She walked in, then, drooping her head.
You could basically tell how tired she was. She just wanted to go to bed, as per usual. Nothing interesting going on. Just another day.
"Hi," she said to her cohort, Emma, whilst putting her face in her hand.
"I'm really confused. Who are these people?" she asked Emma, as she walked towards the kitchen, whistling something in her ever bombastic and ecstatic manner. She received no response, presuming that she just invited them over.
Rei laid on the couch, staring up at the ceiling, but then looking over to watch the people do their thing, music almost blaring in the background.
"Ugh. Where the Hell is he?" asked Rei, closing her eyes but as well turning on her phone as Emma then proceeded to sit down next to her, turning the music down a bit so that they wouldn't have to yell over it to hear one another.
She opened her eyes as Emma sat down there. "Hmm? Oh, hey," she said lowly. "Hey," she replied with her generally flirty, upbeat voice. That was just how she was.
"Do you know where everyone is?" Rei asked once again, to a reply she expected. "Uhm, nope!"
"Hmm. Dammit," she murmured. "Guess we'll need to ask the ASM soon."
"Yep..." said Emma, before sighing a tad bit.
"Oh, can that guy over there come with us?" asked Emma after a bit of silence, a curious smile on her face.
"Meh. I suppose that's okay," Rei said, having put her phone to the side yet again after checking it for any sign that she was getting a reply from them.
The two were silent for a long while, watching the crowd.
Rei yawned. "I hope we can go home soon after this. I'm going to miss my sketchbook," she said jokingly.
"I know what else you miss! Him" replied Emma almost immediately.
"Sh-shut up," she laughed. "And you miss him too. You miss everyone just as much as I do."
"'Sh-shut up!'" Emma mocked.
"C'mon, though. We have to get on with what we have to. Our goals, yeah?" Emma said afterward, calming herself a bit.
"Ugh. Alright," Rei said, getting up and going to the door with her bearings as, while she was walking towards it, he burst through the door.
"Oh. Look who's... late." Rei looked up at him, as he stared with confusion back. "You were supposed to be here half an hour ago."
"Oh, look who it is, Rei," Emma said in a sing-song voice.
"Shut up!" Rei responded with a turn of her head, then looked back to the male standing before her, unspoken.
Emma lowly chuckled.
"...Bitch." Rei said sarcastically, before continuing to speak to the male. "So, this is what we're going out for. Yeah?"
He nodded only in response. Emma continued taunting Rei from behind, which, yet again, prompted a response from her. "Can you not?"
"I can't not," she grinned.
"Well, I know what I'm going to do when that other asshole gets back," said Rei.
"I'm a little bragger, what can I sa-- you bitch!" Rei had a laugh, the man standing by, stoic, still without anything to say for himself.
"Oh my God, Rei," she said lowly. Rei replied in a more serious tone. "Don't worry. If he tries to hurt you, I'll kill him."
Suddenly, there was a dark cloud of sorts over the party as the ASM seemed to materialize before them. The duo straightened themselves out.
"Hello," the two females said in unison, Rei looking down at the floor.
The ASM and Rei conversed as Emma got distracted, starting to pick a fight with one of the attendees, still standing far off.
Rei found herself suddenly distracted as well, staring over at someone she recognized in the crowd as the ASM vanished. Kearney. "Oh, hey," she spoke to him.
He was quiet as he turned to face her, looking rather menacing for what he was. He spoke after an awkwardly long period of silence.
"Hi."
Emma went around, bugging everyone she could.
"Oh, Jesus Christ..." Rei spoke, watching her.
When she came back around to Rei and the others, the man, still standing in the doorway, did what he found reasonable in his relatively skewed perception of reality as he lightly stepped on her foot. "Thank you!"
This was the perfect chance for Emma to act out, faking being in incredible pain as she collapsed on the floor, her mouth agape, ankle held in both hands.
He made a hand motion, signaling that he was going to leave. He waved goodbye, and sorta just sighed, having forgotten about what they needed to do by this point. Emma got back to her feet upon his leaving. The Kearney boy had been silent for the whole time, having spaced out pretty heavily. "Where am I?" he asked, to Rei's utmost confusion. Had he not come along with this whole group? Well, then again, he really didn't seem to be hanging around anyone or doing anything much. She put a hand against her forehead. "I'm getting a headache."
She didn't reply to him.
The house party of sorts continued, people, coming and going, as it came to a relative stop. Not many people were left inside. The group went on a sort of slice-of-life adventure. Kearney kept to himself. As did Rei, to some extent. She didn't hang around the rest of the group. She felt more relatable to him out of seemingly nowhere. So they sat and spoke to one another for a short period of time. What with the constantly changing climate of the group having formed from thin air, a house party that all teenagers seem to have. They were the common audience for it, except for Kearney, which could have very well explained his... less than normal response to everything happening around him. He acted instead with apathy, disinterest, opting to rarely speak to the rest.
Rei was, in a way, in the middle. She wanted to stray away from everyone and get some time to breathe but found herself unable to. She was getting her chance. Slowing the rather breakneck pace at which everything had been going, taking a slower road, she began to speak to him in the more somber way that the situation was probably calling for.
"Do you ever feel like a failure?" she asked. Yeah, it was a far cry from what all had been going on, but still. She could sense that he wasn't like all the others. At least, it didn't seem that way. It just sort of seemed like the right thing to ask.
"...You wouldn't believe," he said, chuckling a bit.
She was silent, then, just sort of squinting at him. "Invisible? Do you feel like you're, um, invisible?"
"Yeah."
"I...I, I, um, I know how you feel," she stuttered.
"I feel pretty... different. Then again, so does everyone here, I guess," she chuckled.
"Yeah," he said. "I'm sure you've seen a lot."
"After all, you are the most emotionally... realistic, of the bunch here. Thanks for that."
He felt like going on a philosophical ramble of sorts, and, really, nothing was stopping him.
"I suppose I get what you're saying," said her, once again lowly. "I was at my lowest point when everything that happened to bring me here, I think." She held up her hand, looking at it for a moment before touching her own face with delicacy.
"It hurts a lot when you lose someone," he said. Plain and simple. It was pretty obvious anyway.
"Y... yeah," she said, sniffling a bit, looking away.
"You alright?" he asked, curious.
"Y-y... yeah, I'm fine. Sorry, this... this is really embarrassing," she said in reply once more, reminded of everything.
"It's fine."
"Is it?"
The conversation was cut short as he stopped talking, opting to look away instead. "God..." he said, muttering before Rei realized it herself.
Emma was, well, she was missing from the party. This came as a bit of a surprise to her. This is why she had to keep her eyes on Emma all the time. Who knew what she was doing if Rei wasn't paying attention?
the cliff
October 19
and yet another dead horse, blind sockets.