Summary: Mango reveals a hidden secret of Soup's past. The Birds listen in and offer their own opinions. Runo wants more.
Soup sits in the Bird residence living room, once again playing League. All is well in the world.
Mango taps his shoulder behind him. "Did you find our Clash team yet?"
"Monkeys," Runo sniffs haughtily at the game as he passes by.
Mango pulls out a seat beside Soup. "Ask your e-girls," he insists. "You should ask."
"Fiiiine. But I don't think they know you too well…"
"What's her name?" Mango taps his chin, racking his brain to remember the list. "Christina?"
"Most e-girls are too great." For you stays unsaid. Runo comes along again and pauses.
"Yeah, I don't care." Mango waves away the matter. "You should ask the Bronze I one, to lower our MMR." He spreads his hand, wiggling his eyebrows. "Genius?"
Runo is frozen at this newest revelation to his life.
"Okay," Soup chuckles, "let me go ask."
Finally over his shock, Runo manages to force his mouth open enough to express his disbelief. "There are multiple?"
"Uh…" Soup's eyes dart around shiftily.
"Oh," Mango snorts, "multiple is an understatement."
"Uh oh," Runo says, squinting at Soup.
All eyes are on him now. There is no opportunity to escape. All of the exits are conveniently blocked off, and already more people are entering the living room with their own work. Did they hear? Soup briefly considers the amount of space available underground to store several bodies.
In the end, he decides to take the politician approach: deflect, gaslight, and get outraged. "WHAT?"
"Like, you count them in dozens! Wrong unit, mate." Heedless of the inner turmoil going on inside Soup's head, Mango shakes his head as he continues to sabotage his friend.
Runo squints harder.
"Zero dozens!" Soup tries to shut it down, but it's too late now.
"A platoon!" Muffin suggests.
Mango's eyes light up. "A concentration camp! Hmm…"
Muffin eyes him knowingly. "HMMM…"
Soup makes a general noise of disagreement.
Noodle Bird joins the group. "I have a folder just for his e-girls," she taunts, waving a manila envelope.
"What the fuck?" Hungrily eying the envelope, Runo dashes after Noodle who bolts away, cackling as she clutches it to her chest. "I'm kidding! The folder is just for his girl friends!"
"WHAT?" Soup tries outrage again, sure it will work this time.
Evidently not.
"Yeah! Like, he has like, at least 20 —" Before Mango can go on, Soup decides that one casualty is acceptable for the cost and begins to strangle him. "— 15! 15 egirls." Soup releases his neck. "At least."Mango dodges around Soup's attempt to slice fruit, smirking. "And it's increasing every day! Poggers!"
"Exponentially?" Muffin leans in.
"No sir. Factorial." Mango winks.
"Oh, shit."
Runo returns only to hear that and immediately prostrate himself at Soup's feet, inadvertently restraining him from commiting a crime.
"True!" Mango joins him, the two kneeling and bowing to their hero.
Slightly flustered by the sudden change in attitude, Soup tones down his murder tendencies and drops his knife. "Um…what? This is false. I know, like, negative girls."
"That's the most bullshit statement I have ever heard." There's no keeping secrets when Mango's around.
"I thought you had a girlfriend," Runo frowns.
It pains Soup to admit it, but it's the only way to counteract the slander. "I'm…single right now."
Rain starts to pour outside like the pathetic fallacy it is. The fanatic light in Runo's eyes fades away. "Wait, really? Um…oof?"
"False!" Mango declares as the sun pokes through the clouds. "I'm literally your boyfriend!" He spreads his arms, beaming like the rainbow forming outside.
"True!" Soup returns the embrace.
Runo turns away, uninterested. "F," he says flatly. "Wait..."
Muffin joins this celebration of LGBT rights by playing a kazoo.
"No, he's not!" Runo points an accusing finger at the duo. "I didn't get the joke! Fuck!"
Mango sighs theatrically, caressing Soup's face with his hand, gazing longingly into his eyes. He's drowning in the wave of beauty of those pearlescent orbs. A sea of feeling, of affection, of love, all of it wells up inside him. An emocean.
"If you're gonna break up with me," he says sadly, "at least do it in private."
"Wait, he is!" Assuaged by the display of true love, Runo falls to his knees to repent. Mango bows.
Soup steps back and laughs. "Anyways, Mango, I don't really have many 'e-girls' to ask. I asked Christina, but I'm pretty sure her answer is going to be no."
"Ask what?" Runo interjects.
"I'm confused too." The humble Brandy wears a befuddled expression as he stands in the doorway, freshly arriving into the conversation of e-girls.
"I don't," Soup brushes the matter away. "Mango asked."
And that was the end of that conversation. Mango never brought up the topic again, Runo moved on to complaining about politics, and Soup never had to share his list of e-girl friends.
All was well.