Chap 6. Ivy

A knock on the door.

No one answered. The apartment was silent.

The knock got stronger and faster until it could be heard everywhere.

"What the hell?" Tsuki mumbled, raising her head.

The noise was so loud and persistent, as if the door was being demolished by a group of angry dogs. Tsuki couldn't ignore it anymore—that was what she normally did when someone knocked on her door, but that noise was too painful. She had an idea of who the fucker knocking on a Sunday evening was.

"What the fuck do you want?" Tsuki opened the door with sleepy eyes and a loud, clearly pissed voice.

"Jesus, I think I even pissed off the neighbors. What were you doing?"

A small girl wearing a black hoodie, red All-Stars, holding a video game controller, and a headphone entered the apartment without minding Tsuki's giant grumpy face. She had a juvenile appearance that contradicted her pixie undercut and the septum piercing, which gave her a street vibe very similar to Tsuki's.

"I was sleeping, asshole!"

"You should put some clothes on. You're not my type, but it's still distracting," the hoodie girl said as she looked at Tsuki's naked white body standing by the opened door.

Irritated and a bit embarrassed, Tsuki slammed the door before heading to her room, leaving the girl hooking up a video game to the big LED TV. Looking from a distance, as she worked on the wires, the girl looked like some random kid.

It didn't take long for Tsuki to come back, dressed in dark gray sweatpants and a hoodie, to find the girl already sitting on the old dusty couch, setting up the game.

"What time is it?" Tsuki wasn't angry anymore.

"Like 7 PM or something," the boyish girl answered without taking her eyes off the screen.

"Want something to drink?"

"Beer."

Tsuki went to the small kitchen behind the couch on the right side of the entrance door. There was a balcony that allowed a clear view of the TV; an old, untouched stove near a small window; and a fridge that she opened and grabbed two bottles of beer. There was nothing else inside, if you didn't count water.

"Where did we stop?" Tsuki handed the bottle and accommodated herself by her side.

"Halfway through it."

For hours straight, they played and drank beer while screaming at each other when one of them missed an item or didn't get the headshot. Sundays had been that way since Tsuki could remember. Beer, games, and Ivy. But now something had changed. This Sunday had an extra ingredient. Elena.

"Who was she?" Ivy asked when Tsuki came back from the bathroom. As Tsuki kept walking to the fridge without saying a thing, Ivy continued, "She was pretty."

"You stay up there scratching that disc, but you're really just lurking into everyone's lives."

On the way back, Tsuki threw the bottle onto Ivy's lap, making her jump as the cold liquid wet her pants.

"Jerk! I just washed these," Ivy stared, powerless, at the dark stain spreading all over her lap, meanwhile, Tsuki took a pleasant sip of beer.

"You got all wet from just standing by my side?"

They faced one another as if a duel was about to begin. Slowly, Ivy started to take her pants off, sliding them down her thighs with much care, then stepping out of them and walking sensually toward Tsuki, looking deeply into her eyes. Ivy knew Tsuki was awkward when making eye contact. As she stopped in front of her—Tsuki sitting with her legs down—Ivy sat on her lap. If anybody broke eye contact, it was an immediate defeat. Ivy swallowed a bit of beer before leaning down to hug Tsuki and then poured all the contents of the bottle inside her hoodie.

As a reflex to the cold liquid sliding down her warm skin, Tsuki pushed Ivy away, making her fall with her legs up in the air, laughing so hard no sound came out of her, while Tsuki cursed at the gods using every bad word invented by humanity.

After Ivy calmed down and regained consciousness, and Tsuki ran out of curses to use, Ivy asked in a curious tone,

"So, how was it?"

"It was..." she paused as the images of last night popped into her mind. All the sounds she heard from Elena and the feeling of touching her skin made a very specific part of Tsuki's body tickle.

"Different."