Tissue Paper [ON HOLD]

4

     We ended up spending the rest of our afternoon hanging out with the trio, having fun, smiling, laughing, and more. We even managed to make Yuri look alive a few times.

Before we knew it, it was dinnertime. AND WE SUMMON THE AWKWARDNESS!!!

     We waved goodbye to the trio for the time being, seeing as how they were going to go out to a store to pick food up. We walked into the common room to the rest of the group.

     They weren't with anybody else that we had just met, it was just our former group. And of course, they were playing the only game that can ruin friendships. The only game that can make even the quietest of our group scream louder then a rocket blasting off.

     Uno.

     "I UNO REVERSED YOU YOU IDIOT!!" Leah screeched, shoving the bright yellow card in Kiyana's face.

     "THAT'S NOT HOW UNO REVERSE CARDS WORK! I GAVE YOU FOUR CARDS! GET THE FUCK OVER IT!!" Kiyana yelled back, pushing back the card.

"WELL IT'S FINE IN OUR VERSION AND YOU KNOW IT!! TAKE THE GOD DAMN CARDS BACK!!" Leah shoved four cards back in Kiyana's face. Kiyana snatched them and pounded them into her pile.

     Yuri walked in and sat down, taking a seat and a set if cards. "Mind if I join?" She smirked. We had this weird thing that literally anybody could rage quit or join at literally any point in the game. This was the cause for sleepovers up until four am driven by never-ending games of Uno.

"Bro, you know it's fine," Neozaki rolled her eyes. Wow. This is the calmest I've ever seen her, especially during a game of Uno.

We all sat down, the group that was originally there spreading out to make room. There were a few other kids, one with a bird head, and another with long green hair and a wide mouth, and I suppose a few more too lingering around to watch us. A few had smiles of amusement, the others doing whatever.

Micah and I grabbed our cards, then I waited for my turn. There were yells and screams in between turns. The lingering teens looked surprised at them letting us in so late in the game, and even more so when we tolerated cheating (Which wasn't really cheating, by the way, it was just our very messed up rules).

A half hour into the game, Shiro took his cards and shuffled them back into the pile, taking a new set. That was another one of our messed up rules. You can take your cards and reshuffle them and take new ones out of the pile at any time in the game, as long as you had the same amount of cards that you had before you re-shuffled. That seemed to be the last straw of confusing for the watching teens though.

     "Okay, I would just like to know, why are you guys cheating and basically tolerating it?!" Hissed a purple haired boy that had walked in to watch us around ten minutes ago.

     "We aren't cheating...?" Hara raised her eyebrows.

     "Yes you are!" The teen accused her.

     "Nah uh. Bullshit. This is our game, our rules, so you can back the fuck off now." Neozaki growled, and the male backed away.

     "Okay, chill, I just wanted to..." He trailed off as literally every single one of us-including Shiro-raised our middle fingers off, as if to ward off a curse.

     "Fuck." Neozaki started.

     "Off." All of our voices chimed together, making us sound loud and scary.

     The teen turned and ran off.

     Some of us smiled triumphantly, while others were un-phased and just turned back to the game at hand.

     I put my cards back in the pile, stating that I would be leaving for a little to do something and I would be back soon. The group nodded. Not like I would be losing much anyway, my cards were absolute shit.

I walked down the hall and into our dorm, turning to look at my bed and its side table. There's a bookshelf sitting above it, and a ton of my all-time favorite books sit on it, just waiting to be re-read for the thousandth time. I opened the single drawer in the side table, and grabbing a pack of necklaces and earrings, I closed it back up and walked back out into the hall.

     "Ikumi, that was quick!" Micah states, but their eyes were mostly on the pack in my hand. "What is-" They started asking before they gasped in realization. "Oh my goodness, we haven't worn those since we were around seven!" They smiled brightly.

     The entire group has known each other since our early years of age, around five and six. A few years into our friendship, we were walking around a small mall pretty close to our houses, it was basically in the middle of all of our homes. We hung out there all the time. Crime rates were low, security was high, and we knew practically everybody that usually went there, so our parents were fine with it.

     Our favorite store in that place was a game store, one with many different board and card games of all different shapes and sizes. And so of course they had Uno. That was where our obsession began.

     And right next to that store was a jewelry store. None of us had much interest, so we usually avoided that store. Until we all decided one day that we wanted matching earrings. So naturally, we went there, especially because they had quite a few options of clip-on earrings, especially considering none of us except Hara and Kiyana had their ears pierced. We went in there and immediately found a group of eight matching earrings and necklaces, for a fairly low price too. We put all of our allowances together and just barely scraped enough together to buy the pack. The earrings were pretty things, glittering a bright white with small glittery plastic jewels of all colors dotting the frame. The only thing that was different about each set was that each set had a different shape. One had a square, the other a triangle, and other an octagon, and so on.

     The necklaces were small gray chains with a certain shape attached with the same colorful jewels dotted along it.

     Hara chose the circle.

     Yuri the rectangle.

     Leah the square.

     Shiro took the octagon, Kiyana taking the hexagon.

     Neozaki took the star, and Micah snatched the oval.

     I took the triangle.

     And suddenly, we were complete.

     A few years after, we had all returned the pairs, saying we would take them out again at the right time.

     And so we did. Right now.

    Hara chose the circle.

     Yuri the rectangle.

     Leah the square.

     Shiro took the octagon, Kiyana taking the hexagon.

     Neozaki took the star, and Micah snatched the oval.

     I took the triangle.

     And we were whole again.

     Forever.