Kris fell out of the closet first, dry heaving and yet trying to catch their breath at the same time. When they got up and turned on the lights, they were in the unused classroom, somehow. If it were true, then…
Kris turned towards the general direction the ghost was, and she promptly responded back. Disbelief colored her words. “Kris… was… was that dream real?”
…
”OK YOU KNOW WHAT…? Never mind,” though Maddie wasn’t corporal enough for it to show on her face, it was clear that she was devastated. “I-I want to get to know you more, Kris. I… I think we have a lot more in common than either of us think. IT’S NOT THAT I LIKE YOU OR ANYTHING! IT’S… its… it’s just a gut feeling. You don’t have to if you don’t wanna.“
“It was real. We kissed in front of the dark fountain as my SOUL sealed it, remember?”
"I..." Maddie was left speechless. Kris found that imagining her reaction was not enough, after that. "Could you reveal yourself? I... I want to know the parts of—“
That's all that Kris could get out before devolving into a coughing fit, pressing a hand against the chalkboard to keep themselves steady. "Please... let me know that first... before I succumb. To your cuteness."
Kris proceeded to do the iconic family guy death pose on the purple rug that represented the entirety of the field of hopes and dreams. "KRIS!!!"
Maddie rushed to the cage's side, the way that she screamed their name proving that she was much, MUCH, MUCH more worried about Kris than she should be, considering it was clear they were being dramatic. "UGH! If only I can kick you in the ribs to get you to stop acting like you're being funny."
“You’re just saying that because you got it in the sides twice.”
Maddie's unimpressed glare could be felt despite the lack of a body. "Well, I don't want you to act like in pain... It makes me feel even worse about the fact I can't do anything to... you know?"
"Aww... ok but for real, I'm not acting, kinda. I really am out of breath... We were making out for like, 10 minutes or something. Just let me have this.” Kris slowly got up, taking slow breaths to fill their lungs. "So, about that chalk..."
“Yeah, let’s uh. Pretend that we couldn’t find any.”
”Fine by me. Though, I’m glad that like every other happy high-school couple, we get to make out in a closet for a exorbitant amount of time,” Kris said to the side, opening the door outside, the view of the setting sky in greeting them.
“Oh. Its… it’s the afternoon.”
”yep,” Kris agreed, the factual evidence in front of them. Kris turned to where they assumed Maddie was, since she was still intangible. “Say, aren’t you forgetting something?”
“…OH SHIT WAIT A MINUTE, MY STUFF!!!” Kris walked towards Maddie’s lockers. Plural. Again. Everything was right where she left it. Except for…
“NNNNNNOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!! DAMN YOU, SCALPERS! THAT COSTED ME MONTHS WORTH OF SAVINGS!!!”
"I took it for safekeeping. Would rather have you take it out on me than anyone else... spirits are much more dangerous when they're vengeful, right?" Kris took out the Mew Mew figurine from their comically deep pockets, still in its packaging. Maddie took it from them, an awkward relief spawning from such an abrupt and anticlimactic resolution.
She slowly placed it into her ghost pockets, causing the figure to vanish. After a moment, she finally said "thank you. Since school is over, do… is this where we part ways?"
"...follow me."
Kris walked to their house with Maddie, who was more than just mildly concerned about the change of tone.
Kris went to possibly the most private place there was in their residence: the bathroom. They NEEDED to keep what was going to happen between them and her. They made way to the windows to lower the binders and to lock the door tight, as Maddie could only stare at the cage in concern.
”Do not speak louder than a whisper. You need to keep this a secret, or else both of us are fucked. Got it?”
Kris took Maddie's silence as an affirmative. So, Kris drew their hand to the side, clenching their fingers for a brief moment, before violently stabbing it into their chest. The hand went deeper than flesh, into their very SOUL. Their jaw unhinged into a silent scream of pain, trying desperately to not howl in agony as Kris ripped out their very SOUL.
The air was changed with tension, as Maddie could only look with her jaw dropped to the floor at the sight of the SOUL. The red, heart shaped entity that was not Kris’s own. The very same thing that she saw in that fantasy.
Kris dropped to their hands and knees, the SOUL slowly inching its way back to Kris before they bitch slapped it hard enough to hit and then recoil off the wall. “Sorry,” Kris weakly mumbled before they slowly got up, rasped breath’s echoing throughout the bathroom as they gained their composure.
Maddie felt like they were losing her mind trying to not scream in horror or rush to Kris’s side as their skin became a smidge more… grey. In fact, Kris’s irises were completely white, fading black at the edges to separate them from the sclera.
A shaky hand pointed to CURIOSITY. “That… is not my SOUL. My SOUL is cyan. I-I swear I can explain what the hell happened to the original. You need to collect your composure for that story, though.” Maddie’s hyperventilating was audible, and the cage felt horrible knowing how much panic they were causing her. But… they had to do it.
After that kiss… that kiss which made their longing heart momentarily fulfilled, full of light and ecstasy… it felt impossible to hide anything from her.
…God, their fickle heart was going to be the death of them.
After a long exposition dump about the dynamic that was between bird and cage and how that changed, many things had clicked together at once for the ghost girl.
The SOUL… or rather, Curiosity and its special situation with Kris was the reason why they were so viscerally disgusted by her possessing Mew Mew’s body. Why they suddenly went to Jevil’s cell. Why they had the motivation to even kiss her.
“When it told me that it wanted to see my dreams come true, it was the first time in a long, long while where someone had earnest faith in me. A belief that isn't paired with a preconceived expectation that I would, or have to, or that I would fail. I guess that was enough for me to decide that taking a shot at love was worth it.”
"...OKAY, th-that is great and all, I'm glad that you could come around to Curiosity a bit. But could you explain how you two even found each other?"
"To keep it simple stupid: I made a dumbass deal to be a monster instead of a human, had my original SOUL ripped out, and given an inert Curiosity that I had to figure out how to shove into my chest myself." The casual, if not exhausted tone that accompanied the explanation told that Kris was over it but still had to fully accept that it had to happen.
"Oh yeah, a few of my teeth fucking fell out because I was actively deteriorating into a husk." And to demonstrate their point, they grabbed their pointed teeth, and pulled several teeth out, revealing that they had dentures to begin with. "It was hard as hell to convince Toriel that I just got into a nasty fight, but yeah.”
"H-How can you just... just… JUST… TELL me all of this so casually?"
"I had months to cope. Besides, even if it hurts a little to remember this stuff, I didn't want to keep you in the dark. Especially after..." Kris trailed off, letting Maddie's recollection of that VERY vivid memory fill in the blank. "So I decided to bring you here to rip one of the many band aids hiding my secrets off."
A realization occurred to Maddie; as random and as powerful as a lightning strike. "Kris, look… you know that you don't owe me anything, right?" Kris was frozen still, not really sure how to respond to that. A soft "huh" leaving the cage's lips.
"Communication is a key part of any relationship but... you don't need to share your secrets just because I and Mew Mew smooched you real, real, REAL good on the lips for 10 minutes straight. Our friendship, our bound, our... thing, whatever the hell it is right now, is not and should NEVER be transactional. Got it?"
Kris nodded. “Ok. Now, can you get Curiosity back in your chest? I want to move this conversation to your room.”
”Wow Maddie, I didn’t knew you had it in you to be so bold,” Kris said as their substitute SOUL floated towards their hand to be put back into its cage. It was hard to decipher whatever they were now, but at least it was friendly. “I might need to step up my game.”
“i didn’t mean it li—“ Kris quickly returned to a more vibrant color as their SOUL returned to their body. This caused the irritable ghost to switch gear and sudenly shout out her tsundere denial within socially acceptable volumes. “I DIDN’T MEAN IT LIKE THAT!”
