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“You’d think she’d be loaded, being an idol and all,” Four scoffs under her breath, going on her tippy toes to reach the highest part of the fence, attempting to cover it all in a consistent, smooth, boring white, “but instead of hiring folks- nope! She gets us to do it, for free.”
Haji dunks the paint brush into the bucket as she nods in agreement. “Maybe that’s why she’s loaded.” She replies, “she just gets her family and acquaintances to do it so she won’t have to pay em.”
Four hums, understandingly. “Like reverse nepotism.”
“Yeah.” Neither of them were sure if that’s what the opposite of nepotism would theoretically be but it sounded vaguely correct to them.
Part of them wondered this even needed doing, the rotting natural wood had character, personality even. The tips that were broken off from Four attempting to jump them (as using the front door was simply too boring) also added its own flair to the yard. To her dismay, Marie had Three fix it them but refused to paint them (According to her, the texture of the paint makes the bile rise in her throat), and so, that task was given to the next best thing. That would’ve been Eight or Neo, but neither found the time. So Haji and Four it was.
“Hey uh, could you at least get us some lemonade or something?” Haji calls out from over her shoulder, hoping Marie listens to her plea. The sun was sweltering hot, likely some kind of divine intervention to specifically mess with them today. The idol stayed silent. Of course.
“Auntieee,” Four yells out, “could you bring us some lemonade pleeasseeeee. It’s waaarmmm.”
“I’ll get Callie to bring you some.” Marie shouted back, not even staring up from the magazine she was reading.
Four and haji stared at each other, the former gaining a smile like that of a panting golden retriever. There was a clear favorite among them.
The drinks arrived and with Callie letting them know Marie would be gone for a bit, they presumed this was as good a time as any to take a break. Haji sat against one the many unpainted parts, barely in the shade, whilst Four opted to splay out on the warm grass as if she were making snow angels. They listened to the leaves rustle as the wind hit their faces, maybe this weather had its upsides.
“You think we’ll do this one day on our own?” Four asks out of nowhere. Haji hums for elaboration as she took another sip.
“You know like, maybe one day we’ll have a house of our own. And then we’ll have to paint the fence in this heat.”
“…where’s this coming from?”
She shrugged, staring at the sun. “I dunno. I was just thinking recently.”
“That’s a rarity for you.”
“I do it more than you at least.”
Silence passed them for a moment.
“Did you have a yard back home Haji?”
she thinks for a moment, before shaking her head. “No, we never had any greenery. Or much at least, maybe a couple stray plants but never much more than that.” The octoling recalled, “Sometimes Shin would find children’s books from the surface and I always wondered why the ground in them was so green.”
“You guys didn’t have much natural ground there, huh?”
Haji hummed back in affirmation.
“Yeah we didn’t have much greenery back home either. There was definitely plant life but you know how cities are.” Four shared, “A tree there, a stray patch of grass there. Funnily enough my parents always wanted a house with the typical yard and stuff.”
“Why’s that?”
“It’s not that they liked the nature or anything, they just thought it looked good or whatever.”
“Some kind of status symbol then?”
“Yeah.”
“Huh.”
Silence.
“You think you could give me some?” Four asked, lazily pointing towards her glass.
“Yeah sure.” Haji skid over, grinning, lifting the cup over fours face, “Open up.”
The agent opened her maw like a baby bird asking to be fed. The octoling poured in the cold liquid from further up than necessary, creating a bit of splash back. From above it kind of looked like her mouth was some kind of punch bowl at prom. A very fleshy bowl of punch but a bowl of punch nonetheless. Haji couldn’t help but giggle under her breath once the other unintentionally started gurgling the liquid. Eventually, Four sprang up to cough up the drink in the space in front of her.
“Couldn’t swallow it like that?”
A couple more coughs. “Yeah.”
“Dumbass.”
“It would’ve been cool if it worked.” Four stroked any wet and sticky parts of herself dry.
“Theres a joke I could make here you know.”
“Hm? Which one?”
“I… I dunno actually, but there’s probably someway to make this suggestive.”
“Anything is suggestive if you try hard enough.” Four shot back, “Nature can be, for example.”
“Huh? How?” Haji tilted her head like a dog.
“You know like, Mother Nature? Mother means she has a kid, that means she fucks!”
“Woah… nature gets freaky too?”
“You know it man.”
They stared at the still fairly unfinished fence, the paint shining unevenly in the sun
“She’s gonna kill us if she knew we didn’t do anything.” Haji remarks.
“Wrong, she’s gonna kill you.” Four smugly corrects.
“Then I’m taking you with me!”
“Pah. And how are you gonna do that?”
“She still hasn’t learned what really happened to her favorite vase, has she?”
The agent met her with a horrified gaze.
And so, it was back to work for the two.
They were two buckets down by now, on their way to “just get anything that looks like a can of paint” they ended up taking some very old, colorful buckets as well, they decided it was a good back up plan, it would certainly spice things up around there.
As Haji painted by Fours side, her gaze fell between the inkling and her paint brush covered in the white substance, and an idea lit up in her brain as if a cartoony light bulb went off.
“Hey four?” She grinned in anticipation. She looked up at the octoling and hummed, her eyes curious like that of a puppy.
“You know what you’d look good in?”
“Anything?”
The response ultimately went ignored, as Haji flicked the bristles of the brush at the other without warning, covering her face in white specks. She laughed as four tried spitting out any amount that got in her mouth.
“You look best covered in my-!” Before she could finish the punchline, she was cut off by the agent smacking the (much more covered) brush against her. She caught herself for a second, before picking up her own brush and dunking it in the paint again; Four, realizing what was about to happen snatched a bucket and booked it, the octoling trailing behind with vigor.
“Get back here!!” She yelled, waving her brush, covering the shorters back in white splats.
“Stop that!!” She shouts back, turning around and smacking a trail of paint behind herself, covering a good chunk of not only Haji, but also the grass and some of the fence. Now it was time for the octoling to be chased (and for her entire back side to be covered) instead.
Eventually, Four decided the brush method wasn’t effective enough, and opted to throw the can at the other (it made a mess but it covered more! She guesses that’s why they were eventually used for turf wars); two can play at that game though, and after dodging a good chunk of it, Haji did the same with her bucket, getting in a good shot at Four (and also the grass and fence, but that didn’t matter right?).
They both tried going in for another shot, but came to find their buckets empty, their gazes both shot to the other cans in the yard, and they knew exactly what to do.
They don’t know how long they kept at this impromptu Turf war, but eventually their yells turned into laughing pants. Maybe it was ten minutes, maybe an hour, but they admitted defeat once they both fell over from exhaustion. They wanted to keep chuckling, but that was difficult with the wind being knocked out of them.
“I’d say… I won that..” Four breathes out, her mouth barely poking out from account of falling face first into the grass.
“You dumbass, I did.” Haji insists, laying on her back, “I started after all.”
“But you got covered more!”
“Pah I’ll be the judge of-“ Haji gasped as she turned around to get a better look at four.
“Huh?? What’s up?”
Silence continued and Four decided to look wherever Haji was staring at to get this kind of reaction and - oh.
Oh god.
It seems that, in their haste, they hadn’t realized they had also picked up the colorful cans, and neither had they noticed they were accidentally painting a good chunk of the fence in their fight. And so, the fence was covered in uneven, inconsistent, giant, colorful splotches on a full ROYGBIV spectrum. Ironically, Fours face was drained of all color at the sight.
“We uh. We can still fix this right??? We should still have some white paint left over..” Haji tried bargaining, looking for another, non colored bucket around her, but it was already much too late, as they heard Marie’s footsteps behind them. “What happened here?”
They looked back and their faces dropped at the sight, a rather neutral face on the idol, neither knowing how to place it. They both started stammering, any combination of ‘she started’ and ‘we didn’t mean to’ filled the air with urgency, all whilst she simply stood there and looked like she was analyzing it. Haji was in the middle of mentally writing her will when Marie finally broke the agonizing wait.
“Good job you two.”
“I said I’m sorry and — what.” Haji was at a loss for words, did she just hear that correctly?
“I mean it,” Marie insisted, “ there’s a subtle, purposefully random rainbow effect to it, it’s nice.”
Both looked at her wide eyed.
“I’m glad Three didn’t agree to do it now, I don’t think we would’ve ended with a result like this.” She goes on, unexpectedly. Four pridefully gleamed at the elder, whilst Haji stroked the back of her neck humbly flustered.
“Well uh. Y’know how we dependable we are.” Haji tries going along with it.
“Just call on us anytime!” Four grinned.
“I’ll be sure to.” Marie seemed somewhat amused.
As the three were about to head inside, Marie stopped at looked back at them. “Dinner will be ready in an hour, in the mean time,” she handed them the hose and dragged the lawnmower to them, “get rid of the paint on the grass will you? And also yourself.” And with that, she shut the door behind her.
“Wanna do something stupid.”
“Is the sky blue?”
Somehow they managed to not hit the fence with the hose, however Three did have the pleasure of repairing part of the fence after an octoling, who will not be named, crashed into it with the lawnmower (and Eight had the pleasure of asking Marina if she could make a new lawnmower for the idol).