"Nice eyeliner," Livvie said, "but you realise later you're going to look like you're trying to channel your inner raccoon, right?"
Livvie had waited for Kya at the end of her street, half hidden in the darkness just past the streetlight. Kya had managed to get out of the house without her sister noticing her this time, or at least if she had noticed, she hadn't gone downstairs and exposed her with the kitchen light again. Kya preferred the dark anyway, less exposure, and there was always the point that it was downright painful mixed with a hangover. Not that Kya should have known what that was like at that point in her life. She wasn't supposed to be out that late on a Saturday night. Not with the intentions she had. Livvie wasn't supposed to be out either, but that didn't matter. They'd done it too many times to screw it up now.
"What's the point in going out if you don't look like you've come back from the dead afterwards?" Kya retorted with a smirk.
Slowly, some other teenagers, lazily covered by the shadows, were emerging from the gaps between houses too. No one was supposed to be out, but no one really cared. They mostly came in twos, before merging to become a group of about ten. Kya didn't know the rest of them much, none of them except Livvie had a name that Kya knew of. She was fairly sure they were all a little older than them. It would make sense.
If anyone who lived down that street had ever noticed the crowd of teenagers that often slowly made its way across to the busier part of town, no one had thought to voice that realisation to anyone. Kya was sure it would have been town gossip otherwise. She walked close to Livvie, who didn't often make eye contact with her, but never moved any further away. Perhaps the feeling of safety was mutual. There was a sign in the distance, sticking out of a building that seemed to be throbbing with bass.
Do not enter.
Kya didn't have a clue why it was even up, because no one ever paid attention to it. It didn't really matter. They got in through glass-less windows and empty doorways, eventually finding a large group in the middle of the building. The concrete walls were littered with graffiti. Makeshift strobe lights were flashing around them, and Kya had to squint a little. She was fairly sure she'd seen a dry ice machine somewhere, and considered escaping through the fake smoke before she went deaf from the music. Quickly, she disregarded that thought, taking the cup that Livvie held in front of her. She must have got it from someone else, because the massive cooler with dozens of empty bottles around it was on the floor on the opposite side of the room. Wordlessly, they both drank, squeezing their eyes shut and ignoring the burn.
Soon, one drink turned to two, and then three to four. The world slowly seemed to simplify. By the sixth, Kya forgot that she had been feeling uncomfortable. Inhibitions were much easier to deal with when they felt like they were falling out of her ears and running away. She was pulled into the crowd of bodies and jumped with them, shouting the words to a meaningless electro-pop song, squashed against strangers.
Kya wasn't even one to squash against strangers, let alone talk to them, but drunk Kya didn't seem to mind. She felt as if she was separate from herself, watching as she conversed with Livvie and her friends and some random people briefly. She got caught with someone a lot. She wasn't trying to, but somehow she kept bumping into him and he didn't seem to mind.
"Fancy seeing you here," he quipped, "again."
Kya laughed. It was a loud, drunk laugh, but she didn't even know if it was really genuine. It seemed to be. She grinned and so did he.
"Dude, you're so drunk right now," he said, the grin still on his face.
Kya rolled her eyes dramatically. "No, not at all."
