Slumber Party (Class 1-C)

After his rather wild outing with the QED, Darren was finally out of the infirmary. He was handling the withdrawal better than most, on account of having a couple small bottles of water left in his room. Melody had ruined his gallon jug, but he didn’t care much, as he had no idea how to hide it anyway. In total, he had three 300ml bottles left. He put one in his sports bag, now filled with jogging pants and a randomly picked t-shirt, as well as the general mess of mouthguards, boxing wraps and assorted crap he was too lazy to clean out. At the bottom was even a plastic and foam nunchaku.

He was on his way to a slumber party before he turned round on his feet and headed towards the infirmary. A clever director would then show a few seconds of Darren texting while walking, his doing so only revealed by his turning around. He’d take a very small swig out of a 300ml bottle on the way.

It would then cut to the infirmary, showing Darren pop through the door, entering rather unceremoniously in the girl’s part of the infirmary. He had license to do so and was applying it freely, whistling Don’t Stop Me Now as he strolled through the normally forbidden to anyone with a Y chromosome room. His license was that he had to pick up the Melody in question.

He had put his bottle back in his bag.

“Come on, Evian Girl, here we go,” he said, offering a helping hand and shoulder. Of course, Darren was still Darren, even when he was being halfway nice. “Gotta toughen up, Evian Girl. You won’t always have a Darren handy to carry you everywhere,” he added with a smile that wanted to be cocky, and succeeded enough that you could call it cocky, but failing just enough to still look idiotic.

He had a talent to annoy the Cuban chick. Darren had a talent to annoy people in general. He had it down to not only an art form, but an art form in which he could be considered a master. At least, he liked to think so.

As soon as the blue-haired cuban chick -- ignore the strange otherworldliness of this statement -- would grab onto the helpful arm that the blondie liked to describe as firm, well-defined, and a couple other self-aggrandizing adjectives, he’d get going.

Darren usually wasn’t a stickler for punctuality, quite the opposite in fact, but there were so many things he was extremely curious about. Yumi’s pajamas, or possible -- probable, he hoped -- lack thereof. That new baseball dude. Whatever the fuck Aki would be wearing. It promised to be fun, he told himself, and couldn't help but think of the bottle nestled in his sports bag.

He had planned to just help Melody walk, but somehow it had ended in a piggyback ride. Which was a not unnice feeling on his back, but still made him feel kind of like a medieval slave. He got in equal part jealous an incredulous looks on the way here, especially when the Cuban girl pinched his neck and yelled at him.

“OW OW OW THEN DONT COME IN MY ROOM STEAL MY SHIT IN THE FIRST PLACE!” he screamed back. That’s when the pair got most of the incredulous looks.

And then she was nice again. “If you keep running hot and cold like that, I’m changing your nickname to tap water.”

When they arrived, there were a few people already here, including boyo and Yumi. The redhead with the big personalities looked at him with a look and a smile that made him feel like he was about to be exploited again, and she gave a bottle of water to Melody. He glanced at it. Bottles of water had a menacing aura these days to UA students. Yumi was in her pajamas. It didn’t surprise Darren in the slightest.

But when he and probably everyone else though Melody was about to down it bottoms up, she did down it bottom’ up but not on top of her open mouth as was the usually accepted practice for downing a bottle of water, instead opting to empty it on top of her head. The water ran down her body and of course, down on Darren's clothes as well. His back was just as wet as Melody had gotten herself, but he didn’t have the convenient ability to absorb water himself.

“THAT’S IT! OFF MY BACK!” he shouted, matching Kirk’s normal speaking volume that was about to come and forcing the Cuban off her back. He was, quite understandably for once, visibly annoyed. “You’re lucky we’re changing in two seconds anyway,” he grumbled.

Kirk Buster then made his loud appearance. Darren smiled forcibly. He was good at reading people. He knew loud boister covering insecurity when he saw it. “Yo,” he said. “I’m Darren.”

Others came. Naoru was here. He always seemed like a fish out of water to Darren. Maybe it was because he was wearing a button up shirt and gloves to a sleepover. Darren wondered if that was how he slept. Somehow, that made sense to the blonde idiot.

Some ginger kid with headphones and a Nirvana t-shirt showed up. This earned him a thumbs up from Darren.

There was a shy if tastefully-dressed girl who had to be invited in by Alex. Darren wasn’t bothering with this guy’s full name. People didn’t have time for names as long as ‘Alexander’. Alex looked the picture of the confident American.

Then, their best girl class president leads them to the room. He didn’t know what kind of hotel offered slumber parties. Apparently, ones that Melody paid for. Damn, he thought, now I can’t complain about the water.

He claimed first shot at the shower just to use the towel to dry himself. While inside the bathroom, he took another swig of his 300ml bottle. He came out of the room in his grey fleece jogging pants that he used as laze around pants that can double as pajamas and acceptable pants for getting snacks at the store -- very useful pants indeed. His torso was covered by a black t-shirt with the red tongue Rolling Stone logo proudly printed in the middle. His eyes were sparkling a little.

He came out of the bathroom to the sight of Aki jumping up and down on a bed in red see-through pajamas and red underwear. He shouted: “Prez? What the fuck did you give Aki to wear?”

He didn’t have to think about it. His instincts knew that Yumi had something to do with it somehow.

He then heard somebody mention videogames, and he unconsciously activated his quirk to slide into the other room, carrying himself in the most natural way while moving in the most outlandish one, his feet sliding on the ground without his legs moving, which was usually a prerequisite.

“You have Supersonic Acrobatic Rocket-Powered Soccer Cars?” he said with a smile that was frankly too happy. “I’ll kick your ass at Supersonic Acrobatic Rocket-Powered Soccer Cars,” he said, almost giddy. He hoped with all his heart at least one person in the room knew how to play it.

No one fucking played Supersonic Acrobatic Rocket-Powered Soccer Cars in Japan, to Darren’s great misery.