Chapter Text
"I'm telling you man, something weird is going on!"
"Chill out, little guy. You're talking too fast, I don't know what you mean."
"Ugh. The fight, Macaron, I mean the one that was just today!"
The duo, consistent of Chai and Macaron currently were disposed at Macaron's own office in the R&D department. The very same one that Chai accidentally broke into when that one robot punched him in the face.
Turns out there's not that many reasons to make a new office when you can repurpose your very own hiding layer to serve as one. Macaron did exactly that when the time came for him to take back his official place as an R&D lead.
Place obviously was the same with numerous monitors and boxing bag on the side but also patched up - Chai still could see the giant hole in the wall that Macaron did when showing off his punching abilities. Still, a lot has changed in the past three months since Chai and his friends took down Kale with his crew. All seemed well... if not for some occasional projects that Kale apparently hid under the rug and never told anyone about, leaving them like landmines around the island, lying dormant before some poor soul activated them.
Today they dealt with one such project.
Nothing was out of the ordinary, usual "top secret teleport drones" type of deal, made specifically for the purpose of saving humanity blah-blah-blah and all that crap. Chai saw that kind of crap all over the movies, comic book and cartoons when he was NINE. What he saw today wasn't anything different, so he just called everyone to the layer like in good ol' times - even managed to get Krosica get out of her office for a while on the precident of "corporal security" - and headed to the place.
He wasn't afraid of failure - hell, he pretty much KNEW this was a successful mission when entering the sector, he was THAT sure of himself ("as usual" as CNMN said it). And lo and behold - he was right, robots were trashed, sector secured and day was saved - all in just easily digestible two hours. After which everyone high-fived, laughed and went their separate ways. Koraica went back to her office, Macaron and CNMN went to R&D where the later proceeded to go do some of the chores, Peppermint picked up her cat back and went to hang out with her mom and Chai was left all alone with plenty of time left to keep practicing his guitar play (he was THIS close to finally playing Wonderwall without screwing up, everybody will LOVE IT!).
... So why was he here again?
"Chai, please." Macaron put his hands up defensively, as if Chai, who was currently sitting on the chair with multiple wires connected to his arm, could do anything in his annoying state. "I can't help you if you won't tell me what EXACTLY is the problem."
Chai huffs, annoyed at the whole world for not having perfect enough word to express himself with. So, with a loud sigh he just sinks in his chair and dumbs down the explanation that he gave not too long ago to a LESS STUPID more understandable degree.
"I'm missing beats."
Big man just arches his brow and blinks.
"What do you mean?"
"Oh, come on man! The rythm, you know, my thing! Music player in the chest, the way I work, you know!"
"Yeah, right, we know that from day one." Macaron stated, still confused as to what his friend is getting at. "Is something wrong with it?"
"Yeah, that's what I'm saying!" Chai perks up on the chair, feeling like he is finally getting trough to his friend. "My rythm is messed up somehow! I try to play my combo, do the whole thing, and then - BAM, I'm just not feeling it for a second. Like, the world just STOPS for a moment."
"... Huh." Big man puts his chin in-between his index and big fingers, finally getting the full picture. While he was thinking, Chai kept going.
"That whole thing started about a month ago, I think? And, like, it only happens for a fraction of a second and only once or twice in the entire fight so I didn't even notice it first, thought IT WAS I screwing up my own combo. But it keeps happening so I'm SURE there's something wrong with me."
When he stopped, the entire room fell into silence as Macaron rubbed his chin and thought about all the potential things that could have caused this. For a master of his own craft, he found it hard to find and assign the problem to any particular possible malfunction in Chai's body.
"Interesting." He finally said, turning his full attention to the monitor on his desk, looking trough countless spread sheets and graphics that all showed completely different things that could potentially be an answer to this riddle. "What do YOU think it is?"
"Hey, I'm not a tech guy. YOU'RE supposed to give me a diagnosis!"
At this Macaron could only sigh and lean back in his chair, eyes still glued to the screen. This didn't seem like any other run of the mill bugs that some people from project Armstrong had. Blown up prosthetics or crazy viruses he could handle, but what about missing music?...
"Alright, I'll see what I can find." With a crack of his metal fingers, head of R&D went to work. "In the meantime, could you please tell me how that happened today? It might give us some useful info about the problem."
Chai visibly relaxes and kicks back on the mechanical chair, placing his left hand behind his head. Okay, talking about what happened at today's mission? He can do that, sounds easy.
--------------------
Blown apart mechanical parts flew everywhere as a giant colorful explosion severed as an exclamation point in this violent exchange. Chai grins and his part-guitar part-bundle of trash smashes another bot into the pile of trash.
Oh man, he's SO cool doing this!
Despite how violent or dangerous this can be seen from the outside, THIS, this stuff right here?
This is his element.
Dodging a swing from the laser sword of another bot to the beat, hearing a phantom ring of invisible drum in his ears, getting that wicked spark in his eyes when the imaginary crowd screams his name after he gets in the mood....
Maaan, he missed it!
New party of robots popped out of the hatch just in time for him to do his thing and just then-
B U M P
... Electrical barrier. Of course. The guy is blue, he would obviously do that why did he even-
Well, no matter! Not like he came here alone!
... Well, technically he IS alone. 808 just teleports people in and- okay, look, the point is that he knows what to do, understand?
"Peppermint – your turn!" he shouts as 808's eys blink and out of nowhere comes her.
"Let's go, Chai! Hot headed, gun wielding, with enough confidence and hairstyle to stand up against the whole world, Peppermint joind him by his side and stood close.
Chai dashes to the left, preparing the follow up to her attack the moment she will break the barrier, ready to do his deadly dance any second now.
But instead the very second his eyes dart to her to check if she started the fire he just freezes.
His eyes pick up her every move, every small detail with his eyes as she picks up her giant gun grins, adjusts her aim and fires.
Her hair pushes back from the explosion of the barrier, her eye sparks and Chai can't help but feel like she is so...
So..
So cute and-
R E S T !
The second he realised what happened his face falls, he drops his gaze down and his free hand to where his music player-infused heart would be.
That was... weird. He missed the beat. That usually never happer when he was on the field. He is usually ALWAYS in perfect timing. Of course he could mess up a combo here and there butto just.. miss a beat? That usually didn't happen???
Looking up and expecting Peppermint to still be there he experienced a small sting of disappointment when he realized that the girl already wanished back to the base.
S M A S H
...Leaving him to get punched rrrrrright in the face by the last remaining robot.
Flying trough the ten feet up in the air, for some dumb and unexplainable reason he didn't think about the conundrum of his life where basically everything that happened in his life since getting a new robot arm resulted in him getting into some kind of trouble that forced him to experience near cartoon-like level of violence.
But of the fact that he didn't got to see Peppermint doing her cool thing.
--------------------
"Wowowowowow!" Chai stops himself mid-thought, swishing his hands around his face as if trying to get his metaphorical mess of a brain together.
Well, that was... weird.
Huh. Chai never was too fond of this whole "self-reflect" thing, it never actually solved any of his problems, only making him feel worse about knowing WHY or HOW he screwed up, but looking back to this one moment with Peppermint... Did this whole thing really happened because of her?
He didn't- Waaaaaaaait a minute! This is definitely not the first time this happened! There was also that one time he played with 808 and froze for a few seconds when Peppermint pet her cat while it was lying right on his lap, or that one moment when their hands touched when they tried to get the same drink in the fridge, or when she smiled at him that one time he-
OKAY STOP.
... How did he never put two and two together? Was SHE the reason he experienced this "glitch"? Why? How?! In the moment it felt really weird but he didn't really gave much thought that Peppermint was the reason he- Is he just- Was that all-
Hold on a second! Did he said all of these things out loud? Oh no, what if Macaron heard it all?! Oh man, that would be so lame-
"Um... Chai are you alright?"
"HUH?! What?!" Said man jumped on the bed and looked around, finally taking in the situation around him.
Macaron was currently looking away from the monitor and at him, concerned.
"You alright there, little man?" He adjusted his glasses and quickly glanced back to his monitor and then back at Chai. "You zoned out there for a few seconds, pal. So, you summoned Peppermint, and then what?"
Now, everyone knows that Chai isn't the sharpest tool in the shed. Hell, he knows that too, even if he won't ever admits that to anyone. But when push comes to shove, Chai can act, especially if it's a life or death situation. Just... not that well.
That was one of those situations right there.
"A-And nothing!" He said tense all of the sudden, trying his hardest to not look like he hides something from the big guy. "I s-summoned Peppermint, and umm, did my usual stuff and then realised that 'heeey, I just missed a beat in there! That sure was weird!'. W-Well, you know how it is!"
He stopped with a nervous smile, desperately praying to whatever god there is so Macaron wouldn't notice how nervous he got from just thinking about this. Buff scientist only looked back at him, his face unreadable.
After a short sigh, he readjusts himself and gets back to carefully looking at the monitor and clacking the keyboard. Chai took this moment to swipe the sweat that poured out on his forehead and take a long breath. He wanted to know why he suddenly lost the ability to feel the beat, but at the same time? Telling about this stuff to Macaron was probably the lamest thing he could do in his life. Totally awkward too!
"So." Chai said, standing up from the chair, much more relaxed. "Find anything about it?"
In response, beefcake of a scientist could only sigh.
"I wish Chai. I checked every report and run diagnostics a dozen times but the numbers are perfect! It's either the tech or-" His big hans suddenly stopped as his face took on a more confused look when he read another line of text on screen. "Huh."
That was the second "huh" of the day and Chai started highly disliking this trend. Popping up from the chair and stumbling over the wires that connected to his own arm he bumbled his way to the computer.
"What's that?" Chai immediately shoved his face closer to him, looking at the same words, trying to make heads or tails of anything and failing miserably to do so. "Was I right? Was that a bug? Will I die?!"
"Relax Chai, it's just a bio report." Big man gently shoved his smaller friend away from his face and kept reading. "It's seems like all the malfunctioning are independant from software or hardware and are purely on the host' side..."
"Um... In English? Please?"
"It says that the 'missing beats' as you called them, are all litteraly came from your heart, Chai." Macaron adjusts his glasses and looks at his friend reassuringly. "Your heart just skipped a beat a few times."
Kid froze in his place for a second.
And blinked.
And then blinked again.
And again just once more.
"... Wait." He finally spoke. Slowly, as if not having enough brain-power to think and say words at the same time. "So... What you're saying is... I'm fine?"
"Well, as much fine as a missing heartbeat can allow, I suppose." Macaron reassured him with a small smile on his face that immediately turned into a worry. "B-But, I'm still not sure what could've caused it! I'm don't know that much in terms of medical issues, so maybe you should get yourself checked in the medbay, it can be serious!"
Well that was... something. Chai wasn't sure if it was just him but for some reason all the info he just got made him seriously sweaty all of the sudden. Yeaaaaah, what could've possibly caused all of those missing heartbeats? He almost thought that he understood that a few minutes ago when he thought about Pepper-
Waaaaaait a minute.
... Oh.
Ohhhhhhhhhh.
OH NO.
Welp. That sure is a lot of revelations you just learned about yourself, Chai. Hope you're happy. Or not. That's a fine response too. All things considering.
"Chai?" Macaron snapped his fingers in front of Chai's face, wondering what could make his friend froze up in such a way for a second time for the day. "You alright there, buddy?"
"Um. Yeah. Yeah, I'm okay." Crap. He should stop zoning out in the middle of the conversation. It was fun when he was learning some new moves, not when he was having a sudden revelation about- about whatever he just learned about! "Med check. Right. Yeah man. Like, totally gonna do that now. Yup."
"Good. Let me know if anything serious comes up. We can replace with robotics almost anything these days but it's still important to take care of yourself!" When Chai threw him a questioning look and then signed to his hand still being full of wires Macaron suddenly straightened up, remembering the position his friend was in. "O-Oh, yeah! You can unplug those now."
"Still, it would be helpful to know a full picture." Mused Macaron, still eyeing the diagrams of Chai's biological and technical condition. "So what's ACTUALLY happened when you called Peppermi-?"
"OHHEYLOOKATTHETIMEIGOTTAGOSEEYALATER!!!" And young man immediately sprung from the seat, unplugging the wires on the fly and left the room with the speed at which he didn't reach even while running away from some of the scariest Vandelay Robots. His friend could only look in confusion as the place Chai sat at just a minute ago.
When door closed behind him, Macaron looked back to his monitor and clacked a few buttons on the keyboard, bringing up the recordings of 808's video feed that he saved after today's mission. After a short tinkering he managed to get a visual that corresponded to Chai's medical record of having a case of "missed heartbeat".
In that perticular moment he was starring at Peppermint, who was firing her guns at the enemy.
... That was the moment when Macaron said "huh" for a third time that day.
--------------------
Running from R&D labs to the Vandeley tower in just 10 minutes MAY be considered impossible by some, but in Chai's perfect vision of the world, these so-called "people" lacked the arm-magnets that could be used as a grapling hook (even if Macaron was constantly telling him that was NOT how that feature was supposed to work, Chai never really cared. What he would do? Start using stairs and elevators like a normie? Puh-leeeease.).
But grapling hook wasnt really much of a reason for such haste today, more of an addition, honestly. No, Chai was currently trying REALLY hard to ran away from the weird sense of fluttering in his heart now that session with Macaron showed him what might just be the reason for his recent failings at combat. Of course, running at mach speed like a manac was an awful way of slowing down your heart, but Chai was never too good at biology anyway. Just like in math. And physics. And Mechanics. And music untill recently. And -
Okay, he actually was quite bad at a lot of them but you get the picture. Point is - he was at the cafe floor of Vandeley and the marathon-level run he pulled out of his butt left him thirsty enough to go and get himself some drink. Which, as a matter of fact, wasnt that hard to accomplish seeing how the cafe was litteraly a short walk away. So, with a huff Chai stepped in line for a drink.
Trying to distract his own thoughts from internalising whatever the hell his head came up with as an explanation for all the stuff his heart experienced because of Peppermint, he decided to just quikly count how much money he still had left on his account. Granted - he used most of his saavings to buy a guitar so there wasn't all that much he could afford, even if SSDI was stil coming to him even after he got himself a new arm. Was it a wrong thing to do, now that he couldn't really be considered dysabled? Maybe. But he didn't have any other way of getting the money, and hey - he kinda saved the world from corporate domination, so cut him some slack!
Chai hummed to the tune that only he could hear trough the world adjusted by his heart-installed music player as the wait in line got a little tedious. He mentally counted how much money he still had on his account and whistled some tune knowing full well that his next SSDI payment was far away for a few weeks.
If you asked Chai, it wasn't even a problem, but that kinda DID left him in the position at which he didn't have enough money to eat as much as he wanted to sometimes. Not like it was much - he could still afford most of his meals, that just meant he couldn't stuff his face with burgers as in the first month, and if you asked him - trading all of that for a guitar was the best deal of his life, even if learning how to play it was a somewhat difficult process. Of course his friends tried to make it easier for him, but Chai wasn't ready for them to pay for him most of the time. Food he could handle, but he could live on his own now, he IS an adult! As much as some people didn't belive that sometimes...
When his time came, he looked at the robot behind the cash register and with the most dramatic rockstar move possible dropped placed his credit card on the counter.
"One big soda."
The older model looked at him with its only glowing yellow eye. Older models had less expressive facial features but something told Chai that the look could be described as "tired old man confused at his order" type.
"... Ya stood in the line all that time, just to order a soda, lad?"
"Indeed I did."
"Ya do know that we have the same soda in the vending machines all over the campus, lad?"
"Yeah, but it tastes better here."
"It's a bit pricier than in those."
"Maybe. But it's worth it."
"... Well, it's your money, I can't stop ya."
"Indeed you can't."
And so, with a big cup in his hand, a straw in his mouth and in a brighter mood than before, Chai went on his way to ponder the revelation of his newfound - let's just call it a "situation" and move on - about his friend. And then, the very second he was about to go up the stairs that lead to the exit from cafe he heard someone calling out for him.
Someone he knew.
"Chai, over here!"
Uh-Oh.
Welp, that's an awkward coincidence. Peppermint turned out to also be in cafe, sitting behind a table that was right by the stairs. It wasn't hard to notice her, being one of the only humans in the room and all, but still, Chai in his thoughts managed to go by her completely failing to notice her.
The thought of just pretending to not noticing her and keeping going crossed his mind for a second but her threw it away almost instantly - this would be too dumb even for him... Okay, maybe he would've done that, but not to his best bud!
Slowly turning his head and seeing Peppermint with a cup of coffee. Before her, right on the table, was 808, spinning around with increasing velocity, eventually turning into a hovering ball.
Gulping, either out of anxiety or out of need to swallow the drink - he didn't know for sure - Chai waved and sat on the opposite side of the table with a nervous laugh.
"H-Hey. Sorry, didn't see you there."
"It's okay Chai, I expected nothing less from you."
Just before he could protest, black hovering cat orb bumped into his shoulder and instantly transformed into the purring cat of the same colour.
"And hello to you too my little partner in crime." Chai smiled and scratched 808 behin the ear, earning an affectionate lick on the cheek.
"So, how's your health check with Macaron?" Peppermint asked. "Anything weird?"
Deciding to go easy on the details for his own good, Chai choose a short version of the answer.
"Nah, I'm good." This wasn't a lie, per se, his health was FINE. It's just that some aspect of it was somewhat ... complicated in a moment, for a lack of a better word. Still, he decided to at least TRY and steer the conversation to the best of his abilities, so smug grin crawled on his face. "What, you were worried?"
"Ha, as if." She chuckled after taking a sip of her coffee and pointed straight at his face. "I know better than to worry about you not surviving another hit or two."
"You know, sometimes I wonder how my bones can just TANK the punch of a giant robot to the face... Eh, might've drunk too much milk back in the day."
"Well, my point is, untill you'll get hit by an explosive laser from giant robot, don't wait for me to cry about you."
"Oh, trust me, one day I'm gonna die and you're gonna be SOOOO sad that I'm gonna be the first one to point that out."
"How can you do that if you're dead?"
"Meh, I'll think of something." He said and leaned back with his hands behind the head, allowing himself a moment to just chill and feel the beat of the world.
"Yeah, obviously." She deadpanned to the side, knowing full well that no amount of reason or logic could penetrate the thick walls of Chai's skull.
"So, uh, anyway, what's up? Anything new?" He suddenly perked up, disturbing 808 that just grasped the end of his red scarf.
"Chai, we saw eachother today, what else could happen so soon?"
"Litteraly anything."
"Ugh. No, Chai. Nothing happened."
"That's good. Or bad. Or, I dunno, neutral answer. Whichever you prefer, I'm not judging."
"Yeah yeah, anyway, I wanted to ask you something."
Weirdest of all feelings was born at the bottom of Chai's stomach the very second those words were said. The grey matter that some called his brain desperately tried to decipher what was it, but all it could come to was "man, idk" leaving him with no option other than to just bite it.
"Yeeeeeeeeeeaaaaaaaaah?" Not so subtly he strained, fiddling with a cup in his hands. "What's up?"
"It's about today's raid." She decided to approach from afar.
Oh crap, that's... not a good conversation topic, all things considering.
"A-And? What about it?" He decided to hide his nervousness by drinking his soda but only a blind person wouldn't see anything wrong with how fast he was slurping green stuff from his cup. Thankfully, Peppermint was a little bit too absorbed in her speach to pay it any close attention... even if 808 obviously did and tilted her head a bit in confusion.
"It's about how you got punched in the face after I did my thing. So i noticed that you've been doing it multiple times in the past and-"
Chai felt as if someone placed him in the middle of mine field under an artillery bombardment.
"Uhhh... What move?" He knew what she was talking about. BOY did he knew. He just prayed to god he could derange the entire conversation somehow.
"Uh you know the one I'm talking about." Peppermint said, confused. How could he already forget that? Yeah, Chai's known to forget about a lot of stuff but not usually the one that punched him in the face! "The one when you summoned me and-"
At times, Chai's mind could be visualized as a board of DnD where some neurons would roll their dice to see how well he would react to the stimuli from the outside world.
Let's just say that due to all the recent events and the fact that it was Peppermint asking this exact question, Chai's mind rolled a natural 1, prompting him to say the absolute worst possible thing he could in the moment.
"I WASN'T STARING!" His scream would startle the whole cafe if it wasnt for the fact that it was already too loud inside.
As a result, the only one startled was Peppermint. And 808 that jumped at his loud outburst and stared at him with her tail high up.
"... what?"
"I-I mean... Yeah, that move, what about it?" Nice save there. High five brain!
808 watched as Peppermint's thought process thrown for a loop. It took her a second to shake her head and went back on topic.
".... Really? Not even gonna TRY to explain that one?"
At this point Chai might've tried to dig himself out of the grave he unconsciously put himself in, but all he had for a shovel was his brain and that, to no-ones surprise, was full of holes.
"Explain what?"
Despite how much she knew about Chai already, sometimes Peppermint STILL couldn't belive this guy.
"The whole-! Ugh, forget it." She puts her cup down with a loud THUD and crosses her hands on the chest, while 808 just sits on a table and keeps looking at both of them worryingly.
If that was the end of the conflict, then Chai obviously didn't get it, because somehow it felt like he did something wrong when he was pretty sure he didn't? Okay, maybe not 100% sure.
Still, he realised that the problem was bigger than he thought the second Peppermint placed both of her hands on a table and got up, stomping away from him.
Welp, time to try and fix it.
"H-Hey! Peppermint, wait!" He whimpers as he gets up right behind her and grabs her hand just as she takes her first step.
"What?!"
"I'm sorry. I overreacted. But I mean, come on, you know me." He still held her hand as he spoke, serious in a way that Chai rarely ever was. "I didn't want to piss you off, I was just being dumb, okay? Come on, don't be mad."
She looked at him for a couple of seconds and then relaxes.
"Fine. Apologies accepted." She felt her cheeks burn a little at her next words. Even after all the time, honesty and forgiveness was a hard thing for her to master, especially with Chai. "And, uh, you forgive me for doing this whole 'pissed at you' thing."
"It's okay." He replied, feeling relieved and a bit of prideful for being able to actually de-escalate the situation so quickly. Man, would he be able to pull that thing off with Korsica back in the day? Probably not, but hey, there's no way to check now. "Nice knowing we can all just speedrun that process."
"Hah. Yeah." And she gives him a small smile, which he DEFINITELY doesn't hyper fixates on. Yup. Totally not imprinting this stuff in his brain for an eternity as she spoke, noooooo sir.
All seem right in the world.
.... His heart skipped a beat again, didn't it?
Goddamnit, he's SOOOO SCREWD.
The stayed like this for a few seconds before Peppermint cheeks grew a bit red.
"Um, Chai? You can let go now." She clearly ment his hand on her own.
"Oh! Sorry!" He quickly pulled his hand back to his chest, as if afraid he caused an even bigger problem than before. Weirdly enough he could steel feel her touch- OKAY FOCUS.
"I-It's okay."
They stand like that for a moment, unsure how to proceed, 808 walks back and forth around them, entranced by this sudden behaviour of her owners. For some reason it was as if like the cat herself understood the situation more than any of them ever did.
Silence lasted for a short while untill Chai spoke first.
"... So, what did you wanted to ask me about it?"
Peppermint cocks her head to the side
"About what?"
"The, um, thing? You started talking about it beforet the whole... You know."
"Ah, Yes. Um. I wanted to say that, if you have any troubles doint this whole combo stuff, we can always, you know, do some training? Together, you and me?" When 808 purr from beneath attracted her attention she smiled and picked up her cat on her hands. "And with the best cat in the world, of course! I would never forget about you!"
She lovingly pet her cat's belly as said cat purred in her hands. When she understood that her kitty was satisfied, she turned her attention back to Chai.
"So how about it? Let's train together, make sure that there would be no more mistakes like today?"
There would be many things Chai would usually say to this kind of proposal...
Okay, first of all - he doesn't NEED training, he's perfect the way he is! Of course there's always some dumb mistakes, but that's usually not a big deal! Just because he messed up today doesn't mean he will do it again tomorrow!
And second, she doesn't pet 808 the right way! You obviously should do tummy rubs when you hold her by your hands! He knows it, he did it countless times!
... but at the same time? He would lie if he said that the idea of spending some time together with Peppermint didn't sound good. So Chai bit his tongue - both relatively and litteraly (ouch, by the way) and instead of all the mean things that he could say, he just blurted:
"Y-Yeah, let's do it!"
"Cool." She puts kitty down on the ground, which immediately started to rub herself against her prosthetic leg. "Tomorrow at 2 sounds good?"
"Yes, Yes it does!" He nodded just a tiiiiny bit too enthusiastically.
"Good. Meet you at the hideout." She turns around and walks her way to the exit, only to suddenly stop and look at him over her shoulder. "Also, what was that about starring?"
"Um! Uhhh-" Okay Chai, think fast! If you tell her the truth it's all over! Crap crap crap, you don't know! There's not a single good thought in your head how is that possible?! Oh, here goes nothing... "I thought that you think that I'm uhh... starring at 808?"
"808?" She did a quick look of her cat, as if checking her for anything weird. "Why would starring at her would be bad?".
"Y-You know, being polite?"
She looked at him over her shoulder some more, not saying a thing. After the short while she decided that she didn't have time to deal with this. For all the things they went trough together, Chai was still an enigma for her sometimes.
"... Bye Chai." She said and left, 808 bouncing not too far behind.
"Y-Yeah, bye. See you tomorrow." Guy's shoulders sink a bit and he gets back to sipping his soda.
... Well, weirdly enough, he survived THAT conversation. Let's hope this tracks. Tommorow he will meet with her again and it will be.... troublesome, if today is of any indication. There's a bunch of things he could say or do that would spell doom for his friendship with Peppermint and like hell would he want this!
He should prepare.
He should-
"So, when are you going to pay for that, sir?" Suddenly comes the robotic question from behind him.
Chai turns around and sees the service bot in cafe uniform,
"Hey, I paid for my drink!"
"No sir, we meant the coffee that your friend ordered." Bot nodded in the direction of a cup that still was standing on the table. "It was your friend, right? You should pay for her."
"B-But I- She didn't even-" Okay, deep breaths Chai. "... Okay...."
Weird how live can swing sometimes, isn't it? You fall, you rise, you figure out that you have a crush on your really cool friend, you almost have a conflict with them but then you don't, and then you just sit there pretty sure that everything is good untill some robot cones up and says that you owe him money.
Money that Chai couldn't afford to just throw at an overproced coffee with A LOT of toppings.
... God damnit.
As he was walking away, considerably more bumbed out about everything, having to pay for Peppermint's absurd coffee order (SERIOUSLY LADY, HOW MANY INGREDIENTS DO YOU NEED???) a time for serious revelations to one's selves had to happen.
He has feelings. They are.... CONNECTED to Peppermint. He doesn't know what those feelings really ARE, but if it literally makes his whole world STOP then it is probably something important.
... He might need help figuring out what to do with all of this.
Not with any of his close friends though! They will DEFINITELY tell Peppermint. And even if they don't, there's a big chance she'll figure it out SOMEHOW.
So, not anyne from his usual group, huh? Well.... He might have a few choices.
--------------------
At this same moment as they both Chain and Peppermint went their separate ways, security camera at the corner of the cafeteria was showing eeeeevery small detail to the head of security who accidentally decided to personally check on her friends from her office.
Now, you coul call the Head of Security many things. She was brash, strong, sometimes mean and even a bit playful in the right moment. But something that a lot of people don't get is that when you're a head of security, you have to be PERCEPTIVE. A feat that she HAD to have in the job that required her to make strong choices and see potential weaknesses for protection of company. And thay was the feat that she used 100% here, seeing basically the entire story that Chai went trough, figuring out his problem faster than the man himself ever could.
And there were a few words Krosika could say after witnessing all of that.
"Oi! What kind'a teen romance crap is that?!"