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Divorce—something that crumbled families, an irretrievable point of a relationship of no return. This was what Tai thought of divorces until the day his own parents did so.
He’d prepared himself for awkward dinners with one or the other, or the inevitable arguments that broke out when they talked with each other—face-to-face, because Sharpness was homeless and continued to live in Jude’s base even after the divorce.
So when Tai heard a shriek from the other side of the base, he believed that things were all coming to a head. Instead, this is what he heard.
“Sharpness!” Tai heard Jude shriek. At that time, Tai internally cursed at himself for not going out and instead being here for his recently-divorced parents first argument.
“What the hell are you doing on my floor?!”
“Can’t you see I just got back from a fight?” Sharpness snapped, from somewhere near the entrance, Tai supposed.
“Well, no shit, Sharp!” Jude spat out immediately, “You have cuts everywhere!”
“Then why are you yelling about the floor?” Sharpness said with a tone of indignance mixed with honest confusion.
“Because you’re bleeding all over my base!”
“Then just clean it later?” Sharpness said, genuinely confused.
“Clean it later?” Jude repeated once, perhaps trying to get Sharpness to see how absurd his statement was before he pointed it out himself. It didn’t work, obviously—because strength didn’t correlate to intelligence.
“You’re living in my base. Can’t you have the decency to wipe yourself down before entering? Do you even know how hard bloodstains are to get off the floor?”
“Oh… is it?” Tai could guess that Sharpness was the reason for their divorce.
Carefully opening the door, unnoticed by his two arguing parents, he understood why Jude was so pissed. Sharpness was sprawled on the ground, a puddle of blood sloshing beneath him every time he moved.
“...” Jude gave Sharp the most deadpan stare he had ever seen.
“Sharp. Can you be less of a chud for like 5 minutes?” Jude sighed, acceptance evident in his tone.
Tai could’ve sworn he heard amusement too.
Before Sharpness could continue their bickering, Jude grabbed him by the scruff of his armor, dragging him into an upright position.
“What are you doing?” Sharpness asked, confused for the 3rd time. Which, frankly, Tai had expected just as much as the other two.
“Getting you cleaned up because you can’t do it yourself.”
“I can clean myself just fine,” Sharpness retorted, albeit unconvincingly to both its intended audience and the eavesdropper.
Jude raised a brow, eyes narrowing in disbelief. “You were flat on my floor, bleeding, if I may reiterate. Let’s go, now.”
Sharpness sat indignantly on the ground, arms crossed around his knees while the blood on the ground continued to dry. Tai could only observe in utter bewilderment as Jude looped his arm around Sharpness’ knees and placed a hand on his back to steady him, picking Sharpness up in a princess carry.
“You’re so annoying.” Sharpness grumbled without any bite, letting himself be carried to the bathroom.
“Yeah, yeah. Whatever you say, princess,” was all Tai could hear as their voices got further and further away from his room, still bickering under their breaths.
Tai closed his door, and sat silently in his room for a moment. He regretted not taking a screenshot of the two alleged divorcees who were still, undoubtedly in love.
The next time they “argued”, it was over Sharpness’ cooking.
Tai wasn’t entirely too sure if he could even call it cooking, actually,
The last time Sharpness had attempted to make food, he had somehow made a white paste of an indeterminate origin, with a texture of something Tai lacked the language to describe, nor did he desire to describe.
Beside it, on the plate was the only thing Tai could make out as an ingredient. An undercooked egg with specks of green, which Tai knew weren’t vegetables because Sharpness, especially, hated any type of them.
Tai got takeout that day.
Therefore, for the safety of everybody, Jude is usually the one in charge of the cooking.
Which was why Tai’s communicator slipped from his hands with a clang when he saw Sharpness at the stove.
“You—” Tai started, then second-guessed himself.
They were all adults here right?
Wrong!
Perhaps if he didn’t have his sense of smell, he wouldn’t have noticed the downright rancid smell wafting over from the pot that Sharpness was stirring. “I’m going to get some takeout.”
“There’s no way you’re ordering food. Who am I making the food for then?!”
Tai wasn’t too sure if any living being could conceivably digest that. He could only hope he wasn’t the recipient of that brown-colored substance.
“Where’s Jude?” Tai asked.
At that instant, the thing in the pan started bubbling. Not “the water’s boiling!” type of bubbling, a certain type of bubbling where the bubbles get blown up slowly and make a pop while splattering some of the substance out of the pot every time a bubble burst.
Fuck… where was the lid? For all Tai knew it could’ve been radioactive.
“No, I’m serious, where’s Jude. I’m not eating this.”
Sharpness glanced at Jude’s room, which was locked shut, and said loud enough for his words to echo through the hallway, “He’s sulking.”
“I am not sulking! Sharp I swear—” Jude yelled as his door swung open. At that moment, perhaps he could smell whatever Sharpness’ version of Hell’s Kitchen was making, or the concerned expression on Tai’s face, but he sprinted over to where they were.
…
“Sharpness.”
“What.”
“What the hell is that?!” Jude rushed over to the stove to turn it off, possibly single-handedly stopping the murder of all three of them.
“Dinner— Why’d you turn it off?! You’re such a bitch!”
“Me?? Sharpness, are you seeing this? That’s… What the hell were you even trying to make?!”
Tai looked between them. Was this how all divorced couples acted?
“Sharpness, if you poison Tai and I have to spend the rest of the night dealing with you whining about how it ‘wasn’t that bad’, you’re going to be homeless by the end of this week.”
“You can’t ban me from our base!”
“Our??”
That night, Sharpness slept at the entrance of the base beneath the staircase, positioned in the place Jude was least likely to trap him out of sheer spite. Tai was convinced that if Sharpness took a few steps up the staircase, he would be sleeping in a 2-by-2 tonight.
Tai took a commemorative screenie from the top of the stairs.
Only 3 days later, Tai wakes up to shouting coming from Jude’s room.
“Sharpness.” Judelow hissed, voice ragged with exhaustion. “You are not climbing into my bed!”
Tai dragged his sleep-deprived body to his parents’ bedroom.
Sharpness and Judelow were scuffling on the bed for space.
Well.
More like Jude was trying to kick Sharpness off the bed with increasingly futile attempts while Sharpness—for god knows what reason—had both his arms stubbornly wrapped around Jude’s waist, refusing to move.
“Sharpness. Get out of my room!”
“But it’s cold,” Sharpness whined as he buried his face deeper into Jude’s shoulder.
Tai stood there woodenly. “Aren’t you supposed to be divorced?”
“Hear that, Sharpness?” Jude scoffed, continuing to push Sharpness off his shoulder, “We’re not married. Get off my bed.”
“Can we get married then?”
The divorce lasted a grand total of 14 days.