#having coworkers younger than me… ea

[scartale-an-undertale-au]

Papers of Homelessness - Chapter 25

(This banner had been made by the awesome and amazing artist @benteja​. i am so honored that she had drawn this banner for this story. please go and show her all the love in the world that she deserves!!! \[^o^]/)

BEFORE | NEXT

a/n: so sorry for not posting the chapter earlier. but i didn’t know i would not return home on sunday for my appointment, so i didn’t put the chapter on queue. well, so here it is. three days late.

You three finally calmed down enough to sit down for a meal of… instant ramen. Your eye twitched when you saw the amounts of boxes of instant noodles that the house had and had then realized that the reason why both Papyrus and Undyne suck at cooking was this.

You sighed and asked Alphys for the pantry or the vegetables. The blonde nodded and gestured for the fridge, explaining that Undyne bought those for her cooking lessons.

Yeah, no. Undyne wasn’t getting anywhere near vegetables. She doesn’t deserve to.

Well, time to cook for crazy people once more.

Fun…

You concluded from the tomatoes and garlic that Undyne had tried to make something… with tomatoes and garlic. Honestly, with Undyne, who knows?

So you took the noodles and quickly made a proper sauce, disheartened that there wasn’t anything more to use.

At least there was salt…

You felt insulted.

The two, when trying the noodles at first with skeptic expression, grew sparkly eyed and devoured the rest of the food. You sat there, grimacing at the slightly runny consistency with the noodles, but grinned amusingly as you heard their exclaims. It’s almost like they had never had a proper meal.

“You are telling me you never learned how to properly cook?” You raised a brow at the two.

Undyne turned red in indignation. “I do know how to cook, punk!”

Alphys nodded.

You snorted. “Explain it to my destroyed taste buds. I think I needed an extra shift just to get the taste out of my mouth.”

Undyne bristled and you quirked up a brow. “You do realize that I hate lying, right?”

Alphys placed a hand on her companion’s shoulder. “L-let’s not s-start fighting. H-he means well.”

Undyne glared at you and you glared back. After a long moment, she relented and went back to her food. You smirked in triumph and pushed away your plate, unable to stomach the food anymore, folding your arms.

Payback was sweet.

Soon the plates were thrown to the sink and you quickly washed them as a polite gratitude for using the place (your mom did teach you manners). Then Undyne, having fortunately forgotten the previous fight, dragged you back to the living room, where the couch was moved while you washed the dishes and several blankets in different colors were thrown on the floor. Alphys was sprawled over a giant puffy pink pillow, her chubby legs moving in a very anime-like manner.

You were starting to feel that you got dragged into something very… bad. You looked at the clock on top of the TV, seeing that it was already past eight. You should really get going—gah!

“Come on, stop running away!” Undyne’s big hand clasped over your shoulder and you sweatdropped. “We’re not that terrible!”

“I agree!” Alphys piped from her position. You sighed and made a mental note to avoid meeting those two ever again. Your social tolerance was dropping rapidly, nearing dangerous lows.

You three sat on the floor and you picked a green blanket, covering yourself with it, hoping it would defend you from the insanity of those two women.

“So now for the best part of sleepovers!” Undyne exclaimed and you did a take back, eyes widening to painful levels.

“Excuse me!?”

The bigger woman blinked and stared at you confusingly with her fist still in the air. “What?”

“Since when was this a sleepover?” You demanded. “I do have to go home at one point. Plus, I did not even agree to sleep here!”

The two women exchanged looks and then begun to laugh. You frowned, not happy with the laughter on your expense.

“Well, seems that we’ll have to start with the classics!” Undyne grinned mischievously and Alphys’ eyes sparkled.

That was no good. And you didn’t even agree!

“What… classics?” You dared to ask.

“Glad you asked! 20 questions or truth or dare!”

“What’s the point?”

“It’s… it’s to learn more about ea-each o-other…” Alphys explained and you mulled over the information before shrugging. If you’re stuck here, might as well learn something.

“Alright then. I guess I’ll go with the 20 questions. So what do you need to do?” The women suddenly wore matching grins and you shuddered.

You made a bad choice.

Alphys’ glasses gleamed as she rubbed her hands. “So, first question – full name and age.”

You raised a brow at the odd question. Well, it does seem like information gathering game. “Chara Dreemurr, twenty-one. You?”

“Alphys Eld, twenty-three.”

“Undyne Burna Eld, twenty-four.”

“You’re related?”

Undyne grinned. “That’s your second question?”

You nodded. The redhead laughed and hugged her companion and nuzzled the blond hair. “Nah, I just took Al’s name because we’re engaged!”

…

Wait, what?

You frowned in surprise. Two girls… they were both girls if you weren’t blind, engaged? That sounded just plain weird…

But to honest, you couldn’t say anything since you yourself are weird… psychopathic weird, or whatever the psychologist had called your abnormal behavior… something about obsession or compulsion… whatever. It still meant that you were in no place to judge.

You then noticed that the two were holding their breaths. You blinked yourself out of your stupor and shrugged. “Not my place to say anything. As long as you don’t ask me for advice.”

The two relaxed and smiled. Then Alphys asked. “Do you have anyone special to you?”

You hated your face. Undyne cheered while Alphys sulked and fished out a small paper and gave it to the redhead, her face bright red as well. Undyne cackled as she pocketed the paper.

“Do I want to know?”

“Nope!” Undyne happily said and slung an arm around your shoulders. You stiffened and pushed the arm off. Undyne cackled, not perturbed about your action. “So tell us about them!”

You sighed. “Frisk, she’s 20 as far as she knows.”

“Your coworker?” You nodded. “Oooh, forbidden love!”

“It’s not!” You fumed.

Alphys trembled excitedly. “What is she like?”

You scowled. “Isn’t it my turn to ask?”

“Oh, oops.”

“So, uh… what do the two of you do?” You asked a bit awkwardly.

Undyne started. “I’m actually just a guard for the mall nearby. Alphys is the awesome one.”

“U-Undyne…” Alphys blushed and fidgeted. “I’m still studying robotics and computers.”

You whistled. “That’s smart.”

“Right!? AND she also teach AND she sold her invention!” Undyne hugged the blonde. “That’s how smart my fiancé is!”

Alphys turned beet red. You felt new respect for the timid woman. Seems like those two are not to be underestimated despite first impressions.

“Our turn! What do you like about Frisk the most?”

“Since when did information gathering turned to gossip?” You inquired, but faced with the redhead’s smirk you gave in and scratched your hair, rocking yourself a bit. “Well, she’s crazily strong despite being a shorty. She’s also quiet. Not much like my boss, but close. She’s weird.”

“Is she pretty?”

“Pretty?” Well, she’s quite normal looking unless you count her eyes… “She’s normal.”

“Your face is blushing~”

Damn it.

“Man, you are really easy to fluster despite your all ‘I’m too cool to hang with you’ attitude!” Undyne laughed and you bristled.

“Well, is Alphys 'pretty’?” You shot back.

Undyne cackled. “Are you even trying?” She held the chubby woman and squashed their cheeks together. “She’s beautiful!”

Alphys was red but she also smiled happily. “Thank you, Undyne—”

“And my favorite part of her is when I fall asleep on her boobs!”

“Undyne!”

You agreed. Your ears burned as you looked away. “Too much information!”

“I bet your Frisk doesn’t have as big rack as my Alphys!”

“Why are we even discussing it!?” You nearly yelled, embarrassed. This is not something that you ever wanted to talk about!

“Huh, she doesn’t!”

“U-Undyne!”

Someone kill you.

And yet, despite your discomfort, a very cartoony picture of frisk’s back formed. She then turned and appeared to be holding two watermelons to her chest.

“Like this?”

You couldn’t help yourself. You began laughing at the image. Alphys and Undyne startled as you bent over, shaking from your hysterical laughter.

“Undyne…I think we broke him…”

“Oops?”

You heaved, trying to talk through the tears and laughter. “W-waterm-melons! W-why waterm-melons?”

The women stared.

“We broke him.”

“Not my fault.”

“Undyne!”

“Not. My. Fault.”

You decided to call it a night when you finally calmed down from your fit and so Undyne guided you to the bus station you usually took to return home. Thank god that the last bus comes at midnight so you weren’t worried about getting to the stop so late. Hopefully you’ll be home before nine-thirty.

"Thank you for hanging out with us,” Undyne started when you two got to the stop. “We don’t get visitors often unless it’s Papyrus or Alphys’ family.”

“How are you even friends? From what I figured, he’s much younger than you,” You raised a brow in curiosity. The two did seem like a compatible duo, with their extreme personalities. But not very likely to meet unless Undyne has any connection to the hospital or if Papyrus has any connection to the mall or the college.

“Well, I met him when I broke my leg and had gotten an infection there for poor handling. He was goofing around and I just felt the powers of friendship tell me to befriend him!”

You deadpanned. Why did you expect any other explanation?

“Well, how long do you know one another?”

“Around five years. He was just starting and I still did boxing.”

Your eyes widened in shock. No wonder she was an amazon. Damn, this woman was becoming weirder by the moment. “You stopped?”

“Yeah, Al was becoming worried and I became annoyed with the sportsmanship in the training and official fights,” Undyne frowned. “Besides, that break made sure I won’t be able to get back onto the arena.”

“Sorry to hear that.” The thought of losing an ability because of an injury was an awful thought. You shuddered at the thought of you losing your leg’s mobility. You relied on your speed and agility much more than your strength when fighting. That’s why you had your knife… that your mother confiscated… you pushed your hand into your pocket and felt around the empty space… you felt naked and vulnerable…

“I just thought of something weird!” You jumped at Undyne’s exclaim, your heart leaping into your throat. You took a deep breath to calm yourself, reminding yourself not to space out around that crazy amazon and then stared at said amazon, asking her to elaborate. Undyne placed her hands on her hips and tilted her head  in thought. “Well, Papyrus had once told me when I got him drunk about an imaginary friend that he used to have when he was a small kid.”

You gaped. This was why she had him have a heart attack?! For an imaginary friend?! "And? Why is it so important?”

“Well, that’s the thing,” Undyne shrugged, “I don’t think he remembers the imaginary friend since he had never mentioned it since, so that’s not the weird part. But it was the name of it that was weird.”

You felt a sinking feeling in your gut as you asked, “What was its name?”

Undyne’s dark eyes flashed.

“Frisk.”

Crap.

NEXT