The Capitol
He opens his eyes to a dim room, his vision too blurred to quite make out the dark shapes around him, but the sliver of light that shines through a gap in long bulky curtains shows the young man that it is day. Morning, maybe early afternoon, it doesn't matter. With the way his mind and body feels as he wakes in another unfamiliar bed, no time of day, no orders, and no amount of noise could keep him from staying just where he is. Nothing, he thinks, except for the smell of morning saliva.
If he hadn't made the effort to turn his face away from the light he would not have smelled it, but with the awakening of all of his senses, his nose couldn't hide from the scent, and now that it had there is no hope of ignoring it. He fucking hates the smell of saliva and the puddle of drool that has settled into the pillow of the woman lying next to him is downright repulsive to him. His eyes have adjusted and he looks at the make-up streaked, decrepit face of whomever the fuck she is, and he goes from wanting to never leave this bed to practically jumping out of it.
He regrets instantly that he is naked. Why does this woman keep the air so fucking cold? It had been so warm under those big fluffy blankets, so damn soft and comfortable. A thought that he had the previous night comes to him, that as soon as he had first landed on them he would make this woman make a gift of them to him. But now that he knows the bitch has the audacity to drool over them he wants never to touch them again.
He looks around the room he had spent hours in the night before, almost alarmed that what he sees is completely unfamiliar. He could have sworn that everything had been red, the curtains, the bed, the walls, the ridiculously giant vanity, even the hair of the woman. But now that he is seeing it all with sober eyes he sees that he was greatly mistaken. The walls are periwinkle. The curtains are dark purple. The bed is purple and gold. The floor is white and the woman's hair is yellow. The young man shrugs. He thinks the room looked much better when he still had the drug cocktail racing through his veins.
He looks around and finds the black and red suit the yellow haired woman had him wear last night crumpled on the floor by the end of the bed. At least one thing had actually been red. He rummages through the pant pockets and finds his pack of cigarettes and his lighter to have his morning smoke. He can't remember if the woman minded if he smoked in her room, but he doesn't care either. He sits at the end of the bed and lights the extra-long cigarette and inhales deeply. After a moment he slowly lets out a long stream of smoke. He runs the long fingers of his left hand through his long dark hair and looks around the room again, this time for anything that gives an indication of the time. He finds none. Grudgingly, he gets off the bed and walks over to the window.
The window had looked differently last night as well, not just the color of the curtains but its size. Last night it had seemed absolutely enormous, like it expanded across the wall and up onto the ceiling, with its curtains flowing magically in slow motion around it. But now he sees that while the window is a large one, it is nowhere as big as it was before and that it has no way of being opened to allow wind through. The curtains lay dead against the thick glass. He braces himself for the bright daylight the curtains are blocking as he uses his hand to sweep one slowly to the side.
He looks out and then down as he discovers that he is in a room high above the ground, but still low enough for him to recognize the street below. Good, he thinks, Ceneba Street. He knows exactly where he is and that getting home will be easy. What won't be easy is having to tell the yellow haired woman that he is leaving.
Luckily, the woman is still feeling the effects of the drugs they took. If he remembers correctly, which he thinks he does, the woman took as many as he had. Being at least 25 years older than him and clearly a health wreck, this woman probably will be in this state for the rest of the day. Good. He gently walks over and around the bed to the side the woman is sleeping and drooling on. He wrinkles his nose with disgust as he looks down at her. What a mess.
He uses his free hand to gently shake the woman's shoulder and waits a moment. She doesn't stir. He tries again, less gently, and increases the force until she is finally roused from her sleep. She turns to face him, her face covered with sweat and black eye make-up, and then smiles a smile that makes the young man want to cringe again. But he knows better. He knows how to handle a person like her. So instead he spreads his lips into a bright and charming smile as he looks down on her with fake affection.
"Good morning." He says in a soft and alluring voice, knowing that his nakedness will also work in his favor. "I hate to wake you when you are sleeping so peacefully, but I have to leave and I don't want to without saying good bye." Because if I don't you will cause problems for me, won't you? He adds to himself.
The yellow haired mess gurgles something back. Then she clears her throat and tries to speak again. "Don't leave. Stay." She reaches a slightly flabby arm out from under the covers and takes a hold of his forearm. It takes all of his will power not to rip her hand away.
"Of course I want to stay, but if I do I will be in terrible trouble." He croons. "And if I get into trouble I won't be able to see you again." He arranges his face into a dramatically sad one as if to say that not seeing her would break his heart.
The woman sighs and nods sadly but does not let go of her grip on his arm. Instead she pulls his arm towards her and lifts her dirty face up towards his. She clearly wants him to kiss her good bye, and the young man shudders. He loses his effort to smile as he leans down, his breath held tight, and gives the woman's slimy lips a short kiss, then she finally lets him go and falls immediately back to sleep.
The young man recoils from the bed and rushes into the direction he believes the bathroom is. The closed door he opens first is the right one, and he enters and shuts the door back behind him. He turns the water on in the sink and drops his cigarette butt into it. Then he cups water with both hands and splashes his face, vigorously rubbing his mouth where the woman's lips had been. He looks through the ridiculous amounts of bottles of lotions and soaps until he finds mouthwash. He fills his mouth and gargles and spits twice before finally looking at himself in the large rectangle bathroom mirror.
A pale and tired face looks back at him. The cheeks are slightly gaunt. The long green eyes look much larger than they used to, the whites are slightly pink. The smooth dark hair that reaches square but bony shoulders is tousled and greasy. Though he doesn't look nearly as disheveled as the yellow haired woman, the young man can't help but admit that he doesn't look so great either.
After finding some lotion that doesn't smell too feminine and slathering it on his arms and neck, the young man exits the bathroom feeling satisfied with his successful escape plan. That is until he realizes that the only thing he has to wear home is the fancy red and black suit that still lies rolled up on the floor. Damnit. It is not the best outfit to wear for someone who wants to walk through the streets of the Capitol in the middle of the day unnoticed. Looks like I'll have to take something from her closet.
Knowing that the woman is too deep of a sleep to notice, he rummages through her extensive and bizarre collection of clothing. He searched through her closet, then her drawers, until he finally finds something acceptable. It's an over-sized simple black t-shirt. The material suggests that is meant for comfy bed wear for women, but as he puts in on and looks at himself in the mirrors of the vanity he decides that he looks like any normal skinny guy wearing a baggy t-shirt. Not being able to find pants as fitting as the shirt, he has no choice but to wear the wrinkled black and red suit pants on the floor. He puts them on and arranges the shirt in a style to suggest that he is just another messy styled teenager in the Capitol, or close enough. He ruffles his hair for the right effect, tucks his lighter and cigarettes back into the pants pocket, and finds his sunglasses in one of pockets of the suit jacket. Finally ready to vacate, the young man opens the bedroom door and exits, closing the door quietly behind him.
The yellow haired woman may be an idiotic sloppy mess with no morals, but she sure is rich. It takes a few tries of weaving in and out of large and elaborately decorated rooms until the entrance to the apartment is finally found. From there leaving the building is much easier, and within a minutes time the young man is out the front door of the apartment building and onto the busy Ceneba Street.
It is a bright day in late spring. The air is dry and the glare of the sun reflecting off the shiny buildings would be blinding if he didn't have his sunglasses already on his face. Though the other citizens of the Capitol would deem this another beautiful day, the young man feels sick and ragged and hungry. His stomach starts to growl within his first few steps down the street. If he had been allowed to bring his wallet last night he would find some food to buy before he headed home, but having his own possessions on his person during one of his appointments was not allowed. And so he walks through the crowd on Ceneba Street, his head down and his hands in his pockets and his shoulders hunched as he weaves carefully through other pedestrians in order to go unnoticed.
He hates the time after his appointments almost as much as the appointments themselves. If he was allowed to have his phone with him he could try calling someone for a ride instead of having to be at a constant threat of being recognized and ambushed. Walking home through the crowded streets of the Capitol invites the opportunity for someone to spot him, for pictures to be taken and autographs to be signed. This sort of thing was what the government wanted to happen, but he hates the government as much as he hates every person in Panem who considers themselves his "fan". He has had enough practice losing himself in a crowd if such an event occurs, but he much prefers that he get home in peace than have to deal with troublesome girls and women before getting there.
But today is a lucky one as his apartment is reached without a single person shouting his name. He presses his index finger firmly against the fingerprint lock screen and once his print is recognized his door slides open. Before the door is even fully closed behind him after he enters he is tearing off the woman's clothes and leaves them on the floor as he walks straight into his bathroom. He turns on his shower and steps inside, where he stands under gushing scalding hot water with his eyes closed, standing the pain of the heat for a length of time he does not measure.
He is taken out of his stillness by a sudden banging on his bathroom door.
He is so startled by the sound that he slips and bangs his shoulder into the stone wall of his shower. His heart is beating like drums in his ears. With the sound of the drumming and the rushing water, he can barely hear the voice that starts yelling to him from the other side of the bathroom door.
"KAELIN!" Booms a deep and familiar voice. "KAE, DAMNIT! DO YOU KNOW WHAT TIME IT IS?!"
No, of course I don't. That fucking idiot of a woman doesn't own a clock. He curses to himself as he takes deep breaths to calm his nerves and heart. I didn't look when I got home because I only fucking cared about getting clean.
The deep voice outside the bathroom barks again. "KAELIN. Do you even know what TODAY is?"
From the way he said it, it seems that today is supposedly an important one, but, Nope, don't know that either. Tuesday? A holiday?
Since Kaelin does not answer him out loud, the man behind the door says, "Kae, you stupid ass, I'm coming in." And without a moments pause, the bathroom door slides open, and into the steamy mist created by the shower storms a dark skinned middle-aged man, nostrils flaring. "Kid, what the fuck are you doing? Boiling yourself?"
"Fuck Ames, I'm taking a shower, you mind?" Kaelin replies.
"Yeah I do mind, shit dick." Ames says as he puts his fists on his hips and stares through the shower glass at Kaelin, skin red from the heat. "It's almost 4:00 in the fucking afternoon and we've got to be at the station in 40 goddamn minutes and you're in here cooking yourself!"
Kaelin feels like he's been slapped in the face as realization dawns on him. He had such an automatic habit of blocking negative information from his mind that he truly forgot what today was. He bangs the side of his fist against the shower wall where he hit his shoulder a minute before.
"Fucking finish, alright? Since I know you didn't pack your shit I'll go do that for you." Ames leaves the steamy room cursing to himself about how he has to do everything for "this kid" like he's his mother or something, his voice cutting off as the bathroom door slides shut behind him.
Kaelin turns the water temperature down and picked up his shampoo. He lathers his hair and rinses then moves on to his body and face wash. He is finished within a couple of minutes, turns off the water, grabs a big fluffy towel and quickly dries off his skin and ruffles his hair and then wraps the towel around his lower half and steps out of the shower. At the sink he brushes his teeth for a time longer than necessary and then combs through his hair, drawing a straight side part that makes his shorter layers sweep over the right side of his forehead. Because it is too fogged up he can't see himself in the mirror, but he doesn't mind.
He leaves the bathroom into his bedroom and immediately sees Ames shoving some clothes into a suitcase on Kaelins unmade bed. Seeing him enter, Ames tells him, "You'll just have to like the clothes I picked for you. There's no time for you to be picky about shit." Still rushing, Ames walks towards Kaelin then brushes past him to walk into the bathroom while saying, "Get dressed" in a commanding tone.
Kaelin saunters to his dresser. His underwear and sock drawers are already opened from Ames. He grabs a pair of each and puts them on without removing his towel. He walks over to his closet as Ames bursts out of the bathroom with Kaelins toothbrush and soap in his hand and shoves them into the suitcase with the clothing.
"Put on clothes, c'mon!" Ames barks with increasing impatience as he closes the suitcase. "Something light. You know how much hotter it will be there."
Kaelins heart sinks to his stomach with the word "there". Emotions that he keeps well-hidden and away most days start to bubble up inside him. He tries to shove them back down as he grabs a dark grey shirt and black pants, but he feels weak and nauseous as he tries to put them on. With Ames watching him with impatient fury from the end of the bed, Kaelin puts on black shoes with shaking hands, his fingers fumbling on the straps. When he stands back upright he meets Ames' stare with a clenched jaw. Ames' fury flickers away as his jaw clenches as well. The two men look at each other with a silent understanding of each other's feelings for a moment before Ames grabs the handle of the suitcase and takes it roughly off of the bed and he turns his back on Kaelin. He hesitates slightly before quickly walking out of the room. Kaelin follows.
How could he have truly forgotten so easily what today is? He supposes that his brain just shuts it out automatically as it does with so many things. But no matter how hard his mind tried it could escape the reality of today and the days that will follow.
Today is the day he takes the train back to District 11.
Tomorrow is the day he will see his mother.
And the day after that is the Reaping for the 27th Hunger Games.
