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THURSDAY
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"Damn it..." Fanny grunted as she pushed open the bathroom door, suspending her greasy, messy, spilled-scrambled-egg-stained hands in front of her as she walked over to the sink, muttering to herself in disgust. "I hate scrambled eggs."
She turned on the faucet with one of her elbows and ran one hand under the water before wiping it off on her hoodie and rolling her sleeve up. After washing her other hand and rolling her other sleeve up as well, she soaked and scrubbed her hands for a few more seconds before turning off the water and ripping a paper towel from the dispenser to dry them off.
Then, a flushing noise came from a stall behind her. She glanced back to find Clock unlocking the door and heading over to the sink, waving once he saw her. "Hey, Fanny," he greeted with a light smirk. "Spilled your breakfast again?"
"I hate paper plates," she muttered as she used another paper towel to scrub her arm gauntlets dry.
Clock laughed as he washed his hands. "Well, at least the breakfast's free, so you can just go get more."
"It's paid for," she corrected, tossing the paper towels into the trash can. "Nothing's ever free."
"Oh, not this again, Fanny," he sighed as he turned to her with a disappointed expression. "Just relax for a bit and quit the random philosophical observations and existential dread, will you? We're on a school-sanctioned vacation."
"Well, I got shot in the shoulder a couple of nights ago and Bubble nearly got trafficked," she replied in a mock-sweet tone and a sarcastic smile, "so I'm sorry if I've got a bit to think about right now."
Clock raised an eyebrow as he joined Fanny near the paper towel dispenser to dry his hands. "Trafficked? So she almost got, like, run over?"
"No," Fanny replied bluntly with a scoff, "she almost, like, got kidnapped and sold as a—"
She suddenly cut herself off and blinked a couple of times, catching herself in the nick of time. Clock waited for her to continue, but gave her a confused expression when her pause dragged on for longer than normal. Before he could ask her what she meant, though, Fanny cleared her throat and continued, "...as...as something really bad."
"Really bad?" he asked. "Like what?"
Fanny shook her head and looked up at the ceiling. "You wouldn't understand, Clock," she sighed before looking back at him with flat eyebrows and narrowed eyes. "And I don't think she does, either. Or...most of our classmates, for that matter. Just...don't worry about it. It's in the past now, and it won't happen again."
Before they could take the conversation any further, the door to the bathroom opened, and in walked Test Tube and Bubble carrying their idol outfits. "What happens next?" Bubble asked Test Tube as the door closed behind them.
Test Tube grinned. "Transfer student shows up with even bigger—AH!" She stopped in her tracks, causing Bubble to do the same and pause for a second before she realized what Test Tube was looking at. "Oh. Uh...hi, Clock," she said as both she and Bubble quickly hid their outfits behind their backs. "Didn't expect to see you here."
Clock scoffed and crossed his arms with a frown. "Yeah, neither does anyone else."
"I don't want to be that girl, Clock," Bubble said, a look of worried apprehension on her face as she glanced nervously first at Test Tube, then at Fanny, "but, uh, could you maybe...leave? Please?"
"Why?"
"Uh...y-you...probably shouldn't be in here right now, that's all."
He rolled his eyes and sighed, throwing one of his hands up in exasperation as he headed for the door. "No—no, I didn't mean it like that!" Bubble quickly added when she saw him giving her the side eye.
"Then how did you mean it?" he asked, turning to face her with an irritated glare.
"I-I meant, uh...we have a thing, like...well, you know the singing contest tomorrow, right?"
"Yeah? So?"
"Well, we've, uh...got a surprise for everyone, but we don't really want people to see it yet. Fanny's got her own, so she knows, but—"
"Oh!" Clock exclaimed, eyes widening in understanding as he nodded, his irked attitude turning on a dime. "So, like, you got uniforms or something?"
"I..." Bubble started, before stopping herself and glancing at Test Tube. "Are—are we allowed to say that?"
"I think so," Test Tube nodded. "I doubt people think we're going to be performing in our normal clothes anyway."
Bubble nodded back before turning back to Clock. "Yeah, we've got uniforms, but we're trying to keep them a secret until Friday night."
"Ah! Okay, okay, gotcha," he said with a smile.
"Yeah, sorry. In hindsight, I know that might have sounded—"
"No, no, I get it. Don't worry about it. See ya!"
As Clock walked out of the bathroom waving goodbye to the girls, Fanny frowned and raised an eyebrow. "What's going on?" she asked. "Why'd you guys bring your outfits in here?"
"Uh...because we have practice in five minutes in the practice room," Test Tube pointed out slowly.
Bubble nodded with a confused frown. "Yeah, don't you remember, Fanny? Mic said we'd have to practice more today since the contest is tomorrow."
Fanny blinked and zoned out in thought for a moment before gasping and facepalming. "Crud, I forgot! Ugh..." She shook her head and said, "Tell Mic I'll be a bit late. I left my outfit in the room."
"Yeah, I saw," Bubble told her. "That's why I brought it down from the room for you." She brought her outfit out from behind her back to reveal Fanny's outfit folded on top of it.
Fanny let out a sigh of relief and took the outfit, nodding gratefully. "Thanks, Bubble."
"No problem. Now, come on, let's get dressed!"
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Meanwhile, in another room...
"DOT!" Aqua yelled, banging on the bathroom door as she tightened the straps on her backpack. "Hurry up! We're going to be late!"
"Okay, okay! Just gimme a frickin' sec!" Dot screamed back from the toilet.
"I've already given you more than six hundred 'frickin' secs'! HURRY UP!'"
"Kid, you're twelve years old! Don't try to tell me what to do!"
"You're the adult here; you're supposed to be the responsible one! Remind me again which one of us right now is ready to leave on time?"
"Hey! You talk to your mother with that mouth?!"
"Bold of you to assume I talk to my mother!"
"For crying out loud, kid, just wait! It ain't gonna kill you to be a bit more patient!"
Aqua groaned loudly and leaned her back on the door, staring up at the ceiling. After several more seconds of doing absolutely nothing, she sighed and walked back to her bed, tossing her backpack on the sheets and climbing up onto it before lying on her stomach and looking around the typical hotel room, bored.
Then, out of the corner of her eye, something strange in her duffel bag caught her attention. Buried underneath all of her clothing and supplies was something orange. She raised an eyebrow and got off the bed to head toward it; she didn't remember packing clothes that weren't blue or green.
She knelt in front of her suitcase and pushed some of her clothes aside for a moment before uncovering a small, smooth cylindrical stick with some fabric wrapped around it. Hesitating briefly, Aqua tried to think of what this could be until she shrugged and decided to pick it up.
And once she had unfurled it, she immediately recognized what it was.
Click.
"Don't know what crawled up your A-hole..." Dot muttered as she slid the bathroom door open and headed over to her bed to grab her blue jacket. "All right, princess!" she called out sarcastically. "Your royal escort awaits!"
When Aqua didn't reply after a few moments, Dot turned to face her, confused. "Hey, come on," she tried again. "Weren't you in a hurry? Let's go...already..."
Her voice softened when she peeked past Aqua's shoulder and saw the object clutched in her hands. It was a small five-striped flag, with the top two being shades of orange, the bottom two shades of pink, and the middle stripe being white.
Dot gasped and inhaled sharply as a wide, stupid grin began to spread on her face. It took everything she had not to squeal her heart out right then and there. Instead, she took a deep breath and walked up to Aqua from behind. "One of us, one of us, one of us..." she chanted repeatedly in a low voice, softly clapping her hands to the beat as she got closer.
"Hm?" Aqua finally responded, turning around to face her.
She grinned widely and pointed to the flag. "Don't think I don't know what that is, kid. Trust me, I do. But it's okay—I'm one, too! I'm glad you're coming to terms with yourself and exploring what you—"
"Oh, this isn't mine."
Dot's smile vanished in an instant as she blinked in disbelief. "..."
"..."
"..."
"..."
"...Oh."
"Yeah, no, it's not mine," Aqua repeated, gesturing to the flag in her hand. "I mean, I guess it is, technically, but it—it's not for me. My sister—well, one of them—was the one who gave it to me; I just support her."
"Oh!" Dot's smile returned as she nodded. "A supportive family. Well, I'm glad you and your family support someone who's—"
"My family? Supportive? Oh, no-no-no. No. Most of our family is homophobic as heck."
"...Uh...what?"
"Yeah. We're from South YC, born and bred. In our family, it's pretty much only me, Jade, and our mother who still acknowledge that she exists," Aqua stated, a little more nonchalantly than was comfortable for Dot. Then, much to her surprise and shock, Aqua chuckled a little. "Our parents—or, well, our mother owns a super profitable company, so she literally rented out an apartment in a completely separate district for her to live in just so our sisters would stop...well, I don't know if bullying is the right word. Harassing, I guess."
"Oh, that's terrible!" Dot cried. "Why doesn't your mother do something more direct about it?"
Aqua raised a skeptical eyebrow. "There's thirty-six of us," she answered. "Thanks to our outdoorsy father, we all know our way around a knife, or an axe, or a rope, or...well, you get the idea. And our father loved camping, too, so we're no strangers to disconnecting from society and living off the grid for extended periods of time. If our mother pushed all of them to the point of snapping and they get encouraged by seeing each other feel the same way...well, I'd hate to imagine what else would be snapping that day."
She chuckled grimly once more and shook her head. "Funny, then, how they all just stood around and watched her that day when they could have done something."
"What do you mean, 'that day'?" Dot asked, a hint of concern in her voice.
"Hm? Oh, that's right, you haven't seen her yet. Yeah, uh...well, when she finally got the courage to come out to our parents last year, uh...it didn't end well. Our mother was super disappointed. Our sisters treated her—and still treat her—like some sort of living, breathing disease. And, uh...our father beat the crap out of her. He was a smoker. And he was cutting vegetables that day. So I guess he did more than beat the crap out of her, huh? Burned her, cut her...bludgeoned her..."
"Why are you so okay with this?!" Dot asked, appalled at what she was hearing. "Why do you sound so calm?!"
"Well, he got arrested and thrown in prison for life with no chance of parole," Aqua offered. "So, I mean, there's that."
"But you sound like you don't care about any of this! If someone beat up my sister like that, I would be hunting them down to the ends of the world to make sure they suffered twice as much—if I'm feeling generous! And I know Anny would do the same for me, too! And, like, I get that your dad's a horrible person—no offense to you—but, like...don't you miss him even a little bit?"
"You're asking if I miss the person who was supposed to give my sister, who was 13 at the time, unconditional familial love and support for being herself and instead exploited that trust and weakness in an attempt to destroy her from the inside out—and from the outside in—all because of some stupid antiquated obsolete quote-unquote 'good ol'-fashioned values on which we used to rely'?"
She scoffed and crossed her arms. "No. No, I don't. I was always the more indoorsy, business-like, white-collar kind of person anyway. As for my sister, I actually used to be on my father's side. I didn't know any better; I was only 11. But then Jade had a serious talk with all of us, and it really kinda spoke to me, even though it didn't change anyone else's mind. I talked with her about it in private more, and from then on, I got pretty mad at my entire family just like Jade. I just never show it because I'm near the middle of the pack and I'd probably metaphorically get eaten alive."
Aqua then uncrossed her arms and looked at the flag she was holding for a moment before smiling softly. "But...looking at my sister today, you would never be able to tell that she's been through all of that. Sure, she's got the bandanas and bandages and concealer everywhere covering all the things, but a lot of people just chalk that up to her 'rustic, South YC' kind of fashion sense. Our parents and our sisters all knocked her down—both figuratively and literally—but she just got right back up again. I really admire her for that, and Jade and I are trying to do our best to support her."
Dot raised her finger to reply, but her phone suddenly rang. She pulled it out of her pocket, answered the call, and—
"DOT! WHAT ARE YOU DOING?!"
—flinched away as Mic's screaming voice blared through the speaker. "I—yeah, yeah, good morning to you, too..." she muttered back.
"COME ON, HURRY UP! I need you and Aqua down here NOW! It's literally the day before the competition, and I am NOT in the mood to wrangle a bunch of rookies by myself!"
"All right—yeah, yeah, okay, you don't have to scream at me," she replied. "We just...had to get a few things sorted out first. We're coming."
"Good. We—hey! Hey! Fanny! Don't shoot her, for crying out loud! Hey, STO—"
Beep.
Dot sighed as she slipped her phone back into her pocket. "Well, sounds like they're having a blast down there," Aqua chimed in with a smirk as she rolled up the flag and laid it in the suitcase.
"As much as I'd like us to go out with a bang," Dot chuckled back, slipping her sleeves through her jacket, "I'd prefer that we have a pretty good discography under our belt first."
She placed a hand on Aqua's shoulder while the latter was grabbing her backpack and smiled. "But in all seriousness, Aqua," she said, "I'm really proud of you for supporting your sister instead of alienating her. When I bump into something, I discover some new knowledge as well, so maybe you should encourage your sisters to talk with your sister and others like her more. Still, I get that since your family's from South YC, it's probably hard to convince everyone else that your sister's human just like they are, but I'm glad that at least you understand that."
"Oh, sure," Aqua nodded back, slinging her backpack over her shoulder. "I mean, that...should be common sense by now, but apparently it's not."
"Yeah, I know! You would think so, right?"