Arcade's Dungeon

Hunter Hero 5: Saturday Morning

"Hey, Cade. Do you still have some unmixed blue paint over there?"

     "Yeah, about half a bucket. How much do you need?"

     "Not much. Just enough to finish the waves on this side, so...about half of that, actually. Here. Oh, thanks."

     "No...problem," I tipped the bucket up just as it was about to spill over the side of his deep palette. "Ed."

     Ed's wrist scrubbed back and forth across his forehead, black hair shining in the sun. His hands were covered in dark blue and white, some mixes of light blue in there from a mix I'd given him earlier as he gave the waves shades. "Are you sure you're fine just distributing and mixing paint? It's a lot more fun to actually use it, you know."

     "Don't worry, I'm not just starving myself of the fun. My creativity stat is the lowest of anyone here. There's a reason why I stopped drawing in elementary school, and it's because I knew I'd never get any better at it."

     "I do remember the 'draw yourself' intros we did at the beginning of the semester for computer science class," Ed nodded, making me wince and remember that he did indeed sit beside me that day before our instructor randomly assigned us how he wanted instead. Since Ed was placed so far away from me, I actually forgot I had class with him every day for seventh period. Funny, because it was right before when we held meetings for club. "Quite the stick figure you had."

     "At least the glasses were nice."

     "They were, and they did look good on you. They do look good on you. Stick figure you," he shrugged. "And you too."

     "Thank you for noticing my effort," I laughed, looking up from the paint buckets at my feet where I'd put the blue one down. "Not many people do."

     Sergeant Bell and his fellow blue-clothed, weapon-belted folks didn't really like when I showed up and typically dealt with and ignored me, and people like Sylvia and Mike and therefore the rest of the school showed their notice of my hard work in a bit of an off way.

     "No, we do, don't worry. It's hard not to."

     "Well thank you again," I said, looking past his shoulder when someone else turned away from the wall that seemed to be out of paint. I looked for the bucket that matched what they'd been using, sidestepping away from Ed to dish it out. I expected him to leave, but he was still standing there when I put the bucket back down and looked up. Why? I thought, Our conversation is over. But he was still standing in front of my line of paint buckets and their mixes as I chipped off dried paint from the underside of my wrist I hadn't noticed. "Did you still need something?"

     "Well I...no. No," Ed shook his head, seeming to snap out of something. He glanced back towards his wall, then stepped away towards it while glancing back at me. "Sorry. Spaced for a moment."

     "Make sure you drink some water. It's hot out today."

     "Says the one standing in the sun. You're starting to look a little red."

     "Oh," I glanced down at my arms, realized I was wearing long sleeves because it'd been cool when I stepped out that morning, and instead felt for my face. "I forgot sunscreen..."

     "Hold on a moment. I've got some in my bag." Ed took his heavy tray of paint back to where he worked, trying not to spill any before trotting back over to me with Vans slapping on the concrete. The backpacks had been left in the one of the vans, so he had to ask Mrs. B for the keys where she was painting in an orange squid, and I went contentedly back to stirring paint around in a green bucket at my feet. It was actually kind of hot, but I hadn't noticed. A frog in a pan but it's not burning yet, kind of. "Here."