THE WRITER MUST EAT -> patreon.com/trn1ty <- | \ | | blah! |\ | `\|\ | the rantings and ravings |/ |(_|| | * of a depraved lunatic <^> 2023-02-12 PREM X BELLA: AN UNLIKELY ROMANCE Chapter One Bella woke up before the sun to her alarm, threw it against the wall, and went back to sleep. The next time she woke up the sun was blinding in her window and she realized she was either late for school or about to be. She threw her bedsheets to the floor, put a piece of toast in her Hello Kitty x Evangelion toaster, went to the bathroom and quickly brushed her teeth, put on her school uniform, grabbed the toast as it popped out of the toaster, put it in her mouth, and ran out the door. The sun beat down on the Shibuya streets. The cicadas sang and the birds tweeted, but it irritated Bella, who really needed to get to school. She ran to the bus stop but saw the bus drive off and decided she could run the distance, and broke into a sprint towards school. Prem, a student at the same school, meanwhile was leisurely riding its bike on a different street. It checked its Casio and knew it had enough time to get there, so it wasn't worried. Prem had pulled an all nighter making speed in its parents garage while they were out of town. Prem met an intersection, waited for the traffic signal, and then crossed. Meanwhile Bella was running as fast as she could towards her high school. At the same intersection she figured she could make it and ran across. Then she got to the corner past the street and ran straight into Prem on its bicycle. They both fell over onto the ground. "What the fuck?" Prem cried. Bella's toast was knocked to the ground and she caught sight of it. "Noo." Prem's bicycle chain had come undone. It took its repair kit out from under the seat and started to repair it. "I'm so sorry. I'm late for school-" "So am I, now!" Bella sniffed and tried not to cry. Not only was she late for school but in her rush had inflicted the same fate on another. "Is there anything I can do to help?" "No. Go away." Now Prem was the one that was irritated. Bella started walking and then broke into a run and ended up at school a couple minutes later. The teacher made her stand in the hall holding pails of water as punishment. Some time after that Prem arrived late too and, to Bella's surprise, ended up next to her. She whispered to Prem. "You go here too?" Prem whispered back. "Same class, moron." Bella had never noticed Prem. It had black hair pulled into a ponytail and was usually silent in the back of the classroom, either sleeping or writing down chemical formulas it had thought of. Meanwhile Bella was usually in the front of the class participating with the current discussion. Bella realized Prem was really handsome, too, but tried to ignore that. Prem had always noticed Bella. Bella was the pretty person in the front of the classroom with all the energy, occasionally interrupting Prem's thought with pointless interjections regarding the weather or school sports. They both were quiet for a beat or two before Bella whispered again. "Can I make it up to you? I'll buy you matcha after school." Prem replied. "I guess. But it better be good." And it would be a date. You can request chapter 2 through my Patreon, two months' of requests equals one chapter so if two people request in one month then I'll write it a month from now or if one person requests twice I'll write it two months from now. I need money. [10:17 AM] bella: the grindset lmfao. i respect it Theodore Castleberry woke up in bed next to his wife, Minerva. The sun shone into the sparse room through the curtains. Minerva still lay sleeping so before waking her Theodore silently slid out of bed and into the bathroom to pee and wash his mouth out. The clock said it was seven AM. After Minerva was awoken and the couple had breakfast that Theodore, known to his friends as Ted, had cooked - two eggs, some bacon, and some toast for each of them - and the newspaper had been read, and Minerva had showered, and the makeup and the deodorant and the day's plan had been discussed, Ted drove himself and his wife to their work, a small accounting firm that took contracts from bigger businesses when they needed more resources than they had. Minerva was filling out papers for a lawn mowing company that didn't expect an audit from the tax man. Ted was balancing out performance and paychecks for Johnson Corporate Networking, a computer company in the mid-21st century that grew into a laboratory and then left the computer field when that dried up. It wasn't interesting work but it paid the both of them enough to afford a house together and work breaks too, so an observer might say the two were happy. Ted, however, felt nothing. He stared at his books and penciled in number after number, and felt nothing about it. He felt nothing for his wife. He felt nothing for himself when he looked in the mirror. And he didn't remember when this started. Nor when he started working for JCN. Nor when he met Minerva or proposed or even the day before the current day. He knew how to push a pencil and he remembered how to do his math and he was content, for now. And when the bell rang and he went to lunch and he ate his soup in peace and looked at his wife who looked back with a love he couldn't reciprocate he knew he was lucky. And the bell rang again and he walked back to his desk. Today something was wrong. Ted didn't know what was wrong. But he didn't feel right. He felt really, really wrong. The lights, the paper, it was all wrong. He jerked his legs just to feel his muscle flex and felt his shoe hit a piece of plastic. Metatango "I wanna learn the metatango." Olive and Shepherd were walking the halls looking for something to do. Shepherd observed Olive. "The metatango? Where did you see that?" Olive pointed at a program she'd kept in her pocket. Learn the Metatango, with Señora Discorda. "I don't think that's such a good idea." "Why not?" " One does not simply do the meta tango." said Shepherd. "How did you do that?" " You must go now ponder the very tango." said Shepherd. "Are you singing?" " And if you must know the meta tango," said Shepherd, " you will have to discuss the very meta tango." "I don't quite understand." "I'll take you over to Discorda, but don't tell her you're with me, okay?" "But I figured the metatango would be, like, a dance. You just sang a couple bars about the metatango and the weird structure made me think it had something to do with what the metatango is. But I don't know what it is." <^> No rights reserved, all rights exercised, rights turned to lefts, left in this corner of the web.