Episode 7: The Pretty is Too Handle!

It won’t surprise you in the slightest to learn that Suika’s life changed when she found out that the love of her life (in a way) was now going to the same high school as her friends.

It was like my prayers were answered. (Ironic considering her power).

And now, it was her time to act on her wish.

★

Suika wanted to be a good girl, so she showed up at the high school right after her school ended. (Mimori texted her, alerting her that the CDAC was going on that day, and yes, Mimori has a phone now.)

She was going to meet Nick. Finally.

Now it was time for Suika to ponder something.

What do I remember about Nick from Black Sash? Let’s see…

He was a bad boy. (Clearly.)

He liked to hook up with girls after only knowing them for a few weeks.

Somehow, he was responsible for global warming. (Maybe because he was hot enough to melt the polar ice caps—Drew wouldn’t be having that, of course!)

Oh, and 4. He had a rough and tumble childhood.

That was all that Suika knew about him. After all, he was only in three episodes—he would’ve been in more if it wasn’t for the stupid show being canceled.

Fuck you, WB.

Suddenly, her phone buzzed in her hand, startling her.

Ah, Mimori. Of course.

You there?

At that point, the girl was entering the school’s premises.

Yeah, Suika replied, her hands shaking.

Yay! Nick is waiting for you! :P

Upon looking at that text, she had to wonder for a bit why Mimori was so excited for her to come and steal him away (probably).

Heh. “Probably?” I think that's “definitely.”

★

After a little bit of signing in and being directed to the literature room (yet again it seemed), she was finally there.

Knock-knock-knock-knock, knock!

She knocked on the door in a rather rhythmic pattern just because she could.

Promptly, Mimori opened the door, smiling a wide, creepy smile.

“Hey~!” she said in a sing-song voice. “Come in, he’s here~!”

“No, duh!”

Oh my God, it’s him.

She almost died.

Suika skittered into the club room like a chipmunk being chased after a dog, eyes surveying the landscape.

Ah. There he is.

Nick was reclining back in one of the chairs, the back of it snug up against the window of the bookshelf.

“Wassup,” he said casually, waving at her lazily.

Suika froze in place, in front of one of the seats she was going to sit in.

W-what do I do?!

“H-hi!” she squeaked out nervously, going all the way back to the front of the classroom instead.

Nick chortled. “What was that all about?”

“Don’t worry about it,” Tomo said, giggling.

Yeah, please don’t.

Suika then took a deep breath, and let it out.

“‘Paradise Circus,’” she murmured.

“Huh?” That was Behami, whose head perked up from laying on the table. “That sounds like a level in a Mario game!”

Of course no one gets the reference. It’s a pretty deep cut.

Suika’s thoughts were interrupted by Erica slamming her fist on the table, making Behami’s arms fly off the surface at a record speed.

“Take a seat, please!” she said in a voice too fitting for a teacher. “Or, if you’d much rather wanna sit next to Nick, ask Mari to move!” Erica smiled sadistically, which was a first for Suika to see.

Mari pouted. “Oh, come on! No fair! This is my spot!”

Erica shrugged. “Ah, oh well. I don’t make the rules, just enforce them.”

Asuka raised an eyebrow. “Um, alright? I would like to speak to this higher power you follow, however. They seem rather interesting.”

“Aughhh, alright…” Mari groaned, getting out of her chair. “I’ll switch with you then. I shouldn’t have such a strong connection to a school chair anyway.”

Mimori laughed at that, and the laugh came out shrill and forced-sounding. Suika went around the table to Mari’s seat and sat down in it.

Oh my God. Here we go.

She was officially sitting next to her crush… well, one of his forms, at least. It wasn’t Drew beat-for-beat.

“Alright,” Erica announced shortly thereafter. “I see that everyone is here now! And Suika, just so you know: This is our first official meeting with Nick in it, so I’m going to have us introduce ourselves to him. This includes you, okay?”

Wait—why did they have him join just now?

Suika tried not to think about it too hard. After all, she assumed it probably took a little more effort to get him to join since the club basically did, uh, anything—which, in actuality, should be its main selling point.

Schrödinger’s Club: The club that can do anything and nothing simultaneously.

“You don’t have to introduce yourselves, man,” Nick said, chuckling again.

AHHHHH HIS LAUGHING IS SO CUUUUTE!!!

Erica sighed. “Well, I think it’s a good idea, so I want us to do it! Mimori, you’re up first! We all know how much you love it!”

Mimori pouted cartoonishly. “Mouuu, really? Fine. My name is Mimori and I love to read, draw, sing, and write!”

“And be obnoxious,” Kasumi said teasingly.

“Uguuu…”

Saying “uguu” certainly doesn’t help.

Eria cleared her throat. “Speak of the devil! Kasumi, you’re up next!”

“You mean ‘Speak of the angel,’” Kasumi replied, a smug look on her face. “As you know, I’m Kasumi, and I, uh… Um, I like to hang out with my best friends, and binge-watch shows on Netflix. That’s me in a nutshell, more or less.”

Nick raised his hand, albeit in a hesitant manner. “What’s that?”

Kasumi cocked her head to the side. “What’s what?”

“What was it called again, Net-something?”

“Ooooh! Netflix!” Kasumi broke into hard cackling. “It’s only the greatest streaming service ever!”

“Yeah, alright. I heard one of my friends mention it before, but I forgot the name of it. I thought it sent, like, movies to your house or something?”

“It did,” Tomo added. “But not anymore, apparently.”

“NEXT! ASUKA!”

★

Suika sunk further into her bean bag chair.

It was after school, and at the moment, she hated life.

Not because of what she’d said about herself at the meeting (all she said was “Hi, I’m Suika and I love to write stories”), but because of the fact that Kasumi had invited Nick over to watch some TV shows that night. (Given that it was the weekend, it only made sense.)

And since Kasumi brought Nick over, guess who else was invited?

Mimori.

Of course.

It may not have seemed like the biggest loss, though, because she could always just summon her own Nick (or even better, Chris)—but in the current situation, she wanted the real deal.

“The real thing,” if you will.

Suika wanted to beat herself up for not saying “Hey, can I join?” in the club room when Kasumi and Nick were excitedly talking about Netflix.

Why do I have to be so painfully shy at times?

That was when she had an idea.

She was just going to text Mimori, to ask her if she could come over.

What a simple plan (ha!). How come this just came to mind?

With a flick of her wrist and a tap of her finger, she opened up Messenger to text her fellow Drew Junkie, hoping that she didn’t mind.

Hey, she started with. Is it okay if I come over to your house to watch crap with you and Nick and Kasumi?

Two minutes passed before Mimori responded.

Sure! That’ll be fun! :) Is Tomo gonna teleport you over?

Oh, shit. I forgot that Mimori can only time travel.

Sure, she replied, nervousness bubbling up on the inside.

Cool! See you soon! We’re watching MLP, by the way. Nick thinks Dashie is best pone <3

Ugh. Talk about CRINGE.

Of course, Suika typed, and then she went on with step 2 of her mission. (It’s a mission now…?)

Call Tomo, and not in a literal sense.

“Tomooo!” she yelled, but not too loud.

The bespectacled girl arrived not even a minute later, in a sparkly purple light. (Much like how the whitelighters arrive, she noted.)

“Hey, Suika!” she said, looking way too happy. “What’s crackin’?”

Suika took a deep breath and looked up at her friend, hands balled into fists. “Alright. I want you to take me to Kasumi’s house… If that’s alright with you, that is.”

Tomo nodded once. “Okie dokie! Let’s go then!”

The two joined hands and were then off to Kasumi’s house.

Guessing that she’s been over to her house before, otherwise, she wouldn’t know what it looked like and wouldn’t be able to teleport there.

★

The next thing Suika knew, the girls were on Kasumi’s front porch.

Hopefully no one saw us, otherwise that’d be an awkward talk!

“Thanks,” Suika said.

“No problem, dude!” Tomo replied, doing a thumbs-up. “Have fun over here! Isn’t Kasumi-chan and Mimori-chan watching a movie or something?”

Suika nodded.

She doesn’t sound the least bit jealous, huh?

“Alright! Well, call me when you want to go home okay?”

“Okay.”

“Groovy!”

And with a dumb-looking spin and finger point, Tomo teleported away.

What was that all about? Suika wanted to know.

As if on cue, Kasumi opened the door.

Obviously, she looked surprised. “Oh! Um, I didn’t expect you here.” She narrowed her eyes and looked the girl up and down for some reason. “Or should I have? Hmm… yeah, I should’ve.”

You should have.

Suika nodded, and Kasumi let her in. The first thing that she noted was how nice their living room looked. Light green paint on the walls, two matching gray couches and loveseat, and a giant flatscreen TV above a nice entertainment center were the things that stood out for her at first glance.

And that’s when she was greeted by him.

“Hey, man!” Nick hollered, which she noted was very un-Drew like him. (Well, he wasn’t Drew, to be fair.) “Welcome to Kasumi’s drive-in theater! Home of My Little Pony!”

Suika forced herself to drag her eyes from him to the TV screen, which was indeed playing My Little Pony—a show she liked from what she saw, but not to the extent that Mimori and Kasumi liked it.

Her eyes then dragged themselves back to Nick as she got closer to him.

He was out of his school uniform now and was wearing an incredibly early-2000s outfit which consisted of jeans and a red t-shirt with a black one underneath it. Suika only assumed that he was sweltering wearing that, but yet again, teenage boys were certainly a different breed of humans altogether.

Oh well, at least his hair looks nice—all messy and stuff, with those cute little baby bangs…

“W-where should I take a seat?” Suika managed to stutter out after surveying Nick’s appearance of a grand total of Who Knows How Long But Long Enough.

“Next to me!” Mimori said cheerfully, patting the seat next to her, which was currently unoccupied. “Kasumi can sit on the recliner chair.”

Kasumi groaned in response. “Fine. You and your fellow Drewtard can sit together, and I’ll just be by myself over here.” She sat down on the other couch opposite the loveseat and the other couch Nick was in, ducking under the TV so as not to block anyone’s view.

“Symbolism!” cried Mimori in a dumb-sounding deep voice, complete with an “echo” after it.

After that happened, footsteps were heard that gradually got louder and louder. Upon looking at the staircase, it was Kasumi’s dad.

“Is everyone alright here?” he queried, peering over the banister. “I thought I heard the door open.”

A little too late for that one.

“Oh, it did,” Kasumi replied coolly. “Another one of my friends came over. This is Suika!”

“Hi.” Suika smiled sheepishly, waving to the man.

With a grunt, resembling an “Okay,” the dad nodded and went back upstairs.

“Well your dad’s an absolute joy to be around,” Suika commented flatly.

Kasumi snorted, and with that, the My Little Pony watching continued.

★

A full hour passed and once they got to episode 10 of the show, Mimori wanted to play a game with the crew.

“Okay, but we better make this quick,” Nick said, looking understandably bummed. “Miharu told me not to stay out past midnight on the weekend.”

Kasumi gave him a weird look. “Okay… that’s a dumb rule. Why?”

“Even when it’s a fellow club member’s house?” Mimori pondered, tilting her head to the side accordingly.

Nick heaved a heavy sigh. “It’s a long story, and I don’t wanna go into it right now… All you need to know is, Tomo’s gonna drop me off at around 11:50… that’s what I’ve planned.”

“Yup. She sure is public transportation!” Mimori cackled. Suika had to giggle at that one.

After laughing at that admittedly good joke, Nick raised a hand.

“Wait a second. Tomo is the only one that can go to different places, right?”

“You mean ‘teleportation?’” Suika said, piping up.

“Yeah, yeah. That word. I want that power. I think it’d be cool to have it.”

Upon him saying that Mimori and Suika shared a glance at each other and tried not to scream.

Kasumi looked at the girls, shrugged, and continued with the conversation.

Nick looked down at his feet, becoming shy. “I’ve always wanted to go places by myself and whenever I wanted to. Like, I could just pop into Paris right now, or something.”

Kasumi nodded along. “Oh, yeah! We’ve been to Paris before! It’s not as great as people say it is, but it’s still pretty neat.”

During this conversation, Mimori and Suika started to squeal nonsense at one another, like they were two Furbies communicating.

Nick blushed. “Yeah. I figured as much.” He looked at the clock on the stove and Suika did the same.

Ah. It’s time for him to go, I guess.

“I’ve gotta leave soon,” he announced. “Sorry. I guess we can’t play a game this time after all.” Nick smirked, a smirk so strong that it made his left eye squint. “Maybe next time.”

AHHHH that smirk is so adorable!! How is he a bad boy again?!

Mimori’s eyes widened. “Really? You actually had fun hanging out with us? Like, watching ponies and stuff?”

What’s with all the unneeded emphasis on random words?

Nick shrugged, smiling. “Yeah, man. It was fun. I’d do it again.”

Nick then pulled a phone out of his pocket (an iPhone 6S Plus GUI Edge Edition, no less) and began to dial Tomo’s number. Suika noticed that he had a bit of trouble navigating the touch screen. She assumed that was because he was used to cell phones having literal buttons that you had to press with a certain amount of force.

Mimori giggled, the grin on her face emitting a creepy aura. “Would you do it fifteen times over again?”

Nick held the phone to his ear and a finger to his mouth.

The room was silent for a second.

Then, Flugle began to talk.

“Yeah, this is Nick… yeah, that would be nice. Right now? Sure. Thanks, dude. Game on.” He then hung up, and the girls could tell that he was still looking for the non-existent clasp on the non-existent flip phone.

“And now, to answer your question, Mimori.” Just like Hank did, he never actually rolled the “r” in her name, but Suika was sure that she didn’t care, as long as he was saying her name. “Yes… I would do this fifteen times over again. This is way better than anything that I’ve been through in the past, like, sixteen years in my life.”

Suika made a soft “awww” sound. He’s so sweet and wholesome.

It was then when she was looking at his face (yes, again) that she noticed something slightly different about it.

A scar was on the right side of his chin.

★

Tomo ended up teleporting Suika, Mimori, and Nick home one by one. Nick was first, and Suika couldn’t help but notice how cool his apartment was. She learned that he shared it with the other Black Sash characters, which only made sense.

After Mimori conversed with Tomo for about ten minutes about nothing in particular, it was Suika’s turn to go home.

Talk about finally.

After Tomo teleported away, Suika was left by herself. Time unfroze so it wasn’t midnight anymore.

Suika giggled, remembering Nick’s distress over him going home late. The giggling echoed a bit off the walls and she felt slightly creeped out by it. (Is she learning about her own creepiness???)

If only he knew, if only he knew…

Suika sunk back into her bean bag chair, and then when it hit her—

I’m back where I started!

Well, sort of. Now instead of wishing to witness more Nick moments, she got her fill of them (well, almost).

Suika allowed and kicked her feet about, her mind starting to wander.

Mimori and Nick… They’re actually pretty cute together.

Wait—WHAT?!

She never thought in her life that that thought would cross her mind.

That’s when Suika had an idea.

I’m going to fight fire with fire.

Well, Flugle with Flugle, she supposed.

“Let’s summon Justin, another high school-aged Flugle!” Suika got up from her bean bag and formed her hand into a fist.

Justin was similar-ish to Nick, but he had longer hair, wore hoodies, and played guitar, three things that the latter didn’t have (although she was sure that Nick had one or two hoodies in his closet). He was also from a failed pilot called Home of the Brave, one that was so hard to come by that the only footage she could find of it was from the Wayback Machine on a Drew Fuller fansite.

All in all, better than edgy Nick, which Suika couldn’t help but admit made her sing “Only Time” whenever he was around (mentally, of course).

And so, Suika closed her eyes, thinking about him in the greatest detail she could.

Poof!

Suika heard that noise and opened her eyes.

Justin looked exactly how Suika envisioned him, but with yellow eyes instead of green because she had summoned him.

Somehow, the yellow eyes make it better.

“Uh…” he began, voice shaky. “What am I doing here?”

A huge smile spread across Suika’s face.“You’re in the future,” she said smugly.

Justin scratched his hair, probably in confusion, and Suika longed to touch it. He’d let me, right?

Anyway, moving on.

“The future?” Justin asked, in a tone that was still unsure that what was going on at the moment was true. “Like, how far are we talkin’? 2004? 2012? 2038?”

Suika felt like laughing. Not that far in the future, silly!

“2016,” she finally replied.

The next thing she knew, the two teens switched spots. Now Suika was the one standing and Justin was sitting on the bean bag chair.

“Fourteen years in the future…” he mused. “Dang.”

F-fourteen years? That thought suddenly crossed Suika’s mind. That’s one year less than my age!

However, Suika didn’t dare say that out loud, provided it would be too awkward. Instead, she giggled. “You saying ‘ding’ reminds me of my friend Naoko. She says ‘ding’ all the time.”

Justin made a face of puzzlement. “I don’t get what that has to do with anything. Oh, and I still don’t know why I’m here, by the way.”

Suika sighed and decided to sit down next to him, her legs on the cushy off-white carpet.

“You’re here because I summoned you here. I just wanted company. This isn’t a dream, by the way.”

That’s the best you could come up with? Really?

“Yeah, okay,” Justin said flatly. “I already pinched myself so it’s definitely reality.”

He pinched himself? When?

Suika continued to sit next to Justin and let everything that had happened today, and everything that's happening now, sink in.

I hung out with my crush today, and I’m hanging out with another version of him right now. No one is as lucky as me.

It was true. Half a year ago, all of this magical stuff would’ve made Suika laugh out loud… But it was all real.

And it was amazing.

Now I guess I’m gonna introduce Justin to the wonderful world of Wattpad.

It was a unique idea, nonetheless, but one that would amuse the both of them… as long as Suika wasn’t reading aloud any of her fanfics. Now that would be awkward.