Chapter Text
It was a joke;I mean it is funny! Me, Jax wearing a dress ? Hilarious but it made me feel horrible. It wasn't the dress part that made me feel bad, it was that everyone thought that me wearing a dress was funny. That a guy wearing a dress was so horrible it was funny, so unrealistic.
I stare at the colorful food taking up space on my plate. eggs, mystery meat, more eggs and far away from me is corn; it’s on the other side of the table, next to gangle of all people. I hate gangle. How she made everyone laugh at me for wearing at stupid dress. How she cries and gets comforted. How she expresses so much femininity. How soft she is. How lucky she is.
My eyes move to the corner of my sight. Pomni. How can she just sit there and look so beautiful. Her peppermint eyes were fixated on her food; she has bacon, and an omelet . She plays around with her bacon before putting it in her mouth.
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“ WELL EVERYONE WE HAVE A RODY ROCKING ADVENTURE TODAY !” Caine enthusiastically yells.
“ TODAY'S ADVENTURE ISSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSS, BUBBLE DRUM ROLL PLEASE” bubble appears seemingly out of nowhere, drumming somehow without hands.
“ ARCADE !” confetti rains down.
Bubble keeps playing the drums with a large smile on their face. “ You can stop now bubble” bubble does not stop “ I SAID STOP” Caine yells, popping his eyes out in a cartoony style. He snaps his fingers aggressively and the host and his assistant disappear. Simultaneously a portal opens on the left of us.
This adventure seemed more normal. Just us getting to enjoy an arcade. The place overwhelmed my senses with neon colors and the smell of pizza as soon as I stepped into the portal. We all stood there for a minute, looking around in awe before ragatha stepped forward.
“ Okays guys this place seems big and caine can be… unreliable, so get a buddy !” gangle and zooble team up obviously and walk towards a TDR looking game. “ I’ll go with jax “ Kinger says. This is followed by confusion from me, ragatha and pomni.
“ Huh ?! Why him? Are you sure “
“ I’m not gonna bite, dolly ! I’ll go with the old guy”
Before I could hear what ragatha was yelling I pull kinger deeper into the arcade. I get why ragatha would inform the buddy system; Last time we went to a normal looking adventure created by caine was the cinema, after the movie ended pomni noticed a small sign hanging above the screen that said ‘APPLAUSE OR BE DESTROYED ‘ so it’s better to have a buddy with you to keep on guard with. No one ever wants to be my partner though, not that I care ! Kinger stops in his tracks, halting us both. “ What ?” I turn to look at what made him stop. He’s looking at an arcade machine called ‘Mushihimesama’ . The machine has an insect theme; I guess that's what caught his attention.
I let him go and he walked over to the game. I watch him fiddle around with it and tilt his head towards the game while looking at me to ask if I wanna join. I raise my hands in response to say no. He looks a little worried but turns his attention to the game again. I look at the ground; getting lost in the swirls of colors. Eventually my attention follows one of the swirls leading down an isolated hall. I look at kinger, who is fully invested in the game. I’m sure he wouldn’t mind if I went rogue.
I walk through the dark ally; the soft carpet mutes any sound my steps might have made. I keep walking further. It gets darker with each step, eventually I'm walking in pure darkness, hesitantly stepping ; scared I might step on something. I start to wonder if I should turn back, maybe this leads nowhere, maybe it’s a glitch caine never fixed. My thoughts get interrupted by a pink glow.
A TV glows a bright pink, it hums softly at me. It’s sitting on the right wall of me. Suddenly another TV appears and does the same pink glow. It’s followed by another one, another, more, even more, HOW MANY OF THESE ARE THERE ???
I’m surrounded by a bright pink and irritating TV hum. I look up at the wall of color. Once again one by one each TV changes, however this time a woman with wild purple hair and slightly yellow teeth fills the screens. She has a jellyfish hair cut that frames her peachy face gracefully. Her smile is a permanent grin and her eyes squint; it makes her look mischievous. She washed all the walls. I stared at the one human looking thing I've seen in years. One TV in the center of her blacks out and shows a block of text reading
“ the woman would forget who she fought to be”
A portal opened behind me and the TVs turned off.
I look up to the dark wall. She was everything I mourned for.
“ WELL JAX WASN”T THAT FUN ?! “ caine yelled as he teleported me in the air to face him.
“ Who was she ?”
“ WELL IM NOT SURE WHAT YOUR GETTING AT “
“ That woman on the tv ?’’
“ THERE IS NO WOMAN ON THE TV !”
“ Then who was I looking at ?”
Before Caine answered, bubble (who seemingly came out of nowhere again) whispered something in his… side ? He doesn’t have an ear, I'm not sure what to call it. Just the place his ear is supposed to be.
“ OH…that” he deflated.
He fiddled with his caine and placed me on the ground softly. “ Well my boy, sometimes memories appear in places I didn’t think they could. “ He placed his hand on my shoulder. “ While I do my best to make sure that can’t happen, sometimes people go where they're not supposed to and it creates a pocket of space where identity can leak in ! And it really hurts my feelings “
Everyone keeps talking but it all blurs for me, does that mean that woman was me ? That she is who I really am past all this cartoony madness. I’m not surprised, me and ribbit talked about my gender before. They talked about how confusing things can be and how the circus messes things up even more. The next day they made me a yellow bow; so that I could maybe feel a little more comfortable. A week later they abstracted. I don’t wear that bow anymore.
I just walk to my room and lay down. I can’t deal with this right now, it’s all too much.