𝐒𝐩𝐨𝐫𝐭𝐬 𝐜𝐚𝐫 │Nishimura Riki

20

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The universe, Lily was quite certain, had a dark, twisted sense of humor, and she was currently living proof. Barely two hours after escaping Ni-ki's flat the day's primary mission had narrowed to one singular, desperate goal: hangover soup. Specifically, the kind only found at their unofficial post-debacle sanctuary, a tiny Korean restaurant.

Inside, Alessia and Chiara were already huddled in their usual booth, looking remarkably less disheveled than Lily felt, yet still infuriatingly chic. Dark smudges bruised the delicate skin beneath their eyes, screamed model-off-duty.

Lily slid onto the worn leather seat, pulling her sunglasses down her nose just enough to glare at them. This, she thought, this was her tribe. Her unholy trinity of bad decisions, questionable judgment, and the sacred bond of shared, miserable mornings after.

Chiara was already halfway through her kimchi, her spoon clinking against the ceramic, while Alessia, with the precision of a scientist, dissected a plate of glass noodles, each strand of japchae seemingly holding a personal grudge.

"So..." Chiara began, her voice a little too sweet, a little too innocent, which was, in Lily's extensive experience, never a good sign. She looked up, her eyes narrowing in a mock-serious assessment. "You don't have a hickey?"

Lily paused, a long, slippery noodle halfway to her lips, and blinked. "Excuse me?"

Chiara pointed with her chopsticks, a tiny piece of kimchi clinging to the tip. "You're wearing a turtleneck. And it's, like, thirty degrees outside. Suspicious."

Alessia leaned back, her perfectly manicured hands folded over her chest, wearing the smug, knowing expression of someone who'd just been proven gloriously right. "She's right. Either you're secretly doing a very committed vampire cosplay in the middle of summer, or you're covering something. Be honest. Did our little Ni-ki leave you with a souvenir?" Her eyes twinkled with a malicious delight.

Lily groaned, a low, guttural sound of pure exasperation, and let her head flop back against the worn, sticky faux-leather of the booth. "He didn't do anything, okay? Can you both just... not be weird for, like, five minutes? My head feels like a marching band just stomped through it."

Alessia smirked, taking a leisurely sip of water. "Proud of him, honestly. Gentleman behavior. See? We scared him off."

Lily stared into the swirling red depths of her soup, stirring it with a vengeance. "That's... not exactly how I'd put it." The words felt heavy, tangled in her throat.

Chiara raised a perfectly plucked brow, the silence stretching. "Wait. What do you mean?"

Lily hesitated. The steam from her soup fogged her sunglasses. How could she possibly tell them the full, convoluted, utterly insane truth? That her 'boyfriend' was only her boyfriend because they were faking it. That she'd spent the night at his impossibly sleek, high-rise apartment because she was too drunk to remember her own front door code, and that he'd carried her upstairs like a particularly precious (and slightly inconvenient) parcel, tucked her in with unsettling tenderness, and then she'd woken up with almost no memory of how the rest of the night had dissolved. That she still hadn't quite figured out why his arms had lingered a little too long when he put her down, or why just thinking about it now made her stomach twist into a pretzel.