#scripted.

She was carefully not thinking about the last time she saw Elijah. The way he'd looked at her then—like her parents did sometimes, like they couldn't quite believe what she'd become, like they couldn't quite stomach it. He was supposed to be different. Better. In the end, though, she supposed one didn't have to grow up in Marrow to understand that there was something wrong with Maki Matsui.

The smoke curled up out her nose, bitter but sweet. Cotton candy and nicotine. She didn't bother offering him her cigarettes this time, not that he'd have accepted one anyway. “Guess you're out of a job now? Bummer. Or not, maybe. 'Cause, no offence, but grave digging sounds like a nightmare.”

Maki uncapped the lip gloss, applied a fresh layer over her lips, smacking them once, then twice, before addressing the only other person in the room. “You're talking to yourself, you know.” She fastened the cap back onto her tube of lip gloss then dropped it into her purse before fully turning to face Roya. “You're okay, right? You're not... hearing voices or anything, are you? If you are then you better not let anyone catch you with a pill bottle. You remember what happened the last time someone got caught taking antidepressants. People couldn't stop talking about it for months.”

Nobody really knew the circumstances of how Revna Gore came to die, only that it made a pretty picture afterwards. Maki had her own thoughts about it. A girl who loved the church that much would die for it, wouldn't she? Simple. You devote yourself to something long enough and hard enough, and you either get rewarded for it or die trying to find the prize. Revna Gore, Bible freak, probably prayed for this. Eyes closed, rosary in hand, sitting in the church pews and asking for deliverance. She probably dunked her head in the font waiting for God to pull her back out.

Well. Apparently all that praying earned a miracle, after all.

Oh, Nurse Lotse, not even a ring on your finger could save you from tragedy, could it?

Maki imagined she might've been jealous at some point. All girls who dream of nothing but love and love and love would be jealous of that ring on Lianna's finger, and the look on her almost-husband's face whenever she was near. Now, well. What's there to be jealous of? The lost time? The stink of death? The madness lingering underneath pale skin? It was much easier to pity her instead, so that's what Maki did.

“You look—” like yourself, but not fully yourself. Like a ghost. Like something that doesn't belong. “—Nice.” Poor thing, she thought. Poor thing. “I mean, clearly you're not having a very good hair... or face day, but we all have those sometimes.”

Maki breezes through the diner doors, looking around as if searching for someone, stopping when her eyes alight on—oh, fun—Ridley the first. She slides into the seat opposite Helena before she can get up and leave, batting her lashes at the other girl with a smile.

Damn it. Couldn't even get a drink anymore without running into one of them. Father Romero's flock. Maki hesitated. She didn't frequent the dive bar typically. The glasses never looked fully clean to her, and she'd ruined one of her favourite skirts by sitting on a stained barstool. Never again.

Funny though, the things she was willing to stoop to after the dead decided to just not be dead anymore. But you know what? No. She wasn't going to leave just because there was a stranger by the counter. This was her town dammit, and her nasty, dirty bar. Why did she have to be the one to leave?

She sauntered up to the bar, a determined set to her jaw, and then ordered a Vodka Cranberry. “With a straw,” she demanded, because she wasn't touching her lips to the glass if she could help it. Then, she finally turned to look at that unwelcome face. It was a pretty face, which she could grudgingly admit, but still, unwelcome. “So... is there a departure date imminent for you and your... friends? Or has the small town charm actually won you over? 'Cause if we're going to be neighbours, we can't really have any secrets between us, you know. Small town rules and all that. You understand, don't you?”

There had been a funeral, Maki remembered, even if those days tended to blur when she thought back to them now; just a mess of black clothes and rain and crying turned to numbness. She was doing a good job of holding it together, she thought. Likely nobody else would agree, but what did that matter?

Case in point: Aisha Federov al-Kattani. Maki hadn't flinched when she struck up conversation, and that counted for something. But then Aisha started talking and all Maki could do was stare at her mouth, thoughts drifting to how it was even possible for it to still be moving. You died like an idiot, she wanted to say. Stay away from treadmills, she wanted to warn. Don't even think about opening TikTok.