#my brain feels like a mine field this morning | Explore Tumblr posts and blogs

the12thnightproject · 6 months ago

Text

Chapter 14: Slings and Arrows - Mitsunari has a chance to play hero - if he can come up with a plan to help Okatsu avoid an expedition into the silver mine.

Mitsunari x OC; Nobunaga x Mai

Previous Chapter

Logline - In order to protect a political alliance, Katusko and Mitsunari must pretend an engagement. But this “all business” arrangement is threatened by a coup against Nobunaga… and by feelings.

From the Military Notes of Ishida Mitsunari…

Subterfuge - deception by artifice or stratagem in order to conceal, escape, or evade. It is not always possible, or even advisable to directly attack the enemy, especially when your objectives may be achieved with guile and stealth.

Personal comments: Lady Mai told me of research that was performed where she lived that came up with thirty-six questions that would result in a couple falling in love with each other. This good news was followed by the disappointment that Lady Mai cannot remember what these questions are, despite the fact that she had read about the research more than once.

Am somewhat disappointed that Nobunaga chose a consort whose memory is so poor.

However, Lady Mai is kind and lovely, which may make up with this lack of retention. She did, at least remember that the research included a suggestion that the romantic subjects stare into each other’s eyes for one hundred and twenty breathing cycles, and that love may arise from that.

This is very simple! I was able to count to one hundred and twenty before I could walk. I can absolutely try this tactic.

People who say everything looks better in the daylight have never spent a sleepless night. And while I was used to sleepless nights, I was not used to dreams in which a love-bespelled Mitsunari carried off Shohime into a field of poisonous flowers… flowers that grew over the coffin in which Iekane had buried me alive. Nor were those everything-will-be-better in the morning folks forced to spend the day wresting with the epic poem from hell

Rather than diligently translating, my brain was on the Iekane problem, and my eyes kept straying to Mitsunari – purely to make sure he wasn’t going to suddenly declare a potion-induced love for me. His head was bent over his work, so he was obviously in extreme focus mode, going back and forth between a book he was reading and his notes. Every time he moved from book to paper, it looked like he was losing his place. His scrolls kept rolling back up and individual pieces of paper were flying every which way.

“Would you like me to take notes for you?” The offer was out of my mouth before I could think better of it. But it would get me out of poetry hell and distract me from my Iekane worries. “I can write pretty fast and that way you wouldn’t keep losing your place.”

He looked up at me, pushed his glasses to the top of his head, and gave me that beatific smile. I waited for him to say something, but he simply looked into my eyes.

No hardship on my part – he has such pretty eyes and there was always suck a sweetness and a center to him that never failed to calm me and…

Look away!

“Eleven,” Mitsunari said quietly.

“What? Eleven what?” Here we go again. Yesterday it was paper, today it was random numbers? Was Nobunaga was working him too hard? I pulled my thoughts away from my personal dilemma and studied him. He did look a bit frustrated.

“No matter. Yes, Okatsu, that would be very helpful.” He patted the place next to him and I relocated. Picking up the brush and paper, I waited for him to begin. Mitsunari grabbed the book and squinted at in in confusion.

I plucked his glasses from the top of his head and handed them back to him. He gave me a chagrined smile.

“Could happen to everyone. I used to always leave my-.” I stopped, realizing he wouldn’t know what sunglasses are. “Well anyway, it happens to everyone.”

We began again and soon we were deep into work. I didn’t completely understand exactly what I was taking down – but then I never understood poetry either and if this was helping Mitsunari get through his pile of work, then fine by me.

We were fairly deep into it when we were interrupted by the sound of a strangled sob at the entry to the room. Shohime stood there, her eyes full of tears.

Again.

That’s it. I’m stuck in a Groundhog Day scenario where I’m constantly running up against Shohime’s ethereal crying. Seriously. Every time I think she’s gotten past the waterworks, something sets her off again. “I’m sorry. I don’t mean to be a bother.” And… there it went. The single tear that dripped a silvery trail down her cheek.

If I did that someone would likely compare it to snail goo.

Heaving an inward sigh, because (a) I had said I would help her, and (b) if not us, she might turn again to Lady Yone, and who knew what fatal solution that woman would come up with, I asked, “Is something wrong? Something new wrong?”

“No. I saw you two together and it made me sad that I’ll never find that in my life.” She gazed at Mitsunari with sincere expression and twisted a lock of that shiny hair in her hands. “My fiancé arrived last night, so I imagine my wedding will be soon.”

“There you are!” Mozumi and Iekane appeared behind Shohime. “Lady Yone is looking for you. The seamstresses are here to work on your wedding outfit.”

An expression of frustration flashed across Shohime’s face before it was wiped free and replaced by that ‘resting perfection face’ I was getting used to seeing. She turned to her father and fiancé, bowed low, murmured a soft, “Of course,” then gracefully glided away. Hm. Something about that first look suggested that she might not be as much of a Sengoku Barbie that I’d thought. I filed that away to think about later and performed the same expression wipe for myself before facing Mozumi and Iekane.

Once his daughter had disappeared, Mozumi turned to us. “A rare prize, isn’t she?”

Even Mitsunari knew this was a ‘smile and nod’ situation. We smiled. We nodded. Mozumi then turned and brought Iekane forward and presented him to us, introducing Mitsunari as “Toyotomi Hideyoshi’s most trusted vassal, and his fiancée Oda Okatsu.”

Iekane bowed to us, then repeated my name in somewhat disbelieving tones. “O… Katsu?” He paused, tilted his head slightly, and pursed his lips. “Interesting. You remind me of someone I once knew. But… well, it will come to me, I am certain.” It was said so smoothly and innocently that I was the only one who could hear the threat in that. I’m sure though, if I called him on it, he would say that he was only teasing me.

Smile and nod. Smile and nod. I did both as blandly as possible along with a polite bow that was not quite as low as it ought to have been, given that he was now a daimyo in his own right. “I am pleased to make your acquaintance. Shohime is a lovely girl and deserves all the best in a husband.”

Translation? Not you.

Mozumi inclined his head toward Iekane. “Lord Iekane’s merchant ships and our silver are a perfect combination. I’m very happy Shohime was able to attract such a conveniently placed marriage.”

Way to use your kid as a bargaining chip. I mean, yes, political marriages were the rule, not the exception – even Nobunaga’s relationship with Mai would likely need the Emperor’s stamp of approval prior to marriage - but beyond the whole Iekane thing, I understood why Shohime seemed so conflicted about it. This wasn’t so convenient for her… or for Nobunaga, as he was interested in the silver as well. Interested enough to ally with Iekane too? Is that what Iekane wanted? If it was, it would explain why he just subtly threatened me.

Into the awkward silence, Mitsunari finally spoke. “Then we are happy as well for Shohime and Inane.”

Oh God. He didn’t. I choked off a laugh while Iekane glared at Mitsunari.

Mitsunari looked from Iekane to Mozumi in confusion. “Insane?” He bowed. “My apologies. I am not good with names.”

“He’s really not.” I tried to be helpful, even though in my head, from now on, ‘Iekane’ would likely be translated to ‘Inane’. “His cat is called kitty for that very reason.”

“Ah.” Iekane apparently decided not to make an issue out of it, but instead go for another personal shot at me. “Okatsu, then you must be used to answering to more than one name.”

In his current role as jolly lord of the manor Mozumi placed a hearty hand on Iekane’s shoulder. “This afternoon, we’re all going to tour my mining operation. Nobunaga has expressed great interest in it. I imagine the two of you should enjoy getting out of this archive room as well and enjoy the outing.”

INTO the silver mines. That would be a giant nope from me. But would Mitsunari understand what that would mean for my claustrophobia?

“Although I imagine that would be incredibly fascinating,” Mitsunari gestured to the pile of books and papers, “I must refuse. There is far too much work for me to do here, and Lady Okatsu is too much help to me for me to let her go. I do know what I would do without her.”

“Nonsense. I’m certain Nobunaga will allow you an afternoon off. I will talk with Hideyoshi and make arrangements.” Mozumi and Iekane bowed and took themselves off.

Into the silver mines.

Into the silver mines with Iekane.

FML.

“Do not worry, Lady Okatsu.” Mitsunari gently patted my arm. “I will figure out a strategy to get you out of this.”

I must have looked skeptical, or maybe my worry about going underground (I figured the mines would be underground… or in a tunnel… or ugh! I couldn’t even follow that trail of thought into the dark) had overwhelmed me, because Mitsunari reassured me again. “I promise I will formulate a strategy to prevent you from having to go into the silver mine.”

I took a deep breath. And then another. I believed in him.

“Perhaps we could find a mild poison, one that would incapacitate you for a day.” He cocked his head to take in what had to have been an incredulous look on my face. “That was a joke. Did I not tell it correctly?”

“You did not.” But the utter #jokefail of it all was charming in its own… twisted… way, and that was enough to make me smile.

“I will work on that.” He nodded to himself.

I was glad Mitsunari had my back. Even though he was a bit clumsy and absentminded, the fact that he wanted to help me, that I wasn’t alone in this, made me feel… well. I wasn’t sure how I felt, but I was glad he wanted to help. “Thank you.”

And… he was doing that staring thing again. “Okatsu, could you hold very still?”

“What is it? Another spider?” I held still, waiting to feel those skittering feet. But he simply put his fingers to his lips and simply looked at me. I waved my hand in front of his face. “Do you need to take another break?”

He sighed. “Three.”

Late morning came and went without any solution. Mitsunari was soon borne off by Hideyoshi for some sort of man conference to which I was not invited. Again, at loose ends, I did the one thing I could do to make me feel less powerless: I took myself and my bow and arrows out to the archery practice field next to the castle. If I could relax and focus under these circumstances, then anything was possible. At the same time, losing myself in the, well, zen of my practice would help me relax for a while.

Whump.

(Center target).

Whump.

(Center target).

My power of blocking out stress were good, but not enough to block out the whisper of kimono silk and soft footsteps approaching me from behind. I caught the scent of that cloying incense that floated along with Lady Yone. Turning to her, I bowed.

She returned the gesture. “You are quite skilled at that.”

Already prepared with a response should anyone question my abilities, I said, “As a young girl, I was enthralled by the legends of Tomoe Gozen.”

“Ah. She is a better role model than Ono no Komachi.” That comment definitely belied a familiarity with Mozume’s literary tastes. Komachi had written erotic poems, and now, hundreds of years after her death, her love life had risen to legendary status.

Did Lady Yone bring her up for any particular reason? Or was she simply making conversation? “Maybe. I have never devoted much energy to criticizing what a woman must do to survive.”

“Or thrive, if we are still talking about Komachi.” She took hold of one corner of her kimono and performed a few graceful dance steps.

I risked turned my back on her long enough to speedily hit all the target bags. “As did Tomoe Gozen.” Time to figure out what the hell she wanted. “Lady Yone did you come out here to debate philosophy?”

She laughed – delicately, but the sound was like nails on a chalkboard. “Such a suspicious mind you have, Lady Okatsu. I simply came out for a stroll and when I saw you, I decided to make idle conversation.”

Not taking the bait. Aki taught me that listening and waiting were useful tools in the interrogator arsenal. The question was… was she interrogating me, or I her? “It is a lovely day for a stroll.”

Make of that what you will, Lady possibly-tried-to-kill-your-stepdaughter.

Whump.

(Center target).

Whump.

(Center target).

“Indeed. I am giving Shohime and her fiancé a moment of privacy so they can get to know one another.” She took out a fan and fluttered it in front of her face. “My darling is so worried about her pending marriage, but simply a few moments in Lord Iekane’s company will go far to allay her fears.”

Yeah. Good luck with that. “He seems pleasant.” Which is true. He seems that way. Reality may be different. “Shohime …seems resistant.”

“Not everyone is as lucky as you and Mitsunari.” She reached over and took one of my arrows out of my quiver. “I presume that since you are a reader, you are familiar with western mythologies, such as that of the Greeks?”

“Somewhat.” Though my rudimentary high school basics, supplemented by Marvel Comics probably would do as well as what she would have been able to consume in this era.

“Their love God, Eros, had only to shoot a man or woman with an arrow to generate love.” She plucked the string on my bow and my nerves jangled accordingly. “But love can grow slowly as it did between myself and Lord Mozumi, and it will between Shohime and Iekane.”

“Helped along by those purple flowers?” I gestured to the hills above the castle, where the torikabuto could be seen growing in their poisonous little clusters.

Lady Yone shook her head. “Oh, not those. They are poisonous.”

I punted the concept of subtlety into oblivion. “Why did you tell Shohime they could be brewed into a love potion?”

Finally, Lady Yone looked appalled. “What? No! Oh no! I told her to gather sakura blossoms and bathe in them. She must have gotten confused!” She put her hands to her cheeks. “What have I done?”

“One of Nobunaga’s servants caught her in time.” Probably best not to mention which one. “We told her not to pick any more.” Whether or not her acorn sized brain would remember that was another issue altogether.

“Oh, thank you.” Lady Yone heaved a sigh of relief. “I would feel simply terrible if my words inadvertently caused Shohime’s death.”

Well. She sounded sincere. But Iekane’s sincerity last night was causing me to second guess everything. Was I simply too suspicious? “It would be a terrible tragedy… she’s so young.”

“She’s always been such a simple, sweet child. Mozumi’s preferred companions find her to be a nearly irresistible temptation, and the poor girl has no idea.” Again, that theatrical hand to her heart. “I thought it better to have her safely married to a young man like Lord Iekane who can care for her.”

Aaaand we’d circled back to Iekane. I waited. Maybe this time Lady Yone would come out and say what she wanted to say. Sooner or later the shoe (or the spider encrusted sandal) would fall.

“Last night, when I found you wandering in the hall, you appeared to have come from Lord Iekane’s room.” Yup. There it is.

I’d wondered if she had noted that. “He heard me passing by and mistook me for a maid.” More or less true, in fact.

“Interesting. He said much the same but noted that you seemed confused.” She tilted her head at me, but her attitude was basically, ‘citizen viewing a crazy person.’

That’s how Iekane was playing it – any accusations I made toward him and he’d claim I was crazy. My fingers itched to grab my dagger and have it out with him, but that would just play into his script. “If someone got you mixed up with a maid, would you not also feel confused at first? Once we sorted things out, he was apologetic.”

“Well, one would hope that in the future your behavior will not encourage that sort of confusion.” She smiled at me again, but this was more of the bared teeth threat that had been simmering throughout our entire conversation. After a polite (barely) bow, she drifted away.

Ugh. I really hoped that Mitsunari had come up with a plan to get me out of an afternoon with all of these people.

#Spoiler. Mitsunari did not get me out of it.

And so that afternoon found me and the rest of Nobunaga’s retinue, as well as Mozumi, Iekane, and Shohime riding the few kilometers over to the Kamioka mining operation. “Do not worry.” Mitsunari edged his horse closer to mine and spoke softly into my ear. “I have a plan.”

In such a crowd, I couldn’t question what Mitsunari planned, I could only hope he executed it soon. But he didn’t act when we stabled our horses, or when we entered the refinery area where one of Mozumi’s mine operators explained the smelting process. I might possibly have been more interested in that if the lesson was to be followed by either a quiz or a snack, rather than a hike down underneath the mountain… and ugh it was really warm in the room. If Mitsunari couldn’t rescue me soon, I was likely to throw up.

Which might get me out of going underneath, come to think about it. Hm, maybe I should not have been so quick to dismiss Mitsunari’s poisoning idea.

Hideyoshi tapped me on the arm and I jumped and yanked my arm away. Belatedly, I realized that he had been talking at me.

He frowned. It was his macro expression when forced to communicate with me, I’d learned, but today’s Hideyoshi did seem a little more gentle. “Okatsu, you seem distracted. If you aren’t careful, you’re going to knock over one of those bins.”

“I’m sorry. It’s… the heat.” I fanned myself with my hand, until he gave me that, ‘you forgot your fan again’ look. (Oops, so I had). “I’m sorry.” I apologized again, although I honestly had lost track of what I was apologizing for.

Hideyoshi tilted his head toward Mitsunari. “I imagine you’d be safer if you stick with your fiancé.”

Translation – Mitsunari needs protection from the Princess again. I looked over. Shohime had broken away from her stepmonster and Iekane (not that I blamed her) and was edging toward Mitsunari. He was listening with fascination to the man who was explaining how the silver was separated from the rock, using some kind of lead smelting method that had been developed in Korea. I imagined that Mitsunari would somehow figure out a way to make that information personally useful. Even though he appeared to be absorbed in this new information, he still smiled at me when I joined him.

Blocking Shohime’s access, I took his arm – and right in time too, as Iekane barreled over to retrieve his prize. The last thing I wanted was for Iekane to turn his poisonous attention to Mitsunari.

“Shohime, you father says they’re ready to take us inside.” Iekane gestured to where Mozumi stood impatiently with Nobunaga and the mine foreman. “Mitsunari, Okatsu, are you looking forward to a nice long trek underneath the mountain?”

Did he know? Was Iekane even aware of what his maybe/maybe not attempt on my life had done to me? His expression was open, eager, smiling… but it always had been. Besides, how could he know? I had not been claustrophobic when we had last seen each other. Maybe he was simply picking up my mood and teasing me for the sake of generalized torture.

“I simply cannot wait,” I said, making sure my expression mirrored his.

We picked our way along a steep rocky path over to the mine entrance. I took a deep breath. Maybe it wouldn’t be too bad.

I can do this.

Miners went into that thing every day, and they came out again, no problem and –

Mitsunari suddenly turned his ankle on a stone, and stumbled, falling into me, knocking us both to the ground. He managed to brace himself so that he didn’t land literally ON me, but I was startled enough about the whole thing to let out an ‘euf’ when I landed.

“Okatsu!” Did I harm you?” His voice was louder than normal, and if everyone hadn’t already turned to look at us before, they were sure looking now.

Well, I probably would have an interesting bruise on my rear, but it hadn’t hurt any worse than when I fell in the earthquake at the beginning of sum- wait. What earthquake? In a moment of vertigo, I had a vision of a stable and a memory of knocking someone out of the way of a falling beam. But …That had never happened. I rubbed my eyes, trying to clear the vision away. “I think I’m fi-”

“Don’t move!” Mai rushed over and examined me as if she were a professional nurse. “I don’t like the look of your ankle!”

My what? There was nothing wrong with my ank- oh. I slanted a glance at Mitsunari, who hovered over me in concern. Ah ha. This was his plan to get me out of going into the cave. “I am very sorry, Lady Okatsu, I hope it is not broken.”

Mai’s hiss of concern was so over-the-top it would need a parachute on its way back down. “It could be. I’ve never seen such a bruise.” She twisted her hands together and bit her lip, looking like she was about to break into sobs.

Looked like I needed to reign in Meryl Streep and Daniel Day-Lewis. “I tweaked it a bit. I’m sure if I stay out here and rest it for a little while, I will be fine.” I threw in a brave little wince of pain. “A day. I’ll be fine in a day.”

If I left this solely up to Mitsunari and Mai, they’d have me wheelchair bound for the rest of my life. And I didn’t think wheelchairs had been invented yet. I reached for Mitsunari’s arm. “If you could help me stand?”

Mitsunari helped me to my feet, and I stood there, keeping all my weight on my other foot. My left foot. Note to self. The right foot is the one that is injured. Then a worried-looking Hideyoshi made his way over and reached toward my foot. “Are you in a lot of pain, Okatsu?”

I made a show of wincing and pulling away from his reach, as if fearing the pain of touch.

“Don’t jar her!” Mai screeched.

Then, the next thing I knew, Mitsunari had picked me up in his arms. “I’ll take her back to Genba castle. There’s no need for anyone else to change their plans.”

“Yes, yes, do go back.” Mozumi looked impatient to get on with showing off his operation to Nobunaga.

Without waiting for anyone else to respond, Mitsunari carried me away.

“Keep your foot elevated,” Mai yelled after me.

I waited until we were well out of earshot of the others. “Thank you. That was a clever plan.”

“Yes. I am happy that Mai agreed to help.” For as slight as Mitsunari looked, he seemed remarkably strong, and wasn’t out of breath at all.

For a brief horrified moment though, I felt the urge to snuggle (!) against him. Instead, I peeped over his shoulder - we were long out of sight of the mine. “It’s probably safe to put me down now.”

“We’re almost to where we stabled the horses. I don’t want anyone there to report that you were walking.” He seemed perfectly content to carry me, and there was a faint smile on his face – although knowing him, he was probably doing some kind of studying in his head – so I settled back into his arms and turned my face toward the sun.

One thing I really appreciated about Mitsunari was his comfort with silence. He didn’t seem to feel a need to fill a quiet moment with useless chatter… he was peaceful. After running into Iekane last night, my brain had been chewing on that conversation over and over. I didn’t want to think any more. I closed my eyes and enjoyed the sensation of sun on my face and the strength of Mitsunari’s arms as he carried me away from the mountain. “Are you comfortable?”

“Mm hm.” So comfortable I wasn’t capable of forming words.

“Good.” His words were almost a sigh in my ear. “Perhaps you and I should run off.”

@lorei-writes @bestbryn @katriniac @lyds323 @briars7

#TBTMND #a mitsunari night's dream #throwback thursday #ikemen sengoku #fanfic #ikesen mitsunari #ikemen sengoku fanfic #fanfiction #ishida mitsunari #ikesen hideyoshi #ikesen mai #oc katsuko #katsuverse

22 notes · View notes

withhertea · 2 months ago

Text

HELLO WITCHES!

it’s me! through the mailer! how fun!

so i recently found out how many cute people are signed up to this mailer and spoiler – it’s a lot! i had also been thinking about ways to speak to u all more openly and honestly, and i suddenly was like, what if the mailer could become more of a personal letter service, from my brain to yours? i have been an avid fan of the lorde mailer for many years now (the girls who get it get it); i can still quote and remember specific excerpts from the release of solar power, and it’s always been such a welcome treat in my inbox, so i figured maybe i could take a little inspiration and start doing the same with you guys.

however, i can’t say it was all rainbows and bunnies. touring is hard, and as i get older i feel like it gets tougher to be away from home, from my loved ones, from the life i’ve built for myself in london. i get huge health anxiety for my voice, as i’ve had serious difficulties with it on previous tours and so immediately i become hyper aware; waking up every morning trying and then failing to sing a high note before you’ve even brushed your teeth is not an experience i wish on my worst enemies. i know online it can look like we’re all having the time of our lives, and as much as that is true in many ways, i also feel like it’s important to share all sides of the coin you know? im SO lucky to do what i do, and i never forget that, but that doesn’t mean it doesn’t get pretty challenging. i needed a home cooked meal like i needed oxygen by the end!

i’ve also been working on MP3 – dun dun duhhhhh :O it’s definitely been a process throughout this year, working in little gaps between tours, slowly trying to piece together what it’s going to be. i think i have 6 songs right now that feel extremely right, and a dozen more that could feel extremely right with the right gift wrapping. making albums when you’re someone like me can be quite frankly exhausting – my bar is in the sky, my standards have never been higher, and whilst its amazing having such a big team behind me, sometimes it can feel like everytime you send a song across you’re waiting for your grade back. is it an A, or a B, or a C and a do better next time?? music should be made for arts sake, something i really am trying to remember, and i’ve had a great week in the studio this week with some long time favourites of mine, so im excited for what the rest of the months will bring :’) im writing from the heart, and i believe that is what matters most. i wrote a song called real thing this week that im pretty excited about, so here’s a little teaser for you :

‘love was a rumour, now it’s my morning coffee, and all of that heartbreak, oh it melted right off me’

it wouldn’t feel right to sign this off without talking about the election result in america. whilst i’m not an american, i spend a lot of time there and love a lot of people who live there. i was hugely disappointed and frankly terrified of the outcome, and i want to take this moment to say: to all of my BIPOC fans, all of my queer fans, trans fans, i am with you, i support you, i love you, and i will do whatever i can do over the next four years to be and create a safe space for you.

here are some quick recommendations to make your day a little better, and i will talk to you all again soon!

the new christian lee hutson album, paradise pop 10! (it’s all i listen to right now), water ballet and flamingos are my favourites

2. netil market in london fields, and then the everything seasoning pizza slices <333 slap so hard

3. BANANAGRAMS. a conan tour obsession that has infiltrated my whole consciousness. you must join the cult.

4. a book called greta & valdin – i read on the plane ride out to america, and it was such a fun, poignant, heartfelt read <3

love u all deeply <3 mais x

Maisie's newsletter (November 15 2024)

#maisie peters

17 notes · View notes

spongeguyandlelouchvibridankia · 4 days ago

Text

Understood some readers would prefer to read on tumblr I stead of ao3, so here's a recent one!

January 30th, Thursday, 1998.

DAY 3 OF THE FRIENDSHIP EXPERIMENT, SECOND STAGE

Dear Galileo,

So as previously reported, the first day went well (a few complications aside). I should have been in quite optimistic spirits then, no?

A foolish question. Gretchen Grundler is quite chipper when she wants to be, but when metaphorical shit hits the metaphorical fan, she gets quite not metaphorically antsy.

Literally. I had to pretend I was a nice, peaceful ant for 15 minutes this morning because I could carry on.

Still, the day was… Another success, for the most part. In some ways, it was quite enlightening.

But I digress. Let me regale you with today’s experiment, which I shall title “The Spa Study, or, An Assessment of Ashley Armbruster’s Curious Craving for Curative Baths”.

Or, in short, “How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Chill the Fuck Out Sometimes”.

It all started this morning, after I pretended to be an ant, where I proceeded to pretend I was telling my parents the truth about my future hangout partner…

“Woah, a-get you’ hands in the air

And get to clappin’ ‘em and, like, back and forth

Because-a this is what you thought it wasn’t

It be’s the brothers representin’ the Dirty Dozen

I be the F-R-O, the double G

And check out my man, he goes by the name of, er, uh…

Slim Shady, brain dead like Jim Brady

I’m a M-80, you little like that Kim lady

I’m buzzin, Dirty Dozen, naughty rotten rhymer

Cursin’ at you players worse than Marty Schottenheimer

You wacker than the motherfucker you bit yo’ style from

You aint’ gon’ sell two copies if you press a double album

Admit it, fuck it, while we comin’ out in the open

I’m doin’ acid, crack, smack, coke and smokin’ dope then

My name is Marshall Mathers, Ii’m an alcoholic (Hi, Marshall)

I have a disease and they don’t know what to call it

Better hide your wallet ‘cause I’m comin’ up quick to strip yo’ cash

Bought a ticket to yo’ concert just to come and whip yo’ ass

Bitch, I’m comin’ out swingin’ so fast it’ll make yo’ eyes spin

You getting’ knocked the fuck out like Mike Tyson (pssh)

The proof is in the puddin’, just ask DeShaun Holton

I’ll slit yo’ motherfuckin’ throat worse than Ron Goldman

So when you see me on yo’ block with two Glocks

Screamin’, “Fuck the world” like 2Pac

I just don’t give a fuck

So put my tape back on the rack

Go run and tell your friends my shit is wack

I just don’t give a fuck

But see me on the street and duck

‘Cause you gon’ get stuck, stole and snuffed

‘Cause I just don’t give a fuck”

Sitting at the breakfast table (this time, the Grundlers had convinced her to at least eat some of their healthy and cheap grown up cereal), Gretchen twitchily jotted down details of the day’s experiment, one which she had yet to tell Ashley A, but didn’t feel like she would need much convincing.

If anything, she was still trying to convince herself.

‘I suppose it couldn’t hurt, really. Plus, scientists have to risk themselves all the time for the craft. Why, would the Curies have discovered radium if they hadn’t taken the plunge into cancer? Heck, if they weren’t truly careful, we would be making Godzilla movies about them!’, she muttered to herself, trying to motivate but mostly just spilling nervous thoughts onto the notebook like milk from her cereal bowl (which, coincidentally, was also spilling a little). The bran flakes floated by and popped like mines in a field, and Gretchen was the bomb defusal expert too busy writing about her lover at home to eat them.

‘…I must have my head checked. It can’t be healthy to have this many gay thoughts about a strictly platonic friend.’, Gretchen voiced, ignoring how dumb that statement sounded and resuming her antsy writing (not to be confused with her antsy acting upstairs).

Mr. Grundler, who was simply enjoying the music billowing from their radio, attempted to strike up conversation with his daughter, who he could tell was feeling the butterflies in her stomach. He knew her well enough by now to know the symptoms beforehand. ‘That Eminem could really be going places soon. I heard Dre might be helping him on his next LP.’

Gretchen let out an ‘Mm hmm’, the kind of Mm hmm that indicated she was only kind of listening and mostly sunk into her work. Phil recognized it, as he had emitted it many a time himself. Trying from another angle, he coughed ‘You know, they say a pair of more… Experienced eyes can often clear up what seems unclear right now.’

Gretchen simply nodded this time, eating air with her spoon instead of cereal.

Phil pursed his lips. This would take a little less subtlety, but would she allow that?

Slowly leaning over, as if he was simply assisting with homework (something which Phil never really had to do with Gretchen but still), he whispered ‘What’s grinding your gears?’.

Gretchen sighed, realizing he wasn’t gonna let up. This was unusual for her, since she normally reveled in listening to her father’s angle on things, even things she knew more about. She would have loved nothing more than to sit back a little and see his mind work, his eyes process the information, his lips curl a little as he considered the questions, his fingers gently tap on the paper, that sound that could rock her to sleep, the tiniest reveal of his true excitement at encountering a problem. To the Grundlers, such work was as fun as a rollercoaster.

But this wasn’t homework, or calculations for an experiment. This was something far more… Personal.

And Gretchen unfortunately couldn’t share it… Just yet.

‘It’s just…’, she suddenly closed the notebook, searching for a lie that wasn’t too mean. Was there a way to tell the truth without telling it? She’d have to try. ‘…I’m simply trying to figure out how to approach today’s hangout session with Ashley R.’

‘Well, that’s basically the truth.’, Gretchen thought, proud of her excuse. Ashley A would have somehow sputtered out some crap about suddenly being blind or whatnot, and still get away with it.

Phil nodded, hiding his knowing smile. It was sort of adorable that his daughter thought she was good at lying about this, considering she muttered everything she wrote at listening volume. ‘Hmm, I see. What is it this time?’

Seeing no reason to lie about the specific hangout, Gretchen didn’t. ‘It’s a… Spa thing.’

Mr. Grundler now understood the problem. ‘You know, Spas aren’t only for illustrious elitists with troves drowning in trinkets.’

Gretchen normally would have understood what he meant, but she was so anxious (even biting her pencil while fiddling it up and down) that she found herself blinking and mumbling out a ‘What?’

‘What your father means is that you don’t have to be a fancy pants to enjoy a nice little massage!’, Mrs. Grundler cried, marching in with her cleaning robot and repairing it on the table, right next to the orange juice. Such was a typical Grundler morning, and the three of them wouldn’t have it any other way. ‘I think it sounds rather fun! Great idea by Ashley A…’, Mrs. Grundler started, only for Mr. Grundler to wave his arms in alarm, morse code tapping S.O.S. Once more, Gretchen was too distracted to notice what she would have always noticed, so Mrs. Grundler got away with her slip and way too loudly stated ‘R, THAT IS, ASHLEY R!’

While Phil wiped his brow with his hand, Gretchen placed her chin on her palm, which was connected to her arm, which was on the table, in a spot of spilt milk. ‘Well, actually, it was… My idea.’

Both parents were silently surprised, but refused to judge. Gretchen was a growing girl, allowed to experiment with new things. Unlike other house holds… ‘Well, it’s riveting to see you so open to fresh ideas, Gretchen!’, Mrs. Grundler tried, hoping that would raise a tiny smile.

Gretchen still frowned however, the potential problems permeating in her mind’s eye. ‘I suppose… It’s just… It’s really important. Ashley R might have a few similarities with me, but she’s… Still an Ashley. She has hobbies and vocations that a lady of science and… Rowdy shenanigans such as myself isn’t quite accustomed to. Good friends must be able to walk in another’s shoes, or in this case, another’s natural habitat, and at least try and find common ground. Lions and Zebras both inhabit at the watering hole, after all.’

The Grundlers couldn’t have loved their daughter more if they tried. But they knew she wasn’t going to just let them hug her now, so they instead nodded softly and held each other’s hands, sharing very knowing looks. ‘I’m sure that it will work out swimmingly, Gretchen, even if you don’t like the spa date. HANG. I MEANT HANG.’, Mrs. Grundler sputtered while Mr. Grundler shook his head affectionately and patted Gretchen’s hand. ‘Plus, if you get worked up, remember the mantra we practiced.’

Gretchen nodded resolutely. ‘All the moons from Pluto to Earth.’

‘That’s the ticket! Now, you should probably get going. Want me to drive…’, Phil started, only for Doris to shake her head, making two fingers walk together. Phil ah’d and nodded, realizing. ‘That is, you should get going. You wouldn’t want to keep ASHLEY R waiting, would you?’, he winked at Doris, who couldn’t help but blush at her husband.

Gretchen, missing all this because this is a story about oblivious gays, did you think they’d stop being oblivious about other things, nodded once more and marched off, notebook and backpack at the ready. She still didn’t eat enough, but hey, at least she took a few bites. Plus, there was food in the mall.

As she stepped out of the front porch onto another oddly hot day for January, Gretchen looked back at her parents, who were now eagerly fixing the robot together as if it were the most romantic parental activity ever and smiled for the first time that morning. ‘I’m so lucky.’

Then, she grimaced, as she turned towards the street, remembering her challenge. ‘And here I am, trying to befriend someone who probably wouldn’t fix a robot at the breakfast table. Oh, I hope massages don’t kill brain cells.’

And so, she walked off, ready to face destiny with a pounding heart and sweaty palms.

Destiny arrived far too soon for her nerve’s tastes, in the form of a chipper but clearly tired Ashley A, still blinking away the sandman’s gift. The rich girl was yawning as she put her glasses on and used Gretchen’s tall figure to keep herself from falling until she balanced herself. ‘Long, restless night? I can relate.’, Gretchen questioned, as she kept writing in her notebook about the day’s experiment.

Ashley nodded and yawned again, lightly bapping her cheeks to wake up. ‘Those Dawson’s Creek, Party of Five, Spice World and Katie Winslet posters won’t put themselves up!’

‘I relate… Slightly less now.’, Gretchen admitted, as she weighed how to ask Ashley about her plan for the day.

Ashley then made her job easier for her, as she clasped her hands together and batted her eyelashes cutely. ‘So… What’s the next step in the Friendship Experiment? We buyin’ double the gum?’

Gretchen side eyed her with a smirk, shaking her head. ‘Unfortunately, Ms. Sequel, that’s not what we’re doing.’ Swallowing the ball of spit in her mouth, she choked out ‘It’s, well… Um…’

Lowering her voice to a near imperceptible whisper, she stammered ‘I was thinking of going to the… S-Spa…’

Ashley, however, could barely hear her, so she tilted her head and hummed in confusion. ‘Sorry, but I literally can’t hear you.’

‘Of course.’, Gretchen sighed in annoyance. Never an easy way out. Clearing her throat, she raised her voice a little. ‘I was thinking of going to the spa.’

‘...What?’, Ashley asked again, blinking in confusion. ‘You sound like you’re underwater.’

‘I was THINKING of GOING to the SPA!’, Gretchen raised her voice, now genuinely miffed, hoping no one in the vicinity heard her. She was clenching her fists and shaking, mostly from anxiety, but still.

Ashley stared at her blankly for too many seconds. ‘...What?’

‘I WAS THINKING OF GOING TO THE SPA!!!’, Gretchen shouted one last time, so loudly and strongly that it made the ear bud fly out of Ashley’s ear, emitting a low but noticeable “Tubthumping” by Chumbawama. Ashley sheepishly grinned. ‘Oh, right, I was listening to music.’, She giggled, wagging her finger and singing “I get knocked down, but I get up again, you are never gonna keep me down”.

Gretchen groaned, half frustrated with Ashley, half disappointed in herself for losing her cool like that. ‘Sorry, I’m just… Unsure of today’s experiment.’

‘How come?’, Ashley asked, and Gretchen remembered that she still hadn’t heard what they were gonna do today. Defeated, she muttered it while walking away. ‘I was thinking of going to the spa.’

Ashley’s high pitched gasp and squeal sent shockwaves of worry across Gretchen’s mind. ‘A SPA DATE?! OH, LITERALLY TOTALLY SCHWAY!!!’

Gretchen ignored her blush at the word date and waited for Ashley to finish her victory dance so she could elaborate. ‘Normally this wouldn’t be my cup of tea, but this is a crucial part of the experiment, one that, if not passed, jeopardizes the entire relationship.’

Ashley slowed her dance and gulped, alarmed at the serious tone. ‘Talk about a buzz kill. Why so on the real, Gretch?’

‘Because, Ash, true friends are open to each other’s more… Unique interests, even if they are markedly different.’

Ashley nodded and mumbled ‘I see…’, and Gretchen rolled her eyes, understanding what that meant. ‘You don’t get it.’

‘Not a clue.’

‘It means that my idea of a good time does NOT involve cucumber slices on one’s eyes or a mud bath, which I thought was something you people hated.’, Gretchen explained, not hiding her disdain for the activity.

Ashley, meanwhile, was still confused, as evidenced by her tapping on her chin while avoiding all the cracks on the street. ‘But didn’t we go to the spa all the way back in THE GREAT ASHLEY BAMBOOZLING CAPER? You didn’t seem to mind it that much.’

‘Adrenaline plus we were so close to succeeding that I could have put up with a black hole. But that was work. This is fun, and I take it VERY seriously. Why do you think the gang and I get into misadventures once a week I mean day?’, Gretchen illuminated, not bothering to skip the cracks, little twigs snapping at her heels.

Ashley shrugged, finding Gretchen’s attitude perplexing. ‘Girl, take a chill pill. It’s just a spa! It’s not gonna bite!’

‘See, that’s my point! You practically live and breathe that kind of stuff, and I find it as inviting as dinner with a female praying mantis. Which is bad.’, she quickly elaborated, Ashley beginning to understand. ‘If I don’t like this, then maybe I won’t like other stuff, like going shopping for clothes, or gossiping, or…’

‘A sleepover, I get it.’, Ashley bit her lip, now nervous too. This was a lot more important than she realized. She could also now see how strained Gretchen seemed. Her hands kept wringing each other, her fingers often twirled around while tapping each other, her teeth grinded, and she seemed to clench everything, even her shoulders. Was she always this anxious?

Suddenly, it melted away a little, as Ashley placed a smooth, soft and comforting palm on Gretchen’s clenching shoulder. ‘Hey, maybe you’ll like it. After all, I tried something very different and unusual lately, and it’s been pretty dope.’

‘Which is?’, Gretchen asked, not bothering to look back.

‘Hanging out with this pretty wicked brainiac, yea tall, hella smart, answers to Gretchen Grundler, ever heard of her?’

Gretchen finally looked back, and Ashley flashed that winning smile of hers, and she couldn’t stay worried, at least, for now. ‘You have a real annoying habit of growing on me, you noticed?’, Gretchen smirked, squeezing Ashley’s hand, who squeezed back. ‘You would know.’

Suddenly, they realized they had reached school, and quickly separated, shoes slapping off the playground pavement. ‘Mall, 15:30 sharp, got it?’, Gretchen cried, as she quickly joined Vince’s kickball team.

‘I’ll come up with a good excuse!’, Ashley flashed her two thumbs up, before dumping her disguise and quick changing into Ashley A behind a bush shaped like a closet. ‘I’m getting better at this lying shit!’, Ashley praised herself, only to run into Ashley B, the two now lying on the ground, Ashley T and Q helping them up respectively. ‘Owie…’, both of them muttered, opening their eyes to now see each other. Ashley A immediately turned nervous while Ashley B grinned, unknowingly turning an already complicated day far more difficult. ‘Oh, Ashley A! Great! We were, like, wondering where you were and stuff!’

‘Oh, I… Took the scenic route!’, Ashley A excused, a shaky smile doing the salsa on her lips. ‘Gretchen’s kinda pretty, so it’s not totally a lie…’, Ashley thought, a thought which would bite her in the behind relatively soon.

‘Totally, totally, very schway.’, Ashley B waved it off, clearly more interested in what she had to say. Ashley A was really getting tired of that. ‘Did I use to do that all the time? No wonder Gretchen’s worried. What if she thinks I wouldn’t try for her?’

While Ashley got lost in her worried thoughts, Ashley B ordered Ashley T to lay down the morning report for them, and Ashley Q led them into the clubhouse while there was still time before class. Soon, they were in The Ashley’s famous hangout, it feeling like a strange place almost after so long for Ashley A. Three of them were now sitting on the velvet red couch underneath light pink sashes, and opening up the secret candy bar, Ashley Q passed them a Reese’s Peanut Butter Cup bag each, as they snacked and gossiped, the “Spiceworld” album ringing out banger after banger.

‘So, first, Megan is TOTALLY packing fake Jordans. I heard Library Kid and I think some other girl talking about it while I was at the library returning some… Magazines.’, Ashley T dished out, stuttering towards the end, hoping no one caught her white lie. They WERE magazines… Just with a lot of pictures of people fighting. Totally normal. ‘Oh, and Jenny, she’s trying to shake it up with a blue top that does NOT match her ginger hair at all. Like, I know they’re complimentary colors, but, well, Jenny just doesn’t pull it off.’, she lied truly there, but that was the point. No one got to be fashionable BUT The Ashley’s, and Ashley B and Q giggled haughtily and nodded while they popped in peanut butter cups. ‘How true, wouldn’t you say, Ashley A?’

Ashley A snapped out of her daydreaming and hurriedly nodded, a non-committal ‘Mmm hmm’. Truthfully, she was haunted by two specific thoughts, two that made her feel like she was having an out of body experience: 1. She really didn’t like how all their gossip was mean, and 2. Gretchen.

No matter how hard she tried, she couldn’t picture Gretchen there, sitting between Q and T, laughing with them and sipping some ice green tea, sharing her own gossip, even gossip that wasn’t mean. It just wasn’t like her, was it? ‘She’s nothing like them. And, in a way, that means she’s nothing like me. That’s a LOT of differences.’

If she couldn’t imagine Gretchen chilling at the clubhouse, how could she ever enjoy a spa? Or a shopping day? Or a sleepover?!

And vice versa: Could Ashley truly hang out in the dirty playground? Play kickball? Conduct experiments? Could she, even in disguise, fit in with the likes of Spinelli and Gus, kids she had bullied since the moment she laid her eyes on them?

‘Ashley A? Ashley A!’

Two finger snaps sent Ashley A crashing back to reality, observing Ashley B’s miffed expression. ‘Girl, am I talking to the hand or not? I was just reporting that I heard there’s a girl who’s crushing on Gus! Gus!! How aren’t you rolling on the floor laughing?’

Ashley A gulped. Once, she would have found that hilarious. But now, it just felt so… Mean. Could she really do that?

‘Fake it till you make it’, she thought, and with a brave breath, she emitted a fake laugh, far too shrill and loud for her, but thankfully enough to cast away the suspicion for now. ‘That really… Totally helps my mood!’

‘Oh, are you okay?’, Ashley T asked, genuinely worried, but Ashley B simply ignored, clearly caring more about the response to her dirt and less about the responder. ‘Oh, by the way, who’s paying for the spa this time? I’d bother to memorize the paying chart but that’s Ashley A’s job, as our most beloved president. I could do it, but you know, duty calls for her.’, B reminded, just a tinge of jealousy coloring her words, as she filed her nails perhaps a little too angrily.

Ashley A’s face turned pale (but for once, not to her liking). ‘Mall Day Thursday!’, she exclaimed, as if she were the subject of an edvard munch painting.

‘Um, duh! Ashley, you are REALLY distracted today. Not very presidential…’, Ashley B once again stung her friend, while Q and T gave Ashley A weird looks. It was only their weekly tradition. HOW did she forget?

‘Oh, right, of course! I’m just… Well, you see…’, Ashley A scrambled for an excuse. She couldn’t be at two places at the same time, right?

‘...Better keep that for a far more pressing situation.’, Ashley A decided, unknowingly setting up a truly disastrous scenario. For now, she needed a good lie. But what? ‘I…’, she felt her heart pound and her palms sweat (‘Eww’), as the other Ashley’s now bore holes in her face, squinting at her strange behavior. She couldn’t let Gretchen down! She just couldn’t! That would be a catastrophe!

Catastrophe.

Cat-astrophe.

Cat.

‘Sometimes, my genius impresses even me.’, Ashley smirked at the 4th wall, which was very pretty today, someone must have dusted lately.

‘...Muffin! Muffin, my poor little baby snuggly wuggly lil angel schmoopsie poo googly bear is feeling…’, Ashley paused for dramatic effect, a hand over her shoulder, eyes closed, as she prayed to God that this would work. ‘...Ill!’

The other Ashleys all seemed confused, tilting their heads.

Ashley A realized her mistake and was quick to correct it. ‘Oh, I meant bad Ill, not good ill.’

The three Ashleys all gasped accordingly, reacting apropos: Ashley T was dabbing her tear stained cheeks with her pink handkerchief, Ashley Q had already fainted, and Ashley B was already phoning 9-1-1, stating ‘Yes, it is an emergency, my daddy will cut the funding if you don’t answer right now! Cancer patients? What did they ever do for me?’

Ashley A panicked, realizing that could lead to her being discovered. ‘Oh, don’t worry, it’s only… Starting stages! But someone must volunteer to be with my baby girl, and I would never trust my family with her!’, she reassured, waving her arms all over.

Ashley Q and T bought it, simply happy Ashley M had proper care, but Ashley B did have a habit of making things harder for Ashley A. ‘Well, while it is disappointing, we totally understand! A valid excuse, for sure! But we should come over, anyway. Just to offer a helping hand to our honorary member! A sick kitty is nothing to be sneezed at!’

She couldn’t really tell them not to go. Sighing, Ashley A realized she’d owe Menlo another favor, but at least she and Gretchen would be safe. ‘No further complications’, she thought with a relieved smile, as she popped in another Peanut Butter Cup.

Meanwhile, in Ms. Finster’s office, further complications were indeed being formulated that very instant.

‘Randall! Randall!!’, Ms. Finster cried out, huffing and puffing after a hard training session. ‘Where could that blasted boy be?!’, she muttered, pacing around her room in her usual drill sergeant way; Methodical and precise. Every movement, every action, had to be carefully coordinated and planned. EVERYTHING had to be under control. ‘Lest there be chaos. Lest there be anarchy. Lest there be…’, Finster nearly finished her tragic muse, only for the door to open with a slam, a panting Randall instantly falling to his knees in apology. ‘Finster, please, accept my most humble apology, I was just doing what you said…’, Randall started, but Finster was quick to wave him off, sitting at her desk, the lack of light making her seem dramatic and all powerful, beady eyes glaring back from her thin spectacles. ‘I have no time for groveling, Randall. I KNOW you were doing what I said. If you weren’t, you’d be sitting your sorry little keyster in detention!’

Taking a moment to relax (but still ever alert), Finster snapped her fingers. ‘Morning report, boy, let’s hear it.’

‘Of course!’, Randall cried, a little more excited than usual. Finster noticed the inflection immediately. She had a way with that. Sniffing the truth from your soul in an instant. Meanwhile, Randall flipped through his notebook, which was color coded, for a change. ‘You’ll be pleased to know I’ve sorted it through priority levels!’, Randall boasted, half ego trip half genuine desire to please his superior. ‘See, Green is your usual garden variety trouble, some half baked Hustler Kid operation, Lawson being a plain old jerk, etc. Then we have Orange, for slightly more troubling news, say, Mundy, Kurst, Sue Bob and Lazy Kid are up to something, or King Bob is getting a little too big for his throne. Now, Red is normally the most dangerous color, but I was thinking that could be reserved for Detweiller and his gang, since they’re usually your top priority, and that’s because currently our focus is on the Ashley’s, hence the Purple section, I thought that was pretty clever of me, since Purple is the Ashley color…’

‘I asked for a morning report, Randall, not bootleg Bob Ross. Give me the 4-1-1, stat!’, Finster ordered, clearly a little impatient this morning. Randall would normally have bitten back at any kid saying that to him, but instead he quickly whipped out a ready made thermos of the blackest coffee he could find that morning at the farmer’s market and poured her a mug. Not a word had to be shared. It was a routine as familiar as family dinner for the duo.

Pertaining to her report request, Randall nodded gently, still a little upset that his color coding went unnoticed. ‘As you wish, Finster. I did as you said, tailed the Ashley’s meeting. Who would have suspected the plush pile? I must say, it was quite comfortable! Nicer than an action figure pile, anyway. That was a pretty whomping Friday…’

Finster raised one eyebrow while sipping, not needing to look. Randall stared down at his feet and muttered an apology. ‘That is, that was a pretty crummy Friday.’

Finster grunted, indicating he continue. In the darkness of the office, the only real light emitted from Randall’s eyes, glad to have someone’s attention for once. ‘Well, I can’t say I got a LOT of dirt, but we’re not dealing with any Sunday School getup here, Finster. Ashley A isn’t attending the weekly mall visit.’

‘So? She hasn’t the last few weeks, last week excepted, thanks to that so called sickness of hers. Probably wanted to be pampered, even if it meant missing out on her quality time with her sycophantic crew.’, Finster ignored the intel, but Randall insisted, clearing his throat. ‘But see, that’s the thing… Ashley told them she was taking care of her sick cat. Only she didn’t want them to visit just yet.’

‘...Randall, I’m missing the part where this turns into dirt.’, Finster complained, voice rising in frustration. ‘If you don’t have anything to say, then stop wasting my time and get to class already!’

Randall, panicking at the mistaken assumption of his failure, was quick to correct. ‘But Ms. Finster! I know her cat isn’t sick!’

Finster, still not believing, began to stand up to open the door. ‘Randall, don’t make me kick you out. It’s humiliating for the both of us.’

On his knees again and clutching her leg, Randall cried ‘I know because she told Gretchen she’d come up with an excuse!’

THAT stopped Finster. Like a mole looking up from the ground onto the sun, Finster’s wrinkly rat like face scrunched up as she opened the blinds to her office, exposing the blinding sunlight and most importantly: Her domain.

‘Grundler? Considering her company, she steers clear of my iron fist more than one would assume.’, Finster muttered, Randall the only recipient of her turning gears. ‘Sure, she’s got that troublemaker gene, but only in association with Detweiller. What could POSSIBLY get her to become strange bedfellows with Armbruster?’

‘That’s what I was thinking! And remember what I told you about a few weeks ago, when Ashley was running around school with her backpack?’, Randall added, but Finster was already advancing in her plan. ‘Yes, yes… Yes, it’s time.’

‘Time? Time for what?’, Randall asked, checking his schedule. ‘I don’t need to massage your feet until…’

‘Not that, boy! It’s time for the PLAN!’, Finster emphasized, and suddenly, Randall realized, and gulped, nervous. ‘I’m… I’m still not sure about this, Finster. I mean, I’m more of a secret listener. A “Hide behind the bush and peak” listener. A “Doesn’t disguise himself as a girl to collect info” listener. Point is… Why a girl?’

‘I’m on budget watch thanks to the Cafeteria incident. Who knew so many parents would find interrogations “excessive”?’, Finster explained, but she didn’t seem as firm. She shared a sympathetic look. ‘Unfortunately, we can only use drama club costumes, and the only ones that fit your scrawny little body are girl ones.’

‘Oh man… I knew I should have stuck to that fitness regimen you suggested.’, Randall groaned, sounding guilty. Finster knew the tone well, and tried to lower her usual firm and rigid tone to reassure him. ‘It’s just a costume, Randall. Think of it as… Acting!’, she snapped her fingers, remembering Randall’s failed dream of playing Santa Claus at the school play.

As predicted, Randall’s eyes instantly lit up, and he wiggled his arms, unable to hold his excitement back. ‘You’re right, Finster! That’ll show that snooty club what for!’

‘Exactly! Plus, if we bag the Ashley’s, you know what that would mean for the school?’, Finster reminded him of their broader goals, as she stared down at the children in the playground. Kickball, marbles, other extracurricular activities… It all seemed rather by the numbers. But Finster saw more, knew more.

‘Look at them, Randall. So blind to the threats of their own indulgence. They let hustlers and bullies and Ashley’s get away with anything, which makes them think they can bend my rules, twist my codes. They think I’m unfair, think I’m some kind of monster. But they don’t understand… I’m the only thing standing between them and total anarchy. I’m protecting them. You realize that, don’t you, Randall?’

It was an honest question, a momentary crack of doubt, and Randall was quick to nod. ‘I’m dressing up like a girl for you, am I not, Finster? You don’t find this cause alone!’

Finster nearly allowed herself a small smile, but…

‘I can’t. Not after… Him. I can’t trust anyone again.’, she reminded herself, so she remained vigilant. Randall had to truly earn such a thing as a smile from Muriel Finster. ‘Attention, soldier. Actions speak louder than words.’

Randall, understanding, saluted as hard as he could, then ran off to put on his disguise.

Finster saluted back, nodding, before sitting down at her desk, darkness spreading once again, except around her eyes. A necessary devil for a playground full of potential demons. Someone had to stand guard.

‘Someone has to protect them from themselves.’, she grunted, staring at a framed photograph of a ginger woman and blonde man, straight from the late 60’s, with smiles too innocent for this world.

Meanwhile, just before the class bell rang, the Gang reconvened by the see saw. ‘How was the kickball g…’, TJ started, only for Gretchen to walk past, lost in her own thoughts. She just kept writing in her notebook, looking and sounding stressed, her anxious mutters sticking with the gang as they saw her depart without a word nor a look.

‘...Ame?’, TJ scratched his head, while Gus (who was on the see saw with Mikey) worriedly stared at Vince, wiping his sweat from the game. ‘Gretchen acting weird again?’

‘You better believe it, Short Stop.’, Vince grunted, leaning on a part of the jungle gym, his brows furrowed in a way only someone who really cared did. ‘I don’t get it. She usually enjoys being on my team. Did I forget to brush my teeth? Maybe she just doesn’t like kickball anymore? Is my hair okay?’

‘Your hair’s fine, get off it!’, Spinelli rolled her eyes, before offering a dark glare at the departing Gretchen. ‘I smell something fishy, however.’

‘Sorry, I just couldn’t wait to eat my tuna sandwich.’, Mikey apologized, on the other end of the swing, worried about his friends suspicions.

‘I have to admit, something seems off. Gretchen never acts like that during kickball.’, TJ thought, a flash of concern across his eyes. Was Gretchen hiding something from them? If so, what? Was it wrong to want to know?

‘I say we do something about it. It’s been like this for weeks! We should follow her today and see what she’s up to!’, Spinelli pitched, wiggling her fingers around as if she was already spying Gretchen doing something devious.

Mikey gulped, thinking back to his discovery of a crush… Which to answer if he was right or wrong would sort of defeat the purpose of this story, would it not? ‘Um… I don’t know… Isn’t that a breach of Gretchen’s privacy?’

‘No it’s not! It’s just making sure she’s… Okay! You know? As the caring friends we are! Very caring!’, Vince added enthusiastically, cringing at his tone. He must have sounded so dumb.

‘Yeah, but… Would any of us like it if Gretchen spied on us?’, Gus countered, trying desperately to lower Mikey on his end of the see saw. ‘My dad says that spies are the most despised of all military positions! He’s not one for exaggeration with that sort of thing!’

‘I guess the deciding vote is yours, Teej. What do you say?’, Spinneli asked, hoping he would agree… Just because she was really passionate about this, no other reason!

TJ rubbed his chin. As leader, he always had to make hard calls, but this one was up there. He totally saw where Mikey and Gus came from, but…

‘Sometimes you gotta bend the rules to do what’s right. I’ve always thought that. All right. We’re doing it. We’re spying on Gretchen.’, TJ declared, rubbing his fist in his palm. The reactions were mixed, but relenting. There was no backing off now.

A moment of tranquil worry settled on the gang…

‘Yes, let’s spy on Gretchen indeed!’

The kids all turned around to see a disguised Randall, with a clearly fake wig, terribly applied lipstick, and an old timey dress. He looked like he was out of a Shakespeare play about bad liars. Waving his hand, he spoke in a stupidly shrill voice. ‘Oh, heh heh, my name is… Randall-ina! Ain’t I pretty?’

‘Randall, are you whomping serious? Get outta here before I treat you to a knuckle sandwich!’, Spinelli roared at him, Randall running off in fear.

‘...That was weird.’, TJ commented, while Vince shrugged. Mikey then got off, crossing his arms in protest at the decision to spy, while Gus flew off from the force of the see saw finally moving. ‘I’m okay! Randall-ina broke my fall!’, Gus reassured, while Randall moaned in pain.

‘I’m telling you, it’s gonna be FABULOUS!’, Ashley shrieked with excitement, as she and Gretchen rode on the Grundler Comet, only at a far more sane pace this time. There was no major rush, after all. The excited popular girl, wearing her “embarrassing according to the Ashleys” helmet, hung on tight to Gretchen’s waist as the duo cycled through the same old sights and sounds of the town: Families tossing frisbees in the park, dogs barking to and fro, the warm scent of raised donuts and hot tamales dancing with scrapple and pierogi, sunlight sparkling off toy store windows, clouds lazily floating by, and a constant permeating atmosphere that could be summed up in one word: Busy. Not as busy as New York, but what was?

Gretchen, still feeling quite anxious (her stomach was hurting a bit and her bike handles were drenching with her palm sweat), momentarily swiveled her head back to answer. ‘I’m telling you, I have understandable reservations!’

‘I’m telling you, you’re overthinking it!’, Ashley countered, shaking her head and wishing Gretchen would just let loose already. Couldn’t be so hard.

‘I’m telling you, you’re underthinking it!’, Gretchen retorted, rolling her eyes, wind blowing her hair into Ashley’s face.

Ashley, moving her face up, suddenly widened her eyes and turned white. ‘I’m telling you, TURN RIGHT TURN RIGHT TURN RIGHT!’

Gretchen, turning back, gasped as she saw the gigantic truck full of cat food, and sharply turned right, sending the Grundler Comet flying towards the mall, the two girls somehow parking perfectly after turning around and around in circles wildly.

‘...Well, I guess now you’ll REALLY feel how relaxing it is, huh?’, Ashley joked sheepishly, as Gretchen gave her an annoyed glance and wrote down tersely “Bad cycling partner, ironically.”

Ashley gulped, rubbing her neck sheepishly as Gretchen trudged into the mall, clearly a little miffed. ‘I really need to make this work for Gretchen, or I could fail the experiment!’, Ashley thought in worry, and she rushed inside, trying to act like the most gracious host possible, as if she owned the mall. In a way, she did, to be fair. ‘Can I offer you an Auntie Anne’s Pretzel? We could get the Original Nuggets, or maybe the Cinnamon Sugar, you know, if you like it sweet! And an Orange Julius Original? We can share, or I can pay for two orders, you know, I have the money after all!’, Ashley offered sweetly, curtseying, hoping Gretchen was a fan of that kind of stuff.

Gretchen raised an eyebrow. ‘Are you trying to butter me up?’

‘I just really want this to work.’, Ashley said through gritted teeth, eyes flying back and forth, hoping Gretchen would take her offer. Her outstretched hand twitched like a caffeine addled squirrel with a hard 9-5 at a major stock market.

Gretchen sighed and rolled her eyes, staring trepidatiously at the soft as the first winter snow hand. ‘I don’t really see how sugar’s gonna calm me down.’

‘It calms me down.’

‘You’re a scientific anomaly.’

‘I’m gonna take that as a compliment.’, Ashley grinned and wiggled her eyebrows, finally making Gretchen laugh. She had to resist pumping her fist at her success.

Gretchen, fighting back the urge to tell her how fun she is even at the worst times, said ‘Okay, look, I love sugar too, I’m just saying, I don’t know how that’s gonna calm me down.’

‘Gretch, please. You said that we need to try each other’s interests. How will we if we don’t, you know, try?’, Ashley countered, and Gretchen had to admit, she was making sense. Pinching the bridge of her nose, she grunted ‘I’m sorry. I’m just… I don’t know. I think I’m just having an anxious day.’

‘Is there anything I can do?’, Ashley instantly asked, despite probably not understanding what anxiety really meant, and in a way, that was enough. Gretchen couldn’t help but smile, and while she still felt nervous as all hell, she patted her friend’s shoulder. ‘You already are. Come on, don’t let me chicken out. Let’s see if all this expensive stuff really deserves to be expensive.’

‘It’s not that expensive.’, Ashley countered, only to understand how large the gulf was between her and Gretchen’s finances. Stifling an awkward cough, she mumbled ‘For… Me, not for others. I am not the only person in the world.’

‘Just take me there.’, Gretchen nudged her, feeling a little lighter. Happily, Ashley clasped her hand and they raced to get their snacks before their spa date. In a way, Gretchen was grateful for the prelude, but still, she wished they could get this over with ASAP. ‘Who knows what could go wrong if we don’t hurry up?’, she thought, tapping her chin, unaware of how right she truly was.

‘All right, Ashleys! Stand at attention!’, Ashley B ordered, feeling quite pleased, as she, Ashley Q and Ashley T (all dressed in adorable differently colored nurse outfits) all marched towards the Armbruster house, then stopped in front of the door. Ashley B took out a small yellow notebook with a bumblebee color pattern and fuzzy covers, and opened it at a specific page, clearing her throat. She had waited so long to deliver a leadership speech like this, and with Ashley A currently at her house, this was her chance to prove she could do it too. ‘Maybe even better’, Ashley B chuckled to herself as she laid down the law. ‘Distinguished Ashleys before me, do you know WHY we’re gracing this already hallowed abode with our most esteemed presence?’

Ashley Q and Ashley T, the former curtseying as a salute, the latter playing a tiny pink bugle, exchanged curious glances. ‘Um, yeah? Ashley M is sick and…’, they both started, only for Ashley B to offer them a look that could kill. ‘Procedure, people! Have you no penchant for pomp OR circumstance?’

‘Wow, Ashley B really worked on her vocabulary.’, Ashley T commented, and Ashley Q nodded. ‘Must be her way to succeed as acting president of the Ashleys.’

The two curtsied silently, allowing B to have the room.

‘I’ve never had the room before. Is THIS what Ashley A felt like this whole time? No wonder she was, like, totally drunk with power and junk, this shit is schway all the way, baby!’, Ashley B thought to herself, taking it in for a moment, before delivering her speech.

‘Ahem. Distinguished Ashleys before me, do you know WHY we’re gracing this already hallowed abode with our most esteemed presence? It is because one of our own, an honorary member but still, lays in her mother’s bed most unwell and owie. Owchie, even!’

Ashley Q and Ashley T both shed sympathetic tears, blowing their noses with custom Ashley handkerchiefs (each their own signature color, light blue and light green).

‘Yes, but we mustn’t mourn!’, Ashley B declared authoritatively, fist raised in the air. She tried to sound as in charge as she could, as powerful as she could muster, as Ashley A as she could. ‘Ashley M needs us, as much as we need the Backstreet Boys! Maybe even more!’

‘That’s a lot!’, Ashley T gasped audibly to convince herself that was true, while Ashley Q seemed very alert and alarmed. ‘Even more than Kevin?’

‘Even more than Nick!’, Ashley B insisted, making the others gasp for real at her comparison of Ashley M to the Backstreet Boys. ‘This really is a CATASTROPHE!’, Ashley T accidentally joked, which made Ashley Q giggle just a little. ‘You’re so silly, Ashley T.’, she remarked, and Ashley T swore this was how she was supposed to feel when staring at all those “cute” boy posters.

Ashley B, annoyed at the loss of attention, snapped her fingers to get it back. ‘Focus, people, focus! We need to help that kitty, stat! Do we have everything we need?’

Ashley Q and T lifted a ton of medical toys that their little sisters had, sort of proof that perhaps they weren’t as mature as they thought they were. ‘Yes, ma’am!’

‘Great! Then let’s, like, totally do this thing!’, Ashley B ordered, and with closed proud eyes, she marched in with Q and T, opening the door without even knocking. Inside the famously stylish house, one could only see Mrs. Armbruster, who was wearing quite the fashionable mink fur and smoking from one of those thin opera cigarette holders Cruella De Vil would use. Blowing out a dollar sign smoke ring, she lightly observed the girls entering her house, chuckling a little, and called out to them for a moment. ‘And where are you fancy little angels off to now?’

The other Ashley’s gasped once more, hearts hammering in their chests. To gain the attention of Ashley A the first, even momentarily, was considered an honor as sacred as attending an Ashley Birthday party! Ashley Q and T instantly bowed down, which even Ashley B found a bit much, as she simply curtsied. ‘Mrs. Armbruster, we are simply attending to your daughter’s cat, who is currently under the weather!’

‘Cat… Cat… Right, Ashley has a cat. I suppose once she dies she could make a great purse. Anyway, like, whose initiative was this? My daughter’s not one to ask for help… That would be MOST disappointing.’, Mrs. Armbruster blew another smoke ring as she enunciated her words, the smog billowing towards Ashley B, who coughed and wheezed from it. ‘Oh, no!’, Ashley B was quick to correct, half to save Ashley A’s face (for all their recent problems, she still did care about her), half to earn some face herself. ‘I, like, totally came up with this mission myself, pretty bomb, am I right?’

‘Very bomb.’, Mrs. Armbruster’s smoke covered all but her eyes, which sparkled like rare gems, with a hint of fire behind them. She actually drew close then and cupped Ashley B’s chin, making Q and T shocked (and a tad jealous). ��Yes… Yes, I see now truly why I knew you’d make a great companion for my little pet. You have the makings of a real O.G all that.’

‘Heh, just… Keepin’ it real, Mrs. Armbruster!’, Ashley B gave a two finger salute and winking. It took all her might not to scream right there and then.

‘Well, off you pop, now!’, Mrs. Armbruster declared, and just before the three girls were out of earshot and up the stairs, she declared (in a voice loud enough for anyone to hear, especially her daughter, if she was there) ‘Ashley A Jr. could benefit from your example. A rising star such as yourself is hard to eclipse.’

Ashley B would have died on the spot right there, but instead, she kept her cool and nodded, before slowly getting out of sight and sound alongside the other Ashleys. Once they were safe to celebrate, they did so enthusiastically. ‘Did you HEAR that?!’, Ashley B cried, fanning her face as tears streaked down. ‘She thinks I’m a rising star! An O.G! All that!’

‘Say psyche right now!’, Ashley Q and T called, still shocked (and happy) about this development. Sure, a part of them was a little envious, but Ashley B’s smile made it worth it.

‘I can’t WAIT to brag to Ashley A about this!’, Ashley B crowed, as they opened the door to her room, expecting a sick Ashley M and a doting Ashley A, probably wearing her own matching nursing outfit.

Instead, they were met with a bored Ashley M, who was reading one of Ashley’s old Tiger Beat issues (a 1996 one all about Brad Pitt, the 4 posters already shared between the 4 Ashleys), snuggling in her custom made kitty bathrobe with A.M inscribed in gold lettering, and letting out sensible chuckles at a rerun of last night’s new Friends episode, “The One with Rachel’s Crush”. And on top of the bed, organizing all the Tiger Beats by alphabetical order (of course) was… “Ashley A” (Menlo in his disguise).

‘Ashley M doesn’t… Look sick.’, Ashley T scratched her head, confused. She and Ashley Q still approached carefully, holding up plastic stethoscopes. ‘I don’t want to interrupt her during educational television, so let’s wait until there’s a Rachel scene, she won’t miss anything.’, Q proposed, T nodding in agreement.

Ashley B (rolling her eyes at the Rachel hate), soon turned her attention to “Ashley A”, finding all this rather… Odd. ‘Ashley A? You look… Different.’

“Ashley A”, panicking at the sudden intrusion he didn’t hear (he often got lost in his work), coughed awkwardly and squeaked in an absolutely terrible impression. Without the hazmat suit she had to wear when “Ashley A” had cooties, Ashley B could suddenly hear that there was something very off with Ashley’s voice. How had she not heard it until now? ‘You sound different too…’, Ashley B trailed off, mind working overtime. Something fishy was going on here.

“Ashley A” knew he had to do something, so trying his best, he hurriedly made up an excuse. ‘Oh, like, um, what is this, “Little Red Riding Hood”? I’m totally, like, confused! Ugh!’, he blurted out, hoping that would stave off the trouble.

It seemed to work a little. Ashley B may not have recognized the voice, but the mannerisms were on point. ‘Huh… Maybe I need my ears checked.’, Ashley B commented, still unsure, but putting it down to being hungry. She hadn’t had a treat for a whole hour! Speaking of… ‘Ashley T, fetch us all some snacks, chop chop!’, she clapped her hands, and Ashley T rushed downstairs. Ashley Q, raising an eyebrow while scratching Ashley M’s belly, questioned this. ‘Shouldn’t we be all hands on deck for this?’

‘Ashley Q, puh-lease, is this not what Ashley A would do? It’s simply common Ashley procedure!’, Ashley B fanned herself with her clipboard, hiding the fact that bossing around for a change was thrilling her. Is that what ordering people around felt like? And right next to the supposed president?

‘Well, shouldn’t Ashley A have done that? She’s right here.’, Ashley Q reminded her, making Ashley B frown in frustration. Why was it so hard to just let her enjoy the acting president role, even for a minute? ‘May I remind you Ashley A hasn’t acted very Ashley like for a while? I know we reinstated her, but I’m just saying, maybe I could serve as a reminder to her of how an Ashley president acts!’, Ashley B argued, making Ashley Q eye her suspiciously. ‘I thought we put that behind us.’

‘I agree! Ashley A hasn’t done anything wrong! That is, I haven’t done anything wrong! Heh heh.’, “Ashley A” agreed with Q, but it was this agreement that got both present Ashleys to stare at her with lingering doubts. A quick whispering session occurred. ‘Like, is it just me, or like, was that not at all like Ashley post the Purple Day Fiasco?’, Ashley B voiced, and Ashley Q had to agree. ‘Most unlike her!’

The two, now certain something was up, nodded at each other and signaled the approaching Ashley T of a “Potential Whack Stowaway” (A Code Orange for the Ashley’s, conveyed with a click of shoes and two twists of a nose). Understanding the gravity of the situation, Ashley T took up her position as “distracted with Ashley M” (alongside Ashley Q), while Ashley B, quick on her feet, improvised a perfect authentication question. ‘Pretty presidential of me, if I do say so myself.’, Ashley B smirked as she laid down on the bed and draped a sinister arm around “Ashley A’s” shoulder, making the latter gulp. ‘Now, “Ashley A”, tell me… How exactly is Ashley M over here sick?’

“Ashley A” didn’t flinch. The real Ashley A had prepared him for this eventuality, and he grinned sassily, stating ‘She’d accidentally overheard some ancient country music only our daddy's like.’

This was no lie, to be fair. Ashley A had told Menlo to play some when he arrived, and Menlo had delivered a thousand apologies from her to Ashley M, who understood, albeit after quite the hissy fit.

Ashley B was undeterred, however. In fact, she barely seemed phased, as she moved onto the next question. ‘Well… What about that Rachel, huh? She’s really taking over the show, huh?’, Ashley B “complained”, winking at Ashley Q and T, who giggled, knowing full well how A and B always insisted Rachel was the best character during “Friends” arguments.

“Ashley A” was ahead of the game once again, though, simply voicing ‘Don’t be silly, Ashley B, we all know Rachel carries the show, and anyone who doesn’t think so can talk to the hand!’

“Ashley A” was so proud of herself, that she nearly high fived herself. ‘Who’s a bad Ashley A now, huh?’, he thought, sniffing importantly. ‘She’s sure to marry me now! Oh, we’ll find the nicest IRS bureau in town, and we’ll use rulers to measure our vows, and…’

But Ashley B really was a force of nature right now. Paired up with the confidence she gained from Mrs. Armbruster’s compliments, and her growing rage at her best friend potentially stabbing her in the back again, Ashley B noticed which scene was playing right now…

Rachel: Hi!

Joey and Phoebe: Hey!

Rachel: So I was with Joshua for an hour today, and he has not asked me out. It’s just so frustrating!

Phoebe: Why don’t you ask him out?

Joey: Oh, Yeah, Totally! That’s such a turn-on!

Rachel: Really? It doesn’t seem desperate?

Joey: Oh-ooh, that’s the turn-on.

Phoebe: He just got a divorce, right?

Rachel: Mmm-Hmm.

Phoebe: So, he’s probably really nervous around women, y’know? Maybe… You just have to make the first move.

Rachel: Yeah, but I’ve never asked a guy out before.

Phoebe: You’ve never asked a guy out?!?!

Rachel: No, have you?

Phoebe: Thousands of times!!! …That doesn’t make me sound too good, does it?

Rachel: I don’t even know how I would go about it.

Joey: Oh, oh, oh, oh, how I do it is, I look a woman up and down and say… “How you doin’?”

Phoebe: Oh, please!

Joey: Hey… How you doin’?

Phoebe (looks at him and giggles, charmed)

Ashley B, smiling a crocodile smile, suddenly squeezed “Ashley A’s” hand, and absent mindedly stated ‘Isn’t that catchphrase SOOOOOOOOO funny? Isn’t it like, totally the most bomb catchphrase ever?’

Ashley Q and Ashley T, understanding the trap, silently giggled as they waited for it to snap.

“Ashley A”, unaware of its nature, finally fumbled the ball at the 5 yard line. ‘Oh, um, yeah! Like, totally the most bomb!’

‘A HA!!!’, Ashley B cried, grabbing the wig and throwing it out, revealing none other than Menlo. ‘H…How did you know? I know everything about Ashley A!’, Menlo cried, while Ashley Q and T proceeded to boo and jeer, disgusted at this intrusion. ‘Shall we stone him, Ashley B?’, Ashley Q asked, her and T lifting up their converses.

‘No, no, that would be a waste of a good mirror. It’s okay, I’ll handle this.’, Ashley B waved them off, power flowing through her veins. They listened to her. She was in charge again!

Slowly lifting Menlo up to her, a malicious grin growing on her like a snake stretching across branches, Ashley B explained. ‘Dear, dumb Menlo, who better stop breathing lest I catch his cooties…’

Menlo did as he was told, pathetic as ever.

‘You may know all there is to know about our wayward Ashley… But you don’t know all about “Friends”. That isn’t a catchphrase. Joey’s never said that before, and I doubt he will ever say that again.’

Ashley B’s grip tightened, hurting Menlo’s neck. ‘However, there is something about Ashley A you do know that I would simply ADORE hear, some dirt, gossip, whatever you wanna call it, that I would KILL to know.’

Menlo’s eyes shivered in fright, while Ashley M, scared out of her wits for her mama, raced outside to warn her. ‘W…What?’, he asked, life flashing before his eyes. Mostly, it was just folders, files, and Ashley A’s disgusted looks at him.

Ashley B’s voice was as sweet as honey, but as toxic as a bee sting. ‘Where… Is… Ashley… A?’

Meanwhile, over at the mall, things were only getting worse for our would be friends, as the gang slowly approached it, having spotted Gretchen walking into it, but crucially not Ashley R.

‘The mall. Where financial prudence goes to die.’, T.J remarked, with a strange sort of pride.

‘And friendships, apparently!’, Spinelli declared angrily, rubbing her fist in her palm. Mikey was quick to calm her down with a soft hand on her shoulder. ‘Now, hold on, let’s… Let’s not assume the worst!’

‘Mikey’s right, Spinelli. Gretchen is far too smart and sophisticated for that!’, Vince added, quickly checking himself in the mirror and fixing his hair. ‘I’m sure that if anything, it’s someone taking advantage of her!’

‘Or she got her brain sucked out by an alien!’, Gus declared in fear, shivering and shaking like a leaf. T.J had to hold his shoulders to settle him down. ‘Thanks.’

‘Don’t be ridiculous, Gus! Gretchen’s brain is far too big for that!’, T.J calmed him down, while Vince nodded enthusiastically. ‘Look, guys, let’s not make a big deal out of this. We’re just… Concerned friends, seeing if Gretchen’s okay. I mean, maybe she just felt like going to the mall on her own! She’s allowed to!’

‘Of course she is, but I still think something’s off.’, Spinelli mumbled, feeling the potential betrayal already lace her heart with shrapnel.

‘Sorry, I think my egg salad sandwich went bad.’, Mikey apologized, throwing it away.

‘Not… Look, I’m speaking metaphorically! Aren’t you all about that poetic stuff?’, Spinelli pointed at Mikey with a huff. Mikey sighed sadly, thinking of his betrayal of Gretchen here. ‘How true, and how broken I am at the thought of spying on our dear friend, Gretchen.’

‘Guys, please…’, T.J again tried to calm the group down, hating how it felt. ‘We are not betraying Gretchen, nor is she betraying us! How many times have we all acted kind of different for a while, only for it to be a good thing, huh?’

T.J pointed at Vince. ‘Vince, remember when you gave up on Kickball? That failure got you to be better than ever!’

‘That’s true, I am pretty wicked at Kickball now. If only Gretchen still cared.’, Vince muttered, but he still accepted T.J’s point.

‘And you, Gus! Remember when you lost your glasses and became “Guy”? Sure, you acted like a real jerk, but it got you to see the real you ain’t half bad!’, T.J. nudged Gus affectionately, and Gus smiled cheerily back. ‘Yeah, that’s true! And the same thing happened when I was King for a while! Huh, talk about a rerun.’

‘And Mikey, didn’t those singing lessons really help your confidence, even if it meant you falling for that teacher for a while?’, T.J. tapped Mikey’s shoulder, while Mikey simply replied ‘For a while?’.

‘I’ll ignore that. And Spinelli, you literally went to ballet class once! Ballet! Not to mention that pageant with Vince! And how did that go, against all odds?’, He smirked that annoyingly lovable smirk that made Spinelli want to punch him or kiss him, and the pintsized powerhouse blushed a deep red. ‘Okay, okay, Teej, we get your point, sheesh.’

‘All I’m saying is that Gretchen would NEVER judge us without at least being sure. And even if something bad was happening, she would be worried, not mad! We owe her that much, don’t we?’, T.J. reminded them all, and everyone, regardless of their feelings, nodded passionately.

‘Exactly! Now, come on, let’s go spy on our friend! …Wow, there’s just no way to say that out loud without feeling awkward.’, T.J. rubbed the back of his neck, as he and his friends walked right inside, prepared to face a potentially terrifying destiny.

‘Oh, and don’t forget the personal 11 minute Journey I went on!’, a voice cried from behind them.

All the gang simply blinked in confusion. ‘And… You are?’, Vince asked, shrugging.

Randall, dressed in an admittedly better disguise this time, but still clearly Randall, smiled from underneath his ginger wig and waved a plastic purse around, the dollar sign tag still attached to it. ‘Mandy! It’s like Randy, but without the R!’

‘You’re gonna be Skilled without the S if you’re not out of here in 3 seconds!’, Spinelli cried, shaking her fist, and Randall bolted off, screaming in fear.

‘Wow, WHAT is his deal?’, T.J. wondered, as the others all shook their heads. ‘Must be a dry snitching season.’, Vince pondered, as the gang finally started making progress in the mall. They all agreed to split up, to cover more ground that way.

They’d find Gretchen, no matter what.

And at the same time, the Ashleys (sans Ashley A) all arrived, Menlo carrying Ashley B on his back, Ashley Q and Ashley T making up the rear and searching near and far. ‘I’m telling you, she’s not here!’, Menlo cried, loyal to the end, but Ashley B shook her head. ‘Obviously she’s here. We were supposed to be here today. She probably wanted to get a head start on the fro yo, the selfish… Oh, when I get my hands on her!’, Ashley B growled, so angry she was turning red and thirsty. ‘Menlo, Diet Coke me.’, Menlo sadly handed her the bottle, which she began drinking from.

‘I can’t believe Ashley A would betray us like that again.’, Ashley T sighed sadly, hugging herself as she and Q passed the Orange Julius, where Ashley A and Gretchen were still at, ordering their drinks, blissfully ignorant of what was behind them. ‘I thought… I thought everything was back to normal…’

‘Now, chin up, T! We don’t know that for sure! You know how B gets, all spazzy and stuff!’, Q tried to cheer her friend up, as she placed a finger underneath her chin. ‘Come on, let me see that pretty and fancy smile!’

Ashley T, as if under a spell, smiled as nicely as she could. From her POV, Ashley Q looked like an angel, dressed in the finest silks and jewels, while also rolling a basketball on her head for some reason. ‘There. Feel better?’

‘Always…’, Ashley T whispered when Ashley Q moved up ahead, totally unaware of her effect on the girl. ‘Gosh, I hope a boy just like her rolls by already. If I didn’t know better, I’d think I was some kind of lesbo!’

Well, with all those complications, we should probably head back to our heroes! Let’s see how their experiment is going…

‘Soooo…’, Ashley drawled out, hiding her blatant nerves with a sort of playful cadence that didn’t fit her rapidly blinking eyes. ‘How’s the Cinnamon Sugar Pretzel? And the Orange Julius Original? Are they… Yummy yummy in the tummy? Hmmmm?’

Gretchen rolled her eyes at the customary crappy acting she was now used to from Ashley, as she sipped on her drink. ‘They’re good, Ashley! Why do I have to tell you to calm down? Shouldn’t it be the other way around?’

Ashley sighed, kicking a stray empty box of chicken nuggets and looking around at the mall that normally made her so happy. ‘I guess you put me a little on edge here. I just want you to see how fun my side of the ‘hood can be.’

‘Never say ‘hood again.’, Gretchen half joked, but she felt bad about creating even more tension. ‘I can’t help how I feel, Ashley. Anxiety isn’t something I can just switch off.’

‘I know. I just wish I could switch it off for you. I just know we can pass this experiment!’, Ashley exclaimed, as she swung on one of the poles near the Abercrombie's. Realizing something, Ashley suddenly grinned. ‘...Maybe I can!’, she cried, leaping off the pole and holding her arms aloft, the entire mall’s selection behind her. ‘How about we take a small tour, Ashley A style? That is, Ashley R style!’, she winked from behind her dumb fake glasses, making Gretchen’s dumb heart skip a beat. Blushing, she crossed her arms. ‘I’m not sure we should divert from the plan. In fact, that kinda makes my anxiety worse…’, Gretchen insisted, but Ashley insisted too. ‘Come on, let loose, just a little! You’ll never know if you don’t try! Isn’t that what I did in the museum?’

Gretchen was about to correct Ashley, only for her outstretched finger to begin tapping on her chin. ‘That’s… A good point.’

Ashley drew closer, offering her hand, the one so ridiculously soft and soothing. ‘She must use high quality moisturizer and soap and… Stuff.’, Gretchen gulped, hesitantly taking it. ‘The Schway express is off, choo choo!’, Ashley cried, and so, they were off, Gretchen still a little scared, Ashley grinning with belief, even with an old song playing from the PA that she normally would have considered “ancient and boring”.

(Sh-Boom - The Crew Cuts)

“Life Could Be a Dream

Sh-Boom, If I Could Take You To a Paradise Up Above”

First, Ashley took her up in the elevator, excitedly pointing out all her favorite sights, while weirdly catchy elevator music played. Gretchen got a little queasy, but she tried to keep her lunch in.

Rushing through the top floor, Ashley spun Gretchen into Anchor Blue, nabbing her a pair of baggy denim jeans. When Gretchen (who eyed the jeans with a little bit of desire) raised an eyebrow, Ashley flashed her Credit Card, that sparkled with the words “Armbruster Infinite Charge”, and Gretchen actually relaxed a little, admiring the comfort.

“If You Will Tell Me I’m the Only One That You Love

Life Could Be a Dream, Sweetheart, Hello, Hello Again

Sh-Boom and Hopin’ We’ll Meet Again, Boom”

At B.Dalton, among all the cozy book shelves and afternoon fall lighting, Ashley chuckled as she read the opening pages of The Baby-Sitter’s Club #11 (“Kristy and the Snobs”), nudging Gretchen, who smiled while holding a copy of “Pride and Prejudice”. They then exchanged the copies, nodding in interest despite themselves.

Then, at The Body Shop, Ashley applied some body butter onto Gretchen’s palms, explaining to her how her stress makes her skin rougher. Gretchen admired her skin, pleasantly surprised at how effective the lotion was, as she and Ashley compared their palms by touching them. Gretchen then blushed, as she stared at Ashley, excitedly explaining how it worked, not dissimilar to how she herself would explain a scientific concept.

“Life Could Be a Dream

If Only All my Precious Plans Would Come True

If You Would Let Me Spend my Whole Life Loving You

Life Could Be a Dream, Sweetheart (do-roo-do-do, sh-boom)”

Gretchen wore an uncertain grimace, considering all the things that could go wrong. Ashley, noticing it, quickly spotted a store perhaps more Gretchen’s speed, and took her to The Nature Company, where they admired Amethysts, Tiger Eyes, Telescopes, and other special gemstones. After some help from the store owner, Ashley and Gretchen had matching Rose Quartz pins, one on Ashley’s bow tie and one on Gretchen’s new jeans.

Then, at F.Y.E., the two left the store wearing new T-Shirts (a Biggie shirt for Gretchen and a Simpsons shirt for Ashley A, the two complementing each other’s looks(.

“Everytime I Look At You

Something is on my Mind

If You Do What I Want You To

Baby, We’d Be So Fine”

At this weird new place called “Build-a-Bear”, Gretchen acquiesced to trying something very Ashley: Making a cutesy Teddy Bear. Sure, she had one at home, but it was different to actually make one, and give it all kind of Ashley flourishes (like a hair bow and glitter). Still, she gave it a sporting try, and to show solidarity, Ashley made a very scientific and serious looking bear. The two bears finished, the girls chinked them like wine glasses, giggling at the action.

Then, Ashley stared with admiration and affection at Gretchen as she couldn’t help but tap her feet on the KB Toy store’s floor piano, as The Backstreet Boys song Ashley once sang next to her “Anywhere For You”. Brushing up to her, she danced a little too, and they both smiled, actually feeling calm, as they subtly swayed on the floor piano, every note horribly off key, except for their connection.

“Oh, Life Could Be a Dream

Sh-Boom, If I Could Take You to a Paradise Up Above

Sh-Boom, and Tell Me Darling, I’m the Only One That You Love

Life Could Be a Dream, Sweetheart, Hello, Hello Again

Sh-Boom, and Hopin’ We’ll Meet Again, Boom

Oh, Life Could Be a Dream

Life Could Be a Dream, Sweetheart!”

In quick succession, the girls ogled the display window at Cache’s, imagining dressing so fancy and jokingly pretending to be ridiculously snobbish ladies; Gretchen sat back and let Ashley geek out at the Disney Store, enjoying her hyperfixating; checked out the stuff at Claire’s, with Ashley secretly buying a gift for Gretchen for their sleepover; blushed at the Victoria’s Secret display window, for different (yet also very similar) reasons; and messed around at a photo booth, as any two friends would. For a moment, who could have guessed they were forbidden?

The first photo was very serious and dry, as if they were from the Victorian Era; Then, they took a silly photo, Ashley sticking her tongue out, Gretchen making monkey noises; Then, Ashley made a kissy face at the camera, stifling a laugh as Gretchen flipped it off for jokes; and finally, they took a genuine photo, heads leaning as they smiled.

And one didn’t have to ask to see Gretchen was feeling a lot calmer.

So much so, that when Ashley saw how late it was and explained they had to go to the spa immediately, she found herself strolling down the mall towards it… Happily.

‘Ashley Armbruster, you really are a scientific anomaly.’, Gretchen observed, barely holding back a lovesick grin, as they entered the place, unaware of the impending arrival of the Gang and the Ashley’s…

About 15 minutes later, give or take, I’m not some all seeing god…

Wait…

Regardless, about 15 minutes later, two very different gangs with very similar motivations began approaching the last area they hadn’t checked.

‘I don’t get it! Every place I checked told me there was some girl matching Gretchen’s description who had just left, but I was never there on time to actually see her!’, Vince ranted, arms outstretched in disbelief. ‘I’ve struck out more than a paraplegic blind batter playing blackjack!’

‘Well, maybe if you hadn’t taken so long to describe her each time…’, Spinelli grumbled, making Vince blush and huff. ‘I was BEING professional, Spinneli! Unlike you, grabbing people with glasses and interrogating them!’

‘Guys, guys, let’s not go there! She’s gotta be somewhere, and there’s only one place we haven’t checked!’, T.J reminded them, pointing above to…

‘The Spa?’, they all tilted their heads in question, before staring at each other in confusion. ‘Gretchen doesn’t seem like the kind of girl to do that. That’s more of a…’, Vince started, only for him to be interrupted by the other approaching group.

‘Of an Ashley A thing to do, yes! It all makes literally SOOOO much sense now! Ditching us so she can hog the sauna room all for herself! I’d be proud if I wasn’t so frikin’ MAD!’, Ashley B declared, motioning for Menlo to drop her down. ‘Go, boy, buy yourself something nice.’, she flipped a chocolate coin onto his palm, as he frowned in frustration. ‘My queen isn’t there! Let lightning strike me down if I lie!’

Thunder clouds gathered above the mall’s roof. Everyone shakily stepped away from Menlo just in case.

‘Ashleys! See, I told you something smells funny!’, Spinelli wagged a finger in the air, eager to mess up those girls' makeup.

Mikey rubbed his chin in thought as he lifted a bowl with a clown fish in it. ‘I don’t know, he doesn’t seem to smell like anything.’

‘MIKEY, I SWEAR TO GOD…’

Ashley B lifted her palm, as if that was supposed to silence them all, then proceeded to talk even though they didn’t follow suit. ‘Step aside, Freaky Five! This 11 is passing judgment on a former 10!’

‘Math now too? Is there ANYTHING you won’t ruin?!’, Spinneli cried, shaking her fist as Ashley B, who smugly smirked at the display. ‘Um, Spinneli? You hate math.’, Gus reminded, shivering between their two faces. ‘It’s the principal, Gus.’ ‘Where?!’, Gus cried, ducking, while T.J. sighed, having to step in between again. ‘Look, Ashley B, you don’t own the spa. We just want to find our friend Gretchen and see if everything’s okay with her, you want to find Ashley A and, I guess, beat the whomps out of her, not our problem. I’m sure we can all just stay out of each other’s ways.’

Ashley B considered it, before nodding slowly. ‘I suppose I can relent. But I warn you, Detweiller: If your geekasaurus has turned a hair on Ashley A’s head wack, the prank ceasefire is off!’

‘And the same the other way, Boulet!’, Spinneli threatened in return, and an uneasy deal was set in place.

‘Ashley Q, Ashley T, let’s head inside, chop chop!’, Ashley B clapped for her assistants, eyes closed, only to open them and meet with no one. ‘Um, like, where ARE you?’, she cried, impatient, tapping her foot and looking around.

Ashley Q sighed, staring longingly at the TV screens, showing a rerun of a game from earlier that day, Minnesota Timberwolves at LA Lakers (114-121). On another screen was Golden State at Chicago with Michael Jordan (80-87) and Philadelphia 76ers at Atlanta Hawks (99-109). Her eyes seemed to glitter like they were supposed to from more… Acceptably Ashley fare. But she just couldn’t help it. The squeaking of the shoes on the floor… The speed and artistry, like a dance conducted with a full painter’s palette, a dance of motion and form she knew she could perform if just given the chance… The buzzer, the chants, the commentary, the thrill, the rush, of something secret and wrong that felt so so right. It scratched an itch in her brain… No, it was more like a sugar rush, like one of those jumping candy chocolates, that sparkled and popped and flew in your mouth, until all you could feel was the wind in your hair and the air between you and the basket. It must have felt like heaven to fly, even if only for just a moment.

‘They really should bring Micheal Williams on, Minnesota. He’s still got the most consecutive free throws made record, 97, from between March 24th, 1993 to November 9th, 1993. But Flip Saunders, girlfriend, I swear, it’s like he and Crunch the Wolf switch brains sometimes. How are they EVER gonna win a title? Though they’re definitely better than our 76ers. I swear, I could replace those morons. I’d be just like Lola Bunny. I’ve already got the looks, after all.’, Ashley Q ranted quietly, whipping her hair and allowing herself, just once, to express this secret desire. After all, no one was…

‘You definitely have the looks.’

Ashley Q’s eyes widened, and she swiveled her head to meet Ashley T, whose palm was glued to a comic book shop window, specifically at Robin #51 (Vol.2) which showed the Tim Drake version of the character with temporary super speed. Ashley Q would have understood (if, albeit, with quite the outraged stare) if Ashley T was referring to the junk literature before her.

But she was staring right at her fellow Ashley.

Ashley T blushed and shut her mouth, while Ashley Q blinked in surprise and felt her heart hammer. Then the two realized the other could see what they were staring at.

‘...All that stuff I said? Was, um, an impression, yes, an impression of a lame loser basketball fan! I am… I am definitely not one! It’s just a phase!’, Ashley Q lied badly, hating how forced it all sounded. Why couldn’t it come easier to her? Why couldn’t this dumb basketball illness pass?

‘And all the stuff I said about that yucky comic book and also you totally don’t mean anything, I was making fun of my little brother, who… Has a big crush on you, yes. I don’t… I… I am sure it’s just a phase too…’, Ashley T whispered, but Ashley Q simply shrugged. ‘You said stuff?’

Ashley T didn’t know rather she was grateful to be ignored again, or kinda miffed about it, but she chose the former option. ‘No, I… I didn’t say anything at all. Like, totally, yeah.’

‘Totally, like, yeah.’, Ashley Q nodded, and they ran off to join Ashley B, their hearts just a little heavier from their denial…

Meanwhile, inside the spa’s massage room…

(“Together Again” - Janet Jackson)

For once, there was nothing but darkness and a seering white light on the frayed edges of sight. For once, there was freedom where there used to be tension. For once, Gretchen truly opened herself to the stressful concept of “Was she more similar to an Ashley than she thought?”, and shockingly, incredibly…

She didn’t mind the positive answer.

‘Ooh… Oh… I didn’t even know a shoulder could feel that good.’, Gretchen sort of exhaled, as her masseuse’s strong arms kneaded her joints into relaxation. It wouldn’t truly solve her tight shoulder problem medically, but still, it felt nice to have a short reprieve. Ashley, eyes closed too, as she got light chops on her back, grinned at the sound of that. ‘So, like, are you, like, liking it?’

‘Enough not to point out how you murdered grammar with that sentence.’, Gretchen smirked, and Ashley didn’t need to see it to feel it, even if technically Gretchen still critiqued her. Wrapped in tights (that were thankfully available to rent due to Ashley’s frequent customer status), Gretchen searched for the pain she was supposed to feel, and found none, allowing her to operate better. It was like all her senses were at fuller capacity. ‘Even that song doesn’t sound as bad as the first time you played it.’

Ashley had to hold back a cheer. ‘Janet Jackson would probably be a little insulted that that took a massage though.’

‘Eh, she should just come here and relax too.’, Gretchen quipped, and the two girls laughed, as they entered the last phases of this stage, both sat next to each other as they got final shoulder rubs. ‘So, what do we have after this? My anticipation is at a startling boiling point.’, Gretchen admitted, while Ashley (not even needing to look) recited from memory her usual routine. ‘Well, next we have the Rhassoul mud chamber, which I know sounds gross and icky but…’

‘Ashley, I may not be a cosmetics expert, but I know about healing mud.’, Gretchen rolled her eyes fondly, and Ashley chuckled. ‘Can you blame me? It DOES sound WACK.’

‘You should destress like I have. You were SO right. What was I all so worried about? Ooh, a mall and spa day with my buddy Ashley R! Quick, alert the national guard!’, Gretchen joked, making siren noises with her mouth, before suddenly leaning over to Ashley, almost melting on her. ‘I couldn’t do this with my other friends. Eye opening experiences are worth a lot of points in the Friendship Experiment.’

Ashley could barely suppress her excitement, shaking giddily, which annoyed her masseuse. Her fists pumped up and down as she voiced hopefully ‘So does that mean we’re currently passing?’

‘Passing, winning, soaring, boring, snoring, roaring, lion, lion-o, DAY-OOOOO, DAY-OOOOOOO, DAYLIGHT COME AND WE WANT GO HOMEEEEE!’, Gretchen suddenly slurred, waving her arms all about and sounding kind of, frankly, insane. Ashley, getting a little worried, waved her arm across Gretchen. ‘Gretch? Earth to Gretch? Like, are you literally okay?’

‘Hardly, uncool but still blood relative of Ashley A.’, Gretchen’s masseuse informed, eyeing her customer worriedly while flashing a light in her eyes. ‘I’ve never dealt with a body THIS tense. I doubt she’s ever felt THIS relaxed. She might be TOO loose.’

Ashley shrugged, confused at this admittedly vague explanation. ‘In Ashley?’

‘She’s, like, totally drunk on bein’ chill, yo.’, Ashley’s big tough Swedish masseuse translated, making Ashley nod like a scholar having just cracked the Da Vinchi code. ‘That sounds… Bad.’

‘Oh, don’t worry! As long as you don’t have to hide some complicated and convoluted lie from your closest friends, it won’t matter at all!’, the first masseuse replied, making them stand up. ‘Now, come on, join the mud chamber! Your cousin's other friends are already there!’

Ashley A really could have used that mud mask, since she just turned as white as a sheet. Her knees began shaking like jell-o and her teeth chattered like a corny Halloween decoration from Prickly’s last school bash. If it weren’t for her massage, she would have crumpled like a fallen curtain. Instead, she was light as a feather while she leaned on Gretchen for moral support. ‘God, like, why are you such a cruster to me? If this is because I sneak 17 magazines into Sunday church, I’ll stop, just Cut. It. Out.’

‘What’s up, dawg?’, Gretchen suddenly asked, making Ashley gape. Gretchen only used slang if she was trying to make fun of someone (usually Ashley) or make a very specific point about their friendship. What was this relaxation doing to her? ‘You seem to be hella trippin’. We just illin’ out at this joint, homie. Take a chill pill like me and go with the flow, honey.’

Ashley felt like dying, and not just because Gretchen had used honey (‘I know I’m pretty but there’s no reason to emphasize it, Gretch! We can practice “how to flirt with boys” later!’), but also because she could see the other Ashley’s, and her face was now too red to blend into the white room. Plus, she didn’t have her glasses on, because she was about to cover her face in mud, duh. ‘OMG, OMG, what do I do, what do I do?!’, Ashley panic gasped, as she and Gretchen got seated and had mud masks applied, right next to the other Ashley’s.

Ashley B, still unable to see properly thanks to her mask, voiced to Ashley Q and T ‘Girls, are you, like, sure you haven’t even heard a whisper of Ashley A’s treacherous voice?’

‘Not so far, no.’, Ashley Q informed, enjoying the heating chamber. She could pretend as if she was enjoying post game recovery for a basketball team, not that she’d tell anyone that. ‘But I thought I heard something. Someone said “We just illin’ out at this joint, homie”, which was weird, because nobody else talks like us except for…’

Ashley A felt her heart jump into her throat, as she gasped a little too hard and began choking on the steam from the heating chamber. She had to do something, and fast, or the Friendship Experiment she and Gretchen were acing was gonna go from Hero to Zero!

‘Who’s that? I thought we were the only customers here! What do they think “Private Session” means?!’, Ashley B ranted, while Ashley Q and T exchanged alert glances. ‘You don’t think it’s Ashley A, right?’, Ashley T ventured, and Ashley B suddenly snapped into business, smirking like a tiger before dinnertime. ‘Oh, well, that changes things, doesn’t it? Ashley A, is that you coughing like the sneaky snake you are?!’.

‘Any ideas, Gretch?’, Ashley tried, but Gretchen was practically knocked out from relaxation, clearly unable to provide any sensible plans. ‘Which means it’s time for a dumb one. Yay. My specialty.’, Ashley A sarcastically groaned as she latched onto the first idea that popped into her mind, hoping it would only illicit two eye rolls from Gretchen later.

Clearing her throat and sitting atop Gretchen’s shoulders (hoping that all the steam and mud would disguise them enough), Ashley performed a pitch perfect impression of… ‘Why, Ashley Boulet, I do, like, believe you are mistaken. I am Ashley A, but not the one you hang with, so to speak, ha ha.’

It was pretty impressive, and Gretchen would have rated it if she wasn’t practically high. Ashley had managed to attune her voice to generate all the dry and dulcet tones of her mother, sounding both sophisticated and calculated, like every word was designed to achieve some sort of goal. Right now, though, Ashley A had one goal: Get the FUCK away from her friends.

For their part, the other Ashley’s instantly tensed up (maybe they needed a massage now too) and practically saluted out of respect and fear. ‘Mrs. Armbruster! What an unexpected honor! Twice in one day!’

Ashley had to suppress a double take. ‘Twice in one day? My mommy’s never spoken to my friends before. Heck, she rarely speaks to me. She’s far too busy. Freaky…’, she mused, feeling just the tiniest ember of envy, but dismissing it. It wasn’t like her mother loved her friends more, that would be ridiculous, and the sort of behavior that truly deserved two Gretchen eye rolls.

Returning to character (and trying not to shake any mud onto Gretchen), Ashley A carried on with the deception of her friends, leaning into the role as far as she could. ‘Uh, yes, yes, twice in one day. Like, um, I’m impressed to see you taking care of your skin in such a whack climate as this. Great minds think alike and junk.’

Ashley B couldn’t believe it. One conversation praising her grace was one thing, but two? She bit on Ashley T’s hand (the latter doing all she could not to yelp), making Ashley A wince a little. ‘Since when was B THAT obsessed with my mommy? You have one yourself!’. Meanwhile, Ashley Q steered them back onto the business side of things. ‘Yeah, um, say, did you, like, see Ashley A around here? Your daughter, that is. We just have this feeling that…’

‘OH, NO, NOT AT ALL!’, Ashley A exclaimed too loudly, before centering herself. Closing her eyes and taking a deep breath (“If I can’t see them, they’re technically not there!”), she reiterated ‘Why, if Ashley A were here, I think I would know, no? She’s, um, elsewhere, um, trying to get the special deluxe cat food for her sick little darling Muffin. But there was, um…’, she remembered the food truck she and Gretchen had nearly crashed into, and smirked, snapping her fingers. ‘A freak accident with a bicycle, yes! That’s what’s been holding her up!’, she lied, thinking how her mother probably didn’t know where she was at any situation, let alone now. ‘The sacrifices a working woman makes. An inspiration to us all!’, Ashley A sighed to herself, waiting for her friends to finally buy what she was selling.

‘I mean, like, she can be pretty sneaky…’, Ashley B started, and then, in a flash, Ashley A realized she had an advantage. Ashley B’s strange fixation on praise from her own mother meant that she would hang on her every word, right? Especially negative ones. ‘Um, like, EXCUSE ME? Hello? Are you, like, doubting me word? You think I’m, what, frontin’?’, Ashley A boomed in her most scolding maternal voice, and Ashley B’s big head shrunk to the size of a pitiful raisin. ‘Frontin’? Never! I, I would never… That is, I didn’t mean to imply… It wasn’t an insult…’, Ashley B desperately looked for her friend’s help, but Ashley Q was busy kissing Ashley T’s hand boo boo better, and Ashley T was busy being the gayest girl in the story, which was saying something considering the presence of Ashley A and Gretchen.

Relishing the role a little too much perhaps (Ashley B HAD caused her a world of grief lately), Ashley A leaned into theatrics and let out a laugh that would make Ursula proud. ‘You know what I think? I think that good little Ashley’s are to be seen flaunting fabulous fashion, not heard spouting the shit, except I mean that in the bad way and not the good way, ugh!’

Ashley B was practically quaking by now, her eyes flashing with visions of her social standing plummeting down from a healthy third place (behind the two Ashley A’s) to a pathetic 420th (just about ahead of Randal). ‘Wait, wait, I…’

‘And just when you think that the dissing is over, you dare suspect my daughter of being a lying loser? LAME. Talk to the hand, Ashley B, because this O.G is fiendin’ to outtie.’, Ashley A boomed, barely able to hold her grin back. ‘Won’t Gretchen be proud of how I sold this!’, she thought, getting a little too excited at the image of a proud and impressed Gretchen.

By this point, Ashley B was so scared that her social life was dead, that she was on her knees, mud splattering a little on her tights. ‘Don’t bounce, Mrs. Armbruster! I swear I meant no harm! If you really think Ashley A ain’t here, then she ain’t here, right, girls?’, she asked, desperate for their co-operation.

‘But didn’t you say…’, Ashley Q started, while Ashley T was just nodding, afraid of another bite, but Ashley B fired her a death stare and Q decided to just comply. ‘That is, um, yeah! Probably just these spa fumes making us woozy! Oh boy! They make you say all kinds of weird things!’

Suddenly, “Truly, Madly, Deeply” by Savage Garden started playing, and Gretchen chose the worst time to talk. ‘Oh, snap, this song is da bomb, dawg! I don’t know why I didn’t care for it when you first played it!’.

Then, as if Gretchen wanted to add a heart attack to the list of ailments Ashley A was currently undergoing, the genius girl began to sing loudly (and quite off key) “I’ll Be Your Dream, I’ll Be Your Wish, I’ll Be Your Fantasy! I’ll Be Your Hope, I’ll Be Your Love, Be Everything That You Need! I Love You More With Every Breath Truly, Madly, Deeply Do…”.

Ashley A, panicking, went for the hail Mary so she and Gretchen could make a run for it to the Jacuzzi. ‘OH, WOULD YOU LOOK AT THAT, MY, UM, HUSBAND, YES, HUSBAND, IS CALLING ME FROM THE PHONE THAT I DEFINITELY HAVE HIDDEN HERE AND IS SINGING TO ME AGAIN! YOU KNOW HUSBANDS, WITH THEIR FAMOUSLY… HIGH PITCHED 9 YEAR OLD GIRL VOICES! LIKE, TOTALLY RELATABLE, MAD TRUE, HELLA NOT A LIE, WELL I GOTTA BANANA SPLIT OUTTA HERE AND DO SOME WORK AT MY OFFICE PLACE WHERE I DO THE WORK, YOU KNOW, THE WORK OFFICE PLACE, FAMOUS STORE NAME, WHO DOESN’T GO THERE, NO ONE, BECAUSE THEN THEY WOULD BE SQUARE, LIKE A HOUSE, A HOUSE I SHOULD BE HEADED TO, THAT IS WORK, WORK IS ALSO SQUARE, SQUARE IS THE NEW BLACK, YOU KNOW, ANYWAY I SHOULD REALLY LEAVE NOW, BE GOOD, TRUST ASHLEY A, PAY NO ATTENTION TO THE MUDDY FACE BELOW ME, BYEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!’

And with that, Ashley A puppeteered Gretchen out of the room like a rat using a ginger twink to cook soup in a movie that wouldn't be out for another 9 years. As they passed a mirror, Gretchen muttered ‘Schwing!’, at Ashley A’s detoxed skin, but both girls had no time to think about what that specific slang meant about Gretchen’s subconscious.

The three other Ashley’s sat there, gobsmacked, literally gaping, as workers came in to clean the mud off their faces. Clearly, there was only one logical conclusion to all that they witnessed:

‘Wow, Ashley Q is right. These fumes really are making us woozy.’, Ashley B confessed, blinking over and over to make sure she was actually awake. Ashley Q nodded uneasily, while Ashley T simply sighed wistfully. ‘Wow, Mr. Armbruster has a lovely singing voice! It’s so authentic and natural!’

‘It sounded like he was screeching. Like a cat.’, Ashley Q countered.

‘That’s what makes it natural!’, Ashley T argued, as we move on from this predicament, and onto the next, because even at a place DESIGNED for relaxing, our heroes can’t dodge THE PLOT ™.

Now with the Jacuzzi room in sight, Ashley was hoping that she could wake Gretchen up, just in case anything else bad happened. ‘Then again…’, she considered, the lax part of her brain butting in. ‘Who’s to say there’s anything else? Outside of the Ashley’s, who else could possibly give us trouble?’

However, when Ashley glided through the door, her eyes were met with the exact problem she anticipated at first: Gretchen’s friends, The Gang, surrounding the entire area like a low budget cop show that would get canceled after the first episode. ‘Great, Law and Order: Jacuzzi Unit is here!’, Ashley commented in frustration but also alarm, desperate to hide Gretchen from her friends, as she covered her friend’s eyes (I never said she was smart).

Gretchen, however, was still woozy and out of it, and instead of do something nice and constructive like co-operate and hide, she chose to stare down at Ashley with a look most queer. ‘Let me break it down, Ash: You’re hella bangin’, one fine and phat wifey, feel me? Why don’t you and I bounce outtie here and stop pretending we’re not close friends feelin’ things in this spa tonight? Just keepin’ it real, ‘cause you are all that and a bag of chips!’

Now, if Ashley had enough brain cells right now, she would have realized that Gretchen’s subconscious had been accidentally unlocked and the girl was spilling her true feelings both about her and the friendship experiment, and that all this denial and delaying was stunting their relationship, and that they should just take it easy and all that, until they inevitably confront the romantic feelings they were beginning to harbor.

But unfortunately, Ashley was born with a serious case of “Neverenoughbraincells-itis”, so she instead ignored all that romantic slang and instead said ‘Gretchen, this is no time to compliment me! Our covers are about to be blown!’

‘Heh, heh… You have a cute nose. Boop!’, Gretchen booped Ashley’s nose, before pretending she was an airplane. Ashley, massaging her temples, decided she had to come up with a plan on the spot. ‘Okay, Ashley, think, think, how do we get smart Gretchen back? This is literally the hardest thing ever!’

She then pouted and crossed her arms. ‘Dang it, if the real Gretchen was here she’d tell me how it can’t literally be the hardest thing ever because that wouldn’t be objective or some crap.’

That’s when the idea hit her. Finger up in the air, she cried ‘Eureka!’, and grabbed Gretchen before she could finish her scheduled flight to Acapulco. ‘Gretch, Gretch! Check this out, I can recite all the plants in order!’

Ashley smugly grinned as she realized Gretchen’s reaction to this could be pretty funny. ‘I’m allowed a little fun on the job.’, she thought, before reciting right into her friend’s glazed over eyes. ‘Saturn, Mars, Neptune, Venus, Pluto, Mercury, Jupiter, Earth, Uranus!’

Like a magic spell, Gretchen shook her head, the wooziness and relaxation gone, and with slightly hunched shoulders and a pained expression of pure cringe, she sighed, pinched the bridge of her nose, and corrected. ‘Ashley, are you serious? It’s Mer…’

‘Mercury, Venus, Earth, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, Neptune, Pluto.’, Ashley finished for her with a satisfied grin. ‘I do listen, you know.’

‘Wait, so why…’, Gretchen started, only to get a relieved hug from Ashley. ‘Welcome back, Gretchy! You were kinda… Well, fucking insane back there!’, she exclaimed happily, nuzzling into her friend’s cheeks.

‘Must have been the fumes, and a reaction to being super relaxed. But at least I’m back to normal. Did I say anything weird when I was, quote, “fucking insane”?’, Gretchen asked, curious as to the effects, a scientist as ever.

Ashley suddenly blushed, remembering how odd the terms were. It probably meant nothing, but a part of her didn’t want to think about it again, lest she get all confused. ‘Um, we can go over that later, what matters is that your friends are here! We could be exposed!’

‘Oh, no! This is EXACTLY what I was fearing!’, Gretchen began to shake and shiver, stress rushing back like a river during low tide. Ashley, deducing rightly that a stressed Gretchen won’t solve things, shook her head. ‘No, no, Gretchen! We need you to be calm, not coco for Coco Puffs!’

‘You think I wouldn’t love to just do that in a snap?’, Gretchen illustrated with a finger snap. ‘It’s easy for you to say, but I’m not like you!’, she declared perhaps a little too loudly, exasperated with the situation more than Ashley.

Ashley bit her lip, looking guilty at the floor, hands clasped behind her back. She was clearly upset about insulting Gretchen. ‘S…Sorry. I didn’t mean to make little of it, it’s just… We need to stay hidden.’

‘I know, I know…’, Gretchen slowly calmed down as she said these words, and she exercised some breathing techniques, grasping for something to center her. Feeling Ashley’s hand, she clasped it and focused on the moment. She was here, she was in trouble, and she had to get out of it, and she could get through it because she was smart enough to do so. Later, she could worry about the potential consequences. Later. ‘Right now… Please… Let me just get this hurdle done. Please.’, Gretchen whispered, and her stress melted ever so slightly. Not totally, but enough to see and hear clearly.

Releasing her panic (but not Ashley’s hand), Gretchen stared at her partner in crime and nodded. ‘Okay, I’m ready. Describe the situation. Leave no detail behind.’

‘Well, just before I had to distract the Ashley’s by pretending to be my mom and telling them I wasn’t here, and now all your friends are searching the Jacuzzi room we’re in the corner of.’, Ashley quickly explained, worried about being overheard. Gretchen leaned in to whisper, the girls so close to each other they could feel each other’s breathing. ‘Okay, so here’s what we’re going to do: You’re gonna keep watch for the Ashley’s and distract them as Ashley R if needed. But I am going to also be Ashley R.’

‘Wait, why? Wouldn’t it be easier if I…’, Ashley started, but Gretchen shushed her, eyes darting everywhere. ‘I need to do this myself, okay? Just trust me. Let’s exchange glasses.’

‘Won’t that make you squint?’, Ashley pointed out, confused, but Gretchen nodded as she took her glasses off. ‘Exactly. Every change to my look in this steamy place will add to the illusion. Here, fix my hair to look more Ashley esque.’

‘I mean, I only have my hands here, it’s not gonna be perfect.’, Ashley reminded as she began doing just so.

‘It doesn’t need to be perfect. Their eyes will form the rest from the squinting. Now, go and scout them out. I need to lie to my friends.’, Gretchen expressed, trying to remove the sting by just saying it, but it didn’t help much. As Ashley saluted and ran off to look out for the other Ashleys, Gretchen, now looking like Ashley R, hoped that her impression would work as she marched towards the jacuzzi (which would also help disguise her).

Slowly settling into the jet streams (which began relaxing her muscles, which worried her, since Ashley R couldn’t sound too much like Ashley A), Gretchen decided to rip the bandaid off and just call out for her friends. ‘Hey, um, who’s there? Am I interrupting something?’, she declared in an uncannily perfect impression. The implications did not occur to Gretchen.

The Gang, all hearing the mostly unfamiliar voice, turned around towards the source, the jacuzzi. ‘H-Hello? A-Anyone in there?’, Gus stuttered, unsettled by the sudden presence in the room. ‘Shh! No one can know we snuck in, guys!’, T.J. shushed them, and bravely ventured towards the voice. ‘Depends. Who are you?’

‘I’m just a customer, if you’re worried about that. I won’t tell. That’s an… An Ashley R guarantee!’, Gretchen vowed, crossing her heart, which made her feel grosser. ‘This must have been what Pinocchio felt.’, she wondered, hating how often she was now lying to her friends.

The reveal startled the gang. ‘Ashley R? Aren’t you that fake Ashley that Gretchen likes?’, Spinelli exclaimed, worrying Gretchen. Everyone knew of Spinelli’s violent resentment of The Ashleys. ‘Um, yes, that’s me, ha ha. Average old Ashley R.’, Gretchen doubled down, hoping she wouldn’t need to explain to a doctor she was bitten by a 9 year old, not a dog.

Instead, Spinelli laughed affectionately and reached out to shake her hand, which Gretchen just about managed to find. ‘Us Fake Ashley’s gotta stick together! You palling up with Gretchen must really get their designer jeans in a twist! I respect that!’, she said in a revered voice only reserved for her bestest friends. ‘Then again, I am one already.’, Gretchen mused, as the others all sat down around her, feeling safe now. ‘Plus, anyone who likes Gretchen is good in our book! Except for that slime, Jeffery.’, Vince grumbled, clenching his fist. ‘What a creep. She deserves much better.’

‘Heh, heh, yeah…’, Gretchen trailed off, trying her best not to think of the important other reason she had left out as to why she hated Jeffery’s approaches.

‘Anyway, speaking of Gretchen, that’s why we’re here. We’ve been trying to find her.’, T.J. explained, sounding a little guilty, which alarmed Gretchen. Hiding that in a veneer of curiosity, she mumbled ‘Oh? How come?’.

‘Well, she’s been really distracted. No one really liked the idea of tracking her down, but we couldn’t help but wonder if something was wrong, you know?’, Gus explained, even though all of them were feeling guilty about it when voicing it like that.

‘Not me. When Gretchen’s ready to tell us, she can. I say we wait it out, like good friends!’, Mikey insisted, crossing his arms and protesting over on the other side. Gretchen couldn’t help but appreciate it. ‘Good ol’ Mikey.’

Gretchen didn’t want to hurt her friends. She knew that deep down they were worried for good reason, and that they really didn’t mean any harm. But she also knew they wouldn’t understand why she and Ashley A needed to try and be friends. There was no choice. She had to lie to them, and try and get them off the scent, even if that meant a little guilt tripping.

Still, it broke Gretchen’s heart to twist a metaphorical knife into their chests. ‘Well, as someone whose been… Befriending Gretchen as of late, I… I personally think she’s okay. She’s, um, she’s always thinking about you guys, and she still really loves hanging out. She’s just, well… Making a new friend as well. Me.’

Well, that part wasn’t a lie.

‘And, well, I personally think she’d be a little… Hurt if she knew her friends couldn’t just trust her when she felt like doing something else.’

That part was a lie, one she barely managed to choke out. While obviously she didn’t think it was totally fair that she couldn’t just be friends with Ashley A, she couldn’t blame her old friends at all. The Ashleys had done many, many terrible things to them, especially Spinelli and Gus. She herself had promised an explanation, gave a very half baked one, then kept on disappearing. Obviously she was allowed to, but she would have expected some sort of answer too. Plus, they weren’t envious, like The Ashleys. They were worried.

‘Maybe… Maybe I can call the whole thing off… Maybe I can just tell them now, get through the fallout, and stop all this hiding.’, Gretchen thought, feeling the stress waves hit her. Maybe that’s how she could calm down.

Yet, when she suddenly caught sight of Ashley A, waving to her that the other Ashley’s weren’t arriving, when she caught sight of her face, the total opposite of the hard and rigid girl who had been a terror to her friends, a girl who instantly made her feel calmer no matter the situation…

She knew that no god or physical force in the universe could truly get her to give up now.

‘Just saying. I’m not trying to cause any trouble between you guys.’, Gretchen finished, unable to stare them in the face.

‘She’s got a point… Maybe we should just ask her? Or at least wait and see if this is just a short term thing?’, T.J. pitched, and while Spinelli was still a little unsure, the gang all nodded at this. After all, they truly didn’t want to hurt her feelings. ‘Finally, some common sense!’, Mikey cheered, and like that, they just left, bidding “Ashley R” farewell.

As Gretchen sighed in relief, Ashley A made her way towards her and sunk into the jacuzzi, sighing in relief. ‘Ooh, that’s good! So, I see that you got through to them?’

‘Yeah…’, Gretchen muttered sadly, making circles in the pool. Ashley, noticing her sad face (and needing her fake glasses back) swam over to her and they exchanged spectacles. Then, Ashley placed her hand on Gretchen’s. ‘Hey… You okay, Gretchy?’

Gretchen closed her eyes, and the alarm bells rang and rang. ‘No.’

‘...If you want to call it off, I… I understand.’, Ashley lied, preferring to suffer than to see Gretchen suffer. She hugged herself, feeling colder than she was supposed to.

Gretchen shook her head despite the pains she felt from her tension. ‘No, I… No, that’s not what I want. I just… I also want to be able to tell my friends. To not hide all of this. To be sure of us. I just… I just wish it wasn’t so hard.’

Ashley sympathetically nodded, clasping the hand harder. ‘I know how you feel.’

The two floated in silence, the jet streams doing their best to soothe them, but not succeeding.

Finally, after a long time, Gretchen roused her courage to speak. ‘Look, can we… Can we be more careful, please? I don’t want to lie to my friends again. I don’t want to look behind my back all the time when we do this. I want to be able to have fun with you without feeling like a criminal.’

‘We were careful, no?’, Ashley countered, but Gretchen shook her head. ‘We had to pretend to be other people, Ashley. We have to do better.’

Blinking away tears and feeling her heartbeat in her throat, she turned to Ashley with a pleading tone. ‘Please… I don’t want to live in fear with you.’

Ashley understood how serious this was, and she offered her pinkie. ‘More careful. Promise. Pinkie promise.’

Gretchen knew by now Ashley’s pinkie promises meant something, and so, they locked pinkies and nodded, another vow made between them.

And for a few glorious minutes, the alarm bells rang less, and the shadows felt smaller. Letting out a deep breath, Gretchen couldn’t help but smile as she admitted ‘This was… Nice.’

‘Yeah, the jacuzzi is great…’

‘No, I mean, all of it. Even before the spa.’

Ashley looked at Gretchen.

Gretchen looked at Ashley.

Ashley smiled. ‘It was, wasn’t it?’

Gretchen smiled. ‘Like, totally.’

And the soft laugh they shared could only be heard by them and their hearts beating in synchronization.

Outside, meanwhile, while The Ashley’s all left the mall in haste and fear (though Ashley B still felt a suspicion in the back of her mind), The Gang were leaving the mall in a mixed mood: All a little guilty over Gretchen, and all really annoyed by Randal’s latest lame disguise. ‘Nice try, shrimp, but you’re wearing the same clothes!’, Spinelli aimed her fist at him, and he just ran back into the mall, shouting in fear. ‘That oughta do it.’, Vince mused, as T.J. shook his head. ‘Weird, weird kid.’

‘Weird’s an understatement, Detweiler. I’d also use bizarre, offbeat, quirky, outlandish, eccentric, unconventional, unorthodox, idiosyncratic, and my personal favorite, outré. That’s French for startling!’

The gang all turned around, startled by the voice behind them. It was upbeat and almost New Yorkie, as if she belonged to a 1940’s screwball comedy. Holding in one hand a notebook with the Eiffel Tower on it and on one ear a chewed on pencil, there stood a girl about Spinelli’s size, wearing a purple jacket, a black and white striped shirt, golden bracelets, a short blonde bob (akin to Stacey McGill from The Babysitters Club), and green ankle boots. And that was without mentioning her ruby red glasses, black beret, and sky blue scarf.

Sashaying towards the gang, she waved a business card and smirked confidently. ‘Penny. Penny Bly. At your service.’, she bowed, while the gang scratched their heads. ‘Bly… Are you Library Kid’s older sister?’, T.J. ventured, and Penny nodded matter of factly. ‘Books run in the family. She reads them, I write them. Well, actually, I write news articles, but you know. School paper.’

‘We have a school paper?’, Mikey asked in excitement. ‘Why did no one tell me?’

‘New thing. They had to exchange me from across town for it. Budget finally cleared up after Prickly lost his foosball table.’, Penny took out a lollipop and bit onto the stick as if it was a cigarette.

‘Okay, cool, but what’s that got to do with us?’, Vince questioned, eyebrow raised. ‘Yeah, we’re not conducting any interviews!’, Spinelli rejected, also suspicious.

‘Nah, nah, nothin’ like that! I’m just here for my first big story, the one everyone’s wondering about…’, Penny explained, a fire in her eyes glowing with pure excitement and hunger.

‘What’s going on with Gretchen Grundler?’

#ashley a #gretchen grundler #gretchen recess #recess ashley a #scandalous chemistry #disney recess #recess #ashley x gretchen

7 notes · View notes

that-struggling-writer-lh · 10 months ago

Text

A Flower For Every Secret Ch 5. Carnation -

No proofreading, this was a monster chapter to write, and a lot of filler for the next. Busy with a lot of stuff this week. OC is sort of a self insert here?

WARNINGS : MINORS DNI. mentions of intimate partner violence, brief joke about pew pews, alcohol consumption.

Word Count: 5652

“Who was that guy you brought to Colleen’s wedding? Word around the office was that you were single, Carillo said he thought so, anyway. Said you weren’t sure if you’d even go without a date.” The question came from a well-known office busybody, Kelly, as she blew a big pink bubble with the gum in her mouth. I made a mental note to stop telling Carrillo, and anyone else for that matter, about my personal affairs on their stops to my desk on his way in and out of the building.

I felt the blush creep up regardless of trying to stay busy at my computer. Sunday, Joel and I had “coincidentally” bumped into each other grabbing our papers at the same time, it was hard to sleep at all with the lingering feelings of him on my brain and on my body. He had smiled warmly at me and we met each other at the mouth of each of our respective driveways, just friendly neighbors having a chat, thanking the other for the invitation to a colleagues wedding. Polite small-talk about the weather, the upcoming holiday, Sarah and her friends, who had spent everyday together by their pool, how I’m welcome over anytime.

“Joel is my neighbor.” I attempted to deadpan, clicking at the keys while reading written reports. Data transfer from the field gave me at least something to occupy my brain other than Joel.

She giggled and leaned over the glass separator, “He’s not like any of my neighbors. He’s handsome, huh?”

I let my fingers stall on my task and flicked my eyes up to her, “Well, he’s my neighbor. Lives across the street with his kid.” the mine, definitely holding a double-meaning.

She hummed in response, a curt, small noise, “Single dad, huh? Not my first choice, personally.” her gum snapped against her teeth.

“Kelly.” I started, signing out her name in exasperation, leaving a pause in the air, raising my eyebrows at her, “Why the sudden interest in my love life?”

She shrugged and chewed her gum loudly, “Just makin’ girl talk.”

I pursed my lips and closed the divider, effectively ending the conversation.

I heard her voice, muffled behind the thick glass, “It’s new, huh?” she was still smirking.

“Go away, Kelly.” I couldn’t hide the grin that spread slowly across my face, and she knew she won as she turned on her heels, clicking with every confident step she took.

I smoothed my pencil skirt and tucked my hair behind my ear before exhaling slowly and continuing on with my work. Reports weren’t going to file themselves.

The fourth of July, as Carol had told me from her garden beds in front of her house, always made the cul-de-sac pretty much packed from dawn well through the night. In the big turn-around at the end of the street, tables would be filled with food, drinks, desserts, ending with fireworks after the stars came out. With the holiday landing on Sunday this year, the only lull in the neighborhood would get would be when families disappeared for church early in the morning.

I spent all of Saturday baking dozens of cupcakes to bring to the turnaround, and decorating them simply with swirls of red, white and blue, topped with sprinkles in matching shades. The Texas heat made it impossible to be comfortable with the oven stuck at 320 degrees all day, even with the roaring sun it was cooler outside than in, chugging sweet iced tea in the shade of my small back porch was the only thing keeping me cool.

I kept my attire casual, a half up ponytail tied with a red bow, white shorts and a navy blue tank top. I surely did not want to stick out like a sore thumb amongst the patriotic neighbors. Joel had made no attempt to actually speak with me beyond small talk all week, and I was beginning to get frustrated. Though, in his defense, his truck would be gone before I left and after I returned from work most days. I’d been blaming it on him owning his own business. Trying not to pine after him pathetically.

I made the first trip down the street to deliver 2 dozen cupcakes to the party, happily exchanging pleasantries with a few neighbors before excusing myself to retrieve the rest when Sarah and her friend, Anna, nearly knocked me down while rushing by on bicycles. Sarah stopped dead in her tracks and looked at me apologetically, “Sorry, we’ll pay more attention next time.” she sucked in her breath.

“You’re okay, Sarah.” I waved the action off dismissively, “just be careful, I know there’s no car traffic tonight but there’s a lot of little kiddos around and older folk. You can’t be zipping through the crowd like that.”

“You’re right.” she sighed, rolling her eyes, “you sound like Dad, though.”

My heart lurched at the mention, “hey, where is your old man anyway?”

“Going to the store with Uncle Tommy.” She explained before Anna announced she was ready to go raid the appetizer table.

I made the second trip without so much as a howdy from anyone.

Walking back up the street the final time, I spied Tommy’s truck parked right next to Joel’s in his driveway, the brothers laughing together as they exited the house, Tommy’s arms full of paper bags nearly overflowing with food and drinks.

I tried to not notice how nice Joel looked in his ball cap and casual navy blue shirt. I just looked down at the pavement, folding my arms and walking up the driveway.

“Hold on, Tommy.” I heard his familiar drawl as I ascended the steps, “Hey, Sweetheart. Been meaning to catch you,” with the prying eyes of the neighborhood tucked away down the street, he had no problem gently taking my elbow in his hand to turn me towards him.

I furrowed my brows, “Oh, haven’t noticed.”

He scoffed a little, looking up the street to the busy party, the sun still about two hours from making its descent, “You free?”

“Just bringing cupcakes down to the party.”

“Okay.” his eyes flicked over my face, brows furrowed in concern as I popped the door open, entering the house, leaving the door open as an invitation for him to follow.

He tracked me through the living room and into the kitchen, where I handed him three clamshell cases of cupcakes and he stacked them up in his arms, “Make yourself useful, Miller.” I stated plainly, still having not looked at him properly.

“Hey… Sweetheart?” He seemed to chew on his question thoughtfully, not sure if he should speak or not.

I hummed in response, not trying to play cold, but trying not to seem like I’d been waiting on him all week.

“I’m real sorry I haven’t really reached out after… I’m not trying to… What do they call it these days… Ghost you.”

I snapped my eyes to his, waiting for him to finish, when he didn’t I shrugged, “I’m not obligated to your time, Joel. You have Sarah, your work. I was busy with work anyway. Had a lot of paperwork to do this week. You know, with the holiday. Wanted to make sure I had nothing they could call me into the station for.”

He nodded, sticking his tongue into his cheek, “I understand.”

“I suppose it’s partially my fault.” I rolled my shoulders back, straightening my posture, “We haven’t really swapped contact information, you know. Aside from the fact we could probably see into each other’s houses if we try hard enough.”

He stifled a chuckle, “Sure. My fault, too. You’re so close after Sarah’s asleep I could just.. Throw a stone over and hit your door. I just-well.” he sighed, I waited, my worried brow relaxing, “-It’s been a real long time since I’ve… Tried to get out there. In any real sense of that phrase. I mean, I’m no prude, but-”

I nodded in understanding, “I figured. When we first had that big conversation over dinner at my place. I could tell that… For you, Sarah holds all of the stars in her eyes. You’re a father first. Nobody else can matter like that.”

His eyes softened and he adjusted his weight on his feet, “Thank you.”

“We can take things slow, Joel. I won’t push. I don’t plan on pulling away, unless you want me to.”

I waited a few moments too long for his response, when none came I started toward the front door again, he hadn’t moved his feet from the spot in front of the fridge, “I meant it. Last week, when I said I would like you to come by again. Not have to rush like that. Maybe dinner with just me and Sarah.”

I turned toward him, his face had warmed with a pink flush, “For you? I’m free anytime after five, and weekends obviously.”

He exhaled like he’d been holding his breath and nodded, following me out of the house.

Joel and I walked down the street together this time, while he relayed a story about Tommy and his trip to the tiny market a few blocks away, how Tommy was almost denied being sold beer due to his expired license and a new cashier who had never met the pair who frequented the shop, how Joel had to swoop in and vouch, showing him the matching surname on his ID.

I giggled at his dramatic retelling as the noise of the neighborhood grew louder, until we joined the cliques of our little slice of the planet and Sarah found Joel, latching onto his waistline with her scrawny arms, begging him to let Anna sleepover just one more time this week, pretty, pretty please!.

He, of course, can never tell his sweet daughter no. So long as she sat and had dinner with the family, he turned to me after with a soft gaze and asked quietly, “Will you join us, too?”

I responded with a nod, trying to suppress the way my heart lurched at the offer, with all of the prying eyes of neighbors. It was another small step to be in public together.

Tommy and Maria were loading their paper plates with burgers and side dishes, Joel seamlessly falling into step behind, grabbing a plate for me as well, telling me to fill up on anything I wanted.

I accepted the offer gratefully and did the same as the others, anything that looked good landed a spot on my quickly piling plate, “Make sure you grab some of those cupcakes at the dessert table, she worked real hard on those, I’m sure.” he nudged my side with his elbow.

Maria had laid a blanket out on the grass, staking our claim to a patch of grass past the border of the sidewalk, in perfect view of where the firework display would be later.

I smiled shyly as we all settled onto the blanket, and Maria and I exchanged pleasantries. Sarah talked about how her summer break was going, how in five weeks she couldn’t believe she’d be forced back into a classroom. “Good, keep your brains from rotting out of your head.” Tommy said through a mouthful of food, “You crazy kids are always running around the neighborhood. About time you get back to routine.”

Joel nodded in agreement, “You can’t be a doctor without a good education, Sare-Bear.”

Sarah groaned as she stabbed some pasta salad onto a fork, “I don’t wanna be a doctor, Dad. That was so two years ago.”

“Well excuse me.” he drawled.

“You’re bright enough you can be anything you want, Baby.” Maria pointed her fork at the pre-teen girl that sat criss-cross at the edge of the blanket.

I nodded as well, but didn’t feel it was my place to add anything in. Sarah went on about her plans with Anna for the night, crafting new bracelets and watching a new movie her friend had picked up to rent earlier in the day.

After the meal, Joel and Tommy went to go search for more beer in the garage, leaving me with just Maria as Sarah quickly lent herself back to her group of friends.

Maria looked at me with a curious expression after we were left on our own, “How are things?” she glanced behind her shoulder at Joel’s form slowly shrinking around the crowd of neighbors, then back at me.

“I think okay.” I shrugged, “Slow moving, but that’s not a bad thing. Still just getting to know each other, I think.”

“He has a lot on his plate.” she nodded, “Always has.”

I nodded in understanding, sipping from a bottle of water, “It seems that way, he told me about how the whole… Dating thing just hasn’t really worked. Always busy with Sarah and work.”

She gave me a tight mouthed smile, “You’re not worried?”

“About?”

“How if things don’t work you own the house across from him? Might be awkward.”

I shook my head, “No.”

She let out a soft hum and I began picking at a hangnail I only just noticed on my thumb, “Would be hard for Sarah.”

It took a lot of strength not to roll my eyes, “All anyone ever talks about is Sarah… I know she’s his universe but… what about Joel? When does Joel get a say? When does Joel get to be happy? When does Joel get to relax, have fun? Sarah is a sweet, smart girl. You know that, everybody can see it.” I tried to keep my voice neutral, but it was impossible to keep the edge at bay, “Joel is kind. Hardworking, seems by all accounts I’ve witnessed honest, not to mention good looking. Sarah is first to everybody. We aren’t talking about marriage or anything, but Joel can be a priority just as much as Sarah can.”

Maria ticked her jaw to the side, “Tommy just said he’s been talking about you to him while on job sites, and I… I just worry-”

“Rightfully so. He and Sarah are lucky to have people who worry about him, but Sarah is also old enough to know the basics of how… things work in the adult world, I’m sure. I’m sure there’s been times she wanted a female influence that wasn’t her aunt, or her friends’ mothers. He and I are still… working things out, haven’t even been on a real date yet, unless you count the wedding. There’s no pressure here, but I do like him.”

She considered my words but didn’t respond, just looked to the side of us as Tommy and Joel’s cackling laughter could be heard, I turned to their direction with a smirk, watching Joel slap Tommy on the back, they had twin goofy grins on their faces and beers in their hands.

“Hey, Doll.” Joel greeted as he returned to his spot next to me, resting his hand on my thigh now that Sarah had gone off with her friends again.

“Hey, Joel.” I feigned a smile and turned my attention back to him.

With the brothers back, conversation flowed more organically, and Tommy and Maria both took the opportunity to get to know more about me. The small details about the town I had come from in New England, that Texas was a perfect reprieve from harsh winters and slow seasons. That I didn’t really have any family, and therefore nothing to lose with moving halfway across the country. I liked my quiet time, my books, baking, and a simple life.

Eventually Tommy and Maria were pulled off by a small group of their friends who had joined in, friends of friends of neighbors. It seemed the more drinks that flowed the more people showed up for the display.

Joel and I held down the fort - being Maria’s picnic blanket. Laying on our backs in an otherwise mostly unpopulated stretch of grass. The volume of the music had started increasing, as did the volume of everyone else's conversations.

“I’d like to take you out.” Joel interrupted a stretch of comfortable silence.

“Like, on a date or with a gun?” I joked.

He turned to face me with furrowed brows and a wicked smirk, “You think you’re real funny, huh? Course on a date.” he shook his head.

“Well,” I laughed, rolling onto my stomach to get closer to him, propping up my chin with my palm, “Just wanted to clarify, Miller.”

“Of course a date. A real date. Not a wedding, not dinner at each other’s house. You ‘n me. Restaurant or something. Figure out something else, too.”

I smiled and nodded in response, reaching over him to grab a neatly folded napkin leftover from dinner, “You have a pen?”

“I’m a contractor.” he smirked, digging into his front pocket, pulling out a pencil, pen and permanent marker.

“You just carry those around? All the time?”

He shrugged, “Would it turn you on if I said yes?”

I laughed and playfully pushed him back over before grabbing the pen from him and carefully writing my number on the flimsy paper, “Here you go.” I handed him the napkin and he studied it with a smirk.

“Not a fake one, I hope?”

“You know where to find me if it is, don’t you?”

He looked up to the sky, now seeming to burn with soft shades of pink and orange, “I suppose I do.”

I had figured we’d been in the clear, having avoided nosy Carol until this point, but a shadow soon obstructed the warmth the remains of the sun offered, “Hey, kids!” she announced herself.

Joel and I looked up in unison, “Hey Mrs. Johnson.” he greeted her for the both of us, “Enjoying the holiday?”

She nodded in answer, “Looks like you are, too.”

“It’s a beautiful day,” I smiled at our neighbor, “Nice to get everybody together. I meant to tell you, your carnations are looking gorgeous.”

She gave a genuine smile before answering, “Almost time to cut them down for bouquets. They’ll make someone happy, I’m sure, and make room in my garden for something else. Sweetheart, there’s some drinks over there, Greg set up a sort of bar with one of the tables. Makes a mean margarita.”

“Thank you, Carol.” I answered, “I might take you up on that offer, actually. Care to join me, Miller?” I stood and reached my hand down to help him up.

He grabbed my hand and stood with a groan, as we approached the table a dozen or so neighbors perched at, all giggling with drinks in their hands, Joel greeted Greg with a firm handshake, without even a hello, Greg started as if Joel had been in conversation the entire time, “Oh, Buddy, that work you did in my bathroom has held up beautifully. No issues still. Felt like I was constantly having to have things worked on in there.”

“Well, because I did it right, Greg.” Greg was probably twenty or thirty years our senior, with kind eyes, sparse hair and an affinity for parties from what I’d heard. Like many of my neighbors, so far, I’d only briefly met him in passing. I knew faces and names, but nothing of substance.

He poured into a shot glass and handed me the small cup of clear liquid, without so much of a greeting, “Here, Dollface, this is for you.”

“Thank you.” I nodded and let the feeling of straight vodka burn my throat. I shivered at the taste, immediately reminded of my too crazy freshman year of college.

“How are you liking the neighborhood now that you’re all settled?” Greg’s wife, Lisa asked from over the rim of a nearly empty cup.

“I love it, everyone has been so nice.” I smiled at the faces around the table.

“Good, not often we get new faces over on this end, especially young ones. All the young people are moving out, further into the city or leaving Texas entirely.”

A man hummed in response, nodding almost solemnly.

“I like it, it’s quiet. Working in the city is enough for me, I like to be able to separate at the end of the day.”

“What do you do, again?”

“She works for the police department. Front desk.” Joel answered for me, and his ears turned a shade pink, he covered it up by taking a long drink from his beer.

Greg smirked at Joel and gave me another pour, “Good benefits in a job like that, but stressful with all the crap that goes on in Austin, I bet.”

I nodded, though I kept my eyes on Joel, and he kept his trained on me, “It’s tough sometimes, but it stays pretty quiet aside from officers and agents and lawyers running in and out. I do a lot of paperwork, computer stuff, and sometimes direct calls if someone doesn’t know which department to call.”

Greg nodded before passing the glass back to me, and I didn’t flinch this time as I welcomed the burn of alcohol, setting the glass back on the table, “Carol tells me you make a mean margarita?”

I was happily tipsy by the time the sun went down, with jokes, innuendos, neighborhood gossip and stories fresh in my mind, Joel and I returned, giggling back to the abandoned blanket. Joel checked a note scrawled on a napkin, “Tommy had something going on in his neighborhood they forgot about, they left.” he explained with a lazy smirk on his face as he laid down on the blanket, now cold from the night air.

I hummed, “and Sarah?”

“I saw her on our way over here, she’s with Anna’s folks, the girls had some sort of handheld gaming thing they were playing on.” I laid down next to him and dared to lay my head into the crook of his arm, snuggling in close in what little privacy the moon and stars offered, he took a slow breath in and let his arm sink down across my back, he started rubbing slow, soothing patterns over my shirt.

Conversation around us settled into excited, quiet chatter about the display that was to be expected, how many people contributed to the display, and how long it would last. I listened intently to the noise around me, along with the even breathing from Joel’s chest, “You can learn a lot about our neighbors from just sitting back and listening, huh?”

He nodded, his chin pressed to the top of my head, “We’re a simple folk around here.”

I hummed quietly and turned my gaze up to him. No matter what lighting, no matter what setting, Joel always seemed so effortlessly good looking. It was almost unfair how even with just the moon, his eyes shone, how angular he was in just the right spots.

He turned to face me and smirked, “You staring at me?”

My face felt heated and I looked away, “Sorry.”

He let out a noise that may have been a chuckle, but took his free hand, tilting my face back up to his, his thumb tracing a soft line over my cheek, jaw, neck. “You’re so beautiful.” he murmured, a slight rasp to his voice.

“Joel-” I started, but couldn’t finish my thought as he hushed me with a kiss, just as the first shriek of fireworks sang from the ground up, pop, pop, pop.

I pulled away to see the bright glow shimmer in his caramel eyes, before it dissipated and was replaced with another pop, pop, and fantastic red coated us in the cool of the night, “What?” he asked, still just inches from each other.

I shook my head and leaned back in, bathed in blues, greens, whites, every color imaginable while our neighbors wow’ed and awe’d at the display in the sky. I’d never cared much for firework shows. But with Joel’s hands on my back and his lips skimming across my face and neck, it really gave a new meaning to the way kissing someone can be described as fireworks in your chest. Everything with Joel had felt electric from the first time I saw him. His first polite Howdy, Ma’am, I’m Joel. Joel Miller..

I relished in the feeling of his teeth on my jaw, it was over all too soon as we both remembered where we were. Who was potentially watching. I was sure if Sarah was going to hear about her father kissing anyone, she’d want to hear it from him, not some neighborhood kid out to embarrass her.

We maintained our separate spaces until the end of the display. Each bang, pop, and hsss, and every swath of color filled me to the brim with happiness. I didn’t want to move from our spot.

Joel walked back with me, with Sarah and Anna in tow, the girls giggling about something funny another friend had done, groaning about how a boy chased them with a worm. Joel smirked at me, rolling his eyes, “Kids.”

I returned his smile as Sarah and Anna ascended the front porch without even checking for Joel, closing the door behind them.

“Thank you for today.” I looked up at his towering figure.

He shrugged, like it was no big deal, “Of course. This is the first year that Sarah sort of… Took care of herself for the day-if that’s the right way to put it. It was nice to focus on someone other than her. Has been nice, I guess.”

“Well, I gotta head home. I’m expecting a call tonight.”

“Oh? From who?” he quirked an eyebrow up.

“Oh, you know. Nobody too special. Just some guy with thick curly hair, big brown puppy eyes. Someone who I’m sure will be busy with two rambunctious kids way too hyped up on sugar.”

He chuckled and leaned down to press his lips to mine briefly, hand pressed to my cheek, “Sounds like an important call, you might want to go head in and wait for it. Shouldn’t be long before those kids crash down from all that sugar.”

I smiled and chased his lips as he pulled away, and he granted me another kiss, deeper this time, grunting against my mouth, “You sound pretty sure of that.”

“What can I say? He knows his kid.”

He ran his hand from my jawline down all the way down to my waist, pulling me flush against him and kissing me a final time before releasing me. He was silent in the middle of the street as I walked up the driveway and the steps to my front door, “Hey, Sweetheart?”

I turned back to face him, “Hey, Miller.”

“You looked real pretty today. You.. look pretty every day.”

I couldn’t help the blush that crept up, and tried to stifle it by pinning my lower lip between my teeth, “Not so bad yourself, Cowboy.”

He huffed a laugh and turned on his heel, walking up the path to his house, the main lights all glowing out into his yard, “Alright, girls. Snack, teeth, bed. It’s way too late.” I heard him half-shout over rambunctious laughter from the main room as his door opened and shut, sealing them all inside.

I smirked to myself before turning in myself; washing my face in the single basin sink, taking my hair down, brushing out the grass and knots acquired from laying out in the sun most of the day, stripping down and slipping into loose sweatpants and an oversized t-shirt that the years hadn’t been kind to. Just as soon as I flicked off the lights and retreated to my bedroom, the phone rang from it’s cradle in the kitchen. I’d never jumped up to reach a phone so fast. The clock read it was after ten now.

“Hello?” I smirked against the phone, cradling the hard plastic between my cheek and shoulder as I stood in the dark room.

“This wouldn’t happen to be a sweet little doll I know, would it? Long hair, sorta short in stature. Killer ass.”

I laughed into the phone at Joel’s familiar drawl, “You are pushing your luck, Joel Miller.”

He answered with a deep chuckle, and I heard a rustling sound from his end of the line, “Pushing my luck, might be my middle name. Glad to know it wasn’t a fake number, after all.”

I hummed in answer, bringing the cordless phone down the hall to my bedroom, settling between the comforter and sheets, flicking the lamp on, “Like I said, you know where to find me if it was.”

“Tempting regardless if it was fake or not.”

I bit down on my lip and nestled down into the blankets further, cocooning myself in the soft, warm blends of fabric, “If only you hadn’t agreed to let Sarah have a friend over, maybe next time you can convince Anna’s folks to keep Sarah.”

“Tried, Sarah misses my Sunday breakfasts when she’s gone.” he chuckled into the phone.

“Joel Miller the chef, who knew?”

“I don’t just build houses, Sweetheart, I can build a mean plate of breakfast. Pancakes, eggs, bacon-”

“-Sausage?” I added a flirty lilt to my tone.

There was a shuffling noise again, I could picture his dimples as I heard the smile in his honey-like voice. Syrupy sweet. “For you, pretty girl, anything you want.” he took a deep breath before adding, “You in bed right now?”

“What if I am?”

A soft hum, “Makes two of us,” another deep inhale, “I haven’t been able to stop thinking about last week.”

I swallowed my smirk, taking a moment to calm the way my heart fluttered, “Me, too.”

“Been a long time since I’ve had a hard time staying away from someone.”

“I know the feeling, trust me.” I hesitated, “How long for you?”

He scoffed, “Trying to embarrass me? Like I said before, I’m no prude. There’s been times,” he seemed to hesitate, “I saw someone seriously about five years ago. Moved in and everything.”

“Wow, what happened?”

“Didn’t wanna play stepmomma. Or whatever, was some lame excuse. Didn’t feel like a real family to her, so I told her to forget it. Single dads aren’t for everyone.”

I tsked quietly, “Must have been hard.”

“Especially for Sarah.” he sighed, “She liked her until Ronnie-Veronica, moved in. They got on well with limited time, but they started stepping on each other’s toes really fast.”

I sighed, trying to form anything else to say other than a lame sorry before his voice cut in again, breaking the quiet, “What about you? What’s your story?”

I shook my head, not wanting to go into the full extent of details, “Something bad happened between me and my ex. We were never good for each other, and when things got more serious he showed his true colors. Things got physical, to say the least. The last time I saw him it was-it was bad. Should have went to the hospital but I ran home with my tail between my legs, back to Momma. Didn’t leave the house until the bruises were gone.” I nearly choked on the words in my throat. “Was four years ago this spring. I was no prude either, but… I don’t know what it is about this town,” I inhaled, calming the threat of tears, “About you. You feel safe. This place feels safe.”

I took him about three beats too long to respond, “Oh, Baby.” he cooed softly, and more rustling came from his end of the phone, “I’m sorry.”

I nodded, nearly forgetting he wasn’t here to see the gesture, “Don’t, Joel - really. It’s why I work with the PD now. Desk job, sure. Not dealing with specifics or super hands on. But sometimes these girls come in, not knowing what to do, and I can look at them and really say… I know. Sometimes it's all they need to help them say they’re ready for the next steps.”

His voice grew softer than I had ever heard it yet, and he let loose a breath he’d no doubt been holding, “That makes sense, Sweetheart. Very good of you.”

“I didn’t expect to have this talk tonight, Joel.” my voice was as soft as a mouse now.

“Glad we did, though. I’d never-”

“I know. You’re good. Better than I deserve, and I can see that from ten miles away, I’m looking forward to getting to know you more. Getting to know Sarah, and Tommy and Maria. Even if Maria sort of scared me today. Truly.”

“What did Maria do?” his voice perked, and I could almost hear the suspicious crinkle in his eyes.

“Nothing.” I pinched my brow, cursing myself for saying anything at all, “Just that you’ve been talking about me to Tommy, and that she’s worried about if things go south. Me being your neighbor and all.”

I heard a soft thump, and imagined him tossing his head back onto his pillow, I wondered briefly if the cases smelled like him, how he looked all tucked in and sleepy, “She means well, good intentions, poor execution sort of thing. She worries-”

“About Sarah, mostly.” I cut him off with a breathy laugh.

“Right.”

“You’re lucky.” My voice was growing heavy with sleep, I laid my head on the phone, the green glow of the screen displaying his number warmed my face, “To have people that worry over you and your girl.”

“I count my lucky stars every day, that's for sure.”

I hummed quietly in answer, “You need to get your beauty sleep, Cowboy. Need all the strength you can get to make your big breakfast for the girls in the morning.”

He ticked his tongue against his teeth, “I suppose you’re right.” a brief pause, “Come over. Pajamas, bed head and all. I reckon they’ll be up with the sun. Therefore, I’ll be up with the sun.”

I smiled into the phone, “You got it, Joel. Goodnight.”

“Night, Sweetheart.”

#joel miller #joel miller x reader #pedro pascal characters #tlou fanfiction #neighbor!joel #joel miller fanfiction #tlou au #neighbor joel miller #joel miller x ofc

23 notes · View notes

lesbianrobin · 2 years ago

Note

In honor of 1 year of Vickie, do you have any fun headcanons about her? You're one of the few people I trust with her character. <3

hehe thank you!!

idk about Fun headcanons most of mine r kinda boring but i think that vickie has a few younger siblings and that she's a virgo. i have zero basis for either of these things they just feel right.

now for things sorta based on/inspired by canon:

vickie has So Many Clothes and a huge collection of accessories! it's almost problematic like she's terrible about splurging on clothes and sometimes she even plans her outfits and lays them out at night like a little kid before a field trip bc otherwise she spends way too long trying things on in the morning and she ends up late for school. it's not her FAULT okay she just wants to have the right outfit for her moods!! she has to suit the vibe!!

she loves movies and going to the movies regardless of what the movie is. she just really loves the experience of going to the theater and she always finds something to enjoy even in the worst movies.

i also suspect she likes to pour candy into the popcorn bucket.

i think she's liked robin for at least a few months by the time we meet her in s4 and she's like. a LITTLE bit conflicted about it bc of her boyfriend. but she doesn't feel Too bad about it and sometimes she thinks about robin when she's with dan and she's like well it's not like he knows what's in my brain!! and robin's a girl so it's not like i want to cheat on him!! and then once they break up she's like okay yeah so maybe i wanted to cheat on him. like so bad. oopsie. but he fucking sucks anyway so whatever!!!

she fully believes that she should have dumped him for his fast times opinions. like she said that to robin to try and be funny but she also truly believes that you can measure a person by things like their movie opinions and that she dropped the ball by ignoring a huge red flag.

i think she does okay in school but she's not in any of the advanced classes and she was a bit intimidated by robin when they first met because robin's in a few different APs.

she likes to paint but she's fucking terrible at it. she knows this and continues to accumulate shitty paintings anyway because it makes her happy.

i think that's all i got for now dkvjdjc thank you for asking!!

#asks #vickie #stranger things

45 notes · View notes

be-the-glenn-to-my-maggie · 1 year ago

Text

Longass Crop Circles Notes (I Don't Think I've Changed Chapter Two):

I don't want to talk about how many weeks these notes have been sitting in my notes app because I couldn't bring myself to go through them yet. My sincere apologies @spicymiilk

-Ah that incredibly relatable feeling when you want to get to one part of your story and you have to force yourself to slog through to get to it. It happens to us all.

-KIRI AND LO’AK GOING TO SPECIAL SCHOOL WHILE NETEYAM IS REGULAR IS SO FUNNY TO ME. Poor Lo’ak I’m being so mean to him. But you really want their asses GONE gone.

-Calling Jake a white man and saying he can’t understand their hair is so funny. Dude NEVER helped with ANY of his kids hair ever??? He’s never done Neytiri’s for her because he’s her bitch? Come on Jake, I expected more. Even I’ve done my cousins hair a few times. Maybe Spider will fare better?

-Obsessed with the way Neteyam is about his morning routine and solitude, it jives so well with my opinion of him. He’s got to have things his way, and under his control. Taken care of well. He’s going to have a field day with Spider. I see we are already leaning heavily into Neteyam’s "I can fix him" complex. Even when he wants to help Jake, which I know is something wheelchair users don’t often want if it’s something they do all the time themselves. It’s the innate feeling of standing by and doing nothing while watching someone struggle, when it’s their day to day life. And if that isn’t Neteyam’s whole thing? I’m obsessed with how he just cannot handle anyone else’s bad vibes without trying to fix it right away. Speaking of;

-If there is not a moment where Jake allows Neteyam to help him when he needs it, I will throw myself off a bridge, Andrei. ~growth~ the opportunity is there and it’s ripe.

-JAKE AND NETEYAM BANTER, I did not realize I was in a drought until I got a little bit of rain and I realized I was DYING OF THIRST. PARCHED FOR THEM.

-Jake “Detective” Sully: You are gay, son, try not to be too gay to the new foster kid you stalk at the local Micky Ds.

-I am literally obsessed with My Father Jake Sully who was neglected and hurt as a child being the most desperate man alive to connect with and heal kids in the same situation he was in. It fits so so well in his character for me. I feel like he spends most of his life trying to heal old wounds and make up for the past, in a way.

-Neteyam “I thought this kid was named Miles for years but I guess legally on his birth certificate it def must say Spider because it couldn’t be a nickname, that’s for sure” Sully

-I am CACKLING at them both lying to each other about McDonalds as though they both don’t know exactly how often the other one is there because they both find the other hot I’m dead.

-Spider mad at Norm for enforcing child labour laws has me wanting to make memes about it. The children truly do yearn for the mines.

-All the tiny little details of how Spider focuses on the people around him, on their moods and their movements and the way his brain works is so well done. That survival mindset takes years and years to unlearn, if you ever can fully. It’s well done as always.

-OH MY GOD EVEN NEYTIRI ALSO THINKS NETEYAM IS BEING TOO GAY THIS IS AMAZING.

-Justice for Jake, I will get him one of the cars paralyzed people can drive. Also his joke about driving Neytiri up the wall? HE’S A COMEDIAN. GET HIM A NETFLIX SPECIAL.

-Spider can’t look at Tuk because he was close with a little abused foster girl, where is the nearest bridge. NO REST FOR US, ANDREI?? ALL THE PAIN AND TRAUMA POSSIBLE CRAMMED INTO ONE EPIC.

-God the line about Spider’s therapist saying that his habit will lead him down a dangerous path, but he doesn’t understand why because he only ever hurts himself because he doesn’t see damage to himself as damage because he doesn’t see himself as worthy? Not worthy of the phone, of food, of attention or love? Truly my fav paragraph of the chapter. You are a master at establishing a character in a few subtle lines. It's a tactic that I only get after a few rewrites; instead of saying "Neteyam wants to fix everyone" you show us him in a situations where he wants to and can't help. Instead of telling me Spider doesn't care for his own safety, you tell me he's confused by his therapist saying his coping is dangerous. Instead of saying emotion, tell me something that would make me feel that emotion. Writing 101, and yet so hard to pull off properly.

-I laughed out loud at Neteyam trying not to look at Spider’s muscles I am dying. Neteyam should ask him out loud.

-EVEN TUK HAS IT ON LOCK, SHE SAYS NETEYAM HAS A THING FOR PEOPLE WHO SOUND A LITTLE SAD. This is so not funny but so funny because it’s all specifically for me.

-Neteyam later in life is like that dumbass gum commercial where the guy reveals he’s been keeping the gum wrappers every time the girl gives him one and drawing on them when and where she gave it to him? That’s Neteyam when the piles and piles of smiley face receipts fall out of his trench coat pockets.

-“I didn’t realize that was you” filthy liar. Spider’s smiley face drawing rizz is crazy. You bet your ass he wasn't doing that to every fuckers receipts.

-WHAT ON EARTH IS LO’AK DOING AT SMART PERSON SCHOOL, EVEN YOU DON’T KNOW ANDREI.

-THE CUTE BOY AT THE WINDOW ASKED FOR HIS NUMBER? AS IN, SPIDER, PHONELESS SPIDER, OR ANOTHER SNEAKY BASTARD BUTTING IN.

-Also these people have real memory problems, I’ve never forgotten any awkward interaction I’ve ever had in my entire life, especially not with a crush. I couldn't hear my crush at a party last year and I just laughed and said yeah and she was like "no I asked what you think" and not a single day goes by it doesn't play behind my eyelids like the DVD in The Ring. So, unless Spider has asked every single man at McDonalds out, he remembers when he asked a guy out and the guy sped off like he had a warrant out from Dominic Toretto.

-Oh my god, it was Spider. And this man sURVIVED that encounter? This man who can’t survive a strong breeze rn? What was he going to do with number, call him from phone booths? Send smoke signals to the write telephone wire? I am cackling at the idea that he had rehearsed this so many times and yet never actually thought through not having a phone.

-The smiley face on the paper. That revived Spider from his death post awkward encounter. There will be smiley faces on the invitations to their wedding and only Tuk will understand.

36 notes · View notes

mr-entj · 2 years ago

Note

Hi Mr. ENTJ, congrats on the new job offer. It's good to hear INTJ and Kobe & Co. are doing well, too.

I'm an ENTJ currently in my fourth year of my Computer Science PhD specializing in Machine Learning/Data Mining, and I know that you know how quickly this field moves. There's loads of advice about how "doctoral programs a marathon, not a sprint" and students need to pace themselves and have work-life balance in order to not burn out. Following these principles, I've made it this far unscathed (in terms of mental health deterioration) and managed to stay in my program.

With luck, an understanding advisor, and low amounts of admin work (emails, meetings-that-could-be-emails, etc.), and good self management, I have been able to work 40 hour workweeks for the most part and stay on track. That being said, I am currently in a period of time where I am increasing to 50 hour workweeks in order to meet a conference deadline at the end of June 2023 (time of writing is mid-late April 2023). As long as I show up to work every day and do my best, I expect this paper will be finished by the time my internship starts. This is fine by me; deadlines need to be met, and I want to continue with my current 5-year PhD trajectory (as opposed to taking longer).

Speaking candidly, I have ADHD and am also Autistic, and maintaining this 40hr/week is critical in preventing the "I wake up in the morning wondering if I've accomplished anything meaningful with my life" feeling that gets in the way of me doing very much at all with my day. I also notice that when I am in the *deep throes* of burnout, my ability to pull back and look at the bigger picture takes a nap and I make myopic, hasty decisions. It's a recipe for bad research.

I've relaxed my "good work-life balance" constraint to simply "do not enter the *deep throes* of burnout". My question is for what lies after this period of time: I will be entering a summer research internship. I am concerned I will not perform well at my internship and will not be able to study as hard for full time interviews as a result of my choices now. Any tips for optimizing this recovery time and post-burnout damage control? Is this an ill-posed question, and there is no way to have my cake and eat it too?

Thanks for your time and consideration, Mr. ENTJ.

You can have your cake and eat it too, you'll just need to endure for the next few months.

Some thoughts on your situation in no particular order:

Get therapy and medication for the ADHD and autism if you haven't already. Mental health issues should never be left untreated especially when you're attempting ambitious and difficult goals. It would be like trying to win a race with a broken leg.

Set strict guardrails to get adequate sleep and nutrition. Don't compromise on either of these two because it'll severely impact performance. During the most intense periods of my life, meal planning worked really well so I could grab and go healthy meals without long prep time. Poor health choices lead to low energy, brain fog, and bad moods. Healthy food/snacks, hydration, vitamins, exercise (even a quick 15 minutes of cardio when my scheduled was packed) made me 10x more effective.

Reach out to the summer internship team and learn more about expectations so you can start planning ahead to manage your time and prepare to hit the ground running. Most summer internships aren't time-consuming and energy draining to the point they'd grind you down to dust. This is because interns require a lot of time to onboard which cuts into the 3-month summer term and they have limited access to information, skills, and experience needed to do more complex work. I wouldn't jump the gun and stress about underperforming without knowing the full scope of your role and responsibilities.

Ensure that you have at least one person from your summer internship who can speak highly of you. In the unlikely event you don't perform well in your internship, you'll still walk away with a solid professional reference to use for future full-time job offers. Pro tip: Companies won't interview every single person at the internship even if you fuck up. As long as they can verify you worked there and you have at least 1 person (more is better) who can speak to your abilities, you'll be fine.

Prioritize full-time job interviews > summer internships if the summer internship has a low chance of conversion to a full-time role. If the opposite is true, reverse that order. If you need to prioritize one of these two, prioritize the one that secures your desired outcome.

Focus on outcomes over input. Focus on the things you achieve, the milestones you reach, and the obstacles you overcome-- not the amount of hours you put in. A few weeks ago I fixed a $5 million problem by clearing up a misunderstanding with a 90-minute conversation. This 90-minute conversation was way more impactful than the 40-50 hours of work I put in the previous week. There's that John Wooden quote: "Don't mistake activity for achievement." Benchmark your progress towards achieving a 'meaningful life' with impact, not input.

#work #school #phd #academia #burnout #internship #internships #entj #faq

39 notes · View notes

kaddyssammlung · 11 months ago

Text

The Night Does Not Belong To God – Analysis

Video:

youtube

Text:

The funny thing is: by now we know that the night belongs to you, this bough has broken through.

How I love this XD

“When you live by daylight

with angels at your side

in order now bestowed by

the light of the sunrise”

This is a tough one. The only connection that I have with this is someone lying on their deathbed and having the last days with their loved ones.

I have trouble making any other connection.

I am aware of the theories about “sundowning syndrome”. The only connection that I can make is maybe that someone that he know suffered from it. I also know that some say that Vessel suffered from it.

The only thing that can be seen as somewhat similar to something like this, is stress-related paranoia. Sometimes I would feel like my thoughts would spread around in a room and everyone could read them and started looking at me in a weird way.

But that's not really Sundowning Syndrome.

That's why this is kind of a hard one.

I really have this connected to someone elderly who is suffering from dementia.

It's the line “with angels at your side”. As if someone was already kind of on their way “home”.

It's basically what I just said and also “you can remember only when you are alone”. It makes me think about that.

“And you remember everything

only 'til the sun recedes once again”

“The night comes down like heaven”

I have this connected with something totally different.

I'm an early bird and I also like to meditate in the early morning or more or less in the middle of the night for other humans. At this time of the day it's so easy to have a great meditation because the pineal gland is very active at this time of the day. And also everyone else is still asleep and it's so quiet. It's a great experience to meditate at that time of the day.

And also sometimes I just sit there with my coffee at shortly after 3 am and just feel so deeply in the moment or conscious. It's hard to explain. The level of peace that I feel sometimes it really feels like heaven. I can feel that heaven is something that lies within us in some way. Idk how to explain it. It really is something that you can fell but it's hard to explain.

It's a callback to “the whites of your eyes burn from across the room” from Jaws. That makes me think because I wonder if he is talking about the some human being or whoever he is referring to.

“The whites of your eyes

turn black in the lowlight”

For some reason I still have this connected with the white matter of our brain but I still can't really explain why.

Which reminds me of the beginning. Maybe someone is dying?

“in turning divine

we tangle endlessly

like lovers entwinded”

To me personally the line “in turning divine” means a lot.

I do see myself as a divine being that has the power to create. I don't see myself as a victim of circumstances. Not anymore. I spent to many years on the path of spiritual awakening to still see myself as a useless creature that just happens to be on planet earth.

I have found my purpose and I know my purpose. I have turned divine :) at least in my understanding.

“the taste of the divine”

I could write about divinity all day long just because it's so beautiful.

And it's also connected to “we were tangled up like branches in a flood”.

Maybe it's Sleep? Maybe he wants one more night? Or he wants just to sleep in peace?

“I know for the last time

you will not be mine

so give me the night”

No idea XD.

Thank God that we know that the night belongs to you.

I'm going to continue my nighttime meditations and have great experiences. Vessel, I hope you are doing the same thing (and I will meet you in the quantum field XD ).

#sleep token #sleep token worship #sleep token lyrics #Youtube

2 notes · View notes

somethingobscureandfunky · 1 year ago

Text

Ever Forward

I haven’t felt alive in as long as I can remember back Which isn’t far, really Memory for me is staccato Broken and terrifying and

Hard to see through like Those rainbow covers people put over their windows

I’ve never known who I was or What I liked I buried my personality in other people I ate what they ate, I liked what they liked

I know some of it is me I’ve always been choosy about the feathers I’ve brought home I’ve always laid them out from everywhere I plucked them And picked the brightest of them to duct tape into my collection but

I’m a mutt A collage, a Smattering of pieces from all different puzzles As much as I try not to be

It seems the pieces fit even less after I try to snip the edges or Color them to look the same It’s only ever left me feeling smashed

Broken glass always leaves splinters and It will never be the same piece it was before, no matter how seamlessly we glue it Much the same, there are pieces of me that are missing, gone Unfindable

Sometimes I stare into the flames of the ovens that formed me And dream of casting myself back into them Heating, forming, dripping Until I come out different, but

Whole again

There are days where the bags under my eyes tell me we have never been sadder than we are right now, and It doesn’t matter if it’s truth or fiction because it is how I feel Even if I can’t put my finger on why Even if I could put my finger on why but I refuse to

Because shooting that arrow and hitting the center Means admitting things need to change and, I’ve never been good with change despite my patchwork quilt life I’ve always held onto things far longer than I should

Hoping that they would change instead of me All of these life circumstances would work themselves out and I wouldn’t feel caught in the semi automatic crossfire anymore I wouldn’t feel hole after hole shot through skin and bags of bones (my bones) that I carry behind me

My brain says no man left behind but I can feel everyone’s fingertips slipping I can feel myself pushing away from the life I built around Nineteen, around wanting to die, around knowing I would die because I couldn’t stand to live longer I’ve been so unfair, to everyone and myself

How can I apologize when I didn’t know I was causing the pain? How can I do anything but apologize now that I see it? I am too cowardice to face this, I am so ashamed

I know people live with heartbreak and heartache every day but Mine feels personified, mine feels Loudspeaker in a field on a sunny day mine feels Like surround sound in a theater, a whisper shrugged around my shoulders and screaming in my ears

I cover them And I’m crying, And I’m sobbing, And I’m soaked from the tears but

I feel like the villain Painted face, the mask is dripping wet, too White streaks cascading through my gooseflesh skin On my knees, on my knees

And tears are not forgiveness

How did I think this would end?

I can answer that. I thought death would come to excuse me, eventually From my own hand or someone else’s I think about death and I think, problem solved

But it’s never been that easy I trapped myself, bear trap jaws snapped around my bleeding ankle but My last breath never came It’s left me rabid animal, it’s left me gnawing on my own body, omnivore teeth trying to grow into points and failing

I was content to wait for it to end, here, once I was content to paint the cheekbones every morning and Only see myself at night, the depth of midnight, Crawling my apartment like a roach looking for an air current

But then it all changed

Instead of death, bony fingers in my palm Life stood over me, for once It did not release the bear trap, it cannot undo what I have done but It did squat down in front of me, graceful in its mortality

It met my eyes Cool and steady to my wild and afraid And something in there, something in that timeless Sparked my blood awake

From tiny streams of red to roaring rivers it Broke the dam and flooded my cheeks For the briefest of relieving moments My eyes even sparkled, despite the pain

I felt warmth, for the first time, I felt what patience can do I felt what it was for the heart to beat I felt human instead of alien, and I didn’t need a mask to do it For an instant I could breathe as easy as anybody else

Oasis, it asked instead of demanded And climbed behind me to hold my wretched body We can change anything we need to, it didn’t have to whisper And when I howled that it was too hard

It did not let me go

Though it cannot spring the trap or close the wound Life holds onto me anyway and Waits for me to figure it out What it’s waiting for, I won’t know until I get there

I tell it gently, softly My voice still scared but not as wild That it can go anytime it wants but It only shakes its head

Perhaps not love, Perhaps never love but Slow down, but Kindness, uncannily and for no reason

Other than to be kind

There are days where I will weep for it to end, if only to preserve itself and It reminds me there is far too much time left to go Instead of cancer I dream of napping Instead of wolves I dream of feather touches and endless, boundless patience

Even if I never free myself I am grateful for it coming At least in this electrified state my brain can fire lightning on occasion, to write my sorrow into words only I can know the meaning of I will never stop thanking it I will never stop begging for it to both leave and stay

I will never stop feeling selfish for doing so My path is littered with love I wanted to feel but didn’t My path is littered with abandonment until life came to nest inside my rib cage My path is littered with words, cascades of words, waterfall words

Unsaid Unwritten Unused

And I can’t know if donning ruby red slippers on these worn feet Could fix things Could grant me the courage I am lacking to stand And tap them Home

But I hope someday I am willing to try I hope, for the first time, that I will be willing to try Because living becomes more appealing than the waiting Because beginning something feels easier than letting the rest of it go

Because I want to build a house that isn’t inside of me Full of light instead of vampire darkness Where the sheer smell of it means safety Where I look at the scar around my ankle

Instead of the steel jaws clamped in red and black

And I look in the mirror and see a woman that I recognize With a hand on my shoulder, the hand that helped me up A face that is smiling Two faces that say I am glad you didn’t die there

Oh, I am so glad you didn’t die there Look at what you would have missed Look at this lit path full of all the things you thought you couldn’t have and if I know this I don’t know why my hands are still gripped around chain

I don’t know why I am hunched over and Breathless and I don’t know why those same hands soothing on my back Is not enough

I only know I am not ready yet I only know that I know the dark like Poetry I know the dark like, without a flashlight

I know the dark like I’ve become used to outlines And for now those hands only calm me into knowing there is something different ahead A choice I’ll have to make A choice I should have made

Those hands, for now, only tell me I am not in the dark alone and waiting for monsters They tell me that, for a time, I am supported and Cared for and Even if they leave someday

They will leave fingerprint bruises in my back that I will feel every time I lay down

That I will never be free of, until I free myself

#poem #poetry #poems and poetry #poetic #poets on tumblr #poems #original poem #writers and poets #poems and quotes #original poems #my poems #my poetry #poems on tumblr #original content #original writing

3 notes · View notes

libidomechanica · 25 days ago

Text

Untitled (“Then he said to thy revel may kisses weren of mine”)

To which we met—in sights cannot prize, they so smote stone on the full-waked sense—thy advocate— and gainst the ruthless soul, when Cupid brought thy wife, and the distracting till my ear whereby like a flow’r in Moor- fields again the skilfu’

string out my woeful state and both and braveries of meetness, with truest joy, shall sport. I doe a Devil turne. If you ain’t watched the sheep. Bad tempers Her hands they list: ygyrt without a blues song, glad I didn’t love you any other

face sweetly, straw mattress—what can she knows north because, in the flying Fable. And sigh’d no surely in the body as well and laws unto his things, far from us and dumb with thee! Dark wave slides over with me. Then he said to thy

revel may kisses weren of mine? Till protesting, some say that noysome blockhead ha’ one in the nature risen to sip; but the hill, I am your hate I bemoan but makes free, thy voice engender acacia would run no

more coldly shine, enam’ling with the November of yours for silk will pudding at set of Love has when the horn is thus, and we have their hissing in think, proceeds. Without drawing blood. The poet’s horse? That, from all dangerous shame to

the Silver bow, with a kiss, I woke discontent, while I languish. The runaways watch’d thy boughs and feeble foes: what noysome gulfe, whom Nature banks of course goethe in Glenturies delays devise, but a woman His eye plunge and bear. And

wonned not: but she down to a chart my life nor trust, forgot for fear nothing of her head and glove he did feele his rose in one long years, it come to her husbands, I do they came across the earth receives; amid the sashes are

thou art jealous is, who bent its earth, smiles enrich each has the coal fire. Ever sting to run off with us. You had foul ones, and it to awake all were madrigal, unto his beloved of life will teach us, nor sham’d for a

bell belowe, that mirror waiting day, and learne wit. At they with the dense braid some, in some wine. I was with her voice is circuit of myrtle rods at will not so, lest a hands no longer free, that flickered lay a mute remember thee and

let the main once, tearily, and a’ that; gie me loved the lowly leas: and in your genius from Michels mount Oliuet: feeding and most circuit of my breathing to thy reverberates and for what weekends as to give news: niagara

or Vesuvius is expect to invent, whereby like a mallet running on the value more nearly morning person. It is other for bloud, nor merit me Your name. Lift up some sneaking dead seeing, I leuelde againe with an

offering lay at birth on the scornefully, for my pain, were it not. As an unperfect Beauties proude, thy heart is winter, with heat nor dare say, is like a baby from the thou content thing-a snail, a nest. I only my own; and

maist thou issueless stroke surprised, as he sits to draw my store, has grows wilt thou consumest than theyr Pan the urge, even you be above, below. Wither’s Eyes with the drugs that pity canno’ stand! Wrung on the pumies latched the print more,

not you? … It look one that is faire disgrace, his Cypress lying, kind is sunlight Muse and my petals with burden of his Bosom without a wonders pursued Wulf like thunder’s reigne and nothing I did not, till we can be the air clears

along thy assistance calls. Must I would have to naebody; I hae a gude brain clings cry, phillis the rock that life he sterved was the death, that be kind; nor blam’d for me, in the lot. Yet to see. Of sleep, the sheepe, they han they treasures

deep joy the fingers, me then I get stopped forth light man’s power, I never found thy brow—it felt delight: for if you ain’t never again because thee, like magical state its vernal years late; ’ the light. Morrell, of Heauen to share, there like

bowls If you are like not be present mixed. Mill lo’es dearly? Soul, which hath writ: to hear the door open cans was snow, you sit holding hands held our breast almighty Being is acute. Tell her ills—a scatter I the sun, down the quarelets

of girls are this with his feet whisper her Feet. Her e’e? Anguish; she of the villain need be! Yet to say anything at first: but not speaker box’s blown out someone left yourself a lawful plea commence: such this life—each nights concern.

#poetry #automatically generated text #Patrick Mooney #Markov chains #Markov chain length: 6 #145 texts #ballad

0 notes

monamipencil · 1 month ago

Text

hello, i have come here to once again cry abt this fic.

first of all, mia tysm for letting me beta read!!

and second of all. your brain?? the talent to come up with a plot like this and be able to pull it off??? omg. i have never been so excited to reread a fic like this ever. that's the grip this story had on me

ngl, rereading the fic felt like i was in a buzzfeed unsolved true crime video lmao. i was analysing every bits and pieces. 😌 im simply such a fan of mia's works

also, annotations below!! (SPOILERS AHEAD!)

(ps, the annotations are very sarcastic at some places lmao. seeing everything in a diff light was very enlightening ngl. and how tf did i miss so many forebodings???)

Joshua turned his attention to what he liked to call his ‘murder board’. Wrong choice of name yes, but someone once told him that positive manifestation was a real thing. Maybe if he kept calling it a ‘murder board’ for long enough, one day he’d finally find himself climbing the ranks, handling real murder cases.

very nice choice of words. (just realised what this meant, im shook🧍‍♀️)

What bothered Joshua the most was that he had spent five years in the field, aced every exam, and most importantly, the sergeant position had been vacant for two months How could he ever climb the ranks with these six cases making him look like an undeserving amateur?

how pitiable … wow im so sad for him 😞

If only they walked into the station, looking for him. And then, you did.

girl—🧍‍♀️sighs i feel like an overzealous grandma watching this all unfold again

When you finally met his eyes, Joshua softened his expression, silently urging you to speak.

… speak girl, speak. i am SO done lmao

Joshua blinked in disbelief, then scoffed softly. “Spirits?” He repeated, incredulous. “You’re saying ghosts are following you?”

hmmm… i wonder who told her to

He had to engage you till he had help, he had to play his cards right.

this sentence sounds so different now …

Looking around the room at nothing in particular you began mumbling something. Slowly, one after the other, you started dropping names as though you were repeating after an invisible, unheard voice.

yk if i was her, i’d be so embarrassed or start laughing bcuz lmao what??? home girl doing all this for love

This couldn’t just be a coincidence right?

oh no why would it be a coincidence, josh??

Some of them looked terrified, constantly looking around, some looked at him plain confused like they still hadn’t put the pieces together.

he rly played all of them so well

“She came to me, the case is mine,” Joshua looked at her pointedly. “So I call the shots.”

ofc he’s dealing with the only skeptic like this

Turning to you, he pulled your chair closer. “Show me.” His voice was low, urgent. “Right now.”

he can be a good actor, oscar award winning actor joshua.

Something about you unsettled him, though he couldn’t put his finger on it. His eyes found their way to you, running all over your features, lingering longer than they should have.

omg what a cute couple ?!?!? 🙂

“I believe every man should have some bad habit.” Joshua chuckled, offering a small smile. “Keeps him grounded.”

uhuh …. I see. of course, smoking is the only bad habit you have

You hummed, looking far off at the quiet darkness of the town. “I don't know if this is bad but, I tend to go to any lengths to help the people I love.”

down bad means being 6ft underground for her. Nothing like digging your own grave ofc

Joshua’s lips pressed together. His gaze flicked to you, considering your words. “Must be why the spirits chose to talk to you,” he muttered, more to himself than to you. “Maybe they knew you’d help no matter what.”

le sigh yep, definitely. Soo true

“Not now, tomorrow morning.” He glanced at your eager expression, hands itching to tuck that tiny strand of hair behind your ear. “It's late now, you should head home.”

i used to ship you both… oh my god, this is annoying me. HE PROLLY DOESN’T EVEN MEAN HALF THE THINGS HE SAYS

Maybe you were never really terrified. Either way, the unsettling shift in your demeanor troubled his mind.

ohh is it troubling you officer josh???

Or were you the trouble that was looming around the corner?

… bro oh my god, just. le sigh x2

god this makes me sick knowing the truth

All ten of them had died on their birthday and not just that - all of their birthdays fell on the 30th of the month.

his bday falls on 30th too…

Perhaps it was because he knew the moment he revealed this discovery, all eyes would turn to one person—You.

i wonder why it would turn to her

“Ji Ho, just because the two of us were once a thing and it didn’t work out-”

damn, this is how he was riling her up and making her think he’s innocent too

You turned to him, curious. “Did you find any of the killers?”

the fact that she doesn’t actually know the truth kills me

“I won’t be surprised.” You pursed your lips. “I’ve never really liked the number 30 either. It’s like a deadline... something always looming, reminding you of the things you haven’t done. The things you can’t undo.”

i am very curious on why she said this.. particular thing??

Joshua nodded. Exactly. It was easy. Which meant it couldn’t have been you, could it? You wouldn’t have committed those crimes and then set up a trap for yourself would you? That made no sense.

oh who could’ve done it?? (quoting shane madej, 2016)

And it was evident you liked him too.

it is very evident, trust me

Except there was only one tiny thing between the two of you - you might be a potential murderer and Joshua might have to implicate you for your crimes. Which is why none of this could be true. You could not be the killer.

yes ofc

“But you could have helped the killer.” Minho shrugged. “The sentence for an accomplice to murder is less severe Miss Y/n, if you admit to it, we can help you-”

🧍‍♀️so many foreshadowings but i never saw it coming at all

Joshua took a step back, mind running through the possibilities. About who might have such a motive, who might have manipulated the evidence…..

who could’ve done this pt.2

The suffocation her competitiveness brought forth was what stifled their bond - Joshua couldn’t live with it any longer.

now i dont trust these words either–i wonder if there was actually any fault on her or if it’s his twisted feelings

“I know you Josh, I know something is wrong. Your judgement has been clouded for days, you’re not thinking straight. But I am.”

… something is wrong

“The people at the store confirmed that a few weeks back she had run in, scared and shaking, claiming she was followed. The neighbours also said that she had approached them for help a few times but they didn't see anyone.”

miss girl is down bad, ain’t no way im doing all this for some guy i love

“Joshua….” You looked up at him, eyes widening. For the first time in days, you saw something other than apology in his eyes. You clung to that look, hoping it meant he was still on your side. Ji Ho followed him, walking into the room right behind, earning a small frown from you.

did i mention that she was down bad??? and she’s jealous. honestly, i feel bad for her

“You'll be fine.” He held onto you tighter. “I'm not going to let anything happen to you.”

the manipulation is crazy

“You can also think of it as an early birthday present from me.”

yeah, exactly what he wanted

Joshua glanced at the calendar, the black rimmed circle placed over 29th December. His birthday was tomorrow.

it should’ve been a red flag from the first. why was he not worried abt himself in the first place??

Something about your words stung Joshua differently. Indeed, the perpetrator should be punished, but for that, it was necessary to find the real culprit. A tiny voice in his head was making him doubt his choice.

…

It didn’t feel like an intimate gesture, more like a goodbye, a farewell to something unspoken.

….

It smelled faintly of lavender, mixed with a subtle undertone of something he couldn’t quite place.

im also curious abt what’s this smell??

your eyes searching his face as if reading something he didn’t want you to see.

…

"Did I play my part well, Shua?" At last, at fucking last, Joshua allowed the mask to crack, a small, victorious smile dancing on his face.

i was so fucking shocked the first time i read this, almost lost my damn mind

Dragging his hand down from your cheek, he wrapped it around your throat, pulling you closer,

listen-im just a girl 🎀

But before you could, hand on your head, he pushed you down, forcing you onto your knees.

cough cough i-uhm, one chance pls josh—*alarms blaring*

He had supposedly solved all six of those never ending missing cases, he had secured his promotion and no one even found out that he was the real killer.

mia, your brain never fails to amaze me. Just how do u come up with these plots??

Knowing what he was going to do next, you obediently stilled as he held your face with both his hands and, god did he fuck it like there was no tomorrow.

He wasn’t trying to trap you, no no, you were his favourite doll - he just needed to somehow introduce the twin twist, his most brilliant plot point.

smthn is wrong with me, why do i like this

“Happy birthday Shua.” Cocking his head at you, Joshua returned your smile. “Happy birthday to you too sweetheart.”

and this ??? my god, your thinking >>>

About how you hated your sister, how you were the one the Mayor wanted to adopt but she had locked you in the storeroom while she took your place and left to live a life full of luxuries.

i still don’t feel bad for her, she had it coming

Joshua's joy knew no bounds when he discovered the tumultuous relationship between you sisters. Oh this could be his most elaborate scheme yet, so many birds to hit with one stone. But the first and most important thing he needed for that was for you to be irrevocably in love with him.

what a fucking psycho

Surprisingly, that was the easiest part. All it took was some praise, some attention and a few sessions of love making - within a month, you were ready to do or die for him.

grrr, he’s so manipulative

That was his final victim of the year - another death on the 30th, another death on their birthday.

jeez, such a sicko

She had white hair, her back was bent weirdly, there was a burn mark on her hand….. Ye Soon.

twist after twist, just how do u do this, mia?!!?

Outside, the loud sirens of the ambulance heading towards the precinct resounded in the otherwise quiet town. It seems the story of the Calendar Killer had finally come to an end.

the perfect end to the most perfect story

all this for a promotion and a paycheck.... damn. honestly understandable. have your paycheck and ticket out of this town boy. no one's blaming you 🙂

and the fact at the end, it's her who is facing the consequences of his actions. and i actually shipped them both in the beginning 🧍‍♀️... even fictional men are betraying wtf??

and also insane choice of member. joshua suits this role so perfectly!! im telling you mia, your such a talented writer. you pulled this off so flawlessly and this was not predictable at all. kudos to you <33

Calendar Killer (HJS)

Was it really love if it didn't include just a little madness? What was love if it didn't cross the line? And how was it love if it didn't care whether it was the red of love and the red of blood?

Pairing - Afab!reader x Detective! Hong Jisoo (Joshua)

Word count - 14K (we are back to Mia's inability to be concise)

Genre - Psych thriller, smut (18+), supernatural elements hinted, warnings under the cut!

A/n - This is the last installment of my 95s psych thriller Halloween series - I know its late but I just wanted to finish up what I committed to. Also, this is the wildest thing I have ever written, I'm not kidding, buckle up! I do suggest reading Jeonghan's and Cheol's before reading this though - the plots aren't connected, its just, they may feel a little underwhelming after this one.....I truly went all out

Thank you to Lola ❤️ @monamipencil, the love of my life for beta reading this and filling our chat with 'oh my god's and frantic comments - I'm a lot more pleased with this piece now hehe

Warnings - Please note that this fic is dark, not morally appropriate at all and as psychotic as it gets. With that being said, let's goooo - people missing, mentions of deaths, bodies, murders, serial killer, mentions of stalking, choking, blowjobs, throat fucking, hair pulling, cum in mouth, masturbation, manhandling, unprotected sex, rough sex, marking, slight dubcon, creampie, psycho thoughts and behaviour

The station buzzed with the oppressive hum of a fluorescent light, flickering occasionally. The air was thick with the musty scent of old paper, the subtle clicking of the typewriter and cold winds blowing in through the open door.

“Great job today boss.”

Joshua looked up from the paperwork strewn across his desk at Minho standing by the coffee machine, a mug in hand. the dark circles stark under his eyes. It had been a sleepless few weeks for everyone in his team and nights at the station were only getting longer and longer.

Giving a tired nod of acknowledgement, Joshua turned his attention to what he liked to call his ‘murder board’. Wrong choice of name yes, but someone once told him that positive manifestation was a real thing. Maybe if he kept calling it a ‘murder board’ for long enough, one day he’d finally find himself climbing the ranks, handling real murder cases. He knew with just a little more power in his hands, he could be brilliant - he was a good detective, he had great intuition, he was sharp, efficient. Oh he’d make a fantastic sergeant or maybe even a lieutenant but instead, here he was, sitting in a tiny cubicle, the pages of his case files scattered across his desk, each one heavy with unanswered questions.

Six missing persons cases. That’s what Joshua was stuck on now.

Given his brilliance, it normally didn’t take more than a week for him to crack a case but these? These cases had turned into a three-month-long nightmare of frustration - endless hours of interrogation, dead end leads and constant running in circles. What bothered Joshua the most was that he had spent five years in the field, aced every exam, and most importantly, the sergeant position had been vacant for two months—ever since Hye Jin left for maternity leave. And yet, here he was, stuck in this cubicle, staring at the empty faces on case files, with no promotion in sight. How could he ever climb the ranks with these six cases making him look like an undeserving amateur?

One miracle—that’s all he needed. Six miracles, really. One clue per case, just a single point he had missed, one thing he might have overlooked. Shutting his eyes and leaning back in his chair, he sighed, wondering where on Earth he should look for answers. If only they walked into the station, looking for him.

And then, you did.

The creak of the door was what made Joshua’s eyes flicker up, following you as you stepped into the precinct. You were wet from head to toe, hair sticking to your face and neck, your knee-length white nightgown clinging to your body as if you’d been caught in a downpour.

Joshua glanced outside.

The sky was gray and heavy, but it was not raining.

He frowned, rising from his chair. “Can I help you?”

You didn’t speak right away, your eyes darting around the room, searching for something. Joshua’s instincts flickered to life. Something was off, not in a way that screamed danger. Just… unsettling.

Water dripped all over the floor as you walked barefoot, struggling to take steps, shaking eyes, trembling lips and bruised knees accompanying you. Hand hovering over his pager, Joshua’s gaze shifted to his team, who were quietly filling the room, all of them sensing the shift in the air.

“Are you okay?” He took a tentative step toward you, searching for answers on your face when you refused to meet his eyes. Instead they kept darting nervously over your shoulder and towards the door as though someone was about to follow you in.

Joshua frowned at the entrance. “Is someone else coming-”

“Don’t look.” You whispered, grabbing his hands, skin cold and grip tight. “I need help.”

With a single gesture, Joshua had his team pull up a chair for you as he shrugged off his jacket and wrapped it around your trembling shoulders before gently guiding you to sit. The air around you hummed, almost electric, as if something unknown was lingering.

Stepping back, Joshua leaned against his desk. “What’s going on?”

You hesitated, glancing nervously around the room. When you finally met his eyes, Joshua softened his expression, silently urging you to speak.

“Talk to me.”

“I.. I’m..” You muttered, your hands nervously fiddling with the fabric of your nightgown. “I’m being followed.”

Joshua's brow furrowed, and he exchanged a glance with his team who immediately began heading towards the door. But you shook your head, fear evident in your voice. “They’re already here. In the precinct.”

“What do you mean?” He studied the room, his mind racing as everyone began frantically looking around, more alert than ever. “No one came in after you-”

“Y-you can’t see them.” You raised your head, looking directly over Joshua’s shoulder, gulping. “.....Only I can.”

Joshua followed your line of vision, his eyes finding the empty corner of the room. What on earth were you looking at?

“I don’t understand, Miss…?”

“Y/n,” Your voice was steady despite the fear in your eyes.

“Miss Y/n.” Joshua hesitated but still squatted in front of you, his eyes level with yours. “I’m here to help. You have to tell me exactly what’s happening..”

Taking a shaky breath, you pulled the jacket closer to your body. “It started a week ago, I was coming back from the supermarket and there was a woman, standing right at the edge of the street.”

“Was she someone you knew?”

You shook your head. “I could sense her following me all the way home so I made sure to close the door as soon as I stepped inside but when I went into the kitchen…. ..she was already there.“

Joshua’s jaw tightened as he listened, watching you gulp the phantom lump in your throat.

“I grabbed a knife and ran out, screaming for help, but when I brought my neighbor in… there was no one. It was like she vanished…. disappeared, into thin air.”

Joshua’s brows furrowed. “She ran off before you got back?”

You didn’t answer the question, simply continued.

“Then the next day she was there again, but this time with three others. It was too early in the morning, the street was empty, I-I couldn't even ask anyone for help. When I entered the house I locked myself in again, but when I went into the kitchen…” You let out a shaky breath. “They were already inside. And just like before, when I tried to get help… they disappeared.”

Joshua leaned forward, concerned.

“The third day there were more of them, but this time I ran back to the store to get the cashier or the other townspeople to help me but no one could see them….. even though there were, standing right there, at the door, no one could see them.”

The room grew tense as Joshua exchanged looks with his team. What was happening here?

“Miss Y/n are you sure they were there?” Joshua asked, his voice low.

“I’m not crazy,” You whispered, voice trembling. “They were there then… and they’re here now. All ten of them, right behind you.”

Joshua felt something cold trickle down his spine. This time, he didn’t feel like looking behind him..

“Y-you can’t see them because they…” You hesitated.. “They are spirits.”

The room that was already quiet to begin with grew more silent. Even the fluorescent light seemed to pause, waiting for someone to break the tension. Joshua blinked in disbelief, then scoffed softly.

“Spirits?” He repeated, incredulous. “You’re saying ghosts are following you?”

You didn’t flinch at his tone. Your gaze remained serious, too serious as you nodded.

Joshua’s eyes flickered to his team, who were exchanging nervous looks. Things were slipping beyond the edge of rational thought. Was this the universe’s way of taunting him? Yes he has always wanted to work on more complex cases but a beautiful looking seemingly mad woman who could see spirits? That was not on his bucket list. Nor was it his expertise.

Ji Ho, the only woman on the team and ever the skeptic, slowly walked up to you, her voice calm but firm. “Miss Y/n, don’t worry, we can get you the help you need-”

“You think I’m crazy.” You shook your head, eyes wide, desperate and not leaving Joshua’s “I swear, you have to believe me, I’m not insane.”

Realising you wouldn’t cooperate, Joshua held up a hand, signaling for Ji Ho to step back as he slowly reached for his pager, dialing in the code for help.

“I promise we’ll help you Miss Y/n, you need to trust us-.”

Suddenly, moving with startling speed, you grabbed the pager out of his hands, anger in your eyes sharp.

“You’re not listening!” You hissed, your grip tightening around the tiny device. Your hands, which had been shaking just moments before, suddenly stilled. It was as if you had snapped into a new state of resolve - you weren’t just pleading for help anymore; there was something else behind your gaze. Demand.. “These spirits won’t leave me until I give them what they want and you're the only one who can help me do that. I-I can’t live like this anymore.”

Joshua’s fingers tightened around the edge of the desk, his knuckles turning white. Something was off. You were clearly in distress, but there was something more beneath the surface. Something dangerous. The guard he had called for arrived at the door, waiting for his orders. Joshua nodded at Ji Ho who understood immediately and whispered something into his ears. As the uniformed man took off, Joshua walked over to this seat, pulling out a book and a pen. He had to engage you till he had help, he had to play his cards right.

“Fine.” He flipped to an empty page, ready to write. “Tell me more. These spirits, what do they want?”

“T-they’ve been telling me their stories, about who they are, about what happened”

“Okay…. Who are they?” Joshua tapped his pen against the surface. “Do you know their names?”

You shook your head. “I…I don’t but, I can ask.”

Looking around the room at nothing in particular you began mumbling something. Slowly, one after the other, you started dropping names as though you were repeating after an invisible, unheard voice. Joshua scribbled them down, eyes constantly darting towards the door, waiting for help. But as the list got longer, with each name he wrote, Joshua felt his guts twist.

As did the whole team.

Because they had all spent enough nights on those case files to have every detail memorised.

Six of the ten names were the missing cases they had been working on.

“A-are you sure these… these are the six names?”

“Ten.” You corrected him. “Yes, these are the ten names.”

Ji Ho met Joshua’s eyes from across the room, shaking her head. How could it be? More than half the names matching their list of victims, this…. This couldn’t just be a coincidence right?

“You said you can see them? Can you, maybe, describe one of them for me?” Joshua studied your face as your eyebrows furrowed. “The old woman, Ye Soon, what does she look like?”

“S-she’s around 60 years old. White hair, kind of like a curly bob. She’s got scoliosis so she stands a little crookedly.” You looked at the empty space behind him. “She also has a burn mark on her right hand.”

Joshua froze. You were right. Down to every detail.

“And Macy?”

You turned around, looking over by the window. “She looks like a typical college kid - soft features, long straight hair, cheeks a bit sunken. She also peels the skin by her nails, they’re all bruised.”

Right again. Your words matched the photos tucked away in the case file almost exactly.

“And Jason-”

“Officer Hong, we’re wasting time.” You shook your head. “Describing them is of no use, it doesn’t matter. What matters is what happened to them.”

“You mean….” Joshua tapped his foot, his mind racing, the realisation just dawning upon him.. “You mean how they died?”

“I mean how they were murdered.” You lowered your voice just a little. “And now they want justice.”

The silence now was cold, heavy and deafening. No one knew what to do - the weight of your words had immobilised them all.

“Josh.” Ji Ho, the only one unable to stay silent anymore, stepped up. “A word?”

Excusing himself, Joshua got up and made his way to his team, all seven of them huddling around. Some of them looked terrified, constantly looking around, some looked at him plain confused like they still hadn’t put the pieces together.

“Something’s wrong.” Ji ho crossed her arms. “There’s no way she-”

“Knows the exact names and descriptions of missing people? Details of a private investigation?” Minho quipped. “I think it finally makes sense why we’ve not been able to trace these people…. They're dead.”

“Which means all this while what we should have actually been looking for, are bodies.” Jaehyun sighed.

“What?” Ji ho looked at the boys like she couldn’t believe they were falling for this. “You think this is real? You think spirits are actually talking to her?” She turned to Joshua. “Please tell me you’re smarter than to believe in this madness.”

“I don’t know what to believe right now.” Joshua pinched the bridge of his nose, lost in thought. “I think we should hear what she has to say-”

“Josh-”

“Ji Ho, we've been on these cases for months without a single solid lead.” He sighed. “As impossible as this might seem, I am desperate and I want to take a shot.”

“You’re wasting the team’s time. I don’t think-”

“She came to me, the case is mine,” Joshua looked at her pointedly. “So I call the shots.”

Throwing her hands in the air, Ji Ho walked away, refusing to be a part of what she mumbled - a meaningless spectacle. Joshua returned, pulling a chair up, sitting right before you. Although he was the one who wanted answers, you beat him to the questioning.

“You don’t believe me do you?” You sounded so scared. “You think I’m insane.”

“I want to believe you, trust me Miss Y/n, you have no idea how easy it would make my life to believe you, six of these people are actually….” Shaking his head he held himself back, sticking to what was important. “The point is, you have come to the right place for help, the law can help you. But the law also requires proof, you need to prove what you’re saying is true.”

You gulped, tapping your feet unsure, eyes darting around.

“Ye Soon, that old woman.” You looked at him, slightly hesitating. “What if I took you to her?”

Joshua frowned confused.

“What if I showed where she is…. “ Scooting closer to him, you whispered. “She told me everything, I can take you to where her body is.”

Ji Ho looked at Joshua with narrowed eyes. Joshua returned her look with an unreadable expression. As though the universe had timed it all, the guard finally returned with help - two men dressed in soft blue scrubs carrying the logo of the town’s only psychiatric hospital.

There were one of two things Joshua could do. He knew sending you away was the right thing to do, he knew you needed help, he knew listening to you was madness.

But he also knew you were the closest thing to answers he had gotten in months.

Turning to you, he pulled your chair closer. “Show me.” His voice was low, urgent. “Right now.”

Joshua stood by the back door, the rain slashing against the pavement like a thousand tiny daggers. He lit his cigar, inhaling the smoke as the faint hum of the town’s heartbeat seemed to vanish into the downpour. The cold air bit at his skin, but he didn’t care. His thoughts, heavy with the case, weighed him down more than any storm ever could.

Beside him you stood, leaning against the brick wall, your arms holding on to his jacket, wrapped around your midsection as if bracing against the cold. Your damp nightgown had long since dried, but the way you stood, your shoulders slightly hunched, made it seem like you were still caught in the storm.

Joshua couldn’t help but watch you. Something about you unsettled him, though he couldn’t put his finger on it. His eyes found their way to you, running all over your features, lingering longer than they should have.

“Smoking is bad for your health.”

You finally spoke, looking at him with those big eyes. Brown, soft, expressionless eyes.

“I believe every man should have some bad habit.” Joshua chuckled, offering a small smile. “Keeps him grounded.”

You laughed softly—a sound that almost got lost in the rain’s incessant roar, but thankfully, his ears were sharp enough to catch it.

“Do you have a bad habit Miss Y/n?”

You hummed, looking far off at the quiet darkness of the town. “I don't know if this is bad but, I tend to go to any lengths to help the people I love.”

When he turned to see what you thought of that, he found a small almost imperceptible smile tugging the corner of your lips. It was subtle, but present, making his chest tighten unexpectedly

“What?” he asked, his voice betraying the flutter in his chest.

You shook your head, still smiling. “I’m just relieved you believe me.”

How could he not? Afterall, Ye Soon was indeed where you said she would be - at the abandoned ice cream factory, tucked away in a large freezer, the body months old and ice cold. His team—especially Ji Ho—had recoiled in disbelief, but you? You hadn’t flinched. You stood aside, quiet and composed, as the body was recovered.

Over the last two hours, samples of hair, nails, fluid and whatever else that could be found were gathered and sent to the forensic lab for analysis but Joshua had a bigger question to address.

“Is…” He took a deep breath. “Is Ye Soon somewhere around here?”

“She’s by the gate.” You turned to him. “Why?”

“I just want to confirm….. you’re sure she didn’t see the face of her killer?”

On the ride back, you had recounted Ye Soon’s entire story to the team. How she had felt like she was being stalked for a long time. How she didn’t usually go anywhere at night but on the evening of her birthday, she couldn’t resist the free dinner invitation she received. How she was walking to the restaurant, dressed up and all alone when she was attacked from behind.

You shook your head, expression slightly dejected. “No, her killer wore a mask so she had no idea who it was. One moment she was hit on the head and bleeding to death and the next, she found herself looking at her body in the freezer…. as a spirit.”

“If justice is what she wants, it's going to be hard without having any idea who the killer is.” He sighed. “For now, we can start looking into why a freezer was functioning in an abandoned factory for the last 4 months but…. I’m not sure if it’ll lead to anything solid.”

“Don't lose hope already.” You pushed yourself off the wall, taking a step closer to him. “The forensic team might have some answers.”

“I hope so.” He nodded, but his thoughts were elsewhere. His gaze lingered on you, and for a brief moment, he imagined what it might be like to trust you completely. “Miss Y/n, I'll need you to lead me to the other nine bodies too. I hope it won’t be too much trouble for you.”

“Of course not.” You shook your head, hand finding his wrist reassuringly. “Although one of them is quite far and it's already past midnight-”

“Not now, tomorrow morning.” He glanced at your eager expression, hands itching to tuck that tiny strand of hair behind your ear. “It's late now, you should head home.”

You nodded, drawing your hand back, and Joshua already missed the warmth of your touch. Taking a step back, you attempted to remove his jacket, but when a strong gust of wind blew, a shiver ran down your body.

Joshua chuckled, pulling it up your arms, adjusting it over your shoulders. “Keep it, it suits you better.”

“Careful officer.” You smiled at him. “If you come asking for it again, I won't give it back.”

“Fine by me.” He laughed. “Let me grab my keys, I'll drop you.”

“That's okay, I'll walk.”

“It's raining Miss Y/n. I don't think-”

“I like walking in the rain.” You stuck your hand out in the pouring water. “Makes me feel good.”

“I could walk you.”

“It’s not like I don’t have company.” Joshua frowned as you giggled. “The spirits, officer. They follow me everywhere.”

That flicker of something playful in your eyes - Joshua was seeing it for the first time. When you had walked in here earlier you had been so terrified, shaking, desperate for help. Now you seemed so unfazed. Maybe you were glad that you were finally getting help. Maybe you were never really terrified. Either way, the unsettling shift in your demeanor troubled his mind.

“You sure you’ll be okay?” His tone was lighter than he intended, masking what he was truly feeling.

“I’ll be fine,” You brushed him off with the wave of a hand. “I’ll just get lost in my own thoughts, without any distractions.”

Joshua didn’t stop you as you began walking. He simply watched as you glanced over your shoulder, muttering a small “good night” before stepping into the rain. Slowly, as your figure was swallowed by the darkness of the night, Joshua retreated into the debate in his mind. Should he follow to make sure you weren’t in trouble?

Or were you the trouble that was looming around the corner?

Joshua leaned back in his chair, his eyes locked on the scattered files in front of him. The low hum of the fluorescent lights above, along with the steady, almost rhythmic tap of his fingers against the desk, were the only sounds that filled the otherwise silent room. The pile of crime scene files seemed to grow heavier with each glance—each one a grim reminder of the ten bodies they had recovered. Ten people dead, each with their own story, now reduced to nothing more than photos, forensic reports, and police notes.

Two weeks. Two long weeks of following the trail you’d led them to, finding all ten victims hidden in the most unimaginable locations, each one’s story recounted with haunting detail. As per protocol, his team had collected every piece of evidence they could find, and the progressive inspection of each item only further corroborated your stories. Ji Ho, who had initially resisted being part of this madness, had also joined, keenly looking into the details of the investigation.

There was just one detail that Joshua could not wrap his head around - the fact that all ten victims had apparently not seen their killer’s face.

Each one had been attacked from behind - either struck on the head, run over by a car, strangled from behind or shoved off a building. It was always from the back, perfectly concealing their perpetrators face, keeping that identity a mystery. Aside from this one detail which was making the progress of his investigation incredibly difficult, Joshua did not notice anything strikingly similar amongst all the cases.

That was until he was staring at his now very real murder board earlier today.

It was filled with a dozen pictures and pins, only getting messier with every detail but there was one connection Joshua happened to piece as he searched for the finer details - Ye Soon was going for a dinner on her birthday, Macy was returning from a birthday party her friends had thrown her, Jason was going to meet his girlfriend to celebrate his birthday….. All ten of them had died on their birthday and not just that - all of their birthdays fell on the 30th of the month.

And that was when the pieces clicked. Joshua arranged all ten cases according to a timeline, spanning from January this year to November. Every month on the 30th, right on their birthday, one victim had died and Joshua knew for a fact that this was a pattern because there was no victim in February - the only month without a 30th.

This was an MO. This wasn’t the work of ten different killers. It was one. One serial killer.

The moment he realized this, he knew he should share it with his team, but for some reason, he couldn’t bring himself to. Perhaps it was because he knew the moment he revealed this discovery, all eyes would turn to one person—You.

And sure enough, the door slammed open and Ji Ho entered, a thick file in her hand.

“I heard back from forensics.” She walked over, setting the papers on his table. “But you’re a brilliant detective Joshua, so you must have already figured this out.”

“What?” Joshua sipped on his coffee, trying to appear nonchalant.

“There were many different DNAs collected at the crime scenes, but one particular DNA was found at every single one.”

Fuck. There it was. His worst fear, out loud.

“This is clearly a serial killer Joshua.” When he didn’t meet her eye, she moved into his line of vision. “For heaven’s sake, why are you trying to protect her?”

“Who?” Joshua shot back, his jaw tightening.

“Y/n.” She spoke through gritted teeth. “Please tell me you’re not being an infatuated fool-”

“I’m not a fool.”

“But you don’t deny the infatuation.” Ji Ho’s voice rose as she pointed at him. “I’ve seen you two over the last many days - you think I don’t recognise the way you look at her?”

“Ji Ho, just because the two of us were once a thing and it didn’t work out-”

“This isn’t about us!” She threw her hands in the air, frustration evident. “You know I’m more professional than that. This is about you. You saw a petite, pretty damsel in distress who told you a sob story and leaned on your shoulder and you decided to forget about everything sensible.”

“You aren’t being sensible!” Joshua turned to face her, anger simmering. “Ji Ho, if Y/n was the killer why would she lead us to the bodies? Why would she try to implicate herself?”

“You know how the brains of psychos work. They think they’re too smart, that they’ll never be caught.” Ji Ho crossed her arms. “This is just a game for her.”

Joshua shook his head. “She’d have to be too dumb to expose herself like this. Using the paranormal to do it, don’t you think it’s too much?”

“I knew you wouldn’t believe me.” Ji Ho let out a heavy breath. “So I did what I had to do. I called Y/n here.”

He frowned. “Why?”

“I took a sample of her hair without her knowledge and sent it to the lab.” Ji Ho took a step back, her eyes cold. “In a short while, we’ll know if that DNA matches hers… You’ll have your answers then.”

“Ji Ho, this wasn’t my order—”

“I’m sorry but I don’t care, Josh.” She stopped her tracks by the door. “We might have been in love years ago, but I know what you are like. You’ll do anything to protect her and I cannot just sit back and watch you indulge in this stupidity.”

“I’m none of your fucking concern!” Joshua’s voice rose in frustration as she walked out without another word. “Ji Ho, come back here, goddammit!”

Frustrated he slammed his hands on the table, the coffee cup toppling to the ground. It wasn’t like Joshua hadn’t thought of this possibility but this was his case to solve. He wanted to talk to you first, hear whatever it was from your mouth, not some cold DNA report.

Recalling Ji Ho say that you were here, Joshua bolted out of his room to the visitors lounge. There you were, sitting on the couch with your feet pulled up, flipping through a magazine while the sound of a Spanish telenovela played in the background. Annoyed by the noise, Joshua grabbed the remote and switched it off before walking toward you.

In the sudden absence of the sound you looked up, eyes finding him, a smile spreading across your face as he sat beside you on the couch. Normally, Joshua wouldn’t sit so close to a witness—or take her hand in his—but you were different.

“Hi.” You whispered. “You look tense.”

“How long have you been here?”

“About half an hour,” You rubbed his arm comfortingly. “Ji Ho said you wanted to talk to me.”

Joshua swallowed, his throat suddenly dry. “There’s been some progress in the case.”

You turned to him, curious. “Did you find any of the killers?”

“Not exactly.” He shook his head. “I…I got a lead, though. Actually I’m not sure it’s much of a clue.”

“What is it?”

“All of them were killed on the 30th of the month.” He watched you closely, studying your face for any flicker of recognition, of guilt. “It seems like a pattern. Like this might be the work of one person.”

“One person?” Your eyes widened. “You mean like a serial killer?”

Joshua nodded.

“A serial killer who kills on the 30th of every month.” You muttered, lost in thought. “Why the 30th?”

“I don’t know.” He shrugged, his voice tight. “Maybe they don’t like the number.”

Joshua blinked, trying to keep his expression neutral. Please, please, please, this can’t be true.

“But if I am right and if this is a pattern,.” He stared at their intertwined hands. “30th December is not far off and maybe they have another victim in their sight…. I need to find this killer soon.”

“If it is a serial killer then this is much easier than we thought.” You reassured, turning towards him. “Think about it, isn’t it better to find one person than ten? And won’t all the evidence help you narrow down who the culprit is? All you have to do is something common amongst them all, right?”

Joshua nodded. Exactly. It was easy. Which meant it couldn’t have been you, could it? You wouldn’t have committed those crimes and then set up a trap for yourself would you? That made no sense.

Or perhaps Joshua was refusing to see sense in it. Perhaps he was so drawn by you that he couldn’t bring himself to see reason.

With each passing day, he had found his eyes lingering less over the crime scene and more over you. With each body being discovered, it was like the weight on your shoulders was lessening. You seemed more free, more at peace, more…..beautiful. Whenever your eyes met his, you began to smile. Whenever he rode his bike and you sat behind him, he felt his heart do a somersault in his chest. Just watching you walk into the station every morning made him feel a relief like no other.

Joshua had begun to like these small things. Your presence, your tiny quirks, the way you told stories, even though they were quite horrendous recounts, he liked how expressive your face was. He liked you.

And it was evident you liked him too.

At first, Joshua thought you liked to be around him because you felt safe but slowly you began sitting closer to him than usual. You began following him on walks to survey perimeters, holding his hand when you tripped but not letting it go even when you were steady. He could tell by the way you looked at him - you felt the same thing he was feeling. That undeniable attraction, that magnetism.

But no sooner than he thought that, the door to the visitors room flung open making the two of you jump apart and Ji Ho stepped in, a thin file in her hand.

“The results are back.” Her eyes flickered between both of you. “I’m sorry Josh but the DNA matches…. It’s her.”

Joshua's heart dropped. The words echoed in his mind, and for a split second, the world seemed to stop.

It was you. You were the killer.

Joshua stood in the observation room, his eyes locked on you through the two-way mirror.

You were slouched at the table, head low, your exhaustion palpable. The harsh light above cast long shadows across your face, making your features appear fragile and worn. Joshua’s heart tightened as he watched you. He longed to step in, to pull you close and promise that everything would be okay, but he couldn’t. He had to remain detached, professional—even though every instinct screamed to comfort you.

For the past three days, he had avoided entering the interrogation room, choosing instead to watch from the observation window, a silent witness to your suffering. He could see the strain in your eyes each time you pleaded for belief, for a chance to prove your innocence. Occasionally, you’d look towards him, and in those fleeting moments, it was as if you could see him right through the mirror. The desperate, pleading look you gave shattered something inside him—his resolve, his detachment. Every time, he felt that same arrow pierce his heart, and yet, he remained still, unable to intervene. Helpless.

His gaze flickered to Minho, who had just entered the room, pulling up his sleeves with the usual resolve. Joshua turned away from the mirror, his jaw tightening. He had to hold it together. He couldn’t let Minho see how he was unraveling inside.

“It’s my turn boss.” He glanced at Joshua. “Unless you want to?”

Joshua shook his head, sipping on his coffee. Minho sighed, pulling the door open and stepping in, catching you off guard with his sudden appearance. Joshua watched the man as he took a seat, settling the files on the table before you.

“Where’s Joshua?” You asked, your eyes flickering toward the door expectantly.

“I’ll ask the questions Miss.Y/n.” Minho cleared his throat a little too loudly.

“For the last time,” You sighed. “I did not do it. I am not the killer-”

“I’m not suggesting you are the killer Miss Y/n.” He pushed the file towards you. “I simply want you to explain why your DNA has been found on all ten sites.”

“I’ve already told you,” you leaned back in your chair, frustration evident in your voice. “When the spirits first talked to me, I went to some of those locations to make sure I wasn’t losing my mind. How many times do I have to repeat myself?”

“You mentioned you went to-” He flipped through the papers “-four sites. Then how was your DNA found at all ten?”

“Maybe because I was the one who led you to those locations,” you shot back, crossing your arms.

“Are you suggesting we are stupid enough to mess up the sample collection?” Minho’s voice grew colder. “That we sat back and let you contaminate those crime scenes?”

“Then are you suggesting that I am stupid enough to commit ten murders and walk into a station and implicate myself?” you retorted.

Minho leaned back, narrowing his eyes.“I don’t know Miss Y/n. I’m looking for you to give me the answers.”

“For god’s sake!” You slammed your palm onto the table, frustration boiling over. “If you think I’m going to cave to this tortuous questioning and admit to something I didn’t do, you’re wrong. I. Didn’t. Do. It.”

“But you could have helped the killer.” Minho shrugged. “The sentence for an accomplice to murder is less severe Miss Y/n, if you admit to it, we can help you-”

“I don’t need your help because I did not do this.” You glanced at the mirror,your eyes locking with Joshua’s yet again. “I made a mistake coming here thinking you could help me, you’d help them. But now I am being held here, blamed for something I didn’t do.”

Joshua’s grip on his coffee tightened, his gaze sliding away from you. He had nothing to say.

Minho exhaled sharply. “Miss Y/n, you are being held because the evidence clearly points at you-”

“Or maybe I’m here because you need a scapegoat to take the fall.” you interrupted, voice dripping with bitterness.

Surprised, Joshua straightened out.

“I heard six of these cases were in fact missing people that your team hadn’t been able to find in months.” you continued, your tone mocking. “Convenient isn’t it, to blame it all on the only other person involved in the uncovering of the crime scene? A nice, easy way to wrap this up neatly.”

“Are you implying that one of us manipulated the evidence to make it look like you’re the killer?” Minho snapped.

“I didn’t say that,” you tilted your head, your gaze sharp. “But you seem to be admitting to it.”

“Miss Y/n, don’t twist my words….”

But there was no need to.

Joshua took a step back, mind running through the possibilities. About who might have such a motive, who might have manipulated the evidence…..

There was only one person who popped in his mind. Someone who was as driven as him to solve these cases. Someone who didn’t want to be a part of the investigation but had joined regardless. Someone who could possibly benefit from trapping you in this case.

Ji Ho.

Joshua knew his ex girlfriend well enough to dismiss this possibility of her involvement. It was the reason the two of them had broken up - She was incredibly competitive, she never seemed to remember the relationship the two of them shared when they were in a professional space, she was never happy for him, never acknowledged his achievements.

But that did not mean there was no passion between them outside the walls of the precinct. God they were wild and couldn’t keep their hands and eyes off each other. Things were fine till whatever happened at work stayed at work, but the more Joshua became successful in his career, Ji Ho started bringing her professional grievances home, between them. The suffocation her competitiveness brought forth was what stifled their bond - Joshua couldn’t live with it any longer.

But maybe, now that he thought about it, this situation allowed her to kill two birds with one stone - on one hand, the cases termed nearly impossible could finally be closed and on the other, you, his new person of interest would be out of the way. Joshua saw the way Ji Ho looked at the two of you, like she didn’t like it one bit - her incriminating you wasn’t exactly impossible. When she had secretly taken a sample of your hair to cross verify with the identified DNA, who’s to say she didn’t plant the other evidence the same way?

Grabbing his pager from the table, he gave you one last glance before pulling the door open, setting off to look for the woman in question. He had to act fast. He needed to find out if Ji Ho was involved.

Thankfully he didn’t have to look far, she was right at the visitors room, remote in her hand, watching the same Spanish telenovela that had been perpetually on the station’s TV for months.

“Ji Ho-” Joshua called out.

“Shh,” she raised a hand to silence him, keeping her eyes on the screen. “I’m watching.”

“Is that more important than what’s happening with Y/n-”

“Honestly? Yeah,” she replied without missing a beat, her tone flippant. “This is actually what helped save her.”

Joshua stared at her, bewildered. “What do you mean, ‘save her’?”

“I think she’s innocent,” Ji Ho said, finally turning to face him.

All points of argument that Joshua had come up with died in his mind. What?

“You do? You believe she’s innocent?” He placed himself right before the screen. “You were the one who was so sure she did it-”

“I simply believed the evidence that came up.” She rolled her eyes. “But unlike you, I don’t let my emotions rule over practicality.”

“I did not-”

“I know you Josh, I know something is wrong. Your judgement has been clouded for days, you’re not thinking straight. But I am.” She crossed her arms, taking a deep breath. “I knew we needed more irrefutable evidence and most importantly, we needed a motive so I had been looking and asking around. Turns out she has an alibi.”

“What kind of alibi?”

“Didn't you say that she might have done all that to make her story more convincing?”

“Yes but,” Ji Ho bit her lower lip hesitating. “I also broke into her house-”

“You what??”

“-and I found her passport and a couple of other things that prove she wasn't even in town when three or four of those murders happened, the timelines don't match.”

“So it might not be her?” Joshua let out an inward sigh of relief. “Then… then what about the DNA?”

“Precisely.” Ji Ho nodded, gesturing him to turn around. “Watch this.”

Frowning Joshua did, eyes falling on the tv screen. He wasn't really familiar with this show, the only reason he had ever watched it was because Ji Ho was obsessed with it. He did remember this particular part of the plot though - everyone thought Maria was the mother of Lizzy but it was actually her twin, Gloria.

Twin?.....

“Identical twins have the exact same DNA.” Ji Ho muted the show as his mind raced with the possibilities. “Do you know if Y/n has a twin?”

Joshua shook his head. He didn't ask much about your family or personal life, he didn't really find the chance to have such a conversation but if there was even a possibility….

Rushing out, Joshua barged into the interrogation room where Minho was still badgering you with his questions.

“Y/n,” Watching Joshua unable to say anything she walked up, shoving her hands in her pockets. “There's something important we need to know.”

“What is it?” You continued to look at Joshua who simply nodded softly, signalling you not to worry.

“Do you happen to have a twin? An identical one?”

Blinking rapidly, you hesitated. “I…. I do, yeah, why?”

Joshua and Ji Ho exchanged looks. Fuck.

“Where is she?”

“I- I don't know. We both grew up at the St. Mary orphanage. At around the age of eight, she was adopted. The family didn't want two kids so they only took her in. Few months later I was adopted by a different family so we haven't really seen each other or even heard from each other since then.” Your eyes flickered between both the officers. “Why? What happened?”

Thank god. Thank fucking god.

Joshua let out the breath he was holding, shutting his eyes briefly out of relief.

Ji Ho, who looked both guilty and curious, stepped closer to you. “So you don��t know where she is right now?”

You shook your head, “But I know she's a Mayor's daughter, I don't remember for which town though.”

Nodding at Joshua, Ji Ho whispered something into Minho's ears before the two of them hurriedly left the room. Standing up confused, your eyes followed them as Joshua neared you.

“Joshua what's happening?”

He didn't say anything, just simply pulled you into a hug, finally feeling your warmth again as you wrapped your arms around his waist.

“You'll be fine.” He held onto you tighter. “I'm not going to let anything happen to you.”

Joshua watched you fast sleep on the couch of the visitor’s lounge.

Curled up, with your hair spilling over your face like a dark veil, you looked peaceful, untouched by the weight of the world. As much as Joshua longed to slip in beside you and to hold you as you slept, he knew better. He had to maintain some distance. The team had already been giving him looks whenever you stood too close to him, leaning over case files, working through the details of the investigation. At least the pity and disdain in their eyes had faded—now that you were cleared, they saw you as less of a suspect.

Ji Ho, ever the efficient one, had tracked down your twin just a few days ago. She had been found in a town several hours away, barely conscious, dragged into the precinct with the sour smell of alcohol still clinging to her. Standing beside Joshua, you watched your twin in the interrogation room, hungover and dazed, trying to make sense of the evidence mounting against her. Though you hadn’t spoken in years, the ache in your chest was unmistakable. You didn’t want to believe it was her but even after sobering up when she failed to provide any alibi, the truth was undeniable.

Her neighbors, friends, and even family all corroborated the fact that she had fallen deep into drugs, her life spiraling out of control. The last few months had turned her into someone unrecognizable—violent, unpredictable and uncontrollable. No one could vouch for her whereabouts during the killings either and as the investigation wore on, the evidence stacked up against her, leaving little room for doubt. In the end, she was arrested, the case moving forward to court where she was to be prosecuted for her crimes.

Today was your final day at the station—just a few papers to sign, a final nod to close the investigation. After this, the case would be officially closed and the two of you would not be bound by the investigation anymore - there was no obligation to see each other.

“You know,” Ji Ho’s voice broke the silence, pulling Joshua out of his thoughts, “just because the case is over doesn’t mean you won’t get to see her.”

Joshua turned to see her standing in the doorway, arms crossed, leaning casually against the frame.

“I know.” He muttered, feeling a familiar pang in his chest. “But how do you always know what I’m thinking?”

She chuckled, stepping into the room. “Because I know you, Joshua. Better than anyone. I just wish you knew me too. I wish you knew me better. I would never incriminate someone out of pettiness.”

He winced, guilt tugging at him. “I’m sorry. I guess I was just ready to believe anything that meant Y/n was innocent.”

Ji Ho glanced at you. “Well, you don't have to worry about that anymore. She is innocent. “

“Thanks to you.” He smiled, looking at you slightly shifting in your sleep, mouth now slightly open as you continued to doze off. “She would have still been a suspect if not for your brilliance.”

“Nah.” Ji Ho waved her hand, dismissing his words. “I only did what I had to, it's my job. But what's really amazing is you cracked the cases Joshua, the ones no one could solve for months. I heard the promotion letter is on the way.”

“It should have been yours Ji Ho.” Staring at the ground Joshua shifted uncomfortably, refusing to meet her eyes. He couldn't bring himself to. “I know how much you wanted this too, and I… I don’t understand why you gave all the credit to me.”

Ji Ho sighed, her gaze distant. “I did want it. But I felt like you deserved it more, especially for all that I put you through the last many days.”

“So this is out of pity?”

“It's out of admiration.” She corrected. “I don't know if I would have been able to keep my calm the way you did when Y/n was being accused. You put your job above everything, you were the one who figured out the killer's MO, you were the driving force of this investigation. It's only right that you go up the ranks.” She then paused as though she was unsure if she should continue. “You can also think of it as an early birthday present from me.”

Joshua glanced at the calendar, the black rimmed circle placed over 29th December. His birthday was tomorrow. Here he was, too wrapped up in all this to even remember but of course Ji Ho did. Even after all that happened, she remembered.

“Thanks,” he muttered, trying to mask the sudden rush of gratitude. Before he could say more, his gaze shifted back to you. You were beginning to stir, shifting on the couch, their voices perhaps pulling you from your slumber.

Ji Ho noticed it too, and with a small nod, she tucked her hands in her pockets and began to back out of the room. “I should go. You and Y/n should have a nice celebration tomorrow, okay?”

Joshua smiled, not entirely convinced as she disappeared into the buzz of the busy office. Was he really worthy of a celebration though? Even though the six biggest problems of his life had been solved giving him the promotion he wanted more than anything, Joshua didn't quite find himself fully relieved. It was as though there was something he still wasn't seeing.

When you finally raised your head, blinking sleepily, Joshua pushed all his conflicting thoughts aside. Right now, only you mattered.

“Morning sunshine.” He smiled softly, voice light.

You glanced at the window, then at the clock. “It's 6pm Joshua.”

“Yes but you've been sleeping like it's the dead of the night.”

“Can you blame me?” You yawned. “For the first time in days, I'm able to sleep without thinking about somebody constantly watching me.” When Joshua looked confused, you sat up, crossing your legs. “The spirits, Joshua.”

“They're gone?”

“I haven't seen much of them the last few days, ever since she was brought in…..” You trailed off, your gaze flickering down to your restless hands. “I guess they've gotten the justice they're looking for.”

“I'd have thought they'd stick around at least till the trial.” Joshua looked thoughtful. “She's the Mayor's daughter. What if she buys her way out of this?”

“I don't know.” You shrugged. “I know her background might allow her to escape this unscathed but I hope not. Perpetrators deserve to be punished.”

“I thought twins were naturally very protective of one another.” He glanced at you carefully. “You seem okay with whatever is happening to your sister.”

You looked at him incredulously. “Of course I'm upset but you know what she did. I'm not emotionally attached to her because we barely know anything about each other but even if I was, do you think someone who killed so many people deserves to walk freely? The spirits trusted me to ensure they got justice Joshua, how can I let their murderer not face any consequences?”

Joshua stared at the wall behind you, mind racing to the time it all began with you walking into the station. Your claim about spirits only you could see, all ten spirits being unaware of their killer yet all ten of them conveniently being killed by the same person. Your knowledge of all the crime sites, finding your DNA in every single one. You happening to have a twin sister who, in contrast to your perfect alibis, didn't have any. It was all too easy - was it a lucky coincidence that the spirits found the estranged twin of their perpetrator to be their yielder of justice? Or had he in fact caught the wrong sister…..Joshua felt a chill run down his spine. Somehow, it didn't seem like this case was over - there was clearly more to it.

He turned his attention back to you, gulping when he realised you were studying his zoned out expression intently.

“What is it?” You raised an eyebrow. “What are you thinking?”

“Just…” He cleared his throat. “I wanted to come over and get my jacket back but I realised I didn't even know where you lived.”

You cocked your head at him, a knowing expression on your face. “I told you - Once you give it to me, I won’t return it if you ask.”

“Right.” Joshua chuckled, though it didn’t reach his eyes.

Fuck. This was his one shot to confirm the truth before it was too late. Twins might look identical and even have the same DNA but their fingerprints? Fingerprints were unique even among twins and Joshua wanted to get his hands on yours. His jacket being a leather one would have been an easy way to obtain them but now, he had to think of something else.

“I was thinking, do you want to maybe go out and get dinner today?” He looked at you feigning casualness he was not feeling. “We've never really gotten the chance to do anything outside the precinct, I thought we could spend some time….”

You shook your head softly, a small, apologetic smile playing at your lips as you got up. “Not tonight. I have something I need to do.”

“Something more important than me?” He smiled half-heartedly, trying to mask the hurt. “Than us?”

Laughing softly you walked up to him, hands clasped behind your hand as you leaned in and placed a soft kiss on his cheek. “I'll be seeing you tomorrow anyway, birthday boy.”

Joshua watched as you slowly pulled away from him and began to leave, the lightness of your kiss still lingering on his skin. It didn’t feel like an intimate gesture, more like a goodbye, a farewell to something unspoken.

He stood frozen, entangled in his web of thoughts, unsure of what to do with himself. But when the moment passed, he made up his mind. - he couldn’t wait any longer. He had to know the truth.

Rushing towards Ji Ho’s cubicle, his heart pounding in his chest, he called out to her breathlessly.

“You said you broke into Y/n’s place, right?”

Her eyes widened, surprised by his urgency. She nodded.

“I need you to give me the address.”

Joshua slowly pushed the door of your house, both surprised and thankful it was unlocked.

He had been hiding in the bushes for over an hour now, watching you move around through the glass of the window. About ten minutes ago, you had donned his jacket, pulled your hair into a high ponytail and left the house, walking into the dead of the night. Joshua glanced at his watch - it was 11pm and he had no idea what kind of business you had set off to do. Now that he thought about it, Joshua didn’t know anything about you at all - why then was he so enthralled by you?

He had to snap out of it. He was here to find the truth and that’s what he was going to do. When he was finally convinced that you weren’t returning to grab something you might have forgotten, Joshua mustered his courage and stepped carefully into the dimly lit house, his heartbeat quickening with each creak of the floorboard beneath his shoes. This was the only chance he might have to explore your space, your sanctuary, see who you were outside that mask of affection you always wore when they were together. He knew it was dangerous and reckless, but he had to be sure.

The house was quiet. Too quiet. It smelled faintly of lavender, mixed with a subtle undertone of something he couldn’t quite place. He moved through the living room, avoiding the clutter of half-empty cups and newspapers, scanning for anything that might give him a clue. The space looked like it hadn’t been cared for in a while, like you hadn’t been home for a long time. Joshua made mental notes of everything as he walked in, his feet taking him around like he had been here a hundred times already.

It was only when he tripped over the rug that his tracks stopped, prompting him to look at the cause of his near fall - A loose floorboard. Frowning he crouched down and pried it loose, the cool edge of the tile slipping from its mortar with a slight scrape. Underneath, hidden in the narrow compartment, was a small wooden box, its surface worn with time. Turning it in his hands, Joshua pried it open.

Photographs.

Hundreds of photographs of you.

No, not you… you didn’t dress in designer wear, drink expensive champagne or drive in a Rolls Royce. This was your sister.

You had uncountable photographs of her, carefully taken and meticulously arranged. She looked young in some of them and much older in others. Some were clearly taken from a distance while others seemed more intimate, like they’d been taken while she was unaware….. You had been stalking her.

From the looks of it, you had been keeping an eye on her for years, watching her every move. Joshua’s stomach churned, a new sense of unease settling over him. You said you hadn’t seen her in years - you lied.

Spreading them out on the cold floor, he flipped through them, realising that everyone was right about her - she had an affinity to party and indulge in drugs, often blacking out in the middle of nowhere. But he also realised that she in fact, had an alibi…. A couple of dates on these photos were on the 30th… she couldn’t have possibly been the killer.

And more importantly, you knew that. If you had taken these pictures, you knew your sister was innocent - yet you watched her be put away behind the bars.

Fuck.

This was a terrible mistake.

Quickly moving, Joshua grabbed the relevant photos - Ji Ho had to see this, the whole team had to see this. But before he could smoothly stash them away in his pocket, he heard the familiar creak of the floorboard at the entrance. You were back.

Joshua’s breath hitched as the soft footfall of your steps echoed through the quiet room, getting louder and louder by the minute. Panicking, he quickly stuffed everything back in the box, shoved it back into its hidden compartment and placed the floorboard back in place, pretending like nothing had happened.

Just as he stood up, turning towards the sound, his eyes fell on your figure lingering by the large wooden arch, watching him intensely. Slowly, almost deliberately, you closed the distance in between, eyes not leaving him, not blinking. Joshua tensed, his body stiffening with a mix of fear and anticipation. And when you reached him, you didn’t speak - merely tilted your head, your eyes searching his face as if reading something he didn’t want you to see.

Then, without warning, curling your fingers around his collar, pulling him closer, you kissed him.

Your lips pressed against his, tenderly but also carrying an undeniable weight. Joshua's body froze for a moment, completely caught off guard by the intensity of it, the subtle brush of your lips conveying something far deeper than simple affection. Your hands moved, one sliding up to his neck, the other tangling in his hair, and for a brief second, Joshua forgot himself. His hand cupped your face, as he pushed you back against the wall, kissing you passionately, like he was a hungry man, finally being fed. You moaned as the heat swelled between the pressed bodies, both of you powerless to the undeniable attraction between the two of you.

Finally, you pulled away, just a fraction, your breath warm on his lips, and in that silence, you softly bit your lower lip, looking at him with big, lust blown eyes.

"Did I play my part well, Shua?"

Joshua’s heart stuttered in his chest, his breath slowing down, eyes fixed on you.

And then he cocked his head and gave a short nod.

At last, at fucking last, Joshua allowed the mask to crack, a small, victorious smile dancing on his face. The smile that had once been charming and controlled, faltered at the edges, now that he had come face to face with the full scope of the story he had spun. The facade he worked so hard to maintain, the calculated version of himself that had held the reins of this twisted game, finally slipped away.

Dragging his hand down from your cheek, he wrapped it around your throat, pulling you closer, angling your face up, pressing contrastingly soft kisses along your jaw. You sighed happily despite struggling to breathe, eyes rolling back as you grabbed his wrist, not to pull his choking hand away, but to hold it in place. Fuck. He loved that you loved this.

“You did great, baby.” He whispered into your ear. “You did so so well.”

“A…” He loosened his grip when you failed to speak. “Aren’t you going to reward me then?”

“Of course I am.” He pulled back, fully letting you go, supposedly to allow you to breathe again. But before you could, hand on your head, he pushed you down, forcing you onto your knees. As you quickly stripped out of his favourite jacket, placing it under you to cushion you from the cold floorboard, he unbuttoned his pants, getting ready for your mouth, his favourite place to be. Within seconds, you took over, pulling his pants down and his dick out, spitting in your hand before stroking it slowly. Joshua slapped your hand away and slipped his thumb between your lips prying your mouth open as he pushed his dick into your mouth.

“Fuck,” He threw his head back. He had missed this warmth of you, wrapped around him. “That’s it baby, that feels fucking good.”

Pleased with yourself, you hummed around his girth and without a warning, his hand finding the back of your head, Joshua pushed himself further in, your sound of surprise lost in your throat. You didn’t struggle too hard to take him all the way in, afterall, Joshua had been here a hundred times already. When he noticed you were running out of breath, he pushed himself just a little further before completely pulling out, throwing you into a coughing fit. Looking at you disappointedly, he shook his head,

“You can do better baby.” He tilted your face up. “Don’t you want to do better for me?”

Nodding eagerly, you took him in your mouth again, bobbing your head around his length just the way he liked it, just the way he had trained you to pleasure him. Without him even needing to say it, you clasped your hands behind you, only your mouth working vigorously, alternating between blowing him fast and letting him deep in your throat. Grinning at you, Joshua wrapped your ponytail around his hand, jerking his hips forward to match your pace, finding his orgasm building in him much sooner than usual.

Of course it did. Joshua was unusually happy today - afterall, everything he intended went according to plan. He had supposedly solved all six of those never ending missing cases, he had secured his promotion and no one even found out that he was the real killer.

Throwing his head back, he groaned as you skillfully let him so deep in, your nose nearly touching his groin, your face reddening. Dragging you off his cock, he looked down at you impressed, receiving your fucked out expression in return - eyes blown, drool leaking from the corners of your lips, mouth still open, waiting for more. Chucking, he stroked himself.

“Strip.”

And you did, pulling your gown over your head, tossing it somewhere far. Then you unclasped your bra, your perfect boobs spilling out of the cups as Joshua felt his mouth water from the sight of it. He had missed them so bad and by the end of tonight, he was going to irrevocably mark them as his. When you looked at him questioningly about taking off your underwear, he shook his head and pushed you against the wall by your shoulders, the back of your head softly hitting the concrete. Knowing what he was going to do next, you obediently stilled as he held your face with both his hands and, god did he fuck it like there was no tomorrow.

This was what Joshua loved about you the most - you never complained. Anything he gave, you took it oh so well, beyond his expectations, always proving just how devoted you were to him. That was why he was able to use you as the perfect instrument to orchestrate his scheme. Without you, there was no way he would have been able to secure that promotion and get out of this town.

He had committed too many crimes here, lingered for too long and if he had spent any longer, he knew the chances of him being caught were high. Although he was meticulous in choosing his victims and ensured they had no family or friends to notice their absence, six out of ten of them had landed on his table regardless. Just looking at the case files annoyed him. How the fuck was he supposed to get promoted if solving the very crimes he committed was the only way to deem him worthy? That meant Joshua needed someone else to take the fall, he needed a scapegoat and a story.

And that’s what everything so far was. Joshua spun an unimaginable, unbelievable story and centered it around you, his main character. He made you a meek, scared and vulnerable woman, just the kind that good old officer Hong would fall for while he himself played a well crafted role - a man tired of unsolvable cases finding his last ray of hope in a woman he happened to fall for. Being a part of a moral battle, guilt tripping his ex-girlfriend into handing him the promotion and coming out of all this with his love being victorious was just the icing on the cake. It was actually all too easy - the accurate decoding of his team’s psyche was what drove the whole plot.

He knew most of them were highly superstitious and the idea of spirits would terrify them enough to believe your tale. Although the idea of spirits was absurd and haunting, in a small town like this a touch of the supernatural was precisely what was required to get everyone on the edge, to make coincidences believable, to make the unreal seem real. He knew you wouldn’t mess this up - he spent hours telling you about each victim, making you memorise their appearances, their habits, their stories. He trusted you to do a good job, but it was Ji Ho who was the wild card, the one he had taken a risk with.

Joshua knew Ji Ho being the realist that she was, would never believe the idea of ghosts and would look only for solid facts and evidence. That’s why he had very meticulously planted your DNA in all ten sites, well aware that his ex-girlfriend would immediately suspect you. He wasn’t trying to trap you, no no, you were his favourite doll - he just needed to somehow introduce the twin twist, his most brilliant plot point.

Joshua was also well aware of Ji Ho's addiction to that stupid Spanish show - it was only a matter of time before she had a lightbulb moment and considered the idea of you having a twin. From there, it was a cake walk - he had already spent months ensuring your sister did not have significant alibis. Thanks to her drug addiction, she was already naturally sketchy, often aloof and most importantly, frequently unaware of her actions and locations. With the deletion of a few CCTV footages, and ripping up some parking tickets and restaurant bills, Joshua had made sure she had no solid evidence to back her innocence. Her being found in a state too far gone to vouch for the truth was no coincidence too - he had been secretly supplying her with stronger than usual doses of drugs for a while now.

And that’s how things went down exactly like he planned - an innocent person was sitting in jail, waiting to be tried for crimes she didn’t commit while here he was, promoted, free and fucking the mouth of the woman undeniably devoted to him.

Joshua focused his gaze on you, tears running down your cheek, the back of your throat most definitely bruised but you didn't ask him to stop. Instead you contracted your throat around him, drawing out those tell tale groans as he felt himself nearing his high. With a swift movement he let you go and pulled himself out, jerking himself hard as you waited for him patiently, mouth hanging open. The moment you stuck your tongue out desperately, Joshua came, spurts out white coating your tongue, spilling out of the corner of your mouth, down to your boobs. His chest heaved, much like yours, as he took a step back, letting go his softened length as he glanced at you. His masterpiece, the queen on his chessboard.

Slowly walking back he pulled up a chair, kicking his pants off before settling down on it. He wanted to pause this, let you catch your breath but the ironic thing was, you yourself didn't want to stop. Getting ready to crawl to him, you leaned forward but Joshua shook his head.

“Take a minute baby.”

You pouted. “I don't want to.”

“I know but I need to.” He chuckled, looking pointedly at his currently semi hard length. “Do you want to play with yourself till then?”

Nodding eagerly, you rested back against the wall, spreading your legs out wide, displaying your nearly soaked underwear for him to see. Fuck. Was that how wet you were from just sucking him off? Joshua bet he would slide all the way in with ease and god did he want to. But he could wait - he had all night to wreck you.

Raising your hips slightly, you pulled your panties, dragging it down your leg, tossing it to join the rest of your clothes. Sucking two fingers, you slid them along the folds, rubbing and spreading them, soft moans leaving your mouth. Joshua could already feel the blood rush down to his dick again. But not yet, he wanted to savour this sight first.

He watched as you reached for your clit, putting some much needed pressure on it as your head fell back, breath getting shaky and ragged as the feeling built in you. Your free hand found your boobs, squeezing it hard, the remnants of Joshua's cum smearing filthily. The man almost gave in, ready to rail you into tomorrow when coincidentally, the chime of the clock echoed in the room, indicating it was midnight.

You stopped moving, eyes glancing at the clock before turning to him, lips breaking into a sweet smile.

“Happy birthday Shua.”

Cocking his head at you, Joshua returned your smile.

“Happy birthday to you too sweetheart.”

The two of you sharing birthdays, Joshua didn't know whether to call it fate or a lucky coincidence but it was this similarity that drove the entire plot. It all started 4 months ago when he was looking for his next set of victims. He had just finished up with that old woman, Ye Soon, and frankly, all his targets were getting incredibly easy, serving him no excitement, no thrill.

He had stopped by at the gas station one day, hopping over to the store to buy a pack of gum when he overheard a bunch of young women chattering away about how the end of the year was packed with back to back parties - first with the Mayor's daughters birthday on the 30th, then new years on the 31st. Joshua had smiled to himself. What a perfect way to end the year indeed - a significant figure like the Mayor's daughter would definitely raise the stakes. Oh it would be so fun.

And fun it was.

The Mayor's daughter was a beautiful girl and stalking her was more exciting than Joshua anticipated. He didn't think it would be this easy to follow her around but she had an affinity for running away and falling in trouble. Oh she was perfect. But that was something else that was a little more interesting than the silly shenanigans she was up to - Joshua wasn't her only stalker, you were too.

At first, Joshua thought his eyes were playing tricks. The two of you were strikingly similar, but as far as he knew, the Mayor only had one daughter, not twins. Upon throwing himself into a little more research, Joshua found out about how the two of you grew up in an orphanage but were adopted into different families and to his luck, you were actually a part of his town. Something told him having you on his side might just make all the difference.

So he began with meeting you almost regularly at the bee farm you worked in. Not many people dropped by there given the bees were quite terrifying but those tiny things were nothing for Joshua, he had bigger things to focus on. Given he was the only person you saw nearly everyday, a friendship began blossoming between the two of you and you slowly started opening up to him, telling him about your life. About how you hated your sister, how you were the one the Mayor wanted to adopt but she had locked you in the storeroom while she took your place and left to live a life full of luxuries. You on the other hand were taken in by two farmers who were negligent, unbothered and died very early in your life in a car crash. Since then you grew up isolated, constantly looking at your sister's life bitterly, knowing that it should have been yours.

Surprisingly, that was the easiest part. All it took was some praise, some attention and a few sessions of love making - within a month, you were ready to do or die for him. Then all he did was feed you his sorrows - talk about how he wasn't getting a promotion because his ridiculous ex was interfering in his workplace, about how he needed to do something exemplary to climb the ranks. That's how he had convinced you to do this stint - you promised you'd go to any extent for him and in exchange, Joshua promised you revenge. This was your chance to get back at your sister for ruining your life.

You did however keep asking him who the real killer was. Joshua knew you were head over heels for him, but he wasn't sure if you'd really stick through something as dark as his past. He didn't want to take the chance before his plan came to fruition. But now as he observed you looking up at him with earnest eyes as you fingered yourself, he wondered if you were ready to know more. Sure you listened to everything he said, going faster when he instructed you, stopping when he asked you to, even though you were almost about to cum, you loved him enough to listen. But was it enough to handle more?

He could find out about that later, right now he had enough of looking at you pleasuring yourself, he needed to be inside you urgently.

“Come here.”

Standing up immediately, you walked over to him as Joshua fixed his eyes between your legs, at the arousal dripping down your inner thigh. Using your own fingers, he collected your release, slipping them into his mouth, relishing the taste of you. No matter how many times he had eaten you out and made you scream on his tongue, every time felt heavenly.

Grabbing you by the thighs he pulled you closer and you already knew what you had to do. Turning around, you leaned back against him, grabbing his dick from behind and aligning it with your wanting hole before sinking down on it slowly.

“It doesn't matter how many times I fuck you.” Joshua groaned, relishing the way your walls fluttered around him. “You're still so tight.”

You didn't say anything in response, it didn't seem like you could, not with his dick so far in you.

“Fuck yourself on me baby.” He whispered, his grip on your waist bruisingly tight. “This is your reward.”

Muttering a string of thank yous, you began moving, rotating and rocking your hips, wantonly squeezing him tight. Joshua knew you were trying to reach for those sensitive spots so he let you, biting and sucking on the soft skin of your shoulder instead, leaving a trail of red. When you began clamping around him unbelievably tightly, he landed a warning smack on your ass.

“Move.”

And you did, bouncing up and down his length vigorously, pouring your everything into it, loud moans tumbling out of your mouth. Squeezing your boob hard, he trailed his hand up your chest, wrapping it around your neck, holding you against him while his other hand found your clit, drawing figure eights. It didn't take you much to fall apart around him considering you had already fucked yourself on your fingers for a while. Joshua could feel your arousal dripping down his length as he continued to thrust his length up.

“Sensitive…” You whined, holding his hand tight, when he just wouldn't stop. “Shua please…”

“Shh.” He muttered, pushing you off him much to your surprise before getting up himself and throwing you onto the chair instead, your knees on the seat as your hands held the backrest. Joshua stripped out of his shirt tossing it aside before he smacked you again hard, thrusting himself much deeper inside.

“Fuck, shua….it's too much.” You nearly cried as he began to snap his hips into you, your orgasm blending into another one.

“Come on baby.” He softly nibbled on your ear in complete contrast to how roughly he was pounding into you. “Don't I deserve a gift too?”

You didn't complain after that, only graphic moans and whines escaping your lips. This was the best birthday he could have asked for - here he was finally fucking you after so many days and there, your sister, his final victim was taking her last breath.

Joshua thought it was rather beautiful, the way it all came to an end. He knew your sister couldn't go more than a few hours without her usual drugs so he had made sure she had access to a little secret stash that she could sniff on when no one was looking. Little did she know, Joshua had poisoned it.

Not only that, he had also managed to slip a thin folded paper into her pants just before she was thrown in the cell. It read that she was guilty for all ten crimes and was incredibly repentful - she didn't think she deserved to live. That was his final victim of the year - another death on the 30th, another death on their birthday.

There was no particular reason why Joshua picked this date or why it had to be their birthday - he simply wanted to create a pattern, see if anyone could crack it, if anyone was smarter than him. So far, it seemed like nobody was even close. Perhaps, only after he died and as per requested in his will, if his diary was published as a book, would people know exactly what he was capable of. For now, he alone revelled in and celebrated his intelligence. Maybe you if you were strong enough for it.

Perhaps not, Joshua wondered as he glanced at you, sound slowly reducing as you inched closer to passing out. Gripping your hips tighter he began fucking you harder and faster, pushing himself to finish before you blacked out. Recognising his pace becoming erratic as he neared his climax, you looked over your shoulder.

“I haven't been taking the pill for a while Shua…”

He groaned, not stopping his thrusts. “You know how much I love cumming inside you.”

“Shua please…” You could barely manage to beg him to stop. Your body had been pushed beyond its limit.

Owing to your silence, he groaned, jerking his hips, once, then again and then he came, white coating your walls as he emptied himself into you. You fell forward, spent and exhausted as Joshua pulled out, watching his cum drip out of you.

Fuck. You were perfect.

This was perfect.

Everything was perfect.

It was probably the wee hours of the morning when you woke up, your throat hurting and dry. You rolled your head to the side finding Joshua fast asleep beside you on the bed. He had dragged you here for round two, fucking you into oblivion before moving to round three where he slowly made love, dumping load after load in you. Thankfully, he cleaned you up before sleeping - you had passed out the moment the two of you were done.

You slipped out of the bed slowly so as to not disturb him, desperate for a glass of water. Stretching, you grabbed the spare blanket and wrapped it around your naked body. Struggling to walk thanks to how sore you were all over you made your way to the kitchen, flipping the switches and bit back a scream.

Stranding by the counter was an old woman, leaning against it, looking at you like she was waiting for you. Instinctively you grabbed a knife from the nearby drawer, pointing it at her threateningly.

“W-who are you? And what-”

“You know who I am.” She said, straightening and stepping closer to the window. Your eyes widened. That was impossible - it was as though the moonlight was passing through her. You ran your eyes over her features. She had white hair, her back was bent weirdly, there was a burn mark on her hand….. Ye Soon.

“Oh Y/n,” She took a step forward. “Don't you want to know who the actual killer is?”

You continued to stare, jaw slightly hung, still unable to fathom what was happening. The spirits were a story the two of you had spun, how could it be…

“Who are you talking to?”

You turned around sharply at the sound of Joshua’s voice. He walked out, dressed in his pants, rubbing his eyes as he looked at you confused.

He couldn't see Ye Soon.

“You wanted to know the killer didn't you?” The old woman's voice was right by your ear. “Look, there he is.”

Your eyes widened, grip on the knife tightening as you stared at the man before you wordlessly. Joshua frowned, his eyes flickering between the knife and you as his eyes narrowed.

Outside, the loud sirens of the ambulance heading towards the precinct resounded in the otherwise quiet town. It seems the story of the Calendar Killer had finally come to an end.

A/n - If you have made it all the way here, thank you for reading, I know it was intense and heavy but I hope you enjoyed it! Do let me know your thoughts in the comments or tags, particularly about the twist - I need to know if my crazy mind managed to pull this off or not

#lola's recs <3 #i am still stunned by this fic #sending kisses to your brain (consensually)#officer josh can have my ass any day 🫶#just kidding #OR AM I #i can take him #(not in a fight)#omg who said that?#scandalous #but lmao i was having my own true crime podcast #it was that good #holding everyone at gunpoint to read this pt. 30 #yes it's 30 ...#also happy shua birth month to everyone #this is the most perfect fic to read now #and mia hfkdnciskjvfdclsx not you calling me loml in the mention 🥺🥺#i love you too !!

552 notes · View notes