide otherwise. He takes the Force Gun, looking it over again before aiming it. He immediately notices that aiming a gun in real life is not the same as in a video game. Zuro had always assumed so, especially since the farther ranged tools he has used weren’t exactly “weapon” styled. He steps up to the edge of the pool, targeting the box. He pulls the trigger and latches onto it. He hoists it up and onto the grass.  He then stacks five boxes, and using the sixth one, plows through the mini tower. “ There, that was the kamikaze of the Techno War.” He says. The girls laugh.
“ Really? Making war jokes now on a couple of boxes AND disregarding what I’d just said earlier?” Sinthia asks. Zuro blushes and says sorry too quietly for anyone to hear. “ I don’t think those equate to Russian buildings. Or Japanese bombers.” Sinthia seems like she doesn’t care too much.
“ However it was the same action. As far as our legal system is concerned, that’s all that matters.” He says.

“ I figured they weren’t very concerned with almost anything.” Heathria says.
“ Fair enough, since most of the time they aren’t.” Sinthia stands up and stretches. In her pocket a message notification alarm goes off. Zuro stacks the boxes again as she checks it.
“ Oh… Damn it really mom…” She sighs.
“ She coming home early?” Zuro asks. She nods.

“ Oh, I mean I was gonna mention I had to leave in like an hour and a half or so anyway.” Heathria says. Zuro tries to hold in his disappointment.
“ What time?”
“ In about….. An hour from now? Maybe a little more?” Ok, not so bad. We have time for one more activity, maybe. But what would that be?

“ Hm, hey have you guys been to the Park that’s near this neighborhood?” Sinthia asks. Zuro and Heathria shake their heads.

“ I’ve passed it, that’s about it.” Heathria says.

“ It’s not too far, and I’ve been thinking about trying this thing out in public. Shouldn’t be illegal or anything right?” Sinthia points to the Force Gun.

“ Illegal? That’s a dark hole with probably no end.” Zuro says. “ Especially for kids who couldn’t defend themselves even if they tried.”
“ You know, that’s damn true.” Sinthia says. “ But legal matters haven’t stopped me from doing what i want before.”
“ Like what?”
“ Like the lewd paintings on the classroom walls, from last semester.” Heathria says smiling. Sinthia blushes.

“ You weren’t supposed to tell anyone!”

“ THAT was you? Jesus I thought they never caught the culprits!”

“ There was two, me and Heathria.” Sinthia says. Heathria’s now blushing. Someone as seemingly innocent as her? Guess everyone has a kink for something ‘naughty’.

“ Huh, well I’m not telling. Only scums do that. I’m eighty-five point six percent sure that I’m not scummy.” Zuro says.

“ Well, Mr. 85%, we’re wasting time here. How about the park? I’ll be that gun’s a good prankster.” Sinthia asks.

Zuro wasn’t about to leave her, not now. Not when they have something possibly exciting to do together still. Heathria came simply because she wanted to see what would happen. As they walk towards the park, along the streets of Jarma, Zuro catches himself doing exactly what he swore not to. You are staring again. Don’t argue with me yes you are! I don’t care if she can’t see you. Know who can? Heathria! She’s behind you! So what if she’s on her phone, you know girls tend to know when a boy likes someone. It’s their special yet infuriating ability. Knock it off. He tries his hardest to focus on something else. Even when they talk about the food court’s mechanically engineered supplies, he’s barely into it. You’re more worried about yourself image right now then you are of being active with her. Stop. This continues all the way to the park. Thankfully, he’ll have other things to focus on here.

Tres Leches park. ‘Three Milks Park’. It’s one of the more stupid names to Zuro, and how the founders possibly came up with it he has no clue. When he asks Sinthia and Heathria, their guesses weren’t any better. But the name doesn’t stop visitors. Older people sit on benches and bird watch, young adults have picnics on the grass, kids run about playing with Energy Pulsers and drawing air pictures with Color Gauntlets. The playgrounds here are the biggest attraction. Zuro’s heard that these things used to be for kids only, a century ago. That’s definitely not true now. Some parts are still specifically for the little ones, but the whole thing is enjoyed by everyone. They see some teens playing a game of Suspension Defenders. They hover in the air using a gravity concentrator matrix plate, and use their Holo Gauntlets to create holographic walls and projectiles. They float around, laugh and play in the air. Others shoot through large tubes that blast them at high speeds to a different part of the park, landing down on a soft cushion. At times Zuro sees these places as a sort of theme park. However these are nothing compared to such.

Sinthia ends up taking the lead with the Gun. Zuro and Heathria have ideas as to what she’s  gonna do, but they just let her do it instead. This way if she gets in trouble Heathria can bail out. They stand near to the playground, but not too close. Sinthia aims the gun at a boy’s soda cup he’s holding. She picks it up and holds it over him. “ Hey! Who’s doing that?” He looks around. The cup is dropped into his hands and the three kids quickly sit on a bench and look inconspicuous. Once the kid gives up, Sinthia repeats the process. This goes until the boy catches and yells at her. In which case she picks up the soda again and splashes it in his face. “ That’s it you b***h!” He jumps down and runs at her. Zuro and his friends run away at high speeds.
“ She’s very sorry!” He says to the angry kid behind him. He doesn’t answer back and instead increases his speed. Zuro isn’t very fast, and always fails to go really quick for a short time. He stops to rest his burning lungs as the boy charges past, nearly knocking him over. He looks at Sinthia and Heathria still running ahead. Heathria breaks off from her and walks by him. “ Yeah I’m done here. You can go ahead and have fun with her.” She says. “ I’m sure you want to.” She adds and walks away.

“ Hey wait…” His voice trails off. Told you idiot. He sighs and shakes his head at himself. He glances around, realizing Sinthia’s gone. “ Really? How the f**k is this gonna turn out like this? What do I even do now?” He walks through the park, past a bunch of confused people wondering why there’s a screaming eighteen-year-old boy running after a sixteen-year-old girl. He comes to an entrance to a Blast Tube. He peers in. “ HELLO? Goddamnit-” He jumps to the side as someone flies out of the tube and lands on the cushion mat.

Sinthia gets up and faces him, wiping her hair out of her face. Her smile stretches to her cheeks and her eyes bubble with adrenaline. “ Hola amigo. Where were you?” Zuro has to remove his dumbfounded expression.

“ Oh uh… Looking… For you? What the hell just happened. Why were you in the tube and why did you have to make the dude mad and -” She puts a finger to his lips.

“ Too many questions. Just trying to have some fun is all. Is that bad?” They look each other in the eyes again.She swings her gun around in her other hand. Zuro’s heart is beating rapidly, and not just from the excitement. Her finger is brought back down. Sinthia checks her phone.

“ Oh,  my mom’s home.” She says pouting. “ Wants my help ‘cleaning up my mess.’”

“ What mess. Besides what just happened.”

“ Heh, do you know the game Ragnarok? With the elves and humans and giant evil and good serpents?”

“ Oh yeah! I have it, the RPG? I don’t play it too much though. Do you have it?”
“ I got the collector’s edition thingie. I had it spread out in the living room to check it all out, came with a s**t ton of stuff.” She looks at the sky. “ I guess I forgot to put it away before you came over. Even though I thought I did.”
“ Are your parents picky about that sorta stuff? Mine don’t really care, they trust me to do what I want… Usually.” Zuro says.
“ Lucky, mine basically want the entire house squeaky f*****g clean before anyone comes over. Let alone…” Her eyes pass over him and she turns a little red. Let alone what? Us? Zuro rubs his head awkwardly.

“ Uh… So cya on Monday then?” He asks. Sinthia nods.
“ Um, Zuro?”
“ Yes?” A few seconds of consideration. More like torture.
“ T-this was fun. Honestly.” She looks up at him and smiles. What would anyone else say that wasn’t me? What am I even supposed to AS me? Zuro fidgets on his feet.
“ H-heh… It was certainly fun f-for me too… I think I’m… Glad I came here. Yeah, I am!” He says. Sinthia seems to relax a little.

“ Yeah..! Cya at school!” She begins a certain motion towards him, but stops herself and turns around, walking off with springs in her steps.

Zuro watches her leave, being unable to resist the feeling eroding inside of him. “ I did it! I didn’t cave in and be a weird person! I think? Eithe rway this is a successful mission.” He thinks as he heads off for his own home. “ What would I be doing if I wasn’t here? Probably my usual. Even though that’s not a bad thing, this made today wayyyyy better. An actual Saturday to remember.” He feels like jumping and dancing. He’s too embarrassed to do that. Nice work. You weren’t a stupid. Keep this up and you might work it out with her. I think that last bit told us what we need to know, right? Admit it, she’s into you, we know that and so does Heathria. Wonder if she’ll tell. Perhaps not. If you don’t expose her, she may not expose you. What now, however? A date? Is that too early? “ We can just wait and see. No way I’m rushing this. Somehow this seems a little perfect. Why should I complain?” You should at least consider it. Everything has a bad side. Whether it occurs now or in the far future, something will go wrong. And then how’ll you deal with it? You may as well just accept what’ll happen. Can’t stop fate. “ Ok whatever. Perfection ain’t such a bad thing. So it’d be nice if you could let me relish today and walk home in peace. Do you know what that is Darizon?” I know what that is. I can’t shut up, I’m always here. You can’t get rid of me, I am you. Do you wanna ruin you? Be like Splish and drink till you’re even worse off? “ She did get out of it with the help of her friends.” I know, but to even have that happen is pathetic. We know we need to ask her out again. Don’t let this just slip by because you’re too afraid. “ I won’t! I’ll say something… Eventually?” Eventually? No no, that’s not gonna do it. Quit making excuses to try and make yourself look better than you really are. If you’re too afraid to speak in front of a whole class, then at the very least talk to ONE girl CONFIDENTLY! “  I will TRY! LEAVE ME ALONE! Why do you think it helps to worry so much about everything?” Because, being smart means you know about every possibility. Only the retards don’t. Do you wanna be an idiot? Or not? “ No, so stop!” We’ll see. Zuro goes to bed tonight a bit more upset and burnt than he would’ve liked.

CHAPTER FIVE:

The next day, Zuro goes for a run…

The road running endlessly ahead of me.

The houses and woods blurring past.

My feet burning rubber as they stomp on the white pavement.

Wind through my air, and a cold chill through my legs and arms.

I breathe new life from the nature from which it’s offered.

How can anyone beat this?

Seventeen times the government passed laws to de-naturize the world.

Nearly eighteen they repealed it.

What’s better, a tree or a machine?

Oxygen gives me the freedom of thought I slowly lose in my own house.

Taken from me by my own hand,

By which the same body I’ll regain it.

Thoughts are a constant. They’ll never cease.

But I can suppress them.

Because  such a simple action,

Can do me so well,

Even if the ideas inside still hurt like hell.

At the end of Zuro’s jog, he takes a shortcut back to his house through a small wooded path. As he steps over the sticks and leaves, he finds a group of kids sitting in a circle in the middle of the way. Alix, Patrick and Antwon are all smoking weed and discussing something. Smoke fills the air, stinging Zuro’s nose. He approaches carefully.

“ So if my dick is six inches, how many inches do we need to cut from this branch to make it fit?” Patrick asks.

“ Probably six. It’s twelve right?” Antwon asks.

“ I think so.”
“ See, you’ll need a smaller one. Try using that string someone left here.” Alix says.

“ What the God awful f**k are you guys DOING?” Zuro asks them, stepping closer. They look at him, half asleep and half confused.

“ Zero? Why’re you here?” Alix asks. “ I thought you came here on Tuesdays.”
“ No, normally it’d be on the weekends. Are you really smoking in the middle of a goddamn forest?”
“ Yes, and it’s the most amazing thing you’ll ever try!” Patrick says. “ Any issues you have dissipate like cum in the morning.”
“ Ew, can you stop. Like seriously stop all of this.” Zuro can’t help coughing.

“ No it’s fun man! Try.” Antwon says. “ Or are you afraid?” YES. You ARE! If you hate me so much, then try it. It’s not bad. Zuro shakes, trying to withdraw himself from the pressure.

“ N-no… It’s not worth it.”

“ Dude, buzz kill. Who’s to say you are worth anything?” Antwon says. Zuro eyes him, feeling tears come up. He laughs. “ Naw man I’m joking. Remember I have no clue what’s going on? Probably should get out of here. I think we may be the cause of the new forest fires.”
“ T-this isn’t nice…” Zuro mutters.
“ Hey, let’s forget this ever happened and go get some pizza?” Patrick offers.
“ Pizza? That’s only in New York.” Alix says.

“ No it’s not you fuckbrain. Come on.” Antwon gets up, the joint seemingly losing him. “ I’m hungry. Zuro?” He’s silent. Wanna be alone some more or go with them? It’s your choice. You know what’ll make you happier.

“ Ok… Sure. But i-if you smoke any more I’m leaving.” They head off to the nearest shopping area. Zuro leaves soon after they get their pizza.

That night Zuro has a nightmare about becoming a smoker and dying painfully. Later on in math class, their given an assignment to do with a partner. Zuro’s hopes are quickly sliced to bits once the teacher says the dreaded “ and it’s assigned partnerships!” which earns a collective groan from the class. Zuro and Sinthia both look at each other, and hastily face away when they each notice one another. Sinthia is put with some red headed girl and Zuro is put with Markus. Markus rubs his hands as he comes over. “ Ok so here’s the plan: You do all of it and I get credit for writing my name and anything else you tell me to write. Bien?”
“ No bien! Markus I’m not doing this for you like middle school.”
“ But this time I have a better excuse. I’m utterly exhausted from the terrifying and endless work load high school so mercilessly forces upon me and I’m unable to partake in this activity of learning.”

“ That is the biggest bullshit I’ve ever heard. You do literally the least amount of work in this class.”
“ Fine whatever. Just give me some instructions at least.” The class is given forty out of the fifty six minute period to work on it. Zuro and Markus take a total of fifty one minutes to complete it. The teacher, being a nice person, lets them have the extra time. Zuro figures this is because Markus keeps asking her questions on how to solve the problems in order to put the figure together and acting like he’s into it. By the end of it they had a model that was ok. Looking at Sinthia’s figure however, makes him want to trash his own. The teacher says the models are to stay in class for grading and can be brought home next week.

After class Sinthia mentions to Zuro how she hates hers and wants to get rid of it. “ Really? But it’s so good! I would even take it.” He says without thinking, which he immediately regrets. He’s in the middle of a rushed takeback when Sinthia says: “ Maybe. What about yours?”

“ Huh? Oh uh… It’s not special and-”
“ DUDE!” Tarshi calls to him from a few feet away. “ History class now! You can flirt later!” Zuro and Sinthia both turn red at that.
“ For f**k’s sake man stop playing! You really aren’t as funny as you think you are.” Zuro says, waving bye to Sinthia and joining Tarshi. “ It’s rather embarrassing!”
“ So? Dude you gotta make some more moves. It’s clear where that relationship could go. It’s just your choice.” Tarshi says. Exactly. Your decision. Either to chicken out or not.

For the rest of the day, Zuro’s mind is completely filled and gushing with the memory of the weekend past. First of Sinthia and her little prank in the park, and second of Antwon and his other friends smoking in the woods. Only two questions really: where did that enraged boy even go and did the woods catch on fire? I don’t think it ever did. Most of his thoughts aren’t exactly questions, but rather just re-living the past two days. If he could go back he would, maybe NOT encounter his friends in the forest-like path, and maybe even make some more moves while in Sinthia’s house. The only real difference all this thinking makes on his day is increasing the amount of pain that everything gives him. Too much homework? Now you’ll slave away for the rest of the day. Patrick mentions something a BIT off-putting to him regarding a certain anime? That’s because you have s**t taste and Patrick’s tastes and dedication is better than yours. Or for the finale of the day, in PE, when Zuro was tapping Presis with a stick too many times and Presis got angry with him. That’s what you get for being stubborn and doing what you want. You get your friends mad at you. Is that what you want? Presis had said they are still fine, but that doesn’t stop Zuro from worrying. By the final bell, he’s more than ready to take out his own brain and toss it into the dumpster. If he could, he would’ve done that a long time ago.

CHAPTER SIX:

As he heads down the stairs leading from his Spanish class to the main quad, Zuro hears a thud coming from the very back of the school grounds. He stops for a moment, checking to see if anyone else heard it too. The kids walk past him, and that’s it. “ No one? Maybe I’m hearing things.” He turns to leave. As he does, he sees Presis walking through the area under the library. “ Should I apologize?” Zuro considers this. If he does, he’ll miss a ride home with Alix. What’s more important? He runs down the rest of the stairs and under the library. Reaching the other side, he loses track of Presis. He looks left and right. “ S**t. How do people disappear so fast?” He walks down through the back of the school, past all of its bungalows. Zuro reaches the gate that leads to the dumpster storage. Presis is nowhere to be seen, however the gate is opened. Another thud shakes the ground. “Whoever’s doing something back there clearly doesn’t care how much noise they make.” He thinks. He checks around for Presis one last time. Still nothing. “ Perhaps I should leave? Alix is almost definitely gone by now…” He’s considering when he hears a girl’s grunt from within the gate. Now totally intrigued, he slips through the crack of it and enters.

There are twelve total dumpster bins that the school uses. All of them are full, and the new trash is simply left on the ground lying against the fence. Trees tower all around the small enclosed area. Zuro was never sure why the school put human garbage surrounded by nature. The bins themselves have all been moved around. As if a god’s hand came down and mixed up their placement. The trash bags too have been relocated. Near the far left corner, a girl is holding up a trash bag in the air, looking under it. She’s not using her hands, but a Prototype Force Gun. Sinthia sighs with frustration as she sets the bag back down. She takes out her phone and begins to text someone. Zuro stares at her from the gate entrance. She’s troubled by something. Go help her. Don’t you dare walk out of here now. He hesitates, considering all the ways he could screw up. Zuro exhales and moves forward. “ Hey-” As soon as he starts speaking, Sinthia turns around, seeing him. They both nearly jump back. Each one stares at each other, getting redder by the second. Sinthia more so. Her eyes glance repeatedly around at the garbage bins and bags. As if a teacher had caught her playing with project supplies.
“ Z-Zuro! Hey… Uh… W-what are you doing here?”
“ Oh um. I was uh, l-looking for someone. I-I mean a friend! Do you know Presis?” He blurts.

“ Hmm Presis Scot?”
“ Yeah.”
“ Yes. What of him?”
“ Not much, I just wanted to apologize to him about something. I did… Or well HE got upset over a stupid little thing… Anyway, what’s uh… This about?” He gestures around him. Sinthia seems to have a hard time controlling her breathing. Zuro’s about to say something when she speaks up suddenly.

“ Looking for something. My parents are mad at me… I kinda lost an important item to them…”
“ Important? How so?” He asks. Her body tenses, like she’s stopping herself. Then she gives in.

“ Ah the f**k with it… It’s a set of Hover Shoes. The Ziloc OX kind. You know those?” Her face is sweating now. It’s not so hot outside.
“ Oh wow, aren’t those like the best kind out there? Or at least that’s what the kids say. I’ve only ever used the OA kinds. Are they special to your parents or?”
“ Definitely. Well more specifically my mom. My dad gave it to her for their marriage proposal. As like a gift along with the ring or something? It’s a weird thing to get…” She lets out a nervous chuckle. Zuro smirks.
“ Hm, well weird or not, it’s still cool! And she likes them I’m guessing?”
“ Of course! That’s why I’m in the biggest trouble now…” Sinthia sighs, running her hands over her face. Zuro looks around. If he could find it now he would. You can’t. If she couldn’t with a force gun, how could you? You have nothing on you. Don’t try and be a hero. You’ll only embarrass yourself.

Zuro checks his phone. A missed call from his dad. Again. Sinthia lets out a small sob. She’s reading something on her phone, a text from her mom. He knows what it means when someone messages in all caps. “ Sinthia.” She looks up at him, the brims of her eyes red. His throat tightens. Don’t be a hero? Who said he had to be. “ Look… I won’t ignore that I think I know what’s going on right now. Between you and your parents I mean.”

“ You can’t help me Zuro…” She says. “ I appreciate the attempt. But this is my fault. I’ll have to find it or just buy a new one. I swear I left it here somewhere….” She begins to search some more.

“ Do you get picked up?”
“ Sometimes. It’s a fifty-fifty really. Do you?”
“ About twice or so a week.” He shifts, unsure of what to do or say. Is this part of love? Wanting so desperately to fix them but being so painfully unable to? “ Well… If you can’t find the things, then…” No. Do you really want to? This’ll take all of your allowance.
“ What? You don’t need to help me Zuro… I can handle this.” She gives a slight smirk. “ I’m not a useless girl. I think.” Zuro laughs.
“ I wouldn’t think of you as one for a second. The moment I do is the moment I make a mistake. Only a smart person would upset someone at a park and break school rules.” That gets a laugh out of Sinthia.
“ Hey! I told you already!” She faces him. “ Don’t you have a house to get to? Your own parents?” Once again, her face blinds him.
“ Uh… Uh… Who? I MEAN no not yet! They’re not… Home yet. I’m walking.” He says. Sinthia laughs again. A strange sense of satisfaction permeates through Zuro’s body. We’re making her laugh! But does she feel better or is she pretending? “ Well, I guess I’ll go then. I wasn’t expecting to find you here.”
“ Me neither… But uh,” She pushes her hair back. “ It was nice…”
“ S-same...Yeah!” Zuro turns. “  Well, have a good day then.”
“ You too… Thanks.” She murmurs. Thanks? For us coming here? He walks out of the dumpster area, taking all of his effort to not look back. He does so anyway, getting one last glimpse before disappearing behind the gate.

CHAPTER SEVEN:

Two hours later. It’s five in the afternoon. Homework all done, put in his backpack ready for the next day. Dishes in the sink from a ‘quick’ snack. Computer recently turned off after finishing his homework and watching YouTube. Zuro sits in his backyard, reading a volume of Konomiba. Apparently, these books are really old. Any physical hard copy story is rare these days. Zuro was lucky to get some from his parents. The pages are yellow and easily crumble if squeezed. He’s actually ruined the first page, on accident. If there’s one thing he wants to keep for his adulthood, it’s these old books. An entire container of them, like how his dad’s friend does it. A family treasure. The kinda thing most of his friends ( as far as he knows and is certain of personally) would know nothing about. Reading the decayed words, flipping the yellowish tan pages. “ It feels nice.” As long as you don’t destroy it. The sun burns his phone, making it hot to the touch. The shadows cast long reflections on the ground, like they know what the flesh could never. Zuro’s phone goes off with a text message. He grabs it, recoiling at the heat. “ Damn it! Two more seconds and it would’ve shut down again!” He opens the message page and sees it’s from Marlan.

“ Dude, are you busy? Got a proposal para ti.”

“ For me? What’s up mate.” He’s forgotten that he has Marlan’s number.

“ So, me and Patrick are gonna head over to the new construction site. The one across from the Las Bakas Shopping Center? We know of some legit gems to find there, since they’ve been digging up we could find something. Remember how a group did that last week? We want in, and we could sell it!”

“ Wait wait. Isn’t that illegal? Those kids got in trouble!”
“ And? They made the dumb mistake of showing it off at school. If we go right to the online and sell it anonymously, we’ll be good!”

“ Dude, are you serious?” The response was yes. Zuro looks at the sky, considering. Marlan mentions the time for meeting is right now. It seems like this might be fun. If you went you wouldn’t be so lonely and pathetic. You’d be like a better kid, with friends having fun. Try it out.

“ Ok, I can come. Should I bring something?”
“ You have a CleanerShove?”

“ Yes. I’ll do that. Cya then.” Zuro goes into his house to get the shovel, and heads out.

Las Bakas Park of Relaxation. That’s what Zuro’s history teacher had told his class what the government intends on calling this place once it’s done. It used to be an elementary school, until that was convicted of having too many pedophiles as teachers. It was torn down and is now a desolate dirt field spotted with large machines. The kids at Zuro’s school dub it “ the Dusted Fields of Hopes and Dreams”. Not just for all the current dirt, but also for the kids who could’ve gone to this school if things were different. Tom had said it was a reference to a game. Zuro was never quite sure. As he approaches the yellow tape that outlines the zone, his chest becomes heavy. “ I’m not supposed to be doing this. My parents’ll be home in like an hour or so. Maybe I can just get back before then? Or I lie?” He thinks as he steps up to the tape and looks for his friends. Across the way, staring up at one of the ground plowing mechs, is two boys and a girl. He rethinks what he’s doing. Come on this’ll be fun! Why not be a true kid and live life? You can be shut up in your house later. Zuro hops the tape. The ground is soft, like fertilizer. Specks of dirt fleck his shoes and the shadows of the machines cover him as he walks over to his friends.

Patrick sees him first. He’s in a white hoodie with jet black pants and brown shoes. He waves him over as the other two notice. Marlan is in a similar black hoodie and the girl is in a long-sleeved green shirt. Their pants are all the same color. Wait, why is SHE here with them? Zuro walks up to them, nodding. “ Hey guys.” He eyes her. “ Why’re… You here?”
“ Oh, funny story really. So I was coming by here to get a snack from the CBS store right? Don’t ask why I took the longest route to get to a store. Anyway I found all this,” She motions around her to the vacant zone. “ And then these two called me over.”
“ So Marlan you’re just bringing over random kids now?” Zuro asks.
“ Naw, not really. I just know this one here is special to you, that’s all. I figured what luck. Since I’d just texted you about it.” Marlan says. Zuro blushes, and so does Sinthia.
“ Special? You said they were more than friends.” Patrick says.

“ And what about that do you not understand?” Marlan asks.

“ Wait… OOOOOOO.” Patrick starts to wheeze from laughing at his own stupidity. “ Ok I see now. F**k my head’s dumb.”
“ You just now realized?” Zuro asks. “ You know this is illegal right? If ANYONE sees us we’re done for!”
“ So why’re YOU here then Zuro?” Sinthia asks. That shuts him up.

“ Exactly, we’ll be fine!” Marlan says. “ Since we have a double date going on.” This time everyone except him goes red.
“ NO it’s not!” Patrick says. “ Those jokes are starting to get on my nerves dude. Stop it.” Sinthia isn’t as surprised as Zuro is. He’d only heard of Marlan’s relationship with Patrick a week ago. He’s still having a hard time not forgetting.
“ Well… That’s whatever. Actually, where do you guys even plan on finding these gems anyway?” He asks.

“ The whole area’s covered with them!” Marlan points down the way, where a small field of dirt goes on and on. “ Ok, a lot of them have been taken out already, but there’s still gotta be some left.”
“ We ain’t leaving till we find at least one.” Patrick says. “ Should sell for about a thousand.”
“ There’s other ways without risking it.” Sinthia says. “ But I can’t deny it’d be cool if we did find some.” Zuro notices some excitement in Sinthia. She’s shifting back and forth on the balls of her feet, and constantly eyeing her surroundings. Either she’s keeping watch, or just can’t wait to get started. Marlan orders everyone to take out their shovels and start digging around the area. Sinthia doesn't’ have a CleanerShove and votes to keep watch.

An hour and a half.

Is that how long it takes to find money?

It’s only so easy if you’re doing it wrong.

But being wrong can feel so right!
It feels like a split in me,

Like a cavern enveloped by two emotions.

Worry, and euphoria.

Worried for all the reasons I’m not a lawful person.

Euphoric for all the reasons I’m being me.

Who’s to say those aren’t interchangeable?

Who says they’re even comparable?

No one,

No one can tell you anything.

Unless of course you want to listen.

But to be with friends,

Especially her…

It makes the negative emotions fly away.

And only adrenaline remains!

A slight bump of our shoulders,

The shadow of her consuming me as she steps over,

The touch of our hands in the dirt as we dig,

Her trying her hardest to help out.

Makes me feel like a pig.

So dirty, yet so happy.

By around seven, the four kids have found three gems. A glowing white diamond, a shining green emerald, and a rosy pink ruby. They were going to keep searching, but Sinthia had called out a worker entering the scene and they fled. Said worker had seen Patrick as he was the last to leave the field. All he did was sigh and continue his job. Now they’re walking up the sidewalk back towards the neighborhoods. Zuro rotates the ruby in his hand. The multiple layers keep his eyes enamored. It’s like the world, with its huge number of content that we’ll never understand. Sinthia had given him it, since she’d found it. Marlan had gotten upset that she’d found something with her bare hands. Zuro’d rejected in taking it, but she’d insisted. Patrick and Marlan clink their diamond and emerald together, laughing at the high pitched collision noise.

“ Don’t you two think that’ll break them?” Sinthia asks.

“ Ah please, aren’t diamonds like the strongest thing in the world?” Marlan says.
“ In gems I think, but that doesn’t mean you can abuse them.” Zuro says.

“ Any abuse that isn’t by our school system shouldn’t be considered abuse.” Patrick says.

“ Even if you’re right, a damaged diamond probably won’t go for as much.” Sinthia says.
“ Are you sure? People can be desperate for natural things. Have you seen how much s**t like tree and flower seeds go for online? It’s actually ridiculous!” Patrick says. Ever since cold technology had become the dominating norm, certain personal natures have become scarce. Simple assets like grass are common in some areas. The more advanced like background house forests and bushes aren’t so much. The close by locations are taken up by more buildings and there isn’t room for too much nature to be in there. The government made a law that such things were only necessary in parks, and the rare valley, or maybe even a seed breeding ground for factories. If a person wants to have a special personal nature asset, they buy it online for too much money. Zuro’s parents had bought a tree for their backyard which died three weeks later.

“ Yeah… But still, you’ll get more bang if it’s nicer.” He says. The boys shrug.

“ Sure, but a little fun is alright.”

Before they depart, Zuro tries to offer the ruby back to Sinthia. She declines again. “ It’s ok, really Zuro! You have it. I have a small Amethyst in my room. I’d be happier if you had it.”  Him, not seeing a reason to further the argument, complies and says goodbye.

CHAPTER EIGHT

The next day at school, Zuro finds something rather unusual along his usual path.

“ Ok, so why exactly is it the government’s problem is some animals are injured?” Marlan and Sinthia are having a fight behind the math building. He hears more as he approaches.

“ YES it is! Why don’t you get that? It’s someone’s problem! This world is becoming so mechanical that the other organisms that share this planet with us are also becoming just part of our system!” Sinthia says. Her eyes burn with passion. Marlan looks tired.

“ System or not, it’s still them, and it’s still us.” He says. “ We have to focus on our issues, and our lives. Any good species does that. Does a wild bear care if it kills a whole river of fish to eat? No! It just cares about getting its meal and that’s that! Same with us!” Sinthia sighs in frustration.
“ I seriously can’t believe you. They only do that because they know no better! Plus, unlike our precious f*****g government, they won’t murder the ENTIRE f*****g species AND more just to get something they DON’T need!” Sinthia wasn’t yelling, but her words had power. Marlan quavers a bit.
“ O-ok fine. Sure we’re different. But it’s not like before. Remember how we learned that people in the 21st century needed animals to survive? Now we don’t! We have factories and their fancy machinery to make whatever foods we need!”
“ Don’t you dare mention that. Those things aren’t the same as the real deals.” Zuro walks up to them.
“ H-hey… Why’re you guys arguing about this?” They turn to him. Sinthia’s face melts to slight joy, while Marlan seems exhausted.

“ Zuro! Tell your friend why he’s completely wrong about the gov’s misuse of our animals.”
“ Uh… I guess they are?”
“ NO they’re not! What is wrong with you two?” Marlan says laughing. Sinthia seems like she wants to hit him, but she restrains herself. “ We just do what we do as humans. Make our lives and that’s it. I’m tired of trying to convince you all of it.”
“ I mean… That is really one-sided and sorta ignorant.” Zuro says. Marlan faces him as if to retort. The bell rings. He sighs.

“ Welp, we’re done here. If you wanna believe your stupid crap go ahead. Just don’t involve me.” He prefers it when they were doing something stupid together. Some friends are only good for that.
“ Zuro, you don’t want the zoos to be using animals only to later gather their furs and meats do you? Using them and not caring at all about their lives?” Sinthia says to Zuro. They should be leaving for class.

“ Well, that by itself isn’t fair. If it’s all of them anyway. To be honest I’ve thought nothing of it. But, now that I’ve heard your conversation… I dunno.”
“ I’ll explain why it matters in math class, come on.”

Diversity. What does that mean? How important is it?

Are we only to worry about ourselves or everything?

Does it matter?

ComCord. One of Zuro’s favorite places. Ever since he’d gotten friends on here to talk to, he hasn’t gone a day without checking in at least once or fifteen times. Today, he wants to use it for teenage political discussion. Sinthia’s words still stick in his brain. All of his previously thought to be figured out beliefs have been scrambled. Just a little. He tried to talk to his other classmates about it, but they didn’t give any interesting answers. “ It’s whatever” “ Animals are food, that’s it”  “ We have zoos? Where?” and “ We really should help them more” are all he got. If they don’t give the effort to respond then why should we? Alix, Presis and Sinthia are the only people he’s talked to that give him a real discussion. At least in real life. On ComCord, it’s a different story. He goes to Nikolah’s chatroom. “ Sup dude, how’ve you been?”
“ Good I guess. You?”

“ I’m fine! Tho the thoughts that reside in my head have become completely fucked up due to a random event a la escuela.”

“ At school? What happened?” Zuro explains the conversation about the animals. “Oh I see.” Two minutes of nothing, then: “ Well I mean… The government SHOULD be protecting them.”
“ Yeah, but is it really necessary? Or is it just a worry of my friend?”
“ I dunno.” Ten minutes later and nothing more. Zuro checks his friends list again. Both Splish and Windish are online. Usually it’s one or two of them. More often than not just one. He takes the opportunity to get some opinions on something he’s not sure of.

“ Splish.”
“ Hello. How’re you?”
“ I’m alright. But I want to ask something.” He explains. Fifteen minutes later, and:
“ All living things are important. Whether we can ‘make’ our own supplies or not doesn’t matter. The government’s just a bunch of fucktards anyway. Why would they care?”
“ I dunno, I don’t think they would. They hardly used to, apparently.”
“ Exactly, so why would they care now when they have less reason to? Those factories were only made to be such an importance by the United States just so we could have an excuse not to help our world. I mean Russia doesn’t have as many factories like we do.” Splish texts.
“ They don’t? Oh.”
“ No, they have the other kinds of manufacturing, and they still have lots of nature places. Even if they’re covered in snow most of the time.”

“ Oh, well yeah. I think the Techno War helped them confirm their beliefs on not wanting to switch to full on metal.” Zuro texts. “ What about their leader?” He waits another ten minutes with no reply. Zuro sighs and goes to his third friend on the list.

Windish. This is the most awkward relationship Zuro’s ever been in. Or WAS till recently. They met by pure chance in a rp chat in a certain ComCord server. One time she needed help with her characters and they joined a private chat to figure it out. From then on, things just continued. Zuro never specifically started privately talking to her to become good online friends, but that’s what happened. Later on Windish had told him that she’s thirteen. This is the main source of issues for him. People like Camoran, and Nikolah never let him hear the end of it. In a way, Zuro enjoys their torment. He likes her, if only as for what it is. The sound of her talking during a voice chat is something he’ll never get over. Also she’s more on the intelligent side. Usually.

“ Windish?”
“ Yeah?”
“ How’re you?”
“ I’m good thanks for asking. And you?”
“ I’m alright. What do you know of our president?”
“ ? Her? She’s ok, though I’ve been hearing more and more not nice things about her.” Windish says.

“ Like what?” Zuro asks. He barely keeps up with the news.

“ Well the kids at my school say that she’s very racist, and only allows trade with certain other countries. Also hates Japan. Did you hear her speech on Tokoya?”
“ The city in Japan? The one we bombed so long ago? No?”
“ Oh, I don’t know much either. But she almost threatened them I think? Or something. Also she wanted to put up military protection to stop them from invading.”
“ Invading? Why?”
“ I dunno. My dad’s watching the news right now, and I’ve heard things about she’s worried of ‘their egotistical and dominating nature’. Not wanting them to try and convert everyone to their perfectionism?” Windish texts. Zuro’s surprised a 13-year-old knows so much about global problems. His math teacher did tell him that girls mature faster than boys. Is she more mature than him?

“ Oh, I mean I guess the Japanese are very disciplined and focused with their arts and stuff.” He texts. “ But why is that a reason to assume they’d invade?”
“ It’s not a direct reason I guess. Maybe their leader has said something too?”
“ Do you know?”
“ No.”
“ So NOW you don’t know.”
“ What?”
“ Nothing. Hopefully we won’t start a war again.” Zuro is in the middle of sending this when his dad calls him to help him with a game. Zuro says bye and logs off. Zuro spends the next twenty minutes beating a level in a game that his dad has already asked him to do four times in the last two months.

CHAPTER NINE:

Lunchtime at school normally consists of the same idea. Zuro and his group of idiots all combine to make one large mix of stupid and that’s it. He loves it. Today, something a bit off occurs as well. It begins with Marlan making an important speech about waifus.
“ Guys look. Here’s my philosophy.” He says.
“ No one needs your philosophies about girls that don’t exist.” Tom says with a potato burrito in his mouth. Marlan stares at him with murder in his eyes.
“ Shut your pathetic potato face Tom. You legit never wanna hear what I have to say! Don’t you ever care about anything?”
“ No more than Alix doesn’t.”
“ Hey I heard that!” Alix calls from two tables behind them.

“ Anyway,” Marlan continues. “ I think it actually helps to like waifu girls more than real girls. Because think about it fam. This way you won’t get turned on by real girls and thus you won’t have to deal with being awkward when you’re around them! Then they can’t accuse you of being a pervert and ruining your chances with them! This way you can only experience the true wholesomeness of a good relationship, or bail out if it sucks, without your dumbass instincts ruining it for you!”

“ I think it’s harder than that.” Zuro says. “ The whole turned on thing comes from our inherent instincts to breed and reproduce. Just like any animal.”
“ Yup, like he said,” Patrick puts him. “ We can’t just simply NOT listen to ourselves. Right?”
“ Yes we can.” Marlan says.
“ I mean in certain ways you’re right bu-” Zuro is cut off as a girl screams at the top of her lungs. Zuro, Marlan, Patrick, and Tom look across the area beneath the library to where it came from. At first Zuro thinks it might be James impersonating a woman again, but he’s in physics class re-taking a test. The real culprit is Milisha. She’s standing up, holding a saucy sandwich like a weapon towards the thing coming at her.

It’s a mechanical spider. About four feet tall, with a simple grey and white color scheme and red glowing eyes. It trots forward, making little to no sound at all. It walks right up to Milisha and stares at her. Her face goes blue with fear and her body begins to shake. Two of her friends stand behind her, trying to convince each other to help. “ Who the f**k…” Patrick mutters. It’s Presis. He nonchalantly struts out of an engineering classroom and sits on top of the spider bot.
“ Don’t worry folks this won’t hurt you at all! We have the weapons in the classroom.” That doesn’t help calm the fear at all.

“ Weapons? Good job dumbass.” Marlan calls. Presis eyes him.
“ I’m half kidding. School won’t let guns like that in. What I mean is we have some tool guns to apply to it like torches, and energy restorers.” He pats the bot as some other kids from his class emerge. “ This here is called the Arania, which is based off of the Spanish word for Spider. It’ll be used for helping out Science class around campus. It’s mostly finished.”
“ We wanted to see what would happen if we let it roam during lunch.” A boy from his class says. “ And we got some results.” He looks at Milisha who’s blushing and nervously eating her sandwich.

“ Why does that thing have to be so big?” Zuro asks. Where is Sinthia? Is she not seeing this?

“ Ah, well that means it can get around faster. If it’s too small it’ll take too long. We wanted it to be seven feet, but I guess the office thinks that’d be dangerous.” Presis shrugs. He says something to his classmates and hops off the mech. They begin to herd the Arania back into the classroom using devices in their hands. Presis walks over to Zuro and his group while eyes stare at him still. “ Hey, I have a question for two of you.” Marlan Patrick and Tom answer first. “ Not any of you. I mean him and him.” He points to James and Zuro. James had come back to the tables during the commotion. Zuro just now realizes he’s back. “ Do you guys wanna come to the lake with me this weekend? I’m gonna be with my group in my engineering class to test out a water cleanser for the fishies.”
“ Why me.” James and Zuro ask at the same time while the others complain about their rejection.
“ Because Zuro you’re a good man. And James we play JourneyNight together. Remember the fish update? It’ll be like that.”
“ No it won’t.” James says. “ But I have nothing else better to do. Why not? I was figuring going for a run this Sunday anyway.”
“ It’s on Saturday.”
“ OH well that’s fine. I can do a late run a day early.”
“ It’s at nine am.”

“ For f**k’s sake fine! I don’t care I’ll go. It doesn’t matter WHEN I go.” James says.

“ I mean… Sure? How long will it take?” Zuro asks.
“ About two hours? Then you can go, or you can leave earlier. Main thing is that we need to check around the whole lake to make sure the whole body of it is cleansed.” Presis says.

“ So you’re using us?” James asks. “ Sounds normal. Why not.”

Zuro figures that going to this thing could be a memory for his writing. That’s really the only motivation he has. He wakes up at nine thirty am on Saturday morning, and arrives at the Iva Ranch lake by ten. Luckily he finds that Presis James and three other kids are still waiting on one more to arrive. About a half hour later the final girl shows up. She comes running up the street to where they are. One of the boys gives her a quick scolding about how little time they have and that she’s gonna ruin this for all of them. Listening to this Zuro imagines if he’d gotten the same treatment. He is technically in the same boat as the girl. Once that settles, James and him follow the group down the dirt trail that comes right up to the waterside. The five engineering kids produce medium-sized canisters from their backpacks or pockets. They take turns stepping up to the lake’s murky surface and pour out the contents. White liquid spills out and into the lake. Once the final boy is done, they all step back and watch.

The white blends with the blue,

Crafting a peaceful harmony between nature and man.

Two parts of a world joining as one.

The fish breathe this new water, and become stronger.

Is that how I become so too?

Clean out the muck from myself and rejoin my mind in harmony?

How much is there to clean? Can I even do that?

Simple chemicals are not enough to fix the mind.

Perhaps there is a different panacea for me.

The kids split up to walk around the lake, each person stopping at seemingly random parts of the lake where the path is close enough to see the change in the water. Zuro stops somewhere and focuses. It has the same whitish blue appearance the initial spot did. He stays there for a good fifteen minutes, unsure of if he should move or not. Presis did mention he could leave whenever he wanted. “ But I don’t wanna leave early, I wanted to help right? And maybe this waiting around could be good for a story piece?” Zuro is mulling over what would help for his current story when a kid calls to him.
“ Dude! Are you done?” The boy asks. He walks up next to Zuro.
“ Am I?”
“ Yeah, the water seems clean doesn’t it? Me and Jacob and Satlis are gonna head to DollarBucks, wanna come?” The boy asks.

“ Hm, I’m fine, I don’t really eat there anyway.” The kid shrugs and leaves. Zuro does the same, bumping into James.
“ Dude dude, me and Presis are gonna race. Are the others gone and finished looking?”
“ Huh? I guess? One of them said a thing about going to DollarBucks.”
“ Ok good, since I saw the late girl ditch early. Presis is meeting me here soon. You’re racing with us.” James tells him. Zuro starts to argue but is then threatened with a fierce genital flick. Presis arrives and him and James dash off. Zuro hesitates and reconsiders for a second. “ Why the hell not.” He starts to run after them.

Presis and James say they’re going for two laps in a row. Zuro can’t keep himself upright after the first one. He just gets past where they started, and he has to sit down. Despite his parents telling him how much of a great body he has, he still can’t run or do any ‘physical’ activity for very long before collapsing. He knows that he doesn’t try as much as he needs to, but he simply doesn’t care. His home makes up most of his world. Besides that, it’s school, and anywhere else in the future. But for now you’re just a snail. He waits for James and Presis to finish up. They both arrive at nearly the same time. Each one claims to have been their first. Personally Zuro thinks Presis got their first but James isn’t willing to be ok with that. As they leave the lake, James gives his speech as to why he finished first. Zuro knows neither him nor Presis is going to remember any of what he says.

CHAPTER TEN:

The past few weeks have been everything except normal. Zuro can’t predict how his day will go anymore, unlike before. He figured a Wednesday lunch period would be normal. While no Aranias appear, or any kids playing pranks, he does find an unusual door opened. He’s on his way to get some pizza from the cafeteria when he notices the door to an engineering room. He figures there may be more anthropomorphic robots inside. The glance he gives going by doesn’t reveal any bots.

“ I really hope this works. Then I can brag to my parents about actually being ABLE to upgrade my s**t.” Someone says. It sounds familiar. Zuro goes to get lunch. He comes back ten minutes later to find the situation exactly the same. He sees someone walk by the door, holding a blueish object. It’s Markis. He sees Zuro and waves him inside. “ Dude come here. You gotta see what we’re doing. This is totally no allowed at school!”

“ Why, are you making drugs outta those things or making offensive weapons? It’s drugs isn’t it.”
“ No no, we’re not idiots. But come on! Either that or leave cause standing there will make someone see us.” Zuro enters the room at Markis’ words.
“ Why’re you leaving the door open?”
“ To let out the poisoned air from the chemicals inside of the machines we’re using. No one else really notices what’s going on in the classrooms during lunch anyway. We got Mr. Jacobsin to allow us to use this room. He didn’t ask for specifics, which is for the better anyway.” Markis says. He goes back to a desk, where some small tools are spread around. He sets down what seems to be a royal blue gauntlet. On its side is a control pad. He presses some buttons, and a holographic screen displays above it. He has Google search up and running. That plus a side addition. He opens a different screen on the display, using it to scan a piece of his equipment. Info and uses for the tool list themselves on the screen, offering links to websites and contact information to multiple companies and even knock-off brands. He lets out a hoot. “ There we go! Finally!”
“ A scanner and a search engine? That’s all your happy about?” A girl says. Zuro just now notices that there are two other kids in the room. Meranda shakes her head, settling a final plate on the top of her gun. It’s a Force Gun, but now it’s crimson red, with a white energy pulsating through it. She holds it out to the girl next to her. “ Here, I hope it has the right amount of boost to it.” Sinthia takes hold of it and aims it at Zuro’s lunch plate. It lifts up, and it floats out the door all the way to a tree planted near some eating tables. She brings it back, giggling excitedly.

“ Oh boy! This definitely has a longer distance than I remember! Thanks Meranda!” They quickly hug.
“ What’s… Going on?” Zuro asks.
“ What do you think man.” Markis says. He scans Zuro. His info screen gives off some general details about where Zuro lives and his school and websites where his stories have been published. “ We’ve upgraded our s**t.”

“ Wait… You can just find out a-anything about anyone just like that?!” Zuro says.

“ Chill, most things. This Data-Aid only finds info that’s publicly known. Any super-secret-knowledge you have probably won’t be told through this thing. If it’s something anyone could know just by talking to you long enough, then it’s in here. I guess. Sort of.” Markis examines his creation as he speaks.

“ Oh… But still I can see why it’s illegal at school.”
“ Ah there are plenty of these out in the world. How do you think people figured out that our state, Calif, had a spy from Germalish for our congressman? They used something like this.”
“ Oh, I guess so.” He turns to the girls. Sinthia is levitating some arm parts and insertion tools with her Force Gun. Meranda is putting finishing touches on an Energy Pulser. “ SO, you’re here for the same reason I’m guessing?”
“ Huh? Oh yeah,” Meranda says. “ Sorry for not saying anything when you first came in. It’s just I HAD to get these right.” She motions to the Pulser and Gun. “ I’ve been meaning to increase the distance my Pulser can fire for a month now at least. Finally had the chance. And…”

“ She agreed to make my thing better since I did a History project for her.” Sinthia says. “ So I followed her in here at the beginning of lunch to witness the creation of my gun.”

“ You mean, the same gun you’ve had, but just a slightly better version.” Markis says.

“ Slightly? It’s more than slightly!” Sinthia says. “ Did you see how far it went? I didn’t even have to stay outta the way of the walls!”

“ Yeah, so now you can conduct even more pranks on this sorry school.” Markis says laughing. Sinthia’s ears go pink and she turns away from him.
“ Whatever. I’m not even sure why we shared the same room for construction.” Sinthia says.
“ He was in here when we first came in. So…” Meranda says. Zuro feels like he really shouldn’t be here.

He watches Meranda complete her Energy Pulser as he eats his pizza. She stands in front of the doorway, and fires. The bullet of light bolts through the air, colliding with the office a few kilometers away. Meranda does this two more times before being satisfied. “ Good. I think we’re all done here.” Zuro’s about to ask a question when a teacher enters the room. He’s a man, with brown hair, blue eyes, a chubby build and a coffee cup in his right hand. Zuro figures he’s Mr. Jacobsin.
“ W-... Can you explain what you’re DOING in here?!” He says nearly dropping his cup. “ On NO circumstances are you EVER allowed to bring or mess with tools like such as you have during school hours on campus!” Zuro and his friends stare at the teacher. Well, this isn’t Mr. Jacobsin. And of course we’re here when THEY get in trouble.

He thinks he can just get out of any punishment simply by telling the teacher that he wasn’t apart of the building, but just curious. Unfortunately people aren’t so easily persuaded.

CHAPTER ELEVEN:

Pitch nothingness of the night.

Darkness so strong no one can resist it.

Evil is associated with the night.

Who can say that’s illogical?

After all,

All the best crimes are done in the dark.

None can see, so none can be.

No accusations,

No trouble.

Ready to be a criminal?

Zuro stares at his front door. His vision is clouded by the black. The lack of light fills the night with his thoughts of despair. “ This isn’t right. I shouldn’t do this. Only bad kids do this. Why would I do this? I have nothing to do with any of them. I was just an on-looker. We all got in trouble but why am I the one to do such a thing as this?” Zuro thinks to himself. He has a backpack on filled with some snacks and drinks, and a phone. Come on, are you backing out now? You know EXACTLY why you’re doing this. Let’s replay it: Sinthia told you something yesterday after school. She’d somehow found you walking home and asked you it. “ Do you wanna join me in getting our stuff back?” No beating around the bush, that’s what she said. You know it, and so do I. You were a witness, and better yet, you’re her special one. Zuro goes red. “ So?” SO? You know so. If you truly didn’t care, you wouldn’t BE here at this door. You want to do this. You know why. “ N-no… I d-don’t…” YES YOU DO! You either get over yourself and do it, or don’t and sleep in agony knowing you could’ve. She’s there, waiting for you. This is a chance. Take it or NOT? Zuro grabs his head and shakes. “ Stop it shut UP! Why would I wanna do this, this is criminal activity!” He stares at the door. He looks down, realizing his left hand is already grasping it. “ Why would I do this… To be with her.” He unlocks the door, and slips out. He locks it again with a key from his pocket and starts down the non-existent road of his neighborhood. Each step makes Zuro cringe even more. He keeps telling himself that this is wrong. But he keeps moving. Nothing will stop him now. A chance such as this, to be with her on any sort of occasion, again. It’s an opportunity he’s only dreamed of. Who doesn’t want their dream to be true?

His school looks like a prison in the dark. The gate is shut tight like he’s never seen before. Standing before it, seeing the bleak outline of the quad with no soul to hear or see within… He can convince himself he’s met his purgatory. He’s still considering whether this whole situation is morally correct when a person taps his shoulder. It’s her. Thank God we didn’t get played. Zuro lets out a manly squeal and zips around. A figure stands before him. Suddenly a light flashes onto their face and they scream at him. Zuro jumps slightly and steps back. He’s more embarrassed than scared now. Sinthia wheezes with laughter, trying to control herself. She has her phone on flashlight mode.

“ Jesus… I’m so sorry! I just had to…” She takes another moment to find herself. “ Thanks for coming. You really didn’t need to.”
“ I know that. Don’t ask why the hell I’m here though.”
“ Why’re you here then.”
“ Because I...Want to smash open the vending machines and steal all of the snacks without getting caught.” Zuro says, feeling his face become hot.
“ Do you even HAVE tools to do that? Like a saw attachment or something?”
“ Uhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh maybe?” Zuro has no utility gaunltet with him. Sinthia chuckles and walks up to the door of the front office. She scans the locked door knob with a Data-Aid of her own. The screen of it tells her the combination of the lock and puts it in. She walks inside, motioning for Zuro to follow. He does so, somewhat awkwardly. The combined effect of moving through what he can’t very well see and being alone with Sinthia makes basic functions difficult.

They chose to split up and search every office till they located the three upgraded tools. Zuro had asked Sinthia why neither Markis nor Meranda were here. She’d said: “ I dunno. Maybe they feel that sneaking into their own school during the middle of the night maybe isn’t the best idea.” Considering the possibility that they were spied upon by hidden cameras at this very moment, Zuro could agree with that statement. All during the search, Zuro’s mind whirred. What ifs, and multiple other self-deprecating thoughts swarmed him. “ What’s harder: Finding something in the dark or keeping myself at bay?” He thinks. Finally he opens a door to the Head-Monitor of the school. On his desk are ten bags with phones, Pulsers, Saw Bladed Guns, and other tools that kids had tried to bring with them. He quietly calls Sinthia over and they inspect each bag, using their phones for lights. Each time Sinthia thinks she’s found one of the three, Zuro says it’s not so. Maybe it’s his anxiety or knack for remembering odd things, but this goes on for longer than either of them wanted. If a SLIGHT noise made itself audible somewhere in the school, whether by a bird, falling branch or otherwise, the kids jump. Luckily no other people enter the now open office. Zuro keeps thinking that MAYBE Markis or Meranda might try to come back for their things. They never show up. Finally after what feels like hours, and a lot of reassurance, Sinthia and Zuro exit the school. Sinthia carries all three tools with her. As they get farther away, Zuro realizes something.
“ Wait… Aren’t we gonna get busted for doing this tomorrow?”
“ Whadda mean?”
“ I mean, we stole from our school. They’re going to notice it tomorrow.” Sinthia stops and considers this.
“ Oh… S**t.” They both stand there, looking at the bags in her arms.

“ Should we-”
“ Zuro I have a proposition for you.” Sinthia suddenly says. “ So, about Meranda right? Uh, during class yesterday, well, BEFORE lunch and all that… She was mentioning how she was going downtown this weekend to help with their light problem.”
“ Light problem?” Zuro is confused. He thinks for a minute. “ OOH, wait the thing with the rain and the uh, t-the posts being put out?”

“ Yup. So that’s my proposal. You help her rekindle those flames.”



The next day of school was bound to be worse than normal. In the morning Zuro had forgotten about the whole mid-night break-in. When he arrived at his first period, Sinthia and he received a note from the principal. They were to appear at the office after school. When they got this they glanced at each other, immediately knowing what was the case. Markis had thought Zuro’d won another writing contest. Zuro didn’t tell him exactly what it was since he didn’t need to be teased about it temporarily. Sure enough, both of them are forced into detention for three hours after school. Plus a phone call home, and an overall lowering of citizenship grades. Sinthia doesn’t really seem to mind that much. Zuro doesn’t either...Mostly. You know you’re parents are gonna be mad! And you’ll have garbage grades that colleges will see! Do you want that? In order to not make the detention boring and mentally torturous, he thinks about Sinthia’s offer. She had explained last night that, somehow, Heathria had overheard him talking to someone about his Flame Sniper. A tool he’d bought off the internet, using the money his dad had given him for his birthday. It was at first just a device that manipulated and created fire energy for other tools like an energy recharger, or an automatic meat cooker. His parents had restricted his use of it, which made enough sense. But he’d gone off and done some re-working of it on his own, with the help of a friend. It was Marlan who helped him gather parts and build the enhanced version. The only difference is that it can shoot out an ‘essence’ or a small blob of clear gas. It can shoot out six at a time. Then, when the button on the side is pushed along with the trigger, all of the essences will erupt into small flames. Apparently each fire blob lasts longer now too. So with that information, Sinthia perhaps had listened to Heathria talking about it to her and she was now asking him to use his tool to help Heathria in her attempt to ignite the lost fires in the light posts? Seems like something the local maintenance team would need to work on. However he does understand that said team has a VERY strict schedule on what they need to do, and only the most important tasks to deal with. Something like keeping the lights lit up at night for the citizens to be able to see isn’t something that needs to be dealt with immediately. Zuro sighs and scratches his head in agitation at his country’s work system. He makes a decision.

“ Sinthia?”
“ Yes?” She asks. They turn to face each other.
“ HEY! NO talking during your punishment!” The teacher stuck in the office to watch over them for three hours says loudly. “ Or I will extend it!” Zuro chooses to just write down what he wants to say on a piece of paper. He slides it casually over to Sinthia’s side, so she can read it.

“ I don’t wanna go. Sorry, I just think she can do it herself.”

CHAPTER TWELVE:

That weekend, Zuro feels an odd sense of satisfaction, and a small bit of dread. At first he was anxious about rejecting Sinthia. But because Darizon kept bothering him about it, he gave in and told her. “ The ONLY reason I gave in was so I could not do something I didn’t really want to do.” He says to himself, huddled over his desk computer in his room. Sure, that’s fine. You’ll learn that listening to me every once in a while might actually help you. “ That’s only true less than twenty percent of the time. Don’t you get that? You only help that little.” Oh please, cut that crap. I try to inform you about things you wouldn’t think about otherwise. That’s why we’re the same person. Why do you treat us as if we were different? “ You know why we’ve been over this! I do things logically and you’re a disgusting piece of s**t who just wants to f**k every girl in our school!” Ouch, that’s not true! I just suggest things that are possible. It’s always alright to consider the possibilities. “ Possibilities? You really think possible equals necessary? Don’t say no since you always think yes.” Zuro feels his anger growing inside of him. “ Why in God’s non-existent name do I have to be my own worst enemy? Look Darizon, Or Zuro’s deep-subconscious, I’m done. We’re gonna order this thing for Sinthia, and then get on with my weekend. Is that so much to ask?” You mean, the shoes she specifically said NOT to get her? What if she’s bought new ones already? Zuro considers this and stops himself from pressing the ‘ BUY NOW’ button on Amaze, the online shopping site. “ Ok, so? Wait… Actually you’re probably right.” He takes out his phone and texts her. He watches YouTube for twenty-six minutes before the phone goes off.
“ Those things? I still hadn’t found them from before... But it’s fine. I made a deal with my parents to get them something else in return. I guess that’s enough for them?” Sinthia’s text reads. This doesn’t make the decision any easier for him. On the one hand, he really wants to get her something. But the other hand says that it’s pointless. It is, why buy her that now? You have money for more useful things like more books. “ Maybe so… But I just… I know what I’ll do.” Zuro decides. Despite his mind’s persistent protests, he pushes the buy button and orders a new pair of women’s Ziloc OXs.

The following week, right before a short break for Spring, is the worst test of all time. PSAT. Zuro knows that it’s only a practice, but he’d be damned if his parents could be giving him any less of a hassle about it. “ You’ve gotta do it right!” “ Take it seriously!” “ You’ll need this it’s very important Zuro!” Are all the support he gets from them. Some might consider it helpful motivation, but for him it’s just overly stressful. During the weekend before, he took some time to fill out the practice packet his school sent home. That didn’t help him at all. He’d also spent time trying to find out what shoe size Sinthia’s mother was without seeming suspicious. He wasn’t exactly sure if he’d succeeded or not, but he did get a number. Luckily it’s the right size with what he bought. He’s more anxious about the shoes than the test.

Come Monday, which is a short day specifically dedicated to testing the students and ‘prepping’ them for the real test. Zuro manages to make himself perfectly chill throughout the whole ordeal. Even through the trials of taking fifty minutes to get the test ready, and then another three hours to finish the whole thing, he somehow keeps himself tranquil. His mind doesn’t focus so much on the test at hand but rather how hot it is in the testing bungalow. Why is it so hot in here? It’s almost as hot as Sinthia! Why can’t they afford AC? We’re gonna pass out from overheating before we figure out this problem! Is anyone else hot? They don’t look hot, but we can’t look for too long or else we’ll get caught for cheating! He has more of a test telling himself to shut up than the paper on his desk is. Tarshi complains afterward how much he failed, while Patrick simply discusses how much worse the real thing will be.

“ Yeah don’t worry Zuro.  I’ve heard stories about the SAT from my sibling. He says it’s a hell of a lot worse than this. So if this seemed easy, it’s not gonna last.” Zuro never thought the PSAT was easy at all. He chooses not to think about the SAT until it comes a bit closer. Then maybe he’d be able to stay sane. Once school gets out, he walks with Patrick to the front entrance. They say their goodbyes and he realizes he’s left his lunch bag back in the bungalow. Zuro self-begrudgingly walks all the way back and picks it up.

Inside he finds Sinthia talking to the teacher who’d been watching over them. He creeps by and acquires his lunch bag. He stops and stares at Sinthia for a second, thinking of the gift. Then another thought comes to mind. We have break next week. We’re also going on vacation next week. Is there a chance… Probably not. He turns to leave the classroom.

“ Zuro!” She calls to him. He stops and whips around. The teacher goes over to a side-desk and collects the testing iPads. “ How was your test?”
“ Mine? It was about as bad as I’d expect. Though I think I did ok. Maybe. You?”
“ Not bad. I was just uh… T-talking to Mr. Lawhead about something in Spanish class.”
“ Oh, alrighty.” He makes to head out. Sinthia exits the bungalow with him. With her at his side he finds it a bit harder to walk than usual… But also more exhilarating. They head out of the school, walking past kids eating and talking. Say it, you know you wanna ask. Don’t miss this opportunity.

“ So I’m getting picked up today, so I’ll be taking the other exit to leave school.” Sinthia says. Zuro tries to decide quickly if he wants to open his mouth or not. At the last second, just as Sinthia’s walking away, he stops her.

“ Wait… Um. I have a q-question?”
“ Oh? Yeah sure. What’s up?” Her hoodie and hair blow in the soft breeze. Her eyes shimmer in the morning light. Why does she have to look the most attractive when I’m the most nervous? He gulps and rubs his head.

“ F**k um… Ok so. Next week is break right.”
“ Yes?”
“ And that means us kids at school have the opportunity to go on vacations. Right?”
“ Yeah? Are you asking me about my plans?”
“ Well… I might as well be. What are they?”
“ Let’s see… Work on my animations, drink lots of soda and watch crap online. Maybe go walking or something, or read on the off-chance.” Sinthia says laughing. “ Is THAT the question?”
“ Not exactly…” Come on just say it! The longer you wait the more it’ll suck for you. “ So… My parents are taking me to this place called Las Snozis. You heard of that?”
“ I think so. With all the snow and activities? Never been there.”
“ Me neither, I think. So my question is… Is there a happen-chance you’d wanna join me?” Zuro immediately feels like fleeing is the best option. Now run! Leave before you’re rejected! Why would she ever go with you?! He stands his ground in agony. Sinthia at first is taken aback. Her lack of instant reaction triggers more pain in Zuro. it’s obvious what she’ll say.

“ Will it just be us?”
“ Huh? Oh sure. My parents’ll be around somewhere but that’s it. I think it’s gonna last only four days? Should take about a few hours to drive there, and we have too much snow gear from our last snow trip from somewhere else…”

“ Ok, well I can only say one thing. I honestly feel like it’d be better for me to…” Zuro wonders if hibernation is possible for humans to hide from the pain. “ ...Go with you and make my break a hell of a lot better.” Zuro stops.

“ What?”
“ I said I’d wanna do it. I have nothing else planned so…”
“ You don’t have friends to hang with?”
“ Not really…” Sinthia blushes. “ I don’t do much with them outside of school. Do you?”
“ Not so often.” Zuro feels like dancing in his underwear. He smiles. “ Alright well…. I can say that it’d make MY break f*****g better! D-do I still have your number? I think I do yeah. I can t-text you the info about it today. Or this week at least.”

“ Ok cool! I can’t wait for it.” Sinthia says goodbye and walks off. She bounces with each step taken. Zuro follows her with his eyes before Tarshi walks up to him. They exit the school with Zuro feeling like a new man.

CHAPTER THIRTEEN:

During the rest of the week, Zuro finds himself once again more stressed than he needs to be. He first talks to his dad about bringing Sinthia along. To him, it’s a simple request considering the fact that his father loves to berate him about his relationship with Sinthia. At least twice or more every day he gets a barrage of questions about it not only from his dad but his mom. He knows going in that asking about this won’t be simple, but he’s ready. His dad isn’t so bad at first, saying that he “ understands because this moment comes in every man’s life”. His mom was alright with it if Sinthia’s parents were alright with it. A quick message session later proves that to be a yes. Then comes the first serious discussion.

“ Ok Zuro. So when you’re traveling with your girlfriend, what’s the one thing you need to be?” His dad asks. They’re at home in the living room, acting like this is an intense plan for a serious mission.

“ I uh… Need to have a gift?” Zuro says. His dad looks at him as if puzzled.

“ A gift? That’s only if you’re one of those people who spend way too much on their lovers. News flash Zuro: They don’t last. If they do last they’re normally unhappy unless they’re rich.”

“ Which we certainly are NOT!” His mother calls from the kitchen. Smells of home-made Chili fill Zuro’s nostrils and his stomach starts to scream.

“ I know. But I mean… Well actually to answer your question first I need to be myself right?”
“ Exactly. If you think for a second that acting will help you at all…” This isn’t DeltaTale. Zuro nods.
“ Also I mentioned gift before because I ordered something for her.” He says blushing. His dad walks over to a closet and opens it, taking out a fresh box of Ziloc OXs for women. It’s not opened yet, but it’s been removed from the packaging and ready to be given to someone. He sets in Zuro’s lap on the couch.

“ It came the other day. She uses these?”
“ Well, no. It’s for her dad. Or no, the mom. Her mom. A marriage gift or something.” Zuro makes to open the box, then stops himself. You shouldn’t risk ruining the gift for her. If she’ll still take it. Will she? His mom walks into the living room, mittens still protecting her hands.

“ The food’s ready. What’s that? Zuro is that for you? How expensive were they?”
“ No they’re for his future wife.” His dad says. Zuro frowns and crosses his arms.

“ Dad please.”
“ You won’t be saying that when the marriage is happening.” His mom says. Zuro puts his hands over his face. Nothing more embarrassing than being teased over romance.

During dinner, his family discusses the specifics of the trip.

“ So how I see it is that we’ll leave on Monday at about five am.” His dad says.

“ Five? On a vacation? That’s so early!” Zuro says. “ Why would I get up at five on a vacation day!”
“ Because it’s necessary if we wanna not have a s****y time getting our hotel room and have some time left in the day to do some activities.” His mom says.
“ Yup, so you should let your girlfriend know.” Dad says. Zuro tells him to be quiet please. He does make a quick text to Sinthia about the times.

“ What should she bring?”
“ Condoms and a clean set of bedsheets.” Dad says laughing. Zuro and Mom look at him. They both hold in their laughter. More exactly Mom holds in her laughter. “ No but really. Just the usual stuff. Snow gear, whatever personal stuff. Some money if she wants. We’ll be covering most of the boring stuff like food and things. Tell her that. Most people don’t realize they’re not being a burden.” Zuro does so, adding a second text. Mom goes over what stuff they will bring while he reads the response from Sinthia.

“ Oh ok! Five am is a bit early, but then I can leave my family sooner so that’s ok! Jk LOL. Also it’s ok that you’ll cover for me?”
“ Yes! We’d be honored. Especially me.” Zuro replies.

“ Ok. I’ll just take a bag or so. Do you need my address?”
“ I already have it.”
“ Oh OH right. Sorry! Lol. ok so I’ll see you at five then? This is how long of a trip?”
“ It’s about a few days or so. Three my parents say. Is that ok?”
“ Alrighty yup! Guess I’ll see you then? You’re picking me up?”
“ Yes.”
“ Ok great! Cya then Zuro!” He feels himself go red in the face thinking about the near future. She seems excited. Don’t mess it up. This is a first time in a could-be series of events. Or the first of a last. Zuro and his parents finish discussing the trip plans. It’s a bit harder for him to sleep that night.

5:30 am. Zuro’s conscience returns to him. He looks up at his ceiling. “ Well it’s a Monday of a vacation week.” He says to himself. He flops over on his side, looking at his night-stand. His phone buzzes next to his day clothes. “ Day clothes? I don’t have school. Why’re those there?” He sits up, seeing that his room is still closed off from the rest of the house. “ IS there something going on today? If there was my dad would be coming right now.” He turns off the buzzer and checks his phone. On the front lock screen is the reminder: ‘epic snow adventure with sinthia!’ The door to his room flies open and his mom stands there, looking upset. She has her pjs half on and she seems annoyed with something.

“ ZURO! Let’s move we all overslept!” She cusses. “ Tell Sinthia we’ll be a bit late. Now MOVE! Eat a small lunch and take your things and get into the car! We also need to meet our hotel clock-in time!” She leaves for the kitchen. Zuro can hear her and Dad arguing over something to do with car fuel and alarms. Of course. Why is something so easy like sleeping have to be messed up for something so important? Just see if you can recover from this. Zuro scrambles out of bed and hastily rushes his morning routine.

CHAPTER FOURTEEN:

Once Zuro’s family arrives at Sinthia’s house, he sees her sitting on the front lawn, drawing something on her Ipad. She sees them and puts her things in a large travel bag. At his Mom’s command, she puts the bag in the trunk and hops into the back-seat next to Zuro. She’s wearing a simple white snow jacket with a matching white cap and blue pants and black shoes. She slips blue gloves over her fingers, taking out a phone. She is SO CUTE! Why is she so cute? This is literally the only girl we’ve ever seen as cute. What do we do? Don’t mess up! If you increase the size of your sausage even one half-inch I’ll make your life hell. Be normal. Don’t be normal be you! But not too much you, since that’s weird. But still be you. Make conversation, say something! But not too much since that’s weird. Act natural but not too natural. Zuro’s thoughts kick into overdrive as the drive to Las Snozis park commences.

The impending thoughts fill my mind.

It’s just a simple drive, why does it feel like a grind?

I’m with the one I love.

Sitting next to me, nothing less than a dove.

Rhymes and mimes won’t save me from myself.

All I need to do is not look like an elf on the shelf.

The scenery changes from greens to browns to greys to whites.

The world imagines the future I live.

I just make my own path in that imagination.

The discussions we make,

The laughs we share,

The stories we tell,

The moments of pain and happiness we say…

It’s more than a car ride now.

But how long will this last?

An entire icy world is just ahead.

Make use of it and your time together.

Don’t be a tether to your mind.

As they arrive, Zuro’s face is immediately hit with sub-zero air. He tightens his jacket and hood. Sinthia and him help move the bags into the hotel. He looks around at the simple town they’re staying in. There are only a few people out and about. Most of them are inside restaurants, or their homes, or out playing in the fields. Zuro wonders if he could get used to a life of snow. Seems like it’d be too difficult to get used to now. Having to constantly change into gear when leaving the house, and needing to actually live with cold temperatures isn’t easy for a boy used to great weather.

“ I mean, I could maybe.” Sinthia says when he asks her. “ I think it’d be fun to live in all the white. It’s like a canvas, fit for making anything you want. Crafting your own future!” They enter the hotel and spend some time getting acquainted with their room and setting everything up. It takes overall about two hours. Zuro’s biggest annoyance is that his dad keeps forgetting where items he puts down are. He makes Zuro go look for them and when he doesn’t find said item Sinthia finds it for him. It’s not that I’m embarrassed. It’s just that I wanted to do it instead of her. Once the whole process was over with, it was around noon.
“ Hey why don’t we take a look at the town? See what’s for an early dinner?” His dad suggests. Everyone agrees and they do so. They quickly decide on a Japanese Sushi place so they don’t have to be in the cold any longer than they have to. Sinthia and him both get a Tofu Ramen Soup. The liquid warms him. But it can’t warm me anymore than being next to Sinthia.

For the rest of the afternoon, they check out all there is to see of the town. Zuro’s Dad picks up a map that has locations for other activities like Skiing, Lost Frost Forest, an ancient museum, and more. Zuro and Sinthia spend some time reading in a bookstore, taking turns telling each other about their favourite series and inspirations. They take time to walk around the plazas and streets, discussing ideas for stories and animations, and generally taking in the atmosphere. Sinthia eventually builds up some snow and chucks it at Zuro in the street. A battle ensues which ends with his Mom winning. Zuro claims she’s cheating by being the best at aiming but no one listens to him. Once night falls, Sinthia sleeps in the guestroom, while Zuro is in the second bedroom. The next few days will be something special for him. What’ll happen? Let’s find out. This should be interesting. Paint this white world with your ideas and your personality. Show it to her and let her show herself to you.

In the morning they have breakfast eating some bacon burgers and potatoes at a nearby spot. Zuro’s Dad produces the map from yesterday. “ So guys. Which of these do you feel like partaking in?”
“ Partaking?” His Mom looks over the map, making suggestions that she thinks would be the most fun. Sinthia says she doesn’t mind whatever they do. Zuro looks with bacon bits covering his mouth. Dad has highlighted some of his choice ideas. A snowboarding mountain, the Lost Frost Forest, and an the museum of ancient relics. Same things he’s already pointed out yesterday.
“ We’ve talked about these. Why don’t we try all three?” Zuro asks.

“ Oh good, since I wouldn’t have wanted to do anything else anyway.” Sinthia says.

“ Alright, well how about we split it up?” His Dad says. “ There’s also the Snow Park Central they have there. See? Apparently they got playsets and snowball fighting arenas. And some of these other towns around here have some restaurants we need to try out.”

“ Alright, those sound good. But let’s just start with one today.” His Mom says. “ Whadda guys feel like doing?” Zuro and Sinthia look at each other.

“ Snowboarding.”

CHAPTER FIFTEEN:

Everything in real life is much bigger than it appears on paper. Zuro stands atop the white mountain. He watches other families and solo-tourists equip their gear and fly down the slope. The length is around three miles long. “ Is it supposed to be this big?” He asks Sinthia. She’s next to him, putting on her proper shoes to connect with her board. She plops on a safety helmet and slides the visor down. To Zuro she looks like a TV star.

“ I guess so. If it’s too short then it’s not as fun I guess. Are you scared?”
“ No. Maybe a little. But not really THAT scared.” Zuro says. She laughs.

“ It’s fine. You skateboard right?”
“ I tried once with this kid named Devin I used to know in middle school. I fell over too many times to wanna continue. You?”
“ A little. I quit last year when I decided to focus on my animations and school more. Yes I said school.”
“ I’ll need your knowledge on how to heal myself when I fall and die.” Zuro says, seeing a boy almost slam face first into a tree. “ The fact that they have trees and s**t in the way is disappointing.” Sinthia steps forward, ready to jump and start her ride.

“ I know, but it’s only to make it more interesting. Then the government gets more money from you having to pay for the medical bill.” She looks him over. He’s also using a snowboard. His Dad rented two red ones for them, and two blue ones for him and his wife. His parents had already rode down minutes ago. They’re waiting at the bottom for Zuro and Sinthia so they can check out a gift shop nearby. If anything Zuro needs to make it to the bottom so he can properly wrap his gift in something nice. He inhales deeply, prepping for the Descent of Frosty Death.

“ Ok, I think I’m ready. You first though.” Zuro says. Sinthia laughs and jumps off, hitting the ground perfectly and sliding downwards. Zuro hesitates for a second. Do it, you can’t say that and make her go on her own! Do you wanna be known as a weakling? Jump! Zuro hops off the edge of the flat top of the mountain and starts the descent...

Faster, Faster. Colder, Colder.

Scarier, Scarier!
Shut up you baby. This isn’t that bad!

Yes it is! I’ve never done this and we’re moving so fast!

It’s no different than when you’re running for the mile.

Only now you’re not so much in control.

Thanks as if I didn’t know.

I shift left, and I shift right. Barely moving enough

To not get hit.

The wind slices my clothing, cutting directly to my skin.

The others race past and slow behind me.

I avoid potholes, trees, and inclines.

Sinthia is up ahead, her hair flailing behind her.

Grab hold of her and have her guide you to Heaven.

No that’d be painful and stupid.

The more effort I put into worrying,

The less I have into enjoying.

This is all of what I wanted.

The sensation of this ride, of my family and her.

This is amazing.

And we’re not even done yet.

Zuro’s epic finish isn’t what he expects. As he reaches the bottom of the mountain, he feels like he’s gonna fall over on his side. He turns his body to the right, turning himself at an angle towards the people watching. He comes to a simple halt, then bends down to unhook himself. As he does this, Sinthia flies over him. She’d used a small incline just before to get some air. Apparently Zuro had passed her at some point without even realizing. The shadow of her startles him, causing him to flop over onto the snow. His body depresses into it, getting some on top of himself and in his mouth. Sinthia a few feet ahead of him, detaches herself from her board, getting up and waddling over to Zuro. She stares down at him as his parents come over.

“ Jesus are you ok!?” His Mom says.

“ Honey chill out he’s fine.” Dad says.

“ Did I ask you?” She says. Sinthia holds out a hand and pulls Zuro up. He thanks her.

“ Was it fun?” His Dad asks. Both kids answer with a nod.

“ I haven’t boarded in a looong time.” His Mom says. “ But I just followed your father and I was fine.”
“ Yup, once again I have to be the leader.” Dad says. His wife flicks his arm.

“ Zuro was following me most of the time. Until he somehow picked up more speed.” Sinthia says.

“ Don’t ask me how. I was too busy trying not to have a damn panic attack.” Zuro says. He shakes as the cold from the snow reaches his insides. “ Can we go somewhere warm? This place kills you after you’ve planted yourself in it.” Sinthia and his family agree and they head off for the gift shop.

The rest of the day goes by faster than Zuro would’ve liked. In the shop they encountered James, who was there with his parents. He said it was just a family vacation. He’d offered to buy something for Sinthia, and was promptly rejected. Sinthia had boughten a simple gemstone inside of a brown jewel box. It was dark blue with bits of cyan swirling in its core. “ It’s a Water Sooth-Stone.” She’d told him. “ It’s a very rare material that only forms at the bottom of certain rivers and oceans. I wanna give this to my mom for my mistake.” Zuro’d immediately been reminded of his own gift and went to search through the wrappings the store had. He’d picked out a pattern of white and red stripes. Looking at it now, it seems more like a Christmas gift than anything. Zuro sits in his hotel’s public hot-tub, looking at his gift sitting next to him. He’d made the excuse of wanting to get warmer to his parents once they’d left the store. They’d been suspicious of his real, lazier, intentions but they accepted it. “ Ok, so you relax, and we’ll order lunch and take it back to the room.” His Dad had decided. Sinthia had also chosen to come back with him since ‘she was cold also.’ Right now, she’s on the other end of the hot-tub, looking at him. The water conceals everything from the neck down.

“ What’s the gift?” She asks.

“ For… Later.” He says. “ There’s a person I wanna give this to. I figured it’s a nice thing since it seems like it’ll make them happy. I hope.”

“ Who? What is it? Is it for Meranda? Or wait no, Marlan? Or that Presis kid?”
“ Hm, I might tell you after I give it.” Zuro gets a satisfied feeling when he sees Sinthia’s frustration.

“ But who is it for? You aren’t gonna tell me are you? Please? Don’t you lo-” She stops herself abruptly. Her face goes extremely red and she lowers herself further down in the water.

Zuro isn’t sure if he should ask for an explanation or not. Don’t, you know what she’s trying to say. You know it. Don’t ask further. But he really wants to. Holding in is harder than letting it out. He just sits there, playing with the warm water in his lap. The water is chlorified so he can’t really see anything under him. Which sucks so much! I thought we could get a peek! Though later on we’ll have more than that anyway. “ Can you shut up? The point of me still being in here with her is to prove I’m not weird!” He says to himself.  He can still feel himself go red. “ So uh, I’ll just um… Show you later.” He says outloud.

“ O-ok… Sorry.” Sinthia murmurs. They stay in there for a while longer, just until the warmth bothers them. Sinthia leaves first to change while Zuro keeps his head below water. Once she leaves he does the same. In the changing room he finds that she left her bra. He goes to pick it up and blushes, pulling his hand away. She’ll come for it. Don’t get caught with it in your hand. He waits for five minutes. When no one else arrives he decides to pick it up and bring it to her personally. You’re gonna look like a perv. Or a trap. Maybe both. He tells himself to shut the f**k up again and walks back down the hallway to the room. Once inside he finds Sinthia on the main couch, playing a game on the television screen. “ Here.” He tosses the bra onto her head and quickly rushes to his room within the hotel space. He hears her walk up to his door. She then re-thinks and enters her own room. Nothing else happens, except for the barrage of torture from himself. He sets the gift on his nightstand and the glare from the sun shines off of it. Will she accept this? How do I give it to her?

CHAPTER SIXTEEN:

The Lost Frost Forest. The next day Zuro suggests they go here, to try out the so called ‘ impossible test of investigation’ that the company who set up the forest displays all over the town. His Dad, having read up on the situation, says that there are a total of twenty hidden chests in the forest among the trees, each containing a number of goodies inside. There’s also a ‘beautiful’ plateau at one of the forest’s edges. His Mom also suggests strongly to Zuro, secretly, that he should go to that spot with Sinthia and give the gift there. At first he wasn’t thinking about doing it this way, but now he’s settled on it. His Dad drops off the two of them at one of the entrances to the forest. The trees are tall and bushy, with snow speckled all over its branches and leaves. He can hear kids screaming with delight from within. “ Ok, you two have fun and NO funny business!” His Dad says. “ We’ll be back in an hour and a half. If you go anywhere else TEXT me!”

“ Dad why’re you shouting?” Zuro asks.

“ Just to sound important. Have fun!” His parents speed off down the road. Sinthia takes a quick picture of the forest and sends it to some friends on ComCord.

“ You have that?” Zuro asks.

“ Mhm. I’ve had it for at least a year or so. Do you?”
“ Yes.” Why’ve I never known about this? “ Would you wanna make an exchange.”
“ Definitely.” They friend each other and enter the woods.

Immediately Zuro’s hit the realization that he can’t see. Well this is s****y. What if we lose Sinthia? Or if we run into someone else by accident? Plus how’re we supposed to find this plateau? “ Goddamnit quiet!” He says to himself.

“ What? Zuro are you still here?”
“ Yeah? Where’re you?” He feels around.

“ Zuro!” Sinthia giggles. He pulls his hand back. “ Really? You’re trying to pull a fast one on me in the dark?”
“ W-what? F*****g no! I can’t even SEE you how am I supposed to try and pull anything with zero vision?!”He feels himself blush. He can still hear Sinthia laughing.

“ It’s alright. Let’s just do something so we can stay together.” Is this legally safe? It has to be, there has to NOT be anything dangerous in here or else they’d be sued already. Right?
“ HEY! Zuro? Sinthia? Is that you guys?” A new voice calls. They both look around in vain.
“ James? Are you in here too?” Zuro calls. He’s not sure if he’s facing the right way or not. Whatever way that is.
“ Yeah!” He sounds real close. “ I’ve been in here for about an hour. I found four chests! Can you believe that?”
“ Honey we need to be leaving.” Sounds like his mom.

“ I know Mom! Hold on. So guys the chests are lit up with small lights built into them so once you’re near one you’ll know!”

“ Are you holding hands with your mom?” Sinthia asks. A short silence.

“ Uh, maybe. Are you guys NOT doing that?”
“ Yes.” Sinthia grabs Zuro’s hand. He instantly feels a jolt of shock. He holds on tight. “ We’ll do that to stick together. So you said look for lights? Got it, thanks.”
“ Mhm. Oh also-”
“ James we’re leaving honey.” Zuro hears the mother walk away with a complaining son. How far away were they? Distance and sound are deceptive in a place like this. Sinthia begins to walk forward, causing Zuro to stumble a bit. He adjusts himself to their new form of movement and proceeds deeper.

As they walk, the sounds of other people become increasingly loud. Zuro guesses in order to stay close others feel like they have to shout. Perhaps holding hands isn’t so comfortable for just anyone. But do they have to be so annoying? I can barely think in here! Is Sinthia not annoyed by this? He tries asking her but she doesn’t respond. Either she didn’t hear or she didn’t care to answer. Zuro goes with the first. Each footstep feels like it could lead to some sort of danger. Zuro doesn’t know what exactly that danger is, but his sense of anxiety fills him. Sure, having his hand wrapped in Sinthia’s helps to tame the fear, but it’s still there. At times Sinthia asks him if he’s alright, or if he sees any chests. Is she nervous? Her voice definitely sounds nervous. Should we leave early? How many chests are we even looking for? What if they’re all gone? Zuro considers telling Sinthia about that last thought, but he stops. If she is enjoying this then why would he wanna ruin her parade? He can only enjoy this as much as she can anyway.

A few too many times they take turns smacking into trees they couldn’t see coming. Usually they have to feel around for them, but even they aren’t resistant to the curse of day-dreaming.

“ There’s no way this can be f*****g legal.” Sinthia says after she kisses some bark. It’s not, and yet we’re still here. They keep going. At some point Zuro notices a glow in the distance.

“ Sinthia there’s-”
“ I see it! Let’s move.” She says and speeds up. Zuro narrowly avoids falling over and rushes with her to the chest. It’s small, brown, and cubical. The bottom and top glow faintly, emitting just enough for the area around it.

“ They should let off this kinda light around the whole forest. Maybe we wouldn’t be risking it all the time if so.” He says.
“ But then it’s not fun. Sometimes dangerous is fun… As long as we’re not about to die by tree.” Sinthia says. She opens the box’s lid. Inside is some gift cards to various stores both online and real. There’s also a medium sized blue stuffed fox. “ Oh this is lit.” She takes the four cards and the fox. “ What would you like?”
“ Well I’m just wondering why they have random stuff like this anyway.”
“ Because why not I suppose. Do you want any?” He considers for a long while. Can you hurry up it’s cold and she’s cold.

“ Gimme the ones for Amazon and Gamer’sBuy.” Zuro decides. He receives the two from Sinthia. She’s left with a card for the gift shop and for a CoffeeBucks store. She puts them in her pocket and looks at the fox. In the soft light it seems to smile faintly. She stuffs it into a small backpack she’d brought along.
“ Ready for more treasure?” Zuro nods and they envelope their hands into one another again. This time without as much hesitation.

They find a total of two more chests before reaching the plateau. It takes them a half hour to find the second chest, which yields a snowman monster and a bag of frozen chocolates. Zuro takes the monster and Sinthia takes the chocolate, putting a piece of it in her mouth. Because it’s rock-hard from the cold, she spits it out and complains about it being stale.
“ Maybe it’s just cold. Heat them up a bit later.” Zuro says.
“ Yes I know but that was like eating a stale biscuit. Ew.” Sinthia spits once again. They hear another group of kids heading towards them and leave the area. During their way to the final chest they hear “ BRO I GOT A JAVELIN! Now I can threaten people medieval style.” Whoever said that, I hope you try it. That’d make for a good news story. They find the third chest rather confused. Not just because of the voice, but also of this box’s contents. A small arm-cannon water device and five sets of batteries for a pair of Ziloc boots. As Sinthia picks them up and questions them, Zuro feels his own backpack. What a coincidence to remind him of something he’d forgotten. Anxiety fills him again. He takes the batteries and Sinthia the water device. After this Sinthia spots another glow and they run at it, bursting out onto an open sky.

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN:

They both watch as the sun shines over the sky. The clouds are invisible, leaving for an ever infinite expanse of everything and nothing. The snow under their feet feels warmer here. No one else is on the plateau besides them. Sinthia steps up to the very edge, sitting down and dangling her legs over the side. Zuro does the same, feeling the snow freeze his pants. He gets over it and sits there with her. The light blinds them compared to the dark just before. Their hands somehow sneak into each other once again. Sinthia moves closer and so does Zuro. Just let it happen. You’re here, you can do this. Don’t mess this up and have to live with it. There are so many things you could do to f**k this all up. Don’t do them. Be you, but don’t be weird. Just let it happen but not too much. Zuro’s only problem right now speaks to him. He tries to shut it up as Sinthia opens her mouth.

“ You know, this has been really fun. Like uh…” She brushes her hair on the inside of her snow cap. “ I never thought this would be possible for me. I mean… I had a chance in middle school but those guys were just…” She laughs and so does he.
“ Yeah I know what you mean. It’s not worth it if it feels one-sided, or just not comfortable in anyway.” Zuro says.
“ Ye. A happiness on both sides is key.” She faces him. “ And I certainly believe this is making me happy.” Zuro feels like his heart and mind are about to explode. The combination of her glowing eyes, glittering smile, gentle strands of hair around the outskirts of her face, and the atmosphere around them…. What is he supposed to do?

He shifts in his spot, gulping. Don’t mess up!

“ Well… If I ever were to agree with anything, it’d be that.” He says, looking at her eye to eye. “ I’ve always been good at telling myself that things like this’ll never happen for me. Since most of the time they seem to love NOT happening, I believed it. It actually made my life easier, just worrying about me for the most part. But then I saw you at the beginning of this year in math class and…And at some point I realized...” He smiles bigger than he ever thought he would’ve. “ I can say I’m proud of myself for choosing someone like you.” Sinthia seems like she’s about to cry.
“ Zuro! I can’t imagine this year without you in it!” She does something that allows Zuro to ascend. She hugs him. He sits there for a moment, absolutely stunned. He hugs back, wrapping his arms around hers. It feels so odd yet so exhilarating. “ Seriously. The times we’ve talked and hung out have changed me. For the better! I never knew what love was until….”
“ Same for m-me… I wasn’t ever really sure. I mean I wrote stories about it but now...With you and me... It’s so different.” He says.
“ Zuro… Can we stay like this for a while?”
“ Well… Yes. I believe I want to.” They stay in this position for a good half hour. Everything feels perfect. There’s an air of a dark voice brewing underneath Zuro still. But otherwise, it’s great.  Sinthia releases the hug, looking at him. Her face is brighter than the sun.

“ We should head out before we’re caught doing something.” She says.
“ Ok, yeah… Or wait hold on.” He pulls the Ziloc OX gift out of his backpack and shows it to Sinthia. “ I kinda bought this for you even though you asked me not to.” He starts to feel anxious. She takes the gift, opening it up to peer inside. “ Hopefully you haven’t already bought a new set.”  
“ No… I haven’t. This… This is…” Sinthia faces him, her eyes moist with tears. Zuro wants to ask something but she pushes him down onto the snow.  
“ I love you.” She kisses him.

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN:

That night Zuro’s feeling split. He lays in bed, looking at the ceiling. The heater buzzes gently. He hears his parents enter their room and shut the door. Sinthia’s already asleep. There’s one last thing he needs to do before he can move on with the vacation...And with Sinthia. He waits till all is quiet in the house. He opens himself up to his mind. The three voices split. He closes his eyes and enters a somewhat dream like state. He’s still conscious unfortunately. He imagines a simple green grassy plain. There’s only him, standing there. Sinthia appears before him. She vanishes before something else appears in her place. It’s a short stubby demon. Its skin is entirely black, with only its giant crimson burning eyes staring at him. Its mouth is huge, stretching across its entire face. Two large pointed ears jet out of its head. Four large arms culminating in clawed hands lay at its sides. Its chest is circular, depicting the symbol of a heart with spikes aimed at it from all sides. Its feet and legs simply hold it all up right. DARIZON. Zuro sighs, and prepares.

“ Hello, my old, hateful friend. Are you ready to finally leave me alone?”
“ I can’t leave you alone. You know that. I’ll never leave! I  AM YOU. Don’t you get that you dumbass? I am here to stay!”
“ I know but you don’t have to be this way! Why not just let me live my life on my own! I DON’T NEED YOU AND YOUR FUCKED UP BULLSHIT!”
“ How so un-mature. You know a smart human doesn’t exist without a bad side. Only the mentally retarded live like that! True bliss is for the ignorant and the just born! You’re smart, so you live with me. Yourself. Accept that I am yourself and things’ll go so much smoother!”

“ No. I can’t. I don’t understand what wicked, messed up force of nature gave us humans such a vast and multi-voiced brain. But I won’t stand for it. You’ve never helped me. Not even ONCE! WHEN have you helped me? TELL ME!”

“ When? WHEN? How about when you fell in LOVE with SINTHIA? How about then huh? Or everytime you figured to make a story, or help someone, or even the will to keep living!”
“ What? How? You’re just negativity… You’re not something special how COULD you be?!”

“ Again, ignorance. Stop denying what you’ve always known. What I know is what you know. Accept it! If you say you don’t like me too bad! It’ll only hurt you to do anymore! Get rid of me and you’re a husk of your former self. Who you are, who you were… That’s me! I HELP! Ok Zuro? I HELP!”
“ Help? Well… Fine, I guess when I look back on it… You do give me the thoughts that matter most. Sometimes you offer the best ideas I’ve ever had…. Just why do you have to haunt with the negative ones?”
“ Haunt is the wrong word. It’s an eye. I am looking at everything you don’t WANT to. I am that side of you! I see things, and I tell you. It’s your choice to ignore it. I know you don’t, since you don’t want to. If you really hated me that much you’d never let me bother you. But deep down, where I dwell… You DO CARE. You’re worried about those things, and you listen to me. You only fight it so much as to try and fix it. If you didn’t care you wouldn’t listen to me and try to fix anything. But I let you do so.”
“ But it HURTS SO MUCH! Everything I DO hurts!”
“ I know. You’ve gotta deal with it. You’ve chosen to live this life. Now you need to deal with it.”

“ Life I can deal with. It’s YOU that’s the issue. Can’t you just let me think about ONLY what I wish to? So I can feel better and put in better effort if it doesn’t bother me so much?”
“ No, and yes. Things are always more complicated than they seem. We know that. It’s how you handle it that matters. If you had no worries you wouldn’t feel the need to work harder. The desire partially comes from distress. I give that to you. So what if it hurts? A cougar hurts throughout its entire life. But it still lives. It is part of the whole ordeal.”
“ Ok fine… But then I need you to be in check. If you’re sticking with me…. And I guess you need to… then you won’t be bothering me so much. You can stay, I won’t get RID of you. I’ll CONTROL you.”

“ Control? Good luck! You seem so confident in such a stupid idea! Control, control! How’ll you control me? YOURSELF? Every single emotion you feel both by desire and natural instinct. What you like love hate and despise. How do you control that?”

“ I… Dunno. Maybe by agreeing with you.” Darizon’s quiet. “ If I can see what you’re saying, open myself up to the possibilities of my circumstances… Perhaps try to enjoy them as well as fix them… Maybe that’ll work. You can tell me whatever, but I can ignore. Whatever kinda trick or small tiny repetitious act I can do… That’ll help. Whether you call me weird for it or not… Whether it makes my life ‘better’ or not… I can try that. Ignorance, acceptance, trickery.”

“ Really? You think that’ll help? Would you add writing that down in a story too? You can’t rely on tricks forever. But go ahead. That may just help. Seeing things how you TRULY see them… That’s the key to happiness. Remember: Nothing Matters. It only matters if you choose it to. Does this matter? Then go ahead, fix it. Let’s see what happens.”
“ Yes, this matters to me. I’ll conquer you! I’ll control you and become the best version of myself at some point! I will. You won’t win. I won’t let you. Only I have control over myself. No one else but me. I can do this. It’s ok.” Zuro watches as his inner voice disappears laughing. For now it seems to be defeated. It’s never really gone. But for now? Zuro lets himself sleep, feeling a bit more satisfied.

You’ll always be you. No matter what. But why not enjoy it? You have things happening the way they are. Let’s just see what happens. Have some fun, some worries, some control, some ignorance. Life is as it is. You are as you are. The best thing you can do about your demons? That’s your choice Zuro.  Let’s see.

Author's Note

the italics are for when his inner mind speaks to him. the poems in the midst of it all was a test style i was trying.