Tramp Stamps | Lookism

4. Strays

After school ended, it was straight back to business. Dropping her things off and grabbing a thick stack of flyers, Cleo headed out into the heart of Seoul to advertise her puny little shop. The city was a bit daunting, but never anything she wasn't used to— filled with filthy alleyways and filthier people.

Cleo was, of course, very aware of how sketchy this whole tattoo business seemed, and knew where the advertisement of this business would be more appreciated. Placing a few posters here and there as she went, she made her way deeper into the maw of the city. The air got thicker the further she walked, unsure if it's from the smog, the abundance of cigarette smoke, the congested foot traffic, or maybe all of the above, but she remained unaffected no matter how hard it got to breathe.

She decorated the city with the cheaply printed papers. A poster on that jewelry store clearly selling fake diamonds for cheapskates looking to be a fiancé, a poster stuck front-side facing the glass on the window of a host club poorly disguised as a simple restaurant, a poster on the cross-walk signal right next to several missing person flyers, a poster stuck behind the windshield wipers of someone's brand new, rental Hyundai with no license plate, and why not— a few posters thrown in the air to fly off to wherever they desire. In all honesty, it was taking everything in Cleo to not throw all of the flyers into the air like confetti and hope for the best. It was pretty frustrating, but she knew she should at least try to do the job Xin gave her. She owed him that much, if not more. (Plus, she really needed the staff.)

So, after an afternoon of sticking paper to random surfaces, all of them finally gone, Cleo stood— stumped. Normally around this time, she would be hanging out around Xin, maybe tattooing a client or grabbing some more Marlboro Menthols for the old man, him saying that "this is the last pack" (spoiler alert— it never was). Thinking about it, she hasn't had any actual friends for a while. For a few years, at least. And none of those friends had stayed for very long, anyways.

Hearing the sound of amused giggling, Cleo turned her head to see a small group of girls, all being around her age, walking closely together. Maybe they were laughing at an inside joke one of them made, maybe they were laughing because someone walked past them with a funny haircut, maybe they were just laughing because they were young and they could.

Across the street from where she was, there was a group of three young men sitting together— eating steaming hot food and idly chatting. One of them took a bite of their overly hot food, making a face— and the other two burst out into laughter. Maybe those three knew each other since they were little kids, and played basketball together at the park with youthful, chubby grins. Maybe they knew each others embarrassing middle-school crushes, relentlessly teasing each other for it at any given opportunity— all in good fun. Maybe they all only met recently, lucky enough to perfectly click together and create what would be a lifelong bond.

...Maybe Cleo was a bit envious. It was a Friday afternoon, people weren't just out alone on a Friday. Unless, they were her— aimless and stumped. But she was free, now living alone with no one to tell her what's what. Probably more free than all of these people. And what better to do with this freedom than play pretend?

Following the girls from before (not in a creepy way, she swears), she ended up at some arcade. It seemed like it was popular amongst teenagers, which was perfect.

"How does this stuff even work, again?" the ravenette muttered to herself, eyes tracing the smooth LED lights lining the corners of the roof and floor. It looked like an alien planet. The feeling she got stepping into the establishment must've been the same feeling an astronaut got stepping onto the moon for the first time. Obviously, an exaggeration, but Cleo could barely recall the last time she had stepped foot into an arcade, other than the fact she had adored it.