Sleepless In September

10 - Baby Blue (Explicit)

For Minji, seeing Karina around is a little awkward—she's always cautious about being too friendly. Is there a comfortable way to interact with your best friend's ex? It's not like Karina ended things with Winter on awful terms, so there's no reason to treat her any differently. The whole story isn't intact in Minji's mind, but she's sure that Winter would freak out if she spoke about her day and mentioned Karina. After all, she knows Karina broke up with Winter because she was so convinced SM Entertainment would let her debut, and that went nowhere. It's been seven months since Karina moved to Los Santos to attend university here, four months since Winter ran into Karina at the grocery store (in the fruit aisle; likely place for gay people to be), and two months since Karina started working at the arcade. Because of Winter's whole Karina deal, the band doesn't really hang out at the arcade as a group anymore. They go in pairs so Winter is never left alone. If your ex started working at your friend group's hang out spot, you'd probably make it everyone's problem too, so who can blame her?

In the back seat of Jimmy's SUV, Minji lay her drunk head in Hanni's lap, enjoying some gentle scratches at her scalp and Hanni's pretty face smiling down at her in the dark, only ever glowing from street light to street light. She's trying to answer Karina's questions and she can't understand why the fuck those two in the front are so frustrated.

Karina inhales deeply. "Okay, ladies. Let's try this again. Where do you live, Hanni?"

"Duuude, I fucking told you I live in a house!" Hanni grumbles, tired of the interrogation. She's too inebriated to understand anything other than Minji, she finds her so cute right now.

"WELL, DUH! WE NEED TO KNOW YOUR ADDRESS SO WE CAN TAKE YOU HOME!" Karina shouts. Minji just starts laughing her ass off, so does Hanni.

"Uhh.." Jimmy starts, "You know where Minji lives, right? 'Cause your ex lives with her?" He asks Karina.

Karina sighs and puts her face in her hands for a moment. "No, I don't know where she lives. When me and Winter used to date, we lived in Korea. Crazy shit, right?"

"Huh. I think you guys should've moved to Japan instead. No idea why you would come to the States. Japan has high speed rails, hot anime bitches, maid cafes, and talking toilets. It's the fucking future," Jimmy replies, then he barely dodges a truck that almost swerves into them. "Dude, this FAGGOT!" He yells, spamming his horn as he speeds past.

"Jizzy.. you can't say that word.." Minji giggles.

"And YOU can't tell me where the hell your house is!" Karina retorts, still catching her breath from the near-death scare. Those two in the back seem absolutely unbothered, they probably don't even know what just happened.

"I live in Vinewood.." Hanni answers, thinking she's being helpful.

Jimmy sighs, "Yeah we know, but like, Vinewood is a big ass place. You mean by the casino? Or the hills? By the Walk of Fame? That doesn't tell us anything." He decides he'll take Karina home first, then figure out what to do with these drunkards on his own.

Driving Karina home scares Jimmy a little bit. Strawberry is worse than where Minji and the band live at, the gun violence is just awful. It's a neighbourhood rotting from the inside. On multiple occasions, Jimmy has offered Karina rent money to live in a better place, like Vespucci Beach, but she declines every time. He doesn't get why, it's not like his father has any good use for his fortune anyways. It's dry-rotting in that metal safe. At least Minji is more opportunistic than Karina is, she doesn't mind asking for borrows when she really needs it.

Jimmy hasn't seen much of the world outside of his father's mansion in Rockford Hills. The affluence he and his sister were spoiled with does not come from generational or corporate wealth, it's from the millions his father hustled in the 90s; the profits of bank robbing, smuggling drugs, running whores and God only knows what else. The man's name is Michael De Santa, and he wouldn't bat an eye walking through this place with a target taped to his forehead.