Alternia Residential Complex

Double Date Night

Red? Or blue. Blue is cool. Wait, or red. Shit.

Two shirts to decide from, and only ten fucking minutes until I pick her up from her house. Meaning only nine minutes till I have to actually leave the room. Lucky she's right next to me.

I solved this dilemma earlier. Red with blue stripes. I solved this. And then I just had to spill fucking coffee all over it ten fucking minutes before I had to leave. 

So now I have a red shirt or a blue shirt. And I have to fucking choose. And I don't want to. Because I wanted to wear the shirt I already had on, because it was my best shirt, and it made me look vaguely appealing, and the rest of these shirts fucking suck, and I doubt she even really likes me, and my hair doesn't work today, and the Carpenters? Really, Sollux? Good going. Not sappy and annoying and stupid at all.

Okay, no, I'm cool. I shrug on the red shirt and appraise myself in the mirror. Too red.

I take it off and try the blue one. Too fucking blue.

I leave my house exactly nine minutes later, wearing a plain black tee with an unbuttoned blue shirt hanging loosely over it. Good enough. 

I rap on Aradia's door nervously, chewing the inside of my mouth.

She opens it almost instantly, like she was waiting, which I can't help but notice. She's wearing a red dress, pretty but not too formal. How does she just have outfits that are always randomly perfect for every occasion? Like, she had a seance skirt. Seriously. And it worked. Where I, otherwise, only have one good shirt, and now it's ruined. But I refuse to let that ruin my date. Is this a date? I decide, right here and now, that this is most definitely a date.

I smile. "Hey."

"Hello." She smiles irresistibly. "Shall we?"

"Let'th shall."

She extends her arm with a mock curtsey and I take it. We walk hand in hand to my car. I open her door for her like a gentleman, and then hurry around to my side.

We talk a bit while I drive.

"So, hi." She says, somewhat shyly.

"Hi, yourthelf."

"How've you been?"

"Uh, pretty good, you?"

"Good!" She beams. "Found some cool stuff at the dig."

"Oh?"

"Yeah."

There's a bit of an awkward silence as I rack my brain for something, anything to say, to save me from this.

"Have you read any good bookth rethently?"

"Oh, yes! I'm actually right in the middle of reading The Turn of the Screw right now. It's amazing."

"Ithn't that, like, thcary?"

She nods. "Yeah! I love it. What about you?"

"Er, doeth Beginning C++ Through Game Programming count?" I try, cringing.

She laughs. "Sure. Is that a type of software?"

"It'th a programming language. It'th object oriented, and it keepth a lot of thtuff from C, which is helpful."

"Oh! That's…cool."

Another silence.

"Tho, thith movie, it'th bathed on a book, right? Have you read it?"

"Nah, zombies aren't really my thing. I'm more into ghosts. And stuff. Shaun of the Dead was cool, though." 

"I've heard of that. Haven't theen it, though."