B.O.N.D.E.D.

6. Blaise: Wish Part 1

Whenever someone asked about her favorite hobby, Blaise always hesitated before answering.

She knew that the answer to this question needed to be something unique and refreshing, yet normal enough to not creep out the questioner.

This was why she never told anyone her actual favorite hobby: writing homoerotic fanfictions.

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Truth or Dare was the dullest, most useless game ever invented by the human race.

Blaise thought she would never need to endure the pain of forcefully conversing with people who didn't care about her existence ever again. Obviously, she was wrong.

It was the noon of their half-day journey to CIB. They drove off the winding highway and stopped at a small family restaurant for lunch.

And the torture began.

Well, it technically began the single moment she stepped onto the van. Darissa and Owen were laughing loudly at a certain joke that Blaise had not heard, Ernest was fully focused on driving, and Nestor was, of course, reading again.

It would help if he was reading something that she liked, but, as Blaise would soon find out when she learned to see the book cover, he was reading a nonfiction biography of a general in the Vietnam War.

How was she supposed to comment on that?

As a professional book snob with no social life, Blaise had read (or at least, known plenty about) most books that could be deemed as classic. Yet, nonfiction was never her category. After all, what's the use of reading about reality if she only read to escape reality?

Before she left home, she had promised her dad to make some new friends on the way. Despite her lack of social skills, she had high hopes for fulfilling that promise. But this car ride alone had now plummeted her into the depth of despair.

They entered the restaurant and found some opened tables. The tables, being the only available tables in the restaurant, only fitted two people each. This alone was able to ring an alarm clock in Blaise's pathetic, disorganized Memory Palace as the terrible memories of high school lunches rushed back to her.

Each table fitted two people. There were five of them.

Ancient damnation, she was going to have to sit alone at a third table now, was she? Or did she have to awkwardly grab a chair from another table and join the two other people, sitting at a most uncomfortable corner, while squishing everyone else?

Just when she was about to make the move, Owen Robinson (bless his kind soul) nonchalantly pushed three neighboring table together to form a large table. He then pulled over another chair and sat down.

"God, I'm famished," he said, not realizing that he had just saved Blaise's life.

A young waitress arrived at their table to drop off the menus. She kindly pointed out the popular items and the chef's specials, while joking around with Owen for quite a bit.

They all ordered their meals. The waitress left. Blaise sat awkwardly, not knowing anything to say.

Normally, she would wish for Owen to start a conversation. But Owen was on his phone, busily looking up something. Darissa, having no one to talk to, went on her phone as well. And so the only two talkative people of the group decided to stay silent, leaving the rest of the introverts to rot in antisocial hell.

"Ahem," Ernest cleared his threat to get everyone's attention. "Guys... want to play some games?"

He said such uncertainty that Blaise wondered if he never played games with friends before— but then again, she shouldn't be the one to judge.