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It was morning. Mask knew that. The view of the insides of his own eyelids had become much brighter, and his body was just giving them general signs that he needed to get up. One being just the fact that they couldn’t get to sleep, and the other being the fact that he was feeling stuffy.
Every summer night, Mask would take off his signature gas mask, put it away, take some anti-congestant or allergy medicine or both and go to sleep. Every morning, they would get up, put their mask back on, and get started with his day. But this morning, that didn’t happen.
Mask trudged himself out of bed, not seeing any real reason to get up other than the previous signs. He walked into his kitchen like a zombie, preparing to eat some cereal, grab his mask and then stay inside playing video games all day. It was the weekend, after all, and there wasn’t really anything they needed to do today.
But when Mask had finished scarfing down a bowl of Cheerios and mindlessly reached to the table where he put his gas mask every night, their hand was only met with cold wood. Confused, Mask turned to the table. Sure enough, there was nothing on it except for a stack of magazines.
Uh oh.
The inkling frantically ran around his apartment, checking every place he could have put it. The bedside table, the closet, by the tv, in between the couch cushions, but no luck. Everywhere they looked there was only dust, clutter, and tissues. He really needed to clean up around here, didn’t they?
They started feeling bad, not like ‘I can’t breathe’ bad, but still ‘I’m very uncomfortable’ bad. Maybe he had just worn the mask for so long that his body was just used to having it on and was giving them an ‘I told you so’ for losing it. But they never wore it at night, so that theory didn’t really make any sense either…
But that was besides the point. The point was, his nose was clogged and he was still tired and he couldn’t find his gas mask anywhere. They usually kept some regular spare sick masks in case it was really early or late and they needed to duck out. But it seemed Mask had used them all up and had forgotten to buy more. That was probably what the ‘sick masks!’ note on the fridge meant.
Well, there wasn’t really much Mask could do now. He would have to pull themselves out of the house and to a store to buy more sick masks until he found his. But they were really starting to feel gross, and besides, the inkling was still tired from staying up so late last night.
Ahah! Their phone! It lay off on Mask’s bedside table, silent. (His teammates knew they didn’t like getting constant texts.) They would just call Full Moon, ask her to run to the store and grab some masks for him, and they wouldn’t even have to do anything!
Mask opened up his phone, greeted by the wallpaper of them and Bobble Hat at the mall last weekend. Bobble had pulled him in for a selfie before they would say no, then later texted it to him accompanied by a bunch of smiling emojis. It was stupid, but they had set it as their wallpaper, so he didn’t really have anything to say on the matter.
Mask scrolled through his contacts list, stopping at the FUs (of which there were not many) and calling Full Moon. After a few seconds of ringing, somebody picked up the phone. But the voice that answered him certainly wasn’t Full Moon’s.
“Yo, Mask!” Aloha’s peppy voice immediately caused Mask’s ears to flatten in annoyance. Had they called the wrong number? Last time they checked, Aloha was labeled as ‘Fuckboy’ in his phone, so it was very well possible.
“You never call me, so I’m guessing this is important or you called me by accident.” In the background, there was the faint sound of laughing and things bumping against each other. Guess Team Pink was going out.
“Both, actually,” Mask answered, rubbing the space between their brows. He could probably just hang up, but if Aloha and his team were out shopping, he could be of help. “I lost my gas mask.”
After a shriek that turned into multiple people’s laughs, Aloha got back to the phone, the traces of giggling still in his voice. “Ohh, and your wheat virus or whatever is acting up? What, you want me to buy you a new one?”
“Yeah, thanks,” Mask answered, not bothering to correct Aloha and instead just hanging up. By the sound of it, Team Pink would probably be out for a while, so Mask couldn’t count on relief anytime soon.
Wait, relief!
Why hadn’t he thought of it sooner? Mask bolted upright from where he was sitting on their bed and rushed into the bathroom, swinging open the medicine cabinet with more energy than he had used for the past couple days. They practically wrangled the anti-congestant open and gulped it down, sighing in relief. That should last them the next couple hours, but maybe an allergy pill would be good too.
For the next few hours, Mask lounged around his apartment. Nothing much happened, just a lot of staring at a screen mindlessly, but they did find a bag of barbeque potato chips in the cupboard, so that was good. He could probably do another round of looking for his mask, but they figured they could probably just rope Aloha into it when he came over.
It was around 1:30 when his doorbell rang. Could that be Aloha? It had only been two hours, so it was unlikely, but still possible. Mask wasn’t usually one for visitors, or any company at all, really, but they were still excited to see who it was.
Standing at the door, her same huge grin on her face, was Bobble Hat. When he opened the door, she seemed to jump back in surprise. This was probably the first time she had seen them without the signature gas mask. But how could she see if her eyes were always closed…?
“Hi Mask!” Bobble exclaimed, giving him a friendly wave. “Mind if I come over for a little bit?” Bobble liked to stop by unannounced, and Mask would always let her in, even if it was against their better judgement. She was fun to hang out with, and always had something to say even if Mask didn’t.
Mask opened the door, inviting Bobble into their apartment. “I lost my mask, so I’ve been feeling pretty crummy,” he explained, already setting up for them to play Mario Kart like they always did.
“Oh, I’m sorry,” Bobble replied sympathetically, even if her face showed no sign of sympathy. “That must suck.”
“Yeap,” Mask replied, grabbing another bag of chips he had just found and plopping down in front of the tv. “Aloha’s gonna bring by some later, though, so I should be okay.”
“That’s good,” Bobble replied, and the two of them started up their video game to get started.
It sure was more fun with Bobble around compared to being home alone. The two inklings had grown quite close, mostly due to Bobble’s persistence. Mask had eventually caved and agreed to hang out with her, but then it turned out to be actually fun, and just grew from there.
They played a grand total of 21 races, with Mask winning the majority of 17. Bobble wasn’t exactly the best at video games, but she didn’t mind, because she liked them and she liked playing with Mask. She always managed to stay positive, no matter what. Mask sometimes wished they could be like that, but there usually wasn’t much to be happy about .
They finished up and looked around for something else to do. Usually, once they had finished playing Mario Kart, they would play a different one or Bobble would just head home. But today, they turned the switch off and just sat there on Mask’s two bean bag chairs, waiting for something to happen. Nothing happened. Except that Mask was getting kinda cold.
“Hey, Bobble, do you think you can grab me a sweatshirt?” They asked Bobble, who nodded. It was cute the way the bobble on her hat bounced when she did so. Mask had kicked a hoodie with a jellyfish on it under his bed the other day. How could they remember that but not where he had put his gas mask last night? Stupid brain.
Bobble got up from the beanbag and made her way to his bedroom; she knew where it was. Mask wasn't worried about her seeing how messy it was, either, because it had the same amount of mess as the rest of the apartment. He really should clean it up, shouldn't he?
“I found your mask!” hollered Bobble from his bedroom. Huh, really? Mask was starting to think that dumb thing was gone for good. Sure enough, Bobble Hat came running out of the door, gas mask in one hand and aforementioned sweatshirt in the other. Guess he had just kicked it under the bed last night without realizing it. Crap, they were going full Skull levels of forgetfulness now.
Mask strapped the gas mask to his face, sighing in relief as all the dust and pollen from the air outside filtered out of the air they were breathing. They then pulled the sweatshirt over his head, the neck hole being stretched plenty already from pulling it over a gas mask. The front was stretched and hung low, but that was how all his shirts looked anyways.
Bobble plopped down in the other beanbag chair and picked up the controller. “Round two?” She asked. Mask nodded in return. Sure, why not?
A few more races later, the doorbell rang again. Now this was more on time for Aloha. Mask stepped up from the beanbag, stretched quickly after realizing how sore his neck and back were, and walked over to the door to open it. Sure enough, there was Aloha, a plastic bag over his arm.
“Oh, hey, you found it! Well, you get these anyways, since I have no use for ‘em,” Aloha said, tossing Mask the bag. Of course, they missed it and it landed on the floor behind them. He sighed.
“Well, I could probably find some use, but that’s besides the point,” Aloha continued, flicking his hand in dismissal. This exchange was crossing into conversation territory fast, and Mask did definitely not want that. Aloha poked his head through the doorway and into the apartment, looking around. “Hey, Bobble Hat!” He greeted her, earning a happy wave back.
Mask forced out a grumbly ‘thanks’ and closed the door quickly, ignoring the dramatic offended gasp that followed. He made his way back over to Bobble, who had started up a game of her own. Mask sat down on their own bean-bag and watched, growing drowsy. Since they were usually the one playing the video games, Mask never really got to watch people play video games. It was calming.
After a little while, they found themselves drifting off, falling over from a sitting position and onto the floor by Bobble Hat, who gave them a quick pat before resuming button-mashing. Maybe this morning had started off lousy, but it certainly hadn’t ended that way. Guess there was something to be happy about after all.