The Last Apothecary

Chapter 10.

I didn't see Dustin at the bus stop the next morning, and after needing to have a second conversation last night to explain my whole job situation to my dad, I was more than behind on the insane amount of content Mr. Dekoran had wanted me to read. With the bus still not having showed up yet, and nothing else to do, I brought the book closer to my eyes as if it could help me read it faster, and tried to shove all the knowledge in my tired brain.

"I didn't take you for a reader, too."

I recognized his voice, but that didn't help me from jumping at Dustin popping out from behind me. "Can you stop doing that?" I emphasized, clutching the book in my hands a bit tighter. "Where did you even come from?"

"I dunno. Earth, probably," he responded nonchalantly.

Probably? I looked at him confused, but he didn't seem to notice, his hair falling over his grey eyes as he leaned in close to inspect my book.

"To answer your question, I'm not a reader. I'd rather be doing anything else. I just have to get through at least this book before the end of school today."

"A book on plants?" he asked, finally noticing the title on the spine. "What sorta class needs that? The Witch kind?"

"Well, it's not really a class, so much as an after-school activity," I admitted. "My specialty is being an Apothecary, so this is apparently a requirement for me now."

"Wow, like making potions and stuff?" he responded incredulously.

"...Yeah, how'd you know?" I hadn't even known the term when I heard it, so it seemed weird for some random Human to catch on so fast.

His face lit up as he launched into an explaination. "Because that's my character for SpellSlay! I'm this Apothecary Witch who makes potions to support the other team players. I was just playing that yesterday at your work. I didn't know they were a thing in real life too. That's crazy."

I knew the game he was talking about. I played it during my off-time too, whenever I was allowed to have that anymore. For some reason, it made me think back to the talk I had had with Mr. Dekoran not too long ago, about playing support. I had been referencing the same character, now that I thought about it. "Wait, Eliza is an Apothecary?"

"Oh you play too? That's awesome! We should share gamer tags and set up a round sometime," he mentioned, his sentence casual but his eyes showing excitement, most likely at the idea of not playing alone. "But yeah, she's an Apothecary. It's literally the first thing in her bio."

Oh right. Those things I never read. I'd never played the character, but her design was the type of Witch from fantasy books. Big pointy hat, striped purple stockings and a bandolier of potions hanging from her shoulder to her hip. I usually didn't play support because their health was always so low, not to mention the fact that Eliza specifically had to make whatever potions you needed before they could be used. Some people like the idea of having something to do while waiting for spawn points to load or the match to reset while all the other characters waited by the base, but the way I saw it, if those potions ever ran out in battle, you'd have to run to the side and make more. Then you'd be totally useless and an easy target for the other team to attack. She was powerful, but not my kind of playstyle.

With that, Dustin handed me a slip of paper, decorated in a loopy script with pen ink a bit smudged from him being left-handed. "That's my tag. Friend me later!" he announced, stepping towards the road as the bus pulled into view.

I looked at it. DatDustyFish#3011. I wasn't about to forget that anytime soon. I shoved it in my pocket as I climbed onto the bus after him.

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