"Hey, Sid," Maka looks up from the mess of papers she has strewn over the corner of the bar she's claimed, "Can I get a refill?" The ice in her glass clinks merrily, reflecting the multicolored rainbow of LEDs through the mist, the sound of shuffling feet and laughter punctuating the otherwise relative stillness.
Sid, a bartender in his maybe thirties glows a little blue in the low black light, still he slides down a refill of Cherry Coke™ which glides into Maka's open hand with the precision of a professional shuffleboard shot. Maka doesn't even look up from her research. It's such a practiced move by 3rd quarter in the dead of winter, lips closing around the straw that vibrates delicately with the carbonation as she sucks down cherry enhanced cola syrup.
She throws the small carbonated sigh at the end of her sip over her shoulder to search the dance floor that is pretty crowded for a Friday night in the small Vegas suburb of Death City.
Chupacabra's has undergone a series of revamps in the years since it first opened as an exotic dance bar- Maka shudders thinking of how much she's disgraced herself by even stepping foot into such an establishment. The businesses haven't stuck, but the name has.
After the dance club closed its doors, someone else tried starting a Greek restaurant, but that also went under. Maka wonders if a name that directly translates into sucking goat really could have made it as a restaurant, but doesn't want to waste the brain power. It then attempted to be a moody coffee establishment- the only thing that survived that stint was the espresso maker sitting on the back wall. Finally some minx, rumor had it she was the one that complained to the inspector general about the dance clubs violations, bought out the place. Maka strongly suspects an Only Fans account greased that deal, but has no real evidence or issues against the current marketing strategy.
By day Chupacabra's caters to the elderly millennial mothers attempting to regain their hotness or goddessness via pole cardio classes, Maka's teeth grind out of sheer compulsion, and by night…
Well, a silent disco isn't the worst way to spend her Friday night. Plus she gets so much studying in.
Maka observes the various glow-in-the-dark finger painted, glow stick twirling, LED lit headphones oscillating to tunes only the wearer can hear-hands in the air waving without care-until she spots the two she's chaperoning.
Her two best friends in the world, Liz and Tsubaki.
The light gleams off the blue black hair of Tsubaki who's hips undulate mesmerizingly to a quick beat, toned thigh peeking through the high slit of her dress. Next to her, Liz's long blonde pony tail whips around, tiny waist on display as a tinier crop top tries to reel in her chest.
Maka turns to glare at Hathorne. Why the fuck is she even here? Sucking down even more cherry coke trying to burn the curvy images of her friends from her mind through inhaled sugar. Compared to her besties Maka is a walking two by four with a touch more snark and snarl than most of the walking sacks of hormones want to risk losing limbs for. All fine by her, really. It's not like she would want to taint her angelic status with anyone from Death City. Ew gross, just no.
The butt of her eraser taps to her own frustrated beat. Looking up at the Felix cat clock Sid has on the back wall, Maka swears the eye twitching has the hands moving backwards, it can't really be nine? There's no way she's been here for only twenty minutes. And there's no way she's going to get the girls out of here before eleven, or else she's the whiny wallflower.
Maka's forehead slides down to the papers on the bar top with a wordless dying caw.
"Sid," she sit's bolt up again, "this blows."
"You'll have to elaborate, Miss Maka." He doesn't spare her a second glance as he slides in a clean crate of glasses below the bar.
"This," she says, waving her arms around. "Them!" Double arm dab indicates the dancefloor as she takes in the mob of bodies gyrating on one another. Some are more hot and heavy than others. Not Maka though because she's blessed with two left feet and Helen Keller's musical sense of rhythm. The beat she couldn't detect, but the smell of horny's heavy in the air and it makes her so angry. "Death, just make them all fuck off!"
Sid takes in her dismay with a shrug of a tattooed and toned shoulder. "No can do, Miss Maka, I'm not that kind'a man. As long as they're not hurting anybody, let them have fun."
Even the attempt to roll her eyes straight out of her head doesn't make her feel any better. As if anything could get her to scrub away that oddly calculating gaze in Sid's observant eye. No. No no. Ahhh, no. A thunk of the head to punctuate each denial, if this isn't her nervous system shot to fuck. She doesn't need his pity, she does not.
"That bad, huh?"
The baritone resonates to her marrow melting it like butter and Maka's jaw tendons tighten instantaneously. Who the fuck's entitled enough to actually comment on her existential crisis? Uncultured enough to acknowledge her at a moment like this!
As summer had melted to fall and fall had given way to winter, most of the teenaged Chupacabra patrons learned long ago to avoid the homework harpy who stationed herself at the far end of the bar and made small talk with the ancient bartender. From time to time the bar stool next to her would find an occupant. Someone stoned on their parents' edibles, or trippin' on shrooms, the drunk ones never lasted long. It was better that way.
A precursory disdainful sniff tells Maka this isn't some stoner, maybe, but she can't detect any rhythmic swaying so maybe they're not trippin' balls either, and the reek of alcohol isn't present. No… what is present is some fucking Jo Malone smell of the rich shit in the air and it has her wanting to break things because this is the last person she wants to see. Goddamnit. No one should be allowed to smell that good out in public. Have some human decency for the poor peons of the world.
Eyes rolling her entire head to the right she sees the last person she wants to darken her already dark corner.
Blake. Fucking. Starinsky.
"Fuck off," she spits with zero social niceties.
"Feisty," he quips back at her. "You've really got that winning charm going for you."
"Clearly, since the first thing I said was ah feck off." Maka flattens the vowel to match her slack jawed roadkill expression.
"You wound me. I actually came over to chat with you." The way his crystalline blue eyes take her in is making her skin crawl, holding her gaze with the air of dignified arrogance.
"I don't need your charity," Maka hisses, seething from head to toe skin in a wave of goosebumps. "Go Jedi mind trick your way into someone else's evening. You can't Dale Carnegie your way onto that bar stool."
"It's cute you think I want to win you over," Blake says with a smirk.
"I don't- what?!"
His head lolls to the side, "Dale Carnegie, really? I'm not interested in winning over anyone."
"Whatever. There's plenty of classless folk over there that will stroke your ego"-Maka almost trips on her words but persists-"for free. Some of us have more dignity than to drool over someone as gross as you."
If gross were the synonymous for genteel classic proportions and the perfection of the Fibonacci sequence. Fuck, Blake Joseph Starinsky.
Sincerely, fuck him.
It's rumored most of the school already has. Females, males, undecided- didn't make one difference to him, and maybe it's what gave him that infernal air of arrogance. Too bad silent black and white films had fallen out of favor for the more flashy sci-fi realism, it might be fascinating just to experience him through a voyeurs lens sans his loud mouth constantly running, or those catchers mitt like hands running all over- NOPE. Maka nips the thoughts that follow.
"Of course someone as dignified as you couldn't muster enough moist-"-his nose curls as she involuntarily shakes on that word and it's stimulation overload that happens so fast he doesn't even miss a beat-"-ure to actually drool."
"Of course I don't!" Reflex is faster than rational thought and Maka is beyond mortified; he's insulted her with her own insult.
What a dick. Michelangelo's David tries to color her thoughts but she shoves all that out of the way.
"That's a shame, cause I'm not well versed in dry humor." His chin tucks down and he looks up at her through puppy expression eyebrows.
"Are you- are you flirting?"
He bites his lip seductively and quirks his eyebrows to match. "Why is it working?"
"Fuck no," Maka scoffs eyes roving wildly so she can avoid eye contact.
This only results in his jovial laughter. "Dead." He runs his hand through his dark blue hair. "Relax, I was just spreading that extroverted energy- you know, being actually friendly."
Maka goes through a few cycles of facial disbelief. "You could have saved that energy for someone who actually cares." She sucks down a long draw of Cherry Coke wishing she could shake off the physical weight of his eyes on her mouth as she lets her straw go with a loud slurp. "Seriously, read the receipts- fuck off already."
Although he doesn't vacate upon the threat, he does straighten up right out of her personal bubble but remains poised and tense. Maka is reminded of Predator and tries to stuff down another involuntary shiver.
"I'll fess up, but only because you're the most shrew-like, uncooperative, stubborn, read straight through the bullshit girl I've bumped heads with in some time. I'm not here for the witty banter." He's not even looking at her when he delivers this line like the stage center spotlight is on him, even more of the disco flood lights seem to train on him for more than a breath. No, he's surveying the dancefloor like the majestic leopard, its prey. "I actually wanted to ask you a small favor. Considering your friends are those smoking hot gazelles and you"-his head whips back to her and there's no twinkle from before as he eyes her from her scuffled up combat boots, past her thrifted boyfriend jeans, passed her naturally distressed oversized hoodie-"sweet spring child, are their Duff."
"Gazuntite."
"No, fam- Designated. Ugly." His eyes go over Maka's many layers of protective social gear that suddenly feel threadbare. "Let's go with Frumpy in this scenario. Ah, Friend." He smooches the period.
"What did you say?" Rhetorical. Implication: eminent death.
"Listen Linda, don't get triggered. You're absolutely adorable but in the company of those two- the last thing you want to do is evoke feelings of cute kid sisters." He sucks air between his teeth, shrugging defined shoulders. "Why drag you out of your woman cave? Force you to endure society, think about it. Logically." He offers the universe his hands before clasping them for the sole purpose of propping up his lopsided dimpled chin. "Let me mansplain this real quick, two smoking hot hotties with their tag along adorkable third wheeling Heimdall, creator of that magical Rainbow Bridge to paradise. Market surveys back the game in the odds of he who showeth some attention to goddesses Duffy's."
"Sorry- I'm not fluent in douche bro."
"Okay in plain speak. Women like your girls, can't help but fall for me if they think I'm sweet to their adopted trash panda- shit! Plain Speak-friend. Frankly it increases my odds of getting laid by, oh, 50 percent. So just nod and fake one for the team."
Maka thinks she liked him better when she thought he was actually flirting. This aura, compared with the few moments of authentic conversation, feels like a ninja smoke screen. Who the fuck does this guy think he is? Who does he think he's fooling?
Lured in by the false exterior as swiftly as prey to the camouflage beauty of the bait. Oh Satan you sly serpent, Maka fumes. Blake, that false Trojan horse, whose true nature was a coup d'état, black and cold as the coffee she drank each day. What a fucker!
Maka stands, gathering her things meticulously into her bag, begrudgingly waiting for him to say something. Anything. That would justify her unleashing hell on his ass. His ridiculously sculpted- rage inducing- ass. Bag filled and newly slung over her shoulder, Maka realizes he is not going to treat. Neither will she- she will walk away.
She about-faces a full 180 after two steps and then miscalculates her full stop past the Bermuda triangle of his manspread. Too fucking close, Maka! But she can't turn back now.
As softly as she can manage it she says, "Didn't you ask me for a small favor?"
His lip is between his teeth when he tucks his chin, slouching to meet her gaze, no hint of ninja smoke now. She almost overthinks it but recalls those dead eyes. Smiling, Maka leans in further, grabbing the last untouched Cherry Coke Sid had slid in an attempt to break the literal ice between her and Starinsky. Sweet, watered down, burnt candy corn toned syrupy chem-sludge, she hopes it's kryptonite to the delicate thread count of pale Armani popped Polo collars reeking of the smell of the rich(™) by Jo Malone.
"Well," Maka says sweetly dripping acid, "Here you go."
In the secondhand vape camouflage by the dance floor's smoke machine strobing to Deadmou5, Maka's lifeline stretches moving time in slow motion. The arc of the Cherry Coke kissing the virginal threads of the Armani's popped Polo collar in majestic Silent Movie Magic splashing. Cue Maka's exit stage the fuck back center.
"Really Duffy? Drink to the shirt, dated."
What a piece of shit. "Forget about ever leaving with one of my friends minus 1000% consent, prick. You disgusting, humanizing"- he manages to smirk at her before she tacks on all her qualifiers-"as in womanizing but more inclusive, shallow bag of dicks. I hope your shirt disintegrates." She ignores his waggling eyebrows. "And- my name is Maka, not insert synonym for trash panda here. We've been in the same dojo since we were six, dick!"
Somehow, Liz and Tsu look up to see her storming past and follow after her while knocking back cans.
"Maka!" Liz catches her up by the wrist and Tsubaki weaves an arm around her shoulder while throwing a look back to see who could have caused her baby girl such distress. "Wait up!"
"I'm out, you can stay but Uber home 'cause I'm not coming back for you." Maka is in one of those dangerous I'm-about-to-start-tear-flooding-because-I'm-so-angry-I'll-explode moods.
"No sweetheart," Tsubaki whispers in her hair. "We go when you go." Liz doesn't protest, but her hands clench rhythmically around sharp acrylics and Maka doesn't think it wise to linger enough for Liz to find a target.
They drive mindlessly on auto pilot back to their neighborhood.
"You want to talk about it," Liz asks, chin in forearm bridge spanning the driver and passenger seats.
Maka wipes a furious palm under her eyes. Shaking her head. "Fucking prick."
"Who, Blake?" Tsubaki asks.
Maka risks a head dart in the direction of her friends, dismayed at the lack of any sort of real reaction. "No!" The thought computes before she can protest it. "No, you don't like him. You can't like him!"
Air pregnant with awkward hangs in the void between them like the after memory of his cologne.
Liz looks up, examining an old stain in the ceiling of Maka's shitty little Honda as if it's an ancient artifact. "I can't say that I don't not like him."
"With undue influence?!" Maka screeches into Tsubaki's driveway and throws the gear shift into park. Silence. "Well?"
Liz leans back examining her nails avoiding eye contact at all costs. "Okay, you know who his dad is, right?"
Maka's eye is twitching in time to her clenched jaw. Sure, everyone in the tri-state area and probably then some knew who William Joseph Starinsky was, CEO of White Star Entertainment and Casinos.
How else could daddy's bouncing baby boy afford a daytime look of Armani 2023? He was born with a silver spoon shoved so far up his-
"Star"- Maka shoots Liz a meaningful look-"Starinsky, okay, found my little sister and I trying to hot wire his daddy's Ferrari." Maka chokes on air. "I know, tacky. But sis and I could have done some serious time for overpriced luxury grand theft auto." Liz's shoulders shrug. "Star laughed, brought us to the pool house where he let us crash. Instead of calling the cops, like he could've done, he gets us a caseworker who gets us placed with the best people. Teenagers, sisters, placed within a week. Nice couple too, I love my dads. And so does Patty, and they just spoil her rotten." Maka's starting to feel like a shit friend for not knowing Liz's origin story. It feels like a lie to say it hadn't come up until just now, but it's true.
"Oh," Maka manages weakly.
"Oh whatever. He can be a fucking sack of flaming shit too. Duality, fucking saga of the rich broken glass baby."
Maka squeaks a hiccup tightly.
Tsubaki looks out of the window as if she's recalling a long lost friend. "My brother was a card dealer at The White Star casino." A pained look crosses her moonlit face, crisscrossed by the shadows of the street side palm. "I figured out my brother was scalping some profits from his tables. Hindsight makes me constantly question why I thought confronting him on the actual floor would scare him straight, you know if his employer knew. I couldn't tell you what direction he came from, or why he was even there, because it was freshman year. But even with as puny as he was back then, Star somehow silently, with demon stealth, found himself between me and my brother's fist to his face. I can't even say if he flinched or made a sound, but the next thing I knew my brother was in jail."
"Are you kidding me?" Maka screeches.
"Maka," Tsubaki stares at her before she whispers, "Jail. Not dead."
The distinction matters to Tsubaki. Video evidence of the casino owner's son being struck while protecting a girl. Is not the 10% off the thousands dollar table profits that would have landed Masumune in a shallow ditch outside the desert boundary." Tsubaki and Liz share a look. They knew this about one another and this was the first time Maka's heard about it, ever. Does this mean she's been deemed too fragile, unhearing, uncaring of others? "Maka, you're not wrong, he's a real fucking charmer when he wants to be," Tsubaki says darkly.
"Savior complex aside," Maka scoffs, "He's a classic, rich boy, entitled, mother wounded"-Maka plows through that discomfort-"prick with a tiny dick to match."
"Watch out, Maka," Liz warns. " Someone might think curiosity's caught the cat," she articulates the alliteration.
Tsu turns observant lilac eyes at her, "Did he do anything to you?"
Maka thinks back, if anything he gave her more space and never once initiated any physical touch, not even when she nearly draped herself over him to get the drink. He moved with her to give her all the space that could be offered. Son of a~!
"No," she's wiping angry tears again,"he just fucking pissed me off!"
The acronym is designated ugly fat friend. Her brain remembers it from a Tumblr post ages ago.
The doors of the car open and Liz's boots click on the drive as she opens Tsubaki's door smoother than Dove Cameron in a suit.
"I'm so sorry, hun," Tsubaki says softly, reaching a hand across the console to cup Maka's cheek and roll a tear under a soft thumb.
Through Maka's tear suspended lashes Tsubaki and Liz sparkle with webtoon quality embellishment. While all Maka can muster is the look of a tear stained trash panda in a ratty hoodie. How can she ever explain herself after those two tragic origin backstory panels? Um, so he called me a shitty word which I internalized immediately because I crave affection due to my own mother wound so I threw a coke in his face instead, without sounding like the bermuda triangle of Trauma, she means Drama.
And if Blake's right and all she's ever going to amount to is being Liz and Tsubaki's awkward adorkable kid sister, what hope is there for her or anyone for that matter?