Chapter Text
You're Sapphie. Or just Saph, as most of your peers have known you. You chug a whole glass of milk, unsure about whether it was already expired or not. Oh well. You have been hungry as shit. Or thirsty to be specific. Time has been passing since you have been comfortable on this old and stale-looking brown couch.
Crap, you really need to set aside your cravings if you wanted something decent. It's not like the couch's terrible, it just looked so tangible in an area full of intrinsic details. Maybe that one listed horse-shaped sofa from e-bay could potentially replace it for good.
You settled the milk-stained glass on a sink as your TV blasts out another agitating advertisement. What's the deal with noise-operated table lamps that costs more than a washing machine?
Another ad popped up as you scrambled around for the remote. It says along the lines of entertain your children with... 3D printed plants? Their models were definitely AI-generated every single time. For the cherry on top, they provided a limited-edition plant which you assumed will invoke the over consumerists awaiting to pile up their houses with rubbish and, you guessed it, a TON of junk.
You finally turned off that small screen to prevent yourself destroying your thinking patterns completely. That same generic over-the-top vocal, damn it. You then stayed still, thinking about doing things that might be significantly more productive. Oh, right. You have this one essay that you have to submit at exactly 10 PM.
The clock right at the corner reads 9:32 PM. It's not like you haven't done any progress, but 28 minutes definitely spiked up some of your adrenaline. You rushed into your room, which has a dominant theme of weirdcore and dreamcore aesthetics as you'd label it. While the entirety of your interior design isn't a stable theme, those words probably fit anyway. Around the corner lies a moderate pillow fort for your morbid documentary-watching sessions. You got a decent collections of crystals placed neatly in shelves—outnumbering every other thing you have.
As you sit yourself in front of your old-school laptop, you heard an annoying ding. You furrowed your eyebrows and spent a good 60 seconds trying to find the source of that ding only to find it from the laptop itself when it popped again. Twice. You groaned.
Fine. I'll check this hell of a text for once more. You thought with a jaded face. It better not be Conn I swear to my own
Congratulations, it's actually from Conn. Let's just get this over with. You expected a greeting, maybe the typical "how are yewwww" or "wassup saph" form of statements. Surprise surprise Sapphie Fostor, "can we video call eachother pls" was your best luck.
A video call.
The text popped up like "[icecream conn] requested a video call..." as you stared on the screen in defeat. There is no way xe's going to call you for any other reason than... xem needing help on school work, specifically on an essay. Probably the same one you're going to work on. You swore this is going to be the last time after all the attempts of helping xem with no plausible results.
You hover your mouse and clicked on the green button. Your camera's closed on default as xyrs face showed up. Xe looked so desperate it earned a snicker from you.
"Hey, what's up, uhm. Conn here."
You snorted. "Oh Conn..." You stifled some chuckles in-between, "Why the fuck did you sound like a youtuber?"
Xe weakly replied, "For gods sake, what the hell is so funny about my greeting."
"Hey. You hear me?"
"I wouldn't have- haha... responded if I didn't.. ha..."
"Also you sounded like a pilot, you know. With that you hear me? and all." You added in a jesterly matter.
"Pfft. Anyways, I just needed some help on this particular-"
"Essay. Definitely that one astronomy essay where you have to recite an entire timeline of the formation of Earth..." You hastily spoke to sound competent. Conn doesn't seem to be appealed by your misinterpretation. "...and how it significantly impacts the... the trajectory,"
Your words gradually died down as you see xyrs displeased face, not moving an inch. Eventually, you just shut yourself down completely. Something feels queasy with that frown.
"I'm not talking about some random essay," xe blurted out of nowhere. "I already finished mine, jackass. I don't even care what's in it." Conn adjusts xyrs position to directly face you and sighed, "Listen to me."
Xe continued, unaware of your static face and eyes widened behind the closed camera. Conn began ranting without rushing. "I think... things have been going off track over the past few days... no, weeks. You might notice the abnormality of everything here—I don't even remember the last time I have ever felt comfortable. I guess all of these exploring projects aren't so bad, yet we don't know where all of this planning will actually lead us to. Hell, we don't even know if we're gonna visit a planet, or a black hole, or anything. Don't you think something's going on behind the background?"
You really didn't expect someone like Conn to have that much sense of sentimentality. There was an eerily long pause before xe decided to spew out more words.
"Whenever I asked the teachers for specific details, they will almost always try to deviate the topic to random side-projects I don't even have any involvement with." Xe then paused for a slight second.
"Ms. Harren would be the only teacher who wouldn't sugarcoat this big of a project in my opinion. However, you know her deal with randomly disappearing for research sessions."
"What if all of this leads us to a devastating life outside of earth? What if we, you know, died before we even get there? Can you even comprehend about the seriousness of this entire thing? This is just-"
"You know what, I can ramble about this later. You still got your essay right?"
A few seconds passed by before you awkwardly answered. "Yeah. Right." You checked the clock on the screen. You spontaneously rubbed your eyes and then glanced at the clock once again.
9:47 PM. Shit.
Xe huffed. "I'm sorry for all this blabbering I plastered onto you. And uh, thanks for wanting to listen me. I knew you were going to be pissed off but I didn't expect you to sit through the entire thing."
"Just do that- that biology- astronomy essay for now. I also needed to do something else, so... see ya." xe trailed it off with a small wave and ended the call soon after. You can't stop wondering about your horrendous replies that made xem felt awfully disdained, which made your mind blank, staring into an endless vague of void.
Aw shucks. Guess you could've been better than that. Why won't you ever try to think before executing your actions? It has always been like this. Stupid ass
You shook away the relentless feeling of guilt as you work your eyes on the unfinished essay. You clicked on the bottom tab and started typing, which is a lot more distressing than you thought. The clock reads 9:50 PM. Ten minutes left, your thoughts muttered as your fingers move across the keyboard looking for sources and citations. Just a few more words and bits of illustrations should seal the deal.