Three quick knocks interrupted them. The knocks were not particularly forceful and would probably had gone unheard had the three friends been talking louder or had the television going in the background.
Aya had a sour expression on as she looked at her apartment's door. She apparently knew the who and/or what that stood behind it, though she said nothing. Nitori (Aya's close friend from college) was looking with curiosity at both the door and Aya, while her friend Momiji (who did not really like Aya) sipped at her glass of Coke like she had been doing.
More knocks, this time a burst of two and more subdued, as if the person was having second thoughts or feared they were intruding upon an important matter.
Aya grimaced and shook her head, but she got up from the couch anyway. She all but threw open the door before standing in the entrance, obstructing Nitori's view. Aya then spoke in a voice just loud enough to not be considered an "inside voice".
"Ah~, so it was you. What do you want? I don't have any money for you to 'borrow'."
"I-I can't stop by just to say hello? I have to want something?" The girl's voice was probably meant to give the impression of confidence, but it trembled almost imperceptibly, and her body language betrayed her clearly. She had shrunk back when Aya burst out; her hands moved uncomfortably, like the girl was not sure what to do with them.
"When have you just wanted to stop by for such a simple reason, huh?"
Nitori was now squirming about on her spot on the couch, manipulating her neck every which way in the hopes of getting a full view of the one sided row occurring.
Momiji, meanwhile, had finished her soda. She eyed Aya's fridge, but the girl declared that it was too much trouble to get more to drink and settled back into the black leather couch. Momiji contented herself with playing with her phone.
"Well, I..." the girl stammered.
"And no, before you ask, I don't have any appliances to loan you. Not after what happened last time, Hatate!"
"What happened?" Nitori eagerly asked.
Momiji gave her friend a look of disapproval for egging the situation on but did no more. Whatever she was tapping out while wearing such a bored expression was clearly more important to her.
Aya moved to face Ntiori. She resembled a door swinging out in doing so. "Oh, you'd never believe it! Hatate came knocking at my door one day asking to borrow a handful of simple appliances. Y'know, like a toaster, blender, and so on. I figured since I had no reason to say no, I'd let her have them. Well, three days pass. By then? I need my shit back. So I go to her door and barge right in – for some reason it wasn't locked. What do I see? Her trying to sell off my stuff to a man I'd never seen before. She was haggling with my shit! Righteous fury expressed itself that day. Tables were flipped, people were chased out with a whip. Wasn't pretty."
Nitori fell back into her seat laughing.
"A-Actually, I came to... to apologize for the annoyance that I've been to you." Underneath brunette hair was a pair of tired eyes full of worry. The girl called Hatate had skin which was rather pale. Overall she looked sick. "I... you see..." One hand played with her purple jacket while the other drummed its fingers on a leg of Hatate's black pants. "I'm sorry! I really am! I hated to be a burden to you! But... I've been having trouble scraping together enough pay to make ends meet. I'm sorry. It's just so hard being a reporter, I..."
"Wait, wait!" Aya interrupted. "You're a reporter, too? Really!? Who do you work for?"
This question, though innocent enough, seemed to put Hatate at even more unease. "I... A-An online news source." She told Aya the site name.
The other girl snapped her fingers. "Oh yeah! I know it! I think I... might've? seen your name as an author for one article. Maybe a few pictures too? How come I haven't seen you credited with more contributions?"
"Well, it's not like I haven't written more articles... It's just that they don't accept them often..."
Aya was genuinely surprised. "Eh!? Why? And speaking of that, how come I almost never see you leave your apartment?"
"W-Well, that's the thing, see. I usually don't... Instead, I find a story online and use... that... for my source."
"Eeeehhhh!? What! No good, no good at all, you idiot! How have you not been fired!?"
Hatate took a step back from Aya and looked down. "Well, I'm a freelance reporter... I usually beg–"
Aya slapped her forehead in dismay. "Oh god, someone like you freelancing in the world of reporting! You poor fool! No wonder you are so pathetic.
"Here's what we are going to do. Next time you miraculously get work, come to me. I write for a major newspaper, so I know what I'm doing. I'll do everything for you at first to show you how it's done, then slowly begin to let you do things yourself. I will be your mentor, your guide to the world of journalism! And when you are a respectable journalist, I'll hit up my connections and get you a real job where I work! And then! when your name has a good track record attached to it, you can go back to your freelancing. I think you'll find jobs more easily that way." Aya smiled and held out a hand.
"B-But I don't want to be such trouble for you! I could never..."
Aya would have none of that. She threw an arm around the nervous girl. "Trouble? Bitch, you'll only go on causing me trouble as it is! I'm putting you on your own two feet so you can use them to get out of my hair! Give a man a fish, and you feed him for a day; teach a man to fish, and you feed him for a lifetime. I'm not helping you, I'm helping myself!" She poked Hatate's cheek repeatedly. "So don't you worry your pretty li'l head about anything," she added.
Aya suddenly started to pull her new friend along. "Come on! I'll take you out to eat! You must be famished from your long string of failures!"
As the two walked Hatate's protests could be heard the whole way.
"So..." Nitori started, not sure how to react to suddenly being left alone in another's living room. "What now?"
The stoic Momiji finally looked up from her phone. "Well, I guess we go home."
"Ah... right."
"And then, as if written by the hand of a bad novelist, an incredible thing happened."
― Jonathan Stroud