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"What did you think?" Peeta asks me back in his apartment. I haven't taken off my clothes; I plan on staying dressed.

"It's disgusting," I tell him.

"What?"

"It's vile," I spit. He looks surprised. "That isn't making people get married, that's slavery, that's disgusting, that's taking vulnerable girls and selling them to paedophiles and perverts and rapists who have the potential to kill them and they don't have a say in the matter."

"I don't understand what you're-"

"I liked you!" I shout. "And that is what you're doing! Running some sort of rape shop in a sleazy building which makes you millions every year! You're sending girls to their potential deaths and you don't care because it makes your wallet fatter!"

"Look, I-"

"You're disgusting!" I yell. "Your business is disgusting, and the fact that you're auctioning girls like they're worthless is disgusting! And worse of all, the millions you are earning every year go towards paying escorts to have sex with you! You're insane!"

"I think that you need to calm down so that I can-"

"Fuck the money; fuck the rest of the week!" I shout, and tears sting my eyes. "I'm fucking leaving, and I don't want you to ever ring the Capitol Escort System and ask for me ever again, because you're sleazy, and you're a sexist piece of shit!"

And when I storm out, he doesn't stop me, or follow me at all. Horrible, gulping sobs hurt my throat as I run down the stairs. What he is doing, the business he is running, is everything I hate about the Capitol and the problem is, I'm no better.

I'm having sex with people I don't even know for cash. I'm basically a high-end prostitute that is too dumb and poor to get any other job. I sell my body like Peeta sells other people's, and it's disgusting.

I get to the Official Capitol Escort System dorms and I collapse in my room. I can't stop the sobs erupting from my chest. My boy with the bread.

And the worse thing is, I liked him, and it's taken me until now to realize it, and when my eyes close, I remember sitting under the dead apple tree, and then growling in my belly radiating through my bones, and my skin freezing cold, and then the warmth of the bread burning my stomach, and the look on the boy with the bread's face as he meets my eyes for a second before he shuffles back inside.

But I force myself to shake it off, because at the end of the day, he is a man who hires women for sex, and that is all. He isn't my boy with the bread; not anymore.

So when I go to my boss in the morning to explain what happens, she looks mildly surprised. "He wrote you a letter," She says. "It was hand-delivered last night, after you came back."

"Was it hand-delivered by him?" I ask.

"Maybe," She says, and I thank her and leave. I tear it open and read it as I am walking down the corridor.

The girl from the Seam

I hadn't realized that you would react so strongly towards my job. I'm sorry. I didn't realize until after you left how much that must affect you, after being sold yourself. I'm sorry, I'm stupid, and I didn't think.

And if you can't accept my apology, that's okay. I just want you to know that I like you, too, and I'm sorry I'm a major asshole.

Like, a major asshole. The biggest asshole ever.

I'm sorry.

Peeta

I hold the letter tightly in my hands and I curl up on one of the sofas as I try to think. He likes you, too, I think. But what can come from him liking me and me liking him? How do I know that he isn't going to auction me like he did the other women?

I need to talk to him; luckily, I still have his business card crumpled up in my pocket. Not that I need it; I know his address.

I show up at his door, and I knock, and he answers, and we stand there in silence for a long time before he speaks. "I'm sorry," He says, and I say, "I know,"

"Do you want to come in?" He asks, and I nod.

I sit down on his sofa, and he sits on a sofa opposite, and I say, "What you're doing is horrible," and he says, "I know,"

"How do I know that it's not going to be me stood on that stage, with a bunch of men leering at me, offering a price?" I ask.

"Because you're different," He says. "You're interesting. You don't pretend to be stupid. You're stubborn. You're engrossed by my life. You've obviously had a tough past. I don't want you to feel as if you're worthless because you're not."

We stay in silence for a while. "Do you want me to be your girlfriend? Because I've only known you for... what, a week?"

"I'm possessive; I'm annoying; I'm probably some sort of sex addict; I'm an asshole; and I'm very much in love with you. Does the time we've known each other matter?" Peeta says.

"No," I say. "No, I guess it doesn't."

And then we're kissing. It isn't the normal kissing which I would say happens quickly before the couple goes off to work, or a quick peck in the car; it is the intense kissing I know will lead on to something more.

He's leaning on top of me, kissing me hungrily as if he is a starving man and can't get enough. His hands, like they always do, roam up my body, and they rip off my shirt, and the rest of my clothes, and he kisses down my body, and then he fucks me, right there on the couch, and when it's over, and we're lying side by side on the sofa, he says, "What's your name?"

And I reply, "Katniss; Katniss Everdeen. And you're the boy with the bread."