"What is going on, Pinks?!" an unfamiliar male voice yells over the music as a pair of arms wraps around Pinkie's waist, and the head of a young man with meadow green eyes and light brown curly hair appears on her shoulder.
"I was just about to leave actu-" I start before Pinkie places a cold hand against my lips and looks up at the mystery boy, whimpering a little bit.
"Seh dosnt wanna have f *hic* fun wiffus…she wansa be a spolsprot an leaf! Shesa maen *hic* maenie…!" Pinkie then leans over and vomits on the carpet, the smell of stomach acid hitting my nostrils with such a force that I have to cover my face and turn away.
"If you stay *hic* around for a little bish, you'll see that isht's pretty *hic* fun here," the boy holding her explains, no doubt intoxicated as well but holding his liquor better than a majority of the partying students. "Come on, jusht take a little drink, and then *hic* you can feel what isht's truly like to lose your stress and worries! We can mak you feel like prat of the partie." He holds out his drink, a golden brown Sam Adams that looks like it has barely been touched, and smiles at me, the heavy stench of alcohol on his breath as he leans in closer. Pinkie is pulled along with him, a combination of gastric juices and drool dripping from her lips.
"No, really," I insist in a firm tone, "I want to leave! I hate parties like this, and I feel uncomfortable. I'm fine if you want to stay here, but I'm going."
My comment is received with a hard slap to the face, my right cheek burning intensely as I cover it with my palm. It felt warm and wet, and I panic a little as I glare at a growling, shivering Pinkie.
"Yuuu runnin evrythin fro meeee! Evrtime I wansa do somefing f *hic* fun, yuuu gossa bae a stack inthe muss! Yer a bissssssss *hic* a bitssssssh, and I hat yuuu summush!" The ever growing red of her face is accompanied by a string of profanities and insults, eventually ending in a kick to the shins and a swig of his beer. She staggers off on the arm of the mystery boy, his eyes glaring angrily into my soul as I stand there, the warmth dripping between the spaces of my fingers and down my opposite wrist.
My ears ring as I rush upstairs, down the hall and out the door, my lanyard and ID lightly thudding against my chest as my heart pounds. I know that Pinkie would apologize profusely in the morning, like she always does when she comes to in the morning, but she was partying a little too hard tonight, and I understood that. The cold air hits me like a ton of bricks, and I let out an exasperated breath as I look up at the starless night. The warmth is still dripping out of me, so there is no time to waste. I walk quickly to Frengle, swipe my ID, and rush inside, shivering as I sit against the wall. It is quiet, almost too quiet, and the only sounds that can be heard are muffled moans and the static of the TV in the common room. My hand-muffled breaths join them soon enough.
I don't know what kind of finishing product Pinkie sealed my makeup with, but trying to wash off in the bathroom is a nightmare; I have to use three cleansing towels to remove it from my face, and even then the eyeliner still slightly stains my water line. The blood that had been trickling down my arms - I had discovered that Pinkie had given my cheek four deep scars in addition to the scars she left on my wrist– comes off easily enough in the shower, but the actual injuries are a pain to bandage. In the end, my wrist feels mummified and my cheek looks like I had been the victim of an animal attack, since I cleaned but never covered it. At least I am now dressed in more casual clothes, which equates to a pair of red plaid pants, a loose cobalt top, and a pair of plain black flats with red insoles. My gradient hair now sits in a ponytail, wavy and smooth like it should be, and the black half jacket that hugs my upper arms feels natural. I sigh deeply in relief, grab my phone and ID/key, and head out the door, locking it behind me.
"Whoa, what the hell happened to you?!" Soarin exclaims as he opens the dorm building door and takes a good look at me, "Did you slice yourself with your razor or something? I knew you were clumsy, but I didn't know you were that bad!" He laughs and lets me inside, closing the door behind me as I sigh and glare at him.
"No. Pinkie gave these to me," I roll my eyes and sigh again. "Apparently, she thinks that physically injuring me is a surefire way to make me stay with her at the party." He stares at me for a few moments, and I swear I can see a tongue of angry fire lick his light green eyes.
"Does this happen often?"
"She always keeps her nails filed to points, so yes I have gotten several bruises and lacerations from her over the months. I mostly get them when I try to wake her up for class and she is hungover."
Soarin takes my wrist in his palm, his eyes darkening for a few seconds before they return to normal and a smirk appears on his face. "Well, a couple rounds of crushing defeat in Smash Brothers will fix you up!" He laughs and drags me to his dorm room, I following with an equally energetic laugh.
His room is messy and cluttered, but I'd be more appalled if it suddenly became clean and neat; Soarin didn't like straightening up his room, and with no roommate to berate him about it, it could get as disheveled as he wanted. The TV sitting on the small table against the wall already has the title screen of the game playing on its screen, slightly obscured by a pair of light wash jeans, hopefully clean. I eye Soarin and grab the blue controller, as per usual, flipping it in my hand before I press the "A" button to advance to the game select screen. He grabs the black controller and sits beside me on the bed, bouncing a few times to get comfortable before he smirks.
"Are you ready to play, Dashie?"
"Bring it on, Mosconi."
I select Zelda and watch the box under the character list light up in my color. Soarin chooses Snake, watching his color appear as well. We both don't know who to pick for the computer characters, so we set it on random and the game selected Luigi and Ness, the sounds of completion ringing around the room as we both laugh and stick our tongues out. Once the battle started, however, it is all business; I pull off as many combos as I can, knocking Luigi out of the running as quickly as I can with a few good kicks and a Power Move. Soarin takes care of Ness, though it requires a little more effort, and soon it is just the two of us facing each other. Hits and misses are exchanged over a period of time, my teeth pressing into my tongue so hard that I think that it might just start spurting blood. Snake wins, pulling off a pose as I fall over onto the bed, my effort exhausting me as I breathe sporadically.
"I told you that I'd crush you!" Soarin grins as he looks at me, pushing the hair that fell out of my ponytail out of my face. However, it almost seems like he is doing it…deliberately, with more care than normal. I raise my eyebrow in confusion, but another round starts and we are back into the fray. We keep the same characters, knowing how they work now, and battle it out until there is just the two of us again. This time I am able to finish him off with a series of kicks and Power Moves, he throwing down his controller and letting out a cry of anguish.
"Aaaugh, how could you defeat me? Hacks, I call hacks!" he exclaimed in mock anger as his yelling turned into laughter.
"Maybe you're just losing your touch…" I coo with a grin as he stares at me with determination.
"No! Impossible! I can't let that happen. We must go one last time, to break the tie and see who the better player between us is!"
"You are on!" I exclaim and select Zelda, waiting for Solid Snake's box to light up as well, but after a few minutes, it was still not selected. I turn my head to face Soarin and see him staring at me with a strange expression. He seemed to be looking at my cheek scars, no expression on his face as he bit his lip.
"Yo, earth to Soarin!" I wave my hand in front of his face, and he instantly snapped out of his stare, shaking his head and looking at his controller.
"Sorry, Dashie. I was just staring into space for a moment. I thought I had already selected." He almost sounds embarrassed, which is unlike him, but I don't really tease him for it. After all, if anyone was caught staring into space, they would get pretty flustered too.
"Well, pick Snake and let's finish this! I want to show you that I can whoop your ass at a game for once."
His determination seems to come back as he smirks, selects Snake, growls under his breath, and presses Start. The stage is set, the characters are in place, and the battle of the century is about to commence between a solider and a princess, with early deaths from a green plumber and little boy.
The latter two characters are knocked out pretty quickly, each of us picking a specific character to tackle so that neither one of us would be knocked out before the other. Then it is down to two, and I look at Soarin with determination, and he looks at me with the same expression. The sound of mashing plastic buttons fills the air as we ruthlessly battle, me landing a few good blows on him and he countering with a few good hits of his own.
We are both low on lives, about to perform our final moves and see which one of us prevails, when the game pauses. I click my pause button, trying to restart it but finding that I can't, which means that I didn't stop the match. I turn my head to face Soarin, and he is sitting there with his controller in his lap, just looking at the TV and then at the controller.
"C'mon, you just gotta press the pause button again and the match can continue," I explain, reaching over to the remote but instead having my hand grabbed by his tightly. I look up and find that he is staring directly at me, his green eyes wide open and his mouth straight. With his other hand, he pushes down the hand that is holding my remote, my fingers releasing it slowly. His free hand grabs that hand as well, his fingers rubbing gently along the back of it as his face grows closer to mine. And then he kisses me.
My heart starts to flutter as his warm lips meet mine, tasting of Sprite and raspberries, and I kiss back passionately, closing my eyes. It feels amazing, and I lean closer in the hopes that I won't be rejected. I'm not, and he lets go of one of my hands so that it can travel to my back and pull me closer to him. I place my hand on his back as well, running it down his spine as I smile. His face starts to get warm against mine as I can sense that he is smiling too. Eventually the kiss ends and we both sit back, me nervously giggling and he nervously laughing as we stare at each other.
"H-have you had those feelings for a while?" I ask, my body trembling a little bit.
"Y-yeah, I have," he responds just as shakily, "and you kissed back, so that means that you feel the same way about me."
I nod gently, placing my hands on the bed and letting out another nervous giggle.
"So, do you wanna…?" I start
"Nah, I don't really feel like playing anymore," Soarin responded, looking at the controller. "Do you want to watch a movie instead?"
"Can I chill here for the night as well? I don't want to deal with my roommate tonight."
"Be my guest. Stay as long as you want"
I nod and look at him, blinking my magenta eyes and seeing him blink his green ones. I hold him close and cuddle in his warm, thin arms, resting my head on his chest and listening to his heartbeat.
"Thank you…for everything" I smile and give him a light kiss on the lips as I blush, and I see him flush too, nodding in response.
"So, who wins?" I ask casually, looking at the screen and then at him.
Through his blush, he manages to say, "I think in this situation, we both do."