Soap

Zugzwang

Zugzwang (noun. german)

The feeling of immense pressure and stress to make a strategic decision.

Forced decision

"You are fucking friends with Frank Iero and never once did it occur to you to tell me about it?"
When my brother came over to visit a few weeks before his birthday, those were the first words he yelled at me.

"Hello, Mikey. I'm good, thanks for asking. How about you?", I asked sarcastically and rolled my eyes before opening my arms to at least get a hug from him.
I hadn't seen him in ages even though he only lived a few miles away.

He walked up to me and actually gave me a hug before doing the same to my mother who was sitting on the couch again with her limbs resting on pillows.

"How long until those casts come off?", Mikey asked.
"Only a few more weeks. I have a checkup appointment in two weeks and then we decide whether it's time to take them off or not."

The both if them exchanged a few more words about how life is going for Miley in his job, in his love life and whatever there was to have smalltalk about and I could feel my brother grow more and more impatient.

"I love talking to you, mom, but I have to have a talk with Gee here so... we continue this over dinner today?", he asked and already grabbed me by the arm.
My mother only smiled and nodded.
"Sure, I made lasagna."
That was enough for Mikey to be dismissed so he tucked on my shirt until I finally followed him. He led me straight to my room.

He pushed open the door and dragged me inside.
"Tell me everything!", he said and instantly sat down on my bed.

"Can you let me catch my breath for a second? Since when do you have so much energy?", I asked and set down on the chair at my desk and turned it so I could face my younger brother.

Yes, he was a few years younger than me and I'd be lying if I said that I wasn't jealous of him. He managed to move out at 20 years old because he had managed to get into a very successful position in a popular economics company.
He recently changed his job and was now working in some other company that specialised in IT business.
Sometimes I wondered if I should have chosen the same career path as him and how different things would have been for me.

"Since when do you fuck around with celebrities?", he shot back and pulled me out if my own thoughts.

"Okay first of all, Frank Iero isnt that much of a celebrity.", I said and Miley opened his mouth to contradict this but I quickly kept talking, "And second of all, I'm only cleaning up after him. That's all. Who even told you about it?"

"Mom, of course. She said something about him asking specifically for you and you sucking his dick for money or something.", Mikey said and made a waving off gesture with his hand.

"W-What?", I exclaimed, "she's only joking around. Don't tell me you actually believed her."

"I wouldn't blame you honestly. He's pretty hot", Miley shrugged.
I almost bad to laugh at that. Mikey had his bisexual phase in middle school but then realised that men aren't his thing after all and stuck to the girls. Hearing him say that now brought back memories of us laying on my bed in the middle of the night talking about the boys we liked.
I missed those times but I was glad he had found himself after all.

"Listen, there is nothing going on. I'm not 'fucking around' with anyone, and especially not with Frank Iero. All that's going on is, that I let mom talk me into taking over this client for her and him liking my work. That's all."
I held my hands up in defense. Even though I loved Mikey and trusted him with all my heart I wouldn't tell him about what's  really going on.

The whole business was dangerous and if shit went down it would be best for as little people as possible to know about it.

"Oh come on don't act like it's such torture to work for one of the hottest celebs to ever exist."
Mikey sounded like a teenager talking about some rockstar. Was he actually fangirling right now?

"I dont care how hot he is", I said, "his attitude is just.... argh" I let out a sound of frustration.
"He's an actual asshole", I sighed.

"Aren't all celebs assholes at some point? Maybe he's having a bad day or something."

"Bad day? More like a bad month. Hes been rude to me ever since the very first day. Take last week for example.
He had me unscrew the kitchen faucet because there was no water running and it took me almost three hours to figure out that he had fucking turned off the water supply. And right when I was about to screw everything back in place he turned it on again and not only drenched me in water but also the whole kitchen floor. Which I also had to clean up again while he laughed at me."
I was by no means a specialist when it comes to work like this because if I were I would have realised what was going on right away.

Mikey's eyes went wide and I could tell that he was just as shocked as he was amused.
"Now that is harsh", he simply said.
I only gave him a look that said 'oh really?' And leaned back on my chair.

Now all of that really happened the way I explained it to him, though I kind of let out the aftermath of the water incident.
Because after cleaning up everything I made sure to use the extra slippery cleaner - that made the surfaces in the living room all shiny - in the bathroom. I sprayed it all over the floor and waited for it to dry before testing it out. Yes, slippery enough.

And just before I was about to leave, Frank entered the bathroom. Then I only heard a very loud thud and something crash before a very angry Frank yelled my name and a bunch of other curses. But by the time he had gotten up I was already out the door and had run to the elevator.
Again, two could play this game.

"You know, I'm still kind of mad that you didn't tell me about it", Mikey then said.

I realised that I had smiled at the memories of last Fridays shift.

"About the water thing?", I asked and raised my eyebrow.

"No, about the whole Iero thing. Mom always kept it a huge secret but I thought that you at least would trust me enough to let me in on the whole thing.", he actually sounded disappointed.

I tried to give him a reassuring smile.
"I'm sorry, Mikey. I didn't think you would be that interested in this."

He was quiet for a second, but then he started to smile and I knew that he was about to propose an idea that I wouldn't like.

"I forgive you, but you have to do me a favour. Especially because it's my birthday soon.", he said and smiled even wider.

"A favour? Damn Mikey can't you give me a break?", I sighed, "fine, what do you want."

He laughed and leaned forward on the bed and put his elbows on his knees as if to whisper a secret across the room.

"So here's what you gotta do..."

As expected, I didn't like it.

*A/N*
Hello! This I my first and hopefully last authors note before we end this story.
We are pretty much halfway through (maybe no quite but almost halfway) and I would like to do a little checkup with you!

So...
How do you guys like this story so far?
Give me like criticism so I know where you guys stand.

Because even though I already know where to go with this story I am still trying to gauge you guys a good read.
So a little feedback would mean a lot to me!

Thank you, I hope you're having a good day today :)