Gemini's pov
It only happened so often, but when it happened, it was terrible: boredom. One of my worst enemies – and I'm not a hating person. Most of the time.
I rubbed my eyes again and rolled over to mu other side as I tried to think of more possible things to do right now. At this moment, I only had one thing; thinking of more things to entertain myself with. And I was getting absolutely sick of it.
Everybody could recognize my situation; lying in bed, wanting to get up but at the same time, not wanting to. The mental discussion of what I should do was ringing in my ears and driving me crazy, so I decided to get up anyway and ask Aries for more possible options – let's just hope she wouldn't came up with the one I already had come up with.
'Aries, help me...' I shouted, knowing she was in the living room, but I got no response. Perhaps she was bored too, I thought to myself and pushed me up from my bed. Great, that way we could be bored together.
'Aries, I'm bored,' I whined while I slowly descended my room – mark the word slowly – and I took step by step to the living room. 'Aries... where are you?'
My eyes quickly figured out she wasn't settled in the living room, so instead, I made my way over to her bedroom, just as slow as before, of course. I opened her door and peaked my head in. 'Aries, are you – what are you doing?'
I tilted my head a bit; she was laying upside down, half on her bed, half on the floor. She stared back at me with an expression I couldn't quite put my finger on, and with that, I meant that it was a complete normal expression. No boredom, no anger, no happiness – nothing I could make up from what was going on with her.
I frowned and forgot my boredom straight away. My sister didn't move, didn't talk – she didn't do anything and it startled me. A lot, considering this was Aries. 'Eh...' I let out, deciding not to get her annoyed or suspicious by questions at the first second. '...really, what are you doing?'
'Isn't it obvious?' Aries responded, still without moving a limb. 'Yes, very obvious,' I said. 'But, why are you doing it?' My older sister lifted her arms and rubbed over her eyes, before she looked back to me. That's when I noticed her new expression. She was...
...sad?
'I'm bringing energy to my head from the most powerful source ever,' Aries muttered, and while she said it, she rolled over and pushed herself up, now looking at me with bit of a frown. 'Hell, if it wasn't clear enough.'
Something familiar came back to me and now, it was my turn to frown. 'Wait... you're not taking those words the new guy said too seriously, are you? I mean, I'm pretty sure he was just joking around with his talks about you, being a tiny devil and all –' 'No, Gem,' she interrupted me, as she stood up. I only then noticed how tired she actually looked. 'That's not what it is.'
'Ah, so at least now I'm sure something's going on,' I repeated to her and myself, and I tried to find more things I knew about her acting strange. The moment I did so, my mind found another memory. 'Hey... is this about you acting weird last night? When you said my full name and pretended to be fine, just to make the already awkward situation more uncomfortable?'
'What – no, of course not,' she snapped back at me. Yep, I found the source.
'Alright, so you're upset about something that has to do with last night,' I thought aloud, following Aries who stomped past me into the living room. 'But what made you this upset?' 'I am not upset,' she grunted and plopped down on the couch, gazing around for the remote. I grimaced, slowly took a step back so I was standing against our table, and swiftly grabbed the remote from it, hiding it behind my back. Something told me that it might be better if we continued this without the TV on.
'Okay, you're not upset. I can totally see that,' I tried to calm her. 'Are you hungry? I can make us food, if you'd want?'
'Sure,' Aries mumbled, and when I turned around – still not showing her I had the remote – I heard her sigh softly. Just when I was about to enter the kitchen, her voice called me back. 'Eh... Gem? Could you –'
'I'm right here,' I stated and moved back to the living room, closing the door behind me, just in case. Even though Pisces was over at Virgo's, it wouldn't mind to have some more privacy.
Aries sat up a bit more and stared at me for just a couple of seconds, before she found her words again. At the moment she started talking, she looked away from me and gazed over at the window. 'Do you... do you remember, a couple of years back –'
'I have a horrible long-term memory,' I informed her, at which she shook her head. 'I know, I know, but I'm sure you can remember. Eh... you remember the days, back then, when you found out that... that... you know...' She coughed softly, perhaps to clear her throat, or maybe to get the attention of off her words, but she continued anyway – very soft, though: 'Do you remember the moment you found out... about Cap?'
'That he was absolutely addicted to games? Yeah, I remember,' I snickered, but when I wanted to put up a story about it, Aries flashed me an irritated look. 'Not that. The other thing.'
'That he was the king of laziness?' I guessed, but it seemed she had gotten annoyed enough, when she called out: 'When you found out that he liked you, you idiot! Do you remember what it was like to find out that one of your friends had a – a crush on you?' At the last sentence, her words and volume started to fade a bit, and she gazed away again.
I got slightly more confused, but answered her question softly: 'Yeah, I remember that. It was weird, and uncomfortable, and awkward, and all that stuff a good friendship isn't supposed to be. Although, weirdness is actually a great quality of friendship, but you know what I mean.'
'Exactly,' she said. Her head turned my way again, but her eyes were staring at her own feet. 'But... you didn't like him back, did you?' 'Was considering it, but it just wouldn't work out,' I stated and now really started thinking back to a couple of years ago. 'I guess we were just friends for too long already...'
'Yeah, two and a half year is a whole lot of time,' Aries mumbled. 'Way more than, let's say, barely two and a half months, hm?' 'Indeed,' I reacted, and smiled a bit. 'But, let's get back to the core of this. You said something was going on, and it had things to do with last night. Now, what is it?'
She looked up to me, waiting a moment before she smiled back. 'You know, Gem, sometimes I'm very grateful for the fact you're not a great detective. Also – is that the remote you're holding?'
I turned my head to the side and realized I'd moved my arms a bit while talking, revealing the remote in my hands. Aries frowned at me and with that, I sighed and threw it to her. 'Ugh, you're no fun. I totally forgot I was bored – you know what, now that we were talking about Cap anyway, I'm gonna go over to his place. Have fun being on your own!'
'Which I'm not,' I heard her mutter when I turned back to the door, and when I looked around for just another second I thought I caught her staring at her room, but as soon as she caught my eyes, she shooed me out and with that, I left our apartment with the same slow pace as before.
Luckily, this was the Chaos Flat. Plenty of people around to get you out of your boredom.
It wasn't Capricorn who I ran into in the hallway, but Sag, and as I decided he was about equally good, I walked along with him over to Virgo's place.
'So, you really did move in with mister Helpful, did you now?' I asked him. 'I thought that was just a rumor, but well, Pisces said it, so I kind of realized it could be true, but I was prepared for another gossip, if you know what I mean.' 'You're very hyper,' Sag stated with a laugh on his face, and I laughed along. 'Yeah, that's what you get when I'm extremely bored and the one person home is trying to have deep conversations with me without realizing I'm very bad at that kind of conversations!'
'Pisces?' he asked, but I shook my head. 'Nah, Aries. She's been acting really weird since last night, just... completely non-Aries.' 'Like... non-angry and stuff?' Sag asked. I nodded and tried to remember some of her exact words. 'Yeah... I suppose she was kind of upset about something. Don't know what, though, but I guess it's alright. But, back to my first question; how are things going in your new home?'
'Well, living with someone else than my annoying brothers for a change is amazing,' Sag told me, smiling all along. 'And I finally figured out why I moved in there. Virgo wants me to be completely neutral.' 'Isn't that what your paranoid brother was planning on being?' I checked, at which he hummed a yes. 'Yeah, but Virgo says he has to get involved in the Chaos-crap and stuff. Quick question; has Virgo always been this planning with things around here?'
'Definitely,' I chuckled, and thought back to how things were a couple of years ago. 'He planned out everything; how Aries could step by step get over our parent's divorce, how Aqua could make it to recovery and how this entire place would work out. I suppose he also told you about plans including your brothers?'
'Libra has to join in a Chaos once, and Taurus –' Sag stopped talking all of a sudden, and he also seemed confused by that. 'Huh, I guess he just doesn't have anything planned for him. But he really should, Tau is acting very strange last days.'
'Let's just hope it won't turn into a regular thing,' I laughed, and as he laughed along, we moved over to his new apartment for a full-win round for me at Mario Kart.
Cancer's pov
'No, sir, my sister is unavailable for working here,' I repeated once again when my boss came up to me another time, asking me if my made-up twin sister could help us out at the store sometime. 'She is currently very busy with her summer job as a waitress at the restaurant in town, so I don't think I'll see her again this holiday.'
'Too bad,' my manager stated, and folded his arms with a frown. 'We really need someone to help us out, here. Let me know if anything changes within your sister's schedule, alright?' 'Of course, sir,' I said and after my boss turned around and had disappeared between the shelves with food and drinks, I grabbed my coat, said a goodbye to Lara and swiftly passed some customers to get outside.
My little lie from not so long ago made a big impact on the manager, that was for sure. Even Lara had asked me on a rare morning what that was about, but I decided to let it go and go on full relax-mode, now that my work-day was over. Thank gosh I only had to work half days.
'Hi, Cancer! How was work today?' Pisces asked me, as we crossed paths at the mail boxes downstairs. 'Pretty quietly. I suppose that's going to change, but well, I've had my rest so far,' I answered with a smile, and when I got a smile back, I walked up to the stairs already, seeing how Pisces was pretty busy trying to find the real mail between all of Leo's fake letters.
It was surprisingly calm upstairs – an occurrence that either was something positive, or the complete opposite of that. Most often it was the last one, but you never know what can go down in this place. Just like now.
The moment I reached the upper floor, was the moment I noticed the person standing just a door away from my apartment. I immediately recognized him as the new boy, as this entire place had been staring at his appearance barely a day ago. I stood frozen at the top of the stairs for a minute, just looking at the boy who was leaning on the railing and staring at the view with a surly expression stuck on his face, before I made a decision.
I ignored my nerves and walked over to him, hoping he'd look up so it wouldn't be an uncomfortable situation. Unfortunately, this didn't happen, and I stood next to him for about half a minute before I finally had the guts to say something. 'Eh, hello?' I hesitatingly said, trying not to make it sound too much of a question. The boy didn't respond, and so, I softly went on: 'You're the new one, aren't you? I'm Cancer, your next door neighbor.'
Still no response.
Little drops of sweat started to form themselves on few places of my body, thanks to the awful combination of the new boy who apparently couldn't talk and the hot sun being extremely warm today. After a minute or so, I made another attempt to get him to talking: 'Eh – so, who are you?'
He blinked, before his head slowly turned my way, and he looked at me with a scornful glance. I had the feeling I really should get out of this and just let things be now, but I stood my ground and kept looking at him. Bad idea.
'You're in my way.'
It was all he said, and yet, I felt more thrown off than ever. But I wouldn't give up that easy. 'Well, technically there's a lot of space around me, where you can just go, so me standing here wouldn't... be a problem...' My voice trailed down when he narrowed his eyes and now fully turned to me, while he took one step closer to me. I quickly took a few back, before he spoke up again.
'That's not what I meant. I meant that you're annoying me, and the only way that could be fixed is by you leaving me.' 'I actually think –' I started, my voice shaking, but he interrupted me: 'I don't care about what you think. You're wasting my time, invading my space and it would be best for everyone if you'd just strike out of this place. The few words that you managed to choke out of you were an absolute otiose experience, which I wish to forget right this instant. So, if I may settle this now, why don't you just go away, descend the stairs and leave this place?'
Instead of standing up for myself, like Aries would, I was stunned right on the spot. I couldn't feel my muscles or any part of my body for a short moment, a moment in which I let his words sink in and realize what he'd said. A moment in which I thought of actually complying to his words and doing what he said.
But that was for a moment.
And the second that moment was over, I stumbled backwards, opened my door, stepped inside and locked the same door, with the thought of never wanting to see that boy again in my mind.