Veronika slammed the table as she whined, “But Teruko…!!”
The girls were in the dining hall together, it was near the end of lunch and Veronika had practically begged all the girls to have a movie marathon with her. And because of her ultimate talent, nearly all the girls declined.
“Sorry, Sweetie, but…. I am already scheduled to bake cookies for the rest of the class with Eden and Rose ....” Hu said apologetically, “But! Uh… Maybe next time…?” she said with slight tint of fear in her voice.
J and Arei both responded with, “Sorry, I got to do something.”
And Min explained that she wanted to read alone in her room for the rest of the day.
“As some may have sensically written character, every person in these movies has an unrealistic survival instinct. Running up stairs or up an elevator when there is a front door in front of them. And not running away after getting stabbed, a human’s natural reaction time to a stab is….” Min continued to explain more about the natural human instinct more than Veronika ever could.
That left Teruko being the only one to not have an excuse, as the other girls already had one. She could say she wasn’t a fan of Emma Magorobi as she was starring in nearly all these movies. Or that the plot was confusing. Or the alternate timelines were hard to keep up with. But Veronika was a very close friend to Teruko. Not wanting to break Veronika’s spirit as she had already wasted her time asking all the boys and almost all the girls, reluctantly, she said yes.
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Teruko sighed heavily. Although she knew that a horror movie marathon with Veronika was never a good idea in the first place, she still did it.
But what was she supposed to do? Leave Veronika in an empty room by herself watching people get killed in movies in a killing game? Teruko would never let that happen, so she had to say yes to the request. Leaving Veronika vulnerable and sad was not the way she wanted her afternoon to be like. Especially with a possible killer out for their guts.
As they watched the movie, Veronika just kept saying at least 5 fun facts per scene. It was annoying, but still had many redeeming qualities to make the movie more tolerable. Teruko watches as the final girl nearly gets caught by the masked killer, until the machete swung and - SLASH!
Teruko jumped, but not because of the cheap jumpscare. She suddenly felt someone holding her hand. That someone being Veronika herself. Veronika then removes her eyes from the screen to the tan girl next to her, as she panics and quickly lifts her hand from Teruko’s,
“A-Ah! I apologize sincerely! Even if I watch that scene a hundred times, it still gets me!” she laughs.
“Alright…. Just...don't do it again.” Teruko blandly replied. But as she watched the movie she still had this slight tingling feeling. It went from her stomach to her fingertips, “Am I hungry?” Teruko thought.
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She watched the horror girl switch the summer camp movies to one with a really ugly doll. But as she did that, Teruko glanced at Veronika's hand, thinking about holding it. “What the hell…?” The “lucky” student had never thought of her friend this way.
Completely changing her relationship view with the horror junkie brought back that tingling feeling, along with a faster beating heart. Teruko slowly begins to flush a shade of red, as she starts to hide her blushing face from Veronika.
The lights dimmed, hiding Teruko’s reddened face. Veronika began to ramble on about this movie as she had done with the last, but unbeknownst to her, Teruko figured out she was crushing on her, hard.
Teruko, trying to shake off this feeling, tried to watch the movie and ignore the word-vomit Veronika was spewing. But it was hard not to. Because of these newfound feelings, she couldn’t filter out her words, and started ignoring the movie completely. Teruko had started gazing at the beautiful girl next to her.
After a deep breath, the lucky student decided to test the waters, hovering a hand above Veronika’s. Slowly lowering it she felt it all, the tingling, heart beating, feeling slightly queasy, and unable to talk. Until her and Veronika’s hands were touching completely. Veronika had stopped talking, and turned to Teruko,
“Sorry, is this too scary?” Veronika asked
Teruko just turned away blushing, and it's only then when Veronika realized why. She turned away and started blushing too. As the two girls watched a doll torment a four-year-old’s family, Veronika slowly touched Teruko's hand. Teruko ungripped her fingers and loosened her knuckles. The two girls started holding hands, fingers intertwined.
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They walked out of the Movie Screening Room, still holding hands as they walked to the dorms. The two ignored the possibility of others seeing them, as they only cared about each other in the moment. As Teruko dropped off Veronika to her dorm she asked in a quiet voice,
“So…. What does this mean? We’ve held hands the whole way here.”
Veronika smiled as she responded,
“It means I like you.” They both immediately started to get embarrassed and blush at each other. Teruko took Veronika’s empty hand and tilted her head slightly to give Veronika a quick kiss on the lips before going to bed, leaving Veronika stunned with a goofy grin growing on her face.
Veronika opened her dorm and immediately threw herself on her bed. Rolling around in her blankets thinking about her first kiss with a girl. Kissing Arturo days ago now made sense of that gross feeling left in her. But kissing Teruko left her feeling everything good all at once. Just the thought of the unlucky girl put her to sleep.
Walking back to her dorm, Teruko took another succulent from the shelf, adding on red and white pigtails that resembled Veronika’s. She put it next to her own cactus character before going to bed. This love washed away some worries but added new ones, as she now has a person she loves that she might lose one day. But that won't bother her now, because now she has a kickass girlfriend that she can beat this killing game with.