‘That’ Side Character Chapter 30: The Perfect Friend 

He blinked at the back of your head.

“Uh… umm… I-I… but you need sleep, Kenma,” you stammered.

“Not with the way I’m feeling right now, I don’t,” he replied, “because I don’t want to scare you if I do something inappropriate in my sleep.”

Your brain turned to fuzz. 

“What is he thinking?!” You screamed internally.

“Is the shop downstairs?” Kenma asked, wanting to go ahead with his plan to get food and drink but you were dragging the chain by being lost in your own impure thoughts.

“Uh. Yep. Downstairs. I think.” Mechanically you started walking to the door, then out to the stairs and he followed suit. 

It didn’t take long to find the store, because it was the only store in the town, and it also doubled as the clothing store, and the newsagency so that was handy.

“Oh good! I need clothes to sleep in,” you said as you looked through the clothes that they had.

You were still in your cosplay gear.

There wasn’t a huge array of items there so you just pulled out the most oversized shirt you could find and to your delight it had a cat with sunglasses on it, so that would do. 

“Found my sleep shirt!” you called to Kenma, while he was walking down the other aisle looking at newspapers.

His head popped up over the divider and you held the shirt up and shook it a bit.

“Look! Cat!” You pointed to the cat with sunnies on it and he nodded.

Happy that he had seen what you wanted him to see, you dropped your arm back down and then headed off in search of some food, something you could eat without needing to heat it up or cook it.

Meanwhile, Kenma was now in the energy drinks section, having a good look at their array of options.

“Max-wake… caffeine that keeps you awake for 12 hours straight,” he read the side of the drink, “that sounds good.” 

Feeling like this was the winning drink of choice, he picked it up and then slowly walked along, reading other drink labels as he went.

His eyes landed on another one and he paused.

“Fullblast, keeps your eyes open when you’d otherwise be asleep,” he read, his eyes scanning down the bottle to a long list of warnings and precautions, “maybe this might be better?” He thought as he placed the Max-wake drink back.

“Hey, I got food!” you said happily as you suddenly appeared beside him with an armload of snacks.

“That’s a lot of food,” he said as 3 packets fell off the top of the pile of food in your arms and tumbled onto the floor.

“All I saw was your mouth moving because that sentence that you just said, does not exist,” you replied, crouching down to retrieve your packets of food, but dropping more as you tried to pick up the first 3 that had fallen.

Kenma watched you struggle for a little bit, then decided to help you, and sighed before crouching down as well and picking up the fallen bags of food.

“Thanks,” you said, standing back up, “what did you find?”

Kenma held up the drink and showed it to you.

“I’ll be up all night,” he said, the tone in his voice making your cheeks heat up a little. 

“Uh… umm… w-well I have plenty of snacks to keep us fed so…”

He nodded and you both walked to the counter to pay and head back to your temporary stay for the night.

Once back at the room upstairs, you went into the bedroom to change into your sleep shirt. The cosplay outfit was starting to get annoying to move in but for the most part you had forgotten that you were still in it and then thought back to all the places you had been, while still dressed like a Monster Hunter character, and grimacing when you thought about what the people around you might have thought of you.

“Oh well… I guess it’s fine. We’ll be gone tomorrow and I’ll never see them again because this town doesn’t even exist. It’s a ghost town from my horror movie.” 

Aaaand off your mind went, creating the rest of the horror story plot around the origins of this town, making you feel more and more creeped out as you got deeper into it.

It only took you 5 minutes to change, and to freak yourself right out with your outlandish thoughts about the origins of this town, and then you were back in the lounge room asap.

“Hey. Uh. Can I sit here?” you asked Kenma as you sat down right next to him, so close that you were half sitting on his leg.

“Do you have to sit so close?” he asked in a dull voice ad he leaned away a little, still smashing the buttons on his PSP.

“Umm, sorry… I just… I’m a little scared,” you admitted, pulling your legs up to your chest and hugging them.

“Why?” he asked, pausing his game for a second.

“Because I finished the horror movie and it’s super scary,” you replied, burying your face down into your shirt covered knees.

“What horror movie?” he asked.

“The one about this town. You know? How we were thinking that this place didn’t exist and if we came back here it wouldn’t even be a place and—,”

“That’s not a movie though. That’s your mind making up stories,” he replied.

“Well, I made up the story and it was a really scary story and now I’m scared.”

He blinked at you, then looked back down at his PSP and unpaused it, ready to continue playing.

“Kenma,” you whined needily, “I’m actually really super scared. Can you please stay in the bed with me tonight?”

“No,” he replied without looking up from his game.

“Why though? I trust you,” you replied.

“I…” he stopped.

“Yes?” you asked curiously.

“Never mind.”

“Tell me?” you inquired.

He shook his head, and at that point the game stopped and he had to wait for it to load the next level.

“You don’t need to be scared. I’m right here in the lounge room… and I told you. I’m not sleeping, so I’ll be your guard,” he replied, looking at you briefly before his game started up and it took all of his attention from you.

You smiled softly at his side profile.

“You’re a really lovely guy, Kenma,” you thought to yourself, again, comparing him to what your other friends would have said to you if they had been here instead of him.

You knew they all would have made fun of your fears, and you also knew that they would have added to your horror story and made it worse then laughed at you if you cried.

But you didn’t have to worry about that.

You had Kenma with you now.

<<< ‘That’ Side Character Chapter 29: Overnight Stay

‘That’ Side Character Chapter 31: Up All Night >>>