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19 Nov, 2023

I am not cute.

I wake up every day with that exact thought.

As I push aside my sheets and get a glimpse of the sunrise through my curtains, that thought echoes in my head.

I am not cute.

Thinking it over gives me the strength to slink my legs onto the floor.

I notice a spare pillow arbitarily tossed in front of my door, lying against its length. Slightly confused, I pick it up. Then it hits me.

Right. Today’s a modeling day.

I don’t trust my own memory, and I tend to brush aside my alarm clocks. If I need to remember something, I toss a pillow, a doll, or whatever, in front of my door - right before I go to sleep. It’s crude, it’s disgusting, but it gets the job done.

Wait, forget that. Today’s a modeling day.

My body shudders.

I can only delude myself for so long before I have to get up and pay the toll. Whatever. I somehow woke up early. That gives me time to grease the gears in this rot of a brain.

I make my way to the kitchen and boil some water in the kettle. I pour it into an instant noodle cup. I pick up my phone from my hoodie pocket… wait, I slept with it in there?

Nevermind that. I browse the forums and check up on a few threads I’ve been following recently. Last night, I picked out some really provocative threads which had a lot of potential for generating long-term entertainment. Since I don’t really use other forms of social media, this is what I feast on. The mighty monarch scrolls through her list today, anxiously awaiting the results. Except she finds nothing, absolutely nothing, and maybe even something worth less than nothing, because these have all managed to die within less than a day. All seven of them. Right, this is the issue with placing your bets on lowlife losers with nothing better to do - sometimes, they truly don’t have anything better to do, not even the thing that’s better than nothing. That being, dung-flinging contests. Woe is me. What is a starving monarch to do? What in the world will I feast my ever-growling stomach on? Truly, what do I… Ah, the noodles are too soggy now. Have ten minutes always been this short? I munch down what was supposed to be my relaxing morning snack before heading back to my room. I nearly trip on a cardboard box, steady myself, and plop back into bed.

I have to get creative now. What will I do to please the royals today? What clothes, what poses, what angles shall I set up so that everyone can fawn over me? I need to justify my continued stain on the world, after all. Mmmh… I already wore a bikini last week, and… pulling off a lazy bottomless look isn’t going to work if I do it in the same month. Bothersome. Though my leeches have no standards, there still needs to be a standard.

After mulling it over a bit more, I decide it’d be best if I just went even lazier and stripped naked. These sorts of pics are reserved for higher-paying members, and I was told to do something cheaper this week, so… I’ll just cover my areas with my hands and call it a day. That might tease people enough to make them pay for the more direct pics. Yay.

As I cast aside my sweater, I turn around to face my mirror, just to make sure my bare skin isn’t too unwashed. I just wanted a quick glance, but as soon I face the mirror...

“Hey…~” a dreadful voice crawls from that unexpected reflection.

I groan, before turning my body to face her. Saori.

Donning her usual pink bra and panties, she teasingly kneels down onto the bed and grabs my shoulders.

“That’s a new one. You’re really going to show that to the peasants?”

“shut up,” I mumble. “i’m covering it with my hands.”

“Huh? I mean, I know you’re small, but are you sure it’s not gonna peek out?” “can you let me get it over with or do you want to drive us both out of the apartment?”

“Jeez, so uptight,” she giggles, relenting as she curls up on the bed. “Sorry for having a sense of humor.”

Saori as usual.

Not my friend, not my family, not my partner. My ever-present nuisance.

I angle the camera for an agonizing 15 minutes before realizing that I don’t actually care. They’d pay hundreds for a vial of spit if that’s all I could muster. I just need to give the impression that I’m trying.

Right, then. I force on a seductive smile, an embarrassed frown, a sly grin, a flustered wavy mouth, and some other patronizing expressions like that. I pose my body here and there - making absolutely sure not an atom of my sensitive areas actually come into view. It gets sort of exhausting in one particular pose where I bend my back to face the camera, but I manage to just barely pull it off. Relieved, I look over the pics one last time. They’re terrible. But I know they’ll eat them up. They all love a young puppy that doesn’t know how to do it right.

It’s always repulsing to watch every single photo upload. One by one. For all to see.

My face scrunches up. Saori notices.

“Next time, just use a towel.”

Opting not to come up with any retort, I just let myself collapse onto the bed right next to her.

She tries to annoy me, like she always does, by rubbing her foot on my stomach. Today I don’t have the energy to push it off.

“You should give it a rest soon.”

That’s what she says. Like she was reminding me to eat breakfast. Like she was telling me to stretch my legs.

That’s her specialty. No warning, no pretext, no silencer. She wants to change my life right here and now. That’s just so easy, isn’t it?

“skip the lecture and let me sleep.”

“We’re barely scraping by. And you’re miserable. I can put up with mostly anything, but you’re really...”

“you’re right, we have so much leeway when it comes to making money. it’s so silly of me to do this.”

“You always...”

I have a magical surge of energy now. I grab her foot and push it off me. I notice her pained expression. I think I used too much force.

“i told you to skip the lecture. i don’t feel like diving in the dumpster today.”

I close my eyes. I experience blissful peace for all of two seconds. She grabs me by my hips and shoves me below her. She looms above me, glaring with eyes that could tear apart metal. And just as I’m about to lay my hands on her...

“Why don’t you just throw me away?”

She’s not physically strong. She isn’t even holding me down, either. It’d be trivial for me to push her away right now.

Well, maybe that would hurt her too much. But like I said, I don’t care. Though if I did, it’d do just as well for me to slide away. It’s my specialty, running away and putting it off for later. I guess I’ve been accruing a particularly heavy debt of “I’ll do it later”s, but it’s fine, what’s one more to the pile? Right, I’ll move away. I’ll use my hands and move away from Saori.

My hands don’t move.

She opens her mouth. She wants to say something. She closes her mouth. She stops glaring. She looks to the side. She looks sad. She lays down next to me. What? Did I say something? I didn’t feel my mouth move. My hands are still where they were, too. I don’t get it. She’s the type to keep pushing me, kicking and screaming, if she thinks that’s the right thing to do. Hello? Saori, you idiot, can’t you at least...

My cheeks are wet. They’re soaked. But if I’ve been crying, I didn’t start just now.

Oh.

Stop. Stop it already.

Damn it.

My eyes can’t leave the vicinity of Saori’s body. She’s curled up, completely limp. It was only a second ago that I was laying next to her. When I blink, I find my arms now wrapped around her. She wastes no time sinking her body into mine. I glare at the side of her face. I’m about to tell her to stop being greedy.

“You’re warm.”

Oh. Her cheeks are wet, too.

And before I know it, a miracle takes place.

We fall asleep together.

#writing