Chapter Text
Deep within the depths of Hometown school, lay a secret. Hidden behind the closet doors, there lay a hole in the wall. This hole led to the school's old boiler room, cemented off due to faulty piping. In this hidden away room, there stood a circle of mysterious figures dressed in dark robes. The figures took their hoods off, revealing Asgore Dreemurr, Flowery, Tenna, Sweet, Queen, Jackenstein, Yellow, some Rudinn, and King. King snorted in disgust.
"This is humiliating." King grumbled as he snapped his knitting needles in half and threw them on the ground.
"DON'T BE SO GLOOBY, SPADE! THESE ARE THE STATE FINALS OF KNITTING CLUB! MIKE! THE LIGHTS, PLEASE!" As the towering CRT shouted that into his mic, stage lights turned on the reveal a crowd of hundreds spectating the event.
"THERE'S NO SUCH THING AS KNITTING CLUB! I'm only here because THAT wench told me this was a Fight Club!" King pointed an accusatory finger at Queen, who was sipping AA acid from a tall glass.
"Well You Could Stab Someone With These Things Laugh Out Loud" the internet-deprived shitposter retorted, holding up her knitting needles.
"If You Want Fight Club Noelle's Sister Runs It In The Washed Up Classroom But She Hates Your Guts Lmao" Queen took a long sip to accentuate her sentence, before throwing it down onto the ground with as much force as she could. Instead of exploding or shattering, it turned into dozens of tiny Addisons and emitted a "wow" sound. Queen's smile quickly disappeared.
"Oh That Wasn't My Extra Dangerous Glass. I Don't Actually Know What That Glass Was What The Hell Was That"
"W-Well, I just hope we can all have fun! I cannot wait to knit you all some flower aprons. If you would like that, of course." Asgore smiled tiredly, deep down already dreading seeing what the other contestants would stitch together.
"I'd absolutely love an apron from you, Gorey!" Flowery slid in, leaving rainbow afterimages. "How about we team up? We'd make a great pear!"
"SORRY, NO TEAMS ALLOWED! THIS ROUND IS A FREE-FOR-ALL!" Tenna shouted at them. "ANYWAY, HOWZABOUT WE HEAR SOME OF THE RULES?!" Tenna brought out a dusty book and flipped through its pages. No longer screaming every sentence for the crowd, he read the rules out, one by one.
1. Knit
2. No teams
3. Knit something in 5 minutes
4. Have fun
5. No teams
6. Knit something good
7. No teams
"NOW THAT WE'RE UP TO SPEED, LET'S HEAR IT FOR CONTESTANT NUMBER ONE!" Tenna threw the book to the side, hitting Battat in the head. "YOU USED TO KNOW HIM AS THE BEST POLICE CHIEF HOMETOWN'S EVER HAD, NOW YOU KNOW HIM AS THAT FLOWER GUY WHO ONCE RAN OVER HIS BEST FRIEND'S DAUGHTER; ASGORE DREEMURRRRRRRRRRRRRRRR!!!"
"P-Please don't mention that..." Asgore muttered as he took out his needles and got to work.
As his hands made quick work of the cotton, Asgore's blood rushed in his ears. He lost track of time, he could no longer hear the crowd's excited screams. A bead of sweat rolled down his brow, but he let if fall to the ground. His entire world was limited to two things: him and the natural fiber. His fingers started to ache, but he didn't care. He was in a trance. Then, a ringing bell broke through to him, dropping him back into reality.
"OH MY WORD! THAT'S...8 APRONS KNITTED IN 5 MINUTES! WHY, THAT'S ONE APRON EVERY 37.5 SECONDS, 1.6 APRONS PER MINUTE, AND 0.026 APRONS PER SECOND! IN ALL MY THREE REBRANDS, I'VE NEVER SEEN ANYTHING LIKE IT, FOLKS! BUT I GUESS THAT'S WHY HE'S THE FLOWER KING, AND I'M JUST AN UPTIGHT REPORTER GUY!!!"
Tenna continued to shout, Flowery walked up next to Asgore.
"Unbe-leaf-able work, Gorey! I knew I was right to yandere you!" the yellow-skinned 'human' beamed at Asgore. Asgore still didn't know how he was saying different things than what he was saying verbally ("My king! and "Sustingus!"), but chose not to question it.
"Thank you, Flowery. I...appreciate it." Flowery smiled at the gratitude.
"You know you can always count on your best friend!" Flowery smirked before walking off a ledge, a path of flowers sprouting beneath him as he went along. "Jarona!"
Asgore returned to watching the contest. The Rudinn was knitting some oven mitts, or at least trying to. It only had one arm, and that arm was being used to hold up a dagger for some reason.
"Oi bloo'y guv'na, wha' ya doin' bloke? Ya gassed?"
"Hm?" Asgore turned to see a tall yellow cowboy smiling at him. The cowboy immediately got bashful and started rubbing the back of their head.
"Ah, sorry pard'ner. I switch accents when I've got the jitters." The cowboy looked down at their boots, checking for scratches that weren't there. In fact, his boots were oddly pristine.
"It's quite alright. What was your name, again?"
"Yellow. I'm named that cause I'm yellow, the colour'a justice!" The cowboy did a pose. "Ya lookin' at the judge, jury, and executioner of the Seven Flowers! Except execution. Despite ma equalisers, I try ta avoid violence when it's possible. Blue taught me dat." Upon uttering the last sentence, a dreamy look came onto his face before he shook his head.
"He means the world ta me. Up in the bleachers right now." Yellow gazed out to the crowd, his eyes landing on the danseur. "...That's why I've got the jitters. I don' wanna disappoint him. He's always there for me...just once, I wanna make 'im proud."
Asgore smiled. "I'm sure you already make his day just with your presence. I know that's what Tori did. I didn't need gifts or gestures from her. Just her smile was enough to put me in a good mood..." Asgore's smile grew bittersweet as he yearned for the old days. After...the incident, Rudy and Carol had eventually forgiven him due to it being an honest mistake, but Toriel had never quite had it in her to forget the horror of seeing blood coating the hood of her husband's pickup. If only he'd been just a little more careful.
"I appreciate the kind words, pard'ner. Ya helped me a lot. Have a good one, ya hear?" Asgore got pulled out of his lamenting by Yellow's thanks. He turned to tell Yellow it was no sweat off his back, but the cowboy was already walking back to the bench. Asgore looked to the stage, where King was knitting a surprisingly competent scarf. Queen was cheering him on while King looked like he'd rather eat glass than be here. King flipped the table over and walked away when Queen started projecting cat memes to encourage him.
Asgore looked down at one of the aprons he'd knitted. Embroidered on the front was an image of a bouquet. He thought over his advice to Yellow. He thought over his advice that gifts and gestures aren't anything compared to the simply joy of holding your true love in your arms. He then thought of all the bouquets he'd sent Toriel, all the attempts to win her back. That'd be...pretty annoying, if he were to be on the receiving end of all that attention. Toriel had never gazed upon him with hatred, not even after the accident, but her expression whenever seeing him had certainly soured over the years since their divorce.
"Hey Bro. What You Thunking About" Asgore looked up from the apron to witness Queen looming over him. Asgore laid the apron down and looked at Kris and Susie in the bleachers, gobbling cotton candy and proceeding to choke on the cotton candy. He looked at the empty chair next to Kris, a seat Kris had reserved for someone that had presumably decided to not attend the event.
Asgore got up from the bench he was sitting on. He turned to the exit and walked out of the room, ignoring Queen's rambling about something he didn't understand. Asgore walked out.
Rudinn ends up winning the competition btw