Arc 2: The Tsundere who Orbited the Library

Chapter 8

Emma made me feel a flurry of emotions, half of which I couldn't seem to understand. I think I was mostly confused. How in the world was Emma friends with Yuka? Weird girl and sporty girl in the same friend group? Is Yuka secretly into textiles? Questions like this ran through my head. I also had an underlying feeling of contentment that me and Emma wouldn't continue to drift apart until our acquaintanceship was forgotten. I also was surprised of course but that feeling soon disappeared as I adjusted to the situation.

"Why didn't you tell us the girl you were introducing us to was the cursed one?" Emma complained while looking at Yuka.

Ok, maybe add anger to that list of emotions.

"Hey! I didn't even know about this whole curse thing before I got here." I exclaimed.

"Well you should have. Do you not research schools before you transfer to them?" The short girl asked in an argumentative tone.

"All girls school in a random backwater town in Michigan. What's there to look into. It's basically what I thought it would be." I argued as I gestured towards the school.

"Backwater? I see." Emma took a step towards me and pointed at my face with her right hand as she continued. "You thought you would be the popular girl that everyone would fall for just because you're more attractive than everyone here."

"No." (Maybe a little.)

Emma either didn't hear me or ignored me because she lowered her right arm and declared "Well I'm sorry to break your little popular girl dreams but, that's not how it's going to go here."

I guess the popular girl thing struck a chord with me because I could feel my nose flare as I started saying "Maybe if you-"

Yuka must've noticed that I was about to go off since this is when she stepped in.

"Look. I'm sorry I didn't preface who I was introducing you guys too but, can we all please try to get along?" The Adidas wearing girl pleaded while literally stepping in between us.

I kind of empathized with Yuka. She brought us all here together hoping we could be friends only for us to fight the instant we saw each other.

Some first impression I made.

Emma sighed "I'll try."

You'll try?! You were the one who started this whole thing!

"Whatever." I said dismissively.

There was an awkward silence that lasted for a couple of seconds until Aliya blurted out "Shanice! You were talking about some kind of plan on the way here right?"

"Oh! Yeah. I thought we could grab some drinks from the student store and come back here and eat some of my illegal snacks together." The taller girl explained, a little surprised at the beginning.

"Ouh illegal snacks. What's in them?" I said rubbing my hands together.

"Uh, saturated fat?" Shanice guessed, visibly confused.

"That makes sense." I said plainly as I was surprised that Shanice didn't get what I was alluding to.

Ecruville is mostly suburbia so I shouldn't be surprised.

Yuka laughed a little at the exchange. Looking at her I could tell she understood what I was getting at.

Yep, she definitely had a "special" brownie or two while in California.

"Sounds like a plan. You guys want to head there now?" The sporty girl asked while pointing towards the main school building.

"Sure." Aliya and Shanice said at the same time.

"Yes." Emma murmured in a small voice.

I nodded and we started walking towards the building. It took about ten minutes to get to the store as it was on the second floor and was above the main entrance. While we were walking Shanice and Aliya talked about their classes while Yuka was leading the group. Me and Emma brought up the rear and were silent the whole way there.

We stopped in front of a door with old looking plastic letters above it that spelled out "Coraline Miller's Student Store".

"Here it is! The student store!" Yuka exclaimed excitedly.

"What kind of snacks do they have here that have you so excited?" I asked while looking up at letters.

"They have nothing here. She just really likes the vibe of it." Aliya said, laughing a little at the end.

Yuka enthusiastically went on "Yeah. Student stores are cool especially this one. The lighting, the workers-" until Shanice interrupted her.

"Yuka, I'm starving. Come on. Let's just go." The taller girl groaned while clutching her stomach.

"Fine." Yuka conceded, the enthusiasm gone.

She turned around and opened the door. We walked in and I looked around, curious on why Yuka was so excited.

It...wasn't much. There were white tiled floors and blue painted walls, the school logo on the wall we were facing. In front of the wall we were facing was where the workers stood a long bar in between us. The bar was manned by two girls. One of them was a popular looking girl with tanned skin and curly black hair while the other was the sleeping girl that me and Emma ran into on my second day here. Gulina (I think) was wearing the same hoodie from the other day and had a sleepy expression on her face. Despite this, she seemed to be getting through customers at a reasonable pace.

I looked to my right and left and noticed black, plastic shelves on the walls filled with plain looking, generic snacks.

Great Value club crackers!?! Great Value Sugar-Free fruit snacks!?! How am I going to survive here...

"What are you guys going to get?" Shanice asked as we stepped into line.

"I'll probably go with a 7up." Aliya said.

"The usual root beer for me." Yuka said while moving up in line.

"Where do you all see the sign?" I asked looking around for a drink menu.

"Oh. It's on the bar. You'll see it when you get up there. Don't get excited. They don't have any drinks with caffeine in it." Aliya complained.

"What!? No Coke? No Mountain Dew? Caffeinated sodas are the only good ones." I blurted a little louder than I intended.

Some girls from the line looked at me but after a second or two went back to their conversations.

Yuka laughed "What a reaction. It sucks, but you'll get used to it."

"We'll see about that." I muttered.

I turned around and looked at the girl who had been silent this whole time. "What are you going to get?" I asked.

"Strawberry Crush." Emma murmured looking at the wall behind me instead of me.

"Crush is basically the broke clone of Fanta right?"

Emma frowned "Maybe. I think Crush might've been first since it was created in the 1900's but, I'm not sure."

"According to my great grandma Crush used to have pulp in it and it was bottled way different back then." Shanice explained as the line moved.

Sorry Emma. Shanice took your useless info dump character points for today.

"Ew pulp." Yuka complained.

"Did you have a report on Crush or something? Seems like an odd question to ask." Aliya asked.

"No report. I think my grandma just likes complaining cause she sometimes asks me to bring her a Crush on the weekends just to complain about how it used to be way better." Shanice explained raising her arms in an "I don't know why" like manner.

"That sounds like my dad." Yuka said.

Sounds like 90% of my family.

"I think old people just complain a lot." Aliya added while taking out her phone from her back pocket.

"Young people too. Remember the first conversation you all had revolved around complaining about teachers." Emma said plainly in her soft voice.

"...Yeah I guess it did huh." Aliya admitted sounding a little embarrassed.

"Yuka. There's no one in front of you." I pointed out.

"Oh yeah." Yuka said and turned her body to the booth and walked up to Gulina.

"Hey, Galine!" The sporty girl exclaimed, leaning on the booth.

"Hi, Yukari. What will it be today?" The sleepy girl said with a slight accent.

"The usual."

"Of course." Galina said with a smile and looked at the other worker.

"One root bear please." Galina said.

"Fineeee." The popular looking girl conceded as she was on her phone.

She then turned around to what seemed to be a cooler and dug through it probably looking for the soda.

"So, how is it going up here in the big chair?" Yuka asked while taking her wallet out of her back pocket.

"Oh, it's great. I don't have to work during my one break and I definitely get paid way over minimum wage. I'll have enough to pay off my penthouse in Moscow by the end of October."

They both looked at each other for a couple of seconds and laughed.

Ok. That was hella cute. Please, can I have this? Ugh but, barely anyone shares my sense of humor. What the hell? Why couldn't my humor type be...cuter? I don't know but, bottom line I want this.

Yuka paid for her soda and then Shanice and Aliya both bought 7ups.

I was up next as I walked up to the register and the girl standing behind it.

Galina gave me a questioning glance and then asked "What will you have?"

I thought for a bit and answered "Strawberry Crush."

Emma made a noise behind me probably reacting to what I just said.

Hehe...

"Sorry but, we're all out of Strawberry Crush. There might be some in the machine by the bike racks." The sleepy girl explained.

Emma gasped.

I turned to face her and asked. "You know where that is right?"

"Yeah..." She said looking down.

I turned back to face Galina and said "We'll just go there then. Thanks for the info."

"No problem."

"Come on, Emma let's go tell the others we're going to make a quick stop." I said as I began to walk towards the rest of our group that was standing by the entrance talking.

The preppy looking girl sighed and followed behind me.

"We're going see if the soda machine has Strawberry Crush. We'll meet you by the tree after we get them." I said once we made it to the group.

"Sounds good. Don't take too long. I think I heard Shanice's stomach growl." Yuka warned.

"Will do." I assured her.

Yuka nodded and we left together. We went our separate ways once we were out of the store.

Emma led me down the stairs by my math class, then down the main hallway until we were out of the school building. We then took a right and walked pretty far until we were on the right side of the school. Here there was a few empty bike racks and dumpsters behind them leaning on the wall. There was a tall stack of large empty crates next to the dumpsters too. It was silent over here since the main part of the quad was far from this side of the school. All of this added with how everything looked dilapidated gave this area a creepy vibe.

Oh yeah, we walked the whole way in silence by the way but, you probably already guessed that.

"The machine is in between the crates and the dumpster." Emma said, pointing towards the crates.

"Pretty weird placement for a soda machine." I said.

"That's not the original spot. It used to be closer to school."

"Why'd they move it?" I asked.

The sophomore sighed "It's one of the cursed items."

"That's vague. Why is it cursed?"

"It's the last item on campus Esmee touched before her respective disaster struck and she disappeared." Emma murmured, her voice trembling a little.

"..."

We moved around the bike racks until we were in right front of the soda machine. It was definitely from the early 2000s with its outdated labels. The E in Pepsi and a whole soda button were missing too.

Maybe they stole this from a war zone.

"You know, maybe we can just get an Orange Crush from the student store. Those aren't as popular." Emma said fast while looking towards the quad.

She started to turn towards it until I grabbed her wrist and said "Wait."

"Huh?"

This was stupid. This whole thing. How everyone was scared of doing this and doing that just because of these "curses". The original curse just seems like a pure coincidence to me. At my old school about 1/4th of the students were blonde. There was no way that huge number could go down to just 4 or 5 when they were both in the same dumb tiny town. The way I saw it there was only one way to break this cycle.

I walked up to the machine in a kind of cool strut, the heels of my booties clicking on the uneven concrete. I put a 5 in and clicked the strawberry Crush twice. A couple of seconds passed and the machine rumbled and spit out two sodas in the divet in the bottom of the machine. I bent down and grabbed both of the soda bottles.

I walked back to Emma, handed her the bottle, and said "Look, it's a new label which means someone replaced it recently. So, it's technically not 'cursed' or whatever."

The preppy girl took it while actually looking up at my face. She seemed to be in awe.

"Thanks." She mumbled and looked down fast as she realized she was staring.

"Mhm" I said as I opened my soda.

Emma tried to open hers but seemed to be having trouble.

Her hands were pretty small but I liked that. They were cute.

"You need help?" I asked.

"I do." She admitted in defeat.

She handed me the bottle and I opened it easily. I gave her back her soda.

"Thanks." The short girl murmured while holding her soda with both of her hands.

We both stood there for about a minute staring at the machine while occasionally taking a sip of our respective sodas.

"Umm...sorry I acted shrewish towards you." Emma said in her soft voice.

"I just want you to know that I don't hate you. It's just...complicated. Maybe I'll tell you about it sometime in the future." She continued still looking at the machine.

I was a little surprised by her apology but took it all the same.

I was thinking of an appropriate response while taking a sip of my strawberry soda and landed on the simple:

"Alright."