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pepsyunderscore · 11 months ago

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OLNF Week Day 3: Memories

@olnfweek2024 a short fic is down below...

The flash of the camera blinds the three of them standing in the photo booth at their first High School dance. “Next!” The photographer shouts as the next couple comes up. Tamarack helps lead Alex away from the booth as he tries to regain his vision, continuing to hold onto his arm which Qiu had let go as soon as the photos were taken.

When they reach the gym wall, Tamarack lets go of Alex’s arm and leans against it, “I hope the photo will look nice…”

Alex looks at her holding his hands behind his back, “I’m sure it will! When do you think we will get them?” As he says that, Qiu comes up from behind and places something into his hand. Alex quickly moves his arms back to his front to look at what it was. It was the photo that they just took!

“They only gave me one copy,” Qiu says as they lean against the wall next to Tamarack, “You can have it”

“Wha?” He brings the photo to his face to take a look at it. A flash of the camera brings the three of them into focus. Alexander stands in the middle with an awkward smile and his arms stiff at the sides. He is wearing a white button up shirt with a black tie flowing down his torso. He also wears his familiar red earmuffs; he knew it was going to be loud with the music and shouting so it was best that he wore something to protect his hearing. It looked really stupid in this photo… On the left stands Alex’s neighbor, Qiu Lin, whose hand is wrapped around his stiff arm. Qiu stance is way more relaxed than Alexander was, their hair is tied into a low ponytail which curls around their neck to their collarbone. They are wearing a dark blue and gray fluffy sweater and dark blue ripped jeans. They definitely aren’t the most formal person at the dance but Alex wasn’t expecting them to be. Qiu doesn’t know what they identify as and there aren’t really a lot of gender neutral formal clothing out and ready in stores for Qiu to wear so they decided to be more comfortable. Tamarack on the other hand is the most formal between the three of them; her Omi probably wouldn’t let her be anything else. She stands on Alex’s right side also holding onto his other stiff arm. She is wearing a pink flowy dress with a big bow attached to her back. Instead of the usual braid she wears, half of her hair is tied up with a pink ribbon and the rest is flowing freely down her back.

The photo really wasn’t bad. The only issue Alex had was how stupid he looked compared to his two neighbors. But that’s how it is every day for him.

He looks up, “Do you two want to see?” He holds out his hand with the photo.

“No, I’ve already seen it.” Qiu looks away.

Tamarack reaches her hand out and takes the photo from Alex. The longer she looks at the photo, a more obvious frown begins to form on her face. She holds the photo out for Alex to take again, “Yeah… you can keep it.” Alex hesitantly takes the photo back, folds it in half, and places it in his pocket with a nice pat. He leans against the gym wall with his neighbors.

When he imagined a High School dance, he was expecting to go with the most beautiful person in the world and dance the night away pretending they were the only two people in the world (just like the movies). But little did he know that he would be dancing with two of the most beautiful people in the world. He’s not saying that's a bad thing honestly, Alex is so grateful that Qiu and Tamarack were both his date. He likes them both so much that he can’t even put it into words. So he couldn’t just take one of them. It took a lot of courage to even ask them in the first place. It’s such an awkward question! Especially since Qiu and Tam aren’t exactly fond of each other… But when he finally asked them around a week ago, they were at first very hesitant (which is extremely reasonable) But after a day of thinking, they both agreed to be his date!

And now here they are standing awkwardly in the gym Tamarack wrapping her arms around herself to hide and Qiu looking towards the exit contemplating leaving. This is not how he was expecting this to go. But he should’ve imagined it like this. Alex’s eyes lead towards the dance floor watching friends and couples jumping and dancing with each other to the music with an extremely annoyingly loud bass. When was the slow dance music going to play? Was it going to play? Alex’s main goal for this entire day was to dance with them. So these were questions that needed to be answered immediately. Just the thought of possibly slow dancing with them tonight made his heart pound louder than before.

Suddenly, Qiu begins to push off the wall, “Are we seriously just going to stand here?” They turn towards their neighbors.

“Oh-” Alex turns towards them, “No… what do you want to do?” Alex asks with his face flushed.

Tamarack gets up as well brushing invisible dust off of her dress, “I’m… I’m okay with doing whatever you two want…” The girl that used to want everyone doing what she wanted to do now wants to do what everyone else wants to do instead. He’ll be honest, everything used to be so much easier when those two made up his mind for him. But now he has to do it for them…

But now sweat trickles down Alexander’s face looking back and forth between them. How is he even going to ask them to dance?! Would they even want to dance? How do you even slow dance with two people? Is he supposed to take turns with them or something? No, one of them would get upset for being left out. Plus that sounds really stupid. Are they going to hold hands and spin in circles? No, they would look so stupid!! Why did this have to be so difficult? Plus the amount of people that would stare at them because who slow dances with two people?! Is he even going to be able to do this without backing out-

“Are you trying to ask us to dance?” Qiu asks. Oh god this is probably the millionth time they’ve said what he’s thinking. They do this all of the time, “If so then yes.” Alex freezes. Wait, did they just say yes? Or was he hallucinating? Did his messed up brain finally start getting to him?

Tamarack walks closer to him, “I would love to dance…” She looks up at him with a soft smile. Okay maybe he wasn’t having auditory hallucinations. Maybe his earmuffs are muting what they actually said. They were probably making fun of Alex for even assuming they would want to dance with someone like him. They probably only agreed to go with him because they pity him…

“Alex?” Qiu gets closer to Alex waving their hand in front of his face, “Knock Knock, are you there?”

“Yes!” He suddenly jumps, making Qiu and Tam jump as well, “You guys were making fun of me for trying to ask you to dance.” The two neighbors look at each other in pure confusion. Qiu draws their hands closer to his face, wait are they..?

… No, they were removing his earmuffs.

Qiu pulls down the earmuffs to his shoulders, “Can you hear me now? We want to dance with you.” They move back again placing their hand on their hip.

Alex stands there for what feels like forever. He can’t believe Mx. Qiu Lin and Ms. Tamarack Baumann, the most gorgeous and wonderful people to ever exist, actually want to dance with him!! Like come on!! His entire face is covered in acne, he is a film nerd who can’t stop talking about his favorite movies, and honestly.. he is not that good looking. But Qiu and Tam still agreed to go to the dance with him…

Before Alexander could think any more, both of his neighbors grab him by their arms and start dragging him onto the dance floor with the other couples. They both stand in front of him with their hands out waiting for Alex to grab. After a bit of hesitation, he slides his hands into theirs. Qiu pulls Alex in the middle of both of them, “Place your hand on our shoulders” They’re giving him directions on how to dance… Alex quickly puts his hands on their shoulders without a second thought. While he is doing so, he feels something on his waist. He looked down and saw both of their hands were there holding onto him like he was holding onto them. The position was totally awkward, but it was the best they could do for three people.

Then the music begins and everything disappears. All of the couples that surrounded them once before seemed to have vanished. The only thing in his view was his two partners in front of him. Qiu is looking anywhere other than Alex but not in a bad way.. They’re trying to hide the fact that they’re blushing. They probably want to seem cool in front of the both of them. Though their red ears aren't helping them. Tamarack had somewhere to look at though, she was watching their feet. She was probably making sure no one stepped on anyone because that would ruin the moment. Though through her thick golden hair covering her face, he could also see that she was blushing a bit too. They weren’t the only ones. Alex can feel his face heating up as he watches them. Alex pulls them both into his arms. They’re both so wonderful… He doesn’t ever want to let go. Not anything in the world could make him want to let go of them both. Even if there is a thunderstorm that suddenly hits the gym that they were dancing in. But he knew that he had to eventually let them go. The three of them continue to sway to the slow music holding each other closer than before. The entire world could be staring at them but who cares? Alex snuggles in between them as Qiu rests their head on his and Tam rests hers on Alex’s shoulder.

But the music stops and the world comes back. Qiu pulls away a second after the music ends and before the next song plays, but they continue to hold onto his hand. They start heading away from the dance floor and lean against the same wall but this time, the mood is different.

“Reminds me of when I danced with you at the dance hall”, Qiu looks at Alex with the goofiest smile on their face. They couldn’t hide that smile even if they tried.

“What? When did that happen?” Tamarack looks at Qiu with a slight smile.

“When we were ten.” They smirk back at her. The conversation fell off after that, there wasn’t that much to add.

“Thank you Alex.” Tamarack shares.

“Huh? For what?” He looks down at her

“For taking me to the dance.” Tamarack answers.

“Yeah, thanks. ” Qiu continues, “I didn’t want to go originally, I thought it would be boring, but you changed my mind. You really made this a night to remember” They squeeze his hand.

“I should thank you two for both agreeing to be my date…” Alex looks at his shoes, “I hope I didn’t make it too difficult…”

“No, it was wonderful, thank you” Qiu wraps an arm around his shoulder as Tamarack squeezes his hand, “Can we get food now?” Alex and Tam look at them for a split second before bursting out laughing, “What? They got pizza.”

“Yeah, let's go!” Alex grins at them as he starts leading his dates out of the gym. The photo he kept safe in his pocket which had seemed terrible at first, now holds the memory of the most magical moment of his entire life…

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hi gamers ty for reading!! you get a special drawing of their outfits i designed :3 (this is not official game designs)

thank you for reading!!! <3333 (also yes i have no idea how to draw heels......)

#CUTIESSSS🧡🧡🧡

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