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==>Cramel Rinoca | 22 Sweeps | Kouhin Arcades | Hemoswap AU
“Okay, so like, listen. Cramel, please, just - sit there and listen for me for a hot sec, okay?”
“Tomie, I can assure you that I have zero plans to go anywhere.”
“Fucking fantastic, now let me tell you what I found in the sewers!”
You heave a heavy, heavy sigh as your signmate dragged up a stool next to you, his toes tapping at the floor in a rhythm that just makes you contemplate slicing them off for him. You, however, refused to move. You were comfortable where you were in front of this arcade machine. You had a soda balanced on the controller board, a half-eaten basket of chili cheese fries tucked into another basket next to it, and you’ve already kicked off your boots underneath your own stool. You’ve been here for what, three hours? And you weren’t planning on going anywhere else.
Next to you, Tomie just wouldn’t stop bouncing. His hair is all in his face again like he hasn’t brushed it in a week and his single eye glinting with the light from the arcade games around all of you. He looks wayyy too big compared to the rest of the patrons here - but then again, so did you. All the short little pupas gave the two of you a wide berth but you didn’t care. It meant you got to sit here and play Pac-Man for as long as you wanted. What were the kids going to do? Fight you?
Tomie’s leg is going a mile a minute and he’s lit up like a twelfth perigree’s tree - so you guess you can listen into his latest nonsense for once. You sigh and gesture for him to move your headphones off your ears. “It better be good,” You grunt as you keep your little Pac-man on the move. You’re so close to finishing this round and beating your high score…
“Oh it’s great!” He says, carefully reaching around to pull the headphones off your ears. They’re big, clunky ones and he leaves them looped around your neck even as he leans across the board next to you. You swear, if he goes for your fries…
“Okay, so like - like you know about that tip I got from Moirah like, a week and a half ago right? The one I absolutely, completely forgot about until you found that sticky note I left myself in my sock drawer?”
“Mhm.” Looks like some cherries spawned. You better double back to grab those.
“Well, yeah, so I finally went to that part of the sewers she said went up to the highblood basements! Turns out, it’s total bullshit. I got down there right, where all those bones and shit started? Took the left at the like, crucifixed one - which, by the way, you know that shit is like, terrifying right? I’m pretty sure someone actually went down there and decorated it like that! It was all like, super purposeful and shit. Like, there was a scarf around his neck and everything.”
You got the cherry. You have a moment of peace where the ghosts are on the north side of the map and you’re luring them back down so you can grab the last of the dots. It’s a good time to grab some fries and shove them into your mouth and give Tomie a deadpan look. “You know trolls do live down there, right? You have learned about that, right? You practically live on the streets.”
“Well, yeah, okay, I do! I know they do! It’s uh, run by that one weird indigo guy with the tattoos and shit! Coo… something.”
“Kuanfu?” You glance up as a pupa tries to edge past the two of you, his teal eyes as wide as saucers a flattens himself up against the back of two arcade systems to sneak by. He freezes when you speak, but you just huff and turn back to your game.
“Yeah! Him! I met him down there, you know, but let me get that far first! So anyway, I was going down the way past that crucifix to find that barred off door leading up and -”
Okay. Hold on. That took you a hot minute to process everything and your head turns slowly towards your signmate as he chatters on. He’s got his chin in his palm and he’s staring up at the disco light a row over, watching the lights as he talks. He doesn’t even have an idea as to what he just said and you kick at his chair. “Hold on,” You interrupt. “Did you say you met Kuanfu down there?”
Tomie yelps when you kick, his chair teetering back at a dangerous angle until he grabs the seat and leans back forward. It hits the floor with a dull thunk and he whips his head up to stare at you. “Dude!” He shrieks. “I almost fell!”
“Answer the question.”
“I was getting there!”
“Get there faster. Now, did you meet Kuanfu face to face?”
A flicker of anxiousness pops onto, and then off of Tomie’s face and he clutches the seat of his stool harder as he fidgets. “Well, yeah. I did. Apparent-fucking-ly some little kids just went and tattled on me when I was trying to pick some locks and he just sauntered on up to me. You know! All big smiles that you do where it’s just weird and you’re pretty sure he’s about to eat you or some shit, but he’s still like, super friendly. Also? Buff. Buff and like, in that super easy way where you’re expecting him to toss his hair back and laugh and say it’s natural, he’s just built like that with all that confidence too. It’s crazy. Nice, but crazy.”
It’s really, really difficult to keep your eyes on two places at once. On one hand, you’re about three dots away from the next level. On the other, your own signmate came in telling you all about how he met a dangerous troll, alone, in a sewer.
Honestly, this just makes it really difficult to figure out where your priorities lie. On one hand, you get a lot more emotional satisfaction from beating your high scores on Pac-man. On the other… You guess you should probably care about your signmate and his shenanigans.
You sigh, heavy and deep before you turn back to your game. “And how did that go?” You grouse out.
Tomie’s answer was frighteningly cheery. “Not well!” Your head whips around frighteningly fast - fast enough it made some pupa two machines down squeak and fall off their chair but Tomie was completely unaffected. “Not well at all! I mean, like, okay, he just came sauntering on up out of the dark - scared the shit out of me - and just started asking how I was doing! Asking if I was lost, slapped like, one meaty arm up on the wall and just started trying to intimidate me! I was like, absolutely not intimidated at all because I’m tougher than that -” You snort. “- but he was pretty insistent. Asked me all about how I was totally, definitely lost and he understood that, it was pretty deep and dark down there and I was standing there, barbeque sauce on my tiddies -”
“WHAT?!”
If that poor pupa two machines down thought they were having a bad night already, well. It just got worse. Not only did they fall off of their chair again, but they went down with an entire basket of chili cheese fries. It splattered across the tacky arcade floor and if you cared, you might even feel a bit bad for how they mournfully stared at the mess. But no, you don’t. You’re firmly fixed on staring at your signmate, mouth agape while he bursts into a fit of giggles.
“I’m kidding! I didn’t really have barbeque sauce on my titties or anything, or like, had them out. Shirt was firmly tucked and buttoned, thank you! I couldn’t help but toss in a joke, okay?”
“I am going to smother you,” You hiss. Why did you have to share blood with THIS troll of all people?
Tomie just grins and clears his throat as he continues, completely ignorant to the dirty, dirty looks you were throwing him. “Anyway, I was standing there, completely innocent mind you, just minding my own business trying to pick into some locks and shit and picking up anything interesting I come across - which, by the way, there’s quite a bit? I did actually pick the wrong door the first time and found like, this entire living quarters. Didn’t have a ton, but like, I pocketed some shit like some translator headpieces that I was gonna sell but like, okay, going back. Just minding my own business and he comes along and tries to intimidate me! Boxing me in, asking me if I’m lost, if I found anything good and all - and of course, I told him no, I’m good! I’m fine! I didn’t find anything. He like, tried to call me out on bullshit I think, talking about how that’s all well and good and man, wouldn’t it be a shame if I ended up like, disappearing down there? Or like, drowned in a puddle? Or like, made into the wall? It was awful, Cramel, just awful and I was like, SO DONE with his shit! So I was like, ‘Oh okay, I see you’re squatting here! Like some sort of hiveless troll! I’ll get along then and leave!’ Except like, for some hypocritical reason, he got just, mad! You know, well, actually, you don’t. Or well, he didn’t get mad but he got like, agitated! Started talking about how I’m totally not going anywhere until I give back what I took, but like, I found it fair and square? So I was like ‘No, I’m totally going and you can’t stop me’ and then you know what he did?”
“Did he stop -”
“He stopped me! He just flat out shoved me against a wall and told me to give the shit I found or else he’d like, i dunno, eat me! It was awful, so I told him again that I didn’t do shit and then he was like ‘oh yeah, so what are THESE?!’ and shoved his hands down my pockets! I think he like, totally picked the wrong pocket though because he rustled around and didn’t find shit, so then he searched my other pockets and went ‘oh yeah, so what are THESE’ again but he didn’t find shit.. And then he went through the other ones. I’m like, fairly sure he totally felt up my butt when he was searching my back pockets.”
You roll your eyes and you huff as you try to hunt down that last little dot.“Tomie, you think everyone is feeling you up if they touch you.”
“Yeah well, I mean it this time! But anyway, he couldn’t find where I stashed the translators - sucker - but he did find my phone and my wallet. So like, that’s about the time that I was like ‘fuck this’ and headbutted him, but like, that hurt because I missed and smashed my nose on his chin but it got him off! So then I booked it and here I am and uh, yeah, so my phone and my wallet got stolen?”
Dear sweet merciful Handmaiden, please give you strength. Your signmate was perched up on his chair, his eyes a-twinkling when you glance over and he doesn’t even seem to realize how fucked up that entire situation was.
“…So,” You say after a long moment. “What do you want me to do about it?”
That got him to pause and he sat there for a minute, thinking. “Uh… I guess nothing? Because like, I’m gonna go back and get it. Like, at the end of the night, he stole my phone and my wallet and I want it back! He can’t really beat me up, I’ll just like book it. Plus, I kinda wanna see him again Cramel. He’s like really buff -”
“Fine, “ You snip out. “Do it. Go get your phone. Go oogle your troll, just do not do anything dumb like hit on him or pail him. The last time you did that, you got stabbed by an olive.”
Tomie scoffs and he rocks and then hops up off of his chair, bouncing on the balls of his feet. “Please! I’m totally not gonna hit on him, but like, a troll’s gotta enjoy the view, right? It’s not that weird to want to do that! Anyway, so now that I told you what i’m doing, I’m totally gonna go do it. So like, if you don’t hear from me in like an hour and a half though, you should totally come and get me. Okay? Okay!”
And just like that, he bounded right out of your life. You see the very top of his head bouncing over the tops of the arcade machines as he heads out the door and you turn your attention back to your game. Now that you’re not distracted by that trashfire of a troll, you easily make it to the next level.
During the brief pause between levels though, you take the time to set an alarm on your phone for an hour and a half. God, you’re going to hate having to scrape Tomie off the sewer walls tonight.
==>Cramel Rinoca | Eastern Sewer Entrances
Two hours later, you still haven’t heard anything from your signmate. Jokes aside, you’re actually worried now, so once it passed the fifteen minute mark, you started gathering your stuff together to go find him.
Flashlight? Check.
Sledgehammer? Check.
Phone? Che - oh, wait. It’s ringing.
You sling your backpack onto the concrete before the sewer tunnel, the fluorescent lights flickering overhead as you pull your phone out of your pocket. The screen flashes with the picture of Tomie stuffing his face with pizza and you swipe left to answer.
“Hel-”
“Cramel!”
Oh thank the Handmaid. The idiot’s alive. “Tomie, where have you been? I was about to come and get you.”
“Oh, you know, I’ve been in the uhhh, you know, the tunnels! With Kua. It was a pretty weird hour. No wait, two hours? Holy shit I’ve been down there for awhile, wow.” Every word he says doesn’t help the fact that you’re still worried about him. His throat sounds scratchy like he’s been inhaling smoke for the entire two hours. “But uh, yeah, anyway, I’m fine! I got my phone back AND my wallet and I’m coming up! Hey, you said you were about to come and get me, right? Does that mean you’re by the sewer entrance? Great, let’s meet up! Let’s get pancakes! I might need a change of clothes, I need to wash these before the indigo stains the fabric.”
Indigo? What the hell? “Tomie, did you kill him?”
“What? No! I didn’t kill Kuanfu!”
“Did you fight him? You sound like you fought him.”
“No! Well, no, yes. I did, but like, this isn’t blood.”
What? That makes you pause and you lean up against the cracked concrete wall as you try to think. What the hell does he mean… “Tomie, what do you mean - no.” Oh god it hit you like a brick wall what he meant and you were horrified. Horrified enough to push off the wall and pace the entire tunnel, fuming about how you were going to murder him! “Tomie! Why?! I told you not to pail him!”
“I didn’t!” Tomie’s voice cracked on the last word and you groan as he pauses to cough. “I didn’t pail him, like, I’m pretty sure this doesn’t count as pailing, in the slightest, but like good news! I got my shit back and I think he likes me so like, that’s neat right?”
“No Tomie! That is not neat! You just - ugh.” You lean back up against the wall, shoulder smacking hard against the concrete as you pinch the bridge of your nose. “Tomie, you absolute idiot.”
“Hey! I’m not an idiot - and listen, okay, can you yell at me after I come back up and change? Like, seriously. Also, I’m starving, so -”
“You have fifteen minutes to get up here before I leave without you.” And with that, you end the call. You’re not about to listen to his excuses for the next fifteen minutes as he heads back your way and frankly? You feel like you’ll just lose brain cells if you do.
By the Handmaid, why were you cursed with such a terrible signmate?