A Troublesome Duo

“Everything you just said is wrong.”

“Was.”

“What?”

“Everything you just said was wrong.”

“Are you seriously correcting my grammar right now?”

“Would you prefer I correct your wrong opinion, instead?”

“Opinions are subjective! How are they supposed to be wrong?”

“When your opinion is based off of facts that are completely wrong!”

Their bickering went on for a while. I looked towards the other silent person across the table mirroring my expression of disappointment. I could easily recall the joy I felt upon finding out I had been grouped with two of the school’s most talented students in the fields of art and literature, respectively. Certainly, with their genius capabilities all of our activities would be a cinch.

I took a deep breath for what I could only believe to be the hundredth time already. This was our third attempt at starting our first group assignment. I had heard  rumors of the heated rivalry between the academy’s favored writer, Marcus De Vera and number one artist, Paulette Chavez but this level of squabbling was beyond my expectations.

“Your stories are filled with nothing but black and white! There’s no colors, no creativity, no originality! They’re all dull and boring!”

“Excuse me?! Coming from the person whose drawings lack vibrancy, extremely simplistic to the point that a child could recreate it and a complete and utter disgrace to the field of art?!”

“You take that back!”

“No, you take that back!

It was a good thing we had our meeting in Marcus’ house. This would have been embarrassing if anyone else could've heard this.

“Hey, Wren!” Marcus called out to me, “Which are better, my stories or Chavez’s doodles?!”

I was suddenly getting dragged into a comparison of two completely different fields which required two entirely diverse sets of skills and standards. Huh.

“I think–”

“Doodles?! Your stories are nothing more than scribbles!” Paulette continued to burst. “Fantasies that children dream about to pass the time!”

I stared at Robin, our fourth groupmate, looking for help. We were sitting at the two ends of a table with the troublesome duo yammering at each other at the middle. I stood up and walked over to where Robin was sitting.

"Should we just get started?" I murmured.

"Well, I don't think they're going to be stopping anytime soon."

A while later, we had moved to a different table in the same room, the sweet unfamiliar sound of silence began to dawn on us. Robin and I glanced away from our laptops and then at each other in confusion. We both looked over to where the two were and were then surprised to see Marcus standing up.

"You guys want anything to drink?"

We both shook our heads.

He came back a few minutes later with a bottle of Coke and a pair of mugs with letters engraved on each one. Paulette didn't bother to hide her dismay as she grabbed the cup with her initials on it. I squinted my eyes to get a better look at the other mug. It had Marcus' initials.

"We're out of Sprite."

I looked over to Robin as she looked at me. We were thinking the same thing. We hid our heads behind our laptops.

"Why do they have couple mugs?!" I whispered at her.

"You think?"

"That they're?!"

"What if?"

"Imagine if they were–"

"We're not!" Marcus and Paulette shouted in unison.

"My mother forces us to use this!" Marcus explained.

"We weren't saying anything," Robin teasingly remarked, “Nothing at all.”

"You were thinking about it!" Paulette accused.

"Thinking about what?"

Paulette looked away, "T-that we're a couple."

Marcus's face reddened as I placed my hand on my mouth, recognition dawning on my face.

"Let's just get to work," Robin suggested but I quickly spoke over her.

"I'll tell everyone in class if you don't help out this instant!"

Robin covered her face in disbelief.

After that, it didn't take less than half an hour to finish the presentation.