Chapter Text
The song that was seemingly coming from thin air never really ended, looping endlessly with no clear break in the terrible mix of pop and ballroom music to end the dance. Pomni pondered this predicament as she continued to dance with Gummygoo. Not that she went to many dances, but she had gone to her school prom. At least her date waited till the end of the night to run off. Jax, who she was planning on cornering later, had disappeared as far as she could tell. Not that he was sticking his tongue down her best friend's throat like her date did.
“Y’alright miss? You seem a little out of it?” Gummygoo said, snapping her out of her thoughts, with a little gesture around his head to demonstrate his sentence.
“Uh, yeah! Yeah I'm fine” Pomni said with a laugh. “I just, uh need to go! Right now! Bye!” She said, awkwardly rushing off before he got another word in.
‘Wow, nailed that Pomni, good job.’ Pomni thought to herself as she walked away from a confused Gummygoo, looking for Jax. She didn't really know why but she needed to find him now. She didn't know why she needed to talk to him that moment, but the feeling wouldn't go away and she trusted her instincts. She circled the room, looking around getting increasingly frustrated as he seemed to have disappeared.
“Where the [$&@#] is he” she muttered to herself. She paused to throw her hands in the air, and noticed a strange sound. Was that… crying? Her head snapped up to look for whoever was crying. Jax could wait, and if she was super lucky whoever was crying would be Jax. Not lucky but… you get it. Her eyes scanning the room finally caught of ragatha, half hidden by shadow in the corner, knees to chest, staring at ceiling with tears flowing down her cheeks in a near constant stream of sorrow.
“Oh, ok” Pomni muttered as she weaved her way across the room to Ragatha.
Ragatha was still incredibly drunk(high?) off the stupid sauce, and when she saw pomni, she tried to stand up but fell over and started to cry more
“Pomni… pom… pompom… don't do it please. don't… he’ll hurt you. It's my fault im sorry it's all my fault… I should have never told her that…” Ragatha rambled, pausing to sob before crying hysterically at the end.
“Slow down, shouldn't I do?”
“He'll just hurt you… he likes you y'know… he doesn't even know” a laugh “but I know.” She pointed shakily towards Gangle and Zooble who were leaning against one of the walls and chatting. “Look at how they look at her. Head over heels… she doesn't even know and it's the most obvious thing. She's like you in that way…” Ragathas hand dropped back to her side. She had stopped crying, Pomni guessed talking was calming her down. “Even Zooble knows and he still doesn't! Ha! And you don't know either!”
“Ragatha. What don't I know?” Pomni said, starting to get very concerned
“It's so obvious, how can you not tell?” Ragatha laughed, trying to stand up again but fell again. “Hahaha… I can't stand up… so obvious. Constantly staring at you and you don't even notice.”
“Who stares at me? What are you talking about?”
Ragatha continued to not listen to Pomni, and kept rambling
“It reminds me of her, y know. You're both so obvious yet refuse to talk to each other. At least I summoned enough courage to do something. Then she died.” Tears flooded her eyes again, but she wiped then furiously. “I'm not crying again.”
“Hey hey, it's okay, you can cry. Who are you talking about?’
“It's whatever. I'm just gonna…” ragatha stumbled into a standing position, before walking off into the croud with a noticeable sway in her step before Pomni could say anything. She figured that she could interrogate her later when she's sober, and the stupid sauce seemed to have worn off enough for her to handle herself.
Pomni continued to wander around the room, looking for jax. He seemed to be no-where to be found, as if he'd been taken back to the circus. The door to the hallway stood ajar with a beam of bright white light pouring into the dimly lit room. She walked towards it and pushed it open, looking down the plain, bland hallway to another ajar door, this time with a sliver of outside able to be seen.
As Pomni walked down the hallway slowly, she noticed how lifeless the whole place felt. There were no stickers on the lockers, no differences in the classrooms, nothing to differentiate one section of the hallways to the others. It felt… unsettling. Like you could get lost and never find your way out. Thankfully, Caine seemed to have only bothered to have added one hallway. After what felt like a disproportionately long time walking, Pomni reached the door.
Jax was sitting, staring out at the distance, occasionally wiping a stray tear from his eye. Though if you asked him, he was staring stoically at the horizon. He would be lying. His feet dangle over the side, occasionally kicking. Suddenly he saw movement our if the corner of his eye, snapping his head towards the sight. Brown hair with yellow flowers walking with a slight waver outside.
“Jax?”
Jax froze
[$#&@]
Jax swiped any remaining tears from his eyes and jumped up immediately. He was frozen on the roof, he didn't want Pomni to see him like this, but also desperately wanted to talk to her. His guilt and fear won over and he ran up the roof out of sight.
“Jaaax?” Pomni called in a song song tone. “I know you’re out here, I just want to talk”
Cautiously, Jax walked back towards the edge.
“I'm up here, loser”
“Oh there you are!” Pomni looked up at him, then at the building “How did you get up there?”
“Climbed, duh” Jax responded, trying to sound neutral
“Could you help me up?”
“Fine.”
He walked towards the edge, swinging his arm down for Pomni to grab.
“Y’know for someone as short as you, you’re really heavy” he grunted, pulling her up.
Pomni exhaled deeply, laying back on the roof as Jax stood above her, rubbing his hand. Eventually, Pomni sat up, and shuffled to have one leg dangling over the edge, her chin resting on the other. Soon after, Jax sat down as well, both knees to his chest and his arms to his side. Their hands only centimetres apart.