Chapter 7b
After spending the whole day feeling like an emotional ticking time bomb, Strong Sad was exhausted. He felt uninspired and uninterested. All he could manage was lying on his bed in a daze; though he was surprisingly still not tired of listening to Homeschool's favourite techno music. It blocked out his crappy emotions, his crappy family life, and his overall crappy day. Holy crap it sucked.
…Oh god. He really was sounding more and more like this brother every day. Strong Sad buried his face in his hands as he let out a desperate sigh. Considering how trying to analyse his behaviour and his emotional rollercoaster obviously was a bad idea and did not work, tomorrow self-reflection was prohibited. Homeschool was coming to help make cupcakes, and oh man how much work it's going to be is terrifying…no, enough. Sleep is now the number one priority in order to retain some form of sanity. The awkward young adult didn't remember exactly what had happened when Strong Bad slipped him caffeine some time ago, but judging by what he heard insane Strong Sad is a very bad person to be wandering around.
After lying in peace and silence for a while, Strong Sad's breathing slowed and he soon crashed into a deep sleep. He was completely shattered from having to deal with himself for the entire day. All that mattered was keeping a level head the next day, and not thinking too much. Thinking just caused trouble most of the time anyway.
Before he knew it, Strong Sad was awoken by his brother making unnecessary noise. This noise was his own "guitar solos" he was composing while pumping Limozeen out of the stereo (and all the speakers he could add onto it) at the absolute highest volume it would allow. The youngest of the household was feeling better; mellow like his usual self again. Sleep was a wonder-cure. But the overwhelming sense of hunger waved over him, and he realised that food was the next step. He did after all need to evaluate what ingredients he could salvage for the cupcake crusade he would be conducting tomorrow. He would also need to know how much he'd have to go out and buy the next morning.
The interesting CD having run out many minutes ago, Strong Sad carefully hid his current listening apparatus for fear of anyone else finding out that he was listening to something as upbeat and mainstream as techno music. If his brother found out, he would never hear the end of it. Even closing his bedroom door after leaving his room just to be safe, he set out to get downstairs.
Strong Bad was jumping around the kitchen shredding on the all-powerful air guitar, singing in a shrill voice about tight pants and french fries or something. After noticing the white-haired weirdo's arrival, the older (but shorter) of the two folded his arms in frustration. "Why you gotta ruin my fun? I thought you were dead or something." It was so nice to have such a supportive family.
"I've gotta make like 50 cupcakes for Marzipan tomorrow, so I'm seeing if there's anything I can use in here. Did you use up all the flour baking again?" Although Strong Bad wouldn't admit it to just anyone, he was awesome at both cooking and baking. But he was also just too lazy to do it often, and so Strong Sad would be left to feed everyone.
"Shut up. I don't use it for baking. I use it to glue your notebooks, journals and other loser junk together. And to make giant glue-ball cannons. That also shoot lightning…guitars." No, getting a totally honest answer out of Strong Bad is near-impossible.
"Alright well just don't interfere tomorrow. Homeschool's coming to help out." Strong Sad felt a bit awkward about talking to Strong Bad when it came to Homeschool, and he had no idea why. They were friends now, he supposed, so he should be able to talk about him without feeling weird…
Luckily for the awkward young adult, Strong Bad wasn't paying any attention. He zoned out the second he heard that whiny voice begin to come out of Strong Sad's mouth again. "Stop saying words. I'm going to watch TV." He began his descent into the basement, armed with a bag of potato chips. He was hoping he could catch something even remotely interesting before watching the R-rated movie marathon on scrambled cable. "Ah, you can almost see the blood." he mused to himself as he disappeared from sight.
Strong Sad was so used to being interrupted by Strong Bad that he simply shrugged it off and continued his search for ingredients. It seemed that he should be able to scrape together enough flour, and if they had any serious emergencies Homeschool could just drive to the store. Strong Sad felt a slight twinge deep down when he thought of his new friend baking with him tomorrow. He would have to assume it was due to building excitement…or just hunger. He hadn't eaten breakfast and barely managed to find anything worth eating between classes. It was really getting to him. Strong Sad decided to put all thoughts of tomorrow aside for now. Food was currently the number one priority. He could worry about companions, conversations and cupcakes later.