"Wanna be friends or something?"
"Sure."
We stay silent some more.
Then I ask. "So…..what do friends do?"
"I have no idea. You were the one who had friends, right? What did you do with Pinku's gang?"
"So, we'd talk about how great Pinku is-"
"That's…I don't think that's what friends do."
"We'd bully this one kid."
"No. That doesn't sound like friendship. That sounds like a cult of psychos."
We would eat food together."
"THAT'S JUST BASIC HUMAN BEHAVIOUR! HOW DID YOU EVEN CALL THOSE GUYS YOUR FRIENDS?"
"But we would have fun doing that!" I protest.
We stay silent.
"How the hell do you become friends?" He asks me.
"Well. Apparently people become friends if they have fun together."
"I have fun when I'm taking a shit."
"Hey. I have fun taking a shit too." I say. Then the gears turn in my head.
Apparently Junior figures out what I'm thinking.
"No. No no no no n-"
We're standing in front of a porta-potty.
I get inside and sit on the toilet seat. Then I open the door to let Junior see me.
I make space for him to sit on one side and I pat on the free half of the toilet seat. "Come on bro. Plenty of space for us to take a shit together."
"There's no way I'm taking a shit with someone while sharing the same toilet." He says.
"Nonsense," I reply. "How else will we become friends?"
"THERE ARE OTHER THINGS WE CAN HAVE FUN DOING THAT DOESN'T INVOLVE SHITTING!" He yells.
"Alright, fine, geez. Let's…I dunno. Eat some candy. "
He says, "That's a great idea. How do we get the candy?"
We walk to my home.
My new friend looks at our house in awe.
"So…do you guys have a 'bedroom?'"
"Yeah. We have three." I say.
"Damn."
I walk to my door, take my keys out and open it.
My dad is at home today, weird.
Junior shrinks behind me.
"'Sup dad." I say
Junior looks at me like I performed a WWE finisher on a newborn. "Your dad is going to kill you for speaking like that!"
"'Sup dude." My dad replies.
Junior's jaw drops.
"What are you here for?" My dad asks.
"I'm getting some sweets and leaving. Oh, by the way, here's my friend Junior."
I point at Junior.
"Oh, Jim's son. How's everything at home." My dad asks. "Your dad doing okay?"
Junior looks a bit sad. "You know, he's…living."
"If things get too heated, you can come here for a bit." My dad says.
"Yeah." I reply.
"Really?" His eyes start sparkling.
"Of course! We have plenty of food and space." My dad replies.
"Check this out. I'm going to make a 'deez nuts' joke to my dad." I say.
Junior freaks out. Maybe he thinks my dad is going to kill me, which is understandable. Or maybe he just really doesn't like deez nuts jokes, which is also understandable.
"Nah. He won't. Watch this."
Junior closes his ears.
Oi, my jokes aren't that bad,
"Knock knock." I say
"Who's there?" My dad asks.
"Deez nuts. Ha. Gotem!" I roll on the floor laughing.
My dad laughs his fucking ass off.
Junior is disappointed in his choice of friends.
"That wasn't even a deez nuts joke. That wasn't even funny." He looks depressed after I told the joke. My joke wasn't that bad…right?
"No, it was hilarious." I say, crying laughing.
"Even if my dad wouldn't beat me for telling a joke, he would have definitely beat me for telling such a terrible joke." He says.
My dad and I just laugh it off.
"By the way, you hungry Junior? Knowing your dad, you probably are."
Junior's eyes widen, but he composes himself. "N-no. I'm good."
"Nonsense. I'll make some food."
"No! I'm good!" Junior protests.
"Okay. I'll get you some food." My dad disappears into the kitchen. "You look really thin, like you haven't eaten in a week."
He's right. Junior looks like a twig
"Mmmm." He looks pretty sad.
"Your face is caked with mud. The washroom and a towel's nearby." I point the location of the washroom. "You can clean up if you want to."
"Okay." He timidly goes to wash his face.
My dad comes with a plate of food.
"What about me, dad?" I ask.
"Get your own food, lazy." My dad looks at me disapprovingly.
"Hnnrrgggghh." I reply, feigning anger.
"Awwww, you look so cute my widdle baby." My dad says and pinches my cheek.
"Ow ow ow! You're gonna tear my face!" I yell.
My dad stops pinching my cheek and asks, "Where did he go?"
"He went to wash his face." I reply.
We wait for a bit, and a girl emerges.
She's got a baggy shirt, a short trouser (in this freezing cold weather.) and shoulder length black hair.
She's got very delicate features, like a glass sculpture. She looks like she'll break if left out in the wind.
Who's this girl? And why's she wearing Junior's clothes?
"Ummm..ma'am. I don't know who you are, but you're in the wrong place."
"It's me." A familiar sounding voice emerges from the cute and funny girl.
Hold up.
"Junior?!" I'm surprised. He's a she?
"Are you…by any chance…a girl?"
"No. I'm a male." He says, annoyed.
"Oh. You look…pretty good." WHAT AM I SAYING?
"Sh-shut up." He blushes and plays with his hair.
WAIT DOES HE LIKE IT?
Is he….a budding femboy?
"Ahem…anyways, here's some food." My dad says.
"You didn't have to." Junior looks at my dad like he's God.
"Nonsense. We have a lot of food. I'm not doing anything great by giving you some." My dad replies.
"Thank you." He says. His voice is shaking a bit.
Junior takes a bite.
"Mmmmmmm!" He blushes and puts a hand on his chin.
"It's so good!"
"Thank you." My dad says proudly.
"Thank you so much." Junior says. "Do you want me to work for you? I'm alright at metal magic. I'm sure I can help you with-"
"No, it's alright." My dad says. "You don't have to thank me for this."
"I-I don't deserve this."
"What are you talking about?" My dad replies.
Junior eats some more.
"MMMMMMMM!" He looks ecstatic.
He wolfs down the food.
"Thank you very much, sir! I won't forget it!" He thanks my dad.
"Don't worry about it. Off you go, now."
We leave.
"Have fun!" My dad yells as we're closing the door.
"Let's do more 'friends' stuff." I tell him.
"Like what?" He asks.
"Friends are supposed to play games together." I say.
"Like?"
"Umm. We can throw a ball around, I guess?"
"A…alright. How can we find a ball, though?"
"I can make one. But don't worry about it. Let's first find a place to play."
We walk around until we find the perfect spot.
I make some mud, then cover it with a giant, thick leaf-like thing. Tree magic is a part of Earth magic, after all.
"Woah! You've got Earth Magic?" Junior asks me.
"Nothing special about it. It's literally the most common magic. But yes. I've got Metal Specialized Earth Magic.
"I do too. But I thought it meant that we can only make Metal magic."
"No. That's Metal Exclusive Earth Magic.
Exclusive means that the user can only use that magic and not the parent Magic.
Specialized means that they are naturally more inclined towards the Metal Magic part of Earth Magic. They can also do Earth Magic, but it'll be harder to learn.
Metal Exclusive Earth Magic users can only do Metal Magic. Metal Specialized Earth Magic users can learn and do Metal magic more easily than normal Earth Magic users, but they find it slightly harder to do other forms on Earth Magic like Tree Magic or Sand Magic than normal Earth Magic users.
If you have specialized earth magic, you can do all Earth Magic."
I toss the makeshift ball to him.
He tosses it back to me.
We're bored already.
"Is that it?" He asks me.
"I think we're supposed to talk while throwing the ball." I reply. "Anyways, what's your Output?"
"It's kind of embarrassing." He says.
"I'm not gonna tell anyone." I say.
"85." He replies.
"That's in the top 1%." I reply. "You have a bright future ahead of yourself."
"What?"
"Yeah. That's good."
"So what do I do and when can I get a job?" He asks.
"Metal Magic people like us can mine precious metals. There's a lot of untouched cave structures in the mountains. And from my Radar, it's packed with really rare metals."
I've known about their existence for quite some time after perfecting my Radar.
"Then let's go now!" He stops throwing the ball.
"You can't really use the essential magic yet." I tell him. "I'll teach you later."
"Teach me now! Please!" He begs me.
"Okay, okay. Jeez."
This kid really wants to make money.
The radar took me half a year for me to master. I'm guessing it'll take the same amount of time for him.
I move towards him.
"Make a piece of metal." I tell him.
I'm doing this to find where his Metal Magic core is located.
The worms spin into his right shoulder, the magic moves to his arm and creates a piece of copper. His Metal Magic core is in his right shoulder.
What in the world is that amount of efficiency? He's running at 1%! That's 5 times higher than mine.
"Wow. You're really good at this!" I say.
"Really?" His eyes widen. " I don't really practice magic much."
"Yeah. You're much better than me at this." I say.
"Thanks!"
"Okay, so, move the magic through your legs."
"Like this?"
"No. Like….using the earth magic."
Like this?"
"Yes! And then…."
… a few hours pass until he's finally able to do a rudimentary version of it. Which took me a month to learn. He learnt in one day.
"God, you're much better at learning this than I am." I say. "You almost got it. A few weeks, and we can go into the mines."
He's a hundred times better than me.
He looks really happy. "A few weeks. I can wait."
The sky starts getting dark. "I gotta go now." I say. "Getting dark. Do you want me to walk you to your home?" I ask him.
"No, it's alright." He answers. "I'm gonna practice here for a bit."
"Okay. Um. Here." I give him some candy.
"Oh my god. Thank you so much!"
"No problem." The poor kid. He thinks simple things like this are great acts of kindness.
I leave.
"Um, Onna?" I hear him call me.
"Yeah?" I turn back.
"Thanks. For everything. I had a lot of fun." He blushes a little. If he didn't tell me he was a guy, I would think that he was a really cute girl.
"I had a lot of fun too. We'll meet again tomorrow." I say and leave.