I don't know who I'm gonna talk to now at school

Tensions were high in the boutique. All across the island, the faeries scattered, disappearing due to the ire of their creator. Everyone knew that when Dakota lost her temper, you didn’t want to be anywhere nearby. That was why all the shops were closed. That was why the island seemed temporarily deserted for a couple of minutes.

Because Kim was making Dakota angry. And even though she knew it was a bad idea, there were some things that were worth doing in spite of the risk.

Standing up for your friends was one of them, and that’s exactly what Kim was doing. Even if Sylvia wasn’t exactly her friend.

“You’re really not thinking this through, Kim,” Dakota said, shaking her head. She looked coldly at the dark-haired girl in front of her, who refused to be intimidated by her. “If you bring Nick into this, I won’t be responsible for what happens next.”

“I think we both know you can’t do anything,” Kim snapped back at her. “So why don’t you just back off? Or better yet, how about you actually fucking try to do the right thing, for once in your miserable existence? And before you try to threaten me with the whole ‘If I’m not behaving like a perfectly evil monster then the producers will replace me’ song and dance, you can forget it. Because we both know that if that were an option, you wouldn’t be pulling all your punches.”

“Should I show you, then?” Dakota threatened. “What it’s like when I’m not pulling my punches?”

That threat was so empty Kim almost laughed. If Dakota was capable of something like that, she would have done it already. “Sure, lash out at me. Be petty. That’s just going to make Nick hate you even more, you realize that, right? You’re not going to get what you want, Dakota, and it’s about time you accepted that reality.”

She would keep going, but her chest was really starting to hurt. Her breasts were aching, for some reason.

Dakota opened her mouth to say something in response, when suddenly…

“ZIP!”

The clasp on Kim’s bra broke on the front, and went flying through the air. It hit Dakota in the forehead like a bullet and the host staggered back, stunned.

“Eh!?” Kim quickly covered her chest in surprise. What was going on!? Her breasts had just jumped up a couple cup sizes and snapped her bra! And they were still growing! For a moment she thought this was Dakota, inflating her breasts out of spite and abusing her authority, but when she saw the surprised look on the host’s face as she stared at her growing breasts, she realized that Dakota was as much in the dark about what was going on as she was.

Which only left…

Vivian: 2200 BP – 200 BP = 2000 BP

Vivian: 2000 BP – 200 BP = 1800 BP

Vivian: 1800 BP – 200 BP = 1600 BP

“Vivian!?” Kim looked at the heiress in shock as her breasts kept growing. “What the hell are you doing?! Cut that out!”

Vivian smirked. “Just a little bit more…”

Vivian: 1600 BP – 600 BP = 1000 BP

“VIVIAN!”

Kim’s breasts were way bigger than she was comfortable with. And right before her date with Nick!? What the hell was going on here!? Had Vivian really spent that much money!? Was she crazy or something!? WHY?!

“Hey, sorry, but come on, you brought this on yourself,” Vivian said, holding up her hands innocently. “You can’t mess with the host, Kim. You had this coming.”

“You-!” Kim’s eyes twitched with fury. She wanted to wring Vivian’s neck!

“Ahahaha… well, isn’t that amusing,” Dakota snickered. The anger faded from her like a deflating balloon as she held her hand over her mouth. “At least one of you girls knows which side your bread is buttered on, as it were. Nicely done, Vivian.”

“Happy to help,” Vivian said, flashing a perfect smile at the host. “Kim really had no right to be talking to you like that.”

“I had every right, you bitch!” Kim nearly lunged at her. “How could you do something like this!? I’ll fucking kill you!”

“Watch your language,” Vivian chided her. “What if your manager heard you?”

Kim was going to kill her. She couldn’t do anything to her now, obviously, but when the show was over, somehow Kim was going to fucking **** this fucking billionaire.

“Well… thank you for that amusing little image, Vivian,” Dakota crooned. She shook her head. “Now, I must be off. I need to cool my head. Kim? If you want to tell Nick… I can’t really stop you. But if Nick hates me… well… I’ll no longer have any reason to try and stay on his good side, you understand. And I don’t think you want that. Is that girl really worth the risk?’

Kim didn’t even answer her. She was too busy glaring at Vivian to even notice when Dakota popped away, leaving the two of them alone together. Oh, how she wished that **** was allowed at Harem Hotel! But she doubted Dakota would be interested in doing her any favors right now.

Vivian still had her hands up. “Okay, Kim, before you say anything-”

“I’LL FUCKING KILL YOU!”

Vivian winced. “…Ouch. That hurts, you know. I just saved you, a little thanks would go a long way here!” She protested.

Kim just stared at her, stunned into silence by the absurdity of what the heiress had just said.

“…SAVED me?!” She sputtered, eyes bulging in shock. “How the FUCK did you save me, huh!? You tell me right fucking now!”

Vivian blinked, then frowned. “Sorry, were you not paying attention to what was happening here? You were about to lose it on her! She’s the host, Kim. Do you have any idea what could happen if she got mad and lost her temper? Because I’m pretty sure it wouldn’t stop with your breasts growing a couple cup sizes temporarily.”

“I don’t care about that,” Kim seethed.

Vivian scowled. “Well, you should,” she snapped. “If Dakota loses it on you, then that’s going to have consequences. Nick’s going to be upset with her. REAL upset. You know how he is. And if that happens, then things could really get dicey. And frankly, I’d rather it not get that far. So before you crossed the line and pushed her into doing something we’d all regret, I thought it was best to, well… ease the tension a little.”

Kim stared at her, and her jaw fell open in shock.

“…With my breasts?!”

Vivian winced. “Look, I said I was sorry. It’s the only thing I had that might work! And it did work! She was laughing! And not murdering you. Or, more importantly, me!”

Kim bit her lip, sulking at Vivian. She crossed her arms over her enhanced breasts and seethed.

“I don’t believe this… I don’t believe this…” she muttered, shaking her head slowly over and over again. “Vivian…”

“Look, you might hate me, I get that,” Vivian interrupted her. “But if I have to pick between you hating me for making your breasts bigger, again, only temporarily, and having Dakota on the warpath, I’m going to choose the former.”

Vivian really did feel bad. She’d probably just torpedoed any chance of her and Kim burying the hatchet for quite some time.

Kim saw the expression on her face, and sighed. She lightened up and scratched the side of her head. “Look, maybe… maybe I overreacted a little. I get that you were just trying to help. Playing the suck-up and all that.”

Hopefully Dakota was so distracted by what just happened that she wasn’t listening in on their conversation right now.

“…But don’t you think this is a little excessive?!”

Vivian scratched her cheek and smiled sheepishly. “Maaaaaybe a little,” she admitted. Kim was pretty stacked now. “But I thought that the bigger they got, the better the chance Dakota would be distracted by the absurdity and calm down. I was ready to put my whole remaining 2200 BP into that if I had to, you know.”

Kim just gave her a sour expression in response. She couldn’t even argue, that was the worst fucking part.

She sighed and shook her head. “Well… maybe… maybe I did push things a little far.” Kim absolutely felt justified in everything she said. At the same time though, looking back and knowing what she knew now, she could understand why Vivian might have been hesitant to let her go off on Dakota like that.

Antagonizing her for Sylvia’s sake may have felt good, but it sure didn’t seem like a smart idea. Vivian had been savvy enough to realize that, whereas Kim was more focused on getting vindication for Sylvia than thinking things through strategically.

Maybe Vivian really had kept her from doing something really stupid.

“…I have to thank you now, don’t I…?” Kim sighed in exasperation.

“Oh, no need,” Vivian chirped. “Your smile is more than thanks enough.”

Kim stared at her, going to an extensive effort to not smile whatsoever.

Vivian smiled enough for the both of them. But only momentarily. Then her harsh expression returned to her.

“…So are you going to do it, then?” She asked quietly.

Kim looked at her for a second. “Sorry, what?” She asked, frowning. “Do what?”

“What you said before,” Vivian said, nodding at the space in the air where Dakota had been standing earlier. “Tell Nick about all this. What happened with Dakota. Get him on your side, or whatever it is you’re planning to do.”

Kim frowned again. “I… I guess I have to,” she said. “I mean, for Sylvia’s sake… she can’t keep acting like that. Treating her like shit. Nick’s the one who has all the power in this relationship, really. And if he doesn’t use it, then things are only going to get worse.”

Vivian nodded, seeing where Kim was coming from. “I get that,” she murmured. “But… I still don’t think it’s worth the risk.”

Kim looked at her in alarm. “What? Why not?” She demanded.

“Because think about what the consequences will be,” Vivian said, sighing. “Didn’t you hear her? Let’s say you’re right, and Dakota is holding back because of Nick. She doesn’t want him to hate her. Well, what do you think she’ll do if you do tell him, and he decides that she’s gone too far and swears that he’ll never forgive her? Do you really think that’s going to end well?”

Kim went pale. “I… I never thought about that…” she admitted. She’d been so focused on avenging Sylvia that she’d barely considered the consequences of her actions. “You don’t think that she’d…? …What am I saying, of course she would!”

If Dakota thought that Nick truly hated her, and that there was nothing she could do to earn back his love and adoration, then things were going to get very, very messy.

REALLY messy.

Right now, her feelings for Nick were the only thing keeping her from completely losing her shit and going psychotic on them! Forget how bad she used to be in previous seasons- this could be a whole new level of monster from the twisted host.

And Kim had nearly brought that down upon them.

“Look, I get it, you care about Sylvia and you want to make Dakota pay for what she did to her,” Vivian said, surprisingly gentle for how Kim knew her to be. She approached the morose tomboy with caution. “I don’t know much about those two, but there’s clearly a lot of strain there. I saw plenty at the beach party.”

Kim shook her head. “You really have no idea,” she muttered.

Vivian nodded. “Right, I don’t. Maybe that’s why I’m not rocking the boat right now. I’m not saying don’t tell him, all I’m saying is that if you want to get back at Dakota, that’s just going to escalate things. And I’d rather not be caught in the crossfire of your little crusade.”

Kim’s weak expression hardened into a glare. “Have you ever stood up for anything before, Vivian?” She asked petulantly. “I get that you don’t want to risk yourself, but I’m not like you. I can’t just stand back and watch while Sylvia suffers like this.”

“Okay, and is she fine with that?” Vivian countered.

Kim’s flinch answered everything.

“…Didn’t run it by her, huh?” Vivian sighed and pinched the bridge of her nose. “No, no, this is gonna go REALLY badly. Take it from someone who completely fucked up not too long ago because she misjudged how someone would react… you don’t want anything to do with that nonsense, Kim. Really, you don’t. It’s just going to lead to more problems.”

“Sylvia’s too damaged to even see what’s going wrong!” Kim replied through clenched teeth. “I have to stand up for her!”

Vivian shook her head. “If Sylvia’s really got it as bad as you say, then she knows,” she said gently. “It isn’t like me an Octavia. Sure Octavia’s strict with me… but I know that deep down she loves me, so I can smile through it. Sylvia knows full well how little Dakota thinks of her. She’s just hiding it behind her smile.”

Kim winced. She knew all too well what that was like.

“So what… I just do nothing? I just let her cow me out of fear?” Kim shook her head, scowling bitterly. “Some advice that is…”

“It’s not ideal, no,” Vivian admitted. “And if you don’t want to, then hey, fuck me I guess,” she said, holding up her hands. “It’s your choice. But if you’re gonna tell Nick, it’s gotta not be to escalate things! Because then we’re all gonna catch hell for it, you feel me?”

Kim hated how much sense Vivian was making. And for once, it had nothing to do with Vivian herself! She was just the mouthpiece for advice Kim would have hated regardless of who it came from.

But it was a lot easier to hate Vivian.

“I don’t want things to get worse,” Kim agreed. “I want them to get better. I just wish… I knew how to make that happen.”

Vivian shrugged. “I wish I knew that, myself,” she agreed. Kim had nearly messed things up due to not thinking her words through. Vivian could empathize.

Right now, though, the main thing they had to do was find some way to fix the problem plaguing them. And that was easier said than done.

“…Well, good luck on your date then!” Vivian turned towards the door, happy to abandon Kim to her fate. “If you do cock it all up, then it wasn’t my fault! I told you how I felt!”

“Wait, shit! That’s right!” Kim looked down at her breasts, then up at the clock. She was finally done with her shift! But even if she put aside the issue with Dakota, she still had one more… no, two more big issues to resolve.

And it was all that shitty fucking heiress’s fault.

“Oh, one more thing!” Vivian stopped at the door and turned back to Kim. “Let him get a few good squeezes so I can make my BP back, okay? I spent a lot getting you out of that jam!”

Vivian might have turned Kim’s ire towards Dakota onto her in order to calm down the tense moment, but that didn’t mean she couldn’t still benefit from it, right? Kim had to agree with that.

“Fucking kill her…” Kim muttered, shaking her head in irritation.

Nick had absolutely no idea what had transpired between Dakota and Kim. No, while the two of them were having their feud, he had been off enjoying The Notebook with Holly.

…Well, maybe not “enjoying” but it was a far more tolerable movie than he had expected.

“Ah, that was so romantic,” Holly swooned, gazing adoringly off into the distance with hearts flashing in her glassy eyes. “He never stopped loving her… and she never stopped loving him, right until the very end…”

“I thought it was sweet,” Nick agreed, picking out his words carefully. The truth was, he’d been more focused on Holly than he had been on the movie.

When going out with a girl that cute, could you blame him?

“Would you do that if it was me?” Holly turned to look at Nick, her eyes warm and dewy. “Keep loving me, even if I married someone else?”

Nick looked at her in alarm. “What?!”

“A joke, it’s just a joke!” Holly quickly assured him, playfully swatting him on the chest. “…I would, you know. Love you forever, I mean.”

Her face turned red. Even though she regularly said far more embarrassing things, saying that… it made her feel all weird inside.

Maybe because she was expressing her heart so directly to him.

“I mean… you’re already married to my best friend,” the short girl pointed out. “And I still love you even now. And when you guys move in together, I’ll be supporting that, too.”

“Wait, you will?” Nick looked at her in surprise.

Holly winced. “You… you don’t want me to? I know I’m not bound to you since I was eliminated from the show, but…”

“No, that’s not what I meant!” Nick hastily clarified. He shook his head quickly. “No, I mean… I thought… I thought it was a given that the two of you… I mean, that you would move in with us.”

Holly’s jaw dropped. “You… you want that?” She asked, surprised. “I thought… I mean… we wouldn’t be on the show anymore, so I figured we’d go back to our lives. All that talk about being your sex toy… that was just wishful thinking, I mean…”

“I think we both know you’re too stubborn for that,” Nick said, not sure what else to say. He was completely taken aback. “…Come on, Holly. If I just abandoned you, Mary would string me up and flay me alive, or nail me to a cross, or some other horrific biblical ****. Of course you’re welcome to live with us.”

He wasn’t even sure how his life would go after they got back home. Maybe he should. All he knew for sure was that he wanted everyone he loved to still be a part of his life, and that included Holly.

Holly’s heart-filled eyes were practically in tears. “Really? You really mean it? You promise?” She pleaded with him.

“Of course I do,” Nick said gently. “I love you, after all. Of course I would.”

Holly pouted at him. He always knew the right thing to say. Stupid jerk!

“Hmph!” She turned up her nose as it turned red, along with the rest of her. Nick always knew how to make her feel like she deserved the happiness he gave her.

And right now, they were filled with happiness, even as chaos and conflict filled the rest of the island.