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It was N's idea to have the slumber party. He said it would be fun for the three of us—full of movie marathons, snacks, and all kinds of games. And for a while, he was kind of right. Then things got complicated.
It happened while I was sitting on my bed, listening to music and browsing anime forums for something new to watch. N and V were arguing about some made-up game they’d just finished playing. They kept going back and forth over the rules because V was being a sore loser.
I know I should have stepped in to break it up, but I wanted to see N stand up for himself. He was holding his ground, not backing down, even as V got in his face. He even pointed out that she had always been a sore loser when it came to their games, saying she hadn’t changed after all these years.
And then V kissed him.
It was sudden, impulsive, and clearly something done in the heat of the moment—but it lasted a while. I could literally count the seconds in my internal clock for how long it went. They held each other the entire time, making it look like one of those epic moments where the main couple finally gets together at the end of a series. And I was the audience, watching it all unfold right in front of me, in my own room. My boyfriend was kissed by another girl—and I did nothing but watch as N ran his hand through V's hair, while she clung to the dog-faced T-shirt he wore. The two were so lost in their own passion that it seemed like they forgot about me.
Then, as quickly as it started, it ended. V was the one to pull away, a look of bliss frozen on her face. N, though—it was like he suddenly woke up from a trance. I saw the realization hit him, the guilt spreading through his expression, his mouth twitching as he processed what had just happened. V noticed it too. She turned to look at me, and our eyes met. Then she...
She ran.
By the time I shoved my laptop aside and jumped off the bed, she was already gone. Out the door and out of sight. I could have chased after her, but I stopped to check on N. He was leaning against the wall, his eyes glazed over, staring at the exact spot where V had stood just moments ago. It wasn’t until I said his name that he snapped out of it. His eyes flicked to me, and I could hear the panic in his breath as he spoke.
“Uzi, I am so sorry. I don’t know what came over me. I should’ve reacted differently, I should’ve shoved V away or told her off immediately, but I just froze. Oh, who am I kidding—we were 0.3 seconds away from fully making out! I should’ve stopped it, I should have self-destructed, I should have stuck her with my stinger, I should've done something instead of just nothing! I’m a terrible boyfriend—”
He was speaking too fast for me to really keep up with what he was saying, but when he called himself a bad boyfriend, that’s when I stopped him—just like V had. I kissed him. I hated that I had to stand on my toes to do it, unlike V. But the result was the same. N would space out again, leaning against the wall, except this time looking even more lost than before. Though a part of me wanted to stay and comfort him–give him the hug he looked like he needed– I left to go find V instead, telling N to wait while I figured out what was going on with her. He didn’t follow, so I guess he listened.
After an hour of searching, I realized I couldn’t find V on my own. I had checked everywhere she might could have been—her favorite hunting grounds, the hut where she and N lived, and every little hangout spot we knew. But I found no trace of her. Frustration began to settle in, and I am willing to admit that I became desperate enough to ask for help from the one person I never wanted to get involved with on a weekend.
When I knocked on Lizzy’s door, it took all the self-control in my core not to simply rip it open with my solver power. It took even more self-control not to immediately kill Lizzy the moment she opened said door, her usual bored expression greeting me. “What do you want, loser?” she asked, in her typical charming way. I reminded her that if I wanted to I could kill her in over six hundred different ways, each one more horrifying than the last. “Yeah, so?” she replied, unfazed. I had to admit, sometimes I’m impressed by how little she cares.
I asked if she knew where V was. “Nope, haven’t seen her all day. Especially since she definitely hasn’t asked me to hide her somewhere,” Lizzy's voice dripped with so much sarcasm I started to wonder if I needed to get a wet floor sign. A voice in my head reminded me that I could make her vomit up her own oil if I wanted to, make that wonder a reality–it was Cyn’s voice. I ignored it, forcing myself to take a breath so I can stay calm and not fly off the handle like usual.
I told Lizzy something had happened and I needed to find V. “Why don’t you ask that pet dino-bot of hers? I’m sure it would be more than happy to tell you where she is,” she smirked at me as if already knowing how well that had gone.
I'm sure one of my eyes twitched at the mention of V’s pet Sentinel, Sparky. It was actually the first thing I went to for help—which says a lot about how much I preferred dealing with a drone-eating dino-bot over talking to Lizzy. For my trouble, Sparky bit my hand off and flipped me the bird with my own severed hand.
Lizzy laughed when I told her this. I didn’t. Just because I can grow it back doesn’t mean it didn’t hurt. “Look, maybe she went somewhere you can’t find her. Like a place that doesn’t allow weirdos in. Or freaks. Or anyone with a massive god complex. Or—” I cut her off by getting straight to the point: I told her that V had kissed N.
For a few blissful seconds, Lizzy actually went silent as she processed what I said. "...You're not gonna smite her, are you?"
That caught me off guard. I asked her what she meant, reassuring her that I wasn’t planning on doing anything like that. That I didn't even know how to really smite someone, “Just checking. You’re the one who keeps calling herself a god. Should’ve known you were full of it though—the only miracle you seem to have pulled off is making friends with someone as hot as V.”
Sometimes, I wish I did listen to the voice in my tail–as it has told me many times by now that things would be a lot easier if I just murder everyone who didn’t want to worship me as the god that I am. It would definitely save me from having to listen to Lizzy. But, thankfully, she agreed to lead me to the one place I hoped I’d never have to enter: her personal bedroom.
Ugh. It was so... pink and stereotypically girly.
“Try not to trash the place, and don’t be a creep and snoop around,” I was about to point out that snooping around would mean staying in this pink nightmare of a room longer than necessary, but Lizzy was already gone, leaving me alone. At least, I thought I was alone—until I noticed the stinger trailing out from under the bed.
My first instinct was to stomp on it. My second was to use my solver power to lift up the whole bed so that there wouldn't be a hiding spot. My third was just to nudged her tail lightly with my foot, telling V I knew she was hiding under there. She didn’t answer. She just pulled her stinger back under the bed, fully retreating out of sight.
I spent the next few minutes trying to coax her out. First with insults, then with threats. Neither worked. Not even pretending to leave got a reaction. Frustrated, I gave in and crouched down to meet her on her level. Peering under the bed, I found V curled up in a ball, lost in thought and with headphones on which plugged into a phone, playing loud violin music.
That’s when it hit me: she hadn’t been listening to a single word I’d said. Admittedly, that pissed me off on several levels. Still, it seemed all was worth it as when I knelt down further, I managed to get her attention as our eyes finally met. And then she…promptly turned her back on me.
I immediately stopped being nice, grabbed her tail with both hands and yank her out from under the bed like she was a cat and I was her pissed off owner. V emerged from her hiding spot with her arms crossed and a very annoyed glare on her face. I shot her a glare of my own as I demanded to know why she was hiding under the bed.
“I wasn’t hiding. I just wanted some privacy.” She pulled the headphones off her head and stood up, reminding me once again how much taller she and N were compared to me. Something I still hate to this day. “Thanks for ruining that, by the way.” She glanced at the closed doorway, momentarily losing her facade to ask, “He didn’t follow you, did he?”
I told her that, as far as I knew, N was still in my room, waiting for us to come back.
“Okay, that’s good. That’s… I messed up. God, I really messed up this time, didn’t I?” She raised a hand to cover her eyes, a gesture of shame I’d never seen from her before. “Isn’t this the part where you lose your shit?”
She lowered her hand and looked at me expectantly. I must have had some kind of expression on my face because she decided to elaborate. “I kissed your boyfriend, right in front of you. So just get it over with.”
She sighed, crossed her arms, and seemed to brace herself as if I really was gonna attack her over this. I told V that I hadn’t followed her to beat her up or anything. I just wanted to understand why she kissed N, especially since she had run out so quickly. She tried to brush off her reasoning. “Maybe I didn’t do it for any reason, okay? Look, just go back and tell him it was a prank. Maybe I’m starting a new thing. Maybe I’ll kiss Lizzy next, or even J,” her tone was heavily dismissive, almost embarrassingly so. I shot her a look, and it seemed enough to make her reconsider her so-called “new thing.” She groaned and turned away from me, clearly unhappy with how the conversation was unfolding.
It didn’t help that I was about to make things worse by asking if her actions had anything to do with the fact that she and N used to be a couple. I wanted to know if there was a chance she still had feelings for him. “No! Of course not! Why would you even ask something like that? You’re his girlfriend now!” V leaned in, one of her hands transforming into a claw to emphasize her point as she poked me in the chest with it. “You’re the one he cuddles with and kisses all the time now. Why even have me tag along as a third wheel? It’s better if I just stay away from both of you. Actually, it’s better for all of us!”
I rolled my eyes and told her she was being dramatic. “No, I’m being realistic. If I do get anything off my chest, it is just to tell you that you two make me sick with how lovely-dovey you are. I honestly can’t wait for something to come along and mess things up for you both!”
I immediately asked why she would say such terrible things. Why did she always have to be so mean? I told her that from what I’d seen and what N had told me, she wasn’t always like this. She used to be nice, clumsy, and friendly. Pointing this out, however, only seemed to upset her further.
“Oh my god, shut up! Just shut up. I can’t stand that kind of talk. News flash, Uzi! You of all people should know that sometimes drones just change. Maybe I enjoy this mean girl persona and saying terrible things because it’s fun. It’s not some grand existential question—it’s just what’s happening right now. I’m not the same bot I used to be, and I’m never going to be like her again!”
I shot back that if there was any truth to that, she wouldn’t care about N so much. She wouldn’t have tried to keep him safe, wouldn’t have admitted to being scared for both of them against Cyn. She wouldn’t have kissed him. “Uzi, I’m only going to say this once. Back. Off.” There was a dangerous look in V’s eyes as she said those words. I didn’t care. Now it was my turn to get in her face.
I slapped her claw away from my chest and told her she was a joke. That she was the reason things never worked out between her and N. She knew that. That her idea of protecting him was to lie and hide things from him, leaving him unable to remember what happened to them for who knows how long. And instead of being actually decent and helping the guy they both liked, she chose to be a mean, vapid, psychotic, murder-happy bitch. She pushed him away because she was too scared to show him that she actually cared. Ultimately, whatever she tried to do, whatever act she wanted to put on was just to hide the sad truth that she was just a coward.
I surprised even myself with the truth of my words. I meant every single one.
For a moment, V was silent, staring at me with wide, disbelieving eyes. What I said clearly shook her to her core—at least for a couple of seconds. Then she shifted her claw back into a hand and punched me square in the face.
It turned into a fight after that. Just a brawl, nothing too serious. No solver power, no flight, no railguns or machine guns—just fists. Both of us, admittedly, were being stupid. She punched me. I punched her back. She hit me again, so I tackled her. In moments, we were on the ground, trading blows.
We exchanged strike for strike–the entire time hurling insults at each other–until V managed to get the upper hand, pinning me down by my shoulders as she straddled my torso. The few injuries we managed to inflict on each other—which at best were just scratches—started to heal within seconds.
“You’re a real piece of junk, you know that? Not even fit for the damn scrapheap!” V growled, digging her fingers into my shoulders. I retorted by saying it was nice to meet her, pot. My name was Kettle. “I’m gonna shut your mouth, you plush-sized little twerp!” she snapped. I told her to bite me as I struggled beneath her. Both of us bared our fangs at each other. “Bitch, I might!”
Our eyes locked, and then she… kissed me.
It was sudden, impulsive, and clearly something done in the heat of the moment—but it lasted a while. I could literally count the seconds in my internal clock for how long it went. We held each other throughout, as if we were the main couple finally getting together at the end of a dramatic series. I was kissing someone other than my boyfriend—I was kissing a girl. My arms were around V’s neck, gripping tightly, while she held me close, her hand resting on my cheek.
Then, as quickly as it started, it ended. V pulled away with a scowl on her lips. “Gross, I can still taste N in your mouth.” I said, she was just mad he’s a better kisser than her. “Little brat.” I called her a stuck-up idiot. We kissed again, this time longer. V’s hand traced the arc of my back, causing me to squirm beneath her just as I did when N did the same. I’ll be honest and say, I didn’t want it to end.
“Hey, I usually am against cliterference, but if two are gonna do this, can you not do it in my room?” Lizzy’s voice cut through everything, snapping us out of our makeout session. We both turned to see her standing in the doorway with her phone in hand, her expression as bored as ever. “Also, V? Really?” Lizzy’s face showed clear disappointment—not just in the act, but in who she was involved with. “I could have set you up with way less crazy girls.”
“What can I say? I’ve got bad taste,” V spoke with a smirk, her demeanor shifting back to something more familiar. She pulled herself off me and stood up, surprisingly offering me a hand, which I took.
“So… what now?” she asked. To which I wasn’t sure. My lips were still warm from her breath, and I was still processing the intensity of the makeout session. Then I thought of N, who was likely still waiting in my room. I mentioned his name, and I noticed V’s eyes twitch as she looked away. She was clearly trying to mask her true feelings, as usual. The fact was, we both had feelings for him, and there was undeniable tension between us. It seemed like the best course of action was to handle this situation together.
Just then, Lizzy chimed in again, “So is this the part where both of you need to hide under the bed from N or something?” I glared at Lizzy, ready with a sharp retort to make her shut up. But before I could respond, V suddenly burst into laughter and walked towards Lizzy.
“Yeah, sure! Then he can come by, and we can have a three-way makeout session in your room.” I think I felt myself overheat a little at just the thought of that.
“Gross! Just do it in the dork's room instead. I’m literally telling you to get a room. Specifically, not mine,” Lizzy retorted.
“We’re going. Thanks for immediately ratting me out from my hiding spot, bitch.” V walked past Lizzy, exchanging a high-five with her as she did.
“The psycho said she knew over 600 different ways to kill me. I couldn’t stop her even if I wanted to, slut.”
Clearly, I had no clue how V and Lizzy’s friendship worked, and my processing power wasn’t up to the task of figuring it out. I rolled my eyes and began to follow V, only to fall behind when Lizzy stuck her foot out, nearly causing me to trip.
In response, I went all out. Both solver powers manifested in my hands, my wings and tail extended, presenting myself as an eldritch flying terror—the god of this world. Only for Lizzy to look at me with the most deadpan expression possible still despite it all.
“Thanks for actually helping V out from under the bed,” she said dryly. “She really seemed freaked out when she ran in here asking for somewhere to hide.”
I was genuinely shocked by how sincere Lizzy sounded, so much so that I actually retracted all my eldritch power. “You’re still a massive loser, though. I mean, come on,” she said, her eyes trailing down to my outfit.
I followed her gaze and saw my pajamas: pants with cute crow images and a shirt that read, “I paused my anime to be here (This better be good),” complete with visuals of an anime boy with red eyes crying bloody tears. I realized, with a groan, that I’d been running around in my casual sleepover pajamas the entire time. I had never changed clothes. The realization hit me hard.
“Don’t give me that attitude. You’re the one having a sexual awakening in my room. If anyone should be complaining, it’s me—about how gross that is. I’m gonna have to disinfect everything now just to be safe.” I felt some part of myself chuckle in russian at that, no idea why.
I told her to bite me as I followed V out into the hall. The two of us headed toward N, ready to finally address the awkwardness of the situation.