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chapter nine
the beach is for lovers ( not lonely losers )
It was a well-known fact that between the two of them, Tetsu and Dan had few brain cells. Possibly two or three at the maximum. They weren't stupid, but they weren't exactly brilliant either.
Which is why they found themselves staring out the laundry room window, watching one of Gilly Wagner's bras fall to the road below, in front of Gillian herself.
Let's backtrack about half an hour, shall we.
"Aye, Tetsu!" Dan Kazuya shouted, throwing Tetsu's usually-unlocked back door open. "Where are you, man? I thought we were getting ramen an hour ago!"
"I'm upstairs!"
By upstairs, Tetsu meant Gillian's room. He was cleaning the small townhouse, and didn't quite have enough laundry that he had gathered from every possible surface of his home to do a load, so he thought he'd wash some of his guest's things as well, like a good host would. Having a messy house drove the boy insane, a habit he'd picked up from his mother. But with friends like Dan and Chiharu, his house was in a perpetual state of disarray.
"Dude." Dan laughed form the doorway. "What are you doing going through Gillian Wagner's room?"
Tetsu sighed, not looking any less creepy as he held up one of Gillian's sweaters, emblazoned with the logo for a band who called themselves WSTR, with the tagline 'All My Friends Are Dicks.' The white hoodie was caked in dust, despite having been in her suitcase since she arrived in the country.
"It's not what it looks like!" He rushed to defend himself "I was doing the laundry!" He pointed wildly at the red laundry basked resting on the rust-colored bedspread.
"Sure you were." The shorter boy hummed, reaching for an article of clothing on the top of the basket. "Because these are definitely yours." He laughed, unfolding a pair of white women's underwear patterned with small lemons, a pale yellow bow in the center matching the lace the article was rimmed with.
"Shut up!"
Dan cackled in laughter, throwing the panties back into the laundry basket. "Dude, you look like such a creep right now, just put the damn sweater in the laundry basket and get out of here before she notices."
"Fuck you, Dan." Tetsu scoffed before throwing the sweater in the plastic basket and glancing over at the desk where Gillian kept her laptop.
He'd noticed lots of little things about the young tourist over the course of her 24 hour stay in Sannoh. For instance, the way she bit her lip when she was concentrating on something, or the delicate way she held her coffee mug. But the stickers on her laptop said more about her than physical cues ever could. The stickers advertised tourist traps and destinations far from her native New Mexico, little cartoons of the Tower of London and England's tell-tale red phone booths, or paper airplanes waiting to take flight. One large sticker showcased the cartoon heads of a group of people called 'My Chemical Romance'.
