"Who are you texting…?"

He scarcely has a moment to react before deep amber irises glare down upon him, and he instinctively clutches his phone to his chest. Fifteen years haven't dulled the frightening effect they have on his psyche, the way they seem to wear down on any of his emotional defense.

Fifteen very long and numb years haven't made his excuses any more convincing.

"No one- nothing!" He hastily attempts to explain, jolting out of his chair. "God, you don't need to hang over me every waking moment."

Medusa rolls her eyes in a painfully exaggerated manner, before leaning against the kitchen counter and crossing her arms. "Sure thing, Crona. How's your little girlfriend doing these days?"

"Her name is Maka, and she is not my girlfriend! Besides, so what if she is!" Crona spits back, crossing his arms in an attempt to match his mother. Of course he knows why, and Medusa takes every chance she can as to remind him why.

"I don't like her." She hisses. That little twin-tailed girl is a nuisance, too saccharine. She raise him to be strong, to never back down, to boldly advance against everything that was established in the world; in that girl's presence, he became putty in her hands, it disturbs her on a strangely visceral level.

The air that flows throughout the small little apartment they've grown used to has grown stale and humid with an odd concoction of contempt, boiled over anger, and just general frustration. He uses the lull as an excuse to untie the deep black tie that adorns his dress shirt, his face flushed. Staring at the fabric gives him a chance to collect his thoughts before angrily storming off towards the hallway and the door that sits to his room.

"I-I don't need this!" He yells, his voice travelling loudly at first, but quickly faltering against the walls of the hallway.

Medusa sighs loudly. "Don't get too comfortable, we're having dinner with your aunt in a bit." She attempts to explain, half of her sentence being cut off by the loud slamming of a door. It was times like this that made her question all those pamphlets she read about how raising a child got easier as they aged. Like hell it does! Her internal musings are quickly cut off by the unmistakable feeling that, above all, she's being watched.

"Teenagers, huh…?"

Medusa snaps her head towards the main doorway at an almost frightening pace, her hand bolting to the pocket knife she keeps on the counter. What instinct she briefly operated on is culled by an all too familiar (and unwelcome) face peering through the crack between the door.

"Shaula."

The younger swallows through the lump in her throat and half-sarcastically waves through the jammed door, held in ardent resistance by a chain. "Ne-chan!"

There's very little Medusa can think about wanting to do more than not have this stupid little get-together, but Shaula insisted. Something about important business, catching up on the past, or some other prattle. The elder rolls her eyes again, before going to fumble with the lock and chain, it clicks out of place with a loud clank.

Swinging the door open, both of them are now attempting to stair each other down, even if Medusa clearly wins such a competition. Shaula nervously tugs on the collar of her sailor fuku, before awkwardly extending an open hand. Medusa eyes it a few times.

"Shake it."

"Why?"

"Because!" Shaula proclaims, "we're working together now, aren't we? Fresh beginnings, y'know…?"

Medusa glares down at her hand, seemingly contemplating the scenario. She reaches out and grabs the hand, firmly shakes, and walks back into the kitchen, preferring not to dwell on what her sister considers proper formality anyways.

"Close the door behind yourself and lock it." She commands, satisfied to quickly hear a metallic snap following it.

Shaula nervously examines the interior of the apartment as Medusa fumbles around in the kitchen, a few pots and pans clanging together. "So!" She declares, clapping her hands together, "you sent the application in, they should give you something back so-"

Her attempt at idle conversation is cut off by Medusa swearing as yet another utensil bounces off the floor, and she has to stop to seethe for a moment. When her anger cools, she glares back at her sister, her eyes squinting.

"Why… why did you call me that?" She nonsensically inquires.

"W-what?"

"Ne-chan. What the hell does that mean?"

Shaula blinks a few times before deciding to seize the closest thing she'll get to an opportunity. "Oh! That's Japanese! It means 'big sister'!" She beams, her enthusiastic smile deteriorating against Medusa's look of unrepentant disdain.

Medusa rolls the sleeves of her hoodie up in an aloof manner, passively rolling her eyes as she turns away from Shaula to set the stove alight. "Oh. I guess that explains the sailor uniform? I told you to stop watching cartoons years ago."

"It's called anime, and why are you being such an ass?" Shaula spits back.

"I'm sure it is, and I'm doing it because you need to grow up-"

The sound of heels snapping against the hardwood floor shirk her from her from her culinary duties. "What do you mean, 'grow up'? I barely had a childhood because of you!"

"Here we go..." Medusa mumbles, the mocking crackling of the flames in front of her serving only to further her annoyance. "Listen, why did you want to have dinner? There are a lot more things I would rather do, and if you haven't noticed, I have responsibilities." She concludes, gesturing towards the hallway and room where Crona is currently voicing his frustrations into a pillow.

"T-turn the stove off. Look..." Shaula attempts to respond, pausing to run her face through her hands. "...I just wanted to talk. Can we do that without you rolling your eyes, please?"

Medusa promptly does exactly that in response, reaching behind her to click off the burner and cross her arms. "Fine. What do you want to talk about?"

"Do you hate me?"

"...What?"

Shaula crosses her arms to match Medusa. "You heard me."

Of course she's like this now. Shaula doesn't get many chances to be so assertive these days, but Medusa quickly picks up on her style; it's bratty and arrogant. Something about the way she said that sentence drives the blonde up a wall.

"No, I don't hate you, Shaula." Medusa states, allowing her arms to drop into her pockets.

"Then why are you like this?" Shaula whines, a look of defeated sadness on her face.

"Like what?"

Shaula grits her teeth and throws her arms outwards. "Like this! We hadn't seen each other for nearly two years since three days ago. You don't return my calls, you never tell me what you've been up to..." She angrily continues, counting on her fingers before throwing one of her hands in the direction of the hallway. "I barely get to see my nephew for Christ's sake!" She concludes, the litany of other questions she could ask currently escaping her for the more important ones.

"Don't bring my son into this." Medusa snaps. "Look, I'm sorry if my life plans conflicted with whatever the hell you wanted us to do, but I have my own life, you realize this yes?"

The two of them are now quiet, silently glaring daggers at each other. Neither of them were ever ones to argue very much, Medusa because she found it pointless, Shaula because she was too scared, too frightened to say anything for fear of further bullying. She can't deny, however: there's something so cathartic about yelling at someone who actually plans on seemingly listening this time around. Of course, nothing will actually change. She tries so hard to be bright, cheery, nice, and it all comes crumbling down as soon as she realizes how good it feels.

Medusa shakes her head in the absence of further speech, propping herself up onto the counter. "Besides, you got what you wanted anyways. Starting this Monday we'll be happy little coworkers, isn't that just nice?"

Shaula jolts from the wall she's leaning on, balling her fists up at Medusa's words. "That's not what I wanted, at all! Really, I would've been just fine staying far away from you. I want to get along with you, but you act the same every time I try!"

The elder lazily rests her eyes on Shaula. "Then why did you give me that job offer?" She pines. Of course, her suspicions are basically confirmed by this point. She should have trusted her gut in the first place, and now look where she is.

"Because Arachne told me that it was a good idea. You happy now?" Shaula states, cocking her head behind her in no specific reference, as blood rushes to Medusa's face. Of course, she knew by this point, but hearing the words makes it see even worse.

Medusa throws her hands up, exasperated. "Of course she did. Of course! Why the fuck did I expect anything else… what motive does she have in this?" She interrogates, on the cusp of her voice cracking out of a mixture of anger and frustration.

The amber irises that glare back at Shaula make her cringe backwards defensively, she's been on the receiving end of that gaze one too many times to try to take the high ground. Some of her confidence is washed, but she remains as steadfast as possible.

"I don't know why, Medusa. I don't know why Arachne does most of the things she does. Why don't you ask her yourself, you have her number. Might do you some good..." She chides, her voice trailing off.

Shaula's aloof speech doesn't do anything to calm or reassure Medusa. Maybe Shaula got along with Arachne just fine throughout their life, but Medusa could never stand the way her eldest sister talked, it was always so fake, so manipulative. Words laced with too much venom, too standoffish and demeaning, they were words meant to break someone into submission, they weren't the words of a normal person. She can't help but giggle through her anger; none of them were ever normal people. Picking her head back up, a dreadful smile crosses her lips inadvertently, causing the lump growing in Shaula's throat to seem ever denser.

"Listen. I don't hate you. But you make it oh so hard not to. For your sake, let's just hope this is nothing more than one of Arachne's ego trips." Medusa concludes, the crooked grin slowly falling from her face as she tries to condense her rage, preferring to save her energy for more productive tasks.

It's only then that Medusa notices something different, something she becomes surprised she never noticed before. It causes her face to be quickly awash in morbid curiosity.

"Did… did you dye your hair?"

The sudden change in conversation topic, combined with the frontal way she asks it does little to calm Shaula's nerves, who shirks back again, rubbing her shaking hands over her raven-black braids. "Ah… yeah. Do you like it…?"

Medusa could never understand her sister's fondness for spending so much time on her hair. She preferred the strange braids she was so used to, and that was about it, anything more or less seemed to strange, trying far too hard. Still, she has memories from her childhood of being stuck watching Shaula, as she spent borderline three hours braiding it so elegantly, until it formed a neat little allusion to the stinger of a scorpion. The color of her hair always mystified her, no one could ever fully explain it. Father couldn't, mother always laughed it off, Arachne simply shrugged. They always assumed it was a quirk of genetics.

Here it now was, black as the night.

"No. Who told you to fix it like that? Arachne?"

Her blunt critique cause Shaula to stutter in responding, her face flushing with a mixture of embarrassment and residual anger. She clutches one hand around the singular braid, normal as everyone else now. "N-no one did… I just thought it would look nice..."

Shaula always operated on an unstable mixture of pride and nervousness whenever anyone bothered to discuss her hair. Pride whenever someone complimented it in her everyday routine, nervous rejection whenever she received odd glances in the street. Medusa, for one, never seemed to care too much. All she did was blow her breath as she sat on the floor cross legged outside the bathroom while she endlessly fixed it, no imperfection escaping her sight. Something hits hard, even if it shouldn't.

Black and gold fingernails scrape against the inside of Medusa's palm, and awkward and deeply unstable silence emerging between the two. Three minutes ago, Shaula was yelling and charging her with all sorts of things, and now here she is struggling to get words out; and over her hair, of all things.

"Do you want to say hello to Crona? He's in his room, if you want-" She attempts to offer, cut of by Shaula waving her arms dimly.

"No, no, I don't want to be a bother. Just forget I said anything, I'll call you l-later." Shaula stammers out, adjusting her collar and beginning to head for the door, only stopped by Medusa signaling with a mild 'wait!'.

She takes a deep breath before continuing, her sister halfway out of the door as she drops from the counter to her feet. "We'll… we'll talk later, okay? I'll call you tomorrow night and we'll discuss work. Get some sleep, you look terrible." Medusa concludes, tapping her cheeks as a gesture to the dark circles forming below Shaula's watery eyes.

The younger simply nods, her fingers rubbing against the worn wooden construction of the door. She glances back one last time at Medusa's eyes, slightly warmer than they usually are, and waves. "Goodnight..." She mumbles, before walking past the door frame, the sound of it cracking close snapping anyone in the immediate vicinity awake. Medusa's shoulders slump as she hears the quick stepping of heels against the hallway outside her apartment.

"You think I could get a job…?"

Medusa is snapped from her state as she looks to the hallway, Crona peeking from behind one of the walls. His little gray eyes are planted with a mix of concern and curiosity. She rolls her eyes, again.

"How much of that have you been listening to?"

He gives a half-hearted shrug. "Most of it. So-"

She shakes her head quickly before he can reiterate his position. "Maybe? You're fifteen, you wanna' work now?"

Crona nods, his uneven pink hair fluttering with the air vent directly above him blowing down chilly blasts upon him. Medusa nervously chuckles and plants her hand into her forehead, burning to the touch. "We'll see, you would still have schoolwork to do." She states, as he furrows his brow slightly in response.

"You were kind of mean to her. She just wants to be nice." Her son muses, showing no immediate emotion other than curiosity from his idle blinking.

Medusa snaps out of her mood to joint a pointer finger at him. "I didn't ask for your opinion on what I do, Crona." She voices, refusing his charges.

The boy looks at the ground as he tries to come up with another response. "B-but-"

"'But!' nothing, Crona. Don't talk back to me; I'm the adult, you aren't." She declares, jolting a look to the aged clock that hangs over their stove. Seven-thirty? Shit!

Her hands reach to grab her phone, her fingers swiping her password, confirming success with a little rumble. She uses her other hand to wave him away. "We're eating TV dinners tonight, go back to your room, I have some calls to make, okay?"

Crona groans reflexively, although he knows it won't result in any changes to the current circumstances. Still, an alert from his phone at least gives him something to look forward to.

The few flurry of actions she does next involve fumbling with her phone while trying to operate their barely working microwave, the kitchen soon becoming a noxious haven of smoke and half burnt meat. Still, even hours later, as everything is quiet, and she lays trying to sleep, she feels a strange emotion she hasn't felt in a while: guilt. She wonders if she should call Shaula and try to apologize, before rationalizing that it wouldn't make things any better. Does she even care? She checks her phone one last time, the light glowing down onto her expanded pupils, the display reads "SATURDAY" in bright capital letters. The weekends never fascinated her much. There's no work to have off from, no satisfaction to be had. That will change soon, and she dimly attempts to recall what the agent, some rattly girl named Eruka, she spoke to said about the current positions open: accounting.

Spreadsheets. She mutters in her mind, the palpable disgust will later spill into dreams.

…

The coffee shouldn't taste this bitter.

There aren't too many things that Medusa has to change. Still, she's going to a new job. A new her. She rolls her eyes as she rubs the sleep from her eyes, there's that constant thought and worry of how ravenously dull this whole matter is going to be. The fabric from her shirt digs uncomfortably at her skin, she already misses the feel of her jackets. Just another thing she'll have to get used to if she wants to "succeed" at this wastrel occupation. But at least she has her coffee, even if there's less joy to be found in drinking it compared to last time.

She walks up the concrete steps, her flats gently tapping against them, providing the only audible stimulation one could gain from this corporate wasteland. There isn't any smooth jazz to lure her into a sense of comfort, just some glass doors and modernist architecture that force a feeling of dread into her mind. She slowly lifts her cup to her lips, and takes another long, slow, unsavory drink. Medusa puts her hands, nails painted black, against the cold glass of the front doors, and she prepares herself, before throwing open the doors, prepared for whatever bureaucratic nightmare that awaits her…

Empty lobby.

Fine, no grand entrance. Her amber eyes scan the room, mostly plain with some tacky and awfully cheap statues that litter parts of the floor and desks. There's no receptionist, nothing to really greet her. Then what does she do? Where does she clock in? Dimly, it occurs to her that she should've planned for this a bit better, but her woeful apathy so far has impeded any of that. The small central desk grabs her attention, as a white note with hastily written words lies on it.

Hi!

I am very sorry if any new employees arrived early before I came back! Please just sign in at the bottom of the page, we'll get your time cards sorted out later. Oh, and lunch breaks are thirty minutes, from 12:00 to 12:30. Leniency here has not been approved yet, sorry!

-Eruka

Medusa hastily scribbles her signature on one of the lines towards the end of the page, past a few other she neither recognizes, nor does she care to figure out. Still, she remembers "Eruka". Wasn't that the lady she talked to to actually send in her application? She concludes not to think about it much further, preferring just to actually get settled in. The silver elevator awaiting for her at the other end of the room seems like as good a place to start as any.

Her fist hits the button, a bit more forceful than necessary, and it lights up with a dim orange glow. A row of LEDs light up in a specific pattern, a bright and bold "1" shows. After a minute of humming, the great doors before her part, to reveal a quiet and seemingly empty car. She promptly steps in, before darting her eye to the row of buttons to the right, trying to remember what floor she was assigned to.

Four? No, five…. yeah, five.

Again, her finger goes to hover over a button, this time a bit less sure of anything. Her skin rubs against the plastic of the button, before she finally goes to confirm her wavering choice, but something interrupts.

"Hey! HEY! Hold up please!"

The yell is accompanied by a woman almost crashing through the doors, running far past the sheet Medusa used. Medusa cocks an annoyed eyebrow, even as she extends her arms to block any theoretical closure of the doors, despite her lack of any selection of floor. The sound of heels slamming against the hard floor make Medusa flinch despite the lack of danger; she's definitely going to have to go to bed earlier than midnight, at this rate. What time is it anyways...? She puts finding out off to huddle in the corner so the lady can dash her way inside, her feet breaking against the floor of the car. The oddly pale and skin lady nervously pants, as she begins to take her incredibly ill fitting coat off. Medusa eyes slant.

"Heh-heh... thanks miss, my alarm didn't go off like usual." The newcomer explains, tossing her coat over her shoulder to reveal a meticulously tied braid. Her skirt is long and dark blue, almost to the point of being black. Although initially hidden by the overly warm light, she turns around with closed eyes and extends a hand to thank her morning "savior".

"I don't know if we've met before, but my name is Shaula..." She offers, her voice trailing off as her eyes slowly open and droop. Her hand falls by her side as she nervously steps back and offers something else: an awkward smile.

"M-Medusa..."

"Shaula." The blonde offers, a bit more authority in her voice.

Shaula swallows at the growing lump in her throat, before nervously adjusting the collar of her uniform. Of course it's Medusa. "Uhm, good morning... floor four."

Medusa stops for a moment, before turning and mentally berating herself for losing another personal battle. She swears that froggy receptionist said four. Four. Four. Four. She repeats as the word begins to sound like gibberish, as her fist again connects with a button, this time the one she was less inclined to press. The room around them chimes, as the door slowly begin to close. It takes an agonizing minute before they begin to ascend.

Neither of them want to be here. Whether it's at the office or in this elevator is wholly irrelevant, the feeling is the same. Shaula tugs at her braids, seemingly trying to lay them over her left shoulder, Medusa idly sips coffee while emotions tug at her. It's a coin flip to see who will attempt to talk first.

"How did you sleep?"

The voice is the more sully and off-putting one. Medusa cocks her eyes to look at Shaula, her glare more negated, a bit less cold. It's not exactly warm, but... neutral. Shaula supposes it's better than nothing.

"Fine, I guess. Was feeling... bad, last night, just didn't get much sleep." She grumbles, offering a meandering shrug as a token of some form of reassurance. "W-what about you?"

The elevator dings.

Medusa tilts her head downwards, to stare at her feet that tap seemingly in rhythm with the elevator. "Alright."

Her one word answer seemingly kills any further mood the two of them have to continue any form of small talk, both of them very much preferring for this accursed contraption to get them to the fourth floor so they can do what they're getting paid to do. Medusa feels obliged to repeat that word in her head again: Accounting. Fourth floor.

"About Saturday-" Medusa attempts to state, before being cut off disturbingly quick by Shaula.

"It's fine, I really don't want to talk about it." She mutters. She could say something, she wants to say something, but she can't get the words out in a manner that wouldn't make her appear too "emotional", and appearances matter more than most would think here.

"You sure?"

"Yes. Please, just... not now." Shaula finishes. She wants to feel angry for once in her life. She's entitled to that, isn't she?

The elevator dings again, for the fourth time, and both of them blow a sigh of relief. Shaula steps out into the blinding array of fluorescent lights first, before waving to Medusa from behind her. Medusa steps into place, exactly where she feels she is needed, and begins to feast her eyes on a new form of hell.

Corporate.

Every single one of those truly atrocious soap operas she remembers finding and watching whenever there was nothing on TV when she was younger, they all had offices. They were always the same, a gray condominium of boxes, goons in suits and skirts, with no personalities to distinguish themselves from any other worker. The bleak beige and black color scheme makes her grossed out on a primal level, even if she herself always had an appreciation for efficiency. For science. Looking at it that way didn't make it seem too bad. She starts smirking for a moment, before Shaula nudges her on the shoulder.

"I'll show you around, if you want." She offers, her face mostly blank and tired. Bags have started forming under her eyelids, barely hid by a generous layer of makeup. The outfit she's wearing is a bit more "normal", her neckerchief tied fashionably tight to her neck. It isn't what she wants to wear, and Medusa finds that plainly obvious. She ignores it to accept her invitation.

They start walking, a brisk pace that Medusa quickly comes to match. It doesn't really matter who they sit around, Medusa really hopes she doesn't grow to attached to any of these people. Shaula, for her part, just wants to get started. They find themselves tucked tactically away into a corner near the front of the building, as Shaula nervously opens an energy drink, the eye-searing neon colors making Medusa cringe on a base level. Shaula takes a sip, sighs, and points to a man grumbling in the corner.

"That guy, with the messed up hair and windbreaker? Giriko, he works security." She explains, as Medusa twirls one of the loose strands of her golden hair around her finger. Her eyes squint at the name.

"That Giriko? Didn't he date Arachne in high school...?"

Shaula giggles, both dreading the name of her eldest sister, the increased length of the conversation, yet almost happy to talk about the old days. "Yes. She brought him on years ago, gosh. I don't think she ever let him go... Anyways, he doesn't really do much except drink and look tough whenever we get some mongrel from the other branch."

Medusa prefers not to ask about the "other branch", given Shaula's obvious disdain infused in her voice. Instead, she points to a man tucked leaning against a wall at the far end of the office, it's hard to see him in form, as he mostly stands out from his ludicrously dated clothing. "Now who is that?"

Shaula's eyes squint to the point where pink is the only color visible. "Mosquito. 'General secretary' they say, but really he just does whatever Arachne wants him to do. Pretty high strung otherwise, be careful. Oh, and the suit...? Yeah, he just started wearing those one day, and none of us had the heart to tell him otherwise."

The blonde winces as the ever-growing freakshow, before sighing and arriving at the two questions she feels destined to pry about. "So, where do I sit?" She inquires, the first of her two major points. Shaula tilts her head before waving in a general direction, vaguely left. "Oh. Uh... over there, I think. Just pick a spot that looks free, I think you should've gotten a packet containing what we've been working on for a while."

The slowly rising eyebrow of Medusa confirms Shaula's suspicions. "Ah... no packet, okay. I'll get Eruka to get you one, or something..." She concludes, mostly defeated.

"So, where's Arachne? Since she seems to be such a big shot."

The younger sister nervously bats an eye to Medusa and back to the dark glass enclosure that Mosquito dutifully stands in front of. "Ah, she isn't in today!" She proclaims, a bit too loudly and too suddenly to sound even somewhat convincing. Medusa ignores this and catches the direction of her worried glance, before smirking.

She begins to walk, it borders on a jog.

"Now wait, Medusa!" Shaula calls after her, nearly tripping over her heels in chase.

Of course, her words fall on deaf ears, because Medusa stopped caring whenever she was hit with that first, utterly intoxicating wave of fluorescent light. It was that moment that confirmed her suspicions. She's just a little bit curious, that's all.

…