Barbara smirks as she looks down at her left palm. Being light, floaty, thinner than before. She could do a lot with what that wave left her with. But as she thinks about her body, Barbara realizes how little she has used her new form. She used its properties to get around easier in the apartment earlier, but she never actually tied a knot to the end, leaving it untied ever since her fusion. But as she was enveloped in her thoughts on the balloon lip, Barbara's phone rang with another message, this time from her mother. That's when Barbara remembered that she had a lot of contacts left out of the known about her since this morning, Martin, her parents, and a couple of her friends. Before having any other ideas involving herself, Barbara decided to chat with her friends and close ones, be in the know about their lives, and likewise with herself.
Unmuting and changing the show on the television to play a sitcom she likes to have in the background, Barbara starts to contact back on her phone, messaging the people she likes to keep up with. Firstly with her parents, she starts messaging about her day before hearing that they were prepared but still got a minor fusion, only with one of their hands, making them paired together. Her mom's right into her dad's left, they are still capable of handling themselves and are preparing for surgery within a couple of weeks so they can go back to normal. Then going through Martin, he was apparently one of the eleven percent not affected by the wave. But at least he told Barbara he would still love her, light or heavy. And then she contacted her friends, each telling her about their new fusions, some as minor as her parents, some catastrophic.
After a couple of hours of getting into these chats, snacking on her chips, and getting in and out of the sitcom through the television, Barbara was within pure comfort and laziness. Looking at her phone screen, it was getting into early evening, and the sun was about to go down. Barbara sighed, knowing it was to be time for her to make some meal for her dinner. Getting up from the couch, Barbara walks over and puts down her phone on the kitchen table, as she walks over to the cabinets to think of a meal to make. Barbara grabs out a box full of penne pasta and decides to make some pasta with some marinara sauce she has in the fridge. She bends down to grab one of her pots and brings it over to the sink to fill the pot up with water. As it is filled enough, Barbara puts the pot over one of the stove burners and starts it up to get the water boiling. As the stove starts producing heat, Barbara bends down again, this time pulling out a strainer for the penne. After getting the strainer ready, she also pulls out a wooden spoon and is ready whenever the water can get warm enough for her penne to cook.
As she starts to wait for the water, rather than walking back to the table and going through her phone, Barbara starts looking at her left palm again. Her ideas were tempting her again, wanting to try out her new form. She didn't want to do something too crazy, not as she was still preparing to cook, but she could take some minor steps with the lip on her hand. Taking a deep breath in, Barbara uses her right index finger and thumb and grabs on the lip. She feels nothing from it like it's just a part of her, but she still rubs the lip and neck against each other with the same feeling of nothingness. Now for the big test, Barbara grabs the lip and stretches it out as far as she can. As she starts bringing it out, Barbara notices how her hand and wrist start to move against her state. Barbara gets the lip to stretch out from across her chest, but as she gets there, she feels her skin touch something within her that causes intense pain, which makes her let go. Feeling the lip retract back to her left palm, Barbara starts shaking her hand in pain, feeling like she just experienced a hard punch. After a moment of composure, Barbara goes back to stretching the lip again, this time not as far. Getting halfway across her chest, she lets go of the stretch and sees it retract once more to her hand.
As she feels more comfortable with the lip, Barbara hears bubbling coming through the pot, and she looks up to see the pot water all ready for her penne. She opens the box and pours all of the penne into it while turning down the heat so the bubbling doesn't go over the pot, and starts stirring a little with her spoon. As she let the pasta sit, Barbara went back to playing with the lip, this time stretching out the neck as the lip stretched out very little, making the neck open very wide. As it retracted, Barbara finally felt comfortable to do one more thing. Bring her left palm close to her mouth, Barbara puts the lip through her own lips and starts to blow into it. Immediately feeling comfort, Barbara starts to feel the air go through her body, filling up within the body. After a few blows, feeling her body tightened and fuller, Barbara lets her lips go off, feeling all the air go out in front of her face and turning more flowy and back to 'normal.'
Barbara enjoyed that moment, the feeling of air going into her balloon lip and staying within her body made her feel comfortable, relaxed, and even safe. It was like she needed to be filled with that amount of air, but Barbara knew she needed to stir the penne again and not ruin the pasta. Barbara would then be in pure focus on her food and just play with her lip through stretching, and eventually, she poured the now-cooked pasta into the strainer. Getting her marinara sauce ready, Barbara pours the strainer full of penne back into her pot and mixes once more with the added sauce. After the mixing, Barbara has her pasta all ready and prepared for consumption. She gets a plateful ready, and with a fork, Barbara walks back to her table to start eating. She eats up her share while checking her phone, seeing it was quite a weird day with reported incidents from the Great Fusion Wave.
As she finishes up her food for the night, Barbara puts away her dishes in the sink and stores the pot still filled with leftovers in the fridge. She also grabs the bag of chips from earlier and puts it back in its cabinet where it came from. Barbara was about to go to bed, enjoying as much sleep as she could get in a night, but as she walked through the hallway, she stopped in front of the closet, feeling her form calling for her to be filled. Barbara decided to ignore it for now, as she wanted to get some sleep from this weird day. Walking into her bedroom, she took off the silk robe she had worn all day, letting her chest bare, and got into her bed, through the four layers. Putting the phone on its charger, Barbara slowly falls into slumber for the next day.