It was late afternoon by the time the group reached Apep's small storefront that doubled as his home. It was an apartment-style complex, with the store itself on the first floor, and living quarters on the next level up the rounded stairs. Upon arriving, Cider fawned over the potions in the display window, pressing his hands upon the glass to help block out the setting sun's glare. The potions themselves were small and delicate in appearance, but they were very inviting. They sat on chocolate-colored wooden stands, and those stands stood upon velvet drapery with flower decorations scattered about, giving color to the display. It would be difficult to resist checking them out to see what they do.

"You know you'll leave fingerprints on the glass if you do that."

Cider took his palms off the glass after Chronos' clear voice scolded him, placing them instead on his hips defiantly.

"I was just taking a closer look."

"You can look from there," Chronos pointed to a spot a foot away from the glass display on the sanded ground.

"From there you can't break anything."

Cider pouted, but his wolf ears perked after Zephyr came over to him by the window, curious to see what the neon wolf was looking at. He pointed to a blue potion on the right when he had the olive-haired male's attention.

"What do you think that one does?" Cider wondered aloud.

Zephyr followed his pointing motion to the blue elixir.

"I dunno. It doesn't say anywhere."

"I know, but what do you think it does?" Cider's lime tail was wagging.

"Uh..." Zephyr thought for a moment, unsure what his guess would be.

"Maybe it turns your fur blue?"

"Oh, that would be sick!" Cider blurted out. "I've always wondered what I'd look like with different fur colors."

The lime wolf tapped his foot against the ground.

"You know, I bet in some alternate world I have a purple tail instead of a green one."

Zephyr looked at him.

"That would be crazy though, can you imagine me with a purple tail? That'd mean my fashion sense would be totally different, with having to work around being purple and all."

Zephyr studied the other potions on display, still listening to him.

"Yeah, I bet alternate reality me has terrible fashion sense cause of that. Poor guy."

"What if he turned out having better fashion sense though, and thinks you're the one with bad fashion?" Zephyr interjected. He was looking at an orange potion with a label, but the label was near the back and hard to read. It was probably the ingredients, which got him wondering just what these potions were made of, to make them glow like that.

Cider stammered at his friend's remark.

"NO! He's the one with terrible fashion sense. Purple tail? That's not even trendy, or hot or... Or popular! Okay?"

During his last few words, he spat them out like he had been insulted and held his green tail in his hands, wrapped around the front of his belly. It was common for Cider to do this when he felt offended.

"You shouldn't get so worked up over a fictional guy you made up seconds ago," Chronos input, watching them both near the window.

"Besides, you were probably right the first time, of course he'd have terrible fashion sense compared to you."

The orange-haired male didn't know if what he said was indeed true, but he didn't want to deal with an upset Cider for the rest of the night, because when he'd get upset, he'd whine about it, and wail about it.

A lot.

It was actually ridiculous how much he'd fuss over things that offended him, but indeed his ego was very important to him. Social media was his world, and Chronos didn't understand it, but Cider was always on top of trends and the next best thing to try, or even what influencers were up to in their daily lives. Chronos repeatedly told the lime wolf to stay off of those apps, not because he didn't like them, but because it was hard to stay low when the neon wolf was posting pictures or selfies of where they were and what they were up to. It drove Chronos crazy, but it'd drive him even more insane if he had to deal with a mopey Cider lamenting on the floor about being shut off from the world, so he put up with it.

Course, that'd also be assuming that Emberguard kept up with social media, which they probably didn't, and Chronos figured it might be okay, though there was that chance he could be wrong.

"Yeah, see?"

Cider's voice shook Chronos from his thoughts.

"Even Chronos thinks I'm the cooler one. Purple-tail doesn't got anything on me."

He took out his phone from his pocket, which was a lovely rose gold color, and snapped a selfie, careful to include Chronos in the shot as well, even though he was frowning at the lime wolf. He wasn't fond of pictures without consent.

"There. And I'll hashtag it #ChronosThinksI'mCool, so people know I'm actually very cool. Wish you weren't glaring in this one though. All my million followers think you're a grumpy man in all these selfies."

"You only have one-hundred followers," Chronos countered.

"Well, a hundred is pretty close to a million when you think about it."

Cider finished up his selfie caption before hitting send, while Chronos thought about the lime wolf's statement for a moment.

"But don't think about it too hard or you'll confuse yourself."

Now, this was a blatant attempt at covering up his own logic, but he slid his phone back into his pocket anyway and resumed his gazing in the window alongside Zephyr. Chronos stood near the locked store door's beige brick wall, but he was no longer watching them both. His attention was on the marketplace down the road, patiently waiting for the rest of the group to catch up, as it had been a while since he had seen them. Eventually, he spotted Seris and Apep walking and chatting together, but neither Hex nor Osiris could be seen anywhere with them.

Chronos wasn't sure what it was, but something felt very wrong.