Saturdays exist to lounge around and do nothing. I will hear no opinions to the contrary. Friday night you’re tired from a busy week, and Sunday you’re mentally preparing for another busy week. What time do you have to do nothing with if not Saturday? That’s why I’ve tactically taken to sleeping until midday and only leaving my room to shower or eat. I must optimise my ‘do nothing’ time as best as I possibly can, lest I go to school on Monday not having properly recovered from the torment of the prior week.
Which is why I initially pretended not to hear the notification on my phone.
It’s not like I get personal messages anyway. Odds are it’s a spam email, billing scam or a hate comment from someone I recently flamed online. Those were Sunday problems. Saturday was the day upon which I ignored them.
Well, that would be the case, if not for the fact that my phone continued to ping every second for almost half a minute. I had half a mind to just mute the blasted thing, but I had a sixth sense that doing so would lead to problems down the road. Hesitantly, I flipped my phone over to see my notifications.
Pep
I know where you live
+28 more messages
Oh for the love of god. Why does she have to be so over the top?
I expanded the notification to see the rest of the messages, but it turned out that the majority of them were just “hey.”
There were a couple that actually bore reading, however. The very first message bluntly stated “I’m in town and need a gopher.” After a few “hey” messages she also added “if it wasn’t clear I’m telling you to come carry my stuff for me.” Yet more “heys” before one last readable message: “bring Yaki too. You’re not allowed to say no.”
Good Lord. What a pain. Not only did she want me to come do something for her, she wanted me to include Yaki? Just one of them was enough to put me in low power mode, I was not looking forward to spending my Saturday around the caffeine twins.
Still, I did kind of owe her once since she’d be playing her first real match in my honour on Monday. I begrudgingly decided to throw her this bone.
Me
I’ll come to you with Yaki if you promise to never make my phone sound like an emergency alert ever again
Pep
Deal
And with that, my peaceful Saturday was dead on arrival.
***
“Pep, you didn’t tell me you were already here with Sai.”
“Of course I didn’t, if I had you wouldn’t have come.”
“Right. So why didn’t you tell me?”
As if Dumb And Dumber didn’t cause me enough issues, upon arriving at our meet up point I found that Pep had invited my third headache along as well. It’s as if my entire monologue about Saturdays being the perfect day to do nothing was purely written to set up this being the first chapter with all four members of the main cast together. What a drag.
“I could also do without your presence, to be perfectly honest, but to my utter chagrin Peppi insisted you be invited along.”
“Hey, look we agree on something for once. Neither of us want me to be here.”
Sai and I, who’s one commonality was disliking one another’s company, had been unceremoniously brought together by our mutual pain in the ass. And of course, the pink-haired idiot in question was stood proudly puffing out her chest and beaming. I suppose this is the first time she’s pulled one over on me, so I could at least give her that.
“Well, I suppose there’s no point standing out around wasting ti-”
“Haaah! You must be Sai-chan!”
Just as Sai began to speak again, my easily-excitable little sister rushed up and grabbed her by the hands, looking up at her like a puppy. I had to smile a tad; I hadn’t seen Sai get so caught off-guard since she first met Pep. I shouldn’t revel in her discomfort, but I had had to put up with the idiot twins for as long as I can remember, so I enjoyed seeing someone else have to deal with them for once.
“Ah- hello… I don’t believe you and I have ever met.”
“Nope! Name’s Yaki, I’m Pep’s younger sister.”
“It’s nice to mee-” Sai stopped in her tracks and tilted her head confusedly. “I… had assumed you were Kaburi’s sister, not Peppi’s. I don’t recall seeing you at her house before.”
“Oh, biologically I’m totes related to him and not her, but I like Pep a lot more so I prefer to think of myself as her sister instead, it helps my self esteem.”
Stolen content warning: this content belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences.
“Ah, I see. Yes, I suppose I too would prefer not to acknowledge it if I were related to him.”
“You totally get it!”
Hey, what the hell man. I’m gonna cry over here. What happened to sibling love and loyalty? Damned traitor. I’ll play EDM music at 90 decibels until 4am tonight.
“Man, you’re just as pretty as I was told. And that silver hair is soooo nice, is that natural?”
“Ah- yes, it’s my natural colour.” Sai surprisingly got awkward and bashful, a rare sight for her. Though the reason was obvious. “Kaburi told you that I’m pretty?” she asked, raising in eyebrow in apprehension.
“Oh, no, he’d never say something that genuine. It was Pep that told me you’re the prettiest girl in the entire northeast semihemisphere.”
“I- I see…” I’m sure Sai was even more bashful than before, but I was too busy rolling my eyes at how ridiculous that line was. What a contrived and unnecessary way of not technically confirming our location.
“Oh, but my brother talks about you a lot too. Well, on the rare occasion he actually talks, that is.”
“He does? I’m surprised to hear that.”
“Yeah, he likes to complain and call you an insufferable and pretentious bitch, it gets really annoying.”
“I expected nothing less.”
“What’s my brother like at school, by the way?”
“A gutless spineless weasel with little presence other than a foul and detestable aura.”
“Oh, so exactly the same as he is at home!”
What fresh hell. I really wanted these two to not meet for at least the entire first volume. My trifecta of migraines all coming together was the last thing I needed for the day.
“I’m glad my two best friends are hitting it off, but we don’t have all day, girls. Let’s get moving!” Pep said, clapping her hands together.
“Wait, two best friends? They’re both above me?”
“Huh? Yeah, you’re my fourth best friend, Kabucchi.”
“I don’t even crack the top three?!”
“Of course not, my number 3 is Ran-chan, duh.”
“The bitchqueen beat me?!”
I had been there for all of five minutes and I had already received critical blows from both my sister and my only friend. It was shaping up to be a long day.
***
Much to my chagrin, none of the places the girls wanted to visit were of any particular interest to me. Places for buying makeup, cheap and tacky jewelry, shoes, handbags, all of that sort of shite. It was so stereotypical that you’d think it was a scene written by a man who has no idea what women actually do when they go shopping.
Then again, considering Pep literally told me she wanted a gopher I can’t say I didn’t expect this.
“I must say, I’m surprised. I had never pegged you as someone who would do anything kind for another person under any circumstances.” The voice at my side came from Sai, who had seemingly finished whatever business she had in that particular shop and had come to annoy me while the other two browsed.
“I would complain about how low your opinion of me is, but I can’t pretend it’s not justified. Still, I felt like doing a favour for Pep since she’s going out of her way for me on monday.”
“Oh? And here I thought you were cashing in some sort of debt to get her to play in the first place.”
“I was pretty much just joking when I said that before. I don’t really like the idea of debts between friends, and Pep and I tend to help each other out when we can anyway. I don’t think either of us are actually keeping score or anything.”
“I see. I seem to have somewhat misjudged you. At least as far as Peppi is concerned, you actually have more decorum than a neanderthal.”
“Are you completely incapable of giving a compliment that’s not entirely backhanded?”
“With regards to you, yes.”
“I hate you so much. And where do you get off calling me a neanderthal? I’m probably the smartest person in our school.”
“Congratulations on being the fastest sprinter in a school of paraplegics. I suppose even the layman appears an intellectual when he surrounds himself with fools.”
“You realise that you’re one of those fools, right?”
“It’s better to admit one’s own faults than celebrate mediocrity.”
“Insulting yourself to better insult me? I almost respect that.”
“Reserve your respect. I have no use for it.”
Good grief, this was not how I wanted to spend my saturday. Being verbally assaulted by the only person who could actually put me on the defensive in conversation. It made me aware of just how annoying it was when someone had a retort or snide remark for everything you said, and if that kept up I’d have to actually do some introspection on how I treat other people. With that in mind, I tried to change the subject.
“By the way, you and Pep seem closer than before. I didn’t even know you had met up outside of school, let alone that you’d been to her house.”
“Ah- I suppose you’re right. After all, she and I are f-friends…” Sai nervously scratched her cheek, which I had to admit was pretty cute. Since I had always had Pep I had never known true friendlessness, but I understood the awkwardness of being unfamiliar with new friendships. For once I could actually empathise with her.
“Well, hey, if nothing else, that at least means you got something out of joining the chess club, right? Making a new friend like Pep must at least be a nice silver lining for having to put up with a club lead by me.”
“Hmm? What are you talking about? I’ve no regrets whatsoever about joining the club.” She looked at me quizzically, seemingly genuinely confused.
“Huh? How so? Surely being a member of a club where you can hardly tolerate the captain can’t be fun?”
“What makes you think I can hardly tolerate you?”
“...what?”
Had I stepped into the twilight zone? In what universe did this conversation make any sense? Sai and I had yet to have a single conversation not devolve into petty insults and arguments, and yet she was earnestly telling me she didn’t hate being around me?
“Honestly, were you truly under the impression that I despised you that much? If that were the case why would I continue to eat lunch with you or entertain your challenges in the club?”
“Lack of better options?”
“At first, perhaps. But if you truly aggravated me so much I would have found a way to avoid you by now.” Her expression told me she had assumed all of this was obvious, even though it clearly wasn’t to me. “You and I are not friends, that much is clear. But I cannot say I truly dislike your presence. If for no other reason than you being the only person in that wretched place to actually retort my jabs. In other words, I do not hate you, Kaburi.”
To put it bluntly, I was completely stunlocked by her words. More so than I would have been from a love confession by another girl. In the short time we had known each other, I could count on one hand the number of interactions I had had with Sai that hadn’t involved her insulting me in some way. And one of those few interactions involved us agreeing that we weren’t compatible to be friends. To now hear her plainly state that she not only doesn’t hate me, but that she doesn’t even dislike being around me, was enough to catch me entirely off guard.
Had I misjudged our relationship entirely?
“Sai, I-”
“Hey, you two, what’re you standin’ around for! We got more places to go!”
Just as I began to speak, I was cut off by Yaki calling us from the door of the shop. I hadn’t even noticed them paying, but it seemed like the other two were almost ready to leave us behind.
“We shouldn’t keep them waiting, let’s make haste.”
“Huh- ah, yeah, let’s go…”
We caught up with the other two without another word. To be honest, I’m not even sure what I was planning to say in the first place.