The waiting room contained a totality of twelve. Or fifteen if you count Navy and Vienna's three children as well. None of them knew each other at all. Only Nori and Rice knew each other, as did Navy and Vienna and their children, of course. It was the first time that they were all with each other in the same room.

Everyone was dressed in a grey shirt with fitting grey trousers, and soon got to pick a colour with which they'd eventually get associated later on. There were red, orange, yellow, lime green, dark green, cyan, dark blue, purple, pink, white, brown, and black.

Squee, the light blonde person, just idly sat there, picking their nose every now and then just to eat its contents (which is healthy somewhere according to actual studies), and aimlessly staring at the many pages of a science magazine.

Lava, the fiery redhead, was calmly reading the newspaper with a snobbish attitude, and didn't seem to care about the others around her. Indeed, nobody dared to look at her due to her consistent frown and the negative aura that she appeared to give off.

Yikk, the slightly dark blonde person with a lime-coloured highlight in their bangs, was idly scrolling through their Tumblr feed on their phone and occasionally liking a post that pleased them, while sucking their left thumb and slowly blinking their eyes in a catlike style. Nobody seemed to be bothered by the thumb, though.

Pop, the African-American girly girl, was also scrolling through her phone, but through her 9GAG feed instead, altered by occasionally checking her face in her pocket mirror just to check if her makeup was applied correctly.

Choco, the chubby young man, was reading a ginormous recipe magazine and occasionally took photos of interesting recipes with his phone to save for later. He especially seemed to be interested in the desserts that contained gingerbread and/or chocolate, though.

Charlie, the tomboy with the cyan highlights in her blonde ponytail, was frantically texting her friends and acquaintances and seemed to get messages from them every 3 seconds, even if they were all on good terms with each other.

Billy, the Latinx with the dark brown curls that resembled a thick cloud, was reading a gossip magazine of sorts, and occasionally smiled and chuckled at some of the articles in it.

Navy, the gentleman who looked like he could easily be in the navy as well due to his outfit, was reading the recent news on his tablet, with his daughter Nika sitting next to him while she silently worked on the colouring book on her father's phone. They were both pleased enough.

Vienna, the tired-looking mother with the hurricane-like hairdo, seemed to be half-asleep, as she gently held little theyby Yuri, who was asleep for real, in her grasp, and her son Neri, who sat in between her and Nika, was also amusing himself with a little game on his mother's phone, but a jigsaw puzzle game instead.

Nori, the older and male twin, shared a facts magazine with Rice, his younger and nonbinary twin sibling. They whispered all sorts of things towards each other and occasionally softly giggled about it. About the facts, that was, not about their soon-to-be fellow crewmates.

And Arnie, the former private, was also reading the news, but on his phone instead. He was waiting for the time in which he and the others would officially get assigned as crewmates at the Skeld.

It was so quiet in the waiting room, that one could hear a needle fall. The only sounds aside of the softly giggling twins and Billy were the flipping of pages, the occasional clearance of one's throat, occasional soft yawning, and Yuri's soft snoring. (Even if they did sleep with a soother, which usually reduces snoring.)

At a certain time, Nika lowered her father's phone and looked around the room to see who else sat there, aside of her parents and siblings.

Neri copied his older sister after a few seconds.

"Who are all of those people?" he asked.

"I dunno" his sister replied. "They're all so different, too. That girl with the pigtails has the same skin colour as our neighbours on the right, and I'm not sure about that person with the green piece in their hair. What is their age? Are they the age of Mum and Dad?"

"That person with the green piece of hair looks sweet. Just look at those teeny tiny spots above their cute nose and under their eyes!"

"Those are called freckles, silly."

Yikk looked up from their phone once they heard Nika and Neri speak, and took their thumb out to speak as well, having heard the kids' question about their age.

"Me?" they said. "I've tuhned eighteen wecentwy. Yeah, I know I don't wook wike it accowding to a ton of othahs, but twust me, I am a wegal adult by now." Aside of having pretty severe rhotacism and quite the high-pitched voice, they also had a thick Irish accent.

Neri squeaked in delight upon hearing Yikk speak.

"They even talk sweet…!"

"Sweets?" Pop asked. "Where?" She looked around the room until she saw Choco grab a gingerbread biscuit from his chest pocket. "Hey, you, could I have a biscuit, please?"

"Of course" Choco replied, "I've got plenty." He briefly got up to hand the sweet treat to his new acquaintance.

"Thank you."

"Anytime. I like your kindness, by the way."

Slowly but surely, everyone but Lava started to make the atmosphere a little livelier by starting random conversations with each other.

Hearing the many soft voices, little Yuri slowly woke up and rubbed their eyes while looking at their mother.

"Hi there, sweetums" Vienna said to them. "Did you sleep well?" She adjusted her glasses before letting the baby sit down on her lap, gently taking their soother out and putting it into a case in her handbag.

"Well" Charlie said, "looks like there's finally some life here. The silence was kind of killing me back there, honestly."

"Tell me about it" Squee said.

"Oh my gosh!" Billy squealed once they saw Yikk, "you're soooo adorable! Look at those cute little freckles above your cute little button nose!" They got up and bopped the nose of their new acquaintance, who simply blushed and giggled in response. "Well, who would've thought that a future crewmate of mine would be this adorable?!"

"Why, thanks" Yikk simply replied, while rubbing their warm cheeks with their hands. "Good god, why am I even bwushing…?"

"They're nearly as bustling as the rest of the family back at home" Nori said to Rice.

"Perhaps they could be our surrogate siblings?" Rice stated, "rather than just our fellow crewmates?"

Many conversations kept on going through the room, even when a thirteenth person entered. He was a Japanese man dressed in formal, fortegreen attire, wore oval glasses, and had a very smooth face that made him look a lot younger than he actually could be.

"Good day, my good crewmates" he said. "May I introduce myself? I am Mack Anderson, and I'll be picking the leader of the crewmates, based on many details I've gone through for the past few days after receiving your responses to the invitations I've sent to you all."

"So you won't be our leader?" Choco asked. "Then what kind of affiliation will you have to us, sir?"

"I will be your manager, young sir. If anything more urgent will be going on between the twelve of you, then you should speak to me. Your leader will have my contact details, and they'll be the only one who can directly contact me for most of the time."

"Sounds pretty cool, really" Billy said, "Mack the manager."

"Doesn't it?" Squee said.

"Personally" Lava said, "I think Lava the leader sounds better." She put her newspaper down before looking Mack in the eyes. "Sir, I am competent enough to be the leader, right? I've proven myself to be that way quite often before ending up here."

"No, no, young lady" Mack said, "that's not how we pick leaders of crewmate teams. We do that based on more details than just common competence."

"Well, figures then."

"The silent one spoke" Navy said, "and she seems a tad arrogant, to be honest."

"Doesn't she?" Vienna replied. "So full of herself."

"Hey, I heard that!"

"Now, now, young lady, don't react that way." Mack put a hand on Lava's shoulder in a calming fashion. "If you want to be a crewmate, you should keep yourself level-headed."

"Yeah" Pop softly said to some of the others, "I kind of agree there."

"I don't even know what that means!" Squee said.

"I'll twy my best to do so" Yikk said, "because aftah all, I'm onwy human, too."

"You cannot try more than your best, mate" Arnie said, as he got up to rub the cute youngster's shoulder, "and that's only good, you know?"

"Now to tell who your leader will be. Sir, please sit down." Mack flipped through some of the pages of his clipboard until he found the correct one. "Based on well-balanced details such as age, experience in all sorts of respects, and former functions, I picked Arnie as the leader of this new team of crewmates. Everyone else will be the regular crewmates under his watchful eye, and can go towards him in case of emergency. Well, less urgent emergency, that is." He grabbed a silver pin and handed it to Arnie. "Congratulations to you, Arnie Kane, my good sir. As the leader of your fellow crewmates, you will have the ability to contact me in case of urgent emergency."

"Thank you very much, sir." The former private accepted the pin and pinned it to his shirt, not knowing what else to do with it. "Yes, I will actually pin it to my primary uniform once I can wear it again. Combined with my future signature colour, that is." He shook hands with his manager.

Meanwhile, all of the other crewmates applauded for Arnie to congratulate him with his new status.

"So that's one name known" Charlie said, "if it comes to us crewmates. And, of course, we also know our manager's name, but he's not a crewmate, so yeah."

"Then, what's your name, young lady?" Arnie stood in front of all of his crewmates, so they could look him in the eyes. "You all might as well introduce yourselves to me, because otherwise, it'll be a little difficult to tell one another apart, of course."

"It's Charlie."

"They call me Squee because I often tend to say 'squee', or so Mum and Dad say."

"Hi, my name is Pop."

"Hewwo, I'm Yikk."

"Yikk?!" Lava scoffed. "That's one nasty name, man."

"Hey!" The youngster slapped the snob's hand hard. "That was vewy wude of you to say!"

"I cannot agree more" Billy said. "I'm Billy, by the way."

"I bet your nickname's Lava?" Arnie said, as he chuckled a little at the snob. "You're really like the volcano that erupts hard easily."

"Wh-?" Lava blushed hard, seemingly not having heard such a comment about her nickname before.

"My parents call me Choco because I'm a chocoholic, which is logical since they have a candy factory that especially specialises in chocolate. No, not like in the movies at all, I wish!"

"I was named aftah an inventowe of an iconic towah in the Mushwoom Kingdom." Yikk giggled cutely after speaking.

"Then I should most likely share an interesting fact about my name, too" Mack said. "My many siblings and I were all adopted as unnamed babies – albeit not all at the same time, sadly – and my parents are such huge lovers of music, that they decided to name all of us after songs, including me."

"A song about Mack?" Navy said. "Never heard of that."

"But I did" Nori said. "Mack the knife. My sibling Rice and I here are also from an adoptive family, by the way."

"Very well guessed, young sir, and a very nice thing we have in common as well." He ruffled the older twin's blonde hair in a friendly fashion.


After an hour, all of the new crewmates had picked their signature colours each. This colour would be the colour of their spacesuits that they'd wear on their missions, and the corresponding oxygen tanks that they would carry on their backs while wearing the suits.

Lava's signature colour was red, Squee's was orange, Billy's was yellow, Yikk's was lime green, Arnie's was dark green, Charlie's was cyan, Navy's was dark blue, Vienna's was purple, Pop's was pink, Rice's was white, Choco's was brown and Nori's was black.

Nika, like her father, got dark blue as her signature colour, while Neri and Yuri got purple like their mother.

Mack promised to check the new crewmates on their missions every now and then, or in case of many sick people, be a crewmate as well to help them out. Unless everyone would be sick, of course, then he and someone else of his choice would take care of all of the others.

"Alright then" was the last thing he said once he escorted the twelve new crewmates to a living building of their own, "you all, the best of luck on your upcoming missions, and you can all do your best there. Until next time, farewell."

The living building was a lot like the one that the many other twelvesomes of crewmates from the Skeld company had. Large, neither too cheap-looking nor too expensive-looking, including the most important details like plenty of space, good sanitary and washrooms, solar panels, a good waste recycling system, and plenty of plain 'quiet rooms' in case someone needs their time alone, or to discuss something private with someone else. Not to mention the choice between sleeping in an individual bedroom, or in the well-known dorm room.

"I'd love to have a room of my own" Lava said in a very strict tone, "and none of you should dare to ever come in there without my permission, like the butlers and maids always did back at my home!"

"Yes, ma'am" almost everyone else responded nervously.

"Now, where do the kids sleep?" Navy asked. "Definitely not in the dorm room."

"I agwee with you on that one, Navy" Yikk said. "I dun want anyone to just touch my dolls oh anyfin'! They be wohth a ton, you know?"

"Sentimental value, I presume?" Billy asked.

The youngest crewmate nodded shyly.

"You" Nika said to Yikk, "Neri and I would never touch any of your stuff. I already have my own dolls, and so does Neri. In fact, we don't even let Yuri touch them, as they also have their own toys and such that we never want to touch anyway due to the high amount of saliva on most of those."

"Ew" Squee said, feeling their stomach churn at the mere thought of touching anything covered in saliva.

"Now, now" Vienna said to her daughter, "be a little respectful for your youngest sibling, Nika. You know they're most likely teething at the moment, right? Why else would they wear a bib all day?"

"Because they're hungry all day?" Neri tried jokingly. "Of course not. I'm not hungry all day either!"

Most of the crewmates laughed about Neri's statement.

"I wike how you descwibed it an' how wespectful you tweat othahs' bewongings" Yikk said, as they ruffled Nika's hair in a kind fashion.

"Aw, thanks."

"Now" Nori said, "where do we sleep?"

"I'll take the dorm room" Arnie said, "if others can stand the sound of my soft snoring when I sleep, that is."

"Oh, that's no big deal" Squee said, "I also snore."

"I sleep with earplugs" Pop chuckled, "so for me, it won't be that much of a deal."

"Neithah will it be fo' me" Yikk added, "as I'm quite the heavy sweepah anyway."

"Anyone who wants to be in the dorm room" Billy said, "just follow me and Arnie, and we'll claim our rightful spots there."

No sooner said than done, the dorm room was officially claimed the shared bedroom of Arnie, Billy, Yikk, Squee, Pop, Choco, Charlie, Nori and Rice.

Navy and Vienna had a master kind of bedroom that they shared and was connected to a room that Nika and Neri shared. Yuri would sleep in a lowered crib next to their parents' bed, even if they weren't at the age of nocturnal feedings anymore.

Back in the dorm room, everyone was still picky about where they wanted to sleep, even if all of the beds were small double beds.

"I ought to sleep in the corner" Charlie said, "because in my most recent bedroom, I also did, and in my honest opinion, it feels really calming to be there, especially when I feel overstimulated or anything." She put her luggage down next to the bed in the utmost corner of the room.

"Mind if I claim the bed next to you?" Choco asked.

"Of course not, do whatever you wish."

Pop claimed the bed next to Choco's, and didn't mind that Billy slept next to her, too.

One of the beds, in yet another corner of the room, was a bunk bed, which stood near the beds of Charlie and Choco. Nori and Rice decided to claim it, and were noticeably enthusiastic about it, as if they never slept in a bunk bed before. (Which they actually did back at their most recent home, they were really just enthusiastic about the fact that there also happened to be a bunk bed in the dorm room!)

Furthermore, Arnie claimed the bed that stood the closest to the door (which he called his 'master bed'), Squee claimed the one next to him, and Yikk had their bed in between both Squee's and Billy's.

"It'll feel so different to sleep here tonight" Rice said. "I never shared a room before with anyone that's not Nori."

"Same" Pop said, "but in my case, never shared one with anyone that's not my older sister instead."

"I've never shared a room at all beforehand" Charlie said. "I wonder what'll happen."

"If you're also bothered by snoring, I could always give you a few earplugs of your own, if you'd like."

"Maybe I could indeed use a few, as I hear too much due to hyperacusis and that's one of sleep's biggest enemies, in my opinion."

"I heawe a ton of you bein' bothewed by snowin'" Yikk said, "but is any of you bothewed by thumb-sucking, by any chance?"

Silence fell in the dorm room.

"Uh, no?" Squee said.

"Why is that?" Arnie asked.

"I still do it, and wumouh has it that if I don't, I snowe neahwy as woudwy as a dwiwwing wig. Oh so my pawents an' sibwings said wong ago… so yeah, my thumb is kinda wike a mute button, you know?"

"Yikk, that's no deal at all!" Choco chuckled. "Not a big one, not a small one… do as you please, pal!"

The cutesy youngster chuckled in response.

"But don't y'all dawe to take it out, of couwse…! Unwess the sound of snowing is wike ay-es-em-awe* to you, that is."

The last statement made everyone else laugh hard.

"Then nobody should be bothered by stuffed animals and all that jazz either" Nori said, as he took a plush rabbit from his luggage.

"No, no" Charlie chuckled, "I bet everyone around here still has at least one. Here's a tip from me: feel free to do that, because after all, nobody is too old to have stuffed animals 'and all that jazz'!"

In response, everyone freely grabbed any plush toys and dolls from their luggage and neatly arranged them on their respective beds.


Meanwhile, in Navy and Vienna's bedroom, the two were busy making their own bed after doing the same to their kids' beds.

Yuri was idly sitting in their crib as if it was a playpen, watching their parents work hard in awe and quietly smiling as they (Yuri) did.

"I wonder how soft this bed really is" Navy said, "compared to ours back at our previous home."

"Tell me about it" Vienna chuckled, as she adjusted the mattress cover as well as possible before grabbing her pillow from her suitcase and frantically fluffing it up.

"I do hope that we will get some decent rest in it, because even if our previous one was quite soft, we didn't sleep that well in it for most of the time."

"That's a good point for sure."

Within almost no time, the bed was all done being made. To test it, Navy and Vienna jumped onto it, both landing on their backs after doing so.

Yuri chuckled at the sight, apparently thinking it was something funny to see.

"I think Yuri probably approves of its comfiness, too" Vienna chuckled. "This thing feels like a cloud of marshmallows, man!"

"Doesn't it?" her husband said with a big smile.

The many chuckles have caught Nika and Neri's attention, and they went out of their bedroom to take a peek.

"Seems like this bed is more comfortable than the old one to you guys" Nika said.

"We should sleep in it sometime, too" Neri added. "If one of us had a bad dream, that is."

"But we should be quiet for Yuri by then, because they sleep right next to them, and I don't think they'd approve of the sound of any of us weeping."

"Good one. But I'm not too good at remembering, so would you mind helping me at it by then?"

"Of course, that's what being a big sister is good for." The dark blonde kindergartner embraced her younger brother from behind his back.

"So how are your beds?" Navy asked.

"They're nice. In fact, the whole room we have is quite nice, compared to what we had back in that apartment building. Tons of space to sort our toys and stuff in." Nika put a hand on Neri's shoulder. "Right, Neri?"

The shy little boy nodded with a genuine smile.

"That's very nice to hear, you guys" Vienna said. "I'm only glad that we can all settle well here." She got up and took Yuri in her arms, who was still smiling contently.


*how else would ASMR be pronounced by someone with rhotacism?