Author's Note: Well I mean I guess it could be fun if I keep this going.
I hope you guys don't mind little mentions of a gay and a lesbian couple. It seems Leone's started referring to Tatsumi as Bulat's boyfriend, and apparently Mine and Sheele are the dumb lesbians. I don't even know if I'm going to do anything with it, I just looked back over it and I don't even remember typing it.
Ehhhh whatever I guess
The next morning, Lubbock woke up to a loud, repetitive beeping. He shut off his alarm clock with a groan, kicking his blankets off and getting up. He opened up his closet, pulling out one of his ridiculously fancy outfits, quickly getting dressed and combing his hair, and then quickly rushed downstairs to have breakfast.
It was a rare occasion for him to seem happy at all, and it was even more rare to see him actually smiling even just slightly, so it didn't go unnoticed. His siblings probably noticed first, but probably didn't have the patience to even try pulling the pin on that grenade, since they remained silent. His father wasn't even present, and so the only person left to ask him about his change in mood was his mother.
Which was not something he wanted, but since it seemed the world hated him sometimes, she did.
"Did something happen yesterday? You seemed a bit happy last night at dinner as well."
No way he could tell the truth—he couldn't let himself be caught dead by his parents associating in such a friendly way with a complete stranger who wasn't from school or a child of someone at his father's workplace.
"I met someone at school," he answered vaguely, still more focused on his food than anything else. "She invited me to stay at her house for dinner tonight. May I?"
"I'm glad you've finally made a friend!"
Oh, but you wouldn't be so happy if I told you she wasn't from that stupid school... he thought bitterly, but of course, he wasn't foolish enough to say that out loud. Instead, he quickly finished the food in front of him, politely wiped his mouth, and went upstairs to brush his teeth and to get his cellphone and backpack.
As he headed out the door, he waved to his mother. He would have bid farewell to his siblings as well, but seeing as they thought being older made them better than him, he preferred not having anything to do with them.
It felt school let out sooner than it usually did, and considering how packed it was at the café, he decided to wait outside for her shift to end. Not that he minded much—as long as he had a book, he could go hours without becoming bored or wanting to do anything else.
At the end of the day, Leone waved and grinned as she left the small building, then turned her attention to Lubbock.
"Been waiting long?" she asked, tossing him a peppermint candy.
He caught it and popped it in his mouth. "Only for a few hours." He slipped his book into his backpack and followed Leone as she began walking down the sidewalk.
She smiled up at the cloudy, light pinkish-orange sky. "Sorry we've gotta walk. I can't drive, and my bro doesn't have time to take a break from cooking and pick us up, especially since he's going to his teacher's house to help her with grading."
Lubbock shrugged. "I'm used to walking everywhere. My parents can't be bothered to take me anywhere. The youngest has to work the hardest to amount to anything."
She gave him a look of mixed sympathy and disbelief. He was expecting as much, since it was the most common reaction he got when he said things like that. Apparently that wasn't the way things worked in other families, and he couldn't help feeling a bit jealous of that. "Yeah, that's not how you determine worth. I'm not sure what you guys do, but normal people don't decide how much someone's worth by seeing how much pressure it takes to break them. Just saying."
"I never said it was right. It's just how it works out, I guess." He shrugged, but said nothing more. He preferred not to keep talking about it.
Apparently Leone could tell, because she switched the topic pretty quickly. "So what kinds of things do you do for fun?"
"Sewing, cooking, anything like that my mother thinks will be useful. I'm pretty good at football, but I don't play that much anymore."
She cocked her head to the side. "Football like they have here, or football like it's called in every other country?"
"The one they call soccer here." He shook his head. "I hate American football, and it's dirtier than I'd like, too. I know how that sounds, but sometimes getting dirty isn't all that enjoyable."
Leone lets out a snort of laughter. "You sound like my friend Bulat. He's always concerned with looking nice, and he really hates getting dirty most the time." She smirks. "...Well, I'm sure he doesn't mind if it's Tatsumi getting him dirty..."
"Who's she? Another friend of yours?"
"She?" She laughs again. "No, Tatsumi's a guy. As if Bulat would ever do that with a woman. Gross, he'd never even think about it!"
That made Lubbock wonder about how well he'd get along with this Bulat guy. No, he had nothing against gays—shout-out to Verizon Wireless for providing him with five gigabytes of data for himself each month, and a shout-out to his phone for having an incognito tab, because thanks to those two things, he had completely unrestricted access to social networking sites, Tumblr being his favorite. It was just that he was raised in a fairly homophobic environment, so it was a little weird for him. Like, to the point where he probably wouldn't even get off on two women.
It served as a quick reminder to work on that.
Apparently, he hesitated a bit longer than he thought he did, because Leone looked at him with an expression of mild curiosity and accusation. "There a problem? You one of those guys who jacks off to lesbians and then goes back around and talks shit about gay men? News flash—that's called fetishizing, not accepting, so don't even try that in defense."
"No, no!" Lubbock wasn't even aware of all his dumb hand gestures as he shook his head, frantically trying to figure out how to explain himself. "It's more like...my parents are homophobic, and even the concept of lesbians is still kinda weird. I'm a little sick of it all, since I guess it's the same as the way a guy like me looks at a girl, I just don't get it. I swear to God, I'm trying."
Leone burst out laughing, and even had to stop for a moment because of how hard she was laughing. "What? Who raised you?! That is the most hilarious thing I've heard all week and I take orders at a café! Do you have any idea the kinds of things I hear every single day?"
"Is it really this funny?"
"Duh! No straight teenage boy thinks like that, Lubba!" Just as soon as she composed herself, she went into another fit of giggles.
Lubbock knew that. His parents made a mistake giving him a device that let him do whatever he wanted on the Internet, since they seemed to be intent on forcing all their opinions onto him. But even with that, he still knew there were some views that needed fixing—he just didn't know he would ever admit that out loud.
"Yeah, I'm still working on that..." He sighed and shoved his hands in his pockets. He knew it probably looked stupid, doing that with the kind of clothes he was wearing, but he didn't really care. It already looked pretty out of place for someone dressed so nicely to be walking home with a girl whose apron was covered in splotches of coffee and tea, and it wasn't as if he cared about appearance like he was always told he should.
And if word of this got back to his parents, he wanted to see them try to keep him away from ordinary people, because he knew for a fact that was one thing they were not taking from him.
"Maybe some time at my place could fix that right up. We've got dumb lesbians, and Bulat and his boyfriend, and I'm pretty sure one of my brother's friends is gay. But get this—a girly lesbian who's getting a prosthetic arm, and she would make, like, fifty Facebook accounts just to Like the Starbucks page, and she's a Justice League fanatic. Just let that sink in."
None of that added up, really—how many people quite like that did you meet on a regular basis, after all? Lubbock wasn't sure if he wanted to get to know that girl or not.
"Pretty strange, huh?" she chuckled. "But I'm not sure you'll get to meet her tonight, since my brother said something about her getting a cold a couple days ago. It's been going around the school, so maybe you'll have to wait until next Friday to see any of the people he hangs out with. They're pretty cool, though."
"What about your friends?"
"Oh, they're the best. My best friend is gay, I'd bet fifty bucks Tatsumi is his boyfriend even though he hasn't even figured out he isn't straight, Mine's just an angry lesbian but she hates it when I say that, Sheele's a super clumsy airhead, and Akame is really quiet but you're dead if you underestimate her. They're great people, I can't wait to introduce them all to you." She grinned. "What about yours?"
Lubbock rolled his eyes and shook his head as if her question was absolutely ridiculous. But instead of saying he didn't have any, he just replied, "She's pretty cool. Maybe a little obnoxious, but I think I would be, too, if I had that kind of freedom. And I'd take her over anyone else any day."
"Do you seriously not have any other friends?"
"Who wants to be friends with someone when they can just try to talk their way into a bit of money?" He shrugged.
"Who wants the person's money when you can just be friends?" Leone sounded almost irritated as she countered the question. "I'm not saying I've never mooched a few dollars from random people here and there, but seriously."
He shrugged again. "People don't think about anyone but themselves. I remember Science class a couple years back. We had a lesson on animal instincts, and yet not even the teacher could realize that most people are no better when it comes to following instincts. How blind do you have to be see that most people only do nice things because they'd feel guilty if they didn't, or that they just disregard everyone around them?" He gave an exaggerated gag. "And then I had to listen to how I'm never getting a proper job if I don't accept it."
"Ugh, kill me now." She giggled and threw her arm around Lubbock's shoulders. "But you know what that means, right? You've gotta prove your parents wrong! Stop being so isolated, stop being so guarded with everyone else, and do a better job at life than they ever could!"
"That's a lot easier said than done."
"So start sooner rather than later." She grabbed his arm and began dragging him along as she sprinted down the sidewalk. "I live in the apartment complex right over here on this corner! Come on!"
He struggled to keep up with her and to keep from tripping over his own feet—damn, she was fast!
The building really didn't look like much, but for some reason, he felt some kind of odd excitement at actually being invited inside. He knew apartments weren't the nicest things ever, but at the same time, any kind of harmless new experience caught his interest, and he never actually thought he would find himself visiting such a cheap living space. His parents would kill him if one day he came home and announced that he'd visited this place.
Just another reason he hated them.
"I live all the way up on the sixth floor, and the elevator broke last night. There's a stairwell inside, but it's more fun to go up this way." She ran over to the stairs leading down from the fire exits of each level. "Sixth one up leads into my brother's room. Just try to be careful and don't knock anything over. I've never seen him actually angry, and hell if I ever want to."
Hesitantly, Lubbock followed her. He hoped his clothes wouldn't get dirty, because he had no clue how he would explain that. Even when he was back in kindergarten, he'd been scolded for spilling his chocolate milk on himself, and that was nine years ago. He even wiped the non-existent dust from the window sill as he entered a room with a pastel blue and white theme.
Leone motioned for him to leave the room quickly, and she shut the door quietly behind her.
"I'm not sure if it's the ball gag, the handcuffs, or the blindfold he's got in there, but he really doesn't like other people in his room," she whispered, before raising her voice as she walked into the kitchen, "So how's Seryuu and Wave doing?"
A young man—woman? Lubbock couldn't tell, but whatever, they were kinda cute—stood in front of the stove making what looked like small pancakes. "Ah...Seryuu keeps updating her status complaining about how she feels like she might be dying, and Wave mentioned his cold hitting him particularly hard today, so I wouldn't say they're necessarily doing very well. I made the syrniki with sunflower seeds, Seryuu's favorite, and I have some salmon in the oven for Wave. Even Miss Esdeath's had a small fever today, but I think I have something else for her."
"Don't you think you're overdoing this? Even just a little?"
He—she?—chuckled and shook their head. "Wave said the same thing, but it would be a shame if I didn't do at least this much. I think I'll pick up some medicine as well."
Leone pulled a five-dollar bill from her pocket. "Here, use something from my tips. We're already tight on money, so don't go spending from the money we actually work for."
Oh, this was Leone's brother. Duh—why had he even had to give it any thought? The guy had a rather androgynous female appearance, but honestly... At least he'd realized before he said something stupid, like address him as ma'am.
"By the way, this is my friend, Lubba!" She changed the subject quickly, pulling Lubbock to stand in front of her. "He's the one I was talking about last night! Lubba, this is my brother, Run."
The young man looked almost curious. "And someone like you cared enough to visit this place? I do hope she didn't pester you into coming here."
"Excuse you, he came because I invited him." She glanced at him as he pulled at the collar of his shirt. "And by the way, the bathroom is down the hallway, the first door on your left."
With a nod, he headed to the bathroom. He'd had quite enough of his uncomfortable clothes, and he couldn't get changed out of them quickly enough. He wasn't sure what else to do with his backpack, so he just put it back over one of his shoulders.
When he returned to the kitchen, Run had apparently left already, and Leone was talking to someone on the phone.
"I'm telling you, I never said that! I don't know what that angry lesbian thinks I've been saying, but that's a little much even for me. ... Oh, so she thought it would be good to tell you to tell me that she's not coming? And besides, we're having syrniki of all things tonight—you'd think she'd at least come to take our food. ... It's not like I want that, because Akame already eats like she's pregnant with quadruplets, but it just seems like she'd take a few cakes and leave. ... What do you mean Bulat's not coming? Isn't it like your job as his boyfriend to— ... Did you just deny being his boyfriend and say you're watching a movie with him in the same sentence? ... It doesn't even matter if it's The Hobbit! ... Fine, whatever, we can make do with just Akame and Sheele." She clicked her tongue and slammed the phone back onto its stand.
"What was that all about?"
"Tatsumi's bailing to watch a movie with his totally-not-boyfriend, and Mine's upset with me for some reason. Looks like only Sheele and Akame are showing up tonight. Whatever, I guess it's better not to overwhelm you by introducing you to everyone all at once anyway."
As if on cue, the doorbell rang, and Leone hurried to answer it. On the doorstep were two girls, one dressed in black and red, and the other in lilac and a darker shade of purple. The one in black gave only a small wave as she entered, while the one in purple smiled and held out her hand.
"My name is Sheele," she said. "You must be Lubbock, right?"
"Yeah." He shook her hand, barely keeping himself from politely bowing as he had been taught to do. "And her...that's Akame?"
"Yes, that's her. She might seem a bit quiet, but she's just one of those people who doesn't talk very much. Don't worry about her not liking you—she might like staying quiet, but it's obvious when she doesn't like someone."
"Yeah, I get that."
Leone came back from the kitchen carrying four plates. Akame quickly grabbed the one stacked with an inedible amount of pancake-things, Sheele took the one with the fewest, and Leone gave Lubbock just as much as she was having.
"Hey, what are these things?" he asked, taking a small bite of one.
"It's called syrniki. It's basically a cheese pancake," Leone explained. "There's sunflower seeds in it, too, since Run wanted to make Seryuu's favorite tonight. How's it taste?"
"Weird. Not really a bad weird, but...I don't think I've ever tried anything quite like this."
"Funny, I can't cook. My parents can, he can, and then I almost set the entire place on fire trying to cook Spaghetti-O's. And I'm saying they can cook really well. It's like it runs in their family or something."
For a moment, Lubbock considered making some comment about it, but soon decided saying things regarding her family wasn't his place, especially since she made it sound like she wasn't born into it.
"I'm sure you could learn if you tried hard enough," Sheele insisted.
Akame nodded and stopped stuffing the food into her mouth long enough to add, "I'd eat whatever you make if you decide to try cooking."
Leone chuckled. "Of course you would, and you'd enjoy it while everyone else would throw it all back up."
She didn't reply, but had a fair enough kind of expression.
"So anyway, I went sifting through the movies, and I've found a few I didn't even know we had. There's Twilight, why the hell do we even own that one, The Notebook, that's gross, Die Hard, a nice wholesome Christmas movie, The Matrix, Sheele probably shouldn't be allowed to watch this one, and Session 9, which will fuck the shit out of your brain. Personally, I like Die Hard the best, and since most guys like explosions..."
While Sheele looked vaguely afraid of a movie with a title like that, Akame seemed mildly interested. Leone seemed to want to watch it, and since Lubbock really didn't have any kind of preference, the majority won.
And so Leone started the movie, everyone still working on eating their dinner, except Akame, who had finished eating and had made a trip to the kitchen to get an entire back of leeks and a bowl of soy sauce.
Author's Note: I'm sorry this is so long. And I hope this is still interesting because I'm honestly really worried it's not.
Also I'm not sure if soy sauce and leeks is a legit thing in Japan? I just know my friend Kazuko snacks on it a lot, so I guess it must taste good.
And I've never actually seen any of the movies mentioned here aside from The Matrix and Session 9, and I'm currently reading the first book in Twilight. I just know a vague thing or two about the other ones and made an assumption of what Leone would think of them soo...