Negative -Girls: To Live And Die - Chapter 20

My idea of a good time isn’t washing dishes. I especially hate the glasses part. Getting your hand stuck in the hard round hole is only lead to trouble; like getting your stepsister out of the washing machine.

It took five minutes before I could wipe my hand around the apron.

On my way back to my room, I stumble upon Lilly sitting on the couch as she bites her jammed bread. She’s wearing a large white hoodie. Getting ‘why she loves oversized clothes’ out of the way, why is she wearing a hoodie (with a ‘kill me, I kill you twice’ printed?) The afternoon sun is brighter than any widow’s smile, hotter than Eimi Fukada. If she loves to sweat then it makes sense, but goddamn the living room’s air conditioner blows antartica wind right now.

Her eyes catch me, “ah, you finished the dishes? Good.” She doesn’t sound meant it as her hand grab a remote and turns the TV on. News in the afternoon? What’s wrong with this world.

I say, both playfully and hopefully. “No ‘thank you?’”

Maybe she can reward me with something? A little help from her glowing and smooth hand? Making me a slice of bread with jam?

With bread still in her mouth, she eyes me annoyed, “toof ouf the tfrosh.”

No.

I decide to get in my room before she can say more. Taking out trash can do later. It’s not like trash has legs or something to run away. But again, a teenager watching news in the afternoon does increase the chance of something more absurd exist. Like the earth is flat.

I take out my phone and open a new message from Sohee. We’ve been talking for a while now, but chatting with her is as if I’m chatting with a businessman. Her tone and choice of words is as if wanting to impress me. I did. But I prefer the word killing over homicide.

‘Sunbae, I’m visiting Mei again, today.’

I reply, ‘good luck.’

:), is what she sent like a true psychopath. Or does she know she can find an emoji button on her phone’s keyboard? Maybe she should hang out with Carrie more ‘fr.’

Sohee had been visiting Mei for these past few days, trying to know what her problem is of why she’s not attending the after-school lesson, despite the fact she’s committed to studying (as Sohee says.) She did tell me of finding why she wouldn’t come to the lesson, but suggested me to ask Mei herself. Indeed, a true friend–protecting each other secretly. ‘It’s not my place to tell you’ she says. What a bond! What a useless thing to hold onto.

I closed my phone…and find myself doing nothing, being nothing, thinking nothing.

Taking out trash can do now. Taking out trash sounds more alive now.

I come out, searching around my brain for information about ‘taking out trash on Saturday’ and find it easily. I pull out three plastic from the kitchen’s, outside lily’s and bathroom door’s bins. Lilly is already on the middle tying her white sneaker, blocking my way to outside. ‘My’ sneaker.

“Pretty sure, that’s mine.”

She groans, “borrowing. It’s not like you’re going anywhere.”

That’s true but, “that…doesn’t look fit on you.”

The sneaker is bigger than her feet, I can imagine how uncomfortable wearing it. But Lilly appears in denial and pulls the tie as if afraid I would pull it off from her by force. Which I wouldn’t do because it’s useless and worthless. I can walk naked in the city if there’s no law keeping me from doing so.

However, my silence is misdirected, “can your brother mode plays now?” she says as she stands up, holding her sport bag. “Your little sister needs at least a sneaker if there’s a possibility of her being chased by the serial killer ou there.”

Serial killer sounds a lot more fictional nowadays. “You’re exaggerating.”

“No,” she looks disappointed–she always is to me, “don’t you check the news?”

I shake my head. Do you? Well if you are that kind of person who checks news daily then it’s a good thing. You probably care about the world so much. I’m better watching porn the time you get surprised by a celebrity hung herself.

“Tch.” That explains nothing but she finds it otherwise. And with her final glare she closes the door.

“…”

Only for me to open it again, I have trash to throw anyway. But when I walk around the hallway, Lilly has disappeared. Either she had an extreme speed or teleportation because the elevator opens almost immediately when I push the button. I can say, there’s only one elevator here and she’s not on this one.

The stairs catch my eye. She could use her feet to climb down. What a hardworking girl if she refuses to use a machine. I mean, take dildo as a picture of relationship of human and machine nowadays.

And I’m not a hard worker, so I get in the elevator. To the ground floor.

Have I mentioned this is more of a hotel than an apartment? With all these golden, shiny areas from the ground floor to the top. The old user must have come from a rich family to rent out such an expensive apartment goddam. It means I technically have the money now, but I have no purpose to use it. Because money is to keep you alive and satisfied, which is not good for me who wants to die and be satisfied. If only money could change what Life and Death thinks of perfection.

I amble out.

Shielding my eyes from the brightness, a sigh escapes. I don’t like it when the sun decides to shower me. Sweat sucks. Is it summer? I can even hear the cricket here. Too bad, it’s a no–if my memory is right then it can’t be summer. This country never had winter, too. So there would be no winter and summer special episode, very disappointing.

Weather talk is boring anyway. Except when the rainy or sunny day can execute a massacre.

The dumpster is located outside the entrance gate of Sunshine Apartment. I load in my thrashes and don’t bother pinching my nose like the girl next to me. Not necessarily mean I love the smell of the dumpster, but maybe I’m ‘them’. Thrash. You can’t blame me, people like me never see ourselves still living for tomorrow. I always pray to die.

“Su–Sunbae?” An unfamiliar voice but who wouldn’t know Sohee with all the pink radiance around her? Her eyes widen, expanding the pink pupils as if a cat finds his owner after being lost for days. I swear it’s Saturday, but Sohee is wearing her school uniform–even her bag which probably has textbooks in it. She sprawls out her finger from her thin nose. Her other hand is holding onto a green plastic.

I need to clear this mystery so I ask, “what are you holding?”

She looks disappointed with her shoulder dropping, releasing her pinch and making her voice normal, “is that what you’re asking first?”

“I’m a lot more curious about that, yeah.” I glance at the comfortable dumpster, “yeah.”

“Well if you have to know, it’s just a can of coffee I bought on my way here.” she answers.

It doesn’t look as if the plastic is holding up anything, “so it’s just an empty can now?”

She nods.

I wait for her to throw it in the dumpster. She never does. “This is for recycling,” she explains after getting my hint of confusion.

“Is that so?” I scratch my head. Of course she would do ‘recycle.’ It’s what some people think of to keep something ‘alive’ and ‘working.’ It’s the right thing to preserve something in this world but thinking it’s going to be everlasting, I’m sorry. The plastics in the recycling bin wouldn’t stay when the earth explodes (of course that wouldn’t happen anytime soon.)

“What kind of coffee did you have?” I ask. I don’t know just kinda feeling to ask this.

She sighs, “really? Sunbae?” then her eyes sweeping around the hot and uncomfortable scene..of a dumpster, “can we not talk in here…the smell is suffocating me.”

We moved into the Sunshine Apartment and stay outside of the glass entrance. She put her green plastic bag in her school bag.

“It’s Saturday.” I say, pointing at her uniform.

“I–I know,” her hand is covering her body as if she’s embarrassed to stand out in my eyes, “it’s just more appropriate, I suppose. I come here on school business anyway.”

She messaged me she was visiting Mei today. Is that the school’s business she is mentioning now?