[ 𝚂𝚞𝚗 & 𝚁𝚊𝚒𝚗 ] ~ 𝙹𝚘𝚗𝚊𝚝𝚑𝚊𝚗 𝙱𝚢𝚎𝚛𝚜 𝚡 𝙾𝙲

I - The Hawkins Post

"Mom! Dustin gets home today, right?" Justin called, leaning her upper-body out of her door frame. She was holding all her weight with one hand clasped around the frame and the opposite foot planted onto the floor. 

"Yes, dear. I'm leaving to get him right now." Claudia came around the corner from the living room to the hallway, giving her daughter an uncertain look when she caught the way she was holding herself.

"Cool." She pushed off the wall, swinging her body to an upright position. "Will you please tell him I left him something on his bed, and that I'll see him when I get done with work." 

"Of course, dear. Have a good day, I love you." Claudia called from the door of their home, her purse in hand.

"Love you too, mom! Drive safe." Justin pulled a loose pink dress on, a thick black belt on top of it that rested at her center. She sighed, putting on a pair of black heeled ankle boots. Her hair was in a tight ponytail that felt as if it was constricting her whole head. . .but at least the way it made her curls seem to bounce looked cute. She was quick out the door, locking it behind her and running over to her car. She slid in the blue 1980 Volvo DL, same model as her mom's. she had been given the old thing for her birthday from her father. It was the only good thing he ever gave her, in her opinion at least. 

Justin smiled, brushing over her flowy dress. It wasn't a long drive from her house to work, which Justin was overly thankful for on days like today where she was running ever so slightly late. But she pulled up just in time. With a light sigh, Justin climbed out of the car. "Good morning." The brunette kept her dopey look on her face as she gave warm smiles to all the writers.

"Good morning, doll." Thomas Holloway, the Editor in Chief of the Post, gave her a sinister smile. Though he seemed like a nice, older man, he was really just a creep hiding it from most people. She brushed it off, nodding at him with her sweet expression. Just as she did everyday.

"I hope you have a great day, Mr. Holloway." She smiled.

"And you too, sweetheart." He winked, taking a sip of his mug. He spit it out, turning to scold the woman who brought it to him for it being too cold. Justin grimaced, walking past and into her and Jonathan's office. . .mainly Jonathan's. She just got to work in there with him. And he actually saw her as a human, not just boobs, so that gave him a one up in her book. He let her hang out in there with him, even if her workload was done and she had nothing to do but wait around the office. Nobody other than her and him knew it though, Mr. Holloway would insist she work in one of the journalist's offices instead and apparently Nancy Wheeler would simply hate her. . .for whatever reason. But, other than simply wanting to get away from the perverts, Justin did have actual work to do. She had to plan out the layout for the following day's paper. They already had half of it written, the journalists planning on having a meeting around lunch to figure out the rest. So all Justin had to do was pick the order and go take a photo of some stupid baseball team, apparently Hawkins had one and they won the game the day before. 

Justin couldn't understand the hype, in all honesty. What was so fun about hitting a ball around with a bat? But she had to take photos of it anyways, it gave her a paycheck and got her out of the office, which was always a plus. Just as Justin was letting her thoughts run away from her, the door to the darkroom pulled open and she snapped around, using her hand to shield her eyes from the unexpected light. 

"Hey, Just." Jonathan stumbled in, his foot getting caught on the door somehow as he tried to make his way through it.

"Hey." She snickered, waving slightly as she turned back to the paper she was working on. "How was your morning?"

"Oh- I- It- Uhm. . .fine." He muttered, shutting the door carefully behind himself and making his way over toward where Justin stood. "What are you working on?" Justin jumped slightly, not expecting Jonathan to have been so close so fast. 

"The layout for tomorrow's paper. I need to get it in by the end of the day, which would be fine if the writers actually did their job and didn't wait till the day before the paper was to be run to actually write." She complained, showing him what she had so far by flipping lazily through the pages. 

He gave a light nod before walking around the table she was situated at and making his way to the other side. "Well it looks good so far." 

"Thanks." Justin let a smile creep onto her face, her cheeks dusting a light shade of pink and she was suddenly overly thankful for the red tint the lights gave off. She wasn't used to genuine compliments, they made her heart all fluttery and it was rather annoying, but it was still nice.

Jonathan gave another nod, going to work on processing some photos. "Nance's doing a lunch run lat-"

"Nancy always does lunch runs." Justin cut him off, giving him an unimpressed look with her brows pinched in and her lips drawn into a tight line. "It's literally her job."

"Right. I was going to say that I could ask her to pick you something up too, I know you don't usually ever eat lunch and it's not-"

"That'd be nice." Justin cut him off again, darting her head down so she could go back to work. Out of the corner of her eye, she could see him give another nod. She didn't eat much, he was right. But that was intentional. She wasn't quite as pretty as girls like Nancy Wheeler or Rylie Watson, the girls that nearly everyone at Hawkins High swooned for. She wanted to be swoon worthy, and her weight wasn't doing her any favors in her mind. Sure she got complimented and hit on by guys who were way too old or way too creepy for her to look at twice, but she wanted the nice boys that would care. To be honest, Justin probably would've skipped lunch again had Jonathan not said anything. But now that she was thinking about it, she hadn't eaten in almost two days. She could imagine the look on her little brother's face if he found out, how disappointed he'd be. He just didn't get it, not that she wanted him to. But she'd eat lunch, if it meant not breaking Dustin's heart. 

"Great, do you know what you want?" Jonathan asked, taking his eyes off the photos and drawing his full attention to Justin.

"Oh- Uhm. . .Just whatever." She nodded, her lips drawing tight once again. 

Jonathan smiled, laughing with a shake of his head. "No guidelines?"

"None at all." Justin shook her head in unison with Jonathan's movements. "Wait. No pickles."

"Okay then, I'll pick something I guess." He chuckled again before turning down to his work. "With no pickles." He added. Justin kept her eyes trained on him, smiling softly. She wanted a nice boy who would care, someone sweet and good at noticing things. It was kind of annoying how perfectly Jonathan fit those parameters. Justin quickly shook the thought off and went back to her paper, missing the quick glance up Jonathan had given her as soon as she looked down. 

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Word Count - 1,312

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Published - August 20, 2023

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