#nicotine lips

That smile, that damned smile, it was burned on the inside of your eyelids. Yet you liked what happened last night… er, this morning. At the cost of your head, wrists, sleep, your suit--wait. Your suit, your nice black cashmere suit with the red accents! You slapped a palm against your head, ow bad idea, fuck you let the cum dry up in the vest and pants for at least seven hours and there’s no way you could take that to the cleaners without getting weird looks. That was your favorite outfit too, damn it, god fucking damn it.

A hot shower and sad goodbye to your clothes later, you were sitting in your living room eating some brunch with the TV playing the news in the background. “Another sad day for our hero society, a young aspiring hero ended up passing away in the hospital earlier this morning after an encounter with a powerful villain…” The anchorwoman explains that the hero was attacked just up the street from where you worked between the hours of 12 and two in the morning. Hm... you do recall hearing a ruckus when you stepped out on your break… “A bystander managed to get a recording on their phone, the following may be disturbing so viewer discretion is advised.” A blurry video began to play, it was obvious that the owner of the phone was terrified as the image was shaky. At first it did not seem like much and the bystander was just recording the night sky. Then out of nowhere two figures came crashing down directly onto a passing car, stopping it in its tracks and making the cameraman jump. The scene was too foggy to tell but the larger silhouette was seen picking up a limp body by the head. A boisterous laughter boomed from the scary figure, then stopped suddenly as the shadow slowly turned to the cameraman. Orange-circles glinted to the person recording, the video paused in the middle of a quick motion, leaving the viewers to assume the worst became of the poor soul recording. You were always one to be apathetic towards the victims shown on the news, however this time you felt your stomach twist into knots. Here you were, thinking on the whole situation as if it was just any regular thug wanting a quickie with a stranger on the street. It had never occurred to you that he probably only pulled you in because he was on a murder high. Sexual fantasy, more like a next-morning-nightmare! You gagged, a hand swiftly covering your mouth to try and keep the bit of food you’ve consumed down in your stomach. Hopefully, no one saw him with you in the alleyway, so no one could track anything back to you and bring up any unwanted attention from the police. Originally you were going to dump the stained suit out into a dumpster but it had remains of both of your DNA, you should probably burn it at this point to leave no evidence. The nicely prepared brunch was now being dumped into the kitchen garbage, unfortunately, you had lost your appetite.

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Days pass on by and soon enough the one-night fling with All Might had faded away to the back of your mind. Your coworkers and some regulars did ask if you were mugged since you looked battered up, so you just went along with the excuse that you were. Telling them you were too tough for the mugger to actually take anything and you managed to only get a few bumps and scratches from the fight. “Heh, even a quirkless son of a bitch like you can put up a fight, huh?”

That’s right, you were quirkless, you were always surrounded with people who had special abilities and could kill you instantly. However, it had the opposite effect on you than normal quirkless individuals. Your parents had enrolled you in fighting classes ever since you were very young so that you had some sort of self-defense in this quirky world and you made it a goal for yourself to never be discouraged by the fact you had no special ability. Still, to be considered the inferior phase of human evolution took its toll on your young developing brain. You recall your younger self researching the common quirks from where you were born to try and figure out if there were any late-bloomer quirks that could come along. Nothing ever emerged…

The bar was full on this rainy night, people coming in and being taken out, tonight was karaoke night which was very popular among the crowd. A gaggle of ladies in their mid-20’s were on stage singing a song from a popular popstar about a man who was so intoxicating he should have came with a warning. They were off-key, but that’s what you expect from a drunken bachelorette party, it wasn’t bad enough to cringe at but not amazing enough to cheer on. “Excuse me?” You turned to whomever it was trying to get your attention. “Yes ma’am, what’ll it be?” “A piña colada please” “Coming right up” Something fruity for a change, a perfect drink to get into a more tropical and carefree mood. A few moments and blending later you handed her the drink she ordered with a cute colorful loopy straw and tiny umbrella. The only thing really killing the fun atmosphere was the television on the other side of the bar replaying the news from this morning. The audio was kept on silent and displayed the subtitles of what the anchor couple were discussing.  More news about the fallen hero’s funeral being rained out, so it had to be delayed. The storm was getting bad and beginning to flood the streets closer to the beach. The weather woman advised citizens avoid driving to the shores and to be cautious when walking their children to school. The chitter chatter and singing were abruptly interrupted when the doors of the bar swung with a gust of wind rushing in. Lightning flashed and thunder crashed as a tall spooky figure appeared out of the night in the doorway. The people of in the bar were silent, even you were startled, but the scare began to mellow out when it turned out to just be a simple skeleton like man standing at the door. Conversations resumed and everyone’s attention was back to what they were originally doing. The man walked his way into the building, taking off his coat and handing it over to one of the attendees to let it hang dry. Other than for his midbody; his head, shoulders, and the pants up to his knees were soaking wet. He seemed, familiar, but you see dozens of new faces a night, you couldn’t possibly place where you’ve seen that face before. The blond stranger took a seat at the bar, shivering slightly from the warm air now reaching his cold body. You sauntered on over with a more generous smile this time, karaoke nights always put you in a good mood and it’s a good thing too since you couldn’t go out back for a smoke break. “What can I get for you, sir?” “Just… water for now.” His mind must’ve preoccupied with buzzing thoughts, probably not ready for an actual drink yet. You pour him a glass of water, no ice, he seemed cold enough. Water was free so there was no thought on putting on any tab of his. A few moments passed as you attended to other patrons, keeping an eye on the shivering individual. “You allergic to dairy?” You had asked the man who turned his attention to his phone. “What?” “Dairy or chocolate bad for you?” “...No?” He raised a brow at you, suspicious on the question you asked him. Why were you concerned on that, he thought. His curiosity was answered as you slid over a mug of hot chocolate his way, the smell filling your surroundings. He looked down at the beverage and then up to you. “It’s on the house, besides, you look like you could use something to warm you up on the inside.” You reached down and tossed up a can of whipped cream, catching it in the other hand without breaking eye contact with him. “Whipped cream?” The man blinked, then raised a brown with a slight smirk forming on his face. “Was I supposed to be impressed?” “Yes!” At least you’re honest. He huffed, “Sure, just a bit on top.” Your smile beamed a bit more, now you took the can and twirled it around in your hands, tossing it above your head like some sort of juggling act. You could never do this with the heavy containers of whipped cream, so if you want to be flashy you always keep the store bought cans around as well. With a final flip, you squeezed out a perfect little swirl of whipped cream onto the hot chocolate. Reaching over to the spices on your counter and sprinkling some cocoa powder on top. “One hot chocolate, on the house.” You didn’t add any rum to it since this guy doesn’t seem like the alcohol-drinking kind. “Really laying it on thick.” “Hey man, gotta try and enjoy the job somehow,” you shrugged. “Bartending not what you expected?” He asked, picking up the mug and keeping it in his hands to warm them up. “It’s not that, just been doing it for a long while now, gotta keep it spicy and interesting.” You pulled off your drying rag from your shoulder to clean some spots off of the freshly washed cups your coworker brought over. “Always get interesting characters coming in every night I’m here. To be honest, it’s never dull here, just every now and then ya need something exciting to happen.” The memory of All Might from last week returned to your mind for a split second. “Who likes a boring barman anyways?” The other made a sound of acknowledgement since his mouth was busy sipping up the hot beverage. He set it back down and licked the whipped cream off from the top of his lip. Out of habit, you handed him another napkin, you’re used to drunk people spilling drinks all over themselves so napkins go all around. His attention seemed fixated on your neck, a long finger pointed out towards you. “Something happen?” Your hand moved up to touch your neck where a dull pain arose when you did. “Ah, this was just from a fight from a mugger, nothing serious.” “Looks like a love bite to me.” His remark made your body tense up. “Love bite? Like from a partner or something? No, the guy just had a… dog quirk and bit me to try and get me to submit my wallet to him.” The lie, the liiie, it was all obviously a liiiieee. The man seemed amused by your reaction. You felt your cheeks get hot and scratched at the stubble on your jaw to try and play it off. “I should go check on other orders, call me over if you need anything else.” “Will do” With that, you returned to your bartending duties and left the scrawny person to himself.

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The work shift had come to an end but the rain continued to storm through the night. This time, you decided to take a taxi back to your place so not to catch a cold. What a shame, you were hoping to at least get one smoke break but the rain just wasn’t letting you, there was no smoking room in the building either. You didn’t like smoking in your place because the stench would sink into your walls and furniture. You paid the taxi driver and walked out of the cab, jogging up to your door and unlocking it. “Shit, shit, shit” You made it in just fine but the rain was so cold. You kicked off your shoes and them off to the side, removing your coat and hanging it up. Slipping on the soft cotton slippers, you jogged over to your room to change into some clean dry clothes. You love autumn and the nice cool weather it brings but sometimes the rain can be too much to bear. Thunder roared across the land as you picked up your wet, dirty clothes and took them into the laundry room. Returning to the front where you left your shoes to properly clean them before they fully dried. As you paced to the living room to have a seat on the couch, a gust of cold wind hit you and you noticed one of your windows were open. “Oh fuck!” You ran over and quickly closed it, did you leave it open all night? You looked around to see how much water damaged was caused but… there was hardly any. Surely that wouldn’t be the case if the window was left open all night during a storm, and you didn’t open it when you arrived home, so then, wh- Footsteps of heavy wet boots behind you caused your heart to drop...Someone broke into your house when you weren’t looking and now, now you’re going to have to fight them to get them out. The night was going amazingly and now you have to deal with some burglar trying to steal from your home. Slowly you turned around, your eyes widened in horror and the color drained from your face as you saw who it was that entered your abode.

I'll miss seeing her cheeks peek out from behind her faded bangs as she laughs. I'll miss her large figure lazily resting in her chair, legs splayed out in those yellow jeans. And I'll miss turning, and seeing her look at me. Seeing her eyes all crinkled up with laughter, encased in eyeliner as they are.

I'll feel her empty seat and it will draw my eyes, I know it will. I'll hear her laugh ringing in the air one last time before I forget it, but I will never forget her. There will always be a face to the name. Shelby. Who straightened her faded green corkscrew curls even though they were beautiful, and laughed at the simple things, and radiated confidence, and had a rainbow of jeans in her closet, and smoked outside the school in the mornings, and dated my best friend. I will always miss her.