With a prompt from my good friend @blipss Featuring the Area 51 gang!! Uh not canon name guys that's just the stupid group chat name Aaron picked because he is such a goober btw if' it's in all caps it's supposed to be italicized _ "I've heard a bajillion good things about it on [a social media app lol] , though. Even LYDIA says it tastes like something, so that has to be a compliment, right?" I sighed, still suspicious about the whole thing. I mean, did banana and pineapple even go well together? Banana in itself was disgusting to me, and mixing it with pineapple didn't make it any more appealing. "It would be fun to go there anyway, even if we don't try the super popular, the apparently super tasty ice cream!" I nodded in response. Rosa wasn't wrong, and I could always get chocolate. "Who's coming?" Rosa grinned. Evilly. I raised an eyebrow. "The GANG, you know." ------ "Aaron, what are you WEARING." All of us were together except for Asher, who claimed he was sick. I wasn't too sure about that, since he'd been at school that day. I wasn't going to push him, though. He seemed stressed these days - or at least more stressed than usual. "You look like the definition of eyesore." Aaron was dressed in a baggy shirt, which was a sickening shade of blue, and hot pink pants. His glasses were a mix of blue and pink, the frames being bright cyan and the frames the same shade of hot pink. "Guys, I swear I saw it on [another social media app cough cough]! If you wear the shop's colors they give you a free scoop!" "Pretty sure Lydia posted that." "And Lydia ALWAYS been one for truth, right?" They laughed. I didn't, not much. I hadn't really made out Lydia yet, didn't know anything about her because, for some reason, she really seemed to dislike me. I wasn't going to judge her for that if I didn't even know why. "Jasmine, stop daydreaming and come on!" "Even Ethan is saying stop daydreaming, so I guess it's serious." Ethan blushes. I pat his arm and he just grins softly. "Leave the poor man alone." "Jasmine, you don't even KNOW yet. This dude daydreamed through a fire drill once." I smiled, looked at him. "I can't defend you if that's true." "I swear the alarm was like, three times quieter, though!" "I'm happy to rant about absentminded Ethan for another ten minutes, but we're here." At Rosa's words, we all turned to see the ice cream shop - made of pink and blue, almost the same disgusting shades Aaron wore. How did this place even get customers? Luckily, inside, the walls are a much more neutral color, just stark off-white. There are too many people for my liking, but definitely not as many as there was in that [SOCIAL MEDIA APP] video Rosa sent me. No celebrities here, after all. "We're ALL ordering the pineapple banana thingy, no matter what you say." Aaron looks at me as if he knew I wasn't eating it. The other kids laugh. "Actually," Asia says, pulling out her handbag with the money in it. Of course, she was paying for us, but we'd pay her back soon. That was how it worked. "I'm just getting chocolate." "Me too," I agreed, glaring at Aaron, daring him to challenge me. He laughed. "That leaves me, Ethan, and Rosa, being BRAVE!" He held his fist up like a general as we approached the counter. The attendant looked tired, and she didn't exactly greet us with a smile. "Banana pineapple, right?" "For most of us." Aaron grinned. "These two want chocolate because they are boring." She just mumbled something and put the information in her register. "That'll be 11.50." "11.50?" He counted on his fingers. "Don't I get it free? I'm wearing the colors!" She scanned his clothes. "No." Well, alright then. We sat at a table and waited for our ice cream. "Dude, you wore that for no reason?" "You never know when someone from a dictionary wants to take a picture for an example of 'eyesore'." "Or 'gullible'. You really trusted Lydia's judgment?" The table went silent after Asia said that. Again, I didn't know much about her, but I knew my friends didn't seem to like her. At all. "Here's your ice cream!" The server was a much more... energetic man with a broad smile. Very broad. Very white. Also very fake, but at least he was trying to be presentable. It reminded me of Lydia's smile, when I first met her, and Miss Newman's smile. Even Rosa's, whenever she was around Lydia. Man, did everyone just enjoy having fake smiles? I couldn't judge. I could have a fake smile, too, if I wanted to hide what I was feeling. [ CONT IN N / C :D ]
I tried the ice cream in front of me - it didn't taste bad. Actually, it was pretty good. I gave a thumbs up to Asia, who was devouring hers, but gracefully. "It's good. No worries there." We turned, together, towards Aaron, who had suddenly started to gag. "You good?" "It's - it's AWFUL!" He gagged again, pushing his sickening yellow ice cream away. "Are you serious?" Ethan licked his once, then pushed it away from him almost instantly. "IT'S AWFUL HELP ME-" Rosa just stared at them both, laughing. Asia looked worried - "you're going to offend someone" - but that didn't stop Aaron from continuing to gag and cough. Ethan gasped, deciding to play into the theatricals. It was awesome to see him joke around too, especially when he was usually silent. He reached over with his spoon and took a large piece off of my chocolate ice cream. I grabbed his arm and shook it, making the spoon - ice cream included - plop onto the table. No one seemed to be looking at us except for the server, who was probably fantasizing about the immense amounts of cleaning he'd have to do once we left.
