Fridays Are Fun

Abroop

"FUCK ME!" Abroop bellows.

"Gladly," Akshay jokingly replies. Abroop, with his legs and arms bent at awkward angles upon the ice, glares at him from across the rink.

"Easy for him to say," Abroop sneers, "he's just mulling about on the bleachers."

"How about you get your monkey looking ass over here and try it!" Abroop jeers, his rambunctious voice filling the ice rink. Abroop scrutinizes Akshay, chortling loudly on the other side of the transparent panels. Akshay loves to rile Abroop up, though the same may be said the other way around. Abroop snatches his Creatures toque up off the ice and tugs it over his long curly hair. Abroop grunts in exasperation as he heaves himself up and attempts to steady himself.

A boy from their group pulls up beside the now heaving Abroop, looking sparingly worried. The boys blue eyes are doing a poor job at hiding his amusement. Though, Abroop would rather amuse everyone with his pain than for them to be worried and him seen as weak and incapable of handling himself.

"You okay, buddy? That was quite a succICEful fall, if I do say so mICElf." The boy in blue grins, unmistakably pleased about his joke. Abroop rolls his eyes but beams back at the boy nonetheless.

"Shut up, Alex." mutters Abroop as he limps to the walls of the rink so as to not get in the way of those more proficient at the unnecessary art of skating.

"Are you limping? How will you be of any use to us if you can't even walk," Alex continues relentlessly, a goofy smile playing on his face, "we're going to need you at full health if we meet the apocalypse. Seriously, if you can't walk nobody will bother to not leave you behind." he finishes, head held high but only one eye partially open to see Abroop's reaction to his justified words.

"I can do to the zombies what Hitler did to the Jews," Abroop begins indignantly, "in my sleep." he finishes. At that moment Faith, too, pulls up next to the boys.

"Oh my god!" she exclaims in incredulity. "That's not even funny, man." Faith whines.

"You know what Faith, baby," Abroop begins with a sly smile, "the zombies would never eat you out! You have nothing to worry about." he winks then turns back to Alex. "You, however," he trails off.

"You know it," Alex smirks. 

A whistle sounds behind Abroop, but before he can turn around to see who it is, Sean and Cameron have already bounded into the middle of the triangle, spraying ice all over Abroop's pants.

"You can't have both." Sean declares, as Abroop cautiously bends down to wipe off the crushed ice.

"What?" asks Abroop while standing back up, puzzled by Sean's statement.

"You can't have both," Sean repeats with increased vigor, "it's either me or Alex." Abroop stares at Sean for a moment. Ordinarily a sentence like that coming out of Sean's mouth would be that of a meme, but oddly enough, it sounded almost strangled; and why would Sean sound strangled about a meme? Abroop shrugs this off and instead of making things awkward he decides to laugh, "Ladies, ladies, there's enough Abroop for everyone!" Abroop grins but it doesn't reach his eyes, and it fades the second he sees the forlorn smile on Sean's face. "What is up with that kid today?" Abroop speculates in his mind, mulling over the possibilities. However, his brooding does not last long as he's quickly interrupted by the staff calling all skaters off the ice.

Abroop whips around to see that everyone besides his group of friends has already left. The others around him seem just as surprised.

"Weird," begins Makaylah, voicing everyone else's thoughts, "I could've sworn the rink was packed a minute ago." With that said the party exits the rink and makes way for the skate rentals room. This, too, happens to be completely empty, not only missing the skaters, but also missing the attractive men behind the counter who were to give back their shoes.

"What the fuck?" Cameron expresses, "This is crak. Hello?" he calls into the empty room behind the counter. Cameron stands and weighs his options, then simply announces, "Guys, I've got this." Before jumping over the counter and retrieving everyone's shoes.

Abroop finds it odd, just as everyone else does, that no one is here. He's never been skating before but he can tell by the tension in the air that this is exceptionally out of the ordinary. A couple people had went back out to check if the skating rink staff were still there but those staff had also disappeared. Though, this isn't going to phase everyone's Friday plans, especially not tradition. So Abroop and the gang look fleetingly at one another for confidence, stand, and exit the recreation center, only scarcely prepared for what lie ahead.