I do paint
I do not hack
811. orchestrate: to arrange so as to achieve a desired effect
Sometimes Green felt like his life had been orchestrated into a cheesy kind of TV show. He'd qualify in so many ways for the unlucky protagonist – abandoned by parents, overshadowed by grandparent, third wheeled by best friends, champion for half an hour, and hopelessly in love.
Other times, he felt so grateful for what he'd gotten – a loving sister, a good education, understanding companions and coworkers, a whole ton of luck, and Red.
But most times, he just felt lonely – not a particularly sorrowful lonely, but more of a "I need a hug" lonely. After taking a bath with his leg awkwardly draped outside the tub, he bandaged his foot and crawled into his bed, hugging his extra pillow tightly.
812. verbiage: excessive wordiness
He greeted Tuesday morning with the kind of strength that comes only from a catharsis, a purging of emotions. He perfected his pancake flipping and smiled as he brought Latias a plate of pancakes. She smiled back, and the events of yesterday were forgotten – no verbiage, no awkward conversation.
He took Umbreon out for grocery shopping, and for once, he smiled politely and held open doors for the elderly and the thank you's he got in return just made his day that much brighter. The cranky lady at the cash register who was there every day looked at his smile, and then offered her own smirk.
813. pristine: remaining in a pure state
With the majority of paperwork out of the way, Green spent the day looking for both public and leaked files about the Dream World project. Besides the publicly released statuses on Devon's formal website, there was little to see besides posts from curious bloggers.
Green shut off his desktop and wandered around the house, thinking of what to do. He'd always kept himself busy so he wouldn't have to think about Red and how much he missed him. But now, he wandered about aimlessly.
He spied his small pile of art supplies – he'd ordered a couple extras in addition to what he'd bought for Red. He picked up a pristine canvas, and then looked at Latias, who was sleeping peacefully.
814. scoff: to make fun of; to ridicule
Although he was no arts master, his paintings weren't anything to scoff at. His school had required courses and credits in the art department, so he'd taken choir (bad choice, too many flirty girls and pissed off guys), and then painting.
He filled a plastic cup with water and got out a new palette and brush. He squeezed out a dab of each color of paint, and then began by mixing cadmium red with yellow ochre and a touch of burnt sienna. He added a little water (the oil paints were water based) and sketched out the outline of Latias and her blankets, taking care to check proportions.
815. inoculate: to inject something, especially a medicine
Although he was a science type of guy, dabbling in the arts inoculated him with a kind of magic medicine that made him lose track of time and mix furiously to get just the right shades of lavender or scarlet. By the end of three hours, he had filled the canvas with the basic colors, a blurry smudge of what he had originally planned to paint. The canvas was now too wet to work with, so he settled for taking a picture of Latias and waiting for the next day to come by before continuing.
816. defame: to attack a person's reputation; to slander
He set aside the painting to dry in the pantry (it smelled a touch strong) and retired to his room. His phone was still lying on the nightstand, charging. He picked it up, and saw new messages from Gold and Leaf.
9:28 PM – Gold: silv just beat janine
3:49 PM – Gold: got to my grandparent's house
3:49 PM – Gold: apparently dentaro misses you?
3:50 PM – Gold: wtf how
3:50 PM – Gold: that's ampharos btw (read)
And then the first messages from Leaf in a while.
7:22 PM – Leaf: heard you lost yesterday bro
7:23 PM – Leaf: asses defaming you online
7:23 PM – Leaf: so I trolled them and blew up a coupla news website w/ flying pidgeot
7:23 PM – Leaf: it's pretty cute you should check it out before they figure out how to fix it lol (read)
817. opaque: not letting in light; unintelligible
Green climbed onto his bed and lay on his stomach. He propped himself up on his elbows and texted back to Leaf.
7:30 PM – Green: wth that's illegal af (sent)
He flipped to the chat with Gold.
7:31 PM – Green: idk man I haven't seen any ampharos in years I swear
7:31 PM – Green: check his pedigree maybe he's from the Oak ranch or something (sent)
Green was grateful for opaque windows. Because when he rolled off his bed and onto his swivel chair to look up popular news sites, he was laughing his head off, loud enough to attract stares probably from casual passersby on the street. Leaf had actually glitched famous, professional websites to have cute, pixelated pidgeots flapping by, making it essentially impossible to read anything on the page. And she didn't stop there – she'd messed around and transformed the boring backgrounds of the black and white pages into shiny, rainbow messes of seizure inducing colors.
818. vigorous: energetic; forceful; strong and healthy
Staring closely, he could see some print (yellow on flashing white was hard to read), presumably posted by the web managers. They were vigorously spouting empty threats – Leaf had apparently started messing with them at least four hours before, and they'd still been unable to get things together. It'd caused a sensation across the internet, and some actually looked into the cause of the whole affair and started making comments on the videos of the battle. Good comments.
Green finally got over laughing at the flapping pidgeots with rainbow crests streaming across the pages, and texted Leaf back.
7:35 PM – Green: LOL WTF MAN THIS IS GREAT
819. partisan: a strong, often militant, supporter
Green browsed through comments, and found that the internet had formed sides that were pro-free speech and others that were anti-hacking, and the whole controversy about battling privacy and crappy and creepy news reporters was exploding.
7:36 PM – Leaf: ikr
7:36 PM – Leaf: im on pro-free speech side lol search jigglyPFS some person made a page so partisans can register for petitions and the stuff this is crazy
820. mausoleum: a huge tomb
7:37 PM – Green: actually I think I saw that already the page with obnoxious pink background
7:38 PM – Leaf: yep
7:38 PM – Leaf: hey I believe some thanks are in order
7:38 PM – Leaf: I distracted the media
7:39 PM – Leaf: im crashing at your place on Friday k
7:40 PM – Green: ugh no I just denied Gold and then he's going to kick up a ruckus about me being unfair
7:40 PM – Leaf: gold wanted to sleep with you
7:40 PM – Green: UGH no
7:40 PM – Green: I let him sleep on the sofa over the weekend and now I think he thinks we're best buddies
7:40 PM – Leaf: you little shit you let gold sleep in your place before Red
7:41 PM – Green: …
7:41 PM – Leaf: you have three days
7:41 PM – Leaf: and then im fuckin beating you up and tossing you in the oak mausoleum
7:41 PM – Green: …
7:42 PM – Leaf: no im serious
7:42 PM – Leaf: Red likes you
7:42 PM – Leaf: just because I couldn't love him doesn't mean you're allowed to trash him
7:42 PM – Leaf: and here I was peacefully doing fieldwork for Rowan
7:42 PM – Leaf: you know what bring Gold over to your house we can all crash in the living room and I can observe this creature you let in your apartment