Cherry & Benny & The Meddling Universe ✓

the only

For Cherry, the moment began during that classic moment of self-defiance. Perhaps it was a sign or even prophetic. All he knew was that in that moment something sizzled inside him. That morning he'd read in his horoscope that Saturn was going to interfere with life by moving back towards to location of his birth. He was convinced that something life altering was going to happen in his life that day.

When he told his best friends, Molly and Jill, they'd attributed it the hot summer sun finally frying up his brain.

"Let's go to the mall," He announced to his roommates slash self-imposed friends.

Molly was the first one to cock an eyebrow defiantly "Did you win some lottery I don't know about and have unlimited cash to spend? Because you never go to the mall. Ever. Come to think of it, not even if you had the cash to spend."

Cherry frowned "What's wrong with me wanting to go now?"

"Everything. Aren't you upsetting your hippie sensibilities by going into a place that boastfully houses commercial franchises hell bent on destroying our pure individualities?" Jill asked casually shuffling her body around on the couch. Clearly she was the one out of the trio who didn't have a problem laying it down to him. Or anyone for that matter. She was the resident ice queen. Rude, bitchy and extremely proud of it.

Cherry couldn't even count the number of times he'd nearly gotten punched in the face intervening after she'd said something to piss off someone bigger than her.

He rolled his eyes "No. And for the last time I'm not a hippie. When will you guys get that?" Apparently it seemed that no one would. It had been his socially approved label whether he liked it or not right from high school. Cherry wasn't a hippie.

He just preferred to live his life in a more respectful and divinely unifying form.

"You are," the girl's chorused to Cherry's immense disapproval. It was like watching two twenty-something year old versions of his mother.

Molly leaned over towards the coffee table to the bad of rice chips they'd opened earlier "Dude, you go on cleanses like every single week. You refuse to buy your clothes from anywhere that isn't proven eco-friendly or sells loafers."

"You read the horoscopes everyday like you'd stop breathing if you don't," Jill piped up.

"You're a vegan. Thankfully not the annoying type,"

"Your favourite vegetable is kale," Jill frowned in disgust at the very thought of the gut wrenching vegetable.

"You're obsessed with the 1975 and sex," Molly added stuffing her mouth with more rice chips. Ok that last one had more to do with Matt Healy's beautifully tortured soul and less to do with the actual music that sounded more like muffled cottons to him.

"And the one that takes the cake," Jill said grinning "Is your name dude."

Cherry pressed his lips into a thin line. His name was utterly and truly the thing he'd been proud of most about himself. It was in high school he'd ditched his government given moniker of Charles after a palm reader at the fair compared him to a cherry. Sweet and bursting with underestimated possibilities. He'd claimed it ever since then.

"Ok so now that we've listed my character traits to prove something that I am definitely not, why can't we go to the mall?" Cherry huffed, throwing himself on the couch right next to Molly.

Jill actually took the time to think on a sensible reason "I dunno. You never go to the mall. It's weird that you're even suggesting. Why do you want to go? Is it to start another protest in front of the pet store?"