well, better than the alternative...

i'll be nothing again, so what am I between now and then?

Ranboo, if asked, would say he likes order. His entire life had been made up of the stuff, so it would be weird to say anything else. There was always order, in the schedules that made up his school life, in the tight shifts of his part-time fast-food job, and even at his house, where he had an (easily avoided) lights out at 11 PM sharp. After giving it another second of thought, Ranboo would probably acknowledge the amount of order prevalent in his life and say he was biased.

Rather ironically, it was on one of the most orderly days he'd had in a bit when he began to learn what life without order was.

The day had started promptly at 7:00. Ranboo got up to the incessant noise of his phone alarm, having already snoozed it twice. He stumbled to his closet and pulled out some jeans and a t-shirt. He brushed his teeth, ate some toast, tossed on a jacket, sunglasses, and a mask, and then went to the bus stop.

By 8:15 he was in homeroom and 25 minutes later he was at 1st-period History. He went through his normal class day. When school got out, he spent an hour in the E-sports Club. It was 5:15 by the time he got to the square his bus stopped at. He bought himself a sandwich for dinner, the meal he had on most weekdays. He went to the same sandwich stand he always did, grabbing a turkey club.

The first thing Ranboo did that strayed from the usual order was actually look around. Usually, he'd people-watch from a table until his bus showed up, but something possessed him to walk around the small square. There were a lot more stores than he'd thought; he'd been pretty sure this square had been filled with dead stores, a place only used for the bus line.

People were bustling in and out of stores that Ranboo had never noticed. He peeked into a candy store that seemed to go on forever and stole some sauce from a fast food place. Weird, this had been under his nose the whole time and he had never looked up and noticed it.

Laughing and rustling brought his attention to a tent that was set up in the middle of the square. A group of friends was leaving, chattering about whatever was inside.

Ranboo walked up, trying to figure out what was inside. He tripped over a sign that said Tarot Readings - 15 Dollars per person. Ranboo had heard of tarot but had never thought about getting a reading. Since today was... special, almost, with it being the first day he'd looked around a place he'd been coming to since he was 10, he checked to see how much he had in his wallet. A crisp looking twenty sat inside. He didn't remember that being there when he bought his sandwich. Since he had enough for the reading and the bus fare home, he decided to go for it.

Ranboo parted the curtains that made the tent's 'doors'. He had to duck pretty far forward to get into it and had to remain crouched on the inside. It was very dim, appearing to be candlelit. Ranboo hadn't even looked up yet when a voice from the back part of the tent said, "Hello! I've been expecting you... uh, lanky one!"

Honestly, Ranboo didn't know who he expected to see, but it certainly was not the kid who sat across the tent. He had brown hair and was wearing a baseball cap. He was shuffling a deck of cards as he spoke.

"Oh, uh, hi! I'm Ranboo." He gave an awkward wave and looked around. There was a small table in front of the other kid, and a cushion he was clearly meant to sit on. He crouch-walked over to it and sat down, cross-legged.

"I suppose you came to me, the Master Tarot Reader Tubbo, for a reading?"

Ranboo just nodded, pulled out the required money, and slid it across the table. The other kid quickly grabbed it and put it into a lockbox, handing Ranboo his change.

"Alright then. I'm going to do a past-present-future reading and then we can build on things from there, sound good?"

Ranboo once again nodded, leaning in a bit. The other kid- Tubbo- smiled, pulling his card deck from under the table. He began shuffling