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"Kiss, Marry, Kill..." Frye hummed thoughtfully, tapping a finger to her chin as she rocked herself back an forth, weighting her options. "Caspian, Coral, or... Koi?" She looked to Shiver with a smile.
"Who?" Shiver inquired cluelessly, her eyebrows furrowing. She didn't know anybody by those names. What was Frye on about?
"Y'know, Shiv! The three poplar guys from middle school?" Frye tried to remind. "The ones from the stairwell? When you tried to ask one of them out?"
"Ay? Ay? (What? Shiver had crushes on those guys?)" Big Man exclaimed with a shocked tone, his mouth falling agape as he looked from Frye to Shiver, and Frye, and Shiver, finally landing on just Frye.
As the Frye continued, Shiver continued to wrack her brain, trying to find out who Frye was getting on about. "Caspian... Coral..." She slowly echoed to herself. Frye spoke again.
"Oh, shell yeah she had crushes on 'em! Well, at least Caspian. You don't remember?" Frye smiled and leaned forward on the couch cushion, smiling to the clueless manta ray.
"Caspian?!" Shiver yelped as she finally made the connection to who Frye was talking about. "Caspian Marshall?! From Middle School?"
"Yeah, that guy!" Frye beamed. "And Coral, and Koi. Those guys, too."
Her face grew hot, blue blush spreading across her face. Her voice got a little more mumbly. "I did not have crushes on them, Frye. Well, at least not Coral or Koi. Where did you get that from?"
"Oh, just the way your face is super blue right now at the mention of 'em!" The inkling teased, leaning over to her. "And also how you tried to ask Caspian out."
"Ay! Ay. Ay, (I didn't know you had crushes on them! Those guys were scary. They always tried to take my lunch money,)" Big Man continued.
"Okay- well, it was middle school!" Shiver defended with a haughty huff. "And if I have to answer, then I guess marry Koi, kiss Caspian and kill Coral. Koi didn't bother me, and Coral..."
"I thought Caspian was your favourite?" Frye teased, wearing a shit-eating grin.
"I mean, yeah." Shiver frowned. "On second thought, kill Caspian. He was a bitch. He rejected me because he didn't know me, apparently? As if! We were the coolest kids back then. How could he not know me?"
"Oh, absolutely we were! I honestly don't know what he was trying to get at," Frye replied with a dismissive wave of her hand. "Students grovelled at our feet! They bowed to our command!"
"Ay... (guys...)" Big Man hesitantly started.
Shiver cut him off, not exactly hearing his hesitant attempt to cut in. "And he had the audacity to say to my face, 'who are you? I don't even know you!' When we were pretty close to being the most popular group of kids at that school!" A somewhat large frown grew on the octoling's face, her mind drifting back to that eventful day during lunch. "I can't believe it..."
"Ay, ayy, ay- (guys, I hate to break it to you, but-)" Big Man tried again, but this time, his speech was cut short by the feisty yellow inkling.
"Exactly! Y'know, I think you and Caspian should have totally been together, and been like, a sort of power couple! Y'know? Wasn't that what you were trying to say to him?" Frye asked, but then shifted into a more teasing tone with a smug grin. "You two would have been sooo cute together~!" she sang and snickered, earing a mock-offended shove from Shiver.
"Oh, shut up! Don't think I forgot about your little thing about-" Shiver quickly tried to continue and out her friend before getting cut off.
"Ay! Ay, ay? Ay! (Guys! You know we were nowhere near being popular, right? We were more like the weird kids trying to be popular than we were actually even known around middle school!)" Big Man interjected. This brought both Frye and Shiver to a shared silence.
A moment passed before Shiver scoffed and spoke. "Weird kids? As if! We were one hundred percent popular! Everybody knew us, Big Man. Your memory is all wrong!"
"Ay...? (Did they...?)" The manta ray quizzed with an unimpressed tone to his voice.
Shiver hummed briefly, only pondering on his words for a moment. "Yes."
"I agree with Shiver," Frye steadily replied without missing a beat, raising a hand and putting the other to her heart to show her loyalty. "Come on, Big Man! You can't tell us we had no kind of... sort of... y'know, fan base! We had people who liked us back then," she insisted.
"Ay, ay. Ay, (We have a fan base now with Deep Cut, Frye. We didn't have a fan base in middle school,)" Big Man exasperatedly replied with a sigh. "Ay? (Where did you even get the whole fan base idea from?)
"Again," Shiver haughtily spoke, "you're just remembering things all weird, Big Man."
"Well, maybe if we didn't exactly have a fan base, per se," Frye began with a hum, rocking back and forth once more, "some kids at least knew us around school without being our friends. Right? As in the definition of popularity, as in we were popular. Bam!" She threw a fist in the air.
"Ay, ay... ay, ay. Ay. (Sure, we were known around school... by like, minimal people. But it wasn't for a good reason.)" Big Man looked to Frye.
"How do you know that?!" Frye yelped accusingly, pulling herself away as if she was appalled.
"Ay- (Because you were the ones who jumped on lunch tables and-)" Big Man started to reply.
"Exactly!" Shiver cut off with a huff. "We were popular, for that reason, and it was a good reason. Maybe the presentation could have been different but we had good morals."
"Ay, ay... (If you say so, Shiver...)" Big Man sighed. "Ay, ay. (But Shiver, it's your turn for Kiss Marry Kill.)"
"Oh, of course, right." Shiver pulled a couch pillow close to her chest, hugging it while she thought. Who was somebody all her friends knew? Three people, actually? Maybe she could copy Frye and pull somebody from their middle school days; yeah, that could work.
Shiver was leaning against the railing of the stairs, sipping on some juice that she got from some random kid. (Got? well, maybe. Stole? Yeah.) She was dressed in her slightly-altered-due-to-herself-uniform, which consisted of a longer skirt than the school's original uniform provided, which reached down to her ankles instead of below her knees. Along with the altered skirt, her top was cropped, showing her midriff. Her tentacles were tied up into a ponytail because her parents argued that she couldn't keep her tentacles out of her face, which Shiver took great offense to. One, she hated tying her hair up. Two, she looked better with her hair down. Three, the tentacle in her face was part of the look. As much as she would like to just snatch her tentacles out of their ponytail as soon as she got to school, her parents always knew because she could never tie it the way her parents did, and provided, she got in trouble. But hey, at least she was matching with her best friend- Frye Onaga.
Frye was currently laying on the dirty floors of the school. Probably not the best decision she could make, but Shiver wasn't judging. One hand was outstretched towards the ceiling, the other resting by her side in a loose fist, one knee up and the other leg straight on the ground. She was wearing the same uniform, but unaltered; a shirt that didn't show her midriff, and a skirt that reached right below her knees. Much like Shiver as well, her tentacles were tied into a ponytail. Her fangs poked out from her lips as she smiled, which Shiver found cute. Cool. She meant cool.
Big Man was on the stairs, a step or two above Shiver. He had headphones over his ears and a book between his fins that he was transfixed in. What Shiver found weird (and amusing) was that the book that the manta ray was so enamoured in wasn't even a real book, like a chapter book with a story or romance or plot or anything. No. It was a book on how to code. Apparently, he studied in his free time. He also took multiple coding classes. Given, he was pretty nerdy. Since Shiver and Frye had met him, he's been all over the whole concept of coding. He claimed he spoke three whole different coding languages, whatever that meant. Despite this, Shiver still liked him moderately. They were warming up to each other. She supposes she'd let him into the friend group... well, before Big Man, it was only Shiver and Frye, so it wasn't technically a friend group, but what else would you call it?
Shiver drank the last bit of the juice in the box, squeezing it until it crinkled for extra measure. The octolings uncurled her fist and let the box fall, hitting the edge of the step and tumbling down the stairwell. It landed on the floor by Frye's feet. Two sets of eyes fixated on the juice box: one unamused, the other disinterested. Frye sat up and grabbed the juice box, unenthused.
"Shivie..." Frye sighed, holding the crinkled juice box in her hands. "You shouldn't just toss stuff like that, y'know. It's bad and makes bad habits!" She threw the juice box back over to Shiver, expecting her to catch it.
Shiver did not catch it, instead letting it hit the railing and fall back down the steps, repeating the process of landing by Frye's feet. Red eyes trailed back up to yellow ones. "It's only bad if it's outside, y'know." She tilted her head to look at the juice box. Leftover juice dripped from the chewed plastic straw. "Besides, who cares? This school is already really messy, French Frye. This janitors will come pick it up and clean and all. It's their job."
"But you shouldn't get used to littering!" Frye argued with a frustrated expression. Big Man, for just a moment, turned his attention away from his book and down to his arguing friends. Deciding it wasn't worth trying to soothe, he utterly ignored it and returned his attention to the book. He brought it closer to his face.
Shiver was about to argue back. As she opened her mouth, she was silenced as she heard chatter coming from the stairwells below them, slowly making their ascend up towards where the three were sitting. The octoling tilted her head, and soon shifted her body to look at the stairwells below. They weren't yet in her view, but the voices were rather familiar; familiar, that of... oh, of course. The three popular guys. There was quite a number of popular groups in the middle school, actually- including Shiver, Frye, and maybe Big Man if you squint- but these three, Caspian, Coral, and Koi, were the type of popular that everybody knew. Nearly every single person in the school knew them. Why? Because they were arguable attractive and "funny." As in, they pulled lame jokes that if anybody else pulled, wouldn't get a single laugh, but people acted like they were stand-up comedians because they were attractive and they wanted a change. All the reasons that people liked them were for arguably good reasons, and not bad reason like Big Man was trying to insist. Apparently, in his vocabulary, being known by a small number of kids for jumping on lunch tables and trying to start a boycott against school lunch was bad? Shiver was just trying to get better lunch. The cheese they put on the pizza was rancid, and the crust didn't even hold up long enough to take a bite. Anyways, Shiver didn't necessarily like them all too much for a mishmash of reasons: one, they were bratty. Two, they weren't funny, at all. Three, they were popular. More popular than Shiver and Frye! And Big Man! But, as the two most popular groups in the school, it was only given that they should probably be friends with each other and not out for each other's necks. And just the right way to bring them together was, of course, if Shiver dated Caspian, which was something she just made up on the spot as the three inklings came into view. It was destined to be, of course. There was no doubt that she'd be able to swoon the boy into dating her. Not that she actually liked him; Shiver didn't even like boys. She'd probably break up with him later. Going back to her amazing flirtatious skills, if she'd be able to easily swoon a boy in front of Frye, maybe she'd be impressed. Not that anything weird would happen if she was impressed, or anything. Not that Shiver would be all happy that she impressed her best friends.
On another note, the three boys were getting close, but they were still out of earshot of the three friends if they spoke quietly. Shiver thought quickly about her plan before she began to speak. "You hear that talking? That's Caspian, and the other two guys," she spoke in a hushed tone, bringing her face a little closer to Frye, who was still a little upset at Shiver's blatant littering, and Big Man, who was transfixed in his book and music.
Fortunately, Frye snapped out of her upset-ness and looked over to Shiver. "Those guys?" She inquired. "What's so special about 'em?"
"Well..." Shiver started, her mouth moving faster than her brain, causing her to stumble over her singular word, and the next coming out quite choppy and rushed. "I've had a... crush, on Caspian, for a while actually. Aaand, I think I'm going to ask him out!" She replied with faux enthusiasm. It was only half a lie- Shiver didn't like him one bit, but she was going to ask him out just to impress her friend. And to bring the two groups together. More to bring the two friend groups together, definitely. Looking back, Shiver doesn't know why middle-school Shiver thought showing off her "skills" would swoon middle-school Frye, but it's in the past.
"Oooh, really?" Frye teased, growing a smug smile on her face and leaning over, her fangs popping out from her lips. "Little Shivie's got a cruuush?"
"Don't call me that!" Shiver scoffed. Her sudden frustration faded as quickly as it came. The octoling panned her eyesight to the stairwell next to them as she saw the three boys were finally up the stairs. They were all talking and laughing amongst one another. The three of them were all eighth graders, and all inklings; coincidently, Shiver, Frye, and Big Man were all seventh graders. Though, Big Man should technically have been a 6th grader, as he was a year younger than both Shiver and Frye, but he ended up skipping a grade in elementary because he's sooo smart. So, there was a small, pretty much meaningless age gap among the six in total. Seeing that Shiver, Frye, and Big Man were blocking the staircases to further progress upwards, the three boys slowed to a halt as they approached them.
"Oh, hey." Coral, the one on the left, was the first to speak. His eyes flickered between Shiver and Frye. "You guys are-"
"I see you've come to visit us," Shiver haughtily cut off, turning her chin up as she glared down at the three intruders. "I'm sure that you are all honoured that we have bestowed you with our presence, and even allowed you to be within it instead of kicking you away as soon as you neared." Shiver paused briefly, looking at the three inklings who seemed utterly confused.
"No, we-" Coral tried to speak again, but once more was cut off by the octoling and her ability to raise her voice over his.
Shiver cleared her throat rather loudly and exaggeratedly. Out of the corner of her eye, she saw Frye give her a cheery two thumbs-ups. She huffed and looked away from her. "It is quite the coincidence that you are here, actually, as I was just thinking about an offer that would benefit both of our groups. Since you know we are both quite popular groups, it is only common courtesy we get to know each other... well."
"...popular," Coral echoed, seemingly dazed. He snapped out of it and frowned, his eyebrows furrowing with apparent confusion and disbelief. "No, no, we-"
"Ah, ah, ah," Shiver silenced. "No need. We already know how grateful you are to be in our presence, there is no need to express it or try to deny our gracious offer. I am actually very glad that you've stopped by. I have a very important message to deliver to Caspian. From me."
Caspian perked up at the mention of his name. His eyes glanced up at Shiver's. "What?" he asked.
"Oh, indeed. I can just see the confusion in your eyes! Somebody as great as I even pondered about you? Somebody like me, giving you a hand-delivered message? You must be honoured!" Shiver smiled cockily. "The truth is, Caspian, I believe it would be in our best interest to start dating, to bring our two groups together as one and become a powerful group! Magnificent offer, yes? No need to thank me, of course."
Shiver's smile faded as the only response she got was an uncomfortable silence. She cleared her throat, rubbing the back of her neck. Caspian spoke up after a moment. "Who are you?"
That brought another silence, this time by Shiver. She was in disbelief. How could this boy not know her? He must be fooling with her. She gave a small ignorant giggle. "What?"
"I've never seen you in my life." Caspian stared at her, judgement clouding his eyes. "Plus, you're kind of a weird-looking inkling. You're not even popular, either. Why would I ever want to date you?"
That caught the octoling by surprise for a number of reasons. As if she couldn't be pushed further into the land of utter disbelief, she felt lost within it. What did he mean he's never seen her in his life, that he didn't recognise her one bit? Shiver, Shiver Hohojiro, the one and only Shiver Hohojiro, from a prestigious family of octolings from here in the Splatlands? The only sound she could make was that of an utterly appalled scoff. She gripped the collar of her uniform and turned her body away slightly, staring down at Caspian, beyond surprised at the sheer audacity this boy had. And- and a weird looking inkling? He called her a weird looking inkling. Who just went up to somebody and said that to their face? Nobody! What was wrong with this boy? Her eyebrows furrow at him. Normally, she would argue that, no, she isn't an inkling. She's actually a very smart and prestigious octoling from a long line of very smart and prestigious octolings from here in the Splatlands, but she couldn't tell a single soul that she was an octoling, courtesy of her parents for reasons they didn't let her know. And they let her know a lot. If it was that bad that they kept it away from her, Shiver didn't want to find out the hard way and suffer whatever consequences it held. Besides, she'd probably find out one day. For now, inklings are too dumb to realise she's actually an octoling. Not even Frye could tell her apart. She turned her chin up and fully faced away from Caspian.
Shiver whipped back around after cooling off, glaring at the boy. "What do you mean, you've never heard of me?" The octoling haughtily scoffed. "Shiver Hohojiro, the prestigious oc- inkling rings not a single bell in your hollow skull?"
Caspian was quiet as he looked at her, eyes going from her face, to her feet, then jumping back up to her eyes. "Aren't you that squid who was jumping up on the lunch table during lunch, screaming about-"
"Well!" She yelped loudly, cutting him off. "I am not known for just that! I have also committed many other brave, intelligent acts of... well, whatever!" The octoling scoffed and threw up her arms briefly before returning them down to her sides, and then crossed them. "But, you have seen me around before, is what you're saying?"
"Well, yes, but-" the inkling tried.
"-So as the two most popular groups of people in this school, it would be in-"
"-Look. I frankly don't want to date you," he cut off, shooting her down at the source. "You guys are all... freaks! I don't want to associate with you guys, at all. And you're blocking the stairwell. Move out of the way, will you?"
"Excuse me?" Shiver snapped. Big Man was snapped out of his trance again, moving one of the headphone speaks off his ear with his fin to listen into the conflict going on. The feisty blue octoling continued to snap at him. "What business do you think you have, going around and calling us freaks, telling us to move out of the way?!"
Koi spoke up this time, finally, after forever of just being silent like the coward he was. "Because it's kind of true," he spoke up. "You're all weird. And you're all in the way."
Now. If present-day Shiver heard somebody call her weird while she was twenty-and-something-something, she would have just brushed it off as a lame insult and gone about her day. It wasn't really an insult, per se. It was certainly a lame excuse for one. But back then, in middle school, when that insult was towards Shiver? Not only her, but also her friend, and her best friend? No. That was inexcusable to her. She took a bold step closer to them, turning her chin up arrogantly. They wouldn't get away with calling her and her friends freaks.
"You have a lot of nerve, just... coming over here, to our spot in the stairwell we go to every day after lunch, calling us... weird, and then telling us to move out of our very own spot!" Shiver grimaced, giving a small huff. She crossed her arms, claws impatiently tapping on her upper arm.
The three inkling boys seemed to be getting a little fed up. Caspian started to just walk past them, followed by Coral and Koi, their only apparent mission to get away from them and continue about their destination. Though, when Caspian seemed to notice Big Man, the three came to a swift halt. The manta ray, despite his slightly more intimidating name, was actually pretty small. He was maybe up to Shiver's shoulders, if not, even shorter. He was also a massive pushover, which was a poor trait for him. She heard him talking one day about how there were some kids that would bully him into giving them his lunch money some days, which was also the reason Shiver would see him without a lunch. Of course, Shiver and Frye would share their homemade lunches with him, but it was still inexcusable to bully one of her friends. Taking that into consideration, and the way Caspian and the other two less important ones were staring down at Big Man like he was some fresh meat to chew up, Shiver came to the conclusion that these were the boys who would always bully her friend. The octoling wasn't going to let that slide; not one bit.
Caspian spoke up. "Hey, little guy. I didn't know you hung around this one," Caspian spoke down to him, motioning to Shiver briefly. She grimaced and squeezed her hands into fists. Big Man didn't make eye contact, instead turning away and looking back at his book; not reading it, just finding a way to avoid eye contact with the inkling.
"Ay... ay? (Yeah... what about it?)" The manta ray hesitantly spoke, his voice quiet and reluctant.
"Ay ay ay," One of the boys mocked. Big Man stared up at him like he just said something offensive towards him, which in honestly, he probably did. "What's with your dumb accent?"
"Ay, (it's just how I talk,)" he defended without much defense in his voice to back him up.
"Well-" the boy began to mock again, but he was quickly cut off but Shiver.
"Hey!" Shiver yelled, stomping up the stairs to face the boy who was picking on Big Man. "You can't just do that! That's rude, you know."
"Can't do what?" The boy sneered, who ended up being Coral. He snobbishly turned to Shiver and eyed her. Shiver was a step or two below him, so Coral had to peer down at her, while Shiver glared up at him, her eyes hardened.
"You know I'm not going to just let you mock my friend like that, right?" Shiver argued, her hands curling into fists by her sides. "First, you call us all weird for no reason! And then you call us freaks for the same apparent no reason! And then, after that, you claim to not know us! How could you not know us but call us weird and freaks?! That doesn't line up, you know! And then, to top it off, you tell us the move, and when we don't you just push past up and start mocking my friend! I'm not going to let that fly, at all."
Caspian, standing a step higher than Coral, bent down slightly to glare at her, a shit-eating grin on his face that Shiver wanted to rip up and shove down his throat. "What are you, a puny little sixth grader?" He dryly laughed. "What are you going to do about it, little lady?"
"Oh, I'll show you what I'll do! You asked for this," She snapped. Shiver stormed up the few steps that were separating them, reaching a pale fist to grab the collar of his uniform and yank him forwards. This offset his balance, and as he staggered, he missed the steps going down and tumbled down the stairs. Unfortunately, the sheer pull she had to do to offset the inkling's balance also offset hers. She went falling down the stairs right after him, following somewhat slower but still hitting her head pretty badly.
"Shivie?" Frye yelped. She had been sitting at the bottom of the stairs this whole time, silently observing the conflict. Now that it had gotten a little more physical, Frye finally decided to jump in to stop them. Before she could even get to her feet, Shiver jumped to her knees and lunged at Caspian.
Frye gasped and cried out, "Shiver!" She stumbled, nearly falling, rushing to try and break them up. Big Man got up and ran.
It wasn't long before a teacher came.
...and all three of them got detention.
How? Shiver didn't even know. She thought it was absolutely stupid. For one, for the entirety of the fight, Big Man didn't do anything. When Shiver and Caspian were on the floor together, he got up and found a teacher- which eventually led to Shiver and Frye and Big Man getting detention, but the poor guy was probably just scared and looking out for his friends. Along with that, Frye was the one who had tried breaking them up. She had nothing to do with the fight. She was also looking out for Shiver, who was fighting a guy a year older than her, taller, and probably brawnier than she was. Fortunately, Shiver wasn't completely inexperienced when it came to fighting, so she wasn't terribly injured.
Falling down the stairs is what the majority of her injury was. The side of her head had a small cut with a few drips of blue ink seeping from it, and given how her head was hit up badly by the stairs, it hurt. A lot. She pressed two fingers to her right temple to try and alleviate the pain to now avail. Her body was sore and she had minimal bruising and bleeding from Caspian, and after she was released from the nurse without as much as a bag of ice, she was sent right to detention alongside her two now-grumpy friends.
Shiver groaned, plopping herself into her seat. She allowed her throbbing head to hang loosely, her fingers returning back to rub at her temples. Today was a complete and utter failure. She embarrassed herself in front of the most popular inklings at the school- all three of them! And she fought one of them, and got sent to detention while the other three got to go home early! How unfair was that? And how much sense did that even make?! Sure, Shiver started it, but it was very well deserved. And not only did she completely embarrass herself in from of the three, but she also embarrassed herself in front of Frye, and she even made her upset. She sighed, guilt panging in her hearts. She looked at Frye, who seemed miserable, and Big Man, who seemed a little scared.
"Ay... ay, (I've never been in detention before... this is a little nerve wracking,)" Big Man hesitantly spoke. His voice wasn't all too loud.
"You get used to it," Frye sourly replied without even a hint of her usual enthusiasm lacing her voice. She shot a glare at Shiver. "But you wouldn't have to if you weren't friends with somebody who goes around punching people for no good reason!"
"Hey!" Shiver yelped, slamming her hands down on the desk in front of her. She flinted as the teacher scolded her, yelling "silence" from across the classroom. Shiver scowled and settled back into her seat. "I was only defending our friend, French Frye. There's no need to be so cranky," Shiver pouted. Her head gave a particularly angry throb, and she rubbed her temples. Silence engulfed the classroom. It was a loud silence, ringing filling Shiver's ears uncomfortably- or maybe that was the ringing from hitting her head so hard against the stairs. Either way, it was loud. Shiver felt herself grow a little more solemn and guilty. "...I'm sorry."
"Ay. Ay... ay, (it's fine. You were just trying to defend me... it was pretty cool of you to do that for me,)" Big Man replied, his voice laced with a bit more cheer than before, happily accepting her apology. He was also obviously trying to comfort his friend.
"I guess it's fine, Shivie," Frye murmured, still rather salty over the whole incident. "I wanted to go home and play on my console... now I have to wait forever," she complained.
Shiver huffed and leaned forward in her chair. "Well, we only have another half n' hour until we get let out... cod, my parents are going to be so mad. They're going to ground me! Again!" Shiver leaned back in her chair and rubbed at her eye with a frown.
"Mine too!" Frye sighed with exasperation. "And I just got ungrounded..."
"Ay.... (mine three...)" Big Man sulked. "Ay. Ay! (But I've never been grounded before. I don't want to lose my streak now!)"
"Really? Never?" Frye inquired, her curiosity piqued. She leaned a bit closer to Big Man. "You've never ever been grounded before?"
Big Man shook his head with a small frown. "Ay. (Never.)"
"Lucky duck..." Frye huffed. "It's 'cuz you're a little goody two-shoes."
The rest of detention was filled with their quiet talking, accompanied by the scolding from their monitor whenever they treat too high in volume. Great.
So... come to think of it, no, there was really nobody else the octoling could think up for Kiss Marry Kill. They didn't know a lot of people as a whole group. They all had their own friends, and they already used up all the other idols they knew.
"Don't know. I'm stumped," Shiver replied carelessly, finally breaking her eye contact from the TV's black screen, looking over to her friends. Frye blinked in confusion. When Shiver blinked, her eyes burned. It must have been a while since she's blinked last.
"Shivs, you good? You've just been starin' at the TV's blank screen for the past, like... three entire minutes! Or more! Not even exaggeratin' that, you were entranced!" Frye exclaimed, her hands going to either side of her head with surprise.
"Ay, ay! (We tried calling your name, but you were in a whole different universe!)" Big Man backed up. "Ay? (What was that all about?)"
A small smile grew onto the blue octoling's beak. "Oh, I was only trying to think of any inkfish we all collectively knew. But we don't know all too many people outside of our old school, huh?" Shiver pondered. She gave a small giggle, and sighed. "But oh, well. Kiss Marry Kill is a game for middle schoolers when they're trying to drag deep secrets out of each other during sleepovers, anyways. Let's maybe do something else... yeah?"
"Yeah, I guess you're right..." Frye sighed. She hummed briefly before a wide smile grew onto her face. "Let's play some truth or dare instead, then! It's a hundred times more efficient than Kiss Marry Kill is!"
Shiver's smile wilted, and she gave an unsure sight. "Alright, Frye. Whatever you want. Let's play some truth or dare."
Moral of the story, Shiver, Frye, and Big Man were most definitely popular kids back in their glory days of middle school. But in a sense, Big Man could be right; they were probably more infamous than... genuinely popular. One way or another, they were still popular. But even if they weren't, deep down, Shiver knew that didn't really matter. Her friends are what kept her going to school every day, not some silly popularity. She grew a slight smile as Frye began to ask "truth or dare" to Big Man.
She loved these idiots.