"One-O! Thirty-One!" C-099 called, rushing through the halls.

  Despite having been called to the auditorium alongside all his peers, the boy had noticed on the way that the two people he had been hoping would meet him there were nowhere to be seen.

  As such, he opted to run back to the "bedroom" section of the facility; a lower floor in the mostly subterranean structure with dozens of doors lining each hallway, numbered plates with the designation numbers of each room's residents right beneath the panel used to grant access to the room.

  "One-Oooooo!!! Thirty-Ooooooone!!!" He called again as he reached the door marked with the numbers of him and the two he was calling for.

  A light tap to the screen at the side of the door, and it slid open, revealing the two that he had been searching for.

  One-O, officially designated W-101, was more enthusiastic about his roommate's arrival, raising a hand to his head in a mock-salute, greeting him with an idle, "Nine, yo!"

  "Yo!" Ninety-Nine would greet gleefully, raising both hands high as he approached, meeting One-O in a double high-five. Although, once the initial excitement of seeing one of his roommates faded, his attention turned to the other. "Uh... Thirty-One?"

  Sat on the bottom bunk of one of the bunk beds in the room was IS-131, the aforementioned 'Thirty-One' he had been calling to as he ran through the halls.

  With her knees tucked close to her chest, and her emerald green eyes wide and flicking around the room, following along with the movements of something neither One-O nor Ninety-Nine could see, it was clear to see that something was wrong with her.

  "Hey, what's wrong?" Nine would ask, plopping down next to her with a mix of curiosity and concern on his face. "Thirty-One?" He tried again, lightly pressing a finger to her face in a half-hearted attempt to drag her back from wherever she was, receiving no response once again.

  More worried, he turned to One-O, silently asking for his input, to which the redhead would shrug. "I came in here after training and found her like this. She hasn't said a word the whole time..."

  "Oh..." He hummed, brows knitted. "Maybe we should... Take her to the doctor──"

  "NO!"

  Before C-099 could even finish his sentence, Thirty-One would cry out, such a sudden start that Ninety-Nine instinctively dashed to the other side of the room. "No, no, I... I'm fine..." She said, voice shaky. "I just got a crazy headache all of a sudden. I'll... I'll be fine..."

  Did you know this text is from a different site? Read the official version to support the creator.

  It wasn't hard for the two of them to tell that she was lying through her teeth. The torrent of sweat over her. Her hasty, unsteady breathing. Her paleness of her otherwise tan skin.

  "Uh-huh..." Neither of the boys bought that bold-faced lie for a moment ─ surely Thirty-One was aware of that too ─ however, "But, anyway! Did you guys hear what Mother said?!" Nine asked excitedly.

  Despite his edge, he knew well enough not to push the subject. With how violent her reaction was when he brought it up, he could put aside his belief that time in a Rejuvenation Chamber would do her good. Instead, he would move onto the topic that had prompted him to run over here in search of them.

  "Oh, yeah." W-101 started. "Today's History class with the quiz at the end, right?"

  Nine nodded rapidly, giving off enough enthusiasm to make up for his roommates' lack of it.

  "Yeahhhh... I think I'll have to pass on that one..." One-O hummed, both metaphorically and literally swatting away the upcoming proposal.

  "Whaaat?" Ninety-Nine whined, "Why not?"

  "Cause there's no point, y'know? Anything to do with memory stuff always gets cleared by Eighty-Three and Seventy-Nine. Why compete when I can just cozy up in my bed?"

  "Yeah, but imagine if we did win! Wouldn't it be cool to wipe the smile off their faces after we take the prize for ourselves~?"

  One-O crossed his arms as he faced the ceiling, brows knitted in thought.

  The thought was quite enticing in his mind ─ towering atop a golden pedestal, laughing while the aforementioned Sprouts watched in envy...

  "Yeah, okay, let's go." He said quickly, taking the bait that Ninety-Nine had so clearly and haphazardly laid out.

  "I knew you'd come around!" Nine beamed, pouncing at his roommate in an enthusiastic hug, which One-O barely acknowledged in favor of his vainglorious daydream. "How about you, Thirty-One? You wanna come along? Might make you feel better~"

  Thirty-One's attention, apparently dragged back to whatever was troubling her in the time Nine had been speaking with One-O, snapped back to her lavender-haired roommate at the call of her name. "Oh, uh... I think I'd be better off resting for a little bit..."

  Looking at her, clearly struggling, Nine had half a mind to suggest a doctor's visit again, but he decided against it, alongside trying to convince her into tagging along to the class like he did with One-O. Instead, he nodded, letting go of the taller boy. "Okie-doke. We can still celebrate the win when we get back! Right, One?"

  Said redhead offered no response, still preoccupied with his vainglorious daydream. Both of his roommates seemed to take it as response enough to carry on with their own devices, Ninety-Nine gleefully guiding his companion out of the room with one hand, and waving to the raven-haired girl with the other.

  As they bounded off through the hallways, and the door slid shut automatically, the smile Thirty-One had forced onto her paled features dropped, having no reason to keep up the admittedly sloppy act.

  She knew that neither of her roommates had bought into her facade, but she was glad they went along nonetheless.

  She sighed, dropping herself onto the plush mattress.

  "'A doctor', he says..." Admittedly, it did sound appealing, just as it always had before.

  Rarely was there a problem with a Sprout that couldn't be remedied by a quick soak in one of the facility's medical chambers.

  But now, something was telling─no, screaming, that that wasn't in her best interest, and with the uncertainty clouding all the actions she had thought to make, she could only sit still and try to make sense of the nonsense that had made its way into her head.

  For now, she figured that a short rest would do her some good after all...