#fullycharged

“Mind explaining to me as to why I had to accompany you for picking out art supplies for Mr. Canson’s class? You’re the one who starts his class tomorrow, not me.”

Aki pouted and fidgeted in his spot, clutching the small collection of drawing pencils of various shapes, sizes, and colors in one hand and a slip of paper in the other. He made yet another nasally grunt, indicating his annoyance to the whole affair. Who still used paper to write a list, anyway? And what was the point of having all these different pencils if they all served the same purpose?

His elder sister resisted the urge to roll her eyes at her sibling’s inquiry, carefully studying the tiny text etched into the pencil’s side. Her eyes picked up a gold plated, “2B” and it joined the small collection in her other hand.

“Did you forget that you start his class tomorrow too?” she retorted with a swift glance at her brother. “You even start his class before me, so why are you complaining? You’ve got to pick out supplies too!”

Aki took a moment to think. He then scoffed with crossed arms, an instinctive gesture to Suna being right once again and his distaste to admit it. Then again, if his memory banks served him right when granted, Mr. Canson’s art class was indeed placed in his schedule. Sixth period for him, seventh period for Suna. He envied her, having a class as lax and easy-going as art being the closing class for the school day. He could only imagine how rewarding Fridays were with that kind of schedule. Taking about an hour and a half getting lost in some drawing he carefully crafted, already forgetting about the monotonous lectures from the previous periods, slowly feeling the stress of school life melt away with each swipe of the hand, and looking forward to whatever freedom the weekend had in store for him. A perfect way to end a week of school.

He attempted to retaliate. “Well, that still doesn’t explain why you had to drag me along! You wanted to nab your supplies all the way here on the far side of town instead of waiting after class to see if we really need everything on that list!”

His attention dived down onto the elegantly written letters on the page and then came back up in an instant. “Like this, ‘kneaded eraser’ thingie. We’ve already got a bunch of regular erasers at home, so we’re good, right?”

“And why can’t we just share supplies?”

Suna was off in her own little universe, subconsciously listening to her brother rant and rave about his expressive dislike of school supply shopping (or any shopping in general that didn’t align with his interests) while consciously inspecting the sides of all the pencils she touched. It annoyed her greatly when he went on and on about something important that needed to be taken care of. But at the same time, there was at least one thing her brother was snarling about that she could agree on.

This was last-minute. Very last-minute. One full page of specialized art supplies from brands she didn't recognize that was needed for a class starting the next day. She couldn’t say she was too surprised however, considering how chaotic the administration’s organization and planning had been recently. She was almost assigned Trigonometry for the second time when she should have been given Calculus!

“You can just buy everything we need on that list for class tomorrow and hand them to me,” Suna’s hearing picked up her brother’s monologue. “When my class is over and it’s your turn, you can just meet me by the classroom door and I’ll give the supplies to you. See, it all works out.” A trademark smirk carved its way through Aki’s lips, the same smirk he donned when he thought of an impromptu solution for whatever problem his sister threw at him.  

Suna pursed her lips, motioning for him to hand over the wrinkled list and slightly grimacing at the immortal creases on the formerly pristine surface. A crisp line slashed through the last remaining graphite-based item on the list, prompting a content bob of eggplant hair.

“Well,” her tongue clicked. “Think you can manage rushing from Mr. Canson’s studio on the west side of the school on the third floor, to Mrs. Waterhouse’s class on the opposite end of the school on the first floor? All within a five-minute window?”  

Now it was Suna’s turn to sneer. The infamous, “I know more than you do, so stop resisting and just admit that I am right,” kind of sneer that overruled Aki’s iconic, “I can make this whole thing work out, trust me,” sneer.  

Once again, Suna was right. The leisure time in between each period was brutal. You had enough time for one locker visit to frantically grab what you needed, have a short bathroom break, and be lucky enough to engage in small talk with one of your friends without being at least a couple minutes late. Rushing between classes on different floors and making triple sure he had all his materials was taxing on its own. There’s no way he’d be cool with all the extra running around every day, especially after lunch. Throwing up his hands in defeat and letting out an audible sigh, he surrendered for good.

“Dad gave us each the right amount of money to cover everything. Like you mentioned earlier we may not need everything, but I’m gonna play it safe so we don’t get any more surprises,” Suna included as she reached for a nearby basket to dump her findings inside. A brief moment of silence passed as her olive irises scanned the list before she passed it to her reluctant brother.

“Here, I’ve already memorized the rest of the items, so you can have the list back if you want. Because this is so last-minute and this store is far from home, I’m taking the liberty of grabbing everything while I’m here. Whether or not you’d like to wait until tomorrow when they go over the list and make a second trip all the way back here is your call.”

Aki took back the list in slight awe. “No wonder you’re so much better at tests than I am, you’ve got photographic memory.”

Her heels pivoted across the newly polished floor with a satisfied smile. “I’m going to get the rest of my supplies, shouldn’t take me long. Mini, I trust that you’ll keep my baby brother out of trouble?”

Aki swatted his sister’s hand away in embarrassment as she ruffled the thick chocolate locks of spiked synthetic hair.

“Hey! I do a great job at keeping the city out of trouble, I don’t need a babysitter!”

The tiny sentient robot that resided in Aki’s head crossed his legs and let out a small chuckle of amusement. Serving as Aki’s onboard repair unit and an external conscious drive with independent thought, Mega Mini became Aki’s first line of almost indiscriminate support who flaunted a rather rude and sarcastic sense of humor. What fun was having a best bud if you couldn’t tease them every once in a while?

“Don’t worry ya pretty lil’ head off, M’Lady. I’ll make sure ya itty bitty baby brother doesn’t hurt himself in this big, scary store,” Mini replied, puckering his lips and shifting the tone in his gruff voice.  

His remark rewarded him with a fading laugh from Suna and an annoyed grunt from Aki. “Hey, whose side are you on? You’re in my head, so you’re supposed to always agree with me!”

“Oh please. If I wasn’t programmed with a personality and had to do everything you say without question, we’d both be screwed,” Mini’s pixel eyes averted. "By the way, your penmanship's gettin' better."

Aki grumbled. It wasn’t like  all his ideas were bad or backfired at the worst of times. Mini made it sound like he wasn’t capable of doing anything on his own. The nerve!

“Are you saying that I can’t function without you? I’ll have you know that I was created before you were, Mini.” He took a finger to jab at his own temple. “I can take care of myself, thank you for asking. Don't you have, like, vacation days you need to use, or something?”

The tiny robot playfully rolled his eyes. “Ya sure about that, Chief? Didja forget about that tussle with Blasto Woman? How she knocked me clean out ya skull? Ya lucky I was able to save yer blue behind from hard crashin’.”

Aki swat both his arms dismissively, the crumpled paper in his grasp fluttering violently. “Aww, whatever. Have it your way, then. I guess I should get going and find all these stupid supplies before Suna finishes up. I’d never hear the end of it from her.”

His chocolate optics veered back down at the abused paper and scanned the remaining items. Brushes, one pack of brushes.

“One pack of brushes,” Aki read. “That shouldn’t be so hard.”

Mini continued to tease. “Hmm, ya sure ‘bout that, Chief? Didja see all them different pencils ya sister picked out? Are ya gonna be able to tell which one is which?”