Aftershock

Opportunity

"What'cha reading there?" An Octoling with green hair asked, leaning over his teammate's shoulder.

"Just some articles," The other replied, shuffling the newspaper in his hands before using one hand to underline a sentence. "But this looks pretty interesting— "The Alkress family company is in shambles after multiple reports of theft and vandalism within the past month." Ring any bells?"

"Uhh..." The green Octoling paused and squinted his eyes at the text. "Isn't that the company that started selling Sheldon all those new weapons?"

"Yeah, turns out they didn't know what made Sheldon's store hold up in the first place," The blue one scoffed under his breath before setting the newspaper down on the white, cafe table he sat at. "No wonder all the new stores are going out of business." Behind him, he heard his teammate sigh.

"Psy, come on. I know things haven't been...easy ever since Team Chaos won the Splatfest, but you could at least have some more optimistic opinions," He said, standing up straight and adjusting his white-rider jacket. Psy turned his head around and raised an eyebrow at him.

"Oh, really? I thought you were the one to judge everything by its surface level," He commented. "Where's the brooding Mouse from five years ago?"

"I—I've changed!" Mouse exclaimed a little too quickly before groaning at himself. "You can just ask Hoodie later, okay? Now, come on; it's way too hot to be sitting outside like this." He spun on his heel, kicking up little grains of loose sand as he waved to the jellyfish running the cafe.

"Fine, fine," Psy said, chuckling at Mouse's reaction while rolling up the newspaper under one arm. He stepped over an empty, plastic water bottle just as Mouse nearly tripped over a bump on the aged sidewalk.

"Watch your step," Psy commented sarcastically as he walked past him, shielding his eyes from the sun as he glanced up towards the towering buildings ahead. He could hear the pitter-patter of Mouse's footsteps as he groaned.

"You look like an 80-year-old man with that newspaper like that," He snickered, continuing to smile to himself when he didn't get a reaction. "Sooo...where to? I've gotta be back at the apartment by five, so as long as it's not another marathon of Turf War, then I'm good with whatever."

"You're the one who suggested that long of a Turf War run in the first place; don't look at me," Psy replied, side-eyeing him as they stopped at a crosswalk. The once freshly-painted, white lines were tattered and dull—causing the glimmer of the salt in the rocks to stand out even more. Psy pressed down on the big, red button implanted on the side of the traffic light post and stood silently. Ten seconds passed...then twenty. He sighed and pressed the button again before looking up at the dimmed traffic lights. A frustrated huff comes from his nose when another ten seconds pass.

"Dude, just wait a little longer for it to—hey! What are you doing?!" Mouse exclaimed as Psy shrugged and walked across the street. He swiftly turned his head left-to-right before groaning loudly and running across to catch up. "You need to be more patient! The last time I didn't use the button, I almost got run over!"

"That's also because you were in the busiest place in the city and didn't check for traffic," Psy replied, rolling his eyes when Mouse narrowed his. "Just look around; this place is practically a ghost town when you're this far away from the actual plaza."

"But...still," Mouse weakly argued, crossing his arms as he stayed side-by-side with Psy as they walked. Whenever he turned his head to get a good look at his surroundings, small wooden signs were hung up on nearly every glass door. With every new sign always followed the same two writings—"open" and "out of business."