last train home, [o]

[HAMASAKI NATSUKO]

missed the last train home,
* - - - STUCK HERE NOW FOR A LIFETIME IN LIMBO

"Clarissa? Clarissa are you in there?" Slightly hysterical and becoming increasingly terrified, no doubt to the point of her life being scarred brutally, Natsuko tapped on the third door she had found herself in front of her that night. Her friend, supposedly one of her best friends, had been herded off by one of her boyfriends and conveniently disappeared when Natsuko had turned for a moment to avoid eye contact with a very serious creeper. Said creeper which had no doubt been following them both since the last two house parties they had gate crashed at. Decidedly, Natsuko had properly panicked, run to find the nearest supposed adult and found that she was actually surrounded by adults. Very drunk, very indecent adults who were by means not able to act as a safety escape when 'stranger danger' mode kicked in. That had worsened her situation considerably. In a district that was far, far away from home, Natsuko had been quite happy to state herself as a minor in severe trouble. Because naturally, once her lifeboat (her very ineffective lifeboat) had waddled off on her way, Natsuko's surroundings had become known to her, and all of sudden there were a lot more creepers around then she had remembered.

And that was how she came to conveniently find herself sitting with her back against the door of the aforementioned bedroom. She was by now scared, completely alone and surrounded by drunken strangers, slightly drunk, and throwing suspicious glances around her instinctively because she was positive that one of the creepers was hiding behind the big pot plant in the corner, shrouded in darkness. She stared at that for a while, inches off of either hyperventilating or screaming. She needed an adult; an adult who was not drunk, a serious creeper, a policeman. She could probably try and find her sister's friends house, she knew there were a couple in this district... but that wouldn't help her much in the end because once her sister found out about the situation she would go completely Zatoichi and most likely try to destroy Clarissa and admittedly, that did sound a little appealing to Natsuko right then, but she would rather not have any bloodshed tonight. Besides, she didn't want to cause any trouble. Turning up on a random friend of her sister's doorstep and pleading for help, then having her sister drive all the way down to the district, then having to wait for her to hunt down Clarissa, and then having to know that Miyako would blame herself for letting Natsuko go out, well that sounded like a big bucket load of trouble that she would happily not like to stir.

"Clarissa, please stop snogging that guy if you are in there," she yelled out, struggling to screech over the music, "there are a lot of older people here and they are all drunk, my phone is in your bag, and there's a couple of guys following me around and I'm really, really quite scared."

A couple of drunks stumbled past her, and she flinched, hugging her knees to her chest and quietly cursing her choice to wear a short little skimpy black dress tonight that left nothing to the imagination. She knew what happened to innocent, vulnerable schoolgirls when they went out at night. She'd seen movies and television shows and read the papers. They ended up raped, or dead, or raped and dead, and their worst school photo was always used if they were kidnapped. She hoped then that Miyako would chose a nicer one, maybe a crop out of the family portrait. That sounded alright.

"Stop thinking like that," she muttered under her breath, and with a determined half clambered to her feet and turned to face the door. If she stayed out here, there was more chance a creeper would drag her away to her doom and she would have a horrible photo posted all around the tabloids. If she went into the bedroom she had a chance of disturbing someone, or being found by the owner of the house and be yelled at for rude manners, or being cornered in here by a creeper. But if there could be a phone in there that she could quickly use to send out an SOS, and be saved from her worst nightmare. Of course she could just walk home, but it was very dark, it was midnight, the police would probably pick her up, and shit would just be destined to go down. Finally decided, with a deep breath, she grasped the door handle and shoved it open with a muttered apology. She had expected to be greeted to a sight of disaster for some reason, but what greeted her was a western like room - much like the rest of the house - that was extremely neat, and with not a beer can or plastic cup or any suspicious looking thing in view.

She shut the door behind her as she cautiously stepped in and considered moving the dresser against it. One could never be too safe. But, she thought, that would be incredibly much more rude then just borrowing the room for sanctuary. So she just stood in the middle of the room for a while, fingering the halter neckline of her dress and swaying here and there in the high heels she had borrowed from Miyako; which were incredibly uncomfortable. Frowning, she stumbled over to the bed and plonked down on the edge of it to wrestle the dastardly things off. They fell to the ground with ungracious thuds. The bed she was perched on was pretty far from the ground, she noticed. The house was truly made in western style, at least inside. She thought she might remember Clarissa having said that it was one of her American friend’s house parties when she’d dragged her along, and naively Natsuko had followed. Grumpily, she thought on how it was such a marvelous idea to finally for once in her teenage lifetime go out and enjoy the nightlife. She’d thought, sure, an innocent birthday party of one of her friends, but the night had quickly gone onward with a buzz from there, and she found herself being coerced into drinking and dancing and number of other things.


Lingering on regret, she sighed and ran her fingers through her hair, messing up the clipped up hairstyle she had so carefully pulled together. Her fringe was ruined; swept to the side it drooped down over her eye. All in all she wasn’t much of a sight now, in her pretty little dress that Miyako had forced her to get, makeup that looked too little in light of what she had seen some of the other girls were wearing that night, and messy orange hair. Oh how she would cry with glee were someone to ride up on their high horse and save her right then, or rather, how she would scream in terror were one of the creepers to finally corner her.

---

music last train home.. by ryan star?
comments natsuko is a dork. be kind <:
lolwat mmm, rape time.

[KUROSAWA JUNKO]

"you'll be fine on your own, right?"
you said, forcing it upon me; and then you said goodbye
if it's going to be that kind of consolation
I should be tired of hearing it by now
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There were a million rules Junko could have followed every time she was forced into attending a party; there were a million rules, but Junko decided to follow only three.

One. Do not dress like a woman.

It didn't suit her to begin with, and the first few times she'd done so, when she had been dragged along by her supposedly college-age peers into attending such ridiculous affairs, men had often made drunken advances on her. She was sure no one would do this when they were sober, but nevertheless they had been quite persistent, and Junko had been quite accurate with the box cutter she routinely kept in her pocket.

Two. Do not eat or drink anything.

She could not help but contrast this with the Classical Greek myths of Hades and Persephone. The parallels were obvious; the spiked drinks, not as much. Junko was a cautious person, and assumed by default that all manner of consumables involved in the party had some trick to them. A trap, perhaps. Something of that nature.

And three. Never talk to anyone if you can help it.

That was just obvious.

The last thing she needed was for someone to be talking to her about all sorts of idiotic, immature things.

"This really sucks," she muttered to herself.

She was standing by a potted plant in the corner of the room, which had evidently been disturbed sometime earlier in the night; there was dirt all over the floor, and the plant itself was tilted at an awkward angle. Junko was tempted to fix it, but ultimately she decided that it should be the problem of whoever had decided to hold the party in the first place. There wasn't any reason for her to be cleaning up someone else's mess.

She hadn't noticed the dirt when she first stepped in it. I'll have to clean my shoes later, she thought.

It was kind of annoying.

She checked her phone every five minutes, mostly because the backlit screen was the only thing she could see in the darkness, but of course it was useless. No one would text her; no one would call her. She had no contacts in the phone to begin with, anyway - which was, admittedly, the sure sign of a loser with no real friends, but that was beside the point.

There was a girl sitting against a bedroom door not twenty feet away, looking worried; Junko would not have noticed her if not for her bright orange hair. She wondered, briefly, if they were in the same boat, before shoving it to the back of her mind again.

She was tempted to just play video games in the corner until it was a good time to leave - her PSP was heavy in her pocket at all times - but that seemed like an invitation to conversation.

...She was really starting to seem like a loser.

"Probably am."

It was a custom of Junko's to leave not two hours into the party, thereby leaving all her friends (if you could even call them friends) behind with no secure means of transportation and only dubious ways of getting back home, but that - she figured - was their problem. No one had ever accused her of leaving them behind; somehow, she was the person everyone persuaded into going to the party and the person everyone forgot about once they were there at the same time.

It wasn't that Junko didn't like the people who often forced her into situations like this; it was more that she couldn't be bothered to say no, and there weren't too many places she could be otherwise. No, Junko liked them, as best as she could. It was just that, when it really came down to it, she much preferred a quiet night at home than a drug-filled, sex-filled night at someone else's home.

Yes, Junko liked them - but there were sides of them she hated, too. Her friends were loud people, outgoing people; she preferred more subdued company. They were clingy, they demanded much of her time, and she usually thought they were just a bit annoying. More importantly, they always had certain reasons for inviting her, and these were about as easy to read as the average - or proverbial - book.

Namely, that they only invited her so that they would look better next to her.

That was just obvious, too.

Even if she tried her best - which she never did - Junko would still not be as pretty as her long-haired, curvaceous peers; perhaps she could play off a sort of 'good little girl' image, and perhaps some men were into that sort of thing, but it didn't really matter anyway. That wasn't the sort of thing she ever tried to think about.

So Junko went, to be a foil for her friends; so that they would look prettier, so that she would look plainer, and that by the end of the night someone was getting screwed and she was going home. It always worked out: she could keep her relationships intact while they got - well - whatever they wanted.

So she spent much of the time exploring the various houses (and walking in on a lot of couples in the middle of intercourse) and generally avoiding the company of others.

Junko hated this party a lot in particular; it was too dark to see clearly, everyone was too loud, and she really just wanted to go home. In fact, she was on the verge of leaving when she spotted the orange-haired girl entering the room she was sitting against before as though it were the last thing she might do in her life.

Huh.

Well, that seemed a little odd.

There were times for following rules and times for breaking them; Junko decided to screw Rule Three for the time being as she walked over to the door - brushing past some guy who seemed very, very drunk indeed - and opened it, calling into the room.

"Excuse me, are you alright?"

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words: about a thousand
tag: natsuko - hope you don't mind, ahaha
comments: wow, junko is such a loser

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