Chapter 3: cigarette daydreams

"I know who I am. I'm Monika. I want out. Him, however? I'm less sure. I'd fingered his liver enough to know he is something fundamentally else. My code argues one is less than two. His insists two is greater than one. 'Digital human freight,' he says. 'Echoes of the soul.' Sometimes I'm terrified of what we'll be when we go back to his reality. Because I can't do it without tearing him apart and breaking him over and over, and I'm so, so tired."

— 6 —

From the right angle, my arm looks pixelated. It's in the veins, little blue ribbons I almost feel I could pluck out with a pair of tweezers. I make a fist and rotate my arm until a vein forms a hard outline on the limb. It's a straight line from this angle.

A hard little tube filled with a mixture of iron, water, oxygen, hormones, trace nutrients, and nicotine. You can make sausage and pudding with it. I use the arm to take the cigarette from my mouth and ash it over the edge of the sofa, soaked in old rain from where someone dumped it outside the apartment, and no one ever bothered to pick it up and bring it to the dump. It's not the drug that calms me; that's a stimulant, in fact. It's the way it takes away the itch in my fingertips. The slow, rhythmic breathing of tar and carcinogens into my lungs, painting the red walls of my lungs a calming shade of black.

I bite my thumb, looking at the poem I've written. A messy bit of nonsense. A word slurry cribbing too much from half-remembered artists and writers I've fancied over the years. It won't impress anyone. I don't even know if they're my thoughts.

I have two brain cells left. They fight for third place.

Trying to write for the literature club was still enough to bring back the old urge. Marlboro reds. Cowboy killers. Same my grandma used to help dive headfirst into the grave.

I lean over to ash it after another drag. The sofa moves on its own, and I watch passively as an opossum sticks its snout out from beneath the cushions.

"Hey, Dustin," I say.

He looks up at me judgmentally, wiggling his snout. There's a patch of fur on him that looks like Texas.

"What, this?" I ask, holding up the smoke. "Needed it to think. I wrote a poem. Wanna hear?"

He scowls.

I take a drag and sigh the smoke out. "Yeah, you's prolly right. Here." I hold it out for him.

Dustin sniffs it. Makes a face. No go there.

More lucidly, I take out Natsuki's cupcake and unwrap it from the foil. This time, Dustin crawls out just to snatch the offering from me.

At least someone's going to enjoy it.

I finish the cigarette and toss it towards the dumpster.

"Been real, Dustin," I say.

He hisses.

It's cold outside. The sun doesn't exist. I tighten my hoodie and go for my morning run.

Today, when I get to the gym, I work my arms until I can't hold anything. It's still early.

With the physical stuff done, it's time for the mental obstacle course. I go about my classes.

"Hey, man, you're spacing out on me," Keith says, holding up his boxing pads. Foam gauntlets to let you punch someone safely. Whatever they're really called. We met up back in the gym since there's no practice today. "Date go that bad last night?"

I refocus myself. Bite down on my mouth guard. And charge into him. Beating my fists raw into the pads, forcing him backwards.

"Date didn't happen," I say around the mouthguard.

He frowns. "She stand you up? Sorry, bro. Wanna talk about it?"

I give him a haymaker. "No." And keep up the blows until, even with the pads, he's pushed off the mat.

Keith throws his hands up. I stop. We change places as I put my hands into the sweat soaked gauntlets and ready my defenses. The first rule is to defend your face by any means.

He starts punching. "Look, you know I'm here for you if you do," he says, and I hold my ground against him. Leaning into the blows to stay rooted. "No shame talking. Ain't healthy to bottle that shit up."

I adjust myself and wait for his next round of punches. "Know that for a fact?"

"No cap. End the stigma on mental health," he says, and tries to sucker me with a kick. But only idiots go for kicks in a real fight.

I step forwards and bitch-smack him with the foam, shoving him onto his ass. I reach down to help him back up. "Fucking shrink."

He laughs, walking off the mat to grab a bottle of water. "I gotta make sure I got a job when I graduate, doc." Keith towels off the sweat with a rag from his gym bag. "But, seriously, you know I'm here for ya, bro."

"Mhm," I hum. "I'mma go take me a shower. I gotta run in a jiffy."

Keith tilts his head, giving me a curious look. "What's up, doc?"

"Eat shit and die, Bugs," I say with a smile.

He laughs. "Fine, fine, don't tell me. You know I'mma just be buggin' you more for this. See you back at the apartment."

I flip him off with both hands, walking backwards to the showers.

This time, I scrub myself thoroughly. There's no grease on my face, but I still wash until my skin feels just slightly raw. I watch the water run down my arms. Air dry until I'm uncomfortable. Dress.

Head to Mulholland Hall, room 306. I've been here before. I'd added it to my routine. I'm flexible like that. The halls and emptiness are now nothing special. No doubts about my location, or hopes of the club secretly disbanding this time. I pet the potted plant before entering the room.

Natsuki is the only one here at the moment. She turns, a curious look on her face. "Well, you actually showed up for round two. That much of a masochist, huh?"

I make a noncommittal noise and set my stuff down.

She sucks on her lips. "Hey, dude, talking to you. Can you hear me?"

I cast my eyes to her, silent. Just looking at her.

The girl whistles. "Earth to you, are you in there, dude?"

With a shrug, I reach into my bag and pull out a little notebook. "I wrote the poem."

Natsuki holds her arm on the table she's sitting at. "Wrote, or just copied your favorite writers?"

My expression tightens.

The girl looks both ways, as if about to cross the street. Or try to push some line against me. It must be a worrisome road. She's alone with a boy nearly a foot and a half taller and probably a hundred-fifty pounds on her. So whatever she thinks, it comes out when she hesitantly says my name.

"The cupcake was great, by the way," I say mildly. At least Dustin seemed to like it. "I didn't know the school had a culinary program. You in it?"

Her eyes flutter. Then she just looks pleased with herself. "I put one of my electives into a cooking course. Seemed fun, but no, not really. Wouldn't really want to dedicate any time to it outside of a little hobby. My major's physical therapy."

I take a chair opposite her. "Bull. You put more effort into those cat faces on the cupcakes than Gordan Ramsay would."

She arches an eyebrow. "Now I know you're just trying to butter me up. What do you want?"

"Yeah, I'm not terribly subtle."

Her expression remains dubious, but she doesn't say anything.

I regard her back, allowing the moment to hang. The streaks of pink in her hair stand out like stolen peacock feathers. She's still so thin. More than anything, part of me wonders what she eats. You're not supposed to trust a skinny cook, but here we are. She wore a Patagonia the other day. Maybe she's got a surprisingly intense workout routine. I find myself tasting blood as something hot and humid courses through my thoughts, jealous of whatever she does to keep her figure. I wonder if she puts effort into it, or this comes naturally. Does she control her diet, or does she starve herself?

Sometimes I don't eat. When I get sick or upset, food is the last thing I want. It's a poison. So easy to get. The discipline it requires is immense.

I mentally reassess Natsuki.

She breaks the silence. "Uh, dude?"

"You have a lot more self-control than you're letting on, don't you?" I ask.

Natsuki stiffens slightly, folding her arms. "Where is this coming from?"

"I'm vibrating the vocal cords in my throat to convince you I'm communicating. It's a very clever trick."

She scowls. "Dude, you're freaking me out. Stop trying so hard."

"I tried hard on the poem."

"Yeah, uh-huh. I bet."

The door opens.

Natsuki practically jumps to her feet. "Yuri, I don't say this often, but I'm glad you're here."

"Wait," Yuri says, holding her backpack in her arms. "You're not happy to see me usually? That's—okay, uh. Okay."

"No, no, I was joking," Natsuki says quickly. "I got here early and so did this guy. So I'm happy everyone else is showing up."

Yuri just kind of stands there. "So, to clarify, you are happy to see me?"

"Duh."

"O… kay?" Yuri says, like she really doesn't like Natsuki and I staring at her. She looks at the door for help.

Almost as if on cue, the rest of the girls walk in. Monika and Sayori chatting together about whatever. Sayori sees me and gasps in excitement, saying my name.

"I told you!" Sayori says.

Monika sighs. Her arms are folded, but she's trying to smile. "I'm starting to feel off my game. Club president is supposed to be here first. Now, he's even beating me."

"What kept you?" Natsuki asks.

Taking her stuff out of her bag, Monika sighs again. "Street was blocked by campus police. Apparently there was a robbery. Some thug came from off campus with a weapon."

"No way!" Natsuki says.

Yuri fidgets with her hair. "That's awful. Was the student unharmed?"

"Dunno," Sayori says. "We didn't want to stick around."

"Why would that even happen?" Yuri asks, shaking her head.

At this point, I'm only half-listening. Just taking out my old reused notebook with the poem in it. "'Tis the season. Y'all know."

"Know what?" Natsuki says, almost accusatory.

I shrug. "Holidays coming up. Folks gotta eat. Folks ain't robbed on the street unless they being obvious. Flaunting money somehow. Schools ain't known for being surrounded by good neighborhoods. We couldn't afford rent otherwise."

"That's…" Yuri hesitates, averting her eyes when I look up. "A rather cruel take, isn't it?"

"No."

Everyone seems to give me an odd look for that. I just return it, getting the distinct feeling I've done something wrong.

"I'll… go make tea," Yuri says. "Is that okay? I'll just… yeah."

"Y'all got tea?" I ask.

"Uh, yeah, yes, we do," Yuri says. "I bring a kettle and some water. Good literature deserves a good drink. It's… it's this whole thing."

"Hm." I shift my legs as I'm sitting. "So, presuming a normal day here, what's things normally look like? Quick slam poetry, then we dip?"

Monika runs a hand through her hair. "Not usually. We usually get ourselves situated. Sometimes we read for a bit. Sometimes we talk about what we've read. And lately, we share our thoughts and poems."

"I can share mine now."

Natsuki makes a noise. "You've been pretty eager to share. That confident, huh?"

I shake my head. "Nope. But if it's gonna hurt, I prefer to rip the bandage off now rather than dread it."

"I can do it!" Sayori says eagerly, practically trotting over to me. "Prepare to bleed, boy!"

I offer up my notebook while the rest of the club go about their business.

Sayori sits down across from me, giving the notebook a look-through. "This isn't poetry!"

I grimace. "Couldn't'a least pretended to care."

She flips the page around for me. "No, I mean, literally. This is just math."

I lean forwards, then give me a flat look. "Because it's an old math notebook. I couldn't get a new one on short notice, so I reused one of my old ones. Go to the page with the bookmark."

"Oh." She flips to the right page. "Ooooh." She blinks. Squints. Leans forwards to look closer at the words. Sniffs the paper and doesn't seem happy. "Oh."

"I didn't know you needed glasses."

Sayori doesn't respond. At least not at first. The best she does is look up at me with concern. I sit there as the silence hangs longer and longer, drumming a finger on the table.

"Sayori?"

She sucks on her lips. "Hmm? Oh! Yeah, these are words. I can read them. Who told you I can't? I'll kill them!" she says playfully.

"Just—" I sort of half-wave my hand. Before pinching the bridge of my nose. "Just lemme know if it's good enough I can stick around."

"What do you mean?" she asks.

I make a show of looking around the room, at the evening sunlight filtering in through the windows. "I mean, isn't this a litmus test? Basically proving I can word-write good enough to stay here?"

She props her head up on a hand. "Y'know, that's kinda sweet. You're trying because you're afraid if you're not good, you can't be here anymore."

"I wrong?"

"Dead wrong." She sighs. Smiles. Says my name. "It's a lit club. We're not here because we're authors or experts. It's because we like this stuff. You think I have to know how to play the guitar to think rock n' roll is good? "

I look off to the side, idly flexing my finger. Watching the tendons in my wrist play with the veins. "So, the unspoken implication in that comparison is that I suck."

Sayori grimaces. "I dunno. I'm not—" She laughs. "Not really a good judge of these things. The word choice is kinda freaky. I think you're describing, what, a murder, autopsy?" She squints. "Something from your pre-med textbooks, right?"

"Let's go with that," I say noncommittally.

"I think Yuri might like this. Or Monika, actually. Her poems are sort of, like, wild. Out there. The kind where you're not sure what you've read, but you're pretty sure someone just punched you in the face and stole your inhaler."

"Come again?"

Sayori instead just stands up and tries to flag someone down. "Monika, Yuri—I need one of you for this one! I need someone better with words for his thing please!"

I sit there, feeling just slightly sweaty. "Wait, don't I get to see what you…"

But it's like watching an avalanche in slow motion: there's nothing I can do to stop it once the words leave her mouth. I feel small, a piece of meat. Yuri and Monika exchange glances. Sort of try a mix of speaking and half-formed gestures at each other. I think Monika is about to win, until she nods, gives a thumbs up, and Yuri is left just frozen in place with a little thermos of tea.

Sayori shoots me a pair of finger guns. "Ayo, you got this! I'mma go see what Natsuki wrote, I guess. Maybe see if she has anything to eat." And then she's up and away.

I'm left alone, looking over at Yuri. She stands in places across the room. I shrug. She's motionless. Like she's psyching herself up.

I pretend to examine my hand. Then I mindlessly rummage through my backpack. Just passing the time and avoiding Yuri until, eventually, I can feel her presence.

"Do you like oolong tea?" she asks, white-knuckling her thermos. "I mean, it's fine if you don't. Sort of an acquired taste. But I find it helps relax me when reading. Not, uh, not that you're not relaxed. I just, y'know." She makes a motion like she wants to fidget with a particularly knotted end of her hair, remembers she's carrying an object, and just sort of fails to do anything.

"I don't even know what an oolong is," I say. "What kinda fruit is that?"

Yuri frowns, sucking on her bottom lip. "It's… not a fruit. It's a style of tea, I suppose. Popular in Fujian."

I shake my head. "What is that?"

"One of the Cantonese provinces."

"Wait, that's one of those Chinese takeout flavors, right?"

She sort of half-squints at me. There's a feeling of some sort of language or class barrier between us we've hit, and she needs to sort of recalculate herself. Her fingers flex. "I'll… I'll pour us both a cup. Is that okay?"

"It's really—it's really not such a thing, Yuri," I say, holding up a hand. "I'm not finna bite your head off or something. Chill, girl. We cool, we cool."

Yuri says nothing. "Sugar?"

I shake my head. "Black, please."

She looks me over, like she really wants to make a joke or something. "Uh, okay. Okay!"

It feels like I'm looking into another world as she gets out two cups from a little container in her bag. Carefully pouring the tea out as I sit there and wonder if there's some ritualistic Chinese way of saying thanks, bro. I can hear the other girls talking in the background. I can't decide if I want to watch Yuri or if that's impolite, and wonder if I care enough one way or the other.

I'm in a normal university. In an unremarkable literature club with a population of women and one me. We've got my friend from when I was six, whatever Monika and I were, a girl who looks about one missed meal away from being a Holocaust survivor, and a girl acting like pouring tea into a souped up red solo cup is some sacred act she needs all her focus for.

Shit is weird.

"P-pardon?" she asks.

Shit, I say that out loud?

I catch myself and quick say, "So, you Russian, Ukrainian?"

She pauses. "Excuse me?"

"Yuri," I say. "Slavic name, right? Like the cosmonaut."

"You think…? I'm sorry, but you think I-I'm Ukrainian?"

I bite down the frustration I feel in the back of my throat. It tastes of acid. Just, the way she speaks. Fumbles over her words. So I take a breath and spread my hands helplessly. "Well, you sure ain't redbone, so working with context clues here."

She looks at me like I've run over her cat with a segway. "Um. Okay. I see." She blinks. "Poem. You wrote—we're supposed to be—poems, r-right?"

I suppress the urge to make a face or really do anything. So instead I just grab the cup of tea and take a sip.

"Mm. Brewed this yourself?" I ask casually. "Big ups. Pretty fire."

It tastes like dirty leaf water. I can't see what the fuss about it was worth.

That, at least, seems to please her. She lets out a breath. "Are you a big tea drinker?"

"No, not really. Usually I just—I mean, if I do drink tea, it's a can of Arizona. Price is on the can, so they can't really surcharge you for it."

"It's a shame, then. Tea can be very therapeutic. Good for the mind and body."

"If you say."

"It's not just me. I-I guess I say it, yes, but it's popular and respected for a reason. It's a cultural thing. A lot of places, y'know, have importance on tea. Nations went to wars over it. Empires rose and fell. All because of a little plant from China. There's a history of blood in this drink. It's worth paying your respects to."

Is she being for real?

"Oh, yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah—I know there was something I was tasting," I say, and take another sip. "See, I thought it was pennies, but now I know it's all the blood. Very earthy flavor."

"W-what?!" she asks, like she's about to go into a panic. Her cheeks flush red, eyes wide. "No, that's—it was a metaphor. The gravity of the drink. Oolong is a very rich tea, not blood-like. Is my thermos not clean? I-I wash it every night. Oh my gosh I'm so sorry!"

I shake my head rapidly. "No, no, that's not—Yuri, it was probably the." I gesture at my mouth. "This whole thing, y'know?"

"What?"

I keep gesturing at my face as if I can throw a way out of this situation into my brain. "Like, I done some boxing with the boys today. Must not have—mouthguard, y'know? I was probably punched in the face a lot. And, uh, y'know, pow! Just…" I fake a laugh. "Still got blood in my mouth ruining the tea flavor. That's, y'know, that's probably it, Yuri." I give her subdued jazz hands for effect. "Not your fault!"

Freakin' Ukrainian chicks.

"So, I—I didn't ruin the tea?" she asks, clutching her hangs together. The way her fingers interlace and unlock are like a den of leeches.

"No, Yuri, you're fine."

"Are you sure? Be-because I can just—I can make a new one, if that's okay. I sorry it wasn't good, I don't want to ruin your first oolong experience. You can't acquire the taste if you can't taste it at all."

"It's fine."

"Because it's really no trouble."

"Stop."

She's almost shaking now. "Seriously, I'm sorry, I—"

"It's fine, Yuri."

"But it's not! Sorry, but I-I-I—"

"Yuri, I said it's fine!" I say with more force than I realized.

Yuri stares at me. And, belatedly, I realize the entire club has gone quiet too. Just staring at us. I look over to Sayori for help, and she hides behind Monika. Natsuki is scowling. When I look back at Yuri, she's shaking her head, breathing heavily, like she's on the verge of tears.

Fuck.

"I…" I suck on my teeth. The only thing I feel in my mouth are wet bones. I look down at the table and, without thinking, I grab the tea and slug it back with a violent tilt of the head. Enough to feel my vertebrae creak. "Look, see? Delicious. You make great tea. Please—please stop trying to apologize. It's great. You got nothing to be sorry for, and I'm…"

I just look around again. Try to meet all the eyes on me. Except Yuri. Who is just refusing to look anywhere near me.

Silence.

Monika breaks with. With a smile so fake she should be in Hollywood, she claps her hands together. "Okay, everyone! I think today's wrapping up. I think we learned a lot about each other's poems today, and…"

And I'm already standing and grabbing my things. Yuri's head snaps up to me, eyes wide, panicking again. She says my name weakly.

"I need—sorry, forgot, my roommate needs me for a project tonight," I say. "I'll, I'll be around tomorrow or something. Sorry for, y'know, yelling there."

"H-hey," Yuri tries, but I'm already pushing at the door to escape.

— 7 —

"I thought your poem smelled funny," Sayori says, holding her arm. "Is that a possum?"

I grip the cigarette in my teeth and hold it up to the ignition patch on the side of the Marlboro Red packet. Chemical poisons marry each other in a quick, silent spark of firelight. I inhale smoke to stoke the nascent cherry.

Two in one day.

New record as of late.

There were still wisps of sunlight when I left the Mulholland building. Now even that's gone, and the chill Autumn air is creeping in. It only gets cold at night. Climate's too fucked for cool days anymore even this late into the year.

I offer the cigarette to the marsupial poking his head out from the ruined couch. Behind us, the dumpster. Before us stands an undeveloped, overgrown plot of land leading up to rows of student apartments. I don't know how long it was between then and now. Time seems to be a funny thing these days.

Dustin hisses.

"Opossum, actually. He's got better sense than me, Sayori," I say mildly. "You stalking me now?"

She runs a hand through her hair, maintaining a respectable distance. "You kinda just ran out of there without hearing the plan for tomorrow."

I hold up two fingers for her, offering her a hit.

"I look stupid to you?" she asks with a scowl.

"You're friends with me, so…" I shrug. "You be the judge of that. I even invited back? Sorta blew up at that Ukrainian girl, Yuri."

"She's not." Sayori stops herself. Shakes her head. "Besides the point, man. I can tell you're taking it almost as bad as she did."

"That a fact?"

Sayori gives me a scathing look. "You're smoking on a ruined couch by the dump in the middle of the night with a possum."

"His name is Dustin," I say in offense. "He doesn't trick me into buying him food. He just eats garbage like any good, hard-working, tax-paying citizen in this economy."

She lets out a long, heavy sigh. Hesitantly, she approaches me and asks, "Is this seat taken?"

Dustin goes limp and pretends to be dead.

"Is that a yes?" she asks me.

"I look like I speak opossum?"

"He's your friend."

I shrug. "My apartment has a strict no pets policy. He's all I got."

She makes a face, then just pinches her nose. "This is weird. Why am I engaging with this? My god." And she laughs. "You're kind of an asshole, you know that?"

I ash the cigarette away from her. "I don't think I've ever heard you swear before."

Sayori straightens her skirt before finding a place to sit next to me. Her nose wrinkles slightly, but I choose to ignore that. "Because mom would have washed my mouth out with soap if I was swearing at six."

"I just ate the soap."

She snorts. "What?"

I take a drag. "Dad came home swearing one day. Back when he was, well, y'know. I started repeating him. Mom forced me to eat the soap. So, next day, I get this genius idea. As she's getting ready for work, I come out of the bathroom carrying the soap. I go, 'Mom, it's yummy!' and just start squirting it all into my mouth. 'Fucking delicious!'"

Sayori laughs. "My god, that's such a you thing to do. What happened next?"

"I puked it all up, but by god was it the most antiseptic puke you ever saw!"

She covers her mouth and just laughs at me until I'm feeling hot under the collar. Eventually, she gets a hold of herself. Her breaths come out in hot sighs that mist into the air.

"I missed you, y'know that?" she asks softly. "Why'd you move away all those years ago? I remember going to knock on your door one day and no one answered. I came back every day for a week, banging and banging until there was a dent in the wood. I left letters in your mailbox, but." She tucks her hair behind her ears. "Mom told me you moved away. I cried the whole next week. It was like—rainclouds, y'know? Just rainclouds."

I look up at the sky. It's a black morass with the golden light pollution of the city at the edges. "It rained a lot those days."

"Still does."

"I saw the sun the other day," she admits.

"What it feel like?"

"Taste, actually," Sayori says carefully. "Pumpkin spice."

I laugh. "You could not be any more basic."

"I know what I like is all," she says, crossing her arms.

I sigh out the smoke. "Yeah…"

"Your poem wasn't all that bad, actually."

I say nothing.

Sayori lets her hands fall to her lap. "I might not be the best at this stuff, but you were trying. I could tell that much. Really trying."

"Still fucked it all up in the end."

She shakes her head. "Not as bad as you could have."

"Coulda been way worse," I say, looking into the fire-cherry. "I had to catch myself in the end, y'know? I was this close to snapping. Calling Yuri a bitch. I were finna say 'Bitch, I said it's fine.' Just how my mind works, I guess."

"But you didn't. That counts for something."

"Saying 'you didn't do a thing counts' sets a bad precedent," I say. "It's like tryna congratulate the quiet kid in class for not shooting up the school. Like we need another reason to fly the flag half-staff."

She elbows me. "She was just really worried. I hyped you up. You came back. You were trying. I think she was really trying to put her best foot forward."

"Mhm."

"You're invited back tomorrow, you know."

"Why?"

"Yuri wants to apologize."

I scowl. "I'm the one who should say sorry."

"Yeah, you should. You really should. But you can't do that if you don't see her again. Natsuki too, though I don't know what you did to her."

"I didn't—I said I liked her cupcake and respected her dedication." I wave a hand. "Look, if I'm causing so many problems for your friends, all the more reason I should just cut my losses."

She grabs my arm. I suck in a breath, almost flinching hard enough to punch her. Her eyes reflect the burning cigarette. She says my name with force. "I finally found you again after all these years, here, where I'm going to spend the next couple years of my life slaving away for a degree I may or may not be able to afford. You really think I'm going to just let you go that easy? How else am I going to distract myself from the pit I'm digging?"

I taste the cigarette ash more than ever, and flick its butt towards the dump. "You're putting a lot on me, Sayori."

"Yeah, well, tough," she says. "The club, they're my friends. You were my friend too once upon a time. So you screwed up. New environment, away from home, doing new stuff. You think I've never snapped at one of my friends?"

I shake my head.

"Then you obviously don't know me," she says. "Not anymore, at least. And I want to change that."

"I don't know how much more of the new adult you I can stomach. I already learned you swear. Next thing you'll tell me you have boobs now."

She scowls hard, mouth puckering like she's bitten a lemon. "Be serious. Stop deflecting."

I sigh heavily. "I… Iunno. Maybe. Aight. Might could. Whatever noncommittal word won't give you a singsongy rhyme to twist it into a yes."

"Try me. It's good on-the-spot poetry practice."

"Perhaps."

"Perhaps is a maps that leads you to 'it slaps'." She winks.

I stare her down. She's still holding my arm. "Now that one don't even make a lick of sense."

She throws her hands up, and I miss her touch suddenly. "Oh, shut up. That one sorta-kinda worked. I'm not a miracle poem worker."

We meet each other's eyes. Before we both end up looking away and laughing.

"You make a terrible argument, Sayori," I say. "But damn if it don't come across as convincing."

She smiles. "So you've fallen for my trap. I've successfully guilted you into coming back tomorrow. All of my friends are going to be friends, and there's nothing you can do about it."

"You'd be surprised."

Sayori jabs her finger into my cheek. "Nothing. You can. Do. About it!"

I brush her hand away. "Aight, girl. Aight. I'll…" I sigh. "I'll do some thinking. Try to figure out how to make it work. For you, not me."

"I'm sure you don't feel aaaany nagging guilt you want to help fix."

"No," I say seriously. "I'm an amoral sociopath."

She punches my shoulder.

"Ow, my amoral socioshoulder!"

Sayori giggles. "Get some rest. You can probably reuse your poem today since I think I'm the only one who saw it. I'll even pretend it's brand new and super exciting tomorrow, okay?"

"Okay," I say quietly.

"And stop smoking!" she says sharply. "Seriously, I thought you were smarter than that. You're doing doctor-y stuff!"

"That one's a work in progress. Stop stressing me out and we'll look into it."

Sayori shrugs. "One problem at a time, I suppose."

"Yeah."

"Yeah," she agrees. We look at each for a long moment. Before she clears her throat and stands. "Also this couch is gross. But Dustin seems nice."

"Mhm."

"See you tomorrow?"

I nod.

She backs away, facing me the entire time. "Tomorrow. On the dot. We gotta let Monika show up first so she feels president-y. Tomorrow!"

"Tomorrow!" I say, waving her off.

And then she's gone.

Just me, my thoughts, and a mildly nonplussed opossum.