"Corey! I was starting to get worried," Mei said.
She ran over to him and threw her arms around her boyfriend in a hug. He returned—holding her in his arms for a moment—before she stepped back, smiling at him. Her expression changed as she looked behind him.
"Where's Amy?" she asked.
"She's just in the other room with Sven."
"Is she ok?"
"Yeah, she's fine. You just know how those two are," he said, shrugging.
"So, what happened? Did you find out about these monsters?" Mei asked.
"Well, Amy and I found this document about it."
"You did? Can I see it?"
"Oh, you could if we had brought it back with us," he said.
Mei rolled her eyes. "Then, what did it say?"
"It talked about it, about all of these monsters."
"Okay, then. That's what I wanted to know. What did it say?"
Corey's face looked flushed. He didn't answer right away. Instead, he looked at the ground as if he would find the words written somewhere on the tile.
"It's kind of hard to explain, I guess. Sort of."
"Is it that bad?" Mei asked. Her face—which had looked hopeful—fell and she looked just as exhausted as she had before.
"Erm, well…"
"Come on. Spit it out, Corey," she said.
"How about…well, think of it like this. Let's say you're in a sand box, okay?" Corey said.
"What am I doing in a sand box?" Mei said. She put a hand on her hip and eyed him, and she clearly wasn't following where he was going with the idea.
"Work with me, babe. Just listen. So, you're in a sand box and there's this kid there with you with a ball. He coughs on it and then, he offers it to you. Now, there are these germs all over it, so you don't want to take it, do you? You'll get sick, right?"
Mei didn't respond. The look on her face was enough to tell Corey that he wasn't making much sense to her.
"You don't get it, huh?" Corey sighed.
"No, not really. Why don't you just tell me?"
"Here's another example. You have a ham sandwich and—"
"You know I don't like ham," Mei said.
"Okay, it's just some kind of sandwich. Focus on the idea!"
She was starting to get a little frustrated with him. As far as she knew, none of these things had anything to do with monsters or an infected school campus.
"You have the sandwich but it's covered in mold. You probably don't want to eat it. So, you have to throw it away, but it's safer to put gloves on, so you don't have to touch the mold," Corey said.
"What? Gloves? What are you talking about?" Mei said. "And mold isn't that bad. It's okay to touch, you know."
"Alright, maybe not gloves. But something to protect yourself with…and…" Corey said, struggling to keep his analogy together.
"Are you okay?"
"…so, you want to keep yourself away from it because you're going to get sick and the easiest way for that to happen is for it to get into your body, and—why are you looking at me like that?"
"I'm not following you," Mei said.
"I actually have to say it?" Corey sighed. "Can I just whisper it?"
"Sure, if you want to."
Corey leaned forward and cupped both hands around his mouth as he whispered to Mei. She looked confused a moment, furrowing her brow.
"What? I couldn't hear you," Mei said. "Whisper louder."
"Sex, Mei! Unprotected sex," Corey shouted, both feeling and sounding irritated. He didn't want to say it out loud, even if no one else was around, but she didn't seem to be getting it unless it was right in front of her face.
"What?" Amy said, as she and Sven came through the back door.
"Oh, great," Corey groaned.
"Talk about a bad time to come into the conversation," Sven said.
"Thanks, guys," Corey said, gritting his teeth.
"Maybe you can explain it better, Amy," Mei started to say, turning to her.
"No, no! I got it," Corey said. "I can explain. See, the way this must've happened was the night of the party or something and…"
Amy suddenly gasped.
"What?" Corey asked.
"Oh, geez, really? You've got to be joking. Corey!" Amy said, like she was accusing him of something. "Did you really?"
"What?" Corey cried.
"Is…is…um…" Amy said, crouching over to whisper into Corey's ear. "Is Mei pregnant?"
"What?" Corey cried. "What gave you that idea?"
"Well, it all makes sense. Just the little bits of the conversation I heard, it would only make sense if Mei was pregnant or something," Amy said.
"Huh?" Mei said. She looked confused, and a little embarrassed.
"Corey, what did I tell you about using the contraceptives? It's the only way to keep yourself safe and responsibility-free for the future," Amy said.
"As if you'd know," Corey said.
His face had turned bright red, glaring at her. Sven's laughter snapped his attention away from her.
"What's so funny?" he said.
"Wow, you're getting pretty worked up over this. We all know that Mei would be smart enough to take 'care of things,' so there's no way that…well, you know," Sven said.
"You guys are all crazy," Mei sighed. "Corey was talking about these monsters and how why showed up."
"Oh. It's just because some of the students just had unprotected sex and it transferred the mutations," Amy said. "That wasn't so hard, now was it, Corey?"
"You really are a blonde," he said. "I wasn't—you didn't have to…just forget it."