Sugar and Spice

A week. It’d been a week. 7 days, 168 hours. Where was she? She said she’d show. There wasn’t any fine print, nothing to misconstrue. She’d smiled afterwards, they’d bantered, had a good time. Nothing had gone wrong.

So why hadn’t she shown up?

Mitty had hung up her uniform and left Lily Town alone and was now sitting in her room, chewing on her pencil as she thought about that blue-furred, petite Fillian she’d gotten acquainted with. She was so small, you could fit her in her own rucksack. The only thing big about her was her eyes, and her pink-rimmed glasses magnified them and made them bigger still, like a smart puppy-dog with a librarian’s degree.

And that little puppy-dog-librarian-like Fillian had broken her promise today.

Mitty worked her shift at Bunbons without her blue companion’s companionship, and she sighed the whole time, and she’d thought, c’est la vie, because she was nothing if not mature, and Alexis not showing up didn’t mean the end of the world.

But she’d said she’d come!

Mitty puffed up her cheeks in a pout, frowning at her pencil. She didn’t chew on the end of it, no, never on the end of it; Vanilla sat there. Vanilla the unicorn, Cherry Moon’s best character, was speared on her pencil like a skewer. So instead Mitty chewed on the sides.

You’re being ridiculous. Did you really want Alexis to come?

Didn’t take a rocket scientist to know the answer to that one.

I had a cake prepped for her and everything, and she threw my good will back in my face. Fine, then, see if I care.

The obvious retort hung unspoken and unthought in her mind. It’d just be stupid to pretend otherwise. Somehow, somewhere along the line, Mitty had come to expect things from her creative writing partner. Things like, oh, did she hesitate to use the word… friendship, perhaps, and all the fun stuff that entailed.

But then, as she chewed the side of her precious pastel pencil, she knew she wasn’t being fair. Alexis so far had shown nothing but kindness, if a little awkwardly. There may have been a real reason she hadn’t come. After all, Lily wasn’t a town for everyone.

Alexis moved like her own shadow spooked her. Perhaps it did. She was a bomb, but a soft one wrapped in a thin layer of cotton; if you diffused her wrong, she would explode in tears and apologies because, “You’re mad, you’re the one who should be upset!”

Someone like that couldn’t last in Lily.

Mitty put down her pencil and booted up her computer. No studying today, not if she was going to brood like a teenager. No, today she’d slash her frustrations away. Amni would definitely be up for that. At least she could finally wind down in the comfort of her room.

Her haven was an inoffensive white-walled and cream-carpeted little box, just big enough for her and her myriad of plushified companions. Shelves jutted from the walls above her bed and computer, and resting upon them were rows of plush toys of various sizes. Vanilla the unicorn took up a lot of space in her large and small forms, and several of her peered comfortingly down at Mitty from above the computer.

What space her shelves did not take up, bookcases did for them, filling up the rest of the room. A mini library if there ever was one, it held a wealth of fictional knowledge, some of it passed down from her parents, some of it obtained from actual bookstores, and one or two library-loaned copies that weren’t quite loaned anymore because once you move house, books can’t be returned, right? Oops.

Her clothes were already laid out for tomorrow, resting on her small bed. Black jeans, black shirt, and the black jacket to complete the ensemble hung in the wardrobe, all ready for the funeral. The venue: Haldwell Uni, and the deceased: her good mood.

Yeah, I can see why Alexis is still kind of scared of me.

“Hey Amni,” said Mitty through the mic attached to her headphones, “on a scale of 1-10, how freaked out by me were you when we first met?”

She’d booted up Legends Online, gone through the motions to load up her character, a warrior canine, and connected to her friend’s server. Said friend’s character, a rogue lizardfolk, was currently performing cartwheels in the hub room. Mitty didn’t ask.

“Hi to you too,” said Amni, his voice muffled by the quality of his mic. He had a pleasant voice, a little higher pitched than the average man and more like a teen, but easy on the ears. “Where’d that come from?”

“Shut up and answer.” Mitty’s character poked his.

“Well, when you talk to me like that, I don’t wanna!” Amni cartwheeled away from her.

Mitty sighed and rolled her eyes. Amni was never straightforward to deal with, and he got on her nerves about eighty percent of the time, but she deserved that one. “Okay, sorry. Could you please just answer the question?”

“Eugh, you’re apologising? That’s weird, don’t do that.”

“Wh--” Mitty fought the urge to slap her forehead. The one time she tried being nice to him… “You want me to leave you to die in that dungeon again, cos I will.”

“No, okay, I’ll talk! Just don’t leave me again.” Amni’s character ran back to Mitty’s, waving his arms to placate her.

“Good.”

“Okay, so…” Silence as Amni’s character continued waving his arms. Probably forgot to cancel the action. “What was the question again?”

Mitty’s groan filled the air. She knew she shouldn’t have asked Amni, but nobody else was online right now, and he was her closest friend… which probably said more about her than she’d like.

“When we first met, did I scare you?”

Silence. It seemed Amni really was pondering the question. Then, “For sure. You typed like an old man using a computer for the first time. Got scarier still when you said you were actually a teenage girl.” A snort. “Man, that was terrifying.”

Mitty stared at her screen, unamused. “Okay, maybe you’re the wrong person to ask.” But the truth was, she had no one qualified enough to answer her. The way she carried herself online, it was… different. Easier. Away from judging eyes, she could actually function like a normal Vistian.

She could be herself.

“You were hard to get used to when we first talked, though.” Amni’s voice cut into her thoughts. “Like, with mics, I mean.”

Mitty stiffened. “I was?”

“For sure. Even though we’d known each other for a couple years by then, you totally sounded like you were gonna hunt me down and murder me in my sleep.”

Mitty’s shoulders sagged, her fluffy tail skimming the carpet. “Oh.”

She wasn’t stupid. She knew how she came off to others. Cold eyes, colder shoulder. She was well aware, too aware; it stung every time a stranger looked at her fearfully. She wanted to reach out, but if she did, they’d mock her. The great and indomitable Mitty, seeking help? Being vulnerable? Vacerus forbid! It was much easier to shun them before they could shun her. Even if it hurt.

“So why’d you ask?” Amni said, once more intruding on her thoughts.

Mitty sighed. None of your business; the words begged to launch themselves off the springboard of her tongue. “Met someone,” she said instead. “She’s even more of a pansy than you.”

“I object to the notion that I am a pansy,” said her friend through his muffled mic, “I am your knight in shining armour! There is no one braver than I.” The smirk was evident in his voice. “After all, one has to be to hang around someone as scary as you.”

“I…”

“Hey, you said it first.”

Mitty looked down at her desk. That didn’t hurt, not at all. “I didn’t. You said I was scary when we first spoke.”

“Yes,” this came out in a drawn-out drawl, as if it were the most obvious thing in the world, “but you asking me in the first place implies you find yourself scary, doesn’t it?”

Mitty growled at her screen, at the lizardfolk avatar Amni was using. “Shut up.” It wasn’t banter.

Amni caught on, for he sounded genuinely apologetic when he spoke. “Sorry. Is it a sore spot for you?”

Mitty’s lips curled in a sneer. She was thankful he could not see it. Of course it is, you dumbass, she thought. People don’t want to be around me because I act like this! But she couldn’t say anything.

He took her silence as a reply. “So, who’s the pansy?” Topic change, very smart. Mitty wasn’t his friend for nothing.

She ran through her inventory, checking she was ready for the quest she was about to set up. She took a minute to reply to Amni. She checked her inventory again; just as prepared as she was five seconds ago. Check again.

Who was the pansy?

Mitty rubbed her head, her hand getting caught in her long, pink hair. Alexis’ small, rounded face flashed in her mind: her blue-grey eyes, framed by pink glasses, wide with worry that she’d somehow upset Mitty; her small smile when she learned that wasn’t the case.

“She’s a friend,” said Mitty eventually, allowing the tiniest of smiles to grace her lips.

“What, like… offline?” Not even Amni’s mic quality could hide his shock.

“Yes. You don’t have to sound so surprised.” Mitty frowned.

“Sorry, but can you blame me? As far as I know, you aren’t exactly perky offline! Heck, even here it takes you a while to loosen up.”

Mitty ignored the sting. It was what she got for acting this way. “Yeah, well, she’s fine with it.” Sees past it. I think. I hope. “She’s just a bit… okay, a lot timid.”

“She must really like you to wanna hang out despite your hang-ups and--oh, we’re doing this guy, okay--her being a scaredy-cat.” Amni disappeared offscreen for a moment, likely to make preparations, unaware of what he’d just done to his friend.

Mitty stared at her screen as something fluttered in her stomach, her cheeks growing warm. Her hold on the mouse slackened. The warmth in her cheeks seeped through her whole body, and her chest caught fire. Her heart, her burning, beating heart, thumped erratically in the flames as if to fan them.

Mitty couldn’t deny it. Amni was right. Barely anyone tolerated her, but Alexis did, and she did it with a smile. Despite Mitty’s many blunders that would have no doubt put off anyone else, Alexis stayed. The abrupt endings to conversations, the glares, the indifference; Alexis put up with it all, and not just because they were working together.

“We should exchange numbers!”

The olive branch had been extended by Alexis herself.

“Hullo? Oven Mitts, you there?”

Amni’s voice dunked her in cold water. She blinked, her flames doused, and she pulled herself back to reality. “Um, yeah. You ready?” she asked. Okay, enough introspection for now. If they were going to do this quest, they were going to do it properly.

That was easier said than done. Even as Amni gave his affirmative and the two of them set out to clear the Lost Dungeon, inside which a fearsome beast slept--”If you leave me alone again our friendship is over,” Amni had said--and even as Mitty’s fingers focused on her keyboard, her mind was only half there. She pulled off her part through muscle memory alone.

Was Alexis really too scared of Lily Town to visit today?

Slash, dodge, slash.

If she likes me as much as Amni says…

Loot, step, slash.

Why do I even care anyway?

Slash, slash, sl--

“Hey, knock it off, man!”

Mitty jumped in her chair from Amni’s sharp tone. He only sounded like that when he was really annoyed. It was like a veil had been lifted, Mitty’s gaze piercing through the fog of her brain.

She’d been hitting lizardfolk Amni.

Oops.

“What’s with you? Did I piss you off or something?” Amni’s harsh voice cut through her headphones, made worse by his muffled mic.

“Shit. Didn’t realise that was you.” Mitty was glad he couldn’t see her blush.

“Really.” His voice dripped sarcasm. “Did you suddenly go blind in the whole minute you spent hitting me?”

“No,” Mitty grumbled, his irritated tone chipping away at her like a pickaxe. “I just wasn’t looking.”

“Why not? If you’re not in this, we can leave. Don’t wanna waste my items or my time.”

Mitty groaned, rubbing her face. Amni was fun, but he could be just as short-tempered as her on occasion. She knew she should attempt to diffuse the situation. “Sorry I looked away for one second!” But that didn’t mean she would.

“You’ve been quiet and sloppy since we started,” said Amni, and a hint of normalcy crept back into his tone. “Something’s bugging you--”

“No it’s not,” shot Mitty, perhaps a little too quickly.

The silence that met her remark said everything. Of course it did; no blaster shot as fast as her mouth just did.

“It’s not, shut up, drop it.” And yet, like an amateur shooter, her words wildly missed each target.

Amni snickered, though it was so muffled that Mitty only knew what it was because she’d heard it so often. “What do they say about people protesting too much?” he asked, his smirk evident in his voice.

“Shut up.” Mitty sank into her chair. She knew she was fighting a losing battle, and Amni would get her to spill everything any second now. He was annoying like that.

“Oh, oh--oh…” His voice dropped in pitch as he dragged out that last syllable. That wasn’t good.

Mitty braced herself. He figured something out, and knowing him, he got it right. He was stupidly perceptive. Why was she his friend? Of all the poor life choices she’d made up to this point, befriending Amni was suddenly the poorest of all. Once he got an idea in his head, he was worse than a Wolfbeast with a bone and twice as hard headed as a bull.

“Sweet Freya, is this about the pansy?” His voice danced with barely suppressed giggles, like a schoolgirl hearing a scandalous rumour. “Oh, it is, isn’t it?”

Mitty stabbed his lizardfolk character.

Amni’s laughter rang in her ears, so much so that she had to remove her headphones. Even with them a safe distance away from her eardrums, she could still hear his mocking, tinny laughter. She waited for it to subside, a volcano boiling in her body. She dared not look at her face for fear of how red it turned.

Saying that humiliation didn’t sit well with her was an understatement. No, it was perhaps one of the worst things she could feel, akin to dying, or what she imagined dying felt like. Had this been anyone else, she would have left the room by now after verbally eviscerating them. Amni barely got a pass. Still, the lava boiling inside her made her fists clench and her teeth to gnash in a way that begged for an outlet.

Deep breaths, deep breaths. Amni was her friend. He was just teasing. There was nothing malicious behind it. Though as he kept laughing, it got harder to tell herself that.

Once his laughter finally petered out, she put her headphones back on. “You done?” she grumbled.

“Oh, Mitty, you’re a riot--wait wait no no don’t stab me again!”

Mitty’s character sheathed her weapon, but Mitty herself had daggers dancing on her tongue. “Don’t give me a reason to,” she growled.

“I hit a sore spot again, didn’t I? I’m sorry, you make it kinda easy.”

Mitty just snorted.

“So you’re thinking about your friend, so what? Normal people do that.” The smile was clear in his voice.

“Whatever.”

“So what’d she do? Must be something big to distract you on a quest.” The hint, hint in his voice couldn’t be clearer.

Mitty took her time to answer, taking out an enemy that suddenly spawned near them. It wasn’t what Alexis did, per say, but what she didn’t do, or what she didn’t say. Alexis seemed the type to explain her absences.

“Nothing important,” said Mitty as noncommittally as she could manage, which was surprisingly noncommittal considering how committed she was. Wearing the punk mask all these years paid off. “We agreed to meet and she didn’t show.”

That didn’t make either of them come off well. Now Mitty sounded pathetic for being stood up, and Alexis a bitch for performing the standing up. Mitty cursed under her breath.

“Ouch,” said Amni.

“Shut up, it’s fine, I’m not mad about it.”

“I didn’t say you were. Still, sorry. That sucks.”

They wandered further into the dungeon before Amni spoke again. The roar of the dungeon’s boss echoed throughout the floor. They were nearby.

“Did she say why?”

Mitty glanced at her phone on the desk, which had been annoyingly silent since she got home. “No,” she replied, snapping her eyes back to the computer as an enemy approached.

“Well, I know you wouldn’t befriend a jackass… except for me,” said Amni as he took out the enemy next to Mitty, “so she probably had a good reason. You know an easy way to solve this?”

Oh, Mitty loved it when Amni played the wise big brother. She didn’t even know if he was older than her; he gave off the aura of a child and a forty year old at the same time. “What?” she asked, though she knew the answer.

“Just ask her what’s up.” And with that, the two of them left the last floor of the dungeon and came face to face with their prize: the chimera beast roared in their faces, poised to strike, its cry so loud it cracked the walls.

Just ask her… it was easier said than done. Of course Mitty could just ask, she had a phone, she had Alexis’ number right there. But it wasn’t as simple as that! If she asked, Alexis would know Mitty had been expecting her, and Mitty couldn’t have that. No, no, that would make her far too vulnerable. Mitty never expected anything from anyone, certainly not someone she’d only been friends with a few weeks. She didn’t care.

She didn’t!

She lunged at the beast, her sword unsheathed and ready to slash the chimera to ribbons. She’d show it how much she didn’t care.

“If you don’t ask her, you’re just gonna let it fester,” said Amni as he lunged after her, daggers out.

“Shut up, what do you know?” Mitty slashed the chimera’s front leg, narrowing her eyes as it tried to swipe at her. She dodged, went in again, the motions automatic from repeated tangos with her beastly dance partner.

“I know you’re being stupid,” Amni replied, heading for the monster’s tail. “It’s obviously getting to you. Trust me, you’ll feel much better after you’ve asked.”

But then she’ll know I’m upset! The words remained unspoken, her slashing doing the talking. She’ll think I’m clingy for asking. She didn’t even react to the critical hit she’d scored on the chimera’s leg. I’ll scare her off…

“Ah, teenage melodrama; truly the joy of youth.” Amni’s flat remark was followed by a rather animated “Whoo!” upon landing a critical hit.

“I’m 21,” Mitty protested, equally deadpan. “And aren’t you part of ‘the youth’?”

Amni dodged both her last comment and the chimera’s tail swipe. “Then you’re being doubly stupid. You aren’t a kid, Lucive up and text her.”

Mitty inhaled sharply as she mistimed a step that sent hurtling into a wall from the chimera’s claw swipe. She cursed under her breath, hurrying to right herself. “Don’t tell me what to do,” she grumbled, yet the futility was plain in her tone. Amni was right, but his words forced her hackles up. It was incredibly tempting to just ignore his advice out of pure spite, and if Mitty was indeed as young as Amni pegged her for, she would have done so.

“If you want to keep her, you need to drop your bullshit.”

The chimera lunged at Mitty, knocking her back against the wall. She gasped as her health dropped; any more and she’d be out, all because she messed up one thing. She righted herself frantically, wincing as she narrowly dodged the creature’s bite. If she’d misstepped there…

“I know!” she spat at Amni, rolling away from the beast as it went for her. “I know I’m being stupid, okay? I don’t need you telling me.”

“So will you just knock off your big aloof act and talk to her?” Amni went for the chimera’s tail again, drawing its attention away from Mitty. “Like a normal person?”

Mitty waited for the right time to strike, watching Amni dance around the chimera. She’d misstepped with Alexis so many times, but Alexis never went in for the kill. Their friendship, if Mitty could call it that, still stood, ready for more.

The chimera paused to catch its breath, and Mitty saw her chance. Raising her weapon, she slashed the beast’s chest. The chimera roared, stumbled, and then collapsed in a snarling, bleeding heap.

“Okay, already,” Mitty breathed, her voice stolen by the frantic fight. “I’ll talk to her.”

The smile in Amni’s cheer lacked the superiority of someone who’d won. It was warm, affectionate; proud. As annoying as he was, Mitty knew in that moment why she put up with him.

“Atta girl.”

Then;

“Ugh, no rare drop, fu--!”

***

Water droplets flew onto the carpet only to dry out a moment later as Mitty ran her hairdryer over the river of pink and yellow that was her hair. It spilled down, almost touching the floor as she angled her head downwards; like a hypnotic, strawberry-scented curtain, it swayed back and forth with even the lightest movement.

As entrancing as it had been the first five minutes, it kind of lost its allure after thirty.

Not for the first time, she wondered why she kept her hair so long; it did nothing but get in the way most of the time. Still, it was the one part of her that felt right. It clashed with the image she tried to project; it was its own thing, not what she’d forced herself to be.

And it wasn’t like she hadn’t caught Alexis staring at it.

While that knowledge did bring up discomfort knowing Alexis would stare at her at all, there was something satisfying about it, too. She’d had the girl’s attention the second she’d walked into Room 1B for the first time, and even now she saw Alexis stare at it in the idle moments of their class. What did Alexis feel for it? Admiration? Jealousy?

Desire?

Mitty paused at that errant thought. It fluttered in the breeze of her mind, unassuming, normal. What person didn’t look at long hair and yearn to touch it? Even she was susceptible to the urge now and then. Didn’t matter whose it was; if you saw it, you were drawn to it, simple. That was all it was.

She watched stray water droplets stream slowly down her hair onto the cream carpet below, like little watery birds landing after a long flight. The heat of the hairdryer seeped past her hair and onto her face, a warm, airy hand cradling her cheeks.

Alexis’ lithe fingers ran through Mitty’s pink hair, twirling the thick strands in her delicate grasp. She stroked down the length of her hair, past her shoulders, at her back where pink faded to yellow, with the gentleness of a mother soothing a crying child. The motions caused Mitty’s shoulders to slacken and her eyelids to flutter, and she leaned into Alexis’ hand, pressing her back against the petite girl’s arms.

Her eyes flew open; the hairdryer hovered above, frozen in time, heating one patch of hair.

What.

What had just happened?

“She must really like you to wanna hang out despite your hang-ups.”

“Oh no,” she whispered. “Oh, no, I am not doing this. I’m not doing this!”

And doing it, she most definitely was not. She shut off her hairdryer, figuring it had done most of its job by now, and grabbed her phone. She sat on her bed and brought up Alexis’ chat window. Her friend’s chat window.

Nothing new since yesterday. That was fine. Mitty would just have to make something new.

Mitty: I guess you didnt feel like coming to lily today?

Was that aggressive? Passively so? Perhaps, but she didn’t want to collect her thoughts. They were treacherous, mischievous things. Best to just do.

Lexi♡: Oh no, Mitty, I am SO sorry! Did you want me to come?

The reply came a few minutes later in all its confusing glory. What did Alexis think? Did their agreement need to be in writing? Or… oh, Vacerus, did Mitty misconstrue the whole thing? Had she been expecting something of Alexis when there was nothing to expect?

Her instinct was to answer that no, in fact, she did not want Alexis to come. She had to slam that door before Alexis realised it was open! Of course Mitty hadn’t wanted it, hadn’t expected it, Alexis was free to do her own thing. Mitty wasn’t pining after her like some clingy dog-pet.

“If you want to keep her, you need to drop your bullshit.”

The last drops of moisture dripped down Mitty’s hair. Her room’s warmth had done a good job drying what her hairdryer hadn’t. Her bed still had a few damp spots from her hair, but those too would dry soon enough. By the time they did, Mitty still wouldn’t have a reply for Alexis.

Being honest meant being vulnerable. No longer would she be impenetrable; she’d hand Alexis the weapon to undo her. That amount of trust… could she place it in that small, timid girl? Alexis would not hurt her intentionally, and that was perhaps the scariest thing of all. Intent meant nothing if a person was still struck.

Her computer hummed with the faint melody of Legends Online, still on standby. While she’d showered, her conversation with Amni had replayed in her head like an old, defective film, looping again and again on the parts she’d rather forget, and the conclusion she’d drawn banged incessantly on the glass wall of her thoughts.

To stay friends with Alexis, she had to shed her skin. It wasn’t a matter of intent; she wanted to be open with her. She wanted to talk to her about Cherry Moon, about life, about the little, insignificant things that leave the mind as quick as they enter it. It was a matter of will. She had to fight against the wall she’d put up, for the first person to let it crumble could not be Alexis, but Mitty herself.

That’s it; no more half-hearted replies. Lexi‘s trying. I should too.

Mitty: yeah. I did want you to come, I thought it would be a weekly thing

Mitty: but that’s okay it’s not your fault, I just misunderstood our agreement

Mitty: we did have an agreement didn’t we?

Mitty: um

Mitty: anyway don’t worry about it, I just wanted to see you, that’s all

She smiled, but it burned. It was what she wanted. She ignored the heat flushing her cheeks and quickening her heart, ignored the unease blossoming in her chest, ignored it taking hold of her limbs; she ignored it all.

She’d heard it was a good thing to be uncomfortable. It meant you were moving forward.

Lexi♡: You wanted to see me? Oh, then I really am sorry I didn’t come. I just didn’t think it would be a weekly thing. But I’m very happy to make it one! Like for real, we can do it in writing right here!

Lexi♡: Here okay I’ll confirm it now! I’ll visit you at work every week! If that’s okay?

The smile widened on its own, tugging at Mitty’s cheeks. Joy bubbled up in her chest, and a sudden fondness overcame her, enveloping her in a fuzzy blanket. Alexis sounded so eager, Mitty could practically hear her excited voice.

Mitty: yes lol it’s okay.

Mitty: happy to have you.

Lexi♡: Oh, yay! I’m so glad! ^_^

Mitty’s heart cartwheeled. She inhaled sharply, trying to force it back in its place. Her body was behaving like a schoolgirl’s, damn it. She didn’t get like this. But she wasn’t stupid enough to miss the truth.

Oh, man. I really am doing this.