Viper

Ch.4

  Ostentatious ended up coming back to my room and dragging me to the barber shop around the block with him to get my hair cut. Unfortunately for me, he insisted on having me go first, then he copied my style: hair just long enough to not be a hassle, but long enough to still be noticeably wavy. He's just like that sometimes.

  Sitting in the barber shop, waiting for his turn, sat the young man from the trial; the young man who announced the verdict for the ancient judge. I don't know if it was just my imagination, but I had a feeling that he was watching me. Wow, talk about paranoia. Ever since Ostentatious opened his big  mouth, I couldn't help but constantly fear that somebody had overheard us. Thankfully, he didn't even acknowledge that he recognized us.

  We left the barber shop as quickly as we possibly could and ran back to down the street towards our apartments. I noticed an unusually large numberr of humans walking the streets around us and asked Ostentatious about it.

  "I'm not sure, but I heard a rumor that a new store opened around here. I didn't hear what is sold though."

  I looked at my old phone to check the time. Four o'clock. "We can find it if want."

  "Sure. Why not."

  We scoured the streets, (we may have shown a bit too much of our metacryptal abilities by running faster than anyone else) often following the largest crowd in hopes that they knew where they were going.

  We found the store after about fifteen minutes. I would be lying if I said I had expected the store's line of merchandise. It was candy; sugary, unhealthy, cavity-creating, candy. Well- metacryptals' teeth are too hard to chip or get cavities, but there were only two others of us in the building, and it was packed.

  Ostentatious and I wiggled our way through the doors and started inspecting the products. The front of the store was dedicated to hard candies; the kind that sit in your mouth for weeks before you can notice a difference in their size. The hard candy section gave way into the powdery and gummy kinds, and finally, in the back, the chocolate section. My favorite section.

  Ostentatious abandoned me to the flow of the crowd in the hard candy section (his favorite). On my way to the back, I bumped into a brunette, knocking the many, many, packets of grape flavored pop rocks out of her hands. Not being used to talking with humans, I panicked and ran to the back of the store, hoping that there were enough tall people in the crowd for me to blend in. Thankfully, the girl didn't try to follow me, because I'm certain that I would have made a fool of myself.
 
  Scratch that. I already did make a fool of myself, but I could definitely make it worse.

  Not wanting to stay much longer, I picked out a salted caramel chocolate bar and began my journey against the flow of the crowd to find Ostentatious. And find him I did; leaning up against one of the shelves, flirting with a blonde that must have thought makeup was a religion. I grabbed his arm as I walked past him and dragged him with me towards the cash registers. "C'mon, Oliver. Let's get going."

  He was still trying to say a few last words. "W-wait. My number is-" He lost sight of her in the constantly pushing and shoving crowd. "What was that for, Silas? She liked my pickup lines."

  "I doubt that was all she liked. Besides, she's human. Why bother?" I still felt nervous about the chance of running into the the girl (metaphorically), so I constantly looked through the people, just to be sure we weren't about to.

  Ostentatious noticed and ignored my question with one of his own. "What are you doing?"

  I was saved from an answer that would surely have gotten a "you're one to talk" response by the checkout aisle. I managed to squeak into an empty one before it filled with other impatient shoppers. I put both of our candy selections onto the table, forcing him to let me buy his stuff for him. After I paid, we scurried out of the store and ran through town in order to get home in time for dinner.

  At home, I pulled a frozen meal out of the freezer and warmed it up before heading to my room for the night. I sat at the table and stirred the sloppy mess in front of me that came out of the microwave with my fork. My foot bumped my brand new backpack. Probably for the first time, I thought about what the school year was going to be like.

  Would I be able to make new friends despite my speech condition? There I go, sounding like a middle-schooler. I had Ostentatious. He would be more than enough.

  What about the classes? I didn't know how to play an instrument. How was I supposed to pass band class. I didn't even have one yet. Thankfully, as Ostentatious told me a week ago, I would still have a few weeks to choose one.

  I sighed before scarfing down my food and setting the alarm on my phone. I undressed and flopped into bed, regretting the day I decided to get root beer for Ostentatious.