CHAPTER SEVEN | i've never been more uncomfortable in my life

RANDOM SONG OF THE CHAPTER:

Weird! - Yungblud

( this song includes coarse language)

*****

"Well, I'd say it won't happen again but I think we both know it will."

******

I tilted my head a little as a tried to look at the picture from a different angle. When that didn't work I laid my phone on a pillow and did a headstand to try an upside-down view. Of course, I've never been very good at headstands and ended up falling onto my butt.

My roommates were unfazed but the large crash from the other end of the room, as it wasn't anything out of the ordinary from me so I had to wave my hand about to get Mina's attention.

"Hey!" I barked because manners are overrated. "Min, can you look at this outfit Zane sent to me please?"

It's hard to call one person over without the other coming so both Kat and Mina peered at the picture with mild intrigue.

"He should switch out that sweater for a jacket," Mina said immediately.

"Yeah, something light and casual so he doesn't look too bulky," Kat added smoothly. Both Mina and I looked at him like he grew another head. He shifted self-consciously. "What? I like watching talk shows, sometimes they discuss fashion."

I let out a loud scoff but Mina shushed me with a scolding look. "I think a good fashion sense is a very attractive trait," Mina told him with a smile. His cheeks flushed red and he sunk behind the couch like a turtle retreating into its shell. I narrowed my eyes suspiciously at them as I went to my phone to give Zane their judgement. It was replied with a good, old-fashioned thumbs up.

It always surprised me that Zane knew what emojis were. I had assumed his texting habits would resemble a senior citizen but I was delightfully proven wrong each time.

I rebounded with a large array of symbols, smashing my thumbs onto the little faces until a code only I knew was displayed across the screen. He didn't say anything for a moment, I didn't expect him to since most didn't know what to do with the plethora of yellow heads. The ones I choose often range from big smiles, blown kisses, and the one wearing the cowboy hat because why not?

I put down my phone, thinking that would be the end of the conversation but then I felt a buzz at my hip. Curiously, I picked it up and laughed suddenly in shock when the basic smiley face appeared beneath my emoji spam. It was calm, simple, sticking out alone on the white background. But it made a beautiful contrast to my exuberant message.

Mina glanced up, a faint knowing look crossing her face as she watched me. I squinted at her. "What?"

"Oh, nothing," Mina said breezily and she stood, grabbing her purse as she went. "Hey, Kat want to go to the movies with me?"

Kat perked up immediately. "Sure!" He scrambled to get his keys from the table. Mina handed him his coat and he pulled it on, knocking his hand on the picture frame beside him as he did.

"Bye Minnie! Bye Kit-Kat!" I sang, a wide grin plastered on my face.

Kat made a face at me. "Good luck stalking Zane's first date." I scowled. (I am very good at scowling.)

"Have fun, Gwen." Mina laughed, shoving Kat out the door. It closed with a click and I sighed, my shoulders slumped as I looked around.

"Well, I guess I'll have to force myself to be productive now," I grumbled.

I realized that I would be going to a museum soon and if I wanted to blend with the crowd of stuffy art enthusiasts I probably shouldn't wear my Voltron hoodie. I huffed, pouting down at the large graphic on the front. It had a rather large stain over Keith's face but it was still one of my prized possessions.

"Well, onto the couch you go!" I yank it over my head and tossed it carelessly over the furniture. It slid off of the seat and fell onto the floor but I ignored it as I hopped up the stairs to find something to change into. Unfortunately, my personal fashion critics had just left me to go see some cheesy movie, leaving me to my own devices.

Ten minutes later I had taken a bus to the museum, wearing a mustard yellow striped sweater over some black leggings with a pink knit hat. It seemed like something a fancy artist would wear.

Now I know what you're thinking, "Gwen, you are an artist!" Which is true. But there's a difference between professional artists and me. Though I do have a wide range of knowledge on art history and various famous painters like Monet, Picasso, Frida Kahlo, etc, etc, I wasn't as much of an art nerd as you would think. I rave over the cover art in books and go on lengthily rants about anime but I don't look at an old-fashioned painting and say intelligent things about them. I once had the opportunity to go to the Louvre in Paris for a high school trip and let me tell you it wasn't anything life-changing. I remember going up to the Mona Lisa and saying, "Huh. That's cool." And then moving on. Now that doesn't mean I don't like all professionally done art. I see pictures of old kings and eyebrow-less ladies and get confused but abstract art is something that pulls me in. Like, an abstract tree painting can just be a series of colourful blobs with a few dark brown streaks, it's so unrealistic but it's bright and free in ways that other art isn't able to be.

I was spurred out of my philosophical art daydream (it may have involved an abstract sponge-bob picture) when the bus rolled to a stop. I hurried off of the vehicle before letting the crowd drag me to the huge museum. Ninjago City had one humongous museum for various things. Different parts of it were sectioned off for history and valuable relics, while others held fossils and items taken from the ninjas themselves.

I wandered my way through the halls, dawdling a little as I looked over the little throwing stars they had on display and torn pieces of the ninja's gis. As I continued down the ninja section I began to see how much it resembled a shrine. I snorted loudly at the thought, causing the fangirls oohing and ahhing over the displays to send me some nasty looks. I gulped a little and slid away, finally making it to the art chamber.

You aren't allowed any food in the museum but I have a thing for stuffing snacks in my coat pockets. Every time I got the munchies I'd stop at a piece of art and pretend to be deep in thought, bringing my hand to my chin so it covered the lower half of my face and stuffed a gumdrop into my mouth. 

I wandered my way over to one of the benches in the centre of the room, watching as middle-aged women pretended that they knew anything about art and dragged their partners along like dogs on their way to the vets. It was quite amusing and I almost forgot why I was here when another young woman plopped down beside me. I did a double-take when I realized that I recognized her and it took me a moment to see that it was because I had stared at her profile picture for over an hour yesterday.

Fiddlesticks.

Unfortunately for me, my mouth always moves before my brain and before I knew it I had blurted out, "Rina Varma?"

The girl blinked in surprise, squinting at me as if a third eye had worked its way onto my forehead.

"Y-yes?" Her brow furrowed. "I'm sorry, do I know you?"

Aw crud. I cursed in my head. You have two options. Tell the truth or flub like you've never flubbed before.

As I tried to think of a decent lie I became aware of the empty space where Zane should be by her side. Now that I thought of it, Zane's date had started fifteen minutes ago. I knew I had been late but Zane? He was an android! He has a clock inside his head! While I am naturally bad at time he had no excuses! So, that meant that Zane had either run into some pretty bad traffic, ditched poor Rina (and poor me), or something terrible came up and he wasn't able to contact me or her when it happened. Zane wasn't the type to stand someone up and he always was able to navigate through traffic with his robot brain of his so I concluded that something horrifying must've happened which meant that I had to fix this mess.

Somehow.

Rina was still staring at me expectantly and once again I let myself talk before thinking. Always a mistake. "Yes! Yes, you know me!" I said a little too loudly. "I'm Zane!"

Shjfhfndodksoahdbfnf

Rina blinked rapidly, shifting a little backwards as if someone had just exhaled a bunch of morning breath in front of her nose. She regained her composure relatively quickly (kudos to her for that) and tilted her head in confusion. "I'm sorry..." Rina spoke slowly. "Uh, you- you look different than your profile picture."

I tossed my hair over my shoulder and laughed awkwardly. "Yes, well, everyone touches up their pictures, my sister just got a little carried away with photoshop."

What. Are. You. Doing?????? You don't even have a sister!!!

"Ah." Rina nodded slowly, looking me up and down with suspicion.

She hadn't used a drop of photo editing for her image. Rina was gorgeous, rich caramel skin was and dark glossy hair. She had it wound up in a low bun so that it showed off her heart-shaped face. She had on a high-necked maroon top and high waisted jeans. It was a good casual, yet stylish choice for a first date.

"Y-you look nice," I told her, my tone was close to strangled as I forced my way through this.

Seriously, what are you doing?

"You do too." She said after a moment, dark eyes flicking nervously.

Given the fact that I didn't have any makeup on and I hadn't even showered, I felt pretty flattered. "Aw, thank you!"

An awkward silence followed and we both avoided each other's gazes, looking uncomfortably to the side as people walked past. I sneaked another candy into my mouth, sucking on the green apple gummy as Rina subtly looked at her phone for the time.

That better be a really good emergency. I seethed in my head as I glared daggers at the floor.

Zane was so dead.

NOTE*****

Gwen: 😁😘😋🤓😄🤠😱🤣😆😎😜🥰🤪🤨😝😗😉😁😄😃🥳🥺🤗🤮💩😇🥲🤣😍😚😚🙃😚🥰😙🙂🙃🥰😜🥰😍🙂😍🙂😍😚😚😂🤣😃😅🙃😟🥸😎🤩🧐😍🥰🤨🤨🥰😩🥺😖😟😖😖😞😳😚😋😛😄😅

Zane: 🙂

I have an irl friend who is a very enthusiastic texter and let me tell you it is awesome. You can practically feel her excitement as you read over all capped messages filled with extra vowels and a large number of purple hearts. 😂

I hope you liked this chapter! Thank you for your patience with my slow updates. I did some late night editing so if there's any really bad typos I blame exhaustion.

LuckyBugBooks 🐞