Fishie, Fishie, Fishie! [POPTART]

Wei entered the McDonald's with no fanfare, his face sporting the beginnings of some ugly bags and droopiness. He was very, very tired.

Because of the culture festival, every single club on campus was pulling him in every direction, demanding his attention, demanding he be present and coming up with things to do, which didn't help when he also had to come up with actual logistics of the whole thing.

Most of his clubs would be fine with him just backing down from his duties to focus on his council secretary duties, but he couldn't bring himself to do that.

He needed the biggest cup of sweet tea possible.

Knuckling his eyes he walked towards the line and stood behind someone.

He blamed his exhaustion for him not realizing sooner.

"Hari?" He said, his voice thin and hopeful.

Hari laughed as he gently pried her fingers from the cardboard display, instead taking out some of her bracelets for her to play with. They were ready to order when he heard a familiar voice — and ring inside his head — behind him.

"Wei!" Hari beamed at him and gestured for his friend to come closer while still holding onto the child. "We'll have the McNuggets happy meal with orange juice... with the purple minion? A cheeseburger, apple pie and a float. Do you want anything, Wei?"

Wei was taken aback seeing a child in Hari's grasp, but he decided not to think about it too much. He was, as Wei knew, a huge fan of children. Though.... this was the first time he's seen his college friend with an actual child and not just a very short student.

He smiled bitterly.

"Oh, uh, I just came in for a nice big Sweet Tea," he said, moving a little closer to the child, smiling at her despite his exhaustion. "Hello little Miss. I'm Wei. What's your name?"

"A big Sweet Tea, too," Hari said, finishing up with the order and fishing out a few bills from his wallet. He paid up the order and led the three of them to a free table, opening up the happy meal and settling the purple minion toy and chicken nuggets in front of her. He gave her a pat on the head. "Go ahead and dig in, dear."

He placed Wei's sweet tea in front of him, smiling.

"It's nice to see you, Wei. You seem busy these days because of... the upcoming culture festival, I'm guessing? It's eating up a chunk of my time too. I can't imagine what you must be feeling. You look like you need a day off or you'll get sick."

Wei felt bad when he saw Hari paying for his tea. He was consoled by the fact that Sweet Tea wasn't that expensive. The monkey slid into the chair across from Hari to talk to his friend easier and to interact with the child. His exhaustion prodded at him with uncomfortable thoughts.

Subconsciously he rubbed his neck, feeling the uneven surface of his long, scar, still very much visible on his flesh. "Yeah. Haven't slept in 39 hours," he muttered softly, biting on the straw as he drank the tea from his almost comically large cup.

"I managed to get further reduced hours at Everything Nice so I at least don't have to work on top off--" he was cut off by Faeyt's toy hitting him square in the face. What the hell. The most embarrassing thing about it was that he would have been able to catch the thrown toy without a second thought if he wasn't so tired that his head was pounding.

He opened the toy and set it in front of Faeyt.

"What're you doing for the festival?"

"39 hours? Wei, that's... that's dangerous. Please get some rest when you get home."

Hari squealed when the toy hit Wei in the face, covering his mouth to hide his laugh. That wasn't — that wasn't very nice. Hari broke open the plastic holding the toy with a long finger nail and placed the toy, again, next to her chicken nuggets.

"Wei, this is Faeyt. Faeyt, this is Wei." Hari opened up the paper of his cheeseburger, but he wasn't really hungry. He was never hungry. "I found her at the boardwalk after that Water Safety seminar. No guardians or parents. Poor thing."

The child seemed happy right now, and that was what mattered. Later on... He didn't know what was going to happen to her. He was too afraid to even think about it. He reached out to touch her head gently, combing her hair back. "We're doing a book sale and poetry reading, for anyone who wants to share their poetry. We'll be serving pastries and coffee for the duration of the event. What about your Dance Club?"