Today I'm up bright and early because it's my first day of high school. I am officially a grown colt now, or shall I now say stallion? That has a nice ring to it. Elementary school went by so slow, and now I only have four more years of school left until college, woohoo! Even though I'm only a freshman, I kinda think I know what I wanna do when I get out of school. I wanna go to one of those fancy cool colleges were they teach you how to make video games and stuff. I hear that in high school they have computer programming and video game classes, which I an definitely taking! My cutie mark is a game controller after all! I have a feeling I will have a bright future ahead of me!
"Mom! I'm ready for school!"
"Button! How many times do I have to tell you to look on your calendar before you assume it's a school day? It's Sunday! You do this every time! Now go back to bed!" Mom shouted back at me. I can't believe I've done it again. This happens every year!
"Okay, never mind!"
*~*
Wow...this place is HUGE! Well, compared to elementary school. There are so many different ponies here, just like what mom said. It should be super easy to make friends now. Oh wait, is that Sweetie Belle!?
As I make my way to her I notice that something's different about her, but what? It's only been a few weeks since I last saw her. We hung out all the time at Sugarcube Corner all the time during summer break, so she couldn't have changed too much. She looks...nervous.
"Hey Sweetie Belle! You excited!? I know I am!" She didn't even look at me, what the heck's going on with her? "Uuhh...are you okay? You seem nervous. Is it about high school?" Still no reaction...what the literal fuck!?
"U-Umm," She finally began to speak. "H-Hi there Button." Even though she was talking, she still didn't look at me. "I'm fine." She sure as hell didn't look fine...I mean okay...I mean...fuck shut up.
"Are you sure? You know you can talk to me right?"
"Button, if you have any consideration for my privacy you won't ask, okay? Just don't ask...can you just leave me alone? Just for a little while? Please?" She began to walk away, but there's no way I'm gonna let her, so I ran up to her and grabbed her hoof.
She punched me. She punched me right in the face. Does she hate me? I'm just trying to help! I'll never understand fillies, well mares, she's a mare now. Celestia dammit! What the heck's wrong with her!?
*~*
"Mom, I'm home." I said as I walked through the door.
"Hello Button! How was your first day of high school? Did you meet any new friends?" She patted my head like she usually did after I came home from school.
"Yeah, but my friend Sweetie Belle was being weird. She bopped me one right on my cheek and it hurt a lot. All I did was try to help. Mares are so strange...no offense."
"None taken. So she didn't say why she was in such a bad mood?" She walked into the kitchen and I followed, the sudden smell of cheesy pizza bites hit my muzzle. My mom knows me well.
"She wouldn't tell me. She said that I was invading her privacy by asking and that she wanted me to leave her alone for a while, then she avoided me the entire day. Yeah I met a few new friends, but they weren't as awesome as her."
"So she was in a bad mood and didn't want to talk to you? Maybe you did something to upset her?" She suggested as she pulled out the sheet of pizza bites out of the oven.
"I don't remember doing anything to hurt her feelings. Not only was she in a bad mood, but when I approached her she wouldn't make any eye contact with me and she seemed so nervous. At first I just thought she was nervous because it was the first day of high school." I followed her to the dining room table where she sat the sheet.
"Hmm, well I think I might understand what's going on." Well of course she'd know, she is a mare after all. I brought myself a plate from the kitchen and began putting the pizza bites onto it.
"Do your best to explain? I'd like to know. I believe I have the right to know, I am her best friend after all!" I blew on one of the pizza bites and then popped it into my mouth.
"Button, I know exactly what's going on with Sweetie Belle, but you don't have the right to know. It's a very private matter and she probably just doesn't feel comfortable talking about it. Just give her a while and I promise she'll be back to her normal self again." My mom makes it sound like something's wrong with her. If there is something wrong with her, I'd like to know what so I can do what I can to help.
"If you tell me, maybe I can help her." I said as I took another pizza bite into my mouth.
"Well, what's happening with her can't really be cured, at her age at least. Now you must understand that you cannot fix everything. Just give her some time and she'll be back to normal."
There's no way in Tartaurus I'm just gonna sit here and do nothing while my best friend suffers with whatever it is that's going on with her. I'm gonna find out somehow...
*~*
I walked into Game Trot looking around, I learn best from doing something that I love, and that of course is playing video games. There are all sorts of education video games like Brain Age and Book Pony, so there must be something I can find for this situation.
~~After looking around the shop for 30 minutes~~
"Uuuggghh! I can't find anything useful!" I stomped the ground with my front hooves.
"Need help finding something?" The rather large stallion who worked here asked.
"Uuhh...well I was wondering if there were any games here that might help me understand mares. Anything like that in existence?" He stallion laughed, do I look like I'm joking?
"Well, I think I know what you're looking for. It's not exactly educational, but it's sexy and should help you prepare for stallionhood." He trotted to behind his counter and picked up a game. The cover had a rather attractive mare on the front laying in a bed with a rather cute and innocent look on her face. Then I noticed the game rating.
"Uuhh...I dunno if my mom will let me play that game. It say's it's rated M." I had to admit it though, I REALLY wanted that game. Why? I have no bucking clue.
"C'mon, you can't let your mother keep you from exploring. Just sneak it in and play it while she's asleep and just keep the volume down. That's what I used to do when I played these kind of games when I was your age." He handed me the game, I got a nice close up view of the hot mare on the cover. I HAD to play this game. For Sweetie Belle! And for my enjoyment! Time to let my inner teenage rebel come out!
"It's a deal!" I handed him the fifteen bits it cost and walked out of the store with it wrapped up in three plastic bags. I'd be embarrassed to death if somepony saw that I was carrying around this kind of video game.
*~*
I sat in my dark room at midnight. My mom has been asleep for about an hour now, so I should be safe to try this new game now. So I opened the case, popped the disk out and set it in the game console and also made sure the volume was down like the stallion at Game Trot said to do. I watched the screen and played through the short introduction.
So, the story is that I'm going to high school with this attractive young mare who happens to be my marefriend. That's all that there really is to it. You have conversations with her, she speaks and then you pick your favorite response. According to what it says on the back of the case, it says that there are over one hundred different endings of this game. If you ask me, that's pretty incredible. It must have taken years to complete creating this game.
So the main character of the game's name is Vanilla Cream and her cutie mark is a delicious looking vanilla sundae. Her fur is a creamish color, almost white, and her mane is brown with a darker brown streak on one side. Her eyes were a very pretty chocolate brown color. Just looking at her made me crave ice cream.
"Button Mash, would you like to come over to my house tonight?" She asked. Her normally innocent smile transformed into a devious grin and her eyes were half lidded. Option one: "Okay" (with an equally devious grin). Option two: "Okay" (without grin). Option three: "Tartaurus no." I just picked the second option because the first was creepy, and the last was just plain rude.
"That's great Button Mash! I'll see you later then!" She gives me a kiss and she takes off to wherever it is she lives. The screen goes blank for a few seconds, loading to the next part.
"Welcome Button Mash! Thank you for coming!" Vanilla Cream opens the door and lets me in. Her home looks normal, extremely normal. There are no posters or anything. I pick a response.
"Thank you Vanilla, your home is very nice. I hope you didn't spend too much time cleaning it for me." Vanilla Cream grabbed my hoof and began to pull me into another room. It was a bedroom. Again, very boring and not a single poster on the walls.
"There's something I need to tell you Button Mash. The real reason I wanted you to come over is because...well...I'm in heat and I need your help." Vanilla said. Wait, heat? What's that? Does she mean that she has a fever? She just wants me to take care of her while she's sick? This game is VERY misleading. The options popped up. Option one: "Of course I'll help you out" (pull into a passionate kiss). Option two: "I dunno if I'm ready for this, Vanilla." Option three: "What's heat?"
Of course I pick option three. I am sooooo confused right now.
"You don't know what heat is? How cute. Well, heat is something a filly goes through to let her know that she's becoming a mare and is able to reproduce. Since the body is saying to reproduce, mares get extremely frisky with their partners from the hormones. Some mares take it a bit differently though, like staying away from everyone until the heat ends. It's usually really easy to tell when a mare's in heat by the way she's acting, as long as you know what you're looking for. Some act slutty, and some lock themselves in their homes. A way to tell when a mare's in heat by the way they look is that mares tend to have a habit of holding their tails up to..." I press the "off" button on the console.
"Oh."
One month after the incident
I sat with my new gaming buddies at lunch talking about Minecraft. Ever since the start of high school I've had more friends than ever, but I still couldn't shake the feeling that somepony was missing. I knew who it was: Sweetie Belle. She hasn't talked to me since the first day of school. Even if she punched me in the face, I still missed her so much. She was my only friend in elementary school, and now I'm alone in a crowded room.
I get what she's going through, but how long is this supposed to last? I know it's hard on her, but I probably feel just as bad as she does now. Usually when she's blue I put a hoof around her and tell her jokes, but this time I can't. This time I can't do anything to help my best friend, I'm useless.
About the dating game, I decided to keep it. I haven't played it since that night I found out about "heat" though. I think I'll just play it next time my mom and dad go out and when my brother is asleep. I think I have a good idea about what happens later in the game, and I'm fine with that. I would like to get farther in it...I really wanna see what happens...hehehe.
So yeah, even with all these cool guys around discussing my favorite video games I am extremely bored.
"B-Button?" I heard a familiar sweet voice behind me. I whirled around excitedly nearly falling out of my chair.
"Sweetie Belle!" I almost jumped out of the chair to hug her, but I remembered that she probably would punch me again. She smiled at me, her cute smile...wait what?
"Sorry about punching you." She blushed and scratched the back of her head. Alright, I have to admit that she's pretty sexy.
"It's alright. I understand, I just wish I knew why you were acting so strange before."
"Wait, you know?" She blushed a bit darker and broke eye contact with me. I nodded.
"You have no idea what I had to go through to figure it out. Anyway, yeah I kinda deserved that punch. I shouldn't have been so annoying trying to make you talk, heh." She looked back up at me smiling. That same beautiful smile that makes my heart pound.
"It's okay. I get that you were just curious. Now I'm kinda curious about what you did to find out."
"Hehe, w-well I'll tell you after school." Oh dang.
"Okay."
*~*
She walked with me, our shoulder occasionally brushing up against each other. I thought that she wouldn't want to say so close to me. I tried to put some distance between us but she kept scooting closer. I'm not complaining though, she smells absolutely wonderful.
"Mom! I'm home!" I called. She was sitting on the couch reading a book.
"Welcome home Button, welcome Sweetie Belle. Are you hungry? I made hay burgers."
"Starving!" I ran to the kitchen and got the burgers off the counter they were on and brought them over to the table where Sweetie Belle was already sitting. Sweetie took a bite of hers and smiled.
"So, what was it that you wanted to tell me?" I sighed. Oh dang oh daaang, now I have to actually tell her.
"Alright, but you can't tell anypony, and you have to promise that you won't laugh." I took a bite of my own. Man, she's gonna laugh even if she does promise not to. I would laugh. She quickly swallowed to reply.
"I promise." I let out another sigh.
"Well," I began whispering, "after I grew curious about why you were acting so weird, I decided I needed to know so I could at least know in case there was something I could do to help." First thing that came to mind after saying that was something incredibly dirty. Yeah, definitely nothing I can't do...for now at least. As I explained she just kept staring at me with her big beautiful light green eyes while she ate her hay burger. She didn't laugh, she didn't smile, she just listened.
"So, you found out about that from playing a dating sim? How did you even get one? Don't you have to have a legal parent or guardian there for them to let you get it?" It's like everything else I said just went right over her head. I'm okay with that.
"Usually, but the dude working there didn't seem to care that I was underage."
"Hm, that's kinda cool. When do you play it? Wouldn't you get in trouble if you were caught playing a game like that?"
"I would, so I played it after everypony went to bed. I'm actually thinking of playing it again soon. I shut off the game last time without saving."
"You really have turned into a typical teenager." She giggled.
"You too, all of a sudden I have no idea what's going through your mind. I remember back when we were just foals and I could read you like a book." I giggled as well, in a much more manly way of course.
"Well the same goes for you. Oh yeah, I should probably call Rarity and let her know that I'm here. Knowing her she's probably thinking something bad happened to me, ya' know, because she overreacts about everything."
"Heh, yeah.
*~*
Sweetie Belle and I sat in my room. I took out the dating sim from inside my video game stack.
"So that's it?" She stared at the cover.
"Yep. The main character is one of those stereotypical cute ponies. She looks unrealistically cute if you ask me. No mare can possibly that cute, well... I guess that's not true because I know one that's cuter than her." I chuckled nervously.
"So you actually still want to play this?" She said.
"Yeah, I know, I'm acting like a typical teenager, but what can you do?" I shrugged.
"Yeah but...if you ask me you should just forget about this game. One day everything in this game will eventually become reality. I know this isn't something a gamer like you would be happy hearing, but some things that happen in real life can be much more incredible to be experienced in real life." She was right. If I do wait, when the right time comes everything will be so much more special and the experience will be that much better.
I took the CD out of its case and snapped it in half.
"You're right. And now I can't be tempted to play it. I will wait for it to all happen in reality, because I know it will happen someday." Her eyes widened.
"I didn't expect you to agree to fast." I didn't either.
"I guess I'm growing up." I shrugged. She smiled her gorgeous smile and threw her forearms around me. "So why have you been so touchy today? Last time I saw you you wouldn't even look at me."
"You think I'm still in heat? It lasts for a month you know. It ended last weekend. When it ended I was so happy that I could finally see you again!" She squeezed me a little too hard.
"W-well I'm glad that you're happy...I'd be happy too if I could...BREATH!"
"Oops! Sorry Button!" She released her death grip around my neck.
"It's alright. I don't mind you hugging me, just don't squeeze so hard next time."
"Okay."
"How about we play some video game?" She giggled.
"You never change."
Author's Note
My big sister persuaded me to write an aftermath, so this happened.
