And now it's time for Silly Scenes from Emblemme, the part of the story where the writers throw together jokes for the modern AU. Today, we are looking into a day in the lives of several characters not related to the Hoshido and Nohr families, as well as some extra shipping.

Police Department - 8:44 AM

"There's no way you can do everything sitting down, Riegan."

Hilda looked up at the other cop, disappointment clear. "Do you doubt me, Shamir?" she taunted. "Just the sort of thing I'd expect from a walker."

"A what?" Shamir wasn't sure what Hilda meant, but the sound of her voice implied a challenge.

"You know, a walker. Someone who can't go a whole day sitting down."

"I've never seen the point in trying."

"Well, what about a bet?" Hilda grinned. "The next 24 hours - actually, just until 4 - we'll have a bet. If you can plop your butt in a chair and not get up until we're free to leave, then I will stand for the entire day tomorrow. If you get up for anything, I win."

"And what will happen to me?"

"You shut the hell up about me sitting down."

Shamir looked to the empty chair, then to Hilda. "And what if we're called to an investigation?"

"It's Emblemme," Hilda pointed out. "Other than the rare murder, we don't get much in the way of serious crime. If someone dies, the bet's off until we make an arrest. If it's the much more likely scenario of somebody stealing a dishwasher, we'll just send Alois to deal with it."

Shamir looked back at the chair for a moment. Then, carefully, she walked over to it and sat down.

High School - 10:10 AM

Jonah Eisner made use of the modern age in his history class, allowing the students to submit assignments over the internet. He entertained himself with the modern age by not allowing the students to submit until class had begun.

"All right, class," he called, silencing most students, Elise and Flayn the last of them to quiet down. "It's time to turn in your reports on Napoleon. Give yourself an F right now if you wrote about Napoleon Dynamite."

Roughly a third of the class responded with grief, anger, or sadness. Jonah was impressed.

"A third of you. That's better numbers than last year." And still a lot of papers that he didn't have to grade.

Vestra Taxidermy - 10:45 AM

"I need someone to change the sign out front," Hubert announced, looking around at the employees in the entrance area. "The weather has been unusually brutal and destroyed it. Any volunteers?"

"Not it," said Caspar.

"Not it," Petra echoed.

"Definitely not it," said Ferdinand from where he was installing a camera in the inventory room.

What Hubert called a 'good mood' vanished at once. "You don't work here, Ferdinand."

"I know. And I am comfortable with that."

Giving up, Hubert turned to the last of the three employees. "Linhardt?"

"I would," was the answer he got, Linhardt waving a hand weakly in Hubert's direction, "but...I can't...reach it..."

"Have you ever done anything around here?" Hubert demanded.

"You put me in charge of dealing with the people," Linhardt reminded him. "I take the coolers full of dead things and bring them to you."

"And when there are no people around, you're sleeping at the desk," Hubert pointed out.

"You're going to have to prove that."

Hubert gestured to Ferdinand. "That's why I hired him. And once those cameras turn on, I shall have proof that those who enter this building need to pull your stupid man-bun in order to get your attention."

Linhardt's half-open eyes opened the rest of the way. "Say that again," he hissed, "if you dare."

Hubert, obviously, dared. "Stupid...man-bun."

And then Linhardt jumped at Hubert, armed with a piece they used to replace the bill of a swordfish. Hubert picked up one of his own, and the fight began.

Police Station - 10:47 AM

Over two hours since the bet began, and Shamir had a question. Not one that absolutely needed an answer right away, but one that she should have thought of before accepting Hilda's terms.

"Does using the bathroom count as getting up?"

Hilda looked up from her case file (that was absolutely not actually getting done) and grinned. "Yeah. Yeah, it does."

"So how do you even pull it off?"

"I could tell you, but you would never unhear it."

"You don't pee in a jar, do you?"

"No, I just use the handicap stall and...uh, transfer myself."

"Without standing?"

"I found a way." Her smile turned devious. "You don't need to hear my secret, do you, Shamir?"

Shamir was curious. But not curious enough to deal with the fallout. "Not at the moment."

Hilda laughed and returned to looking busy.

Vestra Taxidermy - 10:50 AM

The duel had gone on longer than Petra had expected. Hubert wasn't used to armed combat and Linhardt wasn't used to effort, but they were both very good at screwing around on the job, as much as Hubert tried to deny it.

Caspar had made popcorn, and Ferdinand had stopped to watch. Now, Linhardt knocked the part from Hubert's hands and pointed his own at him.

"Any last words?" Linhardt asked.

"With all the effort you put into this," said Hubert, "you could have changed the sign."

Whether it was in rage at being told to work or being lost in character, everyone agreed that Linhardt should not have stabbed Hubert in response to this. But he did.

Luckily, the blow to the shoulder wasn't enough that Hubert would need to be hospitalized for it. Unfortunately, it was enough to hurt.

But Hubert wasn't a man known for immediate action, and that was why Linhardt got to keep his job. For now. "You have earned the right to avoid changing the sign. Caspar?"

"I already said I wasn't it," Caspar said over a mouthful of popcorn.

"And I have repeatedly said that I would fire all of you if I could. Change the sign."

Caspar went to do so, grumbling about how he always got stuck with the boring jobs.

Funeral home - 11:28 AM

The couple that ran this building were...unusual people. Even their own daughter rarely called anymore. Not that anyone could blame her.

"Tharja!" the man called to his wife, who looked over her shoulder as if he was mildly amusing at best. Ignoring the look on her face, he gestured to the corpse in front of him. "I put him in a 60's pink prom tux!"

"I've never understood your fascination with playing dress-up with dead people, Henry."

"It's the only time I can make people wear whatever I tell them to," Henry replied immediately. He lifted the dead man's arm to prove a point. "Besides, when the zombie apocalypse starts, isn't it better for him to be easily spotted through the decaying buildings?"

"But then the survivors will remember that you were the one in charge of the arrangements," Tharja pointed out. "Then we'll have to take that hit to our reputation."

Henry slumped. "Fine, I'll put him back in normal clothes," he grumbled. He moved to take the jacket off, but pulled a little too hard. "Uh-oh."

"Did you rip the hand off?"

"Uh...I can fix it," said Henry, never losing his smile.

And luckily, the mourners never noticed the layer of tape on the right wrist.

Police station - 12:05 PM

The lunch break came with its own set of problems. Namely, how two women were to get their lunch without getting out of their chairs.

"I don't know how you're going to handle it," said Hilda, "but I have my own solution. His name is Claude." She held up her phone so Shamir could read the text she just sent.

Hi, Claude! Can you bring me a sandwich please?

And she'd signed it not with her name but with three heart emojis.

Shamir laughed to herself when she got to read Claude's reply before Hilda could. Make your own dang sandwich, signed with three heart emojis and a kiss face.

Hilda turned the phone around, and made a face. "Whatever," she grumbled. "What good are husbands, anyway?" Shamir opened her mouth to reply with something that may not have been appropriate, but Hilda waved her off. "Fine. I guess I'll just demonstrate my greatest skill - figuring out exactly how much effort I'll need to maneuver my chair to the hot dog vendor."

"The hot dog vendor outside? You're going to take your chair outside?" Hilda nodded at Shamir's confusion. "I have to see this."

Of course, Shamir took a moment to text her own husband to bring her a sandwich, without the emojis of course. The response she got was just as simple - Ok.

Park - 2:00 PM

Had it been anyone but Hinoka, they would have reported a man standing in the center of a crowd, preaching about a god no one had heard of before. Or maybe they would have humored him as crazy.

Since it was Hinoka, she went to get a better look.

"The great Skroogles brings luck to those who follow it," the man was saying. Something about the tone of his voice implied he wasn't taking it seriously. "It led me to meet my wife in the art room of our college. It's kept my wife from falling into pits for the last three months - a personal record."

"I've still tripped over rabbit holes, though," said a bored-sounding woman. Hinoka hadn't seen her, because the woman was sitting next to her husband's feet and playing a game on her phone.

"Yes, well, Skroogles does have the One Million Laws that must be followed to gain its favor. You must have disobeyed the 'do not interrupt' law again."

"Like you're disobeying the 'do not annoy the masses' law right now?"

He nodded. "Precisely. If I get struck by lightning in the next week, it was nice knowing you."

"The One Million Laws?" Hinoka asked, and immediately wished she hadn't.

The man focused exclusively on her, now. "They're easy to follow, Miss..."

"Hoshido."

The wife looked up from her phone, recognizing the name. "Oh," she whispered, where none of the audience could hear. "You better be careful, Azama. That one's got lawyers."

"Don't worry. I'll just...deflect her suspicions." Azama approached Hinoka with a charming smile. "The Laws are the guiding principles of luck. Skroogles is a karma deity, more or less. Don't steal, don't kill, don't cheat on your partner..."

"Is Skroogles a god? Goddess?"

"Skroogles has no gender," Azama answered, surprisingly serious. "Or rather, Skroogles has all genders, including those that would break the collective mind of humanity if discovered. It makes bathroom breaks a lot more complicated than they need to be."

"So you worship a karma deity to ensure that karma works?"

"Well..." the wife paused, thinking things over. "That's what we tell outsiders. It's a little more complicated in reality."

"Don't give it away now," Azama teased. "There are secrets for a reason."

"So what's it like? Worshiping Skroogles, I mean."

Azama almost laughed in triumph. He had her. A child of Hoshidonix, without even much of a conversation. "Only those that have passed the Divine Test will understand all," he explained. "But the Church of Skroogles invites anyone to join and participate. I am High Priest Azama, my wife is High Priestess Setsuna. You?"

"Hinoka."

"Initiate Hinoka." Azama wrote something down and handed it to the redhead. "We're meeting at this location next week. Join us and we'll discuss your initiation ceremony."

Hoshidonix building - 2:30 PM

They all thought nothing of it when Hinoka went for a walk on her break. They all realized what a bad idea it was when she returned and made her announcement.

"Everyone...I've found religion!"

Subaki didn't even look up from his project. "Hinoka, I love you more than I love myself, but I'm not helping you fake your death again."

"You won't need to."

"That's what you said about the Sisterhood of the Sunrise."

"And the House of Heart," Ryoma added.

"And that weird mantis group," Takumi finished.

"This one's different. Skroogles looks down on human sacrifice." She handed over the pamphlet. "I'm no longer a gullible teenager looking for answers to her sister's disappearance and taking every potential route. But if they have information for Revan's dragon hunt?" She shrugged. "I think it'll be worth investigating."

"That implies that the dragons are something other than a product of Revan's diseased imagination," said Takumi.

"He mentioned that the guy who ordered the hit on Mom died the day after he worried that the dragons would get him."

"He died in a prison fight," Takumi reminded her. "That means that the guy who killed Mom got caught, went to jail, and kicked it. Justice served, case closed, the end."

"But what if Revan's right? What if there is a crazy evil organization out to get us?"

"Then we'll fight it," Takumi promised. "I think Subaki still has the spear gun?"

"You're not touching the spear gun," Subaki and Ryoma said together.

Takumi wasn't bothered. "Hey, how often is Revan right, anyway? We're fine."

Vestra Taxidermy - 3:10 PM

"Hubert?" Linhardt called, knocking on the door to the one room he never dared to go into - the room where the goriest bits happened.

"Go away," Hubert called back. When the knocking continued, he quickly said something else. "I'm dead."

"Most of us believe so," said Linhardt without hesitation. "Anyway, Petra told me to apologize for, uh, stabbing you? And you've been locked in there all day so I never got the chance." Hubert stayed silent. "Are you...going to come out?"

The door opened. Hubert liked wearing dark colors, but the small, discolored smear on his shoulder showed him that he'd made him bleed after all. Linhardt took a step back. "I didn't damage anything, did I?"

"It's not nearly as bad as it looks. Like being scratched by a cat...and it will be green for a few days." But he stopped Linhardt as the green-haired man turned to leave. "Do you know why I decided not to punish you for it?"

"Because it's a minor injury and you realized that you wanted to do the same to me so punishing me would just be hypocritical?"

"No. Because I could think of much worse things to do than merely throwing you out." Hubert gestured to the freezer, where they kept coolers full of donated specimens. "The zoo recently contacted me. One of their lionesses sadly passed on, and they wanted to donate her to the museum. I want you to watch me work."

Much to his satisfaction, the color drained from Linhardt's face. "Why couldn't you just sue me?"

"For a scratch and a bruise? That would just be wasting the lawyers' time."

"Fire me, then."

"No. You would enjoy it."

And Hubert closed the door in Linhardt's face.

"Why is he making me watch him work?"

Caspar, who had watched the second half, merely shrugged. "Hey, he's not pressing charges, and you still have your job. That's the 'you stabbed me' equivalent of a high five."

Jeralt's RV - 4:25 PM

"Why do we have to clean it out?" Jeralt complained as his children carried armloads of stuff from the now-cursed vehicle.

"First," said Joanna, dumping the three bags of garbage into the dumpster, "because it smells like dog burp."

"And because we had to sell almost everything we owned to settle the Thanksgiving Incident out of court," Jonah finished. "Be grateful that Frederick found the sentimental value of the place you raised your children enough to help the payment."

"And that his daughter talked him into seeing how funny it really was," Joanna added.

"And that his insurance covered stupidity."

"But where will I live?" Jeralt complained. "Jonah and Petra already found a new place, you moved in with Seteth -"

Joanna pulled back the sheet on Jeralt's mattress, and immediately recoiled. "Dad. How long have you had this thing?"

"Couple decades," was the immediate answer. "Why?"

"Define 'couple decades.'"

Jeralt sighed and sat down across from the ancient mattress. "It's sentimental. You got your mom's wedding dress for your own wedding. Jonah got to give her ring to Petra. What she left me was two kids and the mattress from our marriage." He cracked a smile. "Matter of fact, you two got started on that mattress."

Though neither was usually very expressive, both made their disgust very clear. "Why?" Jonah hissed.

"You're a married man and you're asking why?"

"Not why it happened!" Jonah snapped. "Why you would tell us!"

"Well, you should have figured it out."

"Can I not be here for this?" asked Seteth, who had been there from the start to make up for his daughter's involvement in his girlfriend's eviction.

"I wish I wasn't here for this," Joanna mumbled, before pointing at the mattress. "Dad, as soon as you find somewhere else to live, you should replace that mattress. You have us to remember Mom by."

"Seteth," Jeralt interrupted, "do you still have the mattress you and Flayn's mom had during your marriage?"

"Of course not," Seteth answered immediately. "She's been dead for 13 years. What kind of fool keeps an old mattress instead of photographs?"

"That settles it," said Jonah. "You're changing your mattress. It's older than us."

"You can't prove that!"

"You literally just did."

The door to the RV slammed open, and Petra and the turkey entered. "Frederick has seen Turkey," she announced, as if the bird was her new pet. "Where can we hide him?"

"What does it matter?" Jonah asked. "We're evicted anyway."

"But it would be an added fine."

Jonah fell into silent panic. "Hide him in the mattress, we'll let him out by Seteth's car."

"Please don't make me play chauffeur to a turkey," Seteth said quietly, not expecting Jonah to hear.

Sure enough, he was the one driving the wild bird to Jonah and Petra's new apartment, grumbling to himself about how he'd rather put up with Rhea's bullshit.

Police Station - 4:30 PM

Shamir had made it to 3. Then she had jumped to her feet when the chief walked in, a reflex brought on by anticipation for a case, and Hilda had roared with laughter.

An hour and a half later, Hilda was still mocking her.

"I knew a walker couldn't pull it off," she cackled, before getting out of her own seat to give Shamir a pat on the shoulder. Shamir instantly pulled away. "Aww, come on! You did a great job! I was even worried you might actually succeed. Especially when your husband actually brought you food."

"He was heading in our direction. It wasn't much work to throw together a pb&j and drop it off."

"And he really did just drop it off." He'd thrown the tightly-sealed bag out the window as he drove by, hitting Gilbert in the face. Gilbert had then dropped the sandwich on Shamir's desk and walked out without a word.

Speaking of Gilbert...

"Riegan!"

Hilda went pale at the sound. "Um...yeah?"

"Have you done anything at all today?"

Hilda smiled innocently and held out the case file she'd been blankly staring at since the bet was made. "I did! But I might have missed a few details. You're much better at the whole putting the clues together thing, I'm just decent at finding them. Do you think I'm missing any obvious connections here?"

Gilbert wasn't falling for her act. "Riegan, you are by far the laziest piece of work to ever have a badge."

"Thank you, sir," Hilda chirped.

"That was the opposite of a compliment."

"So it's an insult. See, I can deduce things!"

"This isn't a joke, Hilda! I'm not even sure how you made it this far! If you were anything like your brother..."

"Hey," Shamir interrupted. "Give her a break. It takes a lot of work to do nothing like she does." She nodded at Hilda. "Respect."

"Thank you, Shamir!" Hilda grinned at her, then turned back to Gilbert. "You know, you don't know how hard I actually work. I hereby challenge you to -"

"Do your work, Riegan, or you don't get a paycheck."

Hilda immediately returned to her desk.

Azura's apartment - 5:10 PM

"Are you sure about this?" Revan asked, the look of horror on his face conflicting with his cousin's calm. "You're family, I'm sure I can -"

Azura shook her head. "I want to do as much as I can on my own," she told him. "If it comes to that, you may tell the others. You may even donate. But my soap opera syndrome diagnosis is my problem."

"It killed your mom."

"It did."

"It might kill you."

"It might." Azura still refused to accept his help. "I have plans, Revan. And I have backup plans."

"At least tell Silas."

"I will. But do you know he doesn't believe in an abdominal gland?"

"It does sound made up."

"Especially since it isn't the pancreas or adrenaline..." Azura trailed off, then wiped it from her mind. "Just let me tell him. Don't do it for me."

Seteth's house - 5:32 PM

"How could you just sit there and laugh at me?" Joanna complained.

"Easily," Seteth answered at once. "Your father was...interesting."

"But weren't you aware of how embarrassing it is to have jokes about...that topic thrown around like he was doing?"

"Do you not remember how old I actually was when Flayn was born?"

Right, Flayn was 17 and Seteth wouldn't be 35 until after Christmas. That had been quite the source of humor for his family for years now, and one of many reasons why he no longer accepted calls from his brothers. Even though he had fallen in love with Flayn's mother at the age of nine and married her because he wanted to, even Joanna teased him about his self-control being learned now and then.

Still, she refused to call herself a hypocrite. "It's different in your case. You made one bad decision in your whole life, and the result of that decision wasn't there listening to jokes about it."

"But she mocks that bad decision, too."

Seteth didn't raise his voice, but he mirrored her anger and annoyance just as clearly as if he had. Joanna, for her part, kept her face blank, leaving it only to her tone to tell him how she really felt. Flayn herself watched, keeping a score in her head.

"It's different in your case, Seteth! That's how your family does things, but my father never told us the story of our creation before!"

"I never told Flayn the story behind her creation. She simply did the math."

"Then you have no frame of reference for how humiliated I was, do you?"

Flayn picked up a pencil and held it to her face like a microphone. "Joanna strikes with a verbal uppercut. How will my father respond?"

"I'm humiliated all the time!" Seteth finally raised his voice. "From my brothers, from my parents, from my best friend, from my own daughter...and, let's not forget, my current girlfriend has gotten a few well-placed jabs of her own in."

"Not the best weapon," Flayn observed in her mock-golf-announcer voice, "but he still uses it to a decent effect."

Seteth ignored her. "That 'one bad decision in my whole life' has haunted me for 17 years - no offense, Flayn."

"None taken!" Flayn chirped.

"My father was right about you!" Joanna snapped, and Seteth, recalling what Jeralt had said when he had done the math relating to Flayn's age, spoke before he could think it through.

"He was drunk when he said it, and he's still drunk now!"

Joanna stood there in silence for a moment. Then she grabbed a box of Oreos and stormed out. "I don't have to deal with this! I'm taking these Oreos and leaving!"

"Why take the Oreos when there's fish in the oven?"

"Because I saw Flayn in the kitchen!"

The smoke alarm went off as soon as Joanna finished the sentence. Seteth rushed to the kitchen to put out the fire and inspect the damage. Joanna slammed the door behind her. Flayn wondered how smoke detectors could be so perfectly timed to conversation.

"Why is the oven temperature so high?" Seteth complained.

"Because I never learn," Flayn mumbled at the floor.

Park, 5:42 PM

Joanna had mostly cooled off from the fight by the time she got to the park, but she wasn't sure if Seteth had. She wasn't even sure if this fight over something so stupid was enough to end the relationship and send her moving in with her brother again.

She was spared from it by the arrival of a friend of hers from work, who carried a covered bowl full of spaghetti noodles with no sauce or meatballs. Joanna smiled a little.

"Hey, Manuela," she said as the other woman sat down next to her, grumbling to herself. She eyed the noodles pointedly. "You having dinner in the park?"

"You eating cookies for supper?"

Joanna smiled slightly. Manuela angrily chewed her noodles. "I'm guessing you put a lot of effort into those noodles, but Hanneman is drinking store-bought sauce out of the jar?"

"With a spoon," Manuela confirmed, "like a soup."

Joanna shook her head. Manuela and Hanneman were her friends, good friends at that. They'd been deliberately annoying each other for years, and had recently married, only to immediately return to their usual antics.

"I fought with Seteth," Joanna admitted. "It was over something stupid."

"Not as stupid as ours, I'll bet." Manuela lifted her sauceless noodles to emphasize the point. "This time we fought about garlic bread. I told him I liked it crispy, and he said that he liked to be able to chew it."

"Let me guess, your response was 'get some dentures, old man' and then he stole the sauce."

"Actually, he bought the sauce to contribute to the meal. The man survived on nothing but sandwiches for 30 years, Joanna, it's...unnatural."

Joanna handed her a few cookies. "Take these to him as an apology gift. He likes sweets."

Manuela laughed, accepting the cookies. "That's a good idea. Sorry I don't have an offering for Seteth."

"That's fine. I'll go and get him something." She rolled her eyes. "Flayn tried to help cook again."

The two spoke for a while longer, letting off the steam from their most recent guy problems before heading home to patch things up.

Taguel Avenue, 8:30 PM

Bernadetta was a quiet person. If she hadn't been dragged to parties by her college roommate, Edelgard, she would have had only her and possibly Hubert as friends. But now she had an army of caring friends who understood, a husband to protect her, and a house as far away from her father as her call to Emblemme would allow.

That didn't mean she liked going outside. She was only doing this for a friend.

"Why are we doing this again?"

Dorothea gestured down the road. "Ferdie left his phone at the taxidermy place," she replied. "And his dad came to get him to do something else. I had nothing better to do, and your street is the shortest route."

"And why did you need a friend to come along?"

"I was told never to walk Taguel Avenue alone."

Bernadetta squeaked in fear. "Why me?"

"Because you live on this street and I knew you'd be here."

"But why aren't we driving?"

Dorothea stopped in her tracks. "That's...a really good question," she mumbled, before shaking her head. "I need to get the steps in. Working at a TV station is not good for exercise."

Bernadetta didn't object to that reasoning, but kept a half-step behind Dorothea, ready to turn and bolt as soon as someone talked to her.

There was movement up ahead. A tall figure, dark as a shadow and with long, sharp horns, stood and waited under a street lamp. Dorothea didn't even object when Bernadetta screamed about a demon from hell, and she'd even admit that she reached for her friend's hand as the demon approached.

"There's no doubt about it," Bernadetta squeaked. "He's going to say the most terrifying thing imaginable before he drags us off to face our eternal nightmares!"

"Lovely night for a stroll," said the demon.

"Take that back, you fiend!" Bernadetta snapped before she could realize what he actually said.

The skeletal smile didn't even budge, but they could hear a soft, disappointed sigh. "You have business," said the demon. "Go and complete it, or else face death by my hand."

Silence.

"You're not going to tell him to take that back?" Dorothea asked.

"No," Bernadetta answered softly.

Of course not. "Thank you for letting us pass," Dorothea said. "Unfortunately, we cannot offer anything in return."

"I don't make deals." The demon turned around, facing the same direction that they were heading. "I have business of my own, and you are not, for the moment, my concern."

They turned around and sprinted back to Bernadetta's house. By the time they felt safe enough to turn around, there was no sign of the demon.

"If our husbands ask," said Dorothea, her voice shaking just the tiniest bit, "we were mugged."

"No!" Bernadetta turned to her own house. "I'm telling my husband nothing. He'd want to fight the demon!"

Dorothea, who had met him on multiple occasions, had to agree.

An hour later, the women heard the six locks on her front door clicking. Bernadetta armed herself with a bow and arrow from her husband's weapon collection, handed Dorothea a throwing knife, and braced herself.

Then they heard a deep voice call Bernadetta's name and the sound of grocery bags hitting the kitchen counter. "A successful harvest," the voice announced to the empty room, and she poked her head around the corner to see her husband standing there, tall and intimidating as any demon but much, much prettier.

"Jeritza!" The weapons dropped as she launched herself at him, throwing her arms around him and hiding her face in his shirt.

"Bernadetta." He didn't seem surprised. "Are you really that excited for milk?"

Bernadetta stepped back to look him in the eye. "I'm happy to see you."

That was a good enough explanation. And in return for him not asking any further questions, she didn't ask about the duffel bag.

High school teacher's lounge, 12:25 PM (the following day)

"We realized how stupid it was to fight over garlic bread," Manuela announced, stepping into the room when she knew Joanna was there. "However, neither of us is giving up our position on the classic 'is soup a drink' argument."

"The fact that the argument has become classic is ridiculous." Joanna had to give her a small smile, though. "I made up with Seteth, too. He admitted that he was enjoying being on the other side of this situation for a change, and I admitted I was a bit of a hypocrite for teasing him about his past while not wanting to hear about related issues."

"So what exactly were you fighting about?" Manuela asked. "I don't think you told me."

"I'd tell you now, but you would never unhear it. What side are you on in your current argument?"

"Soup's a drink, of course."

Joanna struggled not to roll her eyes. "Good luck with that."

"Good luck with what?" asked Jonah as he walked in with his lunch.

"Manuela thinks soup is a drink."

"It is a drink, though."

Joanna stared at her brother for a solid three seconds. "You're joking."

"It can be served in a cup, right? That's a drink."

"But soups usually have stuff in them," Joanna insisted. "You chew the chunks. If you chew it, it's food."

"Try telling that to a smoothie."

"I'm sorry, you chew smoothies?"

Jonah shrugged. "The food court at the mall never properly blends them."

"But that isn't a smoothie, then! It's just a milky fruit cup!" Joanna threw her arms out to emphasize the point, shedding her emotionless image as she got caught up in sibling rivalry. "And grammatically speaking, you eat soup. Saying you drink soup sounds wrong."

"It may sound wrong, but it's the truth. I drink soup!"

"No, you don't! Soup has chunks!"

"I've never seen a tomato soup that has chunks."

"Homemade tomato soup totally has chunks!"

"But canned doesn't."

"The canned soup is just broth! The broth might be a drink, but the broth is - usually - just one part of a really wet food. The broth might actually be a sauce."

"If it's a sauce, tomato soup would have to be put on something." He slammed his fist on the desk Ace Attorney style. "But you can eat it alone! Therefore, it is not a sauce!"

"You said eat! So you admit that soup is a food!"

"I admit nothing!"

Manuela watched this fight with growing horror. Then she removed her phone from her purse and carefully called Hanneman.

"Calling to surrender, then?" he said as a greeting.

"Calling to agree to disagree," Manuela corrected.

"And why is that?"

She held out the phone to the bickering twins, who had completely forgotten where they were and that they weren't alone. Then she returned the phone to her ear.

"I see," Hanneman said after another few moments.

"Why do we get into these stupid fights?"

"We disagree on something inconsequential, then you start yelling, then I start yelling..."

"Actually, you usually start yelling first."

And so the principal walked in to find two teachers arm-wrestling while talking about if soup was a drink or not, while a third teacher was arguing over the phone. The man immediately closed the door and walked away.