Chapter Text
Four sighed. Two years, seven months, six weeks, three days. He drew another line on the chalkboard. Every moment in the EXIT was another moment where he realized he had nothing to do. He slowly spun in the chair, watching the ceiling dance in a painfully slow pirouette. Suddenly, Two appeared. Four screamed and fell out his seat, startled by their presence. Two smiled at Four as he sat up, staring at them over his desk.
“Two...I didn't even know you could come in here!”
Two smiled. “So this is the EXIT. You don't know how to acronym, do you? Five would hate that.”
“What do you want?”
“O-oh! Right! You were kind of spacing out for a moment there, so I wanted to make sure you were okay. What's with all the lines on the chalkboard?” They pointed to the chalkboard.
“TpoT's over. I've been tracking the days since.”
Four picked up the seat and placed it back in its proper position. He snapped, sending him and Two into the Principal's office, with Four already seated in the office chair. Two sat in a dingy wooden block chair. They seemed a bit startled by the sudden change of scenery, but didn't say anything regardless.
“What's the real reason you came here?” He crossed one leg over the other.
They chuckled nervously. “I...don't remember.”
Four shot them a look. Two tapped their fingers against their chin, thinking quite hard about what they could've entered the EXIT for. They eventually shrugged and vanished. Four sighed, rolling his eyes, and left after Two. Two was talking to MePhone, an old friend of theirs. At least, from what they said. Four was grateful they made more friends than just Gaty, but wondered where MePhone even came from. Before seeing him with Two, he'd never heard of MePhone before. MePhone was quick to befriend everyone.
Two beamed. “Oh, Four! Finally decided to get out of your head, huh?”
Four grumbled to himself and walked away from Two. The Algebraliens were off doing their own things, and Two's contestants seemed grateful everything had finally come to a close. One was successfully caged, and things were finally starting to feel normal again. Four wished he could say the same. He hadn't been able to talk to, or even look at, One since everything happened, and knew the repeated mistake of negligence would cause her to only get worse. He told himself she didn't want to talk to anyone anyway in order to ignore those thoughts. Something in him wished that he could just leave it all behind. One. Two. The Yoylelite. The Objects. He wanted them to vanish behind him in the review mirror. He covered his head with his hands. He wanted nothing more than to vanish without a trace.
“Four?”
It was Ten, out of anyone, who noticed his attempt to leave. Four lowered his arms and looked over his shoulder at Ten.
“You okay? You look a bit stressed.”
“I'm fine.” He told Ten and himself that, but his heart knew it wasn't true.
“I get it, you need a break. I think we all need a change of scenery after all that. I just never mentioned it because we can't leave her by herself here. Not again. I mean, I feel bad for her, but at the same time, I'm more worried she'd just attack us again.”
“Yeah.”
“Hm...Why don't we take her with us? We can't trust her or Fourteen out of their cages, but maybe if we take her with us-”
“No. She's been bad.”
“But Four-”
“No. She deserves to stay there!”
Ten sighed. “Worth a shot.”
“You want to let her free?”
“A little? I just think this is a bit unfair. You know?”
“It's for the best.” Four walked off again.
“F-Four!” Ten hurried after him. “Four, wait.” He grabbed Four's shoulder, turning Four slightly towards himself. “We don't need to do anything for her, okay? But I do think you need a break. You haven't been able to sleep for weeks. How about we all just go somewhere and have a little vacation?”
Four took his gaze from Ten's eyes.
“Four, you need this. Trust me.”
“Fine.”
“I can stay here with her, if you want.” He smiled.
“No, no...We should take her with us. So all of us can keep an eye on her.”
“You sure? You didn't like that before.”
“So we can transfer them out in roles.” Four spun his arms around his body.
“Taking turns?”
“Yeah.”
“Okay, sounds good. But where do you want to go?”
“Me?”
“Yeah. This break is for you, so you get to pick.”
“I don't know...”
“Oh I know! Let's ask Two! Come on!”
He grabbed Four's wrist and pulled him along behind him. He stopped by Two, who was still talking with MePhone, and released Four. Four rubbed his wrist. Ten talked to Two and MePhone for a moment before facing Four again.
“Nobody has any ideas.”
“You should've expected that.” Four crossed his arms.
Two snapped. “I know! Let's gather the Algebraliens here, and hop on the nearest Galaxy Bus and see where it takes us!”
“You actually want to use one of those things?”
Two wrapped an arm around Four, shaking him lightly. “Of course! Imagine the fun we can have together!”
“Uh...”
“The best part, we won't know where we're going. Only the vast cosmos can stop us now!”
Four shoved them off. “Don't touch me.”
“Doesn't that sound fun?”
“I guess so, yeah.” Ten usually agreed to Two's ideas, so this time was nothing new. “But can we fit her cage on the bus?”
“Once we get there, we can just teleport her to us!”
“Oh, good point.”
Four avoided looking at either of them, pretending MePhone was much more interesting. MePhone looked up at him, then gave him a small smile and wave. Four looked away from him, to the ground. Two grabbed Four by the wrist and began dragging him along. Four fought them a bit, but eventually gave up when they wouldn't let him free. Two dragged him over to the bus, which was parked at a bus stop. The driver glanced at Two as they dragged Four onto the bus and forced him to sit.
Four crossed his arms and leaned his head against the window. He didn't have to sit and wait for long, as soon, the bus lifted off the ground and fired into the sky. Four watched Earth slowly spin in its silent glory, remembering that, the first time he ever saw it so close, was when he helped Black Hole be able to compete in BfB.
Four eventually looked up from the window and glanced around the bus. Two and Three were having a pleasant conversation, the two chatterboxes. Fifteen was seated by herself by a window and looked a little sick.
Eight and Seven were sitting directly behind Four, and both of them were asleep. Five was forced to sit with MePhone on the seat behind those two, and was simply reading as MePhone talked to nobody in particular. Four rubbed a thumb over the seat next to him. He stood and walked over to X, who was seated with Six.
“Why didn't you sit with me?”
X looked up from the floor, to Four. “Oh. I wanted to sit with Six this time.”
“But why?”
“'Cause he has more friends than just you, Four.” Six opened a pack of gum and handed one to X. “He has a life outside of you.”
“S-says who?!”
Six held up the pack to Four. “X did.”
Four smacked the pack to the ground. “You're not allowed to eat on the bus!”
“Oh, I don't mind,” said the bus driver. “Please don't smack food onto the floor.”
Four angrily sat back in his seat. “I can't believe X didn't want to hang out with me...”
He sat in silence for a while, hearing their voices slowly fade into the background. The bus driver said something over the intercom, but Four toned it out. X, his only friend, didn't want to sit with him. He had other friends? Four scoffed lightly. He didn't, so why did X? But...it started with not sitting with him. Soon, it would turn into not wanting to hang out with him. Then that would spiral into them drifting apart, and Four would lose his only friend. He tucked his legs closer to his body, wrapping his arms around them. He couldn't let X drift away from him. He had to keep his friend. He would do anything necessary to keep their friendship alive.
Of course X would still want to be his friend.
Right?