to know that you’ll leave
don’t you lock when you’re fleeing
beach baby - bon iver
The only thing that was keeping you together in this moment was the cigarette in your hand. You don’t even smoke religiously, it was more of a one or two-time thing. For some reason, however, holding it tight between your pointer and middle finger, it was comforting. A warm contrast to the past events of the night that had severely spiralled out of your control.
You sit on the curb outside the old theater, somewhere vaguely in the downtown city of Sina. A quiet buzzing from the neon lights behind you is the only sound that pierces through the dark of the night. You reach into your coat pocket, trying to fish out your lighter. To your dismay, it's nowhere to be found, vanished into the depths of your house, or something.
Probably.
Shit.
You set your hand on your knee, propping your head on it and looking out into the dark. Still holding the unlit cigarette between your fingers. You think back to your morning, blissfully unaware of the events that whatever God above had planned for you today. Morning tea, a shower, scrolling through your phone, stalking people on Instagram, stalking yourself on Instagram. A rather boring day, but still calming nonetheless. Did you really have no life? Is that too much? Too hard on yourself? Still, it could be-
“Need a light?” Your thoughts are cut off suddenly, draining to the back of your mind as you spot the person in front of you. You look up from the curb, seeing a lean figure peering down at you. Oval shaped glasses complimented their hooked nose, and you swear you see a glint in them as they look down at you. Something’s off, you can’t tell in the dark, but there’s only one eye staring down at you, not two.
“Oh, uh, yeah, thanks,” you mutter quietly, embarrassed with your own staring. You aren’t left to grieve your idiocy as they settle onto the curb next to you, pulling out a fancy looking lighter. They lean over and light your cigarette for you, but you’re too busy taking notice of how slender their fingers were, almost dainty if they were not as callous as they were. You take a small puff of the cigarette, the smell overwhelming your nose and letting the burn settle into your lungs.
“Rough night?” They ask quietly, not like they care, but just curious as to what had you sitting on a curb smoking a cigarette at midnight.
“You could say that,” Comfortable silence fills the air as they light their own cigarette, taking a long drag and allowing the smoke to swirl around them before dissipating into the sky.
“Lover’s spat? Or maybe something of that sort?” They tease you lightly. Not rude in the slightest, no, not at all. Truly just trying to bring a smile to your face and light up the clearly pissy mood you were in.
“Please, I wouldn’t be smoking on the curb over that,” You retort, a quiet chuckle leaving both of your lips as you look into the sky. The comfort of holding the cigarette comes back to you, the smell, the taste, the way it engraved its way into your lungs as you take another drag, keeping the roll between your lips.
“Well, what could have you smoking on a curb at midnight?” That’s the real question. Something about the way they said it, a tinge of care in their voice. Were they keeping an ill intention? Sure, a girl smoking on a curb was an easy target, but they didn’t quite strike you as the type to do something like that, even if you had only met five minutes ago.
You turn your head to look at them, really look at them. Their jawline was sharp, maybe even sharp enough to cut you. Glasses hung loosely on their face, falling down their defined nose as they push them up and turn their head to you. That’s when you see it, an eyepatch. Are eyepatches in this year? Could they have had some terrible accident and lost it? Maybe they really were some kind of kidnapper. You cringe internally as you realize you were staring again, but respond nonetheless.
“I lied, it was kind of a lover’s spat,” You admit quietly, still looking at their face. Their neutral expression curves into a small smile.
“Knew it,” they chuckle quietly, the buzz of the neon lights behind you seeming much louder than before as you get lost in their face, memorizing each curve and crook. They take a much larger puff from their cigarette, certainly bigger than one you could ever take. “Well, that’s how the cookie crumbles, I suppose,”
You turn back to the night sky, thinking of how it all had gone down.
-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-
Right as you arrived into your office for the day, the smell of coffee infiltrated the air, the new keurig had definitely been put to work. A quiet morning of typing and clicking away at your computer had become the new normal for you, the day sleazing away slowly. A letter slides it’s way onto your desk from an intern, pausing your work for a moment as curiosity gets the better of you.
Curiosity sure did get the cat.
A firing notice.
-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-
You fumbled with your keys to get into the shared apartment between you and Jean. High school sweethearts. It never truly was like it used to be. Soft, sweet kisses traded behind bleachers turned into lustful and rough ones. The change is obvious in your boyfriend, whether it was graduating highschool, getting a job, whatever the cause, he was a new man.
Something about his old ways was much more appealing to you than the Jean you knew now. Coming home late, being cold, arguing more often, the same spark you used to see in his eyes now faded into a dark and icy glare. The tenderness you used to adore faded through time as well, and you finally snapped out of your thoughts enough to open your front door.
Although you wish you hadn’t. Some part of you prayed and wished for some disaster to befall upon you that ended your day, your life even. Time itself froze as you looked at the sight in front of you. Jean, his hands frozen in place as he snapped his head to your front door. A sick, churning feeling in your stomach overwhelms you. His hands had frozen on his pants, as if he was in the midst of pulling them down. It registers to you that another person is here. A girl, some sick impostor of yourself.
You don’t even remember how you made it to your room, let alone lock the door behind you. A lump forms quickly in your throat but you refuse to let him see you cry over someone as dimwitted as him. As lowly of a person as him.
“Y/N, come on. I swear-” Jean cuts himself off, even he doesn't know how to defend himself. Some form of sadness, maybe even sickness, overwhelms you again. He really thought he would try some of this bullshit on you? You know what you saw.
You were curious as to who the girl was, but as they say. Curiosity killed the cat.
-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-
You recount your day to the mysterious figure still seated at your side on the curb. The firing, Jean, and his… mishap. Once you finish your story, the both of you take a very needed drag of a cigarette, exhaling slowly.
“I just left the apartment. God, why am I spilling all of this to a stranger?” You shrink in on yourself, the reality that you just poured your guts out to a stranger hitting you in full force.
“No, I’m never one to judge about sharing how you feel. Maybe I could learn a thing or two from you,” they chuckle softly, adjusting their glasses again to fit their nose. “I’m Hange. See? Not strangers anymore.”
You laugh softly, smiling at their remark and moving your gaze back to them. “Y/N,” you utter quietly. You weren’t ashamed of your name, just nervous as to how they would react. Why were you so nervous?
“I can understand leaving though. I would do the same.”
“Guess we both just run from our problems.”
“That’s so cringy.”
“Yeah, but it’s true.”
“Maybe,” they reply quietly, stubbing their cigarette out onto the ground and tossing it in a nearby trash can. “Don’t stay out too late, yeah?” they start walking in a different direction, leaving you still sitting on the same curb you had started on. You felt better, sure, but the same sickness still sat in your stomach, a pooling sickly feeling that overwhelmed you.
“Yeah.”
As they disappear from your sight, you stub your cigarette as well. Standing up and brushing yourself off, something falls from your pocket. Their lighter, with a note that had fallen underneath it.
Shit, they were smooth.
-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-
euphonia - chapter one