Deep violet clouds gradually float across the magenta sky, pushed by the same gentle breeze that brushes past RD's hair as she struts around outside of her car with you.

"So we going to the ice cream shop or what?" RD stretches her arms to the sides while balancing herself on the curb.

"I'd love to go there again."

There was a little bit of a conversation in the car about whether to go to a new restaurant entirely or not. RD swore she could go for a burger, but was fine if you were more geared towards something lighter instead.

Still nearby, the outside lights of the ice cream shop flip on as soon as you and RD decide you want to go there. As though it was a sign or acceptance or further agreement from the place itself, that happened to be comedically timed perfectly.

You and RD notice the lights turn on and then look directly at one another, quickly sharing a moment of laughter as the sky overhead gets a little darker.

...

The two of you sat together at your table for several minutes sipping the smoothies you both ordered and already paid for. Chatting it up about random things.

RD didn't take very long to start gossiping about her friends, since the subject was rather topical while you sat there together.

The sky outside got darker and darker the longer you sat together, listening to other people enter and exit the ice cream place through the front door. You wanted to ask RD a couple of things about what happened, but you couldn't think of a way to bring it up that feels right. At least, not while you both were sitting there.

RD was loudly invested in her own storytelling about her friends anyway, talking about how this most recent instance is only one of many times they didn't exactly trust a guy. One of these other tabled times being when Fluttershy suspected she was being stalked by a creepy guy, then Sunset investigated and found out that he actually was.

It was times like these that had convinced them to be extra cautious with one another, except there were certain times where it turned out this wasn't as called-for as they had assumed.

Nonetheless, it was nice to listen to RD go out of her way to explain her friends to you, so you have a better understanding of their background when it comes to meeting new guys. She wasn't so much defending what they apologized for, just explaining it deeper using past instances for context.

"Anyway, I should stop." RD finally draws her monologue to a close before sipping more of her fruit smoothie down. "Damn it, I'm starting to get like them. Talking about them and things they did when they're not around. I think gossiping is lame, I dunno why I just did it so much."

You smirk and sip more of your own smoothie.

"But whatever, I'm done being a hypocrite for tonight." She jokes. "Wanna go back and play video games now?"

"Yeah." You figure you'll take your smoothie with you.

You hear an "ugh" sound from across the room.

Look over to find a couple of boys slightly younger than your age, groaning in response to how loud RD's been for the past several minutes. RD likely already noticed, but doesn't care enough to give it a response.

You have a feeling she already knows, but doesn't care and just bites the bullet when people get annoyed at this point.

"Yo bro, wanna try the jukebox again?" RD gets another quick urge to show off something you've already seen once before.

"Sure."

The other boys try not to look in your direction, wanting to just focus on their meal and ice cream they're trying to enjoy. Butt he clinking of coins followed by one of the hard rock songs RD loves to listen to fills the air, more-so after RD cranks the volume up to 10.

They're covering their ears, not so much physically, but with the looks in their eyes.

"We should have parties here or something." RD starts to form an idea. "And we can double DJ'ing for the party with a party game where whoever gets the coin in first chooses the next song."

She knows full well she would dominate at this party activity.

"Pinkie would love it." RD then adds.

This continues until one of the employees working at the place has to come over and politely ask RD to try and tone it down with the noise.

Of course, RD complies, giving other people a chance to put a coin into the jukebox and choose a song they want to hear. You can tell RD's done entertaining herself and stroking her ego anyway. Both of you have video games to go play together.

With an apologetic shrug, you awkwardly grin at the couple of boys and the employee working here, hoping they'll forgive your friend for disrupting the peace for a brief period of time. They give you a collective... look... in response. A look that shines a hell of a spotlight on you, brighter than the overhead lights that pass by your head as you walk out with your friend RD.

"Race you to the car!" RD suddenly darts off from the bright indoor lights illuminating her hair to the darkness outside, leaving you in the dust.

In the dust with those looks closing in on you like a less threatening version of spiked walls.

"S-sorry." You say to them all.

"Hope it's worth it." The employee insinuates something.

"Hope what's worth it?"

"Oh... so she's not your girlfriend?"

You feel a heat reach your face. "What? No. She and I are just friends." Plant your feet a little more firmly onto the floor.

"Sorry. My bad, shouldn't have been so quick to assume." The employee apologizes. "Well your friend sure is a... character."

"Tell me about it." You huff while barely concealing how flustered that girlfriend assumption made you. "I'm sorry about her. She uh... one of those."

You hurry out the door before they can tell that you're blushing, if you actually are blushing. You just know you're blushing, you can feel yourself blushing in response to that offhand comment about her possibly being your girlfriend.

The cool outdoor breeze hitting your skin makes you realize how much you've begun to sweat a little as you exit into the vast darkness aside the occasional streetlight.

"Aw come on, dude. You didn't even try to beat me!" RD complains before slinking into the car.

The engine is turned on before your seat belt buckle can be heard clicking in the dark car. The tires slightly screech as RD thrusts her ride back out of the parking space.

"Holy shit." You gasp.

"Don't worry, I've done this enough times before."

You could have sworn the car was about to hit something, whether it be a tree, street lamp or another car.

"You drive different at night." You feel the car make the necessary turns and accelerate forward.

"Damn right, I do." RD takes the car to the exit of the parking lot, barely missing the curb. "But I'll go slow for ya, bro."

Cruising down the road, RD's car begins to vibrate to the sound as she turns on her radio, keeping the setting switched to stereo from front to back of the inside of the vehicle. One song with a thick bass-line is all it took to feel like you're anxiously leaning back in a mobile massage chair.

Oh yeah, now this environment is loud enough for RD's tastes.

Loud and fast.

~

You avoid bringing anything else up about earlier and decide to just enjoy the night with RD already.

But there's one thing you've realized: you've become that guy with the annoying friend, who has become dismissive of that said annoying friend's behavior. You've become that guy. And RD is that friend... who also happens to be a girl.

She sits next to you at the foot of her bed, now back in her room with you as the pitch blackness of the night outside has completely set in.

But she switches her room lights off after it's been a few minutes of you reminding yourself how visually comfy RD's bedroom is. Her nest -if you will- is small, messy and nice.

"Yo uh, if Supercell had a theme song, what do you think it should be?" Asks RD while spinning the game camera around the storm-colored corvette on the screen to give you a good look at it.

"A theme song? You mean, you didn't have one already?"

"Oh, I do have one." Says RD. "I just wanna know what you'd think of."

"What's the song for your car already?" You ask.

"I don't wanna say."

"Why not?"

"I don't wanna bias you."

As she says this, she scoots up closer to you at the foot of her bed.

You're not sure if she did this intentionally, or at least subconsciously due to being in a dark room sitting next to someone she trusts. The vibe of it feels like the classic dark movie theater move minus the arm around the shoulders. You can feel her hip brushing against yours ever so slightly.

You're close enough to very slightly pick up on the cherry-blueberry scent in her breath from her smoothie earlier.

"Just, whatever comes to mind, dude." RD insists. "I need a second opinion."

"Uhh... Thunderstruck by AC/DC." You throw a random guess out there.

RD rolls her eyes at you.

"What?"

"Come on, dude. Put more thought into it!" Complains RD.

"What's wrong with Thunderstruck?"

"It's good, don't get me wrong. But like... it's so overused."

"...Okay, yeah. Fine."

"Great song. Great band. Good for the theme. But that fuckin' song is in like... like, one out of every five movies and video games."

"Well that's for a reason, but I get ya."

The two of you nod in agreement. You can now feel her firm upper arm brushing up against your arm, and there's no way she didn't feel that too. You get chills from feeling her muscle touch you in such an unintentional but direct way.

...Her skin met yours...

Working the joysticks of the tape-bandaged console controller with her thumbs, RD continues to slowly spin the camera around the car. "Pick something less... 80's-ish."

"What decade do you want my pick to be from to fit the vibe you want?"

"Uh uh uh, no hints, bro." RD wags her finger at you.

"Come on!"

"I want your genuine opinion, man!"

"I gave you my genuine opinion!"

"Fuckin' Thunderstruck is a song everyone already knows. It's too much of a... default answer. Give me your actual opinion of the vibe the car gives you.

You groan at RD. She groans even louder back.

As though the two of you are competing to see who's being more annoyed by whom at the moment. And you swear you're winning but RD's not about to let that become obvious as she now rolls her eyes with a groan... and throws her head back.

"What, you wanna pick something closer to our generation instead of the boomers and gen x'ers?"

"Shit, yeah. I guess keep it rock, too." RD finally sets up some sort of guidelines for this.

"Okay, thanks. Now I can choose something." You form a sinister little idea in your head just to annoy her.

"So what song?" Asks RD.

"Thunder by Imagine Dragons."

"Oh, fuck you!" RD grins and lightly punches you in the arm with a snicker. "Gimme a serious answer, dude."

Damn, you can tell that little jab was meant to be light and it still kinda hurt.

"C'mon, already!" RD impatiently rushes you. "Gimme a good answer and I'll tell you the song I chose myself for her."

You sorta like how RD refers to her prized digital corvette as a "her". As if RD herself is the corvette, in a sort of a self-insert sort of way. It'd fit all the other stuff she says about herself like a slipper, especially the very obvious part where she compared her body to a corvette.

You're convinced she half wants to shove the concept down your throat on purpose. Until you say something to the effect of 'I get it, RD. You're a corvette and I'm not. You're amazing looking and built to win races and I'm not'.

"Just pick a dope song, bro." She tells you.

"Circe."

"Hmm?"

"Circe. By Ghost."

"Ohh..." RD seems to be familiar with the song. "I forgot about that one. Was a couple of years ago last time I heard that one."

"So is it good enough of an answer?"

"Yeah, whatever, fine. I just wanna show you what this baby can do anyway."

"So what's the song you got for Supercell?"

"Denial. By Sevendust." RD amps up the pride in her tone.

...Well damn...

Why didn't you even consider that vibe? It makes more sense the more you think about it... both for RD and her corvette Supercell. You gotta admit that this girl's got taste.

"You know the song?"

"Took me a second, but yeah. I remember it."

"Can't you like, not unhear it now?!" RD directs your attention back to the TV screen that is the only source of light illuminating the room. "I mean, look at the color. Look at the grill."

"You put a lot of thought into the vibe, didn't you?"

"Fuck yeah, bro. Raced with this bad girl so much and finally found out this song works best with her."

RD goes back to the racetrack selection menu before you can even say another word; RD's impatience has now spiked. She wants to show off her prized baby to you. As though it exists in real life, which is something you know she's ambitious to turn into a reality once she has the money and other resources for that.

The day she gets a Corvette, she's gonna sculpt and paint it exactly like that. You know it.

The 'go' signal flashes in the game, and the corvette shoots out of its starting position like a bullet. It attacks and devours the racetrack like a bluish-gray asphalt-hungry panther. Its growl is fierce and sharp to the ear... enough to make RD bite her lip with an aggressive grin, as her determined hand fervently work the buttons and joysticks on her trusty tape-bandaged console controller. Her firm, unrelenting hands threaten to break the controller once more right in front of you.

RD knows every curve and contour of the road, expertly dominating the track with adept speed and agility in her sexy matte-painted bluish-gray corvette she named Supercell. The roaring engine is the thunder to the lightning sparking in her eyes that stay glued to the screen showing her baby demolish the competition.

And RD's final score was at least three times every other player's score combined... and it's still not as high as the current record she has set in the game. The rush she gets from this actually contagiously spread to you. Especially after about an hour of watching RD win race after race after race after race after race.

She's translated her drive from real life into the video game as well. It's a miracle the controller didn't break.

"You ready to see how long you last against this thing?" RD slowly turns her face towards you with her eyebrows furrowing atop her challenging glare. "I'll go easy on you, bro."

With the less bandaged controller in your hand, you figure you don't have a choice anyway.

All of the above describing how terrifying Supercell is on the track is all one would need to know how the matches against you went. RD was definitely satisfied after it was over, that much can be said for sure.

...You're lucky she didn't drive like this in her in-real-life car...

Even if she never crashed, you'd have had a guaranteed heart attack or something.

~

It's getting pretty late, now.

You've pretty much become numb and accepting to losing to RD, she's done you in so many times in the game now. It's become a sort of a running joke that her Supercell rips through the air right past you, sometimes flying after catching good airtime after a jump.

It always pounces back onto the tracks like a bloodthirsty puma diving in at a gazelle. This fuckin' car is dangerous, and RD loves her baby for that.

RD's car laps you sometimes, and she even crashes into your car you chose to play as as some sort of physical "pep talk" to get you driving better in the game.

You fear the day RD gets her Supercell in real life.

The bed springs quietly creak after she falls back onto her bedsheets, and you're sent slightly catapulted from the affect of the impact upon the mattress. You have to regain your balance and plant your palms flat onto the edge of the bed in order to not go tumbling to the floor.

From the slight light of the TV screen illuminating the room, you can see RD's skin faintly glistening with sweat, a testament to her excitement for showing off her most prized possession you know about so far to you. The indentations of her toned muscles on her arms are a reminder of how lucky the console controller is.

"I need something to drink. Be right back." RD rises to her feet and is opening her bedroom door within a couple of seconds.

Cool air from the hallway hits you, revealing just how much the room has heated up from the gaming console that is currently loudly hissing for mercy and threatening to catch in fire.

At least she doesn't directly break these things anymore.

Figuring you could go for some fresh air and something to drink as well, you follow your fit friend downstairs.

God, the air in the rest of her house feels so cool now, especially after descending the stairs and entering the kitchen where the open fridge makes you realize how much you've been sweating as well.

You watch the front of RD's throat swell to each gulp of orange juice rushing down her throat. Her bicep proudly swells as a symbol of all the times she's lifted weights for what you imagine must have been enjoyment at this point.

The heavy energy yet smoothness of Denial by Sevendust is stuck in your head after RD played it in her room like three times in victory. And despite its powerful energy, the song also serves as something to chill out to after hearing the turbulent roar of Supercell's engine nearly non-stop for over an hour and a half.

After you and RD are done chugging orange juice in the kitchen, you go back up and play the song once again, and it feels like a cooldown to a workout that happened without RD ever having to touch any of the weights she has lying on the floor in her room.

You'd usually be annoyed by this arrogant attitude of hers she carries with her even long after she won endless races against you, but you're just brushing it off now.

You figure you'd be most comfortable blowing up an air mattress and fetching a blanket from the hall closet for when you go to sleep, which should be soon considering how late it is.

You still decide against disrupting the vibe you got going on with RD, and refrain from asking any further questions about her phone.

Too tired, anyway...

In fact, you're getting ready to pass out right now.

"If you need another set of clothes tomorrow, I gotcha covered, bro. There's tons more old plain stuff in my closet my friends would barely remember me wearing anyway." RD hops into her bed.

"Thanks."

"I should warn you, though. We're going on another run tomorrow morning. Gotta get up super early for that." RD reaches over to the remote to turn the TV screen off as though it's a night light.

"Am I allowed to say no and not come with?" You gripe.

"You're allowed to be a wuss and not come with, if that's what you mean." RD gives you a look in the now pitch black room despite not being able to be seen.

"Well..."

"Look, dude. All I'm saying is don't blame me when you don't make any progress. I already said it all before, dude. If you still wanna chicken out because you're too weak, that's on you."

"Fine, I'll let you torture me tomorrow."

You can hear her nodding because of her hair audibly sliding against her pillow.

After that, there's a long silence in the dark. Your breathing has been silent once more for a while now, after calming down and unwinding after an intense night of gaming with your friend. Not doing much else but lose to her in a Need For Speed game.

If you didn't know any better, you'd have assumed you must have won against her at a racing game in the past during an instance you've long forgotten about, and this whole thing was revenge for that. But you're not so foolish.

You know RD well enough to know she's just showing off as she usually does. There's not much else to it other than that.

Though, it would have been nice if you could do a couple of other things like watch a movie, or at least play another game. But RD was insistent on showing you the full potential of her prized digital corvette in the Need For Speed game named Supercell. But you enjoyed watching RD spill her passion out like that regardless... it was quite entertaining, and you've grown quite accustomed to just letting her win against you. You... kinda like it.

"Hey, bro?"

"...Yeah?" You finally realize just how close to falling asleep you were before RD's voice pulled you back all the way awake.

"I just uh... I wanted to apologize again for your old game console back in the day."

"Oh..."

"It was a really good console, and I know I apologized before, but it didn't feel... complete."

"Well it's all good now either way."

"Yeah I know, dude. But like, I still kinda feel kinda bad about it. I don't feel like I addressed it the right way before. And tonight got me thinking about that again."

"I see. Well all is forgiven." You respond. "I promise."

"Thanks, bro. My console can be our console now. The controller that's still all the way good is yours."

"Thanks, RD. I appreciate it."

"Goodnight, bro."

"Goodnight." You half look forward to running tomorrow.

Author's Note

I liked the vibe MC and RD shared in this chapter so much that the upcoming confrontation is now next chapter, but it won't be pushed back any further than that, promise.