Mischievous Function

The Outlanders Who Caught the Win

About an hour later...

The rest of the team cheered as the airhorn blast echoed through the air. Teardrop and Yin gave each other a grin and fist-bumped each other as the last of their opponents writhed in freezing pain on the ground on the other side of the clearing.

"Oh! And they're down!" the receptionist exclaimed into a microphone. "Teardrop and Yin manage to win it for the BFIUD team!"

As the spectators all gave them a round of applause, the rest of their teammates cheered as they got up from the sideline bench and ran onto the clearing. "Nice job, guys!" OJ congratulated with a pat on Yin's back. "Yin, I didn't know you were so good at snowball fighting. You throw pretty hard and fast!"

Yin shrugged and rubbed the back of his neck. "It's a gift, I guess. Or a curse—depends on how you look at it."

They all turned around when they heard a sudden whoop of delight from Coiny, who had jumped up on Snowball's back and was pumping his fist into the air. Together with Eraser—and even Paper—the four of them were bellowing loud battle cries of victory and laughing. "B! F! I-U-D! B! F! I-U-D!" they chanted.

While the others kept proclaiming their victory to the now-dispersing spectators, Gelatin grinned and walked up to Teardrop for a fist bump. "Not bad, bud," he chuckled. "Knew you could do it."

Teardrop shrugged and grinned back before the sound of the hotel doors opening again got her attention. She and Gelatin looked over to find someone holding a camera walking behind the receptionist, who called out, "Hey, guys! We're gonna take a picture of you all so we can hang it on the wall! You guys are this year's winners!"

The team all let out several excited cheers and chatters as they scrambled to get into some sort of photogenically appealing position, which somehow took them an embarrassingly long time. After finally settling on the shorter ones kneeling in a row in front of the taller ones, the photographer raised his camera and counted down with his fingers before taking the shot. "Great job, guys!" the receptionist told them one more time as the two of them walked back into the hotel. "Not bad for some tourists!"

While the team chatted among themselves and recreated some of the best moments from the snowball fight, Teardrop arched a brow upon seeing Gelatin's face upturned in thought. She was about to tap his shoulder and figure out some way to ask him what was up when he suddenly smiled. "Hey, guys!" he called out. "You know what a victory like this calls for?"

"What?" Coiny asked as the rest of the team turned around.

"A night out on the town!" Gelatin raised his hands in the air before motioning toward the hotel. "Come on, guys! Let's go find somewhere to get dinner together."

The team all nodded excitedly and followed Gelatin through the hotel, already thinking of some potential locations for tonight's victory feast.

——————————

Twenty minutes later...

"Ah, here they come," OJ said, stirring everyone out of their daydreams and directing their gaze over to Gelatin and Teardrop, who were walking toward them. OJ got up from the mall bench he was sitting on and asked, "So what did you two find?"

Gelatin and Teardrop nodded to each other before he spoke up. "Well, it's pretty late, so pretty much all of the places in the food court are either packed or closed," he explained. "But we found a few good places. There's a big cheesecake place near the mall exit; kinda expensive, but it's an option. Also, there's a smaller Gelatin's Steakhouse branch in the food court. Pretty full right now, but I'm sure I can work something out. And then actually, down the block out a little ways from the mall, there's some Veytan food and a pizza place. Any of those sound good to you guys?"