It was the first day of a new school year, and on this warm, early autumn day, the wavy-haired, bespectacled, freckle-faced Jewish girl named Shannon trekked across the schoolyard toward the brick and mortar structure before her, but there were two things that were different about this year – one was that she would be a sophomore, and the other was that she already had a year to become familiar with this building, its layout and floorplan, and where everything within was, so it was very much like returning to familiar nesting grounds after a brief summer migration. The first time that Shannon had attended Royal Woods High the year before, she was a shy and mousy introvert who hardly made any friends, and often kept to herself, but the events that she had experienced over the course of the previous year had shaped her into an entirely different, and arguably better person; she went into the previous year with the assumption that nothing new or noteworthy would happen to her, but she was going into this new school year with a different attitude and outlook, ready to take on anything that came her way.

And who should happen to come her way at that moment but an old, dear friend of hers, with whom she had been attending school since the sixth grade; a jolly and jovial girl whose most prominent physical features were bucked, braced teeth, and a swirled, light brown pony tail.

"Well, if it isn't the gal who finally outwitted me!" Luan greeted her fellow brunette as she brought up the memory an impromptu battle of wits on the last day of their previous school year in which Shannon had managed to finally beat the seasoned junior comedienne at her own game.

"Well, if it isn't the recently-demoted second banana!" Shannon returned the greeting, while Luan faked a look of offense and indignation. "How about it, Luan? We're not the babies again this year!"

Luan chuckled, "No, we're not… but, Lincoln is! Today's his first day of middle school."

"Ooh, I can remember how intimidating my first day of middle school was," recalled Shannon. "Was he nervous?"

"Nervous? Lincoln?" Luan responded. "He's been rehearsing his own personal, lavish musical number to start his first day of middle school with a bang!"

"Wow!" Shannon marveled. "Maybe he'll do better in the glee club than we did…"

Shannon called back to the elective that she and Luan enrolled, and even met in, when they were in the sixth grade - neither of them did particularly well in the Royal Woods Middle Glee Club, so they did not opt to enroll in it again after their inaugural semester of middle school.

Luan immediately slapped her hand over Shannon's mouth to silence her.

"Shh!" Luan scolded. "Don't be tempting fate like that!"

Tempting fate, indeed; if only they knew what the future held in store for Lincoln when it involved the Royal Woods Middle School Glee Club.

In spite of all the noise that filled the schoolyard, the two girls had clearly heard a loud whistle that was projected toward their direction, followed by a certain voice that had called out Shannon's name.

"Ruby?" Shannon turned around, and amidst the crowd of students who had converged on the school grounds for their first day, she spotted a certain Indian-American girl dressed in a maroon tunic with turquoise leggings who not only waved to her, but ran to her as well. "Ruby!"

To maneuver their way through the crowd of students was not the easiest task, but even so, Shannon and Ruby managed to weave in and out of the congestion of foot traffic, and run into each other's arms for a big embrace.

"Mazel tov!" Ruby greeted Shannon in her Hebrew language.

"Namaste!" Shannon greeted Ruby in her Hindi language.

In her excitement, Ruby had lifted Shannon off of the ground, and twirled her around to the point that it began to inebriate her senses.

"Whoa! Rubes! I'm getting dizzy!" Shannon said as she was spun right round like a record, baby.

With that, Ruby ceased in her spinning and returned Shannon to her feet with a chuckle.

"Sorry, Shans," she apologized. "I'm just, like, so psyched to see you again; it's been too long!"

Too long since the two girls had gotten to see each other on a regular basis, that is. One of the only opportunities they had to see each other during summer vacation was when they both had secretly attended that year's annual Royal Woods Pride Parade...

A hot and sunny day in June, Shannon and Ruby met up in secret to attend the local parade that had been organized in honor of LGBT Pride Month, but they were not at all alone: some of their theater friends had also attended to show their support for the two of them; dressed in matching, solid colored polo shirts, with Ruby in red, Shannon in orange, Luan in yellow, Lyberti in green, Benny in blue, and Leo in purple, they had made themselves into a walking celebratory rainbow. This was not the first time that Luan had attended the annual Pride Parade - not only had she attended before in support of her big sister, Luna, and her girlfriend and bandmate, Sam Sharp, but she also had attended with some of her other siblings, and especially with Lincoln, in support of Clyde McBride, and his two fathers, Harold and Howard.

Although Shannon had struggled with her sexuality for over a year, to attend that year's Pride Parade with Ruby, and to be supported by her friends helped further ease her into coming to terms with who she was, as she mentioned to them when the group had gathered together at a picnic table in the park before the parade drew to a close.

"You know... for the first time in my life... I think I finally feel comfortable in my own skin..." said Shannon with a sense of peace of mind.

"Like, I feel comfortable in your own skin, too," said Ruby with a rather cheeky grin on her face.

Shannon's pupils had shrunk when she suddenly felt something under the table.

"Uh, Ruby?" She spoke up. "Do you know your hand's on my knee?"

"Yeah," said Ruby so nonchalantly.

"And... now, it's... moving around a lot...?" She mentioned.

"I know," said Ruby still so nonchalantly.

"Oooh, looks like somebody's taking a HANDS-ON approach in their relationship," quipped Luan.

While the others giggled, Shannon's face had turned bright red as she swatted away Ruby's hand before she slipped it any farther up her thigh.

"Aww, someone's still so shy," teased Ruby as she pinched Shannon's reddened and freckled cheek.

With a new school year ahead of them, and whatever possibilities said new year had to offer, the two were overcome with the sense of joy and excitement, as they pulled each other into yet another big embrace. To see each other again, to hold each other again, to feel each other again, and to even smell each other again, it was a moment of nothing but pure bliss for both girls to be reunited with her loved one. Even so, one mutual friend of theirs was unable to resist being a buttinski as she approached their little reunion.

"Hey, what about me?" Luan asked. "What am I, chopped liver?"

Ruby chuckled as she pulled away from Shannon and offered a little hug to Luan as well.

"Hey, Luan; long time, no see," the Indian girl greeted the comedienne. "So, those birthday parties keep you busy this summer?"

As Luan pulled away from Ruby, she looked just somewhat harried as she explained, "Especially in August, that's when I have the most bookings every year. One week was so busy; I had two bookings every single day! Some days three!"

"Dang it, girl!" Ruby marveled. "Where do you, like, find the energy?"

"From having ten siblings in a house that's always loud!" Luan said somewhat poetically.

That only made Ruby grateful once again that she never had any siblings of her own. By blood, that is. There was still the one girl who she had come to consider her honorary sister, and it was the Jewish girl in the orange sweater who stood among them, and offered some commentary of her own.

"I'm not surprised to hear about all those bookings," said Shannon. "I once read that August has more birthdays than any other month of the year."

"Huh… well, guess that means November is the luckiest month of the year," quipped Luan with one of her usual chuckles.

It took a moment for Shannon and Ruby to comprehend the context of Luan's remark, but they also chuckled once they got it.

"I guess that must be, like, why 'No-Nut November' became like a thing…" surmised Ruby.

Luan and Shannon had another good chortle over Ruby's little tongue-in-cheek observation, but it was at that moment that the yellow-clad comedienne realized that she needed to break away from their conversation.

"Well, I'd love to continue our scintillating little chat some more, but my homeroom class is all the way on the top floor this year; that's a lot of stairs to climb!" Luan explained.

"You never were much of a stair master, were you?" Shannon quipped before Luan could take off.

That remark took the seasoned comedienne totally by surprise, but as soon as it sank in, it gave her yet another good laugh; Shannon really had gotten a lot better at coming up with clever zingers on the fly.

"Yeah, I really ought to enroll in a twelve-step program," mused Luan.

"Acrophobics Anonymous?" Shannon quipped again.

Luan had to disappoint her irresistible urge to continue engaging in another impromptu battle of wits – she still had to get to her homeroom class, and it would not be a good thing for a student to be tardy on the very first day of the new school year, all the while, Ruby looked on in admiration of Shannon's quick wit; how she was able to come up with such wickedly clever one-liners off the cuff as she did was beyond her comprehension, but in reality, being friends with a pungeon master such as Luan Loud for so many years had definitely had some influence on the bespectacled brunette.

"I guess we better get to our homeroom classes, too," said Shannon as she returned her attention to the Indian girl who stood by her side.

"Yeah, but first, we, like, totally need to mark the occasion…"

With that, Shannon found herself pulled closer to Ruby to the point that their cheeks were practically smooshed together, while the girl in the maroon tunic produced her mobile phone for the purposes of taking a selfie of the two of them; after the picture had been snapped, she immediately shared it to Instacram, and captioned it with, 'Reunited n it feels so good!' Shannon, meanwhile, could only shake her head in amusement; some things never change, she thought to herself.


Without any of the nervousness that came with attending a new school for the first time, that new school year promised to be far less stressful and confusing. However, from a social standpoint, it had shaped up to be a bit of a disappointment for both Shannon and Ruby; as had been the case of their previous year, it did not appear that they would actually share any classes again this year – or, at the very least, this particular semester, and for the time being, their lunch periods did not dismiss during the same time either, their new lockers for the year were not even on the same floor… and, much to Shannon's surprise, they would not even share the same elective for the semester, something that she would find herself explaining to an unlikely person come the following Friday afternoon, when she returned to the stage of Royal Woods High for another year of Mrs. Bernardo's drama class. Of course, she was pleased as punch to see that her longtime friends, Luan and Benny, had enrolled in the class again, but it was also equally as nice to see other familiar faces from the previous year again, such as her personal vocal coach, Lyberti, and even her former-arch-nemesis-turned-respected-colleague, Amy, and, of course, her beloved boyfriend, Rex. What surprised Shannon was the return of a certain burly and dark-skinned jock in an orange number seven jersey who had previously dropped out of the club the year before.

"Hey, Shannon," greeted Spencer as he cordially, yet also somewhat timidly, approached the girl in the sweater of the same color.

"Hey, Spencer," Shannon returned the greeting just as cordially in spite of her surprise. "Making a triumphant return, I see…"

"Yeah…" he said a little bashfully as he stroked the back of his head. "I just… told Mrs. B. the truth…"

"The truth?" Shannon asked in intrigue.

"Yeah…" said Spencer. "About why I dropped out of the club last year, because I caved into peer pressure, rather than follow the beat of my own drum…"

"I see…" nodded Shannon understandingly.

"But you know, I finally laid down the law with the rest of the guys," continued Spencer as he began to crack his knuckles. "I said if dudes in sports club who wanna be cheerleaders ain't sissies, then neither am I if I wanna do theater!"

"Sounds like that worked out well for you," observed Shannon.

"Yeah, that shut 'em up, alright," nodded Spencer. "After getting all that off my chest and explaining everything to Mrs. B., she was willing to give me another shot."

"Well then, welcome back," said Shannon as she offered Spencer a congratulatory handshake, which he gladly accepted. "You really caught a lucky break there with Mrs. B.; last semester, it took all of us to collectively persuade her to give Ruby another chance."

What seemed to help in Spencer's favor in getting back into Mrs. Bernardo's good graces was that he spoke to her directly and explained himself in his own words - something that the drama teacher found admirable and commendable... perhaps if Ruby had thought to do the same, Mrs. Bernardo would not have been so hasty in declining her application to re-enroll into the club the previous semester, which lead to Shannon leading the charge in the other thespians' rally to persuade their drama teacher to reconsider such a decision... it also probably did not help Ruby's case that, with the exception of her Juliet audition, she, arguably, did not seem to put much effort into this class up until she dropped out, as opposed to Spencer, who seemed to be more of a natural performer than she. Luckily, she really brought her 'A'-game when she was given another chance, and managed to prove to Mrs. Bernardo that she could, indeed, use her talents to her fullest potential, and not just waste them as she had; if Ruby could prove herself like this, Mrs. Bernardo felt certain that Spencer could prove himself just the same.

Spencer's smile dropped somewhat at the mentioning of his ex-girlfriend, whom he also happened to notice was nowhere to be found in the auditorium, which made him a might curious about her conspicuous absence.

"Sooo… Ruby not in theater this year?" He asked.

Shannon sighed before she explained, "No… not this semester, at least. She was going to enroll again, until she heard about Miss Mattila's new modern dance club, and decided to give that a try."

Ruby may not have had the height or build of a cheerleader, but she could certainly move her body to any music or beat, so to enroll in a new dance club as an elective for the current semester seemed like a no-brainer for her.

"Oh, yeah?" Spencer asked. "She couldn't do both?"

"Apparently not," said Shannon. "Apparently there was a scheduling conflict… but, she figured she's already spent a semester and a half in theater, so she wanted to give the dance club a whirl since its new and all."

"I bet she'll be great in that class," said Spencer as he remembered being witness to his ex-girlfriend's moves before. "This one time, we all went to Gus's Games and Grub, and she went up against Brittany at Dance Battle. Man, she killed it!"

Ruby may have had moves, but Shannon knew that she did not; Ruby had tried to persuade her into enrolling in the dance club with her so that it could be an elective that they could take together, but Shannon knew that when it came to dancing, she had two left feet, lacked rhythm, and would most likely trip over everybody else in the club when she would not be tripping over herself. Even so, Ruby enjoyed dancing, and still wanted to give this new club a try, at least just for one semester; she would most likely return to theater the following semester, since, as she had explained to Shannon on their very first day in Mrs. Bernardo's class the year before, with her family tree tracing back to where many consider to be the moviemaking capital of the world, show business was practically in her blood.

Curiosity had gotten the better of Spencer as he asked Shannon a rather personal question: "So… how have you two been doing together?"

Needless to say, this made Shannon feel rather awkward, and even a little uncomfortable to discuss her current romance with Ruby's ex-boyfriend, and while she had no personal bad blood with him, she wanted to avoid dipping into any dark waters if she could help it. Just the same, she also wanted to at least try to remain on good terms with Spencer and not risk any sort of a rift with him such as what she had with Amy the year before.

Finally, she reluctantly answered: "As a matter of fact… things are just fine between us… we're… very happy…"

Spencer may have smiled, but even she could tell that it was something of a defeated smile.

"That's nice…" he said. "You're lucky, Shannon… you've got yourself a really great girl…"

That remark made Shannon feel all the more uncomfortable – she was not sure if this would lead to her having to deal with jealousy and resentment from Spencer for dating his ex-girlfriend, but luckily for both parties, that discomfort was alleviated when Spencer added another comment with a more genuine smile:

"But now, she does, too…"

Hearing the sincerity in his voice quelled whatever insecurity Shannon may have just had about Spencer, as a smile had also returned to her face.

A part of Spencer did still wish that he had better control over his actions and behavior, so that maybe, perhaps, he and Ruby would still be together today, but he knew that he only had himself to blame for pushing her away, and as such, he really had no right to be bitter or resentful… he was aware that his ex was now with somebody who would treat her in the way that he should have: as a loving and supportive girlfriend, and not as a personal good luck charm to parade around like a trophy.


With a Sunday afternoon free and open, Shannon and Ruby managed to work things out to where they could spend a little bit of quality time together, since the way their schedules ran during the rest of the school week offered them hardly any time to interact with one another, with the exception of entering and exiting their school building each day. In as much as the two girls enjoyed the exposure to the other's likes and interests, nothing thrilled them more than the discovery of a common interest that they could share in, which was why they had decided to grab lunch together at a local Chinese restaurant, as they both loved Chinese food.

They paid a visit to such a restaurant that was known as Pan-Pan Palace, which featured a rather generous buffet, and to make the atmosphere family-friendly, the image of their mascot, a Chibi-esque panda named Pan-Pan, was emblazoned all over the restaurant. This turned out to be Ruby's first visit to Pan-Pan Palace in Royal Woods, and while she was blown away by the oversized buffet of food that they had to offer, she was equally entertained by how seemingly everybody who worked in the restaurant knew Shannon by name, from the kitchen staff who kept the food at the bars freshened, to the waiting staff who tended to the customers, to the hostess who greeted them at the door.

As the two girls trekked from their table over to the buffet, Ruby could not help but share in her amusing observation, as she probed, "Have you done, like, dinner theater here before? You're practically a celeb here!"

Shannon had a chuckle over Ruby's observation, but had a very logical explanation for the restaurant staff's familiarity with her: "My family and I come here all the time. Especially Christmas."

Once they approached the buffet, they each grabbed themselves a tray so that they could begin to fill them with whatever food items that they wished to eat, but Ruby's amusement only continued to grow.

"What, you mean like from that Christmas movie or something?"

Being the movie buff that she was, Shannon was able to deduce that Ruby must have thought of the scene from the classic holiday flick, A Christmas Story, in which the Parker family's turkey had been ravaged by their neighbor's pack of unruly hound dogs, and with their Christmas dinner having been ruined, they went out to a Chinese restaurant, where the waiting staff sang carols to them in broken English, and served them a meal of Peking duck… with the head still attached, much to Mother Parker's disgust and horror, and the amusement and amazment of brothers Ralphie and Randy. The thought that Ruby assumed that was the case tickled Shannon's funny bone, but that was not the case at all.

"Going out for Chinese food at Christmas is just a Jewish thing, basically…" she explained. "There's been a couple of Christmases where we ran into Benny and his family here, too."

"It's a small world after all," responded Ruby in a sing-song voice, which garnered yet another giggle from Shannon.

Shortly thereafter, the two returned to their table with their trays loaded down with food, just as a little black-haired server named Ping had dropped off their drink orders: lemonade for Shannon and a pot of hot tea for Ruby. With chopsticks in hand, Shannon was just about to begin to devour her meal when Ruby took notice of the contents contained within her tray and stopped her.

"Wait!" She shrieked.

"What?! What's wrong?" Shannon asked in a panic.

"Aren't you not supposed to eat that stuff?" Ruby asked as she pointed out the shellfish that Shannon had selected.

Shannon was relieved that Ruby's sudden panic was over nothing serious, as she further enlightened her about her food choices.

"Not if you keep Kosher, which my parents and I don't," explained Shannon. "And I, for one, am glad about that, because I love shrimp! I can't get enough of it!"

It was true. Shannon's tray was filled to overflowing with a variety of shrimp: fried shrimp, baked shrimp, grilled shrimp, coconut shrimp, walnut shrimp, shrimp Rangoon, and shrimp rolls. As it turned out, Ruby was the same way about chicken; her tray had been loaded down with General Tso's chicken, teriyaki chicken, orange chicken, sweet and sour chicken, cashew chicken and chicken dumplings.

To spend an afternoon together such as this brought much joy to both girls; they were still at a stage in their relationship where they wished they could spend every waking moment of their time together, but each of their separate obligations and commitments presented a bit of a hurdle for both of them. An outing such as this was probably even more preferable over having lunch together at school: they could eat at their leisure, without the worry of having to finish within time constraints in order to return to a class immediately after. Not that they minded when they could have lunch together at school with the rest of their circle of mutual friends, such as Benny, Luan, and Lyberti, but this was finally a moment for just the two of them.

When Shannon enlightened Ruby about Spencer's return to the drama club, she seemed to teeter on the fence about the revelation: on the one hand, it was she who had made the suggestion to him to consider enrolling in theater again; on the other hand, despite the fact that they had buried the hatchet and were on good terms with each other again, she was not so sure that she was ready to interact with him on a continuous basis again. Otherwise, Ruby had also enlightened Shannon about her first week of attending the new dance club, and that it looked to be an interesting class, despite its slow start – after all, it was only the beginning of the school year, and much like Mrs. Bernardo with her thespians, Miss Mattila wanted to train her dancers through exercise lessons before they began to put on recitals.

After they finished a dessert of fried bananas smothered in a strawberry glaze, their server brought over their checks, as well as two fortune cookies.

"Thank you for coming," said Ping in a much practiced voice before she turned to her bespectacled Jewish customer with genuine sincerity. "Oh, Shannon, do send regards to you mommy and daddy for me!"

Shannon smiled, chuckled, and responded, "I will, Ping. See you at Christmas!"

"Mazel tov!" Ping said in a farewell before she went about her way to tend to other customers in her section of the restaurant.

Ruby continued to smile at how Shannon seemed to elicit such a fondness from people… and, why wouldn't she? Once you got past her initial shyness, Shannon was an absolutely delightful, wonderful girl.

"You're, like, so famous," said Ruby with a playful sense of admiration. "I'm, like, not worthy of being in your presence."

"Oh, stop," joshed Shannon as she picked up her fortune cookie. "Wonder what my fortune will say today."

"Oh, those things are, like, so fake," grumbled Ruby.

"Yeah, I know," nodded Shannon as she cracked open her cookie. "But, I still like to read them, anyway – sometimes they can even be weird and funny!"

With a shrug of indifference, Ruby reluctantly took hold of her own fortune cookie and, likewise, cracked it open. Shannon pulled the tiny sliver of paper from within the crunchy, vanilla pieces that she popped into her mouth to eat, and read over what her fortune held for her.

"'The winds of change shall blow into your direction.' Hmm, not sure if that's a good thing or a bad thing…" she looked across the table and queried, "what's yours say, Rubes?"

Ruby looked a tad perplexed as she read over hers: "'Avoid becoming the monster you once knew.' Okay, I, like, don't know any monsters, so I don't know how I could, like, avoid becoming one."

After she tossed the slip of paper aside, the girls left their table to pay for their checks, and exited the restaurant, having enjoyed the time that they spent together, and the food that they had eaten as well.

"I'll tell ya…" began Ruby as they strolled down the sidewalk. "One thing about Chinese food is it can, like, really stay with you…"

"Yeah…" agreed Shannon as she licked her lips. "I can still taste it…"

Before Shannon knew it, Ruby had spun her around and planted her own lips onto hers in a brief little kiss, and when she pulled away, she, too, began to lick and smack her lips.

"Yeah, I can still taste it, too…"

It had taken Shannon by surprise, but it had also tickled her as she giggled somewhat awkwardly over what Ruby had just done.

"Actually…" just as before, Ruby planted her lips onto Shannon's for another kiss, then pulled away to lick her own. "You know, you're right… that shrimp is so totally good!"

Shannon continued to giggle, but this time, she returned the favor and planted her lips onto Ruby's for a kiss, and just as playfully pulled away to lick hers.

"You know, maybe I should try more of the chicken next time…" she thought aloud.

Now it was Ruby who succumbed to a fit of giggles, while she and Shannon both succumbed to becoming lost in one another's gazes, and with that, Shannon wrapped her arms around Ruby in a tender embrace, as Ruby gladly and readily returned the gesture.

"I love being with you, Ruby…" gushed Shannon.

"Samesies…" Ruby gushed the same. Indeed, with the amount of time they got to spend with each other proving to be so limited, they truly cherished every moment that they could get with each other. The two of them then pulled away and resumed their stroll down the sidewalk, hand-in-hand. "If only we had more time…"

"Yeah…" agreed Shannon.

"You know what we need to do?" Ruby posed. "We need to go on another date… like a real date-date… get dressed up, go somewhere romantic, and have a good time, just the two of us…"

"Yeah, that'd be wonderful," agreed Shannon again.

Even in spite of their romance having spanned over several months by that point, the two of them had yet to have an actual date with one another since the time that Luan, Benny, Lyberti, and Leo had brought both of them together for what ended up becoming their official first date up on top of Royal Woods Hill.

"How about it?" Ruby asked. "You, like, free next weekend?"

"I won't even be in town next weekend…" said Shannon to Ruby's dismay. "My cousins, Seth and Chessa, are having their bar mitzvah and bat mitzvah next weekend, so we'll be flying to Wisconsin for them."

"What are those, anyway?" Ruby asked. "I mean, I've heard you talk about them before, but I, like, really don't know what they are."

"They're rites of passage ceremonies for Jewish children when they turn thirteen," explained Shannon. "For boys, they're bar mitzvahs, and for girls, they're bat mitzvahs."

"So, what happens when they turn thirteen?" Ruby asked.

"Well, boys become men, and girls become women," continued Shannon. "By that age, we're expected to make our own decisions and take responsibility for our own actions as adults would."

Shannon was never a prideful person, and even though there were times where she felt as though she was still a child, she wore her passage to womanhood like a badge of honor, and took said womanhood very seriously. She strived to handle whatever life handed her in her own way on her own terms, without any assistance or influence from her parents, or anyone else… it could be said that this was one of the reasons why she did not want Ruby to get involved with the feud that she had with Amy the year before – she felt it was her problem, and that she had to deal with it in her own way… though, clearly, the way Ruby had stepped in to help her friend had better results than however it was that Shannon had tried to deal with it herself.

Ruby was further fascinated by this as she then asked, "And you have ceremonies for that?"

"Oh, yeah, and they're a real big deal," continued Shannon. "I remember when I had mine, I had to study Hebrew for months so I could read from the Torah… not to mention all the dresses I had to try on; I had stress hives and contact hives for weeks!"

"Like, eww…" muttered Ruby before she further queried, "so, you're, like, a real woman?"

"Maybe not according to the law of the land," said Shannon, since the legal age of adulthood according to the United States government was eighteen. "But, as far as the synagogue is concerned, yes, I am…"

Slowly, Ruby came to a stop as she, once again, began to wrap her arms around Shannon, and purred, "Wow… no wonder you're, like, so mature, and so wise… I wanna be just like you when I grow up…"

Sometimes, Ruby said the most unusual things, but they always greatly amused Shannon; with another giggle, she imparted some words of womanly wisdom unto her friend: "Enjoy what's left of your childhood while it lasts, Rubes; it'll be over before you know it."

The two girls pressed onward again, only by that time, they did so with their arms around each other's waists. As she reflected on what Shannon had said only moments ago, Ruby had to agree that she really did love being with her; being with Shannon brought her so much happiness, she never realized until Shannon came into her life how she had been missing out on what it meant to really have a deep and meaningful connection with somebody who really cared about you, and who you cared about just as much. It had also brought back into her mind how her previous relationship with Spencer had deteriorated so spectacularly that it crashed and burned… if there was one thing that Ruby did not want was to end up reliving such a déjà vu as that all over again with Shannon; she wanted she and Shannon to be together for a long time to come, and as such, wanted to avoid making any of the same mistakes that she had made when she was with Spencer, if she could help it.


I hope you enjoyed the numerous little references and Easter eggs that were contained within this chapter. Incidentally, I happened to make something of a music video for Shannon and Ruby's first Pride Month celebration with their friends/allies, which you can find on YouTube; just search "Loud House True Colors."

The scene in the Chinese restaurant was one of those vignettes that I spoke of in the foreword; it was a cute little fluffy idea that I have had in mind for a while, but it clearly did not hold enough water to build an actual story around. As a matter of fact, I thought about using it to open another Sharuby Saga story idea that I have since scrapped that would have offered a more complicated explanation for Ruby's absence from "Director's Rut" than a scheduling conflict, in that her parents had enrolled her in an exchange program for a semester abroad in India, because they felt that she did not have enough appreciation for her own cultural heritage, and that to spend some time in the land from where her people and family came would remedy such; having lunch at the Chinese restaurant was her way of not only spending a little quality time with Shannon before she left, but also to break the news to her that theirs will soon become a long-distance relationship. It is still an interesting idea, I think, but as I said, it would have been an awfully complicated story.