A/n Glah. Its late.
"Hey, can I get one of those."
Uo shifted her gaze lazily to look up the bodiless voice. She was sitting on a low concrete wall lining the manicured lawn of the hospital building, waiting for her bus to show up.
The hospital was flanked by two fast food places, one of which Uo worked in pulling fat clotted wire fry baskets out of burning oil and staring blandly into the doughy faces that came up to her register. When her shift finished, she would wait as the public transit system calmly screwed her over, bringing her home well into the evening hours.
Sometimes when she was particularly stressed, Uotani would buy a pack of cigarettes from a vending machine and have a smoke while she waited. In theory Uo had given up the habit years ago, but it passed the time and calmed her down so that she wouldn't take anything out on the poor unsuspecting bus driver.
Although the hospital entrance sported a sign that prohibited any smoking, Uo had seen for herself nurses, doctors, and even patients with their fore and middle fingers wrapped tightly around a cigarette, heaving in gratefully and expelling clouds of blue smoke. Once, after stubbing out his own cigarette underfoot, a tall, handsome doctor with deep lines running across his face gestured to the smoking Uo and said matter of factly, "That shit'll kill you."
The owner of the inquiring voice looked down at Uo expectantly, her dark eyes wide against a pale face. She was older than Uo, but looked a little shorter and lot curvier despite her thinness. Her long black hair hung down like a curtain and blew in tandem with her thin green hospital gown that reached right above her knees. Around the girl's thin wrists where buckled leather wristlets and a number of round, purple bruises blossomed on her bare arms and legs.
"I said, can I get one of those." Uo looked skeptically at the girl, but withdrew the square, white pack from her jacket pocket. The girl rapped the pack gently on the back of her pale hand and grabbed hungrily at the thin white cylinder that slid out. She took the offered lighter from Uo and lit it, taking a long drag before sitting down next Uo.
"Are you sure you should be doing that?"
"What are you," the girl snapped, " a fucking doctor."
"No, but you look like shit."
"Well…good. I'm sick of doctors; they're out of their fucking minds. All that university fucks you up." She handed the lighter and cigarette pack back to Uo, who began unconsciously flipping the pack back and forth through her fingers. "Anyway, what's your story." She rolled her eyes at Uo's blank look. "I mean why are you sitting on a wall outside of Alcatraz here. You're not a prostitute are you?"
"Hell no! I work at the Krazy Burger next door and I'm waiting for my bus." The girl's eyes were flitting about, but when she talked it was bored and drawn out.
"Good. I have a friend who's a prostitute. She hates it."
"Yeah?"
"No unions." When Uo had recovered from her laughing fit, the girl started in again. "I live here."
"I can see." Uo gestured to the green hospital gown.
"Yeah. My family put me here. Entire family gives me fucking ulcers. Only one who comes are my cousins and my ex-boyfriend, who's also my cousin."
"That's fucked up."
"The family thing?"
"The ex-boyfriend thing."
"Distant cousins. He won't leave me alone though, swears he still loves me."
"Hmh."
"He's just so damn young. I mean, how the hell old are you?"
"Seventeen."
"Then he's a year younger than you. Fuck, he could be in the same school as you."
" Doubt it. Are you all right? You seem a little…"
"First time I've been outside in a while. Missed the fresh air." She inhaled sharply, catching only the lingering cigarette smoke, but seemed content with it. To Uo it just smelled like stale city. "You think its fucked up that he's 16 and I'm already out of high school?"
"Can't talk, I guess," Uo said with a shrug, " I'm in love with a guy 9 years older than me."
"Anything illegal going on?" A smirk tugged at the girl's lips.
"Naw," Uo said with a sigh, taking another drag off her cigarette, "Its all unrequited. I met him at work."
"Krazy Burger?"
"No, I worked at a grocery store."
"Jeez, how many jobs do have?"
" Two, but I quit at the grocery store. It reminded me too much of him."
"What's his name?"
" Kureno."
"No shit, I have a cousin name Kureno."
"You have a lot of cousins."
"It's a pain, but that's how it is. Wouldn't it be fucked up if my Kureno was your Kureno and my ex-boyfriend-cousin went to your school."
"Yup."
"Shit, it would be like overlapping circles and we would have no idea."
"I guess so." The was a sharp screeching noise and a large silver bus snapped to a halt, flinging open its doors with a metallic scrape. Uo nodded to the bus driver and crushed her smoldering cigarette under her foot. "Here's my bus. Nice to meet you, I guess."
"Yeah," the girl looked almost mournfully at the bus, "Better get inside before Eva and her Hitler-ettes figure out I'm not in my bed." She flicked her spent cigarette neatly under the wheel of the bus before heaving a deep sigh. " Hope I'm right about that circle shit. You seem pretty cool."
"Thanks." Both girls stood and gave a final, understanding nod before Uo started mounting the steps of the bus. Halfway up, she turned and called, " Hey what's your name?"
The girl twisted around, already partly through the automatic doors. "Rin!" she called, "What's yours?"
"Uo." With this the doors snapped closed on Uo, who turned to the bus driver with raised eyebrows.
"Hey, sorry miss," he shrugged, " Got a schedule to keep."