Chapter VI: Plan & Fall

Book's P.O.V:

I woke up feeling slightly groggy and covering my eyes from the sun's rays coming from the window. I reached out my hand to the nightstand to grab my glasses. I pushed them up to my nose and turned my head to look at the clock...11:49am...

Wow, it's late. Thank god the party planning starts at 2pm. I quickly changed into a teal t-shirt with black sweatpants and made my way into the kitchen. Surprisingly, Pillow hasn't woken up yet. The living room looked pretty messy, guess I was a messy sleeper a couple nights ago. I tidied up the room a bit and placed in some lavender air freshener. Looks like cleaning calmed me down a bit, because my head was exploding with ideas! I also snatched a chocolate chip muffin from the pantry for breakfast.

What? Cleaning makes me hungry.

Pillow's P.O.V:

I opened up my eyes only to find that the walls were dark and filled with clothes. Oh right I'm in my closet. Eh, not the first time I slept in there. I got out with great difficulty, and dressed myself with a white sleeveless dress, associating it with a black leather jacket on top. I made my way down the hall and observed Book finishing up a muffin.

"Oh, good morning, 'Lowy!" She said with her mouth full. I softly giggled at her. Her face is so puffy. And I kinda got used to the nickname he gave me. Cheesy, sure, but authentic! She swallowed the bite and gave me a morning hug, followed by a quick, yet passionate kiss.

"Did you sleep well?" She playfully asked while ruffling my hair a bit. I rolled my eyes while also saying, "Yeah, yeah. You don't have to laugh about it, it's not the first time I've done it, y'know."

Instead of laughing back, Book faced me with a very confused expression. Oh, she didn't know? "W-What do you mean by that? What are you talking about?" She was genuinely worried. Like, something happened to me. I looked over at the kitchen wall clock. 12:27pm. Opp-

"Oh, you never noticed? I fell asleep in my closet last night!" I smiled brightly. Book took a step back looking distraught. I reassured her that sleeping in a closet is normal, and I've done it on multiple occasions, but instead she grabbed my hand and marched me into my bedroom. (AKA: The room Book is also crashing in). She sat up a section on the left side of my bed, and shuffled with my pillows and sheets. "From now on, you're sleeping next to me and that's final! I don't want to hear any ifs', and's, or but's, got it?!" I froze in slight fear, and just gave her a thumbs up. "Okay!"

It was almost time for us to plan a party! So, Book and I made it into my car (I was driving, haha!) and arrived in the field. We met up with DPA and got to work. "Okay, the decorations should be at the left part of the stage, and the balloons should be on the right," Lightning directed us, followed by Bubble, "N-Not too much, we don't want Foinny to hate it!"

Lightning's P.O.V:

After Bubble reminded everyone on who the party was for, she mumbled something that wasn't loud, but loud enough for me to hear, "L-Like she always does..." She frowned and put her head down on top of the benches we were sitting in. I was worried and stressed as well. Fanny isn't the type of person I would know to like parties. Bubble pierced her head back up with sadness in her eyes.

"L-Loightning?" I turned my head around to face Bubble. "Yeah?" She hesitated for a little while, and spoke, "D-Do yoiu t-think this is a b-bad oidea?" She trembled.

I gasped in shock, and placed my hand over her shoulder, "No, no, no! Of course not! What you're doing for Fanny is really sweet, especially after everything she's gone through for years. This little surprise party...who knows, might help! Even better, she's got her lover as the leader, and her best friend as manager!" I flexed and softly jabbed Bubble in the arm, which caused her to let out a small laugh. "And plus, we'll never get to see her reaction, so might as well try! Better late than never," I winked. Which motivated Bubble to help us continue on with our jobs.

Book's P.O.V:

I setted up the party streamers on the stage's sidelines. It was a lot of work trying to place them up while holding down the tape. On top of that, I'm not pretty tall for my age, heh. It took me a while, because I had to use reach up with my tippy-toes to get the top parts stream-a-fied. After struggling for a while, I grabbed a ladder and very carefully placed one more string. All of a sudden, the ladder fell down and I lost my balance.

"W-Woah...WOAH!" I slipped and fell down a few feet. Luckily there were a lot of cushions spreaded all over the stage and I landed on them. It wasn't the best since I went through 5 hours of back pain after that, but it could be worse. I very begrudgingly tried to help out, but everyone encouraged me to just rest up after what they'd quote, 'I had quite a fall.' And so, I did. After 5 hours of working with a some-what back concussion, I made my way to the benches with the help of Pillow holding me up.

"Geez, you had dropped down hard! You probably had quite a fall," Pillow said as she was helping me sit down. "Yeah, like I haven't heard that sentence over 2,763 times from everyone else today," I scoffed and held Pillow's hand as I sat down. "Well, this sucks," I deadpanned. Pillow just stood for a few seconds before sitting down next to me, still holding my hand. "Eh, I can live with this!" She said with happiness in her voice. Me on the other hand was a tad bit skeptical, "What do you mean?" She let go of my hand and placed it on my shoulder. "You're with me, and I'm sorry I couldn't save you, but I'll make sure you never get hurt from now on..." Pillow said to me ominously.

She continued on, "Look, a few nights ago, I didn't want to tell you about this, but while you were sleeping, I checked in on you, and you were shivering. Not because of the coldness, but out of fear. Like you had a nightmare, or something. And when you slept with me on the couch, the same exact thing happened. You were scared, a-and even crying! I tried to wake you up, but instead you were still sleeping. Were you stuck in your head? Is there something you can't let go of?" I froze and looked down. I couldn't make eye contact with my own girlfriend. How does she know what's going on? But more importantly, "Why do you ask?"

She responded back firstly with both a serious and offended look in her eyes and said, "Y-Yo-You, what?! 'Why do you ask?' What do you mean 'Why do you ask?' YOU NEVER ASKED! YOU NEVER ASKED FOR HELP, YOU DON'T OPEN UP A LOT, Y-You barely even did anything and sometimes you tend to..." Pillow immediately lowered down her voice knowing for the fact that she was shouting. T-This isn't like her. She almost never shouts. "I'm so sorry, I-I'm just...worried about you. You've been kinda off lately, and I want to help before anything gets worse," She sighed and let go of my shoulder to hold my hand again. I mean, I felt like I was fine, but if Pillow can sense that something might be wrong with me, then she's not wrong. I solemnly nodded and softened my grip a little bit. "Your hands are warm," Pillow whispered to me. I softly smiled back and mumbled, "Thank you," at the sudden compliment.

A few moments went by and we got a text stating that we were needed at the back of the stage. Pillow texted she'll come and I was staying back-

"Wait, why am I staying back?!" Pillow rolled her eyes in sarcasm. "Oh, I don't know, maybe because you're injured, and need medical rest!" I slumped down in my seat in defeat. "Fineee, but update me on what happened!" I yelled as she was walking away. I didn't get a response from her at first until I got a text from her saying, 'Of course, dear! Anything for you~ 😊 🤍 = 💚 💙 🤓'

Oh Pillow. You silly little psycho.

Pillow's P.O.V:

I got a blocked text stating that they were backstage, watching everything, and so I crept around and peeked over to the backstage only to see...

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"F-Fanny?! What are you doing here, I thought you were sick!" Fanny was hiding behind the stage. Luckily, we didn't add anything birthday related, but it was still very concerning. She jumped out when I called her name. "O-Oh! Heyyy, Pillow."

Yeah, I'm not buying that look. "I'm not gonna ask again, so give me an answer right now, or else no mercy for you." Fanny was silent for a moment and said, "You all have been acting very suspicious, especially you, Lightning, and Bubble. I hate being left out! You canceled our detective show session, Lightning has been ignoring my calls, and on top of that, Bubble, my own girlfriend, LEFT ME ALONE AT THE PARK TODAY! S-She never ditched me before...W-Why are you all distancing yourself from me? Why did you kick me out of the group chat?! *Scoffs* G-Give you an answer? GIVE ME AN EXPLANATION! WHAT'S GOING ON AROUND HERE?!"

"Fanny calm down, please! Okay, okay, I'll tell you..." I said, trying to make sure that Fanny doesn't raise her voice so that she won't accidentally reveal her position. She did just that and I frantically tried to think what should I tell her without saying anything about her surprise party...

.

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[To be continued...]

(A.N: Hey, hey! Sorry about the delay, but I can say, as the writer, this is kinda worth the wait! I'm pretty proud about this chapter and some future chapters I'm currently planning/brainstorming. So, stick around for more! Also I'm feeling so much better since my last encounter. Hope you enjoyed it and I'll see you in Chapter VII of this story or Chapter VI of another book, 'Chaotic Wedding Day!' a Fireafy book! Thanks for reading! -Era 💙)