A cool breeze flowed into Dietrich’s room rousing him from his sleep. The smell after the rain was intoxicating. He stood up from his bed and stretched his arms to let out a yawn. Picking up his Navi that had dropped to the ground Dietrich checked the battery life and unplugged the headphones. He walked over the window and gazed out. A smile ran across his face; the trees looked greener, the houses had a certain shine, and the sunshine shined through the clouds. He breathed deeply in hopes of capturing the moment into his whole body.

Walking over to the opposite side of the room he set his Navi on a small dock. In an instance the blank wall glowed white, then the words DIETRICH NAVI: DOCKING SUCCESSFUL flashed on the screen leading to a menu screen. He flicked his hand in the air motioning icons left and right to find the messaging application; he clenched his hand closed then opened it. A flashing avatar and the letters D.C. appeared on the side of the application.

 

Message from: D.C. 2:22AM

Hey Dietrich, call me when you wake up…

 

Derrick and Dietrich had been inseparable since middle school. Even if they each had their separate interests, they connected with each other because simply because they understood one another. Each helped the other grow, and each pushed the other forward. Where one was weak, the other was strong. One could say that they were complete opposites of each other.

Dietrich switched over to the communications mode of the application and pointed at Derrick’s icon. There was a short ringing tone and a voice crackled through his speakers. The words Voice Only danced around where his friend’s video picture should be.

 

“Ugh, freak Dietrich. I told you not to call me so early in the morning.” Dietrich could hear the rustling of sheets.

 

“Ha, wake up, you were the one that messaged me to call you in the morning. What time you go to sleep last night?”

 

“Four… I think… We finally had a decent conversation for once.”

 

“I don’t know Derrick, messaging applications are pretty… impersonal.”

 

“Give it a break dude, it’s just one rung on the ladder of looooooooove.~” Derrick’s picture emerged on the screen. His usually neatly groomed hair was blown straight to one side and he had drool marks on his face.

 

Dietrich cringed his face from the awful sight. “Brush your teeth; I smell your dirty breath from over here.”

 

Derrick yawned and fell back onto his bed. “Shaddup I’m going back to sleep, good night”

 

Dietrich shook his head, “Ok, but what time are we meeting today?”

 

“Erh, I think it’s around noon, Jane’s in charge this time, unofficial Save Mother Earth meeting.” Derrick was now completely out of sight from the camera, all one could see was his lavishly furnished bedroom.

 

“Ok, I’ll just call her then.”

 

Derrick’s video turned off, Voice Only appeared in place of the video. “Hey Dietrich do me a favor, call me in like an hour, yahhh?”

 

“No, wake up yourself, or have your maid wake you up.”

 

“Gosh, fine. I’ll see you later.” Before even finishing his sentence completely Derrick fell asleep.

 

“See you later today.”

 

The application automatically closed itself and returned to its main screen.

 

[BREAK]

 

Dietrich drove down 7th Street to spot “A Slice of Heaven”. He rolled down his windows to welcome the cool breeze, but to his surprise as he took a deep breath the scent of pizza intoxicated the air. He parked his car and spotted his friends through the restaurant window as some waved to him. Walking into the restaurant there was quite a large line; likely because of the buy one pizza get one free for their opening week. He walked past the large crowd to see all booths and tables packed. There was a sense of excitement in the air as waiters rushed from table to table, friends exchanging conversation, and the sound of pure frenzy overflowed from the kitchen as the double doors would flap open and close. He maneuvered his way over to his friends as they were debating to see which pizza would be best to order. He saw that Derrick was sitting next to Jane, his current love interest trying hard not to be too close, yet not too distant. Dietrich sat down next to Derrick and picked up a menu to hide behind. Things didn’t look very good.

“You’re hovering Derrick, go sit next to your friend” insisted Jane.

Derrick’s eyes got big as he moved in closer to Jane, “Oh yeah, so you’re not my friend?!”

“No you bonehead! I need to talk to Jeannette about Save Mother Earth Club, just go away for a second.”

“Jeannette? Oh I see, have an interesting conversation with her, but I bet you’d have a much more interesting conversation with me!”

Dietrich could see Jeannette was getting awfully annoyed by Derrick’s bantering. Suddenly, Jeannette bolted out of her seat with fist raised in the air ready to hit Derrick in the head but Jane’s hands bolted up seconds earlier to place her back into her seat. Derrick stuck out his tongue out to taunt Jeannete.

Jeannette whispered under her breath, “Ohhhh… that Derricks got some nerves, I would give him a black eye”.

Derrick shrugged his shoulders and raised his hands, “Hah, what can I say? Only a truly weak minded person would resort to violence as the first choice.”

Jeannette let out a low growl as she glared at Derrick. Dietrich decided sitting next to Derrick wouldn’t be a good idea and spotted Charlie sitting in the corner booth being left out of the group as usual. He slowly put down the menu and got up from the booth to sit next to Charlie.

“Hey Charlie!” Dietrich gave Charlie a pat on the shoulder as he sat down next to him.

“Oh, hey Dietrich. How is it going?”

“Not too bad Charlie” Dietrich replied.

Charlie was the socially awkward one of the group. No, actually more than being socially awkward he had no social skills at all. Most of the time he would sit pretty much unnoticed by the group and not many people would speak to him, but he would always tag along with the group from time to time. Charlie had giant thick rimmed glasses that heavily contrasted his face. He had long dirty blond hair that gave him somewhat of a shaggy look, and always wore lots of plaid with cargo shorts, or cargo pants. When one would look at him the first thought would most likely be “Walking Calculator”, “Extreme Gamer”, or a variation of the sort. He had a thin lanky frame, and walked with a slight hunch that almost looked like he was slouching.

“Hey Charlie, I saw that new line of Upgraded Navis your Dad’s company was launching.”

Through his shaggy hair the outline of Charlie’s eyes lit up. “Oh, they finally released the commercials! I’m so happy, the marketing department always lags on promotional material, and I hate how they’re always about maximizing profits.” Charlie revealed a small Navi about half the size of Dietrich’s Navi.

“What the!? I forgot the perks of being the CEO’s father. You always get a free sample of the newest line of products.”

“Correction Dietrich!” Charlie extorted, “Owner, my father is actually separate from the Board of Directors and Central Executive Officer. However, his job description remains similar to those members, he is not the central executive officer.”

Dietrich slightly squinted his eyes and crept back from Charlie as he started to delve into the hierarchy system of Titan Heavy Industries.

“Slow down dude, you want to explain that revolutionizing piece of equipment you got there in your” Dietrich was cut off by the sound of Derrick’s voice from the adjacent table.

“Hey Dietrich is Deluxe Vegetarian Pizza Ok with you? The Save the Earth Mother Communist Dictator wants us to eat green today.”

Dietrich crinkled his face and pointed towards his table. “Uhmmmmmm, maybe we should create a Meat lover democratic society of the free nations club over at this table”

Jane’s turned her head and stared into Dietrich’s eyes. Dietrich felt as if she was directly relaying a message into his soul by relaying a message of green and peace.

Dietrich flinched backwards and threw both hands into the air.

Dietrich spoke in a slightly mellow way to appease the angry girl, “I am a neutral nation. I surrender.”

A smile crept upon Jane’s face as a look of satisfaction. She turned to Derrick, “I win.”

Derrick assumed a fetal position and acted as if he was crying.

“I can’t believe you made him cry. How about…” Dietrich slightly paused as a Derrick raised his face to reveal a sinister grin. Derrick yelled resounding through the restaurant’s commotion, “JANE’S GONNA BUY EVERYONE VEGETARIAN PIZZA!”

The whole section leaped from their seats with shouts of rejoice and praise, all chaos erupted as people started to order enough vegetarian pizzas for each table. Jane’s efforts were futile to quell the shouts of joy, ecstasy, and of course the orders. Derrick shifted around with his fingers to see what was going on to only see Jane looking down at him. Jane grabbed Derrick and started to shake him violently.

“It’s your fault, it’s your fault, do something!”

“Hey, hey calm down Jane, you’re turning into some beast… like your voice is getting lower.”

Dietrich started to speak and both Derrick and Jane turned to see him talk, “Hey since we’re going green because you think it’ s going to save the world or something, Derrick and I will help you split the check, is that fair?”

Derrick gave Dietrich a thumbs up and a giant smile from behind Jane. Dietrich’s play seemed to abate Jane’s anger as she sat down letting out a sigh. “You two drive me nuts.”

Derrick started to say, “Hey, without us, what kind of leader for your green club do you think you’d be? Some evil fascist, dictator…”

“EH EH EH!!!” Dietrich motioned that none of what Derrick was saying was helping.

“Pizza’s here!” what seemed like throngs of waiters arrived to the table with their vegetarian pizzas. Another cheer of delight came from the group of friends.