Point Of View: Arkas Payntace

I was thoroughly chilled when I heard Roy's story. I saw that guy, too, both on Sunday and with IF, and if IF was keeping track of him, maybe something really was wrong. It was hard to say with how little I knew, and I knew it was going to be a tough subject to talk about with anyone who wasn't in on it, which meant my only option for knowing more was either the friends I had just made or the man himself, and something told me the latter wasn't a good idea.

I fell asleep that night watching old episodes of The Joy of Painting on my phone. I had told Roy that I'd talk with my sources the next day, those sources obviously being IF. It was clear that something was going on and I wanted to be told the whole story, especially if shit like what happened last night was about to start happening.

The next day went by like molasses sitting idly in a jar. That is to say, it really didn't at all. I was nervous all day and it just made everything feel like it was taking forever. It quickly started to wear on me, but I trudged onward until lunch finally came.

As I sat down with IF and Compa at the lunch table, I tried to find the right words to say to voice my concerns about the mystery man that was apparently aware of Roy for some reason. I worked up much courage inside myself to do it, but just as my mouth began to form what would be the reigning question, I was interrupted by IF. "So, Arkas, you doing anything after school?" she asked.

"Wha- I, uh... No?" I stuttered to respond, being completely thrown off.

"I was gonna head down to the shopping center after school. One of my phones has been acting up and I need someone to take a look at it," she explained. "Compa mentioned she'd like to come along, so I was wondering if you'd like to come along, too."

"I... sure, why not," I shrugged. It admittedly gave me time to put off confronting anyone about this mystery man business.

"Perfect, we'll meet up after school, then!" she chimed, taking out one of her phones from one of her many pockets. The bell rang behind us shortly after, shooing us all off to our respective classes, but my mind never strayed far from what I knew I needed to do... just... I needed to do it later now.

As if a grueling punishment for not manning up and just addressing the situation, the rest of the day crawled on slowly like a man without legs. It was all relatively quiet and harmless, but painfully boring as every time any teacher had something unimportant to say, they seemed to have it in abundance. Despite all that, it did what it always does and eventually came to an end, leaving me to go on to meet up with IF from there... It hit me at that moment that I actually had no instructions on where to meet her, but I shrugged to myself and left anyway, figuring I'd wait outside the front of the school if I needed to.

"There you are," IF announced as I exited the front of the school. I wheeled my head around to face her. She was struggling with one of her phones in one hand, but her attention was on me, a lighthearted smile on her face. Compa came up from behind me wearing a similar smile. "Well, looks like I lucked out on having to look for you both," she commented with her usual confidence.

"It certainly, uh, simplifies things, yeah," I said, kicking the ground gently.

"Well then, we'd better get moving," IF mentioned, turning along. Compa shot me a candy-sweet smile and fell in behind her friend. I sighed and followed closely behind.

After a bit of small talk, we all fell silent. Neither party seemed to mind, they both seemed to be enjoying themselves in one way or another. It made me feel wrong about ruining it for some reason, so I held my questions until further up. Until, of course, my anxiety got the better of me. As the phone repair shop came into sight along the road, I finally sucked in a deep breath and prepared to ask.

"Hey, IF... I need to talk to you about something important soon, is that alright?" I blurted.

"Of course, Arkas," she responded. "You can tell me while we're waiting in here."

It wasn't what I had wanted to put out, but it was a start. We came up by a parking lot with a couple of familiar faces in it. It seemed Blanc was already along her way to the bookstore that lied on that row of shops. I was about to point it out to the group when I saw a few unfamiliar faces come out from seemingly nowhere and start following her closely behind.

"Is that Blanc?" I said anyway, craving the response if anything.

"I think so," IF said, looking up from her phone and over to the parking lot. "Who are those guys with her?"

"I dunno, I've never seen them before," I relayed.

I could hear the one in the center of the group call something out to her. It wasn't by name, it was just to get her attention. Blanc wheeled around on her heels and immediately her face warped to a scowl. Her stance became defensive as the other two guys entered her view. "I don't like the look of this," IF said, still watching along.

"W-what should we do?" I asked, anxiety welling up in my chest at the thought of getting the shit pounded out of me. It started to make my head swim as adrenaline filed into my system.

"We need to get in there and help her!" IF called, breaking into a run as one of the guys, the tallest of them, took a menacing step forward. "Hey! What do you creeps think you're doing?" IF called, alerting all of them to our presence. It was at that point that I started to fall in behind IF because I figured that by that point, I was already a part of it, so I might as well act like it, right?

"What THE fuck could- WHAT could you possibly want? What, are you the justice brigade?" the tall guy in the center yelled.

"Peter, maybe we should wait-" one guy to the side spoke up, the skinniest one of the three.

"Shut your FUCKING mouth," Peter yelled. His eyes scanned the three of us that had just stepped up. Unfortunately, his gaze fell on me. "You," he said.

"Me?" I asked.

"You look familiar," he clarified.

"Wh-What?! I-I'm new here, I didn't-"

"Wait, I saw him coming to school with Roy-toy," the short, squat one said, pointing a chubby finger. "Ain't you his cousin or something?"

"OH!" Peter yelled. "You're fuckin'... Anus, or whatever!"

"Arkas," I corrected.

"Arkas, of course. I remember you from back in the day, back when Roy and I were cool and shit," he laughed. "Shit, homie, it's been forever. How you been, man?"

"A-Are we just gonna ignore the elephant in the room?!" I yelled suddenly. I may have been on edge at that moment, so I didn't really know how loud I was going to come out with that.

"Yeah, you were never cool with Roy!" Blanc barked angrily.

Peter stood up straight and glanced over his shoulder at her. "Really? Izzat what he fuckin' told you? Pshh!" Shaking his head, he let out a laugh.

"I don't care who was friends with who," IF cut in. "You guys are gonna leave Blanc alone."

"Oh, is that what we're gonna do?" the short one asked, taking a step towards her.

"Bitch, I better hope so," I blurted.

"You wanna call him that again?" the skinny one growled, shrugging his way towards me.

The moment eyes were on the skinny one making his move, the short one reeled back for a punch at IF. It would have caught her firmly in the side if her leg wasn't suddenly in the way, blocking it perfectly. "You're gonna have to try harder than that!" IF spouted, retaliating with a solid kick to his chest. He threw his arms in the way, but even with that protection, her kick was enough to knock him over.

From the side, though, skinny was lunging at her. I lurched forwards to try and stop him but he was just a bit too far away for me to reach any part of him I could grab onto. She tried her best to dip out of the way, but he gave her enough of a body check to knock her over. I looked over at Blanc who was trying to rush in and help, but Peter was trying to block her way. With a solid kick to his stomach delivered in an instant, though, Peter was doubled over and Blanc was with me in trying to pry the skinny guy off IF.

It took a bit, but we managed to throw him off her with our combined strength. He fell back and stumbled to get up, not unlike the other two who were already starting to retreat. "You and your friends are meat, Payntace! Tell your fucking cousin!" Peter spat before rushing off.

I'll be honest, I impulsively gave him the finger. It may have been the pulsing adrenaline overcoming every sense of anxiety or the fact that we just won, but something had made me feel unafraid in that moment. I owed it entirely to IF and Blanc. Not to discount Compa, of course, who was swiftly at IF's side within a moment of the coast being clear. "Iffy, are you okay?" Compa asked concernedly.

"I think so, but..." IF trailed off.

After I was done with my little celebration, I joined Compa over by IF, as well as Blanc who was now calmly making her way there as well. IF didn't look particularly hurt, but she looked shaken, as if something about that encounter had really touched her deeply. She shifted about and looked down at her coat, most of the tail of which she was sitting on. Suddenly, that shifted as she shot up from the ground and began digging around the pockets of her coat. "IF, are you alright?" I asked.

She rooted around one of her pockets and dug out a phone that had been smashed to pieces. "Oh no," Compa said. "Did that happen when he tackled you?"

"It must have," Blanc said.

IF said nothing. She was just looking at the phone in total defeat. There was a sniffle before long, followed by another one, followed by a sob. "Aww, IF, come on," I pleaded. "Please don't cry. We're right here at the repair place. We can-"

"There's no way they're going to be able to fix that," Blanc interrupted. "It's in pieces."

IF whimpered helplessly. I felt bad for her. She's always looking at those phones of hers. They must hold a lot of important things for her. It just felt a bit weird how hard this switched her demeanor. Compa stood her up and put an arm over her shoulder. "Come on, Iffy, let's get you into that store and get you a new one."

IF weakly nodded, sniffling softly as tears continued falling from her cheeks. This was just painful to watch. Regardless, I came in behind them. There was a pair of chairs off to the side of the counter, so Compa gently sat IF down in one of them. She whispered something softly to IF before taking both the phones they were here for now and getting back up. "I'm gonna go talk to the man at the counter. Iffy's not really in a talking mood right now."

My eyes wandered to IF, hugging her knees to her chest and rocking slowly back and forth. Then my eyes wandered away from her to Blanc, who awkwardly looked to me before shrugging. "Should I go make sure she's alright?" I asked Blanc.

"If you want to. She might need it," Blanc sighed.

I walked over and sat down next to IF in the vacant chair. Words were about to leave my lips when suddenly she snaked her arms around my right arm and pulled it close, cuddling up to me. It was followed by a mild whimper which made me feel bad enough for her that I decided not to even question it. I just let her cling to me as she wished. "It's gonna be alright," I said. "Compa's gonna take care of it." Her response was nothing more than another whimper. I had a feeling she was gonna be like this for a little bit.

"Guys, I want you to forget you saw that... Please," IF stated firmly. We were in a booth in the diner up the street, sans Blanc who had made her Irish Goodbye when the waiting in the store started taking too long. It had taken a hot minute to get everything worked out properly, but Compa was very firmly set on getting it done. Get it done, she did, too! IF was set up with a new phone and a replacement part for the one they could fix. It was enough to get her to start talking again. Immediately after she did, though, she started begging us to never talk about this again.

"Y-Your secret's safe with me," I said. "N-Not like I have anything to gain by leaking it or anything."

"Yeah, he wouldn't do that," Compa echoed, smiling.

"Thanks, I just... gah," IF huffed. "I'm so embarrassed."

"I-It's okay, seriously," I added. "W-We all have things that set us off."

"Yeah, but mine is so little," she argued.

"But nothing, Iffy," pouted Compa. "It's okay to get emotional every once in a while."

"Fine," IF relented. "I guess I have to get used to the fact that it sets me off sometime."

"Great. Now if you'll excuse me, I need to go use the ladies' room," Compa said, her demeanor changing back to a positive one again as she got up and left.

This was my chance to talk to IF about it in peace. I couldn't let it get away from me that time, so I spoke up quickly. "Hey, IF? About that thing I mentioned earlier?" I said. She looked up at me. "Roy... saw that guy... the one from the park... when he was driving home one night, he was in the middle of the road and he looked at Roy." IF's eyes narrowed briefly, then looked down. "Is there something going on that we should know about, IF?"

IF looked back up with sternness in her eyes. "Yes, but I can't tell you about it just yet. I wouldn't do it justice without everyone here," she said. "Arkas, I need you to promise me that you'll wait until everyone is together, okay?"

"How long is that going to take, though?" I asked. "This guy targeted Roy yesterday, that means he knows the neighborhood we're in, the car they drive, he could find us with very little effort."

"I don't know how long it'll take," IF admitted. "But what I want to make clear is that we really are your friends, Arkas."

I hesitated, but after contemplating for a moment I drew in a heavy sigh. "I'll trust you, IF."

"Thank you," IF said with a gentler smile than her usual confidant one. "Oh, and thank you for backing me up out there, even if you weren't fast enough to stop him."

"Hey, what kind of guy would I be if I left you right there?" I asked, smiling like a nitwit.

"What kind of moment are you two having here?" Compa asked teasingly, sitting back down in her booth seat.

IF's face flushed bright red. "What? N-Nothing like that"

"She just wanted to, uh, thank us for backing her up when things went south back there," I said, stretching the truth just a bit. I didn't want Compa to feel left out or anything.

"Yeah, pretty much," IF said, giving me a side-eye, but quickly looking away as another blush set on her face.

"Oh, you guys, I'm joking!" Compa giggled.

"Compa," IF sighed. "You know I'm not good with that stuff."

"I know, I just couldn't help it," she grinned.

"It's getting late. Might wanna start heading back now," I mentioned.

"Oh crap, it is getting there, isn't it?" IF agreed.

"I'll see you guys tomorrow at lunch, then," Compa chirped enthusiastically.

"Yeah, and Arkas? I'll get started on that thing tonight, okay?" IF said.

I smiled at her. "Great. Thanks." For once surrounding this whole thing, I felt relieved. I trusted that I was going to get answers. If only it were that simple.

A/N: Another chapter down. The thing with IF's phone was something I've been planning since the beginning basically. I had thrown out Chapter 9 as a point where it should happen but I didn't expect to actually hit the mark on that. Either way, hope you guys liked it. As most of my chapters do, this came out of a burst of creative energy that came from fucking nowhere. Don't forget to rate, review and reconsider...