“You two look horrible.” Tabitha surveyed her friends as they met up outside Ashley’s home before school. Both Ashley and Edwin were barely standing, dark circles under their eyes.

“Yesterday took forever.” Edwin complained. “We shouldn’t have to fight anything on a school day. I’m sooooo tired.” He purposely leaned against Ashley, emphasizing his point.

“I can’t believe you guys forgot to tell me before you had another fight!” Tabitha huffed, walking ahead of the others.

“I’m really sorry Tabi! I was just… distracted.” Ashley’s voice dropped as she remembered just why she had forgotten Tabitha. She pushed Edwin off her, the sickly feeling from yesterday returning as she was forced to relive Edwin’s judgment when he saw her like… that.

“Hey!” Edwin yelped as he was thrown off balance. “Guess I’ll have to take my nap first period. Mrs. Schumacher will love it, I’m sure.”

Ashley just grumbled in response, not wanting to interact with Edwin. God, how was he so comfortable, joking around like this? Didn’t he feel the least bit ashamed about the day before? Ashley had seen him in just as compromising of a position. Having equal blackmail material relieved her, but she was still mortified around Edwin, knowing that he knew what she didn’t want to know about but had been thinking even though she tried not to and-

“Hey, Ashley?” Tabitha had turned around, looking back to her friend. “You okay?”

Ashley blinked; realizing Tabitha and Edwin had stopped walking ahead of her, and were now looking at her, concerned. How long had she been lost in thought? “I’m fine, just tired,” she lied.

“Are you sure you’re not getting sick? You don’t look very good.” Edwin said.

“Uh, maybe that’s it? I don’t know, maybe I’m getting the flu or something.” The more Ashley thought about it, the more likely it seemed that she had some sort of sickness affecting her.

“Awww, Ashley, maybe all this fighting is giving you a cold.” Tabitha frowned. “Do you think Mateo would give you a sick day? You need to take care of your vocal chords.”

“Oh my god, Mateo!” Ashley shouted. “I completely forgot, he did some more creepy stuff yesterday.”

“Yeah!” Edwin added. “He yelled at us when we didn’t leave the battle site when he told us to. And not like, a parental yell. More like a mean, fox growl-yell. I know it doesn’t sound that bad, but it was really intimidating!”

Tabitha glanced away from the others for a moment. “I trust you two know Mateo better than I do, but I’m still shocked something so cute would do anything like that… I hope he doesn’t do anything worse to you.”

“You and me both.” Edwin sighed.

The group went quiet, as the topic of Mateo was recently becoming a pessimistic event. There were so many unknowns in their lives now, and dwelling on them didn’t help anything.

“Oh, Edwin, I just remembered a question for you.” Ashley piped, up thinking of a good way to change the subject. “I haven’t found myself being cold when we were fighting, despite wearing shorts. Are you cold?”

Edwin took a second to sort through his memories. “Now that you mention it, I don’t think I was cold at all. That’s so weird! I guess it’s more magic, right?”

Tabitha chuckled to herself. “Add that to your list of magic powers: insulation!”

“I’m starting to feel like a thermos.” Edwin smiled. The mention of thermoses brought up the idea of lunch, and the trio continued discussing food until they separated in the halls of Snapdragon.

-----

“Hey, Edwin.” Edwin looked up from his desk to see his classmate Paul walk towards him. Paul placed a hand on Edwin’s desk, leaning his weight on the other boy’s desk. “Are you up to anything after school these days? We’ve lost some people from chess club and I’m looking for some more dedicated members. I know you used to be busy with cooking club and all before your falling out with Jessica, and you were really good about coming to meetings-“

“Sorry, I don’t know the first thing about chess.” Edwin cut Paul off, wanting to change the subject from anything mentioning her.

“Oh no, that’s totally fine! I can barely play either. Gulzar runs the show.” Paul gestured to another boy sitting across the room, already eating his lunch. “I didn’t know anything until Gulzar started teaching me. It’s a fun place to hang out, not really competitive.”

“I kinda have something after school nowadays-“

“EDWIN!” Edwin and Paul looked up to see Ashley almost sliding past the door to the classroom from momentum. She marched over to his desk, slightly out of breath. “I have a great idea that we need to talk about right now.”

“Sorry, Paul. Talk when we get back?” Edwin said as he stood up from his chair.

“Oh, don’t worry. I think I understand what’s been keeping you busy.” Paul finished his sentence with a wink. Edwin rolled his eyes as he left to the hallway with Ashley.

“Why didn’t you come over for lunch today? I had an epiphany.” Ashley asked, stopping once they reached a set of lockers.

“As you could see, I was talking to a classmate.” Edwin sighed. “Who’s probably going to start a rumor that we’re dating now.”

Ashley couldn’t help herself from laughing in Edwin’s face. “Oh my god, that’s hilarious. Please update me as that develops. Anyway, remember how we’ve been-“

“Ashley, what are you doing?!” Tabitha caught up to her friend, exasperated. “You can’t just run out of the room all of a sudden! People might think you’re dying!”

“I highly doubt anyone would care enough to assume I’m dying. Except you. Which I appreciate! Anyway, I had this great idea and I just had to tell Edwin about it. So, we’ve been transforming a lot at school, right?”

“Often enough for me to bring a change of clothes.” Edwin agreed.

“So, yesterday we transformed, then went back to our halfway forms, and then got changed.” Ashley added.

“Actually, you only changed your pants. I really didn’t care.” Edwin said.

“Enough from you. I thought if we just changed out of our uniforms and then went to our halfway forms, we could meet with Sarah and then immediately turn back.” Ashley said.

“You can do that?” Tabitha asked.

“Yeah, I… experimented a little yesterday.” Ashley shrugged. “This is better than what we did yesterday, because now it looks like our halfway forms are what we look like normally. And, since we aren’t wearing school uniforms, Sarah won’t be searching the school for us.”

“This is literally just another excuse for you to not walk home in a skirt.” Edwin replied.

“I don’t see you walking home in a skirt as a guy.” Ashley sassed back.

“Touché.” Edwin said.

“Sarah still knows I’m connected to you guys somehow, so you’re not completely out of the water. But this is a good way to get her off your trail.” Tabitha nodded. “But there is one problem here… Ashley, you do remember that we have choir afterschool today, right?”

“SHIT!”