Chương 64: Chapter 42: The Graduate

The graduation banners overhead were a mark of celebration, and also a stark reminder: today, the seniors would be receiving their diploma's and leaving the island. It marked the end of their tenure as students, and for Leanne, the end of her time as a looper. While Vell and the other underclassmen loopers still had a few days to go, this was Leanne's final loop. They had gathered in their recently-acquired lair to mark the occasion -though Leanne had priorities other than sentimental conversation.

She was seizing what little time she had left in the consequence-free day by shoving her face full of a cinnamon roll. And then a blueberry scone. And then a chocolate chip pancake.

"So, I had a thought," Leanne said. Lee wanted to chide her for talking with her mouth full, but as Leanne was operating on very limited time, she let it slide.

"I've been trying to make the most of my last few hours in all this insanity, and I've realized something. In all these years there's something I should've done. A risk I should've taken." She paused dramatically, which her friends took as her seeking their input.

"Uh... dying your hair?" Vell posited.

"No," Leanne said.

"Getting laid?" Harley guessed. Lee slapped her gently.

"No," Leanne said, with a slightly longer delay.

"Getting a tattoo?"

"Again, no," Leanne said.

"Getting revenge!"

"Oh," Harley said.

"On Elijah?"

"No!" Leanne protested.

"Well, maybe, if I have time. After we deal with them!" Leanne put her fork down and pointed emphatically towards the far wall, where Harley had hung a dart board and attached a picture of the Marine Biology department building. With her other hand, Leanne made a fist and pounded it down on the table, nearly splintering the cheap wooden surface.

"Over the past four years I have been eaten by giant fish, killed by anthropomorphic sea creatures, or devolved into some kind of primordial amphibious human ancestor more times than I can count," Leanne rumbled.

"I want revenge."

"Cool," Harley said.

"I've still got that gun that turns people inside out if you want to-""No," Leanne interjected.

"No. Just- just stop trying to guess what I want to do. I just want it to be a prank, you know, shock them a bit. No turning anyone inside out."

"Okay, that's cool too. We got plenty of spooky stuff in reserves," Harley said.

"Vell, you go through your rune horde, Lee, peruse your spells, I'm going to consult with Freddy and the bitches to see what kind of tech we've got lying around. Leanne, you just keep chilling and doing whatever." Leanne gave a thumbs up and continued eating her smorgasbord of last-minute carbs. Harley sprinted off, eager to exact revenge on her longtime adversaries, while Lee and Vell trundled off to their own tasks.

"Alright Frederick Froiland Frizzle, what've you got for us?" Harley put her hands on her hips and examined Freddy's strange device -and several dozen empty cans of shaving cream. He had promised them one of the best prank opportunities they'd ever seen, and Harley had assembled the looper crew to seize that opportunity.

"I call this the cream bomb," Freddy said.

"Nope," Lee insisted. She put a hand over Harley's mouth to silence the innuendo she could already see forming.

"Yeah, not going with that," Leanne said.

"New name."

"The, uh, shaving foam... bomb, then," Freddy said. Lee nodded in approval of the new name, and Freddy moved forward with his explanation.

"Basically, I've just used a matter supercondenser to put a whole bunch of shaving cream into this tiny sphere." He gestured to a small white orb suspended on a metal rack. He invited Leanne to lift it, so long as she was careful, and did so. While the weight was nothing she couldn't handle, she was surprised that such a small object could weigh so much. She had to hold the small orb in both hands to avoid dropping it.

"Yeah, there's a lot of stuff packed into the tiny sphere," Freddy boasted.

"Enough to flood the average mid-sized building."

"It's perfect," Leanne said.

"But how do we un-condense it?"

"It's packed around a nanobot that disrupts the compression field," Freddy explained. He handed Vell a remote.

"Activating this will cause it to burst. Or, in an emergency, you can just throw it really hard."

"Radical," Harley said.

"Do you just have the one, or…?"

"Just one," Freddy said.

"But trust me. It'll be more than you need."

"Secondary question," Vell said.

"Is it safe? People aren't going to like, drown in foam, are they?"

"It's non-toxic and water-soluble," Freddy assured him.

"They'll be fine."

"Well, I'm on board, then," Vell said.

"Everybody else good to go?"

"I'm good," Harley said, as everyone else agreed. Resolving to repay Freddy for his services on a day he would actually remember, the loopers headed for their next target.

"Do we want to swing by the lair and plan our next move?" Lee said.

"Or shall we simply improvise?"

"I kind of want to use the lair as much as possible," Leanne said.

"I'm still mad we had that thing the whole time and Naomi kept it hidden."

"As tempting as the idea of a private bone zone is, that was a dick move," Harley said.

"But also, we should just get this prank done as fast as possible. If we delay too long we run the risk of-" The island lurched under their feet as the ocean roiled.

"-that," Harley concluded. Leanne sighed and headed for the beach. The sea was beginning to churn with dozens of large, serpentine forms. Lee shook her head at the sight.

"The Bakunawa again?" she sighed. This was not the first time the Marine Biologists had accidentally drawn the ire of the moon-eating serpents.

"Good lord. At least it's something we know how to handle."

"Fine, let me find some place to put this down and-""Oh no, you're delivering that fucking cream bomb," Harley said to Leanne.

"Vell, you got the remote? Good. Go with her and blow up the Marine Biology department's whole shit."

"Indeed," Lee said, drawing her whip from her purse.

"We handled these the last time they were summoned, we'll handle them again."

"I was punching them last time," Leanne protested.

"Yes, but, we'll have to get used to doing things without you and your muscles regardless," Lee said.

"Might as well start now."

"Yeah, we can kick decent amounts of ass on our own," Harley said. With that, she gave a rousing battle cry and charged straight for the ocean. Lee, caught off guard by the sudden charge, sprinted after her as fast as her skirt would allow. Harley hopped on the back of the Bakunawa nearest the shore and started kicking it in the spine, as Lee tried to use hydromancy to keep the beasts away from the island.

"They should be fine," Vell said, as much to convince himself as Leanne.

"And those fishfuckers deserve this bomb that much more now," Leanne said. She continued on her path to the lab.

"Can't believe they caused the same apocalypse twice in two years, who even does that?" With the aquatic battle behind them, Leanne and Vell headed for the lab and forced their way in. The Marine Biologists did not seem to be aware of the battle going on outside, despite the fact that bestial screaming and the sounds of combat could be heard from the lab.

"Hey, guys," Vell said.

"Anything interesting going on?" The researchers, who were all crowded around a machine that seemed to be agitating the fish in the tanks -and the Bakunawa outside- and were taking notes. They briefly looked up from their research to glare coldly at Vell before returning to their work. Outside, Harley screamed, and a Bakunawa roared loudly in pain.

"Do you think your machine has maybe possibly suffered a slight error?" Leanne asked.

"Don't be ridiculous," Michael Watkins said. One of the nearby windows shattered as a Bakunawa's head crashed through, and was just as quickly lassoed back outside by Lee's whip.

"I'm sure that's entirely unrelated," Michael huffed.

"Right." Leanne said. Their obstinate refusal to believe that their experiment was failing had one upside, at least. Nobody paid any attention to Leanne as she carefully lowered the compressed shaving cream bomb towards the floor. As soon as it was in place, she grabbed Vell by the arm and backed out of the room slowly. Once they were out the door, she broke into a full sprint, as did Vell.

"Should I hit it now?"

"Not yet," Leanne said. She waited until they were outside, then turned to face the lab.

"Okay, now do it."

"Should we step back a bit?"

"Nah, I want to be close enough to see it," Leanne said.

"And, of course, to hear them scream."

"If you say so," Vell said. He took the remote in hand and hit the button. Thirty seconds later, he peeled himself off the wall of a nearby building and brushed the shaving cream away from his eyes. It took him a few more seconds of flailing to brush aside enough of the foam for him to see anything.

"Leanne?" A muffled "yeah?" came from the foam somewhere to the left of him, so Vell started trudging in that direction. Cutting his way through shoulder-high foam that packed around him like snow in a blizzard, Vell eventually found his way to Leanne's perch in a tree branch. She was coated in foam from head to toe, but had a smile on her face as she observed the snow-white carnage. She helped Vell to her tree branch and let him enjoy the view as well.

Ivory torrents of shaving cream had burst forth from every crack and seam in the Marine Biology building, and were still pouring out from every available opening. The torrent of shaving cream had even extended outwards towards the coast, chasing off the attacking Bakunawa. Ripples in the center of the ocean of foam proved that the unfortunate marine biologists caught up in their prank were still struggling to free themselves from the inescapable flood.

Leanne and Vell had a good laugh about that until the first foam-covered arm poked it's way out of the snowy mass.

"Oh we should run," Leanne said.

"I'm not spending my last day getting yelled at by these fishy losers." Vell hopped down from the tree and helped Leanne dismount in turn. Unable to actually see the terrain, they had to use the rooftops of nearby buildings to navigate. They could tell they were closer to senior dorms, so they headed for Leanne's room to get cleaned up.

"I can just hose myself off with the shower real quick," Vell suggested.

"Rather walk back to my dorm dripping wet than covered in this stuff, at least."

"Come on, Vell, you can borrow some of my workout gear, at least," Leanne suggested.

"Sweatpants are pretty unisex."

"I guess." Leanne kicked open the room of her dorm, showering little puffs of shaving cream into the doorway. She beckoned Vell further in and offered him a chair in the kitchen area.

"I'm hopping in first, since, you know, it's my shower," Leanne said.

"Stay here. Feel free to help yourself to whatever." Leanne vanished into the bathroom and left Vell to sit awkwardly in the kitchen for a few minutes. He washed the foam off his hands in case he wanted to touch anything, and then decided he was too nervous to touch anything. He kept his hands on his foam-covered lap and looked around the room. This tale has been unlawfully obtained from Royal Road. If you discover it on Amazon, kindly report it.

Everything was half-packed, with most of Leanne's belongings packed into cardboard boxes. Only the essentials -and Roxy's guitar- were still sitting out in the open. He wondered what this room might've looked like a few weeks, or even days ago, when Leanne's belongings were out and on display. He'd never gotten the chance to see Leanne's dorm in it's prime. And he never would. It was hard to feel somber when covered head to toe in shaving cream, but Vell managed. At least until Leanne stepped out of the bathroom.

"Hey, sorry for the wait," she said.

"I got foam in my ear and it was this whole- nevermind. Let me grab you some clothes." She dug around in her various boxes for some relatively masculine clothes (not difficult, considering she was pretty square-shouldered herself) and handed them off the Vell for him to clean up. As he bashfully retreated to her shower, Leanne took a look at her kitchen. She brushed a few traces of foam off the seat and noticed there was no shaving cream anywhere else in her kitchen. Vell had been too scared to touch anything.

In some ways, she knew that was just Vell's nature, but in other ways, she knew it was down to her. When they hung out, Lee and Harley practically treated Vell's dorm like a second home. They knew where everything was, and felt comfortable going wherever they wanted. They felt welcome in his room. Leanne had never let anyone else feel welcome. Not until it was too late. She dug around in her fridge and took out a bottle of ale she had left over. She had tried ale for the first time the other day, as an experiment.

It turned out she didn't like ale, and now she had useless bottles sitting in her fridge. She glanced away from the frosty bottle, at the clock. Assuming Lee and Harley (and the tidal wave of shaving cream) had driven off today's apocalypse, she had until midnight to experiment. Seven hours. Leanne looked back at the bottle of ale. Bitter and tasteless, like most of the other kinds of alcohol she tried. It occurred to her that she'd been experimenting in the wrong ways.

Trying new things for the sake of trying them was interesting, at least, but it wasn't enriching. She'd never break barriers just trying new things -she had to try something she'd always been too scared to try. Including, maybe, something she'd been so afraid of it had hurt her relationships.

"Thanks for that," Vell said, as he emerged from the bathroom. He seemed uncomfortable in Leanne's clothes, but mostly for psychological reasons. They actually fit him very well.

"Any time," Leanne said.

"Technically I still owe you a shower. Between that nanobot vomit from your second day and the dragon-vomit-""Don't make me think about that," Vell pleaded.

"Please."

"Understandable, moving on," Leanne said.

"You want an ale? I bought a bunch thinking I'd like it, but I don't, but I also don't really want to throw it away."

"I'm not much for ale either, no," Vell said. He took a look at Leanne clinging to the closed bottle. Something about her posture seemed off. He sat down in the same seat as before, mercifully free of shaving cream this time.

"Is everything alright, Leanne?"

"Sort of yes, sort of no," Leanne admitted.

"I'll be fine, I'm just thinking... about how much more I could've done." After a quick glance at the clock, Vell nodded. The ever-encroaching end of the year was making him think about what he had and hadn't accomplished this year. He could only imagine it was worse for Leanne, who was nearing the definitive end of her tenure, having spent nearly three years of it stubbornly refusing to seize the opportunities available.

"Well, it's not like you're out of time," Vell said, gesturing at the clock.

"Let's do something else." Leanne looked up from her bottle-based reverie, and stared at Vell for a few seconds. Then, for reasons incomprehensible to Vell, she started to go red in the face.

"There is one thing I kind of feel like I should try," Leanne mumbled.

"Alright then. You name it, let's do it."

"Right. Yeah. Do you remember earlier, when you guys were guessing what I wanted to do?" It took Vell a second, but he did recall.

"Oh, yeah. Sure," Vell started.

"I still have the spell to change hair color lying around somewhere, I think. I can probably grab it real quick." Leanne leaned forward and put her face in her hands, sighing heavily.

"Not your suggestion," she said.

"Harley's." While Leanne hid her own red face behind her palms, Vell started to shift redder as well.

"Oh. Uh. I assume you mean, uh, now, and, uh, with…me?"

"It doesn't have to be now," Leanne mumbled.

"But... yes. You." Vell scratched a nonexistent itch on the back of his neck, just for an excuse to do something with his hands.

"I'm, uh, not- I'm on board, I guess," Vell stammered.

"If you're sure."

"I'm not sure," Leanne said, removing her face from behind her hands. After a deep breath, the bashful blush faded from her cheeks.

"But I think that's all the more reason I should do it." The mental math didn't exactly add up to Vell. Luckily, Leanne explained herself further.

"I'm not going to get another chance to try... this completely safely," Leanne said.

"And... I'm probably not going to meet many other guys I trust as much as you. I'm nervous, but I don't think I'm ever going to be less nervous than I am right now."

"This, uh, isn't really something you should do if you're in a grey area, Leanne," Vell said.

"You want to be sure, and I want you to be completely certain-""I am. I'm... certain I'm uncertain, I don't know," Leanne said.

"Maybe it's the right decision, and everything will be fun and great, and I'll overcome everything I've been afraid of all this time, or maybe it's a mistake, and I'll live and learn. I don't want to miss my chance with you -with this." The self-correction came a second too late. Vell tilted his head and looked at Leanne. She nodded back at him. Neither of them moved. It took a few seconds before Leanne spoke up.

"So... how do we start?"

"You know, I'm not sure," Vell said.

"For me it's usually the chick that takes the lead."

"You got a thing for dominant women, huh?'

"It certainly seems that way," Vell said. He glanced sideways at Leanne's smug smile.

"Don't look at me like that. I like what I like."

"I'm not judging," Leanne said.

"I just had an idea."

"And what's that-" Vell never got to finish that sentence as Leanne stood up, grabbed him around the waist, and started carrying him under her arm, towards the bedroom. Vell did not complain. Leanne laid on her back and stared up at the ceiling for a moment, breathing deeply.

"So…" Vell began.

"How-""Interesting," Leanne spat.

"It was very... interesting. Good interesting! You are... good at that. I presume. Don't really have a point of comparison."

"I like to think I know what I'm doing," Vell said.

"Admittedly, Harley did a lot of coaching."

"Hmm. Well. She would know," Leanne said.

"Maybe I should've listened to her sooner."

"There's nothing wrong with taking things at your own pace," Vell insisted.

"You decided when you were ready. That's alright."

"Of course you'd say that," Leanne sighed. She tapped her fingertips on her bare abdomen. Vell tried not to stare. She didn't elaborate any further, instead choosing to change the subject. She shifted and rested on one elbow, facing Vell.

"Now what?"

"In general, or with sex specifically?" Vell asked.

"Because for the second, we're pretty much done. Now comes the part where I clean up -again- and then make the 'walk of shame' back to my dorm."

"What's so shameful about it?" Leanne asked.

"You had sex. It should be the walk of pride."

"I agree, but the term is what it is," Vell said. He stood up and grabbed his borrowed clothes.

"The fact I'll be wearing your clothes back to my dorm will make it slightly worse, though."

"Makes sense."

"And hey, we'll be even on showers now," Vell said.

"Then my evil plan worked," Leanne said. She leaned back to relax in her bed.

"That's right, Vell Harlan, I only slept with you to repay my shower debt."

"You are truly an evil mastermind," Vell said. Then he hopped in the shower for a quick rinse of both his body and his brain. He didn't quite know how to parse what he'd just done with Leanne. It felt wrong to call it casual, but neither was it necessarily intimate -at least not 'intimate' in the way sex usually was. He'd acted out of lust with Harley, and out of love -at least at the time- with Joan, but his relationship with Leanne felt lost somewhere in the middle.

Because it wasn't really a relationship at all, Vell concluded. Just a desperate grasp at something that could've been a relationship, in some other world. He dried off and dressed himself and stepped out. Leanne, who was now dressed as well, had a look on her face that told Vell she shared in his relative uncertainty. They made an unspoken agreement not to address it as they walked towards the door together. She stopped in the doorway and leaned on the frame.

"Bit weird, huh?"

"A little bit," Vell admitted.

"It's confusing... but, I've sort of been confused by things since I started at this school," Leanne said.

"Might as well be confused about something I like."

"Yeah. Good way to look at it."

"Thanks for everything, Vell," Leanne said. She stepped forward and gave him a kiss on the forehead. She pulled away, paused thoughtfully -and then turned left, to the sound of something hitting the floor. Elijah Delaney stood frozen in the hall, gawking at Vell, wearing Leanne's clothes, and at Leanne herself, half-dressed and disheveled. The look of shock on his face said he had drawn the obvious -and correct- conclusion.

Leanne's ex picked his jaw off the floor and struggled to avoid eye contact as he picked up his book and quickly ducked into his dorm. Leanne gave him a wicked smile as he ran away.

"Did you plan that?" Vell asked.

"No, but I'm very glad it happened." The last loop had come (in more ways than one) and gone. Leanne woke up on her second last day of school and finished packing all her half-packed boxes. She took a long look at the scuffed-up guitar she'd been gifted by Roxy before packing it away with as much bubble wrap and packing peanuts as she could find, to ensure it's safety. When the packing was done, Leanne stepped outside, facing the day again.

She weaved her way among the halls and the busy students, going through the motions of a day she'd lived before -and would never live again. The only unpredictable elements proved to be the most predictable, and she found the other loopers right where she'd found them last time, at their usual breakfast table. She gave a slight nod to Vell and tried to act casual.

"Hello dear," Lee began.

"How are you feeling?"

"Just fine, thanks," Leanne said.

"How'd you guys handle the Bakunawa?"

"I got eaten," Harley said.

"And not the good kind of eaten." She looked to Vell, expecting a slight sign of amusement, and found only stiff silence. Harley's eyes narrowed. Something was amiss.

"The massive amount of shaving foam chased most of them off, and I did the rest. Though by the time I got back your handiwork and been mostly hosed away," Lee said.

"I trust the prank went well?"

"Yes, very good," Vell said. He had noticed Harley staring at him, and he wasn't handling the pressure well.

"Very exciting. You really should've been there."

"I wish I could have," Lee said.

"I'm sure it was a fitting climax to Leanne's tenure here." Leanne's eye twitched at the word "climax", and Harley's eyes darted to her. As Lee continued talking about the end of the year, and other myriad topics, Harley's eyes darted back and forth, her piercing gaze burrowing deeper and deeper into the very souls of her targets. The two targets of her scrutiny tried their best to act casual. It did not work. Harley slammed her palms down flat on the table.

"Oh my god you two fucked," she said. She managed to restrain herself to a hoarse whisper, to avoid any other breakfast-goers overhearing. In response to her accusation, Leanne stood up and immediately left the room, jogging away at a brisk pace. Harley took that as confirmation of her theory and put her hands over her mouth to muffle her shriek of delight, as Vell tried his hardest to turn invisible.

He actually pulled out his phone and prepared to summon a rune that could do just that, but Harley got to him first.

"Oh my god! How was- Wait, no, no, stop," Harley said, more to herself than Vell. She purposefully drew herself back.

"I am respecting your privacy, I am being chill about this, I am- I'm going to take a cold shower and get this out of my system, is what I'm doing." Harley stood up and waved goodbye to her friends before giving Vell two-thumbs up. He sighed and put his head in his hands. As such, it took him a few seconds to see Lee glaring at him.

"What?"

"Harley and Leanne?" Lee said, stressing the 'and' to an absurd degree.

"Really?"

"What? They asked me," Vell protested.

"I didn't start any of this."

"Leanne? Asked you?"

"Why are you acting surprised? Am I not attractive?"

"I'm a lesbian, I'd have no way of knowing," Lee said.

"It's more about Leanne asking anyone than Leanne asking you."

"Well, I was surprised too, but she asked, and I answered," Vell said.

"What are friends for?" Lee looked around curiously.

"Not to have casual sex with, usually?"

"Why don't you tell Harley that?" Vell said.

"Touche." Leanne looked at the diploma in her hands. It felt like a scrap of paper. She had been expecting something, anything, to happen when they handed it to her. When they brought an end to her time as a student, and her time in the loops. There should have been a thunderclap, a cosmic surge of energy through her body, some sort of shift in the universe to signify the end of her career as a looper. There should've been something, anything.

Instead they just handed Leanne a scrap of paper and sent her on her way. So many years of so much chaos, anger, confusion, and noise, and the ending was as quiet as a whisper. The sense of cosmic finality Leanne had been expecting came eventually, when she stepped onto the docks, with her bags over her shoulders, facing the ferry. She stood facing her final exit for what felt like hours. But then, she'd had a very strange relationship with time these past four years.

"You alright, Leanne?" Harley's voice finally shook her out of her stupor. The three other loopers -the only loopers, now- had come to see her off.

"Yeah, I'm good," she lied.

"Just feeling a bit weird."

"I know you've probably heard this a dozen times now, but it really isn't going to be the same without you," Harley said.

"I know we, and I especially, weren't always easy to put up with, but thanks for putting in the effort." The unusual display of sincerity between Harley and Leanne gave Vell some hope he could finally get clarity on what their relationship really was. Their adversarial banter always tread a thin line between friendly and hostile, and Vell had never been bold enough to ask for clarification.

"Well thanks, Harley," Leanne said.

"That's almost sweet enough to make me actually miss you."

"Ah, we both know you won't," Harley said. While that almost settled Vell's question, Harley suddenly jumped up and grabbed Leanne in a tight hug, which Leanne enthusiastically returned -until suddenly releasing her grip on Harley and letting her fall to the ground. Vell sighed and resolved himself to never understand their friendship as Leanne moved on to Lee.

"Lee. Keep these two in line, you hear me?"

"You know that is quite impossible," Lee said.

"But I will try to ensure they keep all their limbs, at least."

"I suppose that's the best I can hope for," Leanne said. She shrugged and put a hand on Lee's head to tussle her hair.

"Don't worry about a thing, Lee. With you in charge, everything's going to turn out all right." Lee accepted the compliment with a blush, and curtsied awkwardly as Leanne stepped aside.

"Vell."

"Leanne."

"I really... really, wish you'd been around a few years ago," Leanne said.

"We could've-" She paused, hesitating as she carefully chose her next words. Harley looked on expectantly from the sidelines, until Lee elbowed her.

"We could've used someone like you back then," Leanne said.

"But we had the time we had, and I can't say I made the most of it, but... we did pretty good." She extended a hand, palm up, in Vell's direction. He took it and gave it one quick shake.

"We did," he agreed. Vell and Leanne could've been a lot of different things, in different circumstances, but they had no control over their circumstances. They were friends, and that was enough for both of them. Leanne ended the stiff handshake and gave Vell a light punch in the shoulder.

"See you around, kids," she said.

"Behave yourselves." Leanne shouldered her bag again and walked down the dock, boarding the ferry just in time for it to take off. The loopers stood for a while to watch it fade across the horizon.

"Well," Vell said.

"Guess that's it for the Lee trinity."

"The what?"

"Lee trinity. Because you all, uh, have a -lee sound in your name," Vell said. He held up three fingers.

"Lee, Leanne, Harley. Three -lee's."

"Huh," Harley said. She put a hand on her chin and repeated herself.

"Huh!"

"Were you just now noticing that?" Lee questioned.

"I'm allowed to be stupid sometimes," Harley snapped.