Disclaimer: The only thing I own is the story idea and only some of the witty remarks. I own so little; so please don't steal.

Background music: Temptation Greets You Like a Naughty Friend – Arctic Monkeys

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Metropolitan

She is awake even before the alarm. Such is the internal body clock; cruelly rousing you so you lay there, restless and waiting for the sound to begin the day. Getting up beforehand seemed to cheat her out of precious resting time; but her heart beat faster when she anticipated the startling buzz of the clock. If she didn't look forward to it, she would be sorely disappointed as she did not savor her last moments in bed more; but if she waited for it, the sound would shock her to a state more awake than she'd wanted.

She opens her eyes. Six-twenty-eight.

She collects her clothes from the floor and the foot of her bed. Romina does not remember where or when she picked up this man, or how many drinks she had before she agreed to bring him home. All she can remember is his name; Antonio – a man who had gotten on her nerves, whom she was willing to tumble into bed with. He lies sleeping, peaceful and unknowing of the glare coming from a woman dressed in only a camisole and panties at the foot of the bed.

She doesn't mind living in an apartment; it's been part of her ideal adult life since she was a child – an appropriately sized flat with brick walls; an artist's abode. But she is not an artist, hasn't picked up ceramics since high school, and hot water rarely flows in adequate amounts in the mornings. Romina hisses as the cold water hits her skin, but she lathers the peach-scented shampoo in her hair anyway.

When she returns to her room, Antonio is gone; but his clothes are still there and she suspects he has slunk off to the bathroom down the hallway to get situated. Alone, she picks out her outfit for work, the towel around her body slightly damp as her hair drips on the floor. She hears a male whistling somewhere in the apartment as she slides on her slip, and it grows louder when she pulls on her no-nonsense skirt, tighter than a pair of her little sister's jeans (which still looked great on her, by the way). Antonio walks right into the room, without knocking, before she has time to scramble on a bra or even a shirt. He stares at her, but it's not like he hasn't seen her naked before.

"Hand me that bra over there, would you?"

He makes her breakfast; as he should, as a gentleman. She sits at the table, drinking coffee and reading the paper hastily shoved under the door. Her stocks were failing; no surprise. He slides a plate of food in front of her and she eats, barely paying him any attention.

"Where do you have to be this morning?"

"Office," she says, her eyes still trained on the local story of a kidnapper loose in the city. Such things were commonplace now. Such is life in a city. "Law firm." She glances at him, in his white shirt and jeans. "I assume you don't have to be anywhere?"

He yawns, rubbing his already messy hair into more of a jumble. "Café opens late on Wednesdays," he says. So he's a café waiter. She won't judge.

"I expect you to be gone before I leave."

"I will." He smiles, his green eyes sleepy and warm. "I had a good time last…"

She taps the flat side of her butter knife against his lips. "I won't have any of that," she says sharply. "I've still got makeup, but I want the dishes washed and you out of this building by the time I come back out. And don't let me catch you around these parts looking for me. I've got the law on my side."

"Received, Romina, but…"

"That's Miss Vargas to you."

She stares at herself in the mirror, compact in one hand, applicant in the other. She hears the sound of the sink and dishes clattering against each other. When the water stops, she starts, finishing in less than three minutes to achieve her natural look with a bit of unnatural help. When she comes out, briefcase in hand, the apartment is deserted.

She hates taking the bus, but the city is not a good place to get a car. Garage rental rates and gas prices are much too pricey for her liking, but public transportation is not reliable either. She has been on two bus jackings already. She likes to believe that the first time, she scared the guy off with the glare on her face, her hands slightly splayed in the air, posed in case a camera was watching. The second time, a blonde with a bike in tow, played hero and tackled the gunman, earning himself a hospital stay after being grazed with a bullet to the side. She knows she is lucky; but she is great at escaping and greater at running, even in heels. Years of track practice, albeit stopped, is what keeps her in shape.

Today, she sits near the window (a success; she's been sitting in the aisle row for ages now), but this means that someone else can sit next to her. A long-haired man spots her and aims for the seat next to her, asking her with a French accent if he can sit next to her. She responds by placing her briefcase on the seat and turning back to the city. She hears him grumble and wander off.

Taking the underground transit would be similar, but with much more chances of 'accidental' gropings and anyway, crazy people rode the subway.

The bus stop is two blocks from the law firm, but Romina doesn't mind the walk. The calluses on her heels from her heels have given way to more calluses and she looks sophisticated anyway, strutting down the street in an ashy gray dress suit and effortlessly flowing hair. She turns heads, but she never gives second looks.

Raivis is the office's secretary (also known as, the office's bitch), but she doesn't ask him to get her coffee. Not anymore; since he spilled it all over her one morning, Romina gets coffee herself. It means risking running into Amy, but she'll take the Brit's complaints to second degree burns. This morning, Amy talks to her about how she had to be carded over the weekend and Romina wants to quip something about how ponytails make anyone look juvenile anyway but she turns and goes back to her office. She's resolved to be nice this month.

She goes to lunch an hour early before anyone else. More often than not, she spends a good part of the hour wandering the city before actually settling down; but she needs to be fast today; she's got a date in court. She gets all her swearing out of her system at a bar, picking at the cheap ravioli the joint has and watching soccer on the big screens. A platinum blonde man with a heavy German accent offers to buy her a drink, offers to take her out to dinner when she refuses.

Romina listens to his words and replies with a choice few colorful of her own.

When she walks back to the office, she passes by a coffee house, the fumes of freshly ground Arabica beans wafting out pleasantly. She stops in spite of herself and looks inside the window at the high school girls skipping class to feel classy sipping out of white mugs and eating calorie-ridden brownies. Coffeehouses were always dicey; she spots the French man who nearly assaulted her on the bus playing guitar in a corner. When her eyes wander to the counter, she sees Antonio again, cheerfully ringing up an order. She walks away before he can see her.

Romina is late back and Amy greets her at the door, holding out the files for the case and shooting her mouth off about promptness. She is saved when Ivan walks out of his office and requests Amy's presence; over some sort of complaint. When Amy sputters off, Romina wonders if this is because of the anonymous complaint she filed that Amy's eyebrows were too distracting during meetings. She hopes not (but she does).

Her client is a loudmouth copyright-infringing mess of a man. He greets her in smiles outside the courtroom and she warns him to keep silent. If he wants to win, he needs to let her talk. She interrupts him before he can say that he really invented the software program, not other person, Kiku Honda, who he knew from college and Kiku was always jealous anyway…

Romina is about to ask Kiku, on the witness stand, how long he has been developing Vokaloyd (some singing program she didn't quite understand yet) when the disruption came from her, of all places. She lets her ring tone buzz quietly from her briefcase and silences the judge with a look before he can ask where the noise is coming from. The case goes alright, as all cases go, and when she checks her phone later (after Yong-Soo promises not to attack Kiku during the bathroom break), it is her little sister who had dared ring her.

When the trial is over, she calls Felicia back promptly. She may be quick-to-anger and quick to judge, but she is always cordial. Felicia happily chats her ear off about a new canvas she's set to release to the local museum before inviting her to her gallery's opening next Friday. It's supposed to be a black-tie event and it would be splendid if she had a guest too.

"But even if you don't bring anyway, Ludwig has a brother who I've met already and he's very nice."

"If you will be a very nice sister, then you won't dare set me up or call me in the middle of the day anymore, Felicia."

Amy corners her in the office and demands to know if she was the one who wrote the eyebrow comment. Romina hears snickers from where Feliks and Charlie's offices, which are close by enough for the occupants to hear Amy's shrieks. She defends herself as an attorney can and quickly excuses herself when Amy's male friend suddenly appears (she thought she saw him before; it's the hero with the bike). Surprisingly, the male friend recognizes her and chats her up (his name is Alfred and he asks her if she's been in another bus jacking yet – yet? – and that to call him up whenever she is so he can come help her), which only makes Amy more aggravated in her. Romina escapes to her office before the British woman can throw a curse at her.

Six o' clock rolls around and Romina rubs her temples. Finished. This Wednesday is finished. She quickly collects her things and sneaks out of the office before Ivan can find her and give her more to do; he is oddly successful in popping in on people when they're about to leave. She pities Toris, who usually bears the brunt of these blows, but she would not be in his place.

Charlie is waiting for her outside the building, with Ned and Feliks. They want to have a drink with her. Romina isn't sure if she wants to spend the night with a gullible country girl, a creepy understudy who preferred his girls on the young side, and the office transvestite. But Charlie pulls her into the cab anyway and convinces the driver to stop by Romina's flat to drop off her briefcase. Oddly against her will, Romina throws the briefcase on the couch and returns to the taxi.

They have a light dinner and go bar hopping (on a Wednesday night? She promised herself she would only drink twice a week and Tuesday had been used and she always liked going out on Fridays), but somehow, she'd lost the three of them. Sitting at the counter of a place that gave her déjà vu, Romina sipped her Bloody Mary and wondered why she felt like she was being watched when she was sure that Charlie and Ned had gone to make out elsewhere and Feliks was not flirting with the bartender, which he always did…

"Hello there, Miss Vargas. Fancy seeing you here again!"

Romina groans in her drink and turns, seeing Antonio grin widely at her as he nods at the bartender and tosses a nut in his mouth from the basket on the counter. "I didn't think you'd be back here so soon."

"I wasn't looking for you, if that's what you're thinking," Romina assures him.

"I was looking for you." So honest, these people were definitely going to be tricked someday. Romina feels sorry for him, but she doesn't walk away when he puts a hand on her back and rubs careful circles she leans into. Antonio knows how to push her buttons; a dangerous combination. She had been careful to avoid people like these for two years. "Have you had dinner yet? Would you like to eat with me?"

Romina shakes her head and orders another Bloody Mary. She wonders briefly if she can ask for tomato juice with scotch. It would be like soda and scotch, without the soda. Somehow, she gets inebriated much faster than she expected, for she finds herself kissing Antonio in the dark hallway to the bathrooms a few moments later.

"You always wear your clothes so tight," he says to her, his breath smelling slightly of alcohol. "Don't you feel breathless sometimes?" He reached for the buttons of her shirt but she slaps his hand away.

"I breathe fine," she says, catching his lips again and pulling him, tottering, to the exit. Thoughts tumble around as they tumble into a cab and Antonio must not be as drunk as she thinks since he can ramble off an address (not hers…his?) clear-mouthedly to the driver. She did not want, was not looking for any sort of relationship, but continuous one-night stands were no longer just those. She barely knows anything, really, about Antonio, but he's sweet and believing and that's a start somewhere. And anyway, does he look as good as she thinks he will in a suit on Friday?

His place is in the heart of the city, a few blocks from hers. The elevator is broken but she finds this hysterically funny as they climb the stairs, her laughter echoing in the open shaft as he helps her up. She takes off her heels and gives them to him to hold and he struggles to keep them in his hand and get his keys at the same time.

"I like you a lot, Romina," he says truthfully. "Miss Vargas," he corrects when she looks at him.

"It could happen," she replies light-headedly, wondering if Felicia will be mad with jealousy when she sees Antonio. Felicia always got the better deals, but anyone was better than Ludwig. She wonders for a moment if Antonio will be interested in Felicia and wonders why she cares. A kiss will solve this for the moment, she decides, and she distracts him as he tries to open the door.

"You're affectionate tonight," he murmurs, finally opening the door and holding it open for her.

"Your alarm better not scare me tomorrow morning," she shouts as she pulls him in and closes the door behind them.

Owari

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Note: I wanted to write a oneshot about an independent woman and somehow this came out. Someone needs to stop me. I definitely don't own the emo song, which I quoted from. I played the Arctic Monkeys on repeat when I wrote this. Do I love me some Arctic Monkeys. Review, please.