#p001

A stupid joke. That’s what it was. He couldn’t even find out who was responsible for hiring him a stripper for his birthday--surely not Makoto. Asahi, maybe? Nagisa? It didn’t matter. Haru tried to get out of there right away but his friends made sure he had the front row seat for the show and couldn’t go anywhere.

“Haru-chan! He’s all yours!”

“Don’t call me----” He couldn’t finish his sentence as he was met face to face with the ‘stripper’. He was good-looking at least. A cop uniform--cliche, even for Haru, who wasn’t well-versed with strippers. A stupidly attractive face coupled with what was probably an equally attractive body. 

“--I’m leaving,” he declared and stood from the seat he’d previously gotten pushed into by his friends.

The stripper had brilliant red eyes.

Deciding that enough was enough, there was clearly nothing else she could do, she was just going to have to live with having a slight brown stain on her shirt all day, she sighed, straightening her back. Moving over to the mirrors, she grabbed her lipstick out of her bag. As she reapplied it, the door opened. She couldn’t help but stare slightly in the reflection. She was beautiful. Realising how creepy it would be if she noticed, Dakota shook her head at herself, putting the lid back on. Sighing once more, she slung her bag onto her shoulder. Moving to the door, she reached out, to pull the handle, only for it to come off in her hand. Her eyes widened, looking down. “Oh fuck no, let’s not do this today.” She muttered to herself. Throwing it on the ground, she tried to grab the door, trying to pull it towards her. Of course, she wasn’t having much luck. “Fuck today.” She half growled, rooting round in her bag. Grabbing her phone, she rang the reception of the building, with no answer. Leaving a quick message, basically telling them to let her out, she threw it on the counter, hoisting herself up. May as well get comfortable. “Um, so we are kind of stuck in here, so yeah…” She called out, rolling her eyes at just how stupid she must have sounded right now.

            ‘Let me show you the autopsy lab.’         

    Yael hated first day tours. She knew they were a necessity if she wanted to get used to her new work place, but sometimes she felt like turning to whomever was her guide as telling them she truly prefered to get to know the place as she went along the day to day chaos. She fit well amongst CHAOS, and that was something she was weirdly proud of, although perhaps that wasn’t a particularly good thing from a broader point of view. That being said, every word her guide pronounced went through and through her mind, only leaving a few traces and the more important information she picked up. 

    As they reached the basement floor Yael assumed to be the more medical area of the facility and turned a corner, she caught a glipse of a familiar face. At first she thought she was seeing a GHOST, or probably just someone who happened to look like one. But then it seemed like said ghost was also seeing a ghost, and that was when Yael knew there were no spirits involved, but just a bad case of ‘what the fuck is she doing here’ from both parties. So much so that her so called ghost even turned around and walked back to where she’d come from. Yael tilted her head slightly, her teeth nervously tugging on her lower lip as she watched the figure leave her sight. She sighed, quickly acting as she’d regained her posture and smiled at her ‘tour guide’. 

       The tour was far over. Yael’d been presented to her own office, where some kind enough people had already brought her boxes to. Unpacking one of them, she was pleasently surprised with the Washington Capitals puck she’d been gifted a few years ago from SOMEONE who hadn’t managed to leave her mind for the past hour. Just as if that was a holy sign, Yael put the puck back in the box to be added to the decoration later and left her office. As the door behind her – which read ‘Detective Yael Regenbogen’ – closed, she walked down in a fast pace to the main lounge of the building. Approaching the first person she found closest to where she was, Yael bent over to look at them. 

         “Excuse me, where can I find Cole Manning?”

       After a quick glance at her shiny new badge, the officer directed Yael to where she wanted to go. Upon reaching the office but still standing from afar, her eyes scanned the name on the glass with uncertainty — but with a deep breath, Yael walked up to the half-open door. Leaning with her arms crossed under her chest and her shoulder against the doorframe she watched the other woman for a few seconds before finally announcing her presence.

        “You ran from me earlier. You do realize you can’t really HIDE from me, right, Manning? We’re in the same building, and I am a detective, after all.”

@fxrensiic

Home, Belmount Motors. Belmount Motors, home. That was Drew’s routine. That had been the entirety of her days for the past three months ever since she’d moved to town. Half of it was planned - she couldn’t allow herself to wander freely around town and risk the chance of bumping into a way familiar someone. The other half was pure obligation. She had little to no free time in her days to actually do whatever that wasn’t be at the shop and handle people and staff, or be at home trying to figure out the numbers to pay for everything. How she’s been surviving, you may ask? Phone shopping. A 21st century miracle, according to Drew. But in this boring ass Saturday afternoon, she was running out of basically everything in her apartment. Usually, she wouldn’t have let that happen, but work had gotten the best of her that week. After calling the grocery store four times and receiving no answer, Drew figured she was going to have to go out and buy herself some stuff - otherwise she’d starve for the night.

She walked through the grocery store doors in the most ordinary atire she could think up when she left home. She wanted to fit in, so she wore what she’d seen most people in town wear to go grocery shopping. It’s safe to say that Drew was paranoid at first; looking around before turning every corner, she certainly didn’t want to run into any client pissed at her for ‘how long it was taking for the car fix’. She definitely wasn’t in the mood for that. But, after the first few minutes, she was already walking around carelessly in the store, picking up whatever she needed from the many shelves and isles of the establishment. At the turn of a corner, though, she froze. Drew couldn’t even help her own jaw dropping slightly. She, for sure, shouldn’t have been too surprised to see Ezra de los Santos standing there, staring fiercely at tomato paste - Ezra fucking lived in that town. And Drew knew that. She knew that so well she’d even moved to Fort Belmount after her. She wasn’t prepared though. She’d been planning, for the past three months, the best way to approach Ezra and say ‘hey, I moved here after you because I can’t stop thinking about what we had and I just feel like our story is not done’. One might say Drew was full of shit and that she, after doing a stupidly spontaneous decision, couldn’t pick up the courage to go after Ezra.

But maybe this was a sign. The only time she spent more than thirty minutes somewhere other than her apartment or the shop, she found Ezra. It was fate. It had to happen right there in the grocery store. So, in a moment of brilliancy, Drew came up with the most perfect plan. She took a few steps back into the isle she was previously in, and held her basket in a determined manner. Looking down at it, she turned the corner and entered the following isle. The one Ezra was in. Drew pretended as if she was counting the amount of pea cans in her basket, and then, after a few steps into the isle, purposefully bumped her shoulder into Ezra’s. “Oh, God, sorry, I didn’t see you the--,” Drew stopped herself. The movements she made to bump into Ezra might’ve been fake as shit, but nobody could even dare to say the same about her reaction as she looked up to face the woman she hadn’t seen in years. “Holy fuck.”

Reaching the studio, she automatically stood in the same place she always did, stretching against the barre. Even with practice she still managed to be the first one there. She smiled at everyone as they slowly began to trickle in. She didn’t have enough confidence to talk to them, though. She was always on the shy side. It was a habit that she carried through high school, when everyone knew exactly who she was. Here, she was more anonymous, but it didn’t stop her from worrying that one day she would have to tell everyone the truth. Even the girls she was closest to, her best friends, didn’t know the full story of her family. She had grew up in a tiny house, barely enough room for her parents and her two siblings. Although, that was rectified slightly when her father went to jail, for armed robbery. That had been ten years ago, and he was due to be released soon, and Ally was not looking forward to it. Her mother had since moved on, marrying someone much better, finding a better life for herself. Her older brother, well he was showing signs of following their father’s footsteps, and so it rested on Ally to be the role model for her younger sister. Hence, putting all her time and effort into making sure her college experience was perfect and worthwhile. But these were all things she didn’t tell anyone. She had told people her parents had split, but always said her dad moved away, not the truth. While her mother still may not be rich enough to help her out with college, Ally didn’t need to worry about that, her scholarship taking care of all her fees, and being a dance major, she barely need any text books. Her main expense was her dance-wear, and travel, but again, she received help from the administration for this. This was something else she kept to herself. Most of the girls she was friends with had grown up barely ever wanting for anything, and so Alison didn’t want to be different. Sure, they knew she wasn’t as well off as them, but they didn’t know about how they used to miss meals regularly because her mom hadn’t made enough tips the day before, or how she shared a tiny box room with her sister until she moved out. No, they didn’t need to know any of that. They saw the girl she was now. They girl who never let anything get to her, who was optimistic and enthusiastic about everything.

The teacher was the last one to walk through the door, and as soon as she entered, Alison stood still, her attention focused. It was the start of a new project, one which saw them having to pair up, to come up with a routine for the piece of music they were given. As the teacher began to read out the pairs, and handing them a copy of the different pieces. Alison waited patiently to hear her name. She had observed enough of the class to know that she would be happy to be paired with anyone, they all had extremely high standards. So when her name was called, she smiled over at her new partner, Igor. She had noticed him more so than some of the others that was for sure. It would be hard not to, when he clearly had amazing genes. She took the disc, moving so they were stood next to each other now. “Hi, I’m Alison.” She had never actually spoken to him before, so introducing was the way forward.

And life was good. Until one day it all came crashing down. Her agent, who had a lot more experience in the business than she did, told her it would be better if she wasn’t in a relationship. At the time, she was beginning to get some recognition, small parts in well-known TV shows, a sidekick role in a box-office hit. He claimed that being single would be better for your reputation as a sex symbol, your fan –base will be able to dream and fantasise more. What her relationship status had to do with other people’s fantasies she wasn’t sure. But, naively, she thought that he knew best. And so she ended her relationship. It was not a pretty ending. There had been plenty of tears from both parties, and it was clear that Amelia had been confused and hurt. But Zoe needed to put her career first. It was what she had always worked towards, after all.

Since then, Zoe found herself in bed after bed. One night stands became her new go-to. It drove her team insane, having to try and keep everything on the lowdown, so the media didn’t put out word on what a mess she had become. Between her now active social life, the partying and work, Zoe had managed to convince herself that everything was okay. That she didn’t need Amelia. And then she heard about the gala. She wasn’t even sure what it was for, she had zoned out on the meeting. But she didn’t miss the warning that her ex-girlfriend was going to be there, and that she should play nice. She hadn’t seen her in person in so long. Of course, she saw Amelia’s face practically daily, it was impossible to go anywhere and not see it. She heard her music pretty much any time she turned on the radio and anytime she opened spotify if she was truly honest.

On the night of the gala, Zoe found herself panicking. She had hurt Amelia so bad, she had no idea how the other girl would react in her presence. As the limo pulled up, she heard the loud roar of the paparazzi, the screaming of the fans. She did love the red carpet. As the door opened, thoughts of her ex were quickly forgotten as her smile lit up. She was distracted by signing some autographs, so distracted that she didn’t actually notice as she nearly bumped into Amelia. Eyes wide, her jaw slackened. “Hi.” She murmured, suddenly no longer able to focus on anything but the girl in front of her. Before she could even muster up anything else to say, she heard their names being called, the photographers wanting to snap them together. Biting her lip, Zoe looked to Amelia, silently giving her the choice.