Interlude: End of Middle School

[Summer of 2015]

Gwen was walking through the halls of her school, pushing through the crowd of teenagers that was going the opposite way. Today was the last day of middle school, at least for her anyway. She was a bit excited about it, summer has come and she cannot wait to spend her time without worry.

She was walking towards the room of the media club, holding a stack of books in front of her chest. As she arrived, she knocked on the door, before opening it without waiting for someone inside to allow her to get in.

As she went inside, she saw the state of the room. It was a total mess, cameras on the tables, papers filled with dialogues scattered across the room, and a thick smell of chemical permeates throughout the room.

"How about we cut that scene altogether and used another angle of it?" asked a girly voice. She turned around towards the source of the sound, and she saw Theo, sitting in front of a computer, with a blonde girl standing closely beside him as if their faces were about to touch… too close for Gwen's taste…

"Nah, that wouldn't work," said Theo. "We can't see your expression if we change to that angle."

"But I look ugly." the girl whined.

"Well it's a film, we need the expression." Theo insisted.

"Please~"

"No Betty, I think for this scene, it's perfect." said Theo, not wavering. "By the way, have you checked the registration site yet? When will it be open?"

Betty could only sigh. "It's in September, so we'll be in highschool by that time…"

"Well it's fine, we can put it in the highschool category." Theo shrugged. He turned the chair around, finally noticing Gwen in the room, her expression looked a bit gloomy, which made Theo confused.

"Gwen? What's wrong?" asked Theo. Betty finally noticed Gwen in the room, and she quickly stepped away from him.

Gwen just shook her head. "Nothing. What time do you go home? Oh are you still coming for dinner tonight?"

"I'll copy the files to my flashdrive in a sec." Theo said, sticking his flash drive to the computer, before transferring the unfinished work to it. "Dinner at your house? Of course I'm coming, my mom will kill me if I don't."

"Cool." Gwen smiled. "Can I go to your place? I kinda miss Baymax."

"Sure, I need to finish the editing though, by the way, where's Pete? He borrowed my skateboard yesterday."

"He's with Ned outside the gate." Gwen said. "Looks nervous though, he probably broke your skateboard."

Theo could only sigh at the speculation. "Well, that won't be the first time." Theo wore his bag and turned to Betty. "Alright, bye Betty, have a nice summer."

"You too. Oh, see you tomorrow." she said, waving at him as he walked towards the outside with Gwen.

As both of them got outside, Gwen looked at Theo weirdly. "See you tomorrow?"

"Hm? Yeah, I need to shoot a couple more scenes, why? Going somewhere?"

"I don't know… There's this movie I want to watch, but it doesn't have to be tomorrow."

"Oh, what movie?"

"Paper towns." she said. "From that book by John Green."

"That was a good read." Theo hummed. "But it's probably not good… you know how book adaptation usually goes."

"Maybe it's good this time, who knows."

"Alright, I'll go with you." Theo nodded. "Sunday?"

Gwen just smiled. "Okay."

—

Theo dropped his body to his comfortable chair in his newly acquired 'workshop', a gift from his father from winning the roboting exhibition in MIT. it's not so much as another place, it's just a basement room located just below his own house, equipped with noise canceling walls, so his father wouldn't complain from all the noise that was generated from there.

You can enter the place without going inside the house, you just need to climb the fence and walk to the backyard, just beside a tree. Inside, there was a hella expensive computer rig, drum set, guitars, violins, piano, TV, game consoles, and a lot more.

Such is the life of a rich boy.

Four people are now inside the place, Theo, Gwen, Peter, and Peter's friend Ned.

"Dude… you have a warhammer collection?" said Ned with stars in his eyes.

"Yep." said Theo, standing up from his chair again and walking towards the corner of the room, where there was a drawer.

Gwen entered, and saw Baymax in the corner of the room, touching an aquarium rather curiously.

"Hey Baymax!" said Gwen, walking towards the fluffy robot and hugged him.

"Hello Ms. Stacy, would you like a medical checkup?" asked Baymax.

"Yeah, sure." she smiled. But then, her eyes turned to the corner, where Theo stood. He was taking off his shirt, changing it to another fresh one. Gwen's eyes cannot look away from Theo's chest, seemingly mesmerized with it.

"Scanning you now…" Baymax turned quiet for a second, before speaking. "Scan complete. It appears that your brain is releasing dopamine involuntarily, a sign that you are looking at your significant other or a crus—"

"Okay Okay I get it!" Gwen whispered to Baymax, trying to shut him up.

"Dopamine is good for relieving stress. I recommend that you should talk to this—"

"I am satisfied with my care!" Gwen cut him off, and it made the robot deactivate. Baymax deflated on top of his box, making him offline.

As she turned around, she saw the boys looking at her weirdly.

"You okay Gwen? Baymax noticed something wrong with you?" asked Theo curiously, already changed to a new shirt.

"N-No, I'm fine." Gwen coughed.

Theo just shrugged and walked back to his computer rig, turning it on to continue his work on the editing.

Ned joined him, as he was the cameraman of the film, Peter went to his corner, where a bunch of scraps exists, while Gwen sat on the sofa, taking a book from the shelf, seemingly immersing herself in reading.

Such is the teenage life of Pluto's son, free of burden and stress, seemingly not knowing what was looming in his future.