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Red Velvet shouldn’t be sat on the steps at the back of the local church.
The same local church that had actually kicked him out of the building when they saw his right eye, the one with black sclera instead of white for some unexplained reason. They’d called him ‘the son of a demon’. Ironic because his mother is quite frankly the sweetest woman on earth who had previously brought many baked good to this church before they had decided to ostracise him because of something he had just been born with.
Of course you shouldn’t generalise a group of people. ‘If they’re an ass, then they’re an ass. Doesn’t matter what their race, sexuality or religion is’ as his step-dad would say, and honestly Silent Salt had a damn good point. Not all Christians are bad. But Red Velvet now naturally says as far as away from Christian as he could, one bad experience sort of soured his opinion on them and now has an extra layer of caution around them.
The only reason he’s here is some pretty girl that was actually raised in this church. A girl with lilac coloured hair named Pastry. Ironic how he dislikes Christians and yet he’s trying to catch a church girl after the sermon because he finds her to be the most breathtaking girl he’s ever seen.
Matcha would laugh at him. Venom would give him a weird look. Mold probably wouldn’t care, a mercy really. And Pom-Pom would probably just tell him to ask Pastry if she’d play princesses with her.
His mum? She’d coo and tell him to invite her to dinner despite the fact he hasn’t actually said a word to Pastry yet. Just saw her from the other side of the fence and almost tripped over Chiffon who he’d been taking on a walk that afternoon.
”This is embarrassing,” Red Velvet muttered to him.
”What’s embarrassing about sitting on some steps?” A voice asks and he immediately shoots off the stairs like he’d just been burnt by a scolding hot iron.
For a moment he just.. stares at this girl with wide eyes, taking her in for a moment. Definitely another church girl, wearing a white dress with some kind of nest embroidery, and a skirt that was definitely puffed out by something. Something akin to a veil on her head. The light blue of her hair shimmers in the low light of the slowly setting sun, eyes as blue as the sky on a clear day that are looking at him with curiosity.
”..P-Pardon?” The teenage boy stammers out, voice still stuck in his throat from the initial shock of being sunk up on. He was waiting for Pastry so he could speak to her, not whoever this is.
”You said ‘this is embarrassing’ but you’re just sat on the steps, what’s so embarrassing about that?” The girl asks. Polite and sweet, everything the church taught her to be. All in the image of God no doubt. The concerned expression gets a little more concerned as Red Velvet just continues staring, wide-eyed because the words aren’t coming out of his mouth. “Are you okay?”
Red Velvet clears his throat, the words cracking as he speaks. “Y-Yes, sorry, you just— took me off guard, y’know?” He stammered awkwardly, already mentally swearing at himself for fumbling over his words like a moron. “You.. are..?”
”Seltzer, and you?” Seltzer asks, holding a hand down for him to shake. Eyes tracking the way he obviously uses his none dominant hand to shake hers, it’s obvious in the awkward grip. But frankly explaining a prosthetic is a task and he’s not in the mood.
”Red Velvet,” he answers, taking a few cautious steps back to the stone row of steps, taking his seat once. Watching as Seltzer willingly took a seat next to him like he wasn’t called a demon child by the same church she attends. “You’re not nervous?”
She just tilted her head at him as if to ask why.
”My eye,” He says, motioning to his right eye. The blue one with the black sclera. The one that got him banned from a judgemental church, not that he gives a shit (he does, he wants to be accepted for who he is but he’d never say it). But Seltzer just gives a very puzzled look like she doesn’t understand why he’s even mentioning his eye, like it just… apart of him. Which it is, but she isn’t bothered by it. Like it isn’t a big deal to her. “It’s the eye of a demon child, that’s… that’s what…” his voice trails off.
”The eye of a demon child?” Seltzer asks, looking at him like he’s completely lost the fucking plot. And maybe he has, who knows at this point when he lives in a house with four younger siblings who decide his clothes are public property. “Your eye looks a little different, it’s probably some harmless genetic mutation!”
For a moment the world seems to stop. He can’t remember the last time somebody looked at him, saw his eye and didn’t think there was something wrong with him. But this girl, raised in the same church that never accepted him because of something as simple and harmless as the way one of his eyes look, just said that his eye was probably just some sort of genetic mutation. Which it probably is. But he’d never heard that from somebody that was apart of this church.
He nods stiffly, unsure of what to say. Seltzer seems really nice, not judgemental at all. Even someone he could be friends with since he doesn’t actually have any friends in this place.
”… Do you.. want to be friends?” He mutters, holding a hand out to Seltzer.
”Of course!” Seltzer exclaims happily, taking his hand in both of hers as she beams happily. She’s only really got Menthol and Pastry Cookie, and Doughael but they’re really busy with some secret church stuff lately. A new friend would be amazing.
Red Velvet blinked at the sudden and very loud enthusiasm but a slow, small smile creeps onto his lips. A small awkward chuckle leaving his throat.
”Oh by the way Pastry mentioned she saw you when you tripped outside the garden fence last night!”
Red Velvet felt his face burn red. Oh God damn it!