Sleepless In September

1 - Burger Shot

Hanni Pham tiptoes and stretches through the Burger Shot drive-thru window to hand a bag of double-bacon deluxe cheeseburgers to an asshole in a lifted pickup truck with a neon underglow. That was the last guy in the 30 car drive-thru pileup. The time on the cash register reads 5:39PM and Hanni needs the next 21 minutes to hurry the fuck up because she's anxiously staring at her best friend Yunjin waiting in the parking lot. The best part about Yunjin's secondhand 2004 Chevy Impala is that the word CHEATER is keyed onto the driver's side—clearly the work of the first owner's angry ex-lover. Yunjin loves to lie about how that got there.

Sometimes Yunjin flashes the high beams in Hanni's face to be funny, and Hanni mouths "KILL YOURSELF" every time, because she'll probably get fired if she makes a habit of flipping that annoying loser off when there's cameras watching.

The last three customers for the night come and go—a soccer mom in a minivan packed with indecisive kids, a gay BMW driver that thinks Hanni's Australian accent is funny, and a vegan foreigner curious about the bullet holes in the drive-thru menu display.

6PM on the dot, Hanni pops into the manager's office. Manager Leclerc can't be bothered to peel his eyes away from the bulky television sitting on his desk. The Formula 1 Australian Grand Prix takes precedence over whatever the hell Hanni needs anyways.

"Your shift is done?" Manager Leclerc asks, barely shifting his gaze and not bothering to turn down the volume on the TV.

If his gay sweater didn't tell you he was from Europe, his accent surely did. He's just a sweet little guy from Monaco. Other than a good burger, he liked watching Formula One and forcing the employees to take a photo of him with every Ferarri that comes to the drive-thru or parking lot. He also enjoys complaining about his gay situationship with his next door neighbour, Max.

Hanni nods. "Yeah, I'm going now, just wanted to say goodnight. Enjoy your race, I hope Ferarri wins or whatever, bye!"

Waving farewell with a sweet smile, Hanni grabs her iPhone 5 from the basket full of all the other employees' phones and she's out the door and in Yunjin's front seat. She discards her hair net and Burger Shot hat in the backseat.

"HEY FAGGOT! How was work today??" Yunjin shouts over the car radio. She crumples the foil wrapping of the taco she just devoured and shoves it into a space on the car door before she drives off.

"It was kinda shit. Customers were rude as fuck, bro. Wait, I'm pretty sure I sold a burger to a famous person today. Don't know who. Some guy with a big chain and a sick sports car. And also, we finally got new coworkers to replace the guys we lost last month. You remember how I told you about our fry cook going to prison for drowning our cashier in the deep fryer right?" Hanni tries not to laugh, but she's never told that story to anyone with a straight face except for her parents.

"Yeah!" Yunjin swallows a mouthful of red soda and puts it back in the cup holder. "Didn't he eat the body too? I remember you telling me."

"Oh my gosh, yes bro!" Hanni laughs. "By the way, I meant to ask. Can I actually get dressed at your place? I wanna borrow some clothes so I can look sexy tonight."

"You think my clothes are sexy?" Yunjin feels flattered and smiles. "Yeah, I don't mind. Also, do you have your ticket or do I have to swing by your apartment first? Fake ID as well?" Yunjin slows the car down to let a nightwalker with a fucked up leg cross the street.

Hanni nods, "Yeah, don't worry. They're both in my phone case. Also I really can't get dressed at my place 'cause my mom would bash my head in with a rock if she saw me dressed like a slut. Probably send me to Vietnam to work on a farm with my uncle or some shit, too."

Yunjin giggles.

After struggling to untangle the aux cord all conversation, Hanni finally puts some music on. Clarity by Zedd and Foxes plays at a comfortable volume. She sings along, soft and beautiful.

The traffic really needs to move up because Hanni's been avoiding eye contact with a vagrant that's staring her down from the sidewalk and it's mega uncomfortable. His shirt is white, covered in dirt and you can barely read out the large print in Impact font, LEGALIZE METH. He's holding a fat, dirty pigeon in his left hand and a beer bottle in his right.

On the side of a building, technicians in safety vests are taking down the Miley Cyrus breast cancer awareness campaign billboard.

"Duuude.." Yunjin groans. "Now I can't stare at Miley Cyrus' tits in traffic?! Los Santos actually fucking sucks. I hope the next 9/11 happens here and someone crashes a plane into that stupid fucking casino. What's it called again? The Diamond Casino and Resort?"

Hanni's zoned out. Way too busy trying to imagine three hours into the future, where she's front row in a shitty warehouse venue packed with every emo faggot in the city—because who else listens to heavy shoegaze anyways? She'll be right next to Yunjin and if God cares to answer any of Hanni's prayers then one of the girls in the band will tell her to come backstage after the show and rail her off the tracks. She just needs to live out her delusions of a one night stand with a hot musician or else she'll be 40 years old and miserable at a bar, talking to an old widow about how her late teens and 20s were a legit failure—if the regret doesn't drive her to suicide before then.

Two blocks down and still stuck in traffic, Hanni and Yunjin watch the drag queens on the sidewalk having a cigarette race. Yunjin has to turn down their music until the traffic light turns green because the Lady Gaga blaring from the gay club meshing with the car radio is way too overstimulating. Amused by the cigarette race, the traffic light changing goes unnoticed until the driver behind starts spamming his horn. He makes an angry overtake, not without flipping them off and yelling a slur.

The car dashes down to a lower city block, where all the buildings are grey and brown apartment complexes with black mould that has taken over most of the paint. But it's not all bad, a few blocks to the right you can see the apartment buildings thinning out for penthouses and blocky contemporary homes instead. And if you were to stand on the roof of Yunjin's shit apartment, you can gaze at all the neon nightclubs and bars on the surrounding blocks—and even better, just past them you'll see all the mansions in the hills, and the famous Vinewood sign! Hanni's apartment isn't far from here at all, it's only three blocks away and it's always going to take less time to walk there than drive.

Yunjin parks on the sidewalk and Hanni reaches the front door first, knocking until she hears the door handle rattling.

"HEY EUNCHAE!" Hanni dabs up Yunjin's little sister, then Yunjin does the same.

Eunchae tells Hanni she smells like burgers and walks herself right back to her bedroom to resume gaming on her PlayStation 3.

Hong Eunchae became a part of the Huh family nine years ago. Back then, Yunjin and her parents lived in South Korea. Eunchae and Yunjin's mothers were best friends since childhood. On Christmas day in 2004, Eunchae's parents died in a car crash caused by a drunk trucker, who remains a free man today. Yunjin's mother couldn't bear the thought of her best friend's daughter going into the foster care system, so she made the best possible decision. Now, Eunchae gets to take her second chance at being a normal girl in the best city in America, Los Santos—where the crime rate is the only thing higher than the air pollution.

Hanni wasted no time getting into the shower and definitely didn't ask Yunjin for permission to use her razor to shave her entire body. Or maybe it belonged to Yunjin's mother. She had no clue but it did what she needed it to do. When Hanni's out the shower and all dried up, she's parading around Yunjin's room wearing her own underwear from the sleepover bag she keeps here year round. She's also piling up a bunch of Yunjin's clothes on the bed because she can't decide what outfit best fits tonight's scheme.

"Jesus Christ," Yunjin grumbles. "Dude, what exactly are you going for? You're fucking up my room. It's just a warehouse show, you don't need to look good unless you're trying to get free drugs. Or some dick. Or pussy. Whatever."

"Listen," Hanni stops in her tracks. "You know how we all were all like sixteen shaving our pussy for One Direction concerts? Yeah, that's me right now. I don't know if you've ever seen the vocalist for Sleepless in September but she's so fucking hot and she looks like she likes girls so if this goes according to plan I think she might notice me.."

"Okay first of all, who the fuck is WE?" Yunjin looks around the room for answers. There's none, but there are Taylor Swift posters and indie pop vinyls taped to the wall. "Um.. Okay.. Listen. You sound delusional but like, I get it. Lemme put your fit together, you'll look hotter than Hayley Williams, I promise. And explain to me who the fuck this girl is."