Kid

Do I knock? Of course I knock. How the fuck else would she know someone is here? Jesus, I can’t think straight. I’m all jittery and shit like a feen who can taste his next hit. I’m standing outside her apartment door feeling flustered and nervous as fuck, for some reason.

It’s just Han.

Like, just another girl I’ve stuck my dick in.

That’s all.

There’s so many of them.

No big deal…

Oh, who the fuck am I kidding? It’s fucking Han!

The only girl I can’t seem to leave alone, or keep my mind off. The one I end up seeing in everyone I attempt to connect with. The only chick who gives me a shot of adrenaline I can feel throughout my body with a look, a smile, a fucking text.

She’s the only one who’s ever strung me out like this, and I don’t even know how to be normal anymore.

I’m pacing in front of the door now, with this confusing mess of feelings, holding the plant in front of me, when her door opens.

I pause in place, eyes wide open, sucking in a breath with the plant held out before me.

“I thought I heard someone talking out here.” She positions herself against the door frame, crossing her arms with a confused little smirk on her face.

“Fuck, was I talking?”

My hand immediately slaps my forehead, pausing in place as I make a pained expression. Jesus, what was caged in my mind and what was just violently released into the air?

“To your new friend, apparently.” She nods towards the plant.

I chuckle at my stupidity, then walk towards her.

“Here. It’s for you. Very Merry Unbirthday, to you.” I offer the dead plant, holding it up between us with a big cheesy grin.

She stares at it for a minute with an unreadable expression, and I want to know every word, every thought that just crossed her mind.

I’m the idiot who speaks my mind. She’s the muse who holds the secrets.

Blinking suddenly, she sucks in a breath, seemingly distraught, before opening the door up for me.

It’s amazing what an opened door can make you feel. Such instant relief and gratification.

I walk into her place, seeing the same dead plants slowly decaying even further. The pair of ferns are now brown in color, losing the tiniest bit of green they were holding onto the last time I was here. The duck is still sporting that fucked up looking face with the sombrero in place. All is right in the world.

Placing the plant down on the stump serving its purpose as her coffee table in the living room, I sit down on her couch as she heads to the kitchen. I rub my palm on the seat next to me, remembering the last time we were pressed against each other on this surface.

Hands all over each other, tongues intertwined, my dick harder than a—

“Thirsty?” she asks, pulling me from my thoughts.

She always offers me water, but never the plants. It’s entirely unfair.

“I’ll have whatever you’re having,” I grin, getting comfortable, stretching my arms out along the back of the couch. “Ah, home, sweet home. Love being back here.”

She snorts, her lip pulling up in the corner just a little.

“I’ve missed this place, the smells, the water, Norbert…”

Giggling her cute little giggle, she shakes her head at me while scrunching her button nose, walking towards the couch with two small glasses.

“You always know how to make me smile, even when I’m actively trying not to.”

“Why would you try not to?” I ask, taking the glass, filled a quarter of the way with a brown substance. I hold it up to my face, inspecting it. “Also, you might wanna check your pipes.”

She grins, shaking her head, trying to contain it, before clinking her glass to mine and downing the liquid in one large swallow. I do the same and realize it’s whisky we’re drinking tonight.

I set my glass down on the stump, stretching my legs back out and sinking into the couch again. She curls herself up in the space next to me, sitting on her feet, looking adorable as ever with her little septum bling, her silky black hair framing those beautiful emerald eyes, and those pouty pink lips that have yet to wrap around my cock.

“It feels wrong to be happy today,” she comments, running her middle finger along the circumference of her glass, staring off into the floor.

“Do you want to talk about it?” I ask, putting it out there.

She doesn’t seem like she’d be the type to willingly open up about something so deep and personal, but if I don’t let her know I’m here for her, what kind of shit guy would I be?

“No.”

My assumptions were correct, but she doesn’t say “no” the normal way. She says no as if I asked her to watch a snuff film about dead puppies. In a pleading, depressingly sad sort of way. It makes me instantly hurt.

I get it. If she wanted to embrace the pain, she would’ve been at Cole’s having a kumbaya birthday dinner and discussing feelings. But she wants to avoid it, and maybe she hopes that I’d actually help her forget. That alone may have been my ticket in the door.

She grabs a little tray from the other side of the couch and sets it down on the stump next to the plant. Pulling out a razor blade, she dumps out a small baggie of coke, getting some lines together. Snorting a quick one, she rubs her little nose with her thumb, her eyes closing briefly as the effect hits. I watch her closely, studying her movements, memorizing them. I know right when the cocaine reaches her bloodstream, I can almost feel it in my veins. She opens her eyes, finding mine as we connect for a moment, a moment without words.

It’s as if we can communicate without communicating. She’s in pain. She needs someone to share that with without sharing it. I understand it because I understand her.

She offers me the tray with a line waiting. I take it from her, quickly snort it, then use the razor to spread another. I look at her with my brows raised, asking for permission to take another. One just doesn’t touch me the way it used to. She nods, then lets out a deep sigh, sitting back on the couch, her fingers drumming along her exposed thigh that’s resting close to mine.

I try not to focus on it. The soft, creamy skin I now know feels like nothing I’ve ever felt. Her plain white stretchy t-shirt leaves little to the imagination, showcasing the fact that she hates wearing bras. It’s hilarious to me she doesn’t seem to notice what her body does to the people around her or even what it does to me. She never hides it. Her shredded black shorts barely clinging to her tiny waist leave me wondering when the last time she ate was.

I set the tray down on the other side of her again before stretching back out against the couch, letting the high hit while the emotions of the day linger in the air around us. If this is what she needs, someone to just sit with her, then I’ll do just that, all day.

I look around her place, studying it for changes, looking for any signs of anyone else being here with her, but come up short. Just her and the same old collection of weird artifacts that represent her in more ways than she’d probably wish. I’m in the world of Han, the place that brings her back to life when the outside world can’t.

“A while ago you asked me what my favorite sea animal was,” I begin by saying, turning my body towards her on the couch. “I told you mine, but now I’m going to tell you yours.”

She cocks a brow, her lip pulling in the corner.

“You are, huh?”

“Yeah.”

She clears her throat, angling her body to face me, resting her head against the hand that’s now perched along the back of the couch. She stares at me with curiosity. I’m the person who’s going to take her away from her problems with my erratic and impulsive behavior. Oh, little does she know.

“Shoot hot boy.”

I smirk at the nickname, brushing it off before licking my lips and finding her eyes again.

“Turritopsis dohrnii.”

“Bless you.” She smirks.

I shoot her an amusingly annoyed expression.

“Alright, I’ll bite the bait. What’s that?!” she asks in an exaggerated and ditzy tone.

“It’s a jellyfish.”

“You could’ve just said jellyfish, Steve Irwin.”

“Well, the Turritopsis dohrnii is different, kinda like you.”

She cocks her head to the side. “How so?”

“You’ll need to figure that out.”

“Kid!” she whines, smacking my hand that’s placed all too close to my thigh, making me feel the touch in my dick. “You’re really not going to tell me?”

“Nah, consider it homework.”

“Homework.” She scoffs, rolling her eyes at me before turning her head. “Thank you, professor.”

“You could come to my office for some extra credit if you like sucking dick.”

She shrieks, gently slapping my chest, making me grin. At first I think maybe I’ve gone a little too far before she exclaims, ‘It’s my fantasy!’

“I know, we should play it out,” I smirk, licking my lips while looking at hers.

She giggles, biting her bottom lip as she shyly looks away, as if already playing the role of the quiet student about to please her demanding and pussy hungry professor to get that grade. Her eyes catch something and I watch as her smile fades off of her face into an entirely different expression in a matter of seconds.

I study her change in mood, drawing my eyes towards the point at which she’s staring. She’s looking at the plant in front of her again, the one I bought. Her eyes are completely fixated on it, as if it’s about to come to life and stab us with shards of decaying stalk.

“What are you thinking about?” I ask, sensing this strange hostility towards the decaying plant I so graciously welcomed into her hospice home for the dying green.

A piece of her hair is blocking me from seeing the look in her eyes, so I reach over and gently tuck it behind her ear, careful to avoid the array of earrings. She bites the corner of her bottom lip at the touch, staring straight ahead while wincing slightly.

“What I want to know is why you got me this plant.” Her voice isn’t peppy at all. It’s almost angry.

“Well,” I clear my throat, sitting up higher to inspect the leaves. “I went to the greenhouse and asked for the most dead plant they had.”

“And why would you do that?” she asks, glaring at it now.

“Because I know you like them.”

“Why would you assume that? I’ve never told you that,” she snaps, her little forehead wrinkle between her eyes making its appearance, telling me she’s definitely upset.

I peer around her at the handful of decaying plants, then back to her eyes with a hint of humor on my face.

“You didn’t have to.”

“I could just be bad at watering. Maybe I like healthy plants.”

“You don’t.” I grin confidently.

“You don’t know that,” she stresses, turning her head, her eyes narrowed in on me.

I feel it now. Her anger. Like a wave of unexpected heat.

“I do.”

“No. You don’t,” she says firmly, seeming upset.

My smile slowly fades as I study her, looking through her eyes to really see the deepest part of her fears. She stares back at me, her chest rising and falling faster than mine. She’s definitely upset. She’s frustrated because I’m breaking in. I’m understanding her. I’m figuring her out and she hates that. I’m leaving her vulnerable and exposed before me, and the feeling is quite literally painful for her.

“You like to take in what others so willingly throw out and call trash. But, they aren’t trash to you. You see these plants still clinging to life, teetering on the very edge of death. That line…that simple, yet impossibly heavy line of crossing over, it speaks to you. You’re fascinated by it, yet eternally frightened. You saw death firsthand. Now you want to surround yourself with it in order to not fear it anymore.”

She freezes in place, her eyes almost horrified as she gazes back at me. Swallowing, she scrunches her nose quickly, then narrows her eyes at me again, the anger penetrating me.

Surprising me, she jumps into my lap, straddling me against the couch with her thighs. She slaps her hand up against my neck, wrapping her fingers firmly around it, her forefinger and thumb resting just beneath my jaw, holding me against the couch like she’s really about to strangle me.

“Don’t do that,” she growls above me, squeezing her hold while her lip quivers.

“Do what?” I ask calmly, the rumbling of my voice clearly felt in her hand.

This is turning me on and I can’t even help it. I’ve never really seen this side of her. I’ve seen the facade, the light that everyone sees in public, but never this. Never the raw, emotional Han who chokes people out. I’m into this way more than I should be, taunting it out of her to push her over that line she likes to rest behind.

“Don’t you psychoanalyze me,” she growls, venom at the tip of every word.

Even mad, she’s fucking beautiful, almost more so, because she’s raw. Her short, uneven black bangs are hanging just above those venomous, green eyes, telling me she wants to swallow me whole, ready to hunt the game that’s willingly crossed into her territory.

“Did I hit a nerve?” I continue taunting, knowing what I’m doing, feeling some sort of dark lust between us now. “Did I assume correctly?”

She tightens her hand around my neck, causing my mouth to part and my eyes to wince slightly. A low, breathy groan escapes me as I lick my lips, our eyes never parting. Her breath is coming out in shallow pants.

I’ve hit the nail on the head. I want to kiss her so badly. I want to fuck every feeling out of this girl, just to prove to her I can.

“Yeah.” She shakes her head, breathing roughly through her nose as she glares at me disappointingly. “Yeah, you fucking did.”

My eyebrows raise slightly at her admittance before she shocks me by leaning down and pressing her soft, sweet lips firmly against mine.