An Itsy Bitsy Strawberry

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Strawberry awoke, startled. In fact, she was so startled that she hit her head on the corkboard sitting above her. That was a fucking weird ass dream.

She could hear Rocco groan as he stretched. "You're up," he mumbled from above.

"Yeah, and?" she answered.

"You kinda stopped responding at some point yesterday so Damien got a bit panicked. We turned you over to see you'd passed out, so we just let you sit there. Or, rather, sleep there."

"Damien got panicked?"

"Yeah. Damien did."

Groaning, Strawberry grumbled, "What time is it?"

"It's like, 5 in the morning. Damien and Astral are asleep."

"Astral?"

"Oh, right, your last roommate is Astral here. She's on the top bunk across from me."

So Astral was here. Great. All the more to think about. "Is it May 11, now?"

"Yep. You have basic memory. Congrats."

Strawberry rummaged through the bag, nabbing her Gameboy Advance from the bottom.

"Cool console thing."

"Thanks, I guess. I'd play this thing whenever I was bored."

"And not having customers?"

"And not having customers."

Rocco looked up and down at Damien and Astral before sitting up. "Hey, Strawhead. Tell me how you befriended that Sluggy."

"Sluggy?"

"Their formal names are Sluggies."

"Wasn't that originally a discriminatory term?"

"It kinda grew into normal language. But that's besides the point. How did you befriend it?"

"Well..."

Strawberry simply didn't answer. She just sat in silence.

"Strawhead?"

No answer.

"Strawberry?"

No response.

"Come on, is it that bad that you can't tell me?"

"Yeah."

Now it was Rocco who sat in silence. The only noise that filled the room was the click of a game cartridge and a Gameboy Advance powering on.

"Ugh. Today's gonna be boring," he whined, flopping back into his bed.

"A lot of days are gonna be boring, you pebble-brain. That's to be expected," Strawberry sighed back, booting up a chirpy game.

"You know, if you ever wanna answer the question, I'm all ears."

"And I'm no mouth."

After a few minutes of chirpy music, Strawberry piped up. "So, I met a few people yesterday. Maybe you know who they are?"

"Shoot," Rocco answered, scratching at the ceiling.

"Sour?"

"Oh, yeah. Her real name is Emily. She's the head chef of the cafeteria. Really nice bud."

"Astral- wait-"

"Man, Astral's a shy kid. She won't say much to us, but she's rather friendly. I think she's got a little something for Damien, hehe." Rocco's voice grew more smug at the end.

"Right, right. Starry?"

"Pure opposite of Astral. It makes me wonder how they're twins. Starry's a huge fucking asshole. And he has that funky ass glare."

"And Flaky?"

"Fuck's sake, don't get me started on fucking Flaky of all things. She's like a fucking bug. I think she's fucking obsessed with me. Won't stop telling me everything. I try and do one single thing and she's like 'Ooooh, Rocco, you're so cute doing that! Let me help you!' It drives me fucking nuts! Nuts, I tell you!" He raised his voice the more he ranted about Flaky.

"Ooookay, but why does she have those arms?"

"The ones that make everyone call her a spider? God knows."

"How about Damien?"

"A really chill guy." Rocco's voice went back to its relaxed state. "I've known the kid since I was 5. I grew closer to him once I ran out of other friends. Sometimes, I think he's a little bit off in the head, but it's fine otherwise."

"And you?"

"Come on, do you really want me to go into detail?"

"What did it sound like?"

"Ugh, fine. I'm just some fucking kid here, okay?"

"And?"

"What do you mean 'and?' There's nothing else to it."

Strawberry rested her game console onto her blanket. She shifted her feet out of bed and stood on a nightstand of sorts. She rested her arms on Rocco's bedside and looked at him dead in the eyes. "Everybody here has something to them. I know you do, too." She then went back down to continue playing on her Gameboy Advance, leaving Rocco dumbfounded.