For the denizens of Hometown, that fateful October day had felt like one day covering the shift of another, making it bare the weight of two days in one. But with a new sun rising from the horizon came a nice refresh for all. All except one, of course. Kris had hardly slept at all the previous night, and for once felt relief from seeing the sky brighten after a night of staying up. He had stood in the center of his room, sat on his bed, and watched videos ranging from speedruns of obscure video games he played years ago, to compilations of water towers falling over. But he couldn't let his guard down. Not this time. His eyes glanced back over to the faint red glow in the corner of the room, the adrenaline of seeing it himself waking him up a little. He had put on quite the show for his little red stowaway, and it seemed to be keeping it in check. But he knew that soon his mother would come to wake him up, and he couldn't just have his soul out in a cage with her around.
"You're not gonna take this away from me, you hear me? Not that you haven't already, you little humanshit." He mumbled under his breath, still getting used to so many words coming out of his mouth. Kris usually didn't resist his friendly neighborhood parasite, and had seen it as somewhat of a boon before. It started off as a little voice, one that suggested he try more social and friendly habits. But it got impatient. It had ripped the controller away from him, and he couldn't have been happier. Until now, that is. By some bizarre force beyond the most motherfucking of miracles, he had made friends.
"They're not friends with me. They're friends with you." He approached the cage, flipping his knife so the blade pointed down out of the bottom of his fist. He was bluffing, but the soul seemed to know better than to doubt Kris in the field of inflicting damage to himself. His mother's bedroom door opened, and the sound of her heavy footsteps going down the stairs made his head perk up. He brushed his hair aside and looked around the room, opting to use his bed covers as their namesake. He draped the blanket over the cage, trying to bunch it up in a way that looked like a pile of blankets, and not the outline of a bird cage. Mumbles of reaffirmation escaped his lips as he tipped the cage on its side, wrapping the blanket around it so there was no point of escape.
"I'll show you. I don't need your help, I don't need anyone's 'help' making friends." He put his knife back under his mattress, the usual hiding spot for it. It had been a gag gift from his father's college buddy Rudy, and apparently it was called a kris as well. His mother had demanded he get rid of it, and Rudy wasn't allowed to be on birthday duties until Kris turned 18.
"Maybe next year he'll get me some balls so I can really use his gift." Kris thought to himself as he left his room and headed downstairs. His spacing out was interrupted by his guardian goat nearly dropping a pan onto the floor with a gasp.
"Goodness! You gave me quite the fright, Kris." She put a hand to her chest. "I have yet to have my coffee, so I am still waking up." She was still in her pajamas. "You're up early, child." Her easy smile turned to a disapproving scowl. "You did sleep last night, didn't you? If not, don't think you'll be getting out of school."
He let her finish talking, staring at her with a blank look. "I slept. I just thought I'd get up early for once, you seem to enjoy it." He replied dryly, somehow with less emotion than when he was being piloted like a robot. Toriel hadn't seemed to sense the venom on his tongue as her expression softened once more.
"Ah, that is wonderful. You can see what it is like to be up with everyone else." She shifted her focus back to the stove, a carton of eggs being opened beside it. Kris walked past her and sat on the couch, looking at his phone. "Kris, would you like an egg?"
He looked up at her and widened his eyes in an effort to ward off the sleepiness he felt blurring his vision. "Yes." He cleared his throat. "Please." He tacked on, seeing his mother's expression shift once again. He had burned through all of his usual forum site content in his stakeout on the soul, so breakfast felt longer than usual.
Kris felt his eyes starting to glaze over as he ate, but his mind was so far elsewhere it forgot to taste the food he was having. He wasn't doing anything wrong, so why did he feel so on edge? He wondered until Toriel returned, now dressed and holding her keys. "Ready?" She yanked him out of his zone once again.
"Huh? Yeah." He hopped on one foot to slip his shoes and socks on his feet, not bothering to untie his shoes and instead just pushing his foot into the hole. He felt more relieved as they drove farther away from the house, the window of the soul escaping or being found having closed in his mind. "I've gone to school on less sleep, I just have to get through the day." He thought with a yawn. "Can I hang out with my friend after school today?" He turned and looked at her without warning.
Toriel sighed. "Yes, that will be alright, just please make sure you keep in touch. Be home before 7 o'clock tonight, or text me if you need a ride home." She smiled.
"Alright." He looked forward, seeing the school building before him. A car he hadn't seen before was pulled up beside the school, a strange occurrence for a building with only two parking spaces on the property. He got out at the same time as the purple double-image in the other car, confirming after a few blinks it was Susie. "Oh thank God." Kris gave a rushed goodbye to his mom and slunk over to her, evading his daily shame parade of Toriel holding his hand and hugging him. "Stupid old goat." He cackled through his nose to himself, just sort of walking behind Susie until she brushed her hair back and cracked her neck, giving her ample periphery to see him.
"Oh, ff….!" She jumped back, tensing her shoulder up in defense with her arms going back. "...uck." She eased up, smirking and lowering her arms. "Jesus, dude. You didn't follow my dad's car here, did you?" She stopped so they could walk side by side into the school.
"My mom drives me here everyday, she works here if you didn't know." He snarked at her, making her look like her guard was just cut through.
"Did you just tell a joke? Huh, I guess I just had to get to know you a little for you to start messin' with me." She smacked him on the back, nearly knocking the wind out of him.
Kris felt a smile crack across his face, only partially from being hit from a reminder she could remove his spine like a laundry tag. "Oh, God. Is this what it's like? Oh, fuck yes." His body shuddered from the friendship high running through his atrophied brain.
"Uh, you good?" Susie smiled back at him with a raised eyebrow. "I've seen you take way worse beatings than that, even from me." She nudged him with her arm playfully, giving a loud, wheezy laugh.
"Yeah…" He felt his face redden in shame at his lack of self control, scratching his arm. "I just couldn't sleep at all last night."
She looked right into his eyes, the color matching near perfectly with her golden grin. "Yeah, me neither." Her response decapitated the conversation, giving no real opportunity for response from either party, she thought. As they were greeted with Alphys scrambling at her desk to shift into teacher mode, they both turned to each other with seemingly the same idea.
"You still wanna go back today, right?" Kris asked with a tinge of excitement in his voice, albeit about as much as there is fruit flavoring in a can of La Croix water. Susie met him with a troubled look, sighing out of her snout as they sat at their desks.
"I actually can't today, man. Sorry. My parents were really pissed about everything that happened yesterday." She rested her hand on her cheek, keeping her voice down despite being the only ones there.
"It's fine." Kris replied with a shrug. "I'll tell Ralsei you would have loved to see him, but you got in trouble so he doesn't think you hate him." He gave her another sly grin.
"Does Ralsei think I hate him?" Her voice lowered to a whisper, her face stricken with worry.
"Huh? I don't know. I was just making a joke." Kris's facade of confidence cracked almost instantly at the first sign of accountability for his shitheadery. "Do you hate him? I thought he was kinda being a bit of a dick, trying to tell everyone what to…" His voice was cut off by Susie looking towards the front of the room, making Kris look forward as well.
"What on earth are you two doing here?! You're a class period early!" A nasally voice cackled at the door, moving towards the front desk. Alphys looked like a background character in an old western movie hiding behind a door during a standoff, except she just turned her chair around and pretended to tactfully organize her blackboard chalk for the day.
"We go to school here too, you know." Susie huffed her nostrils out towards the blue bird with the worm-eating grin painted on his face.
"Could have fooled me." He turned back around, making Susie's eye twitch. She put her hands up on her desk like she was about to get up, but looked at the floor for a moment and sat back. "Not lettin' some incel memelord cut into my dark world time." She crossed her arms as she considered the trouble she was already in. Kris kept his eyes forward towards the board as the rest of the students began to come in, seeming to avoid looking at the two. But realistically, it was probably just her.
"Seven more hours. That's all I have to do. Even if Susie won't be able to go, it will give me time to talk to Ralsei." He half looked back to see Susie's head down on the desk, wondering if she was thinking the same things as him. "He seemed excited to meet the real me, too."