Slightly Less Badass

~Chapter Twenty Two~

"Mira! Come over quickly! I need your help!" Rina yells from the other end of the line. There's a sudden scream that makes me pull the phone away from my ear.
"Rina? What's wrong?" I ask.
"Just hurry!" The phone beeps and she hangs up. Hmm.. well there's only two options here. Either it's like last time she called me like this and she's just bored. Or there's an actual emergency and I need to rush over to her house. With a loud sigh, I start to get off of the couch. Jay, who had his arm around me, tries to pull me back down.
"Rina just called. I think there's some emergency that she needs me for. I'll be back soon," I say. He doesn't look happy about it but let's me get up.
"How come even on our day off, you spend more time with Rina than me," he mutters.
"Because. Get over it. Go hang out with Jacob or something."
"Ugh. Fine, whatever. I'll text him or something."
"Super. Goodbye, see you later," I say. I slip on some flip flops and grab my purse before walking towards the door.
"Wait you're going to go in that?" Jay asks, stopping me. I glance down at my outfit. I was wearing one of his old white shirts that almost came down to my knee- which I tie dyed awhile ago when I was bored- and these ugly green high waisted shorts that I had stolen from Rina. I shrug and open the front door.
"Eh it's not like Rina will care."
----
For the first time in awhile, her front door was actually locked. I sigh dramatically and start looking in my purse. Eventually I manage to find my ring of keys. I flip through my many random keys and try to find the one for her house. 'Why the heck do I have so many keys? I don't even know where half of these come from,' I think the myself. The key I was looking for was the last one, of course. I unlock the door and step into the house, shutting the door behind me. The house was dead silent.
"Rina! I'm here! What's wrong?" I yell loudly. Eerily, my voice echoes. There was no response.
"Rina? Helooooo! I swear to god if you called me and you're not even here then I'm going to kill you."
A shriek comes from upstairs. There's a loud thump and then another scream. It kinda sounded like someone was being killed. I run up the steps and nearly fall face first. I get about halfway up when I hear a giggle. I pause, very confused.
"Rina?" I yell.
"Oh Mira! Come here I need backup!" she yells back. I go up the rest of the stairs cautiously and look around when I reach the top.
"We're in your bedroom!" she says. I walk down the hallway where their spare bedroom was. Though it was technically a spare bedroom, I spent more time there then anyone else; my clothes were in the drawers and I decorated it myself. I walk into the room and stand in the doorway, staring at them.
The mattress was flipped on its side and Rina was crouched behind it. David was sprawled out on the other side of it with colorful strands covering him and everything else in the room.
"Umm...." Both look up at me.
"It's about time you got here. How's it going?" Rina asks nonchalantly. David groans and starts wiping some of the colorful strings off of himself.
"Super. May I ask what's going on here?"
"Oh, I found a bunch of these cans in the one dollar section at Target so we were having a silly string fight. I think I won. Come on, I want to show you stuff."
She sets down her can of silly string and jumps up. She grabs ahold of my wrist and pulls me away from the room. I glance back to see David shaking his head in exasperation. Rina leads me to their office room and their computer was open on a webpage. She pushes me into the spiny chair. She clicks off of whatever was open on the computer and clicks on something else.
"We should get tattoos," she abruptly says. I look at the screen to see that she googled pictures of tattoos.
"Don't be silly," I say and shake my head. Sure, I've thought about getting a tattoo before but I never could convince myself to go through with it. I wouldn't want to get something dumb that I would just regret a week later.
"Ya, come on. It could be small. I've been looking at some ideas and I've narrowed it down to three. Choose one and then we can go get it done. It'll be so perfectly cute to have a matching tattoo with my best friend."
"Um do you know how much it probably hurts to get one of those? Plus, you know how much I hate needles. Plus why would I want a matching tattoo with you. Plus my dad would kill me. He hates tattoos. He thinks they're dumb. Plus I'd need some time to think about it," I point out. I didn't want to be a party pooper but I don't think this is necessarily a good idea.
"Aw come on please? We don't have to get it today. I'll do some more research about it and figure out the ideal place for it. You look at the ones I picked out and take some time to think about it. Just don't say no."
"I-I don't know... Is this seriously why you called me over?"
"Well, no," she replies. She clicks something and pulls up the webpage that was on the screen when we first walked in. It was something off of Pinterest- called 'the perfect wedding checklist.'
"I was looking at stuff for your wedding but then got distracted by the idea of getting a tattoo," Rina admits. "But look how cute these are."
"Pinterest is a place where you so easily get distracted," I say and shake my head. I look up at the screen and click back to the tattoos. I had to admit, they were really cute. And, as a bonus, they are small looking. I could get it somewhere no one would notice. Hm...
"I-I...... guess...maybe we could," I eventually say. Rina looks at me in surprise.
"You really mean that?"
"If you can agree to a few of my conditions, then maybe I will."
Rina squeaks annoyingly. She nudges me to make me scoot over then manages to squeeze herself into the chair with me. We barley fit but she didn't seem to mind.
"Okay, okay. What are your conditions?" she asks.
"It has to be tiny and somewhere not too noticeable. If this bakery flops then I'll need an actual job and most place don't like tattoos showing. Second, you can never tell my dad about this. He'd kill me. Third, you have to buy my ice cream after because I'm a wimp and I need something to look forward to after I suffer this pain. And fourth, the place we go to better be sanitary. If it's not, then I'm leaving."
Rina sits there and thinks, a look of pure concentration on her face. Then she turns to the computer, opens a new tab, and starts typing some stuff.
Suddenly, she breaks the silence and asks, "When are we going to get these?"
"We better get them today or I might chicken out," I tell her. I shut my eyes tightly as she goes back to typing. I can't believe I actually said yes. After a few more seconds of typing, Rina pokes me on the shoulder and I open my eyes. She points at the screen.
"Okay I found a place not far from here that we can go to. It looks surprisingly nice. Now, which one do you want to get?"
I study the three pictures for a long time. So long, that Rina sighs in boredom and leaves the room. When she returns a few minutes later with two glasses of water in her hands, I've finally decided. I point to the one in the middle with a small smile.
"That one," I whisper. It was perfect. Rina sets down the drinks and claps excitedly.
"Yay! Okay, are you ready to do this?" she questions.
"Are we really going to get it there? I mean, the middle of my arm isn't exactly an easy place to hide it," I comment.
"According to a few websites I read, it's the ideal place to get it. It'll hurt less because of the fat on our arms. Just wear long sleeves when you're around your dad. Or I'm pretty sure they make makeup specifically to cover tattoos. Now come one, let's go tell David and then we can leave."
I follow her into their bedroom. David was sprawled out in the bed watching the small tv they had in here. He momentarily glances over at us before shifting his gaze back to the screen.
"Mira and I are leaving but we should be back soon," Rina announces loudly. David just nods his head.
"Don't you wanna know where we are going?" Rina asks. Then, before giving him a chance to reply, she says, "We're going to go get tattoos."
David sits up and immediately looks at us in surprise. He raises his eyes brows and smirks. Then he suddenly busts out laughing.
"You two are going to get tattoos? Rina, you cried for five minutes yesterday because I punched you. How are you going to survive a tattoo?" he says. Rina pouts and doesn't say anything.
"Why did you punch her?" I can't help but ask.
"It was a punch buggy and I barely even nudged her. That didn't stop her from whining though," he mutters.
"Well it hurt. But it doesn't matter because we're going to do this," Rina says. She sounded much more braver than I felt. David gets off of the bed and turns the tv off.
"Then I'm going. I wanna be there when you chicken out," he says. Rina rolls her eyes and scoffs but doesn't argue. I decide I should probably call Jay and let him know what we were doing. I pull my phone out of my pocket and dial his number. He picks up after only a few rings.
"Jacob would you shut up!" Jay's muffled voice yelled. A childish giggle replied.
"Oooh is it your fiancée? Jay and Mira sitting in the tree. k-i-s-s-i-n-g. First comes love then comes marriage. You know what comes after that Jay? Babies!" Jacob shouts loudly.
"Be quiet you idiot!"
Something made of glass shatters. There was a prolonged silence from the other end of the phone call.
"Oppise. I'll pay for that," Jacob says. Jay sighs and then I hear a door shut.
"Sorry. Hello Mira," he says.
"What drugs did you give to Jacob?" I ask. Jay sighs again.
"He found your stash of cookies and chocolate and decided to eat them all. Sometimes I don't know whose worse, you or him. So what's up? What was Rina's emergency?"
"Oh, uh, we've decided to get matching tattoos. So if you need us we'll be at that tattoo place next to Rina's house."
"What? But you-"
I clicked the end call button before he could finish his sentence. Alright, I thought to myself, let's do this.
:::::::::::::
Rina and I walked into the dark looking place with our arms linked together. Throughout the whole car ride, David had been teasing us. As we stepped through the door and a small little bell rang, he opened his mouth once more to say something. At this point I've just learned to not listen to his dumb comments.
"Finally! We found you," someone yells as they come in right behind us. We turn around to see Jay, Jacob, and Eliza. Of course they followed us.
"You owe me $15," Jay smugly says to Jacob.
"I didn't believe you when you said they were at the tattoo parlor," he replies as he pulls out his wallet.
"Hello. What are you guys doing here?" Rina asks nicely. Though she was trying to be nice, I could tell she was slightly irritated. Now she knows how I felt at the aquarium.
"Well when Jay said you were going to a tattoo place I just had to come see for myself," Jacob says. He glances around at the place with a large grin.
"No offense, but why is Eliza here too?" I ask. I understand Jay being here and I understand why Jacob would tag along but I couldn't figure out Eliza. She was doing something on her phone and looked like she'd rather be at home.
"I was just bored and decided to come," she replied with a shrug. "Plus I wanna see what tattoo you get."
Jacob rubbed his hands together in excitement and took a few steps forward.
"So what are we getting?" he asks. Rina raises an eyebrow at him and shakes her head.
"Mira and I are getting a matching one. You aren't getting anything," she says.
"Well why not?" He looks genuinely disappointed.
"Ya we want one too," chimes Jay.
"You do realize this will be on you forever? So even if you guys stop being friends, a tattoo will still be there," Eliza points out. She had a mixture of disbelief and awe in her tone.
"Yes but it'll be worth it. Even if for some reason we stop being friends, it'll be a good reminder of all the fantastic things we've done together," says Jacob. There's a long pause were we all just stare at him. I giggle when I notice his slight blush.
"Aww we love you too Jakey," Rina says loudly.
"Glad to know you care about us," I say. We walk over to him and give him a big hug. He tries to squirm away but we hold on tightly. Soon, Jay joins our group hug. Eliza clears her throat. When we pull away, I'm happy to see the dark blush on Jacob's face and the smirk on Jay's.
"Well, what do you say Mira? Think we can manage two tattoos in one day?" Rina asks me. I consider it.
"I guess. Are we going to get the other one we were looking at?"
"Yep." She links her arm in mine again and takes a deep breath. "Come on."
~~~~~~
"I still don't understand why I couldn't get one," David grumbles again as we leave. The four of us had refused to let him get a matching tattoo with us. Though I really like David, I wasn't as close to him as I was the others.
"Because you're not part of the Quad Squad," says Rina.
"Quad Squad? Please never say that again," I tell her. She sticks her tongue out.
"I still can't believe you guys actually went through with that," Eliza mutters. She seemed highly impressed but also slightly jealous. When she asked Jacob is she could get a tattoo of something, he told her no. Jay gently rubs the spot where I got the matching on with Rina.
"It's perfect for you two. Childish but sweet," he mutters quietly.
"Ohana means family and family means no one gets left behind," Rina says in an annoying Stitch voice.
"Or forgotten," I finish. Jay shakes his head and laces our hands together.
"Alright ready to go home?" Jay asks me.
"Nope," Rina replies before I have the chance. "Now we have to go back to my place. You guys have been engaged for months and no one has even thought about this wedding. We need to get planning."
"Guess I'm going to plan," I say to Jay. I stand up on my tippy toes and give him a quick kiss on the cheek.
"I'll be home later."

(The one Rina and Mira got- from the movie Lilo and Stitch^^)

(The one the four of them got^^)