#frvrwriting

"remind me why we signed up for this again” emi huffs as she tries to do a very awkward yoga pose. “i wasn’t made for yoga” they spent most of their time hunched over a desk doing video game stuff, they weren’t all that healthy, “can we sneak out and go get coffee, they won’t notice that we’ve gone”. 

Unexpectedly, all it takes is a suggestion. And it’s not even a suggestion. It’s a whisper of a suggestion. A ghost of a suggestion. A tiny, morsel of a meal that she’s not even sure it even existed. But there it is, lying in the ridiculous sub-text of some words from one of her housemates that she’s stopped in her tracks. Her reply had been a defensive (and maybe too defensive?) ‘no, it’s not like that, we’re just friends’ because of course they’re friends, and thereby are seen with one another quite often. She has to question it for a moment. Is this what it feels like? Is that the emotion she’s heard of? Not ever having catalogued it, she can not be sure. His voice cuts through her daydream. “Huh? What did you say?”

She does love watching him speak and command the conversation, it’s true, but there’s nothing better than when she knows there’s a secret language between them, that there are words and little phrases that he peppers in that only she understands. The others are laughing along with whatever her husband has said, but Yulia’s eyes watch the way his dart to hers every now and then, as if to check she’s still paying attention. It’s been some time since she’s allowed herself the gentleness, and for a moment, allows herself to become lost in it, lost in being young and carefreely in love, before the laughter bubbles through the mirage and she’s back in the ballroom again, listening to him. “My husband, the charmer,” she comments when all the others are gone. “You work harder than the devil himself.” A hand waves her empty glass in the air, attracting a nearby waiter who ushers forward to refill it. “But more handsome.”

The smell of roasted coffee beans hits him first, and then it draws him in, in that cartoonish way almost leading him by the nose, and he follows along obediently. If there’s anybody who decidedly shouldn’t be drinking coffee, it’s Rhian, but he can’t help himself as much as he can avoid the cupcakes that are always have at the counter. There’s a short line, but at the end of it, there’s someone who’s been pointed out to him a few times. A werewolf. Untriggered. Somehow, everyone in their community knew about these things, nothing ever got by a wolf. Or maybe it was because his mom is a colossal gossip. Either way, he knows about her. “Fuck, this line is long,” he grumbles, stepping up behind her. “You want good coffee though, this is the place to be.” He offers a charming smile. “Whitney, right? I’ve heard about you.”