Disclaimer: I do not own Winx Club
Chapter 2: Potato Chip Therapy
What do you call a creature which roams around at night and dozes off during the day? – Riven. What do you call a creature who will not hesitate to kill if its sleep is disturbed? – again, Riven. While Timmy had figured out ways to deal with Riven's curt remarks his general broody stuck up personality, what he hadn't figured out was how to wake up Riven from his sleep, tell him to shoo away coz Tecna wanted to meet him in private and make it alive in one piece. He tried coughing. Didn't work. He coughed a little louder the next time, and the time after that increasing his volume and intensity. The maroon haired boy (1) didn't seem to budge one inch.
"You can go die at school, I'm sleeping here." Riven said in his usual annoyed tone.
"Ahh Riven." Riven shifted slightly, "Are you asleep?" So smart, Timmy.
"What the hell mainframe, did your eye balls roll out or you want me to do that for you?" Now Riven was fully awake and got up from his bed.
"Sorry, I didn't mean to awake you. But now that you are already wake.." He trailed off, wondering if it was safe to continue what had to say. Riven gave him a sharp speak-or-else-I'll-kill-you look. Timmy gulped nervously and continued speaking. "Actually I have a project to be finished and hence a friend is coming over so it would be convenient if you could, maybe, you know, give us the room for some time." Timmy expected a loud curse in response, and as usual, his estimation was right.
On hearing the commotion, Helia rushed into the room. Judging the tone and intensity of the growl, it sounded like angry Riven and angry Riven was never a very good sight. Being a pacifist and probably the most mature one of their group, he always tried to diffuse the tension when situations seemed to take turn for the worse. They all could do without a few broken bones once in a while.
"All good?" He asked, facing an annoyed Riven and tense Timmy. "Mainframe woke me up from my sleep and asked me to get out so he can make some dorky project with his dorky friends."
The door to their dorm room was rusty and had jammed on more than a couple of occasions, so it was always kept open, allowing Riven's voice to travel to the next room. Curious to find out what was going on, Sky and Brandon, occupants of the adjoining room too decided to join their friends.
"So is that a yes?" Timmy tried his luck with a doubtful voice.
Riven gave him a death glare.
"Wow Timmy, you must really love this project more than your life" Brandon joked, stressing on the 'really'.
"Who is coming over anyway?" Sky enquired like the sensible guy he was.
"Actually, it's Tecna." Timmy couldn't help but slightly blush. He didn't know why but any mention of Tecna made him slightly uncomfortable. The good kind of uncomfortable.
The guys exchanged an understanding look. "So you do in fact love this project more than your life." Brandon let out a slight chuckle.
"You disturbed my sleep so that you can get laid?" Riven accused.
"Wow Timmy, you are really making a move here. Seems like someone is ready to lose his V-card!" Brandon teased. Timmy tried to hide his now growing blush but his cheeks gave away. He was not supposed to blush, he was the smart one! A few immature teasing should not get to him like this.
"I never thought you'd do something like that Timmy! You always say studies are your top priority. I thought you'll wait for some time before getting serious with a girl. Say a few more months" Sky stated more like a moral speech.
"Ohh please Sky, accept defeat gracefully and kiss goodbye to your 1000 bucks." Brandon said and stretched his arms asking for money. Sky unenthusiastically pulled out a few crisp notes from his pocket and handed them to his brunette friend who now sported a devilish grin. "Very bad Timmy." Sky repeated, the disapproval clear in his voice.
"You guys were betting on me?" Timmy squealed with astonishment when reason for exchange of the notes dawned on him. He could not decide whether to be amused or offended. Considering that this was probably the first time in the past few weeks that the guys were excited about something, he let it slide.
"Not really, we just placed a small bet on when will you and Tecna get together and make it official. And maybe small milestones etc. Nothing much you see" Brandon said between counting notes. "And if you keep going at this pace, I'll be able a rich man!"
"Hey, you cannot tell him to keep going at a certain pace or anything of that sort. It is against the rules."
"Uhhh" Was the only reply Sky got.
"We have a signed agreement and that qualifies for penalty." Sky complained snatching a note from his hand which he was about to put in his pocket when Helia's hand interrupted him.
"Penalty goes to common fund. Give it to the banker Sky." He snatched the note from the once again disappointed blond. This was not his day. Or week. Or month by the look of it.
"Helia you too?" Timmy sighed in astonishment. He expected Brandon to pull off such juvenile acts and maybe drag Sky along, but not the nature loving artistic poet Helia. He was the mature and responsible one.
"How do you guys not understand simple problems in math assessments but maintain wager records like cardsharps? And who else is involved in this? When did this happen?"
"Where there is a will, there is a way." Helia quoted, like the poet he was. Of course, my non-existent love life is more important to you than school work.
"Chill Timmy it's just us. It was the beginning of school, we were bored so when we saw you two go all sparkly eyes and red cheeks on each other, we thought why not make it interesting." Brandon explained rather casually like its everyday business.
"First of all, there is NOTHING between me and Tecna, and secondly I am not your race horse. She's just coming over for discussing the app we are planning to develop. That's it. And she should be any here any minute now so if guys could please excuse me"
Riven was still sleepy from all the partying last night, and this ongoing chitter chatter was giving him a slight headache. Seeing that this could be one of those non-sensible never ending conversation the blond and brunette are capable of pulling off, he decided to bolt.
"Don't lose it at the last minute and spoil our name." Riven said as he grabbed his jacket and headed for the door. "Essentials are in the last drawer of my cabinet. If you touch any other drawers, you'll be dead." Saying this he headed for the adjoining room planning to crash there, which according to him was only fair, as the room's occupants had contributed towards his headache.
"He's never offered anything to anyone of us. Guess Riven has a soft spot for you." Brandon noted. That was true, Riven was a loner and rarely participated in any of the group's activities or discussion. Him offering something, anything was a big step. But then again, all the boys did have a soft corner for Timmy. Now that Riven was out, managing others was a piece of cake. Timmy gave a knowing glance at the guys and they too followed suit but not before wishing "All the best" and "Rock her world". Even Helia muttered a "I'm happy for you" all of which Timmy chose to ignore. When will these guys understand, there's nothing between me and Tec. Sure we do spend a lot of time together but that's mostly because we both and like games and discussing the latest technology and are trying to develop an app together. But that's it. There's no way someone so beautiful and smart like Tecna would even consider dating a dorky nerd like me. I'm not a hunky leader like Sky, or charming flirt like Brandon, or a cool bad boy like Riven or a romantic poet like Helia. I'm just… I'm just me..! A lanky guy with shabby hair and red glasses. Sure I could one day make a rocket but I could never sweep a girl off her feet.
"I'm here!' Tecna made her presence noticed and broke his train of thoughts. Just the perfect time. She was wearing her usual green and lilac top and lilac pants and carrying a purple bag pack. "Let's get started."
She gave on brief glance around the room and saw three parallel beds, small cabinets next to each of them and night lamp to the side. The bed to the extreme right had some pieces of chips scattered on the creased bed sheet which had probably never seen the insides of a laundry room. The middle one had a pastel green bed sheet, and a pen stand on the cabinet containing different types and colours of pens and sketchpad next to them. But it was the left most bed that caught her fancy. It had a light blue bed sheet and a bundle of non-fiction books piled on the cabinet along with an alarm clock and a laptop next to the barely visible lamp. Having never seen the inside of a boy's dorm the room overall was much better than she had expected. Not wasting another second she made herself comfortable on the soft mattress and blue bed sheet with little white stars which could be spotted only from up close. On cue, Timmy too got seated at the other vertical end of his bed keeping as much distance as possible from her. Reaching for his bag, he pulled out 3 packets of chips of different flavours and placed it in between them. He remembered reading somewhere that sharing food resources increases emotional interpersonal closeness (2).
"For snacks." He referred to the shiny plastic packets. Even if he had never had a girl visit his dorm room before, unless she wanted his notes of course, he did know a little bit about entertaining company. Also, in all the years of his existence, chips never let him down.
"I was exploring the possible outcomes and long term implications of the current animosity between our social groups and the results suggest that if the current continues, in about 3 months, the girls and boys will completely stop talking to each other and this group will cease to exist. Also we will get a C or at best B- in our assignment which will break our perfect record of straight A significantly reducing the probability of either of us being the valedictorian this year." Tecna calmly explained to a patient Timmy who was munching on crispy cream and onion chips.
"What do you think we should do?"
She fired her laptop and continued, "I did some research on human relationships, especially romantic ones. My research suggests that for couples to get back together, the first step is to clearly communicate their thoughts and feelings towards each other followed by sorting out their differences. Also this has to be done face to face and preferably at a single stretch."
"That would mean we need to get them in a room together long enough that they can talk their matters through. I can estimate about a 2-3 hours"
"You are right."
"Riven and Musa cannot stay in the same room for 3 without screaming and biting each other's head off."
"I am aware. We will begin with the easy ones and work our way up." She tried assuring him but in reality, wasn't too sure herself. Out of all their friends Riven was the most unpredictable. It was like taming a dragon, you cannot be sure if it will fly with you or will burn you to ashes.
This whole plan was a big gamble about something she had no prior personal experience with. But her friends (who were practically family at this point) were miserable and she was determined to help them.
"So as you can infer from this table," she scooted closer to bring the laptop screen in his line of vision. A spreadsheet titled 'Project Caffeine Connect' was open which contained names of their friends and some other information.
"Our goal is to get patch the friendship in our group and to get the research assignment completed within two weeks. Since we are researching on the coffee consumption among millennials, we should preferably assign each couple a tasks which are already required to be completed for the project."
"That's sounds workable. But why will they agree to this?"
"Because they won't know who they are partnered with. And this is school work which they will have to do to get the credit."
"Hummm. This could be risky, we need a full proof plan."
"That's the thing we are good at, aren't we?" She beamed proudly.
The next 2 hours were spent finalising the details of the tasks to be performed for their 'mission', munching on some crispy potato chips and discussing life in general. When it was time to leave, Timmy graciously offered to walk Tecna to her dorm as it was already dark outside.
"Did you know that some areas in Scotland and Japan switched to blue street lights at night and observed a decreased in crime and suicide rates (3)." A random thought struck him while observing the street lights. Dumb Timmy, I should not be boring her with useless facts.
"Hmm. I was not aware. I wonder why so?" She pondered on the finding for a minute.
"The exact reason is unknown but there are a few hypothesis." He continued recollecting what he had read a few weeks ago and she was evaluating the pros and cons of each possible reasons. Before either of them realised, the short distance between their dorms was covered and it was time to say goodbye.
"Good night Timmy, thank you for walking me."
"No problem Tecna. Good night, sweet dreams."
"Dreams do not have a taste."
"Yaa..well..but."
"I know I know it's a figure of speech. Good night Timmy." She said jestingly headed inside. The bright smile on her face was not missed by him.
Only ever everyday ended like that he silently wished.
A/N:
(1): I assume you all are already aware of how the characters look so I won't go on and on about their looks, attire etc. unless really necessary.
(2): Yes, that's true
(3): That's true too
This was mostly a filler chapter with some fun talk with the boys and setting the stage for later plots in the story. Anyway, I would love to know what you think about the story and which couple should be reconciled first, certainly not MxR (or could it be? ;) )