bloom. : a fireafy fic

Chapter Two

"Can you stop wearing those damn crocs?" Snowball, his coworker, sighed in annoyance. "They look so stupid."

"They are a comfortable and low maintenance shoe," Firey retorted, pointing down to the holed shoes.

Snowball stared.

Firey grinned and wiggled his toes, visible through the holes in the shoe.

Snowball recoiled in disgust.

"That is nasty," Snowball sneered. "Stop doing that. It's almost the end of our shift, and I could have gone the entire shift without seeing you do that."

Firey chuckled and turned to look at the patrons within the MePhone store. "Why is it so crowded today?"

Snowball shrugged. "Maybe for the launch of the MePhone 4501."

"That's right," the flame-haired boy recalled. "Technology has come so far. Uhm, what's new with this one?"

Snowball rolled his eyes. "A side-facing camera. To take pictures from the side. There is now a camera lens next to the power button. Technology has come SO far."

"That sounds fantastic," the ginger piped up.

"Stop lying."

Firey burst out laughing. He had to hold his stomach to keep from falling over.

Snowball was still shaking his head, his arms crossed. "A side-facing camera. How ridiculous. Just turn your phone."

"It is pretty ridiculous," Firey replied, having stopped laughing and at this point, gasping for air.

"My girlfriend is ridiculous," mumbled Snowball. "She wants one of those stupid phones."

Firey collected himself, now mildly chuckling. He has gotten over the screwed up relationship he and Needle had. He held no grudges against Snowball for being with Needle. He was glad they were, at least happy.

"Leafy's ridiculous too," Firey laughed, masking his loneliness. "She won't talk to me.."

Snowball saw right through it. The white boy, whose expression normally held a look of scorn, had a softened, worried look.

"Hey, Match and Pencil are throwing another one of their penthouse parties, are you coming?" The whitehaired boy was clearly trying to get him to go out.

"Yeah, Leafy and I got an invitation," Firey explained matter-of-factly. "Coiny also told me to come, since he's bringing Pin and wants this dumb, double date thing. But Leafy doesn't seem down, so I probably won't be attending."

Snowball's face contorted into an unreadable expression. "Just because Leafy isn't going doesn't mean you don't have to. You've been working hard, man. You deserve a break."

Firey pondered for a minute.

Would this upset Leafy? She was quite easy-going, but sometimes she drew the line at certain things. This seemed like both a permissible event, yet also a draw-the-line event. Would she allow him to attend alone? Would him being adamant force her to come?

He did want her to come..

But there was a tiny, evil voice in his head, whispering another, less evident truth.

He wanted to go to the party without her.

As he internally reasoned with himself, the tiny voice grew louder and louder before conquering all of his thoughts.

He wanted to go alone. Leafy would drag him down. She would be sad, and he would be forced to take care of her and go home early. Just this once, he wanted to have fun.

He deserved to have fun.

He just won't tell her he's going to the party. That will spare his feelings.

The ginger-haired boy turned to his coworker. Snowball had distracted himself with the customers inside the store, awaiting Firey's answer.

Snowball can be trusted. Snowball can vouch for him.

"I'll go," Firey declared. "I'll go to the stupid penthouse party."

Snowball's face split into a massive, devious smirk. "Hell yeah, man! I knew you had it in you!"

"It's just," Firey began, "I have a condition."

Snowball's expression faltered. "Are you sure you're capable of making decisions, dude? You make some pretty bad decisions. And I mean bad."

"Yeah, don't worry about it." Firey waved his hand in dismissal. "Trust me on this one. It'll be better in the end."

"Alright, fill me in." Snowball narrowed his eyes and crossed his arms.

"I'm not gonna tell Leafy I'm going to the party." Firey looked down at his feet and rubbed the sole of his filthy fucking nuclear orange crocs against the entrance pavement.

Snowball stared blankly for almost a solid minute. "That is the stupidest thing that has ever come out of your stupid mouth."

"What?" The flame-haired boy was actually shocked. "How?"

"First off, that's sort of being dishonest. And it's sort of an asshole thing to do." Snowball sighed, deadpan. "Basically, white I'm trying to say, is you should tell her the truth. That you're going without her. If she finds out you didn't tell her, she's going to be more upset than if you just told her upfront."

"She won't find out." Firey grunted stubbornly. "You're not going to tell her, right?"

"Well, no." His coworker explained. "To be honest, I don't talk to Leafy all that much."

"So she won't find out."

"No, she will." The whitehaired boy shook his head, irritated. 'It's still a bad decision. Everyone is going to see her there."

"She won't," Firey explained. "She's been caring about so little lately. Even if she did find out, she wouldn't care anyways."

"You're undermining how important it is to communicate with your partner," Snowball fired back. "Communication is important, and right now, you aren't doing it!"

"We used to communicate!" Firey seethed. He took a deep breath to calm himself down. Snowball could get fired up easily, and he didn't want things to escalate into something dangerous.

Besides, some customers were sending some concerned glances in their direction.

"We're doing fine without communication now," Firey reasoned quietly. "We're still together, so everything will be fine."

Snowball frowned and said nothing. He looked away, also trying to calm himself.

"She literally won't even care." Firey rested his head against the wall, suddenly exhausted. "She doesn't care about anything."