Rebel Girl, You Are The Queen Of My World

Visit With Old Friends

Pearl wakes up, sprawled out on the king sized bed. Groggy from just waking up, Pearl just stares at the ceiling. Pearl groans and sits up. She then stretches and notices Marina isn't there. Pearl grabs her phone and checks her messages to see if Marina sent an explanation. There were several notifications on Pearl's phone lock screen but one of them was from Marina. Pearl inputs her password and goes to messages to see what Marina sent. She sent the following
"Good Morning Pearlie <3
I had to go out to run some errands, so I probably won't be back when you wake up. Love you <3"
Pearl has the house to herself. Pearl gets up and realizes that she was wearing her clothes from last night, puffy jacket, visor, and crown included. She decided to change into more casual wear. She put on her short shorts and a large grey shirt that has bright pink text reading "Sorry, this girl is taken by a sexy gamer" in Inkling. Pearl goes about her day as normal, just without Marina. Brushing her teeth, making a breakfast of toast and an orange. She then proceeded to boot up her game console in the living room that she hasn't turned on for about 5 years due to being busy as a famous musician. Now, with the day to herself, Pearl gets to play her favorite team based shooter, Marine Watch, again after so much time not playing it. She clicks on the game, it starts loading annnddddddd, "Software update required to play". Pearl can't be surprised, she hasn't played in 5 whole years, what she was surprised by is that the update would take 3 hours. That was less than she was expecting but still long enough to get snacks for her gaming. After getting some popcorn and chips and a bit of just plain old wasting time, the game finishes updating. After 5 years, she picks up the controller and begins to succumb into her addiction again.

She goes to spend 3 hours absolutely demolishing 12 year olds in a video game. She then gets a text, she assumes it is from Marina. She picks up the phone and is shocked to see the sender, Karla, from her old band. They haven't talked in years, it might have been 7, maybe even 10 years. Pearl can't really remember. She then decides to actually read the text. It reads this.
"Hello, it's been awhile. To cut to the chase, the band wants to meet up with you again. We hold no hard feelings against you, we just think it would be nice to catch up after all this time. I get if you are too busy and that is fine, we just wish you the best of luck."
Pearl reads over the text multiple times to come to a conclusion. She decides that a catch up with them wouldn't hurt at all. The breaking up of the band all those years ago wasn't even too personal, just a conflict of interests. Pearl sends the response.
"Alright, sounds cool. I am down for whenever so just tell me the time and place. ✌"
Pearl barely has time to pick up the controller again before Karla responds. Pearl picks up the phone and reads the message.
"Glad to hear that, Pearl. Does 4:30 pm at Inkopolis Café in Inkopolis Square work for you?"
Pearl quickly responds.
"That works for me, I might be a bit late depending on whether the train wants to work with me but I can make it regardless. 👍"
Pearl looks at the time and says to herself, "yeah, that's enough time to play one more game."

Pearl goes ahead to play more than one game. She plays four games. Pearl decides to check her phone for the time and realizes that it is 3:50 pm. She should probably get dressed. Pearl rushes to the bedroom to actually get dressed properly. Pearl throws off her casual wear and puts on a black tee with a white tentacle design, fishnet leggings, large black boots with chains, a spiked choker on her neck, and a black crown that looks like is made out of crystals. Pearl then grabs a small bag and puts her wallet, train pass, and phone in the bag. Pearl then rushes to the living room, turns off the T.V, and rushes out of the door. Pearl then realizes that her house is far from any train station. Pearl yells out of frustration to herself and opens up Splyft to get a ride to a train station.

The Splyft car gets there and Pearl gets in. After they arrived at the train station the following events were not too interesting. Pearl gets on the train to Inkopolis Square and takes the train with no issue. The new train route goes through the deep sea metro for quicker travel. It is more convenient for Pearl but it was weird given her history with that place. Pearl stared out the window, looking out into the dark, murky teal color of the ocean. Pearl finally arrives at her stop. Pearl left the train and the subway. Fortunately for her, the subway was right next to the Café. Pearl checked the time, 4:40 pm. "Welp, I told her I might be a bit late" Pearl thought to herself. Pearl then goes to enter the Café (where ever the entrance is) and sees Karla and the rest of the band sitting at the table by the large window. They all look towards Pearl.
"Hey guys." Pearl says.

"Nice to see you were able to come, Pearl." Karla speaks. "Come sit." Karla gestures towards the empty seat between Karla and Ryu. Pearl sat between the scaly-foot gastropod and the carp.

"So, how have you guys been?" Pearl said, starting a conversation.

"We have been doing fine, especially since Paul joined." Ryu said, gesturing to the dark skinned octoling with pinkish tentacles and wearing a dark red beanie.

"Ah, so that's who y'all replaced me with. Cool, cool." Pearl said looking directly at Paul. Pearl then looks a bit closer at Paul. "Wait, didn't you pick a fight with me on Squitter?" Pearl asks. Paul looks up from his phone and at Pearl.

"Uh, yeah, why? Do you actually still remember that?" Paul responded.

"WHERE WERE YOU??? I WAS AT WAHOO WORLD FOR 5 WHOLE HOURS!!!" Pearl stood up. Paul then bursts into laughter.

"YOU ACTUALLY WENT?!? THAT IS SO FUCKING FUNNY BAHAHAHAHAHA" Paul chortled.
"Both of you, please calm down." Karla asked calmly. "And Pearl, sit down please."

"Yes ma'am." Pearl said saluting and then actually sitting back down, Paul snickering.

"Please don't call me 'ma'am' you know I don't like that, Pearl." Karla said, covering her mouth(?) to hide her laughter.

*

The group goes on to have a nice conversation for a bit over an hour. Nothing much of note was said, just catching up, just the overall definition of "chatting", no consequence talking. It was so nice to be reconnecting with her friends. Pearl loves Marina but lately it has felt like Pearl couldn't do anything without Marina. While Pearl was deep in thought, Karla's next question caught her off guard.

"So, You and that Marina have become stars, I am wondering, would you like collab? For at least for a single, it doesn't have to be a full album." Karla asked politely

Pearl stared blankly for a second and then responded, "Oh, yeah, um." Pearl struggles to find the words, but then she does, "I would honestly love to, a reunion with the additions of Paul and Marina would be great but, me and Marina are being kinda tangled up with collab with a band right now, I think their name is something dumb, I think it might be Damp Socks." Pearl kind of over explains, the mention of Damp Socks made Ryu immediately perk up and take interest in the conversation.

"Oh shit, you're working with Damp Socks now, have you met them? John Goose is an absolute riot." Ryu just goes off. Pearl is caught off guard by Ryu knowing Damp Socks.

"Wait, you know Damp Socks?" Pearl asks.

"Of course, we collaborated with them like, I think the year after you left which would be..." Ryu then pauses to do some math, Myron then chimes in.

"That would have been 7 years ago." Myron then just goes back on his phone, clearly listening but not really participating in the conversation.

"Thanks Myron, yeah, we collaborated with them like 7 years ago, we made a few songs but we quickly fell off..." Ryu pauses and then realizes that this may be giving Pearl a bad impression on the band, "N-not that means anything, you should know by now that we are not the most agreeable band!" Ryu then laughs, loudly, no one joins in. "But yeah, Damp Socks are good people, I know you could make it work." Ryu finally finishes and then takes a sip of coffee. Karla then coughs to bring attention to what she is probably about to say.

"Well, that is nice to hear, Pearl. Speaking of collaborations, we were actually recently contacted by some pop musician to collaborate, I think their name is Sepia." Karla finishes, just sharing what has been going on with her life as life.

What Karla doesn't know is that the name of "Sepia" causes a domino effect in Pearl's mind and her demeanor basically does a 180. After staring at the table for a bit, Pearl just gets up and starts to leave.

"Hey Pearl, where are you going?" Karla turns around and asks.

"Oh yeah, um, it's just that it's getting late and I should be getting home by now." Pearl quickly turns around, "Bye guys, it was nice meeting up with you again, hope to see you soon!" Pearl then quickly leaves. To Karla, the mention of Sepia was nothing but small talk, but to Pearl it was much more. 10 years ago, Pearl was in a music duo with Sepia, she was also her ex girlfriend.