"What are you looking at, Kanna?"

Kanna gasped in surprise, swiftly pulling her gaze away from her phone screen to look her sister in the eye. "Oh, nothing, really!" She smiled, quickly shutting off her phone.

Kugie raised her eyebrow in disbelief, a teasing smirk on her face. "You're not doing anything you're not supposed to be doing, are you now?" She asked.

"N-No!" Kanna stuttered out, shaking her head and puffing out her cheeks. "It's not like that!"

"Yeah!" Kanna looked up in confusion at the unexpected voice watching as her sister's girlfriend took a step closer to her. "Kanna's a good kid!"

"Aww, I thought you were supposed to be on my side, Anzu?" Kugie frowned, before she merely waved her hand dismissively, chuckling softly. "Either way, I was just teasing you, Kanna. I know you're better than that."

Kanna pouted. "Don't tease me like that, big sis!" She turned her attention to Anzu, giving her a kind smile. "Thank you for sticking up for me, Anzu."

Anzu grinned, holding out a thumbs up. "Don't worry about it!"

"But, really, what were you looking at?" Kugie hummed, her smile falling into a more serious expression.

"Ah..." Kanna turned her gaze back to her phone, which had shut off from inactivity. Swiping at the screen, she opened right back up to where she had left off. "I was just reading some messages from a group chat I'm in, that's all," she said, showing her screen to her sister long enough for her to see that she was on discord but not long enough for her to actually read what the conversation was about.

"Are your friends being nice to you?" Kugie questioned, crossing her arms.

"Um, yeah?" It came out more as a question than she had intended. Although she greatly appreciated the concern her sister showed for her, something about it seemed a little odd to Kanna. Perhaps she was just overthinking things."My friends are nice to me."

"Then how come you were frowning earlier?"

Kanna's eyes widened. Had she been frowning earlier? She must've not realized it. Glancing at the messages again, she could feel herself actually start to frown a little. "Well... It's kind of, um, hard to explain."

Kugie smiled gently. "You know you can tell me anything, Kanna. If it makes you more comfortable, Anzu can leave so it can be just us two." She offered, quickly shooting a glare to an indignant looking Anzu who had been about to protest the sudden offer.

Kanna shook her head. "No, Anzu can stay. It's fine with me." She watched as Anzu moved to stand by Kugie's side, their two inquisitive gazes urging her to continue. "You see, um... there's this guy in my friend group-"

"Oh, is this about love?" Anzu asked, sounding just a little too interested. Kugie elbowed her harshly, to which she yowled out in pain.

"No!" Kanna cringed. "He's way too old for me, that'd be illegal!"

"Why are you talking with a guy who's way too old for you?" Kugie narrowed her eyes in suspicion.

"P-Please just let me explain!" Kanna cried out, clenching her eyes shut and balling her fists up.

Kugie sighed. "Alright. We won't interrupt you this time, okay?" She turned her gaze to Anzu, almost as if she were directing that last part at her.

"Thank you," The middle schooler's eyes fluttered open as she breathed a sigh of relief. "You see, two of my friends found out where he works, so now everyone visits him during his shifts. But, the thing is, they visit him with the intention of messing with him. It's light-hearted, and although I want to join them so I don't get left out, a part of me feels bad for him... I don't know what to do..." Kanna mumbled, looking down at her shoes in shame.

Kanna had fully expected disappointment from her sister as she told her to get a better group of friends and to not hang out with people so much older than she was- and as soon as she felt a hand on her shoulder, she braced herself for what was to come, steeling her nerves before looking up.

To her surprise, it was most certainly not Kugie standing before her, but instead Anzu, bending over so she was level with the middle schooler. "So, you want us to bully this dude in your place?" She asked, with the most serious expression Kanna had ever seen.

"Huh?" Kanna squeaked, blinking in confusion. Had she heard that right?

Anzu's grip on Kanna's shoulder tightened. "You want to join your friends, but you feel bad for that dude, right?"

"Well, I guess? But-"

"So then we'll do it for you!" Anzu exclaimed, straightening her posture as she pulled her hand away from Kanna's shoulder and placed it proudly on her hip. "Right, Kugie?" She asked, turning to give her girlfriend an expectant stare.

"That was not what I was thinking of at all." Kugie groaned, burying her face in her palm. "But, I gotta hand it to you, that's far more interesting than what I had in mind. So, sure." She hummed, pulling her hand away just enough for the other girls to see the slight smile on her face.

"Wait, wh-?"

"Woohoo!" Anzu cheered, hugging her girlfriend. "I knew you'd come around!" Turning her head towards Kanna, she gave the girl a big smile. "We don't let you or your friends down!"

"So, where do we need to go?" Kugie asked her sister.

Too bewildered by their responses to think properly, Kanna simply gave them the address as they had asked. As she was dragged off to the convenience store with her sister and her girlfriend, she was left wondering whether this was actually happening or whether she was just hallucinating. A part of her hoped it was the latter.

>w<

Standing in front of the 7-Eleven, Kanna was quick to realize that it most certainly was not the latter. This was real- very much so- a realization she wished came upon her sooner.

"You sure this is it?" Kugie whistled.

"Yup!" Anzu chirped. "I come here all the time! This is definitely it!" With all the confidence in the world, she marched into the store with Kugie and Kanna in tow- only to turn her head back to the others after a few steps in. "Wait, we don't even know this guy's name or what he looks like. How are we gonna find him?"

"Oh, right!" Kanna hummed as she looked around the convenience store. "I guess I should've started with that. My friend's name is..." Her voice trailed off as she made eye contact with the worker behind the counter, her face lighting up in recognition. "Shin!" She called out, smiling brightly as she made a beeline to him.

"K-Kanna!" Shin stuttered out, a look of pure surprise on his face with a hint of fear glinting in his eyes.

"Wow." Anzu clicked her tongue. "That was... way easier than I thought it would be."

"Who are these two with you?" Shin's eyes flickered back and forth between Anzu and Kugie, watching as they followed closely after Kanna.

"This is Kugie, my big sister, and this is Anzu, Kugie's girlfriend!" Kanna gestured to each girl respectively as she introduced them to her friend.

Anzu casually waved her hand. "Heyo! Kanna filled us in on all the deets- we just gotta bully you, right?" She asked, paying no mind to how badly Shin flinched. "Should be easy enough."

Kugie furrowed her brow. "He's younger than I thought he'd be." She muttered to Anzu, talking about Shin as if he wasn't literally right in front of them and within earshot. "I thought he'd be some kind of old, fat creep."

"H-Hey!"

"Well," Anzu did a quick once-over of her target. "He's not old, and he's definitely not fat, but he does look kind of..."

"I can literally hear you guys!"

"I don't even know why I was worried," Kugie admitted. "He looks like I could beat him in a fight one-handed without even trying."

"Stop talking about me as if I'm not here!"

"I wish you'd beat me up like that." Anzu bit her lip.

"What the hell are you into?!?!"

"Is there a problem?" Both Kugie and Anzu spoke at the same time, whipping their heads around and shooting Shin a nasty look.

Shin recoiled at the sudden attention. "No!" He squeaked, his breath hitching in his throat.

Kugie huffed in disbelief. "Let's go somewhere where he can't hear us." With that, she promptly turned heel and went off towards the back of the store.

Anzu nodded enthusiastically. "Ooh, can we get a slushie while we're at it too?!" She asked, trotting happily alongside her girlfriend.

"Oh my god," Shin whispered, slumping down pitifully against the counter. "I'm actually going to die in this convenience store..." Putting his elbows on the counter, he anxiously ran a hand through his teal hair. "I can't keep doing this!"

"I'm sorry..."

Shin weakly lifted his head up at the small voice, peering at Kanna with a defeated gaze. "Hm?"

"I don't know what happened," Kanna sighed, looking in the direction her sister and her girlfriend had gone off in. "I really didn't think it'd end up like this."

Now that he thought about it, didn't Kanna mention something about her sister's girlfriend? How she seemed nice and mature? Anzu definitely didn't come off as what one would call mature. He was tempted to ask more about it, but the confusion and guilt in her voice made Shin himself feel a little guilty as well. "It's fine," He sighed, offering her a weak smile. "I know you didn't mean for it to turn out like this." With everything he'd been through, he really didn't know whether or not this was her intention.

Kanna returned the smile. "I'm glad I finally got to meet you, Shin!"

Maybe he could trust Kanna on this one. "It's nice to meet you too, Kanna."

A sudden loud shattering noise made both of them whip their heads around. "WOAH!"

"I think that was Anzu!" Kanna exclaimed, rushing over to the commotion.

Shin leaned his head over the counter, trying his hardest to get a peek at what was going on without leaving his station. "I can take over for you here." He nearly fell over the counter at the sudden voice, stumbling backwards and peering incredulously at his coworker. "They're your friends anyways. I think you should take responsibility for them."

"Why me..." Shin groaned. "I didn't sign up for any of this..."

"Good luck." His coworker didn't spare him a second glance as he took up Shin's place at the register.

With great reluctance, Shin gave into his curiosity and made his way towards the back, carrying along with him a sinking feeling in his chest. Those two hadn't even been gone for five minutes, what could they have possibly accomplished in such a short amount of time?

Apparently, two lesbian high school girls could accomplish a lot in less than five minutes. "What the..."

"It wasn't me!" Anzu blurted out, a look of sheer panic on her face.

"It was totally her." Kugie snorted.

Quite frankly, Shin was too preoccupied with the gaping hole in the slushie machine to care about whatever those girls were saying. "How the hell...?"

"I can explain!" Anzu cried out. When Shin turned to look at the girls, he noticed that there was an alarming amount of slushie splattered all over their clothes- though it was mostly on Anzu.

"Please do." Shin gripped onto the nearest shelf tightly, feeling as if he could faint at any given moment.

Anzu opened her mouth, moving her hands around as if she were trying to think up some way to explain what happened to Shin, but after a minute or so of an awkward silence, Kugie finally stepped in. "To be fair, we didn't actually do anything. One second we were about to get a slushie and the next the machine just... broke?"

"Yeah, we're victims!" As if to prove a point, Anzu held up her arm, covered in various cuts from the glass shards that broke off of the machine.

"Why... Why do you have scars but Kugie doesn't?"

"Urk!" Anzu's face paled in an instant. "I, uh..."

"Look, Anzu just wanted a slushie so she went to get one." Kugie interjected, holding her arm out in front of her girlfriend in a defensive stance. "How was she supposed to know the machine would explode on her once she pulled the lever?"

"How hard do you pull the lever for the machine to break?!" Shin cried out.

"How fast can a clown run? Let's find out!" Without any further explanation, Anzu grabbed onto both Kugie and Kanna's arm, rushing out of the store and leaving no room for any objections- leaving Shin to watch them in a daze.

Finally, he snapped out of his trance and turned his attention back to the desecrated slushie machine before him. The cool liquid was all over the floor, slowly inching towards his work shoes in an almost taunting manner. In that moment, a lovely realization was bestowed upon him. Someone had to clean up the mess, and the last person who cleaned up a mess was his coworker; meaning this one was all on him.

Holding back tears, Shin left for a brief moment to grab the cleaning supplies. When he came back, there was someone else standing next to the mess, waiting (im)patiently for Shin with crossed arms and an infuriated look. "You better have a good explanation behind this one, Shin." His boss growled.

To say Shin nearly pissed himself was a grave understatement. It took all of what little willpower Shin had left within him not to just break down right then and there. There was already enough liquid on the floor as it was- his tears would just be another thing to add onto the list of things he had to clean up from the floor, alongside the shattered remains of both the slushie machine and his remaining sanity.

Word Count: ~2.4k

Author's Note: It is almost five in the morning at the time I am posting this. I may or may not have watched a movie instead of working on this and posting it on time, and then proceeded to doze on and off again trying to finish it up. Was it worth it? Absolutely, the movie was so good. I had some other things planned for this chapter, but I somehow ended up scrapping them. No biggie, I'll just use the ideas for another chapter! Hope you enjoyed this chapter- I liked how the focus was on a character other than Shin! I also really like Kugie/Anzu so hehe, hope you like it too!