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In the middle of the night, you’re roused by someone shaking you awake. It takes your eyes a moment to adjust to the dark, but when they do, you see Chara standing over you, fully dressed, expression unusually solemn.
“I’m running away,” they say. “Do you want to come with me?”
And you reply, “Of course.”
It seems to be the answer Chara was expecting, as they’d brought an empty backpack with them. They hand it to you once you manage to pull yourself out of bed, narrowly avoiding tripping over your own blankets. Taking it, you begin to shuffle about your bedroom, looking for whatever you might want to bring with you.
“Should I pack food?” you ask, thinking of the cinnamon scones your mother had made the day before. There should still be some left.
Chara shakes their head. “I’ve got everything we need. Just bring the stuff you want.”
It doesn’t take you very long to finish after that. You pack your favourite stuffed monster, your best comic books, your sketchbook and your crayons. Chara politely looks away so you can change, and after you’ve finished tugging off your pajamas and pulling on a sweater and a pair of jeans, you’re ready to go.
The view outside the palace is the same as always: a dark, craggy skyline, stretching far above a city that gleams as white as dust. It’s only the absence of any monsters or artificial lights that tells you that it’s night, but you suppose you’ll be on the streets yourself soon enough, and then they won’t be empty anymore.
“Chara,” you whisper as the two of you make your way down a corridor lined with tapestries and banners. There’s nobody around, but it still feels like you ought to whisper, particularly with so much history around you. The effect is only ruined somewhat by the slight clump of Chara’s boots.
“Yeah?”
“Where are we going?”
“It’s a surprise,” they say, turning around and holding out their hand with a smile.
A surprise isn’t something you can ask about, you think forlornly, no matter how badly you want to know. But Chara’s your best friend, so it’s bound to be a good surprise, right?
The thought of a surprise from Chara is all it takes to cheer you up, really, and so you take their hand and return their smile easily. Their palm is small and rough in yours and you pause to give it what you hope is a reassuring squeeze. They smile at you, but don’t squeeze back, instead using their new hold on you to tug you forward.
No guards stand at the doors. It’s late, after all, and so the two of you are able to slip into the courtyard with no trouble. You move quickly through the gardens, navigating easily down the narrow, winding path. Chara’s hand in yours keeps you from dawdling even when the bright white roses catch your eye, pulling you so hard you nearly stumble once or twice.
They stop only once you’re standing on the other side of the palace gates, at which point they finally release your hand in favour of slumping against the rough stone wall. They press their hands against their heaving chest, and you ask, “Are you okay?”
“I’m fine,” they answer hoarsely. “I just need a minute to catch my breath.”
Folding your hands, you lean against the wall beside them and wait. They heave for a moment longer, but finally they stand, straightening their shoulders and readjusting the straps of their backpack.
“Alright,” Chara says firmly. “I’m good. Let’s go.”
“Do you want me to carry that?” you ask as you fall into step beside them, eying their backpack uncertainly. You didn’t see them pack it, which means it could be full of rocks as far as you know. If they’re bringing rocks, they probably shouldn’t be carrying it themselves.
Chara shakes their head. “I’m fine.”
“Is it heavy?”
“I’m fine,” they repeat. “If I can’t even carry this, I don’t deserve to have it.”
“What’s in there, anyway?”
“Food. Gold. A blanket. Bandages. My knife. Other stuff.” Then, with a slight smile: “Some books.”
“That explains it,” you say, starting to grin yourself. “‘Some’ means ‘all’, doesn’t it?”
“More like ‘as many as I could fit.’ I would’ve brought more actual supplies, but you have your magic, so we shouldn’t need matches or a flashlight, and I couldn’t think of anything else that might be useful.”
“I’m not very good at magic yet, though,” you say, alarmed.
Chara shakes their head. “You can summon sparks,” they say dismissively. “That should be more enough to start a fire if we need one.”
A fire makes you think of campfires—of marshmallows and sleeping bags and evenings spent in the garden while your parents tell you stories of the surface and the things you’ll see there someday. “Are we going camping?” you ask.
“We’re running away,” Chara repeats in a tone of voice that means don’t ask any more questions.
In the silence that ensues, you keep your eyes downcast, trying to think of something you can say that will ease Chara’s tension. Nothing comes to mind, however: only further questions about where you’re going and why they brought the things they did. Gold—will they need money? A knife—are they going to be gardening?
At some point while you’re wandering the streets, Chara takes a turn down a steep white staircase leading towards the river that flows throughout the Underground. From atop the staircase, there doesn’t seem to be anything below, but as you get closer to the bottom, a silhouetted hooded figure begins to emerge from the mist.
Chara pauses on the bottom stair, then turns to you and says, “Please ask them if they’ll ferry us.”
“Where do we want to go?”
“As far as they’re willing to take us.”
You approach the hooded figure in the boat, trying not to wince as your feet touch the soft, marshy ground of the riverbank. The faceless hooded figure watches silently as you approach.
Once you’re close enough that you don’t feel as though you have to shout, you say, “Can you take us with you?”
“I love to ride in my boat,” the figure says. “If you love it too, then of course the two of you may join me. Where would you like to go?”
“As far as you’re willing.”
They give a slow nod, and you turn, beckoning for Chara to come forward. Their expression as they run towards you is one of relief.
You take their hand, helping them into the boat. Once you and Chara are as settled as you can be, the river person says, “Let’s go, then. Back to the beginning.”
The boat begins to move.
You think everybody Underground has been ferried by the river person at least once. You and Chara have definitely ridden with them more than once. Even so, the trip isn’t something you can easily get used to, and Chara looks more than a little green as they cling to you.
You can’t say for sure how long it lasts. Too much of your attention is focused on Chara, who presses their face into your chest, groaning and flinching with every rock and bump. But finally you start to smell the sharp, clean scent of snow, and you realize—probably belatedly—that you must be approaching Snowdin. To the beginning, the river person had said, but you hadn’t thought they’d meant the literal beginning of the Underground. You’d just thought that they were being poetic, the way they often are.
When the boat stops, you make sure to smile and say thank you while Chara scrambles out of the boat. The river person nods, still humming their absentminded song, and you suppress the flicker of annoyance that arises when it occurs to you to wonder why it always falls on you to make nice with people when Chara won’t. It must be nice to not care what others think of you.
You smother your irritation with a self-directed reminder that Chara’s waiting for you, then go to join them on the steps. Together, you climb out of the grotto.
You’ve come even further than Snowdin, something that you hadn’t even thought was possible, and emerge surrounded by stone and barren trees clawing at the craggy sky. Dry grass and dead leaves litter the ground. Shadows spill into every corner, painting the light violet.
“This is where you used to live,” Chara says. “I recognize those pillars.”
“How did the boat person bring us here?” you ask, too startled to wonder what Chara meant by you instead of we. “I didn’t think the river went this far.”
Chara wanders over to one of the pillars they’d commented on, running their hand up and down the column. “I don’t know,” they say, glancing back at you. “But it sure was lucky for us.”
“I guess so,” you concede, watching as they once more heft their backpack up over their shoulders, having taken it off in the boat so that they could lean more comfortably against you.
“It feels like ages since we’ve been here,” Chara comments as they move forward through the fallen leaves. Their boots crunch with every step. You quickly go to follow them. “But it’s only been...what, a year? Why does this place look so old?”
“There hasn’t been any magic to sustain it, I guess,” you say. Your eyes fall on a nearby wall. It’s crumbling, having seemingly been brought down by vines. The sight of it unsettles you, and so you force yourself to look forward instead, keeping your gaze fixed on the back of Chara’s head and the slight swing of their red-brown hair.
It’s not until you catch sight of an empty tree in a familiar yard that you realize that you’re not just in Home, but actually approaching home. The house seems so small now, you think, especially compared to New Home. But if it’s only just the two of you, then...
“Hey,” you say. “This would be a good place to stop, don’t you think?”
Chara pauses, turning a critical eye to the small cottage. You wonder if they feel any of the nostalgia you do upon looking at it, but maybe not. They only knew it as home for a few months, after all. Not long enough to really care about something.
“Yes,” they say at last. “We’ve been walking for a while. This can be where we set up camp. We’ll leave again at dawn.”
The door is unlocked, and you briefly worry that some family of smaller monsters, such as froggits, may have taken up residence inside. But there’s nothing. The house is empty, cold and faded, and no one interrupts you as you make your way towards the living room.
It takes you several tries to light the fire, but once you do, Chara comes and joins you. They leave their backpack in a heap with yours, but they bring the blanket with them, and together you huddle in the warm folds.
“This place is much colder than I remember,” they say.
“No magic heating anymore,” you explain. “But I’ll do my best.”
Chara nods, pulling the blanket a little closer.
It’s not just the magic heating that’s absent, you think. Nothing’s left, period. Everything had been taken with you during the move, even the oldest and most worn-out furniture having been deemed too valuable to leave behind. It’s a skeleton of a house, and it leaves you feeling even more unsettled than the sight of that vine tearing down the wall had.
As if reading your mind, Chara says, “We won’t stay here long. It’s just for tonight.”
“All right,” you say. Then, a little hesitantly: “We could probably manage longer if you wanted, though.”
A snort. “What would we even do here?”
“I don’t know,” you reply, defensive. “I don’t know what we’re doing at all, in fact.”
Privately, you imagine Chara deciding to stay after all. Together, you could gradually return the life and warmth to Home. The thought of it alone makes your cheeks burn hot; you’d have to get very, very good at magic if you ever wanted to make that happen.
“Don’t worry about it,” Chara says. Their eyes are fixed on the fireplace, watching licks of flame catching on dry leaves. “We’re not staying.”
So you decide not to worry about it.
That night, you sleep together by the fireplace, curled around each other the way you used to do back when Chara first arrived; the way you still do sometimes when one of you has bad dreams. You don’t have a bed, but you build a makeshift nest out of your jackets and Chara’s blanket, and huddling together keeps you warmer than the fire ever could.
The night is silent, free of any sound but Chara’s breathing. There’s no sound of distant footsteps or conversation, the way there used to be when you lived here. There’s no sign of life at all.
In the end, it’s Chara who breaks the silence.
“I can’t believe you’ve followed me all this way,” they say.
“Of course I followed you,” you reply. “You’re my best friend.”
For a moment, Chara doesn’t speak. Then, as they curl their hand around your own: “Do you want to know why I ran away?”
Yes, you think. Out loud you say, “Only if you want to tell me.”
“I figured,” Chara says, and their eyes fall shut. In the dark, they smile. “Don’t worry about it.”
So you decide not to worry about it.
Somehow, you still manage to fall asleep.
Your whole body is stiff when you awaken, but you don’t complain. You catch sight of Chara wincing and trying to stretch, though, and you almost offer to carry them the rest of the way before they once again grab their backpack, pulling it on before you can say so much as a single word in protest.
“All right,” they declare, expression grim. “Just a little more.”
The rest of the ruins of Home are just as strange and silent as the beginning had been. You meet the occasional small monster, most of whom are too afraid to challenge you, and encounter the occasional puzzle, most of which Chara can solve easily, provided you’re able to press or flip the rusted switches for them.
At last, you come to the true end of the Underground—the very edge of the mountain which contains you, where sunlight catches on the cracks above and misshapen flowers bloom. It’s a cave lit not by magic, but by sunlight pouring in from the wide gap overhead.
It’s a place you recognize.
“This is where I found you,” you say, startled, and you think, this is where I used to try and see the stars. This is where I found them, limbs twisted in a heap, barely recognizable as something living.
“This is where I fell,” Chara agrees, and they stop, kneel, and open up their backpack.
They draw from it a length of rope, crudely made.
“What is that?” you ask stupidly.
“A rope,” Chara answers simply. “This was the other stuff I brought with me.”
They draw a pair of wrenches next. They’re mismatched rusting ones, likely salvaged from the garbage dump. You don’t recognize them, and realize that Chara must have found them without you. The thought of that is somehow even more confusing than the sight of the wrenches alone.
“Why do you have all that?” you ask, but Chara ignores you in favour of crossing the wrenches, then tying the rope around them. They tie it using a complicated-looking knot, which they test several times before handing it to you. You take it, too bewildered to do anything else but play along.
Chara points, and you follow their finger all the way to the gap in the ceiling through which you used to try and learn the constellations, one crack of sky at a time.
“You’re stronger than I am,” Chara says. “So you can probably throw that further. I need you to throw that through the hole.”
“Why?” you ask.
Your voice cracks somewhat, and something in Chara’s eyes turns fierce.
“We’re going to climb out,” they say.
You’ve never been very good at disobeying when they take that tone of voice.
You take the makeshift grappling hook, and throw.
It takes you multiple tries to snag it anywhere near the hole, but finally it catches on a cleft rock. When you tug, it won’t come down. From where they’re standing, hands on their hips, Chara says, “Close enough. If I can make it up that far, then I can climb the rest myself.”
“Can you climb it?” you ask, but they’re already unlacing their boots.
“I don’t know,” Chara says, neatly placing the boots beside their backpack, leaving them standing barefoot on the yellow grass. “But I can try. I should be light enough, and my arms are strong.”
Then, they turn those solemn eyes on you.
“Catch me if I fall,” they say.
Something in your chest swells.
“Of course,” you say, and Chara smiles.
“I knew I could count on you,” they say.
Without waiting for a reply, they take the rope and brace their foot against the wall, lifting their gaze to the gap in the ceiling. It seems an impossible distance away to you, but their expression is blazing with determination, and you feel that somehow, maybe, maybe, they can actually do this, despite the anxious churning in your gut that tells you otherwise.
You watch from the bottom as Chara climbs, trying not to let the cinching in your chest distract you from their ascent. You have to stay focused. If they fall, you have to catch them.
Still, they must be far, far stronger than you’d ever thought, you think in awe. They climb slowly, with grunts and gasps and swears of frustration, but they’re still rising, feet braced against the wall as they unsteadily climb upwards.
But by the time they reach the end of the rope, their arms are shaking. Although you realize almost instantly what’s about to happen, you can’t react fast enough. You can only watch as Chara lets go of the rope with one hand, straining for the gap, and then—
You don’t catch them so much as throw your body under theirs while they’re still falling. But Chara manages to land on you, and your hands are still outstretched, and so you tell yourself that you succeeded, even though they sent you crashing into a bed of malformed yellow flowers.
You’re too winded to speak immediately. Judging from how ragged their breathing is, Chara’s winded too, but they still manage to drag themselves off of you, pausing only for a moment to press a hand to their face.
Then, slamming a fist into the ground, they cry, “Shit!”
You nearly recoil in surprise when they remove their hand and you catch sight of their expression. They’re not smiling coldly, the way they so often do when angry or upset. Instead, they look wild, desperate. Their eyes are enormous, and there’s something borderline animalistic in them, like they’re a trapped thing that’s been backed into a corner. There’s none of their usual smug confidence, the anger lying tightly coiled just beneath the surface. Instead there’s only...
Well. They’re crying.
You reach out to them hesitantly, but Chara ignores you, instead curling into themselves. You can hear their breath catching in their throat, and you’re left to watch helplessly, until finally they curl their hands into fists and once more strike the ground with a wail.
“Don’t,” you manage to say, voice weak. “Please don’t.”
“I fucked up,” Chara chokes, lifting their head and turning those desperate eyes back towards the gap in the ceiling. The early morning sunlight is still streaming through. It’s very nearly beautiful. “I let myself fall. I let go. I need to try again. I won’t let go this time.”
They’re already moving to stand, and your hand shoots out and grabs their wrist without thinking.
“That w-won’t help,” you stutter. “Were...were you really trying to climb out? You...you can’t, the barrier won’t let you.”
“But this is where I fell,” Chara snaps, tugging their wrist away and shooting you an accusing glare. They once more point to the gap. “I fell through that hole, and the barrier was made to keep monsters in. Why shouldn’t I be able to climb back out when I fell through it in the first place and I’m not a monster?”
“I...I don’t know why, exactly,” you say. You begin to rub your arms. Your anxiety is getting worse. You feel trapped beneath their glare as they demand an explanation you don’t have, and you’d give anything to be able to tell them what they want. “I’m not sure how the magic works. But it’s a one way barrier...you can go through from the other side, sure, but...once you’re in the mountain, nothing can leave. We...we tested it, even! The royal scientist tried sending robots and stuff through, and it never worked. I....I thought you knew.”
The sound Chara makes then is like no sound you’ve ever heard, monster, human, or otherwise. It’s a sound like a dying animal, and as they press their hands against their face, nails digging into their skin, all you can think to do is finally stand up on shaking legs and wrap your arms around them.
As you hug them, Chara leans into your embrace and chokes, “I’m so stupid.”
“You’re not,” you say, because you can think of no other response to give.
Hot tears fall on your sweater. “Why did you even let me try, if you knew it wouldn’t work?” they ask, an edge of anger in their voice, but they don’t pull away.
“I d-didn’t know what you were doing,” you stammer, rubbing useless circles on their back the way your mother does for you sometimes, when everything begins to feel like it’s too much. You hope that it will ease their trembling. You don’t know what else to do.
Chara’s response to that is a sharp burst of laughter. “Fair enough,” they say weakly, slumping. “I didn’t really explain myself. I did everything I could to leave you out of it while still dragging you along. Of course this didn’t work. Of course.”
Their shoulders are still shaking silently, but if there’s anything left of that animal sound, they’ve chained it back down again, because they give no further wails. You’re not sure if you should feel worried or relieved, so in the end, you simply wrap your arms around them even tighter, trying not to flinch at the way they dig their fingers into you in return.
They’re strange and silent afterwards, as though something inside of them has died. You try not to think about what that means. You focus only on your tasks. You need to recover their makeshift grappling hook, which comes loose after a few particularly violent tugs. You need to repack their bag, which you do while trying not to think about what might have happened if you hadn’t been fast enough. You need to help them lace their boots, help them stand, help them take those first few steps out of the sunlight and back into the shadows of the ruins.
They follow you silently, mechanically, face utterly expressionless. It’s unsettling. Chara’s usually the one to lead you, whether it be through their charisma or sheer force. For you to be the one gently walking them back home feels wrong. It reminds you of the day they first fell, you realize. But then, they’d been silent because of their injuries, unable to talk much due to pain. Now, if they’re injured, it’s somewhere you can’t see, in a way that you can’t recognize.
The thought of dragging them back through the Underground while they’re still empty like that just seems cruel.
As you’re walking to the front door of your old house, something inside Chara comes alive enough to say. “What are we doing here?”
“Resting?” you suggest. “You still have some food. We can have lunch, and figure out what to do next.”
Lunch. At the thought of it, something inside of you raises its sleepy head. Your mother will be making lunch right about now. For the first time since Chara woke you up, you think, are mom and dad worried about us?
You brush the thought away. They know just as well as you do that there’s nowhere you could go where you could really come to any harm. They’ll just think that you ran off to play without waiting to tell them. Your mother might be mad, but that’s not something you can worry about right now. Chara needs you more than she does.
The two of you kneel by the fireplace where you’d slept the night before. You fumble with your magic for a bit, summoning what spurts of emerald-coloured healing light you can, pressing it to Chara’s rope-burned hands, their scratched-up feet, and any other injuries they’ll let you see. Finally they turn away, at which point you grab their backpack and pass Chara the blanket. They wrap it around themselves tightly as you rummage through the bag, pulling out some water bottles, bread, and little snack packs of crackers and cheese. You hand Chara their share of food, and they wordlessly tear open a snack pack.
You begin to pick apart your bread, wondering how best to broach the topic of what to do next, but Chara spares you having to come up with anything by saying, “I had a dream.”
“What was it about?” you ask, a little awkwardly.
“I dreamt about the house I lived in before,” they say.
You stiffen. They’ve never told you much about their life on the surface, but you know enough to know what sort of dream this must have been.
“I was in my bedroom,” Chara continues, undaunted by your tension. “And I saw the me I used to be, sitting on the bed. And I asked, what are you doing here? And they looked at me and said, I never left.”
Their eyes are still fixed on the fire. Their voice is hollow, as though they’re speaking to you from years away.
“When I woke up, I was...surprised I was alone,” they say. “I think I half expected them to be there with me. And I felt...strange. Like maybe my bed wasn’t really my bed, and my clothes weren’t really my clothes. I felt like I was in a house that wasn’t mine, but I couldn’t tell if I was thinking of my old house or yours. And I thought...if none of this is mine, if a part of me is still trapped elsewhere, then maybe I should...leave. Find somewhere else to be entirely, so that I’m not forcing innocent people to deal with all my shit.”
They turn to you, then.
“But even though I decided to leave, I still asked you to come,” they say. “What do you make of that?”
“Um,” you say. “I’m not sure.”
It’s a weak response, but you don’t know what else to say. You don’t know how to fix this. You don’t know how to give Chara the ache that’s overflowing in you, all the sadness and the love and the confusion that arises whenever they get like this.
“Fair enough,” Chara says yet again, and they turn back to the fire.
Once the two of you have finished eating, they shuffle towards you. They don’t offer you the blanket the way they did last night, but their eyes are still exhausted, so you say nothing when they lean their head against your shoulder. You instead wrap your arms around them, trying not to jostle them too much.
“I was going to get a human soul,” they say abruptly.
“What? How?” you ask, startled.
(Even you aren’t dense enough to not know why. There’s only one reason anybody Underground would want a soul.)
“I don’t know,” Chara says, their face scrunching up slightly in irritation. “I thought...maybe I could get one at a hospital or something, where people are dying anyway. Then I’d come back for you, so you could leave too. I wasn’t...I mean, I know monsters can’t pass the barrier. I wasn’t planning to just leave you there if I could actually get out. I was going to come back. ”
You swallow. The thought of them leaving forever hadn’t even crossed your mind. Even this, them saying that they wouldn’t have, but acknowledging the possibility of it, is enough to make your soul turn cold.
Because you would have waited, you realize. You would have stayed there in that sunlit cave, no matter how long it took, even if they never actually returned, all because they’d said catch me if I fall. You’d have stayed there as long as it took, waiting, waiting, waiting for the possibility of them falling.
And that’s not the worst of it, you realize with dawning horror. You’d followed them in the middle of the night, not knowing where they were going or why, not thinking about your parents until half a day later, not thinking to say this might not work even as they’d gone to do something stupid that you’d known couldn’t possibly have worked, all because a part of you had thought, if anyone can do it, Chara can.
What had you been thinking? What’s wrong with you?
“Oh,” is all you actually say.
“I just wanted you to know,” Chara mumbles. They almost sound annoyed, as though saying I wasn’t going to abandon you is some great sacrifice on their part.
“What...would we have done on the surface?” you ask. “If you’d come back for me.”
You remember the thought that had occurred to you when you’d first arrived at your old house—that it might be the perfect size for just the two of you. Could you have done that on the surface, then, if they’d managed to come back? Could you have simply found a place to live together, far away from everything that’s crumbling and half-alive, both on the surface and below?
Maybe waiting would have been worth it.
“Looked for a way to break the barrier, probably,” Chara answers. “Then gone somewhere where there’s no people. But I guess that’s impossible now.”
You swallow. Even now, despite the residual horror you feel at everything you’ve already gone along with, a part of you wants to say, it doesn’t have to be impossible. All you need is a monster soul to get out by yourself, and look, I have one right here, I can…
“Maybe that’s okay for now,” you venture.
You immediately fall silent, having spoken more to interrupt your train of thought than because you’d had a fully formed idea to share, but then Chara’s looking at you expectantly and you’re forced to continue with, “It doesn’t have to matter where we are, does it? As long as we’re together? Because...we’re the same, in a way. You may not feel like you belong here Underground, but...I don’t really feel like that, either. And I definitely don’t belong on the surface.” You give a weak laugh. “So if neither of us belong anywhere, then it makes sense that we’d belong together, doesn’t it? And as long as we have that, then...maybe it’s okay we live like this.”
Chara is silent for a moment. A long, long moment, as though truly weighing your words.
But then they shake their head.
“It’s not okay,” they say. “But...you might be right about the other stuff. I think that might be why I wanted you to come with me.”
“Really?” you ask. You nearly cringe from how pathetically hopeful you sound.
“Well, yeah,” Chara says. They don’t look at you, keeping their gaze fixed very pointedly on the fire. “I thought maybe I should find a different home for myself. But you’re what makes me feel like I’m home, so of course I’d bring you with me. How could I be happy otherwise?”
You feel as though you’re glowing, then, and not just from the heat.
As you once again begin to collect your things, Chara stands to help. As they do, you see that the light has returned to their eyes. The gears are turning in their mind as they calculate their next move, designing the solution to whatever puzzle they feel they’ve undertaken. But although they haven’t said anything to you directly, for once you almost feel as though you might be a proper part of it this time, not merely an observer or a tagalong.
(You make them feel like they’re home, you tell yourself.)
“Thank you,” Chara says as you take that first step out of your old home and are once more struck with the cool, stale air of the ruins. They take your hand with a smile: a small one, almost shy. “I knew I could count on you to help me when I fell.”
“Well, golly,” you say, flustered, and Chara laughs.
“Golly?” they say. “You’re such a dork.”
“I’m not the one trying to sound cool,” you retort, but Chara shakes their head, still snickering.
You walk side-by-side in silence for a little bit, until finally you dare to ask, “Where are we going now?”
For once, Chara doesn’t brush it off with a smile and a don’t worry about it. Instead they say, “My plan didn’t work out, so let’s go back for now.”
“Back as in home?”
They nod, crunching through the leaves that litter the front yard with purposeful stomps. “Your parents will be mad, but I’ll tell them I made you come with me,” they say in-between stomps. “Hopefully you won’t get in trouble.”
“Don’t do that,” you say quickly. “I wanted to come. I want to get in trouble with you.”
“Relax. I’ll let you take the blame for my next plan,” Chara answers almost cheerfully, beginning to swing your arms in a gentle arc.
“You’d better let me have a proper part next time,” you say warningly as a whimsum darts out of the pile of leaves that Chara had been stomping through.
“Oh, I will,” Chara says, beaming. “Don’t worry. I won’t make the mistake of leaving you out again.”
You wonder briefly if that ought to be something that worries you, or if it’s okay that it practically makes your soul sing with happiness.
You can’t be troubled long, however, because then Chara starts to run, and you’re left to chase after them so that the two of you can go home.