Golf Ball packed up her stuff and ran out of school. She pulled a spare 5 dollar bill she kept on her for emergencies as she walked away from where the buses were loaded to a dollar store down the street.

She walked in with her head down and quickly veered to the very back of the store, where they stored notebooks. She picked up a grey one, paid, and quickly left. If there were two things she hated, they were social interaction and the mundaneness of something like going to the dollar store. She just felt like they were so boring and unimportant for someone like her, who was without doubt one of the smartest kids the entire school-- hell, the entire country.

She arrived at her house to find a note from her parents:

Hope you had a good day at school. We're out on business for the next week. We trust that you can take care of yourself. We love you.

She crumpled up the note and threw it in the garbage as she walked into her house. They were always out on business. She was pretty sure she had raised herself more than they had ever raised her.

But it wasn't time to worry about that now. She could complain about her troubled childhood later. But for now, she had a machine to work on. Tennis Ball was coming over in 15 minutes, and she wanted at least SOMETHING to show to him when he arrived. She dropped her backpack near the front door and raced down the steps to her 'secret laboratory.' Since her parents were hardly ever home, she didn't need to worry about them ever finding it. They never stepped foot into the basement, making it the perfect setup for her experiment.

The second her foot left the last step, she felt that she was truly home. She glanced around at all of her homemade machines, the nest of wires that strung out across the ceiling like a spider web, the spare parts and tools scattered all over the floor and tables, the whiteboard full of equations and formulas.

She walked over to a table she had cleaned off. On it were some metal parts, a toolbox, and the concept art she had showed TB earlier. She slapped her notebook down on it as well, and began to work.

She lost herself in her thoughts so much she didn't even notice when someone started walking down her basement steps into her lab.

"Golf Ball?" a voice echoed through the basement.

Golf Ball jumped 3 feet into the air and tried not to scream.

"Who-- What-- w-who's there?" she called.

"Oh! Sorry if I startled you. It's just me," the voice replied, coming into view.

It was just Tennis Ball.

"Oh, hi TB. Come here, I'll show you what I've done so far."

Tennis Ball complied, standing next to Golf Ball as she excitedly told him what she'd done so far and what they still needed to do.

"You can look through my notes if you need anything," she finished, gesturing to the grey notebook.

Tennis Ball picked it up and flipped through. The first few pages were standard GB ramblings, her messy, big handwriting almost illegible. But after that, the rest of the pages were blank. It was probably a new book, TB guessed.

But as he continued to look through blank pages for some reason he couldn't really remember, he found something... strange. There was more writing in the notebook, towards the back, but neither the words nor the handwriting looked like Golf Ball's. Tennis Ball read it aloud.

"Congratulations to whoever found this, hah hah. You've found a piece of my puzzle. The next one can be found in a high place." Accompanied by the writing was a crude, hand made puzzle piece taped to the page.

"What?" Golf Ball asked, looking up at her friend.

"Did you write this?" Tennis Ball asked, showing her the book.

"No, did you?" GB shot back accusingly, tearing the book out of his hands and reading it over and over again, as if doing that would somehow reveal the answers she was looking for.

"No, I only got here like a minute ago, jeez." Tennis Ball said.

"Hm." Golf Ball carefully removed the puzzle piece and examined it. She couldn't make out what it was, only that it was a few different shades of blue. "Well, looks like we have a challenge on our hands."

"But, GB, what about the--"

"Yeah, I know, we're not gonna go looking for the next piece now. But it'll be a fun thing to do in our spare time, right?"

"I guess so. Sounds fun."

"Exactly!" Golf Ball walked over to a different, cleared off table and put the piece down in the middle. "This is where we'll keep all of the pieces."

--

The two worked long into the night, having to redo their work a few times. After they had the rough machinery worked out, Golf Ball looked up at her clock, only to see that it was almost 1 in the morning.

"Oh, shit," GB murmured. "Don't your parents care that you're here late?"

"They're out tonight." TB replied.

"Do you wanna sleep over? My parents are out too, and sometimes it gets lonely by myself."

"Are you sure you're not scaaaaared?" TB teased, nudging her.

"No! I never believed in all that bullshit." GB crossed her arms defensively.

"Ok, then, let's have a contest. I'm going to try to make you scared."

"Have fun with that,"

With that, the two walked upstairs.

"We're having a movie marathon, loser. Get the popcorn," Tennis Ball called to her as he plopped down onto the couch.

"Sure," Golf Ball replied as she walked into the kitchen.

When GB had walked out, giant bowl of popcorn in hand, she saw TB frantically writing a long list of movies.

"Jesus," she said, sitting down next to him. "I didn't know you were so into horror movies."

Tennis Ball shrugged. "I don't know, man, they're fun to watch."

"I'll be the judge of that,"

She was the judge of a lot more than that. As they went through a long queue of shitty slashers, she made sure to point out every discrepancy in the plot, every dumb moment, and every shitty, CG animated kill.

"Oh, fuck off, did you really think fucking in the woods at 3 A.M. was a good idea, dipshit?" she angrily called. "Why's that even a trope in all these movies, anyway? Who the hell actually does that? Is this, like, a common thing? You're LITERALLY begging to get chainsawed in half."

Tennis Ball snorted.

"That wouldn't even be comfortable!" she continued, too far into her angry rant to stop. "You're sitting on the ground! There's probably bugs everywhere! You fucking deserve to get killed!" she finished with an over dramatic scream as she banged her legs on the couch.

"I've never met anyone this passionate over stupid horror movie tropes," Tennis Ball remarked, stealing the popcorn from out of her lap.

"Your goal was to scare me but instead I'm just mad." she huffed, slouching and crossing her arms.

Tennis Ball's mind suddenly flashed back to the strange puzzle they had discovered earlier. He wondered what it was about? Who had set it up? He stared down into the popcorn as he thought.

"Hey, TB? You okay?" GB asked, her voice in unison with a loud scream from the TV.

"Oh! Yeah. I'm fine."

"...Alright. Let's keep watching."

--

(( this was rly fun to write. i feel like the friendship between tb and gb isnt explored too much without them being in a romantic relationship, and i want to highlight the platonic parts of their relationship. so dont expect any tengolf from this book lol

comments and critique are appreciated!! ))