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Sung is awoken in the middle of the night by a strange rumbling-like sound in his room. He rubs his eyes, reaching for the light on his bedside table.
It flicks on, and there, caught like a deer in the headlights, stands Phobos.
Scissors in one hand, one of Sung’s shirts in his other. Neither of them move for what feels like a solid minute, just staring at each other.
Then, Phobos digs the scissors into Sung’s shirt, cutting almost frantically at the fabric. Sung jumps out of bed to catch Phobos, to stop him, but he’s too late. The damage is done.
Phobos throws his shirt back at him, and scarpers out of the room, yelling “NO SLEEVES!” as he disappears into the hallway.
Sung clutches the shirt in his hands. Man... this one was one of his favorites, too…
He locks his door and drops back onto his bed. It takes a good amount of time before he falls asleep again.
The following morning Sung drags himself into the kitchen. He didn’t get much sleep after the incident with Phobos, and he could go for a good cup of coffee.
Standing next to the kitchen counter is Meouch, animatedly arguing about something to Havve, who’s preparing breakfast for him.
“-and then he just runs off like a little gremlin!!! What the hell is he thinking, coming into my room, violating my clothes- oh, mornin’, Sung!”
“Mornin.” He mumbles, turning on the coffee machine. “So I take it he got your shirts, as well?”
“Wait, he got you too?” Meouch says. “I thought he was just out for me for some reason, but... you? Really?”
Sung shrugs.
“You didn’t do anything to get on his bad side, did ya? I mean I know he and I have our little rivalry, but still.”
“Mhm, he was yelling ‘no sleeves!’, or something. I don’t know what that’s all about but he cut off all of the sleeves of all my shirts! I’m keeping my door locked tonight, that’s for sure.”
“Speak of the devil...” Meouch nods towards something behind him.
Phobos stands in the doorway, staring at the three of them. He appears to take in the situation for a second, and then runs back again. Meouch breaks into a sprint, jumping over the counter to run after him.
Shortly after the sudden burst of action Sung can hear a door being slammed shut and then a loud bonk, followed by an even louder “FUCK!”
Curious, Sung abandons his coffee and walks out into the hallway, seeing Meouch standing in front of Phobos’ door, surprisingly calm.
“Phobos, please, just. It’s okay if you’re after me. But Sung, too? That’s too far, man.”
Silence. Sung walks up to the scene, and knocks on the door.
“Hey dude, are you there?”
“...Yeah.” His robotic voice sounds.
“Good. Listen, what if you just... politely declined sleeves? Instead of violently ripping them off of all our clothes?”
“No! Fuck sleeves!” He replies.
Sung gasps softly at his unexpected profanity.
Meouch has to keep himself from laughing, and presses his face to the door.
“I like your attitude, funky red potato boy, but this is not punk.”
Now Sung can hear Phobos’ distorted voice gasp softly through the door.
Meouch speaks up again, a little quieter this time. “Shredding is rad, dude. But only on a guitar, not other people’s clothes. Got it?”
“Okay...” He sighs, the sound amplified by his voice box.
Sung and Meouch look at each other, nodding. That’s sorted, at least. They walk back into the kitchen where Havve serves them both a nice plate of bacon and eggs.
“Alright. Good. But we’re still hiding all the scissors and other sharp objects in the house.”
Phobos doesn’t cut any more sleeves that day, but that night Sung is woken up again. This time it’s by a loud guitar, which is soon accompanied by a bass, drums, synth... and even an organ? Oh god... Phobos must have found an amp somewhere and plugged it in in his own little studio.
Knowing that the noise won’t stop unless someone interferes, Sung rolls out of bed, slips a now sleeveless shirt over his head, and walks out into the hallway.
The closer to Phobos’ room he gets, the louder the noise becomes. He might have even been able to appreciate the tune, were it not 3 in the morning.
“They don’t have sleeves! They don’t believe in sleeves!”
Every so often the shredding is interrupted by vocals, a familiar robotic voice loudly chanting ‘No sleeves!’ to the beat.
Just as Sung reaches Phobos’ door, Meouch stumbles out into the hallway, angrier than Sung has ever seen him.
The door isn’t locked, and Sung and Meouch walk in.
Inside they find Phobos, wearing a cowboy hat and a sleeveless leather jacket over his usual red tracksuit. He’s holding two guitars, for some reason, and his room is filled to the brim with lit candles.
That’s a fire hazard if he ever saw one.
At least it smells nice.
Wh- no! That’s bad! Bad bad bad bad bad!
“No sleeves! Nobody likes ‘em! Nobody wants ‘em!”
“Phobos! What the hell!?” Meouch yells out.
The music and singing abruptly stops. A metronome in the background keeps quietly ticking along.
“Phobs, it’s 3 in the mornin’, please be quiet.” Sung groans, a little calmer.
“...No sleeves?” Phobos whispers, but Sung shakes his head.
Meouch takes a deep breath, putting his hands on Phobos’ shoulders.
“I know what I said but this- Phobos, come on! What’s with you and sleeves all of a sudden?!”
Phobos looks down at the floor, ashamed and clearly not wanting to answer.
“Promise me you’ll stop this nonsense?” Sung says.
“I... I promise.” Phobos sighs. Meouch lets go of him, pats him on the top of his helmet, and walks back out of the room.
“And please blow out those candles. It’s dangerous!”
Sung unplugs the amp on his way back to his room. When he gets back sleep takes over almost instantly as soon as his face hits his pillow, and Sung is grateful for it.
The next night, however, much to his dismay, he’s woken up again.
Not by rummaging in his bedroom, nor by loud music and vocals. But by a repeating banging against some kind of metal in the room next to his.
He begrudgingly walks out into the hallway, and finds Meouch, equally as annoyed as last night, standing at the door to Havve’s room.
“Shit’s been going on for two hours at least, dammit! I can’t believe you slept through it all!” He says.
“Well, I’m awake now. And I don’t think I’ll be able to fall back asleep with this...” He gestures vaguely. “What the hell’s going on in there?”
“I don’t know, dude! The door’s locked! Don’t’cha think I would’ve stopped it already if I’d’ve known?”
Sung motions for Meouch to step back, takes a deep breath, and swiftly and elegantly kicks the door open. The banging becomes even louder, and the two bandmates step inside.
They find Phobos, of all people, clung to Havve’s giant body, stabbing at his arms with a pair of scissors.
“Where did he get those?! I thought we- Jeez!” Sung yells out. Meouch runs at the two, pulling Phobos off of Havve, trying to stay clear of the weapon he’s waving around.
“Phobos, what the hell?!”
“NO SLEEVES!!!”
“Okay, this has got to stop.”
“Nobody likes sleeves! Sleeves aren’t punk!”
“Phobos... you- you’re wearing sleeves yourself!”
“The rules don’t apply to me!” He squirms in Meouch’s arms.
“Why were you attacking Havve? What’s he done to you?”
“I TOLD YOU. I DO NOT EVEN WEAR SHIRTS, PHOBOS.”
“No arms, then!” Phobos yells.
“Alright, that’s too far.” Meouch holds Phobos as still as he can, and Sung disarms him. He keeps squirming for a bit longer, but when he realizes that he isn’t getting anywhere he gives up and slumps down.
“Phobos, leave the robot alone. You’ve done enough with your ‘no sleeves’ schtick.”
“But I-”
“Uh-uh. Look at him! You can’t just stab your friends in the middle of the night! Or any time, for that matter.”
Phobos sighs, and stops squirming around.
“I... yeah. You’re probably right. I’m sorry, Havve.”
“APOLOGY ACCEPTED. PLEASE NEVER HANDLE SCISSORS EVER AGAIN.”
Phobos nods and Meouch lets go of him. The four of them all look at each other, before an idea pops up into Sung’s head.
He claps his hands, getting the attention from the other three. “Alright. So. since you clearly can’t stay still at night, how about you re-sew the sleeves to all our shirts to repent for your sleeveless crimes?”
“But I... I don’t know how to sew.”
“Then this is the perfect time for you to learn!” Sung says. Meouch smirks and picks Phobos up again, plopping him down onto the living room couch. Sung goes to collect all of his shirts and sleeves, and a moment later he dumps the lot onto the couch, next to him.
If he’s got the energy to stay up all night writing songs and cutting off sleeves, then he’s got the energy to sew ‘em back on whilst doing some introspection.
Sung, Meouch, and Havve all nod at each other, satisfied, and go back to their respective bedrooms. Sleep has never felt so good after all that they experienced the past three days.
In hindsight, leaving Phobos alone, unsupervised, with so many sleeves and shirts was a very bad idea. At the time it didn’t even cross Sung’s mind, he was just so tired and done with it all and ready to clock out for the night.
But, at least Phobos dropped his ‘no sleeves’ thing after that, so who cares if Sung has to walk around in shirts with mismatched sleeves for a while?
It’s a look.