Manipulating the Manipulator

Contingency

Virgil felt something is wrong.

Well, that's kind of an understatement, since he is literally the embodiment of anxiety. The type of person you would expect to be up all night, fearing some sort of contingency. The sense of knowing something is off, no matter how vague or ambiguous it may be.

For first week of the month, everything was in its normal place at the Mind Palace; everyone engrossed with doing their normal routine and keeping up if any deadlines or activities of Thomas suddenly appear. Nothing seemed off that time.

Not until the second week came by though.

It was as if Lady Luck decided to dump all of her misfortunes on them and cause havoc in their normally peaceful lives.

It all started when the other sides started to act strange. Yes, Thomas is a weird guy, which means all of them are weird too, but that was the good kind of weird.

What's happening is the bad kind of weird.

For the past week, Virgil would somehow always catch on of the other sides crying to themselves or blankly staring into space.

But what really riled Virgil up is that why do they pretend their fine and dandy whenever he pops up or tries to probe at their unusual behavior.

It's kind of stupid that they bother to hide it from Virgil, when he was the one adept in picking up subtle hints about anything and everything especially feelings of doubt and uncertainty.

No one's better than Virgil when it comes to questioning self-worth, okay?

It made Virgil feel left out. It was kind of like when someone in your squad cracks a joke and you're the only one who doesn't get the joke, and even worse, no one bothers to explain it to you after.

There is something wrong and I'm going to find out what it is. Virgil thought as he was lying down on his bed.

But who to ask? Who is the only one who knows all the gossip in the mindscape?

Then it just clicked.

The emo trait suddenly shot up from the bed as he reached for his phone and texted a familiar number.

Desperate times call for desperate measures.

-

"What do you want to know?" Remy asked as he sipped his Starbucks coffee.

He and Virgil were in the leather-clad trait's room, seated on black bean bag chairs and facing each other.

The emo trait swallowed the lump in his throat. "I-I was wondering if you knew anything a-about the other sides unusual behavior. I-I tried to probe, but they won't tell me anything. I'm really worried, it's as if they're in some inside joke and decided I'm not worth sharing it to." Virgil fiddled with his fingers nervously.

He expected for Remy to laugh and say that they were just in some sort of inside joke and they told Remy not to say anything to him.

But Remy suddenly stopped sipping his coffee and looked up at Virgil above his aviators. "Seriously? I thought everyone knew that they got their hearts broken by a fellow side?" He shot the emo trait a skeptical look. "Like, have you seen the shitload of tissues in their rooms?"