With note and stone in her bag, Karyn sat in her classroom. She was glad at least, that no one seemed to wonder why she was there, seemingly she had basically the same schedule as before. After a small scolding from the teacher in class, she wanted to go to her usual seat which was already occupied, but there was a girl whisper shouting at her with an empty seat next to her, so she didn't have to search very long. The girl was looking at her all the time and snickering in some sort of mischievous way whenever Karyn looked back at her. She had a cute, almost childish look to her, auburn hair bound into two low pigtails which reached her shoulders. She was wearing blue jean overall shorts over a sleeveless black and white turtleneck top.
She was sitting through the rest of the class, which wasn't too long because of the talk she had with Athena only to be immediately thrown into a conversation with said girl.
"Why were you late?!" she said with a wide grin.
"I.. uh... overslept" Karyn said trying to sound innocent.
"So you lied to me yesterday about going to bed early? Typical!" she said in a faked angry tone.
"I'm... uh, sorry?"
"That sounds as far away from sincerety as it could. To make up for it you're coming over today. Mooooovie night!" the girl almost sang.
"I guess I'm busy tonight already." Karyn said.
"What?! How so?" the girl said with clear disappointment in her voice now.
"I can't tell, sorry."
"Oh my god, you have a boyfriend!", the girl was now jumping up and down in excitement.
"What? No!"
"I dooon't believe you one bit. That's the one and only..."
"Lizzy, stop bugging Karyn. If she doesn't wanna tell, she doesn't wanna tell." two more girls appeared in front of Karyn, who were looking at the girl who was presumably called Lizzy.
One of them, the one who just talked, was quiet tall, had shoulder-length slightly curly black hair and was wearing a long blue tshirt with some lose black denim pants and some sneakers with a worn-out look. She was looking even more like a tomboy than Karyn. Behind her was a girl with thick glasses, freckles and long and unkempt light brown hair. She was wearing a light red hoodie and some blue jean shorts with black leggings underneath them.
"Don't worry about it Karyn, sometimes it just happens. I always forget the time when I'm drawing in the evening." glasses girl said in a very sweet voice.
"Oh my dearest Alice, what work of art are you going to present today?" Lizzy mocked with some fake noble voice.
"I don't have anything with me, sorry." glasses girl, who was called Alice, smiled.
"What a bummer! So... Meg and Alice, you up for movie night today after Karyn ditched me?"
"Nope, busy as well, have to prepare for exams." the tall girl named Meg said.
"I have time, what do you want to watch?" Alice asked.
"Ugh... I don't know yet. But trust in me, I will think of something!" Lizzy took a heroic pose.
"Shouldn't you two focus on learning as well? It's our graduation year, you know?" Meg shook her head.
"That's exactly the reason why I do this, after graduation things are only going downhill. Let's enjoy the last bit of youth left for us!"
"You are a fucking drama queen." Meg said with a smile.
So this was it, this was Karyns friend group in this reality. Before this, she was mostly only hanging out with Jon, she wasn't really close to others. But these girls, she could feel they were close, even though she only knew them a short time. This might become a problem. Turning these girls back to whoever they were was almost as if she was killing them, they had plans and wishes for the future, their future. But abandoning Jon like that, he surely didn't want end up as some ditzy girl when he woke up this morning. Karyn felt like she hit a wall, even with a powerful magic stone there was nothing she could do to solve this and felt tears building up in her eyes.
"Holy shit, Karyn! Oh my god, I'm sorry!! Are you alright?" Lizzy said looking at her with the other two looking at her with worried expressions as well.
Suddenly Karyn was hugged.
"You know you can talk to me, always, ok?" Lizzy said.
"G- give me a while. Just wait a bit." Karyn answered feeling the tears rolling down her face.
"Karyn, we are here for you. Don't worry, let's do something fun this week, just the four of us." Alice assured.
"And if anyones bugging you, we'll make sure he won't be doing that any longer." Meg said and almost sounded dangerous doing so.
"Yeah, I can through a few punches too!" Lizzy shouted and started boxing in the air.
Karyn had to giggle, these girls, they were great friends.
Suddenly her phone started ringing, she looked at the display and it said 'Jon'.
"Who is Jon?" Lizzy asked.
