This Weird Thing Called A Crush

O N E

Rainbow

"Gah!"

I instantly jolt up in my bed, sighing in relief when struck with the realization that it was just a bad dream.

And by bad dream, I mean another one about him. I won't go into the details. They're too corny.

I glance at my clock – thankfully it's still 5:30. I have enough time to put myself together before getting ready for school.

Ugh, why can't I stop myself from thinking about Soarin Skies?

T I M E S K I P

"And then I told him, 'What? Oatmeal, how many times do I have to tell you? That's totally insane!' And guess what? He still didn't believe me." Pinkie scoffs, and for a second she pauses her gibberish rambling. "What a guy!"

I nod absentmindedly, tossing the soccer ball between my hands. We have another practice later. I guess I'll get to see him again. Ugh, wait, what the hay am I thinking?

"Uh, hello? Dashie?" Pinkie calls, waving a hand in front of my face.

I harshly blink and almost drop the ball, but – of course – catch it with my amazing reflexes. "Sorry Pinkie," I say, looking at her. "Guess I spaced out."

She tilts her head to the side as we walk onto school grounds. "Thinking, huh?"

"Not really, but yeah, I guess you could say tha-"

"Heya, girls!"

I stop, scrunching up my eyebrows. Pinks follows suit.

"That sounded like Appleja-"

I'm cut off for the second time within the five seconds with another call: "We're over here, darlings!"

And that was obviously Rarity.

Pinkie squints her eyes and scans them over the front of the building. Suddenly, she points to a spot near one of the entrances. I follow her finger and find that other than the two girls that called out to us earlier, Fluttershy and Twilight are already there too.

Pinkie grabs my hand and we quickly run over.

"You two are-" Twilight starts, but this time it's my turn to cut someone off.

"Yeah, yeah, approximately two point three minutes late and bleh, blah, bloh."

She opens her mouth to say something but I interrupt her again. "And don't even bother correcting me."

Twilight deadpans as the rest of our friends laugh. After a silent agreement, we all enter EAF in sync.

Fluttershy, ever the concerned one, suddenly asks, "Where's your brother, Twilight?" She's obviously talking about the younger, since we all know Shining Armor's off in his fancy college.

"Oh." Twilight looks kinda surprised. "Off with his friends.... Already... Again..." she trails off, chuckling uncomfortably.

Rarity puts a hand on her shoulder. "I'm sure he's not neglecting you or anything. He's growing up, darling."

"He's a year younger than us," Twilight deadpans. Rarity laughs sheepishly.

"Well," I say, going a bit faster to walk backwards in front of my friends, "I'm sure we'll see Spike later."

"Rainbow, we're going to turn a corner in a few seconds," Fluttershy warns.

I wave it off easily, not bothering to look behind me. "Yeah, yeah. Now, just to ask, did you guys do your Home Ec project? Like, the one that's due today?"