Cassie let out a small sigh as she turned off the shower and stepped out. She looked at the counter full of various hygiene products and sighed.

“I swear, women are the only people who are required by birth to smell like flowers and roses.” She then looked at her razor and thought, am I going out…? I don’t have work for a week, so this means I can skip shaving my legs… but I can’t stand this armpit hair any longer. She looked back at her face and saw her eyebrows, “and this unibrow too.” She moved to begin shaving the areas she wanted to and then went to find her lotion.

When she couldn’t find it anywhere in the bathroom, she figured it had to be somewhere else in the house and walked out to go and find out. However, by an unfortunate chance, she heard her front door open and close, then heard voices.

“Cassie?” Hearing the voice of Koto, she quickly stepped back into her bathroom. She left the door ajar so as not to not make any noise. She shut off the light and stood behind the door.

“I told you she wasn’t here. She’s probably still at work.” She heard the voice of Brayleigh say.

“Why would she still be at work? Doesn’t she get off around this time?” The voice of Shugi argued back.

“Guys, she gets off way earlier and I could have sworn I saw her leave around four today.” Koto clarified.

“Well, where is she then?” Brayleigh teased.

“She might be asleep in her room, but I’m not going in someone else’s room like that.” She heard Shugi say.

Yeah, but you assholes decided to come into my house?

“Then what do we do until she gets back?” Brayleigh said.

Fucking leave maybe?

“I wanna check her Switch! She never talks about what games she has.” Koto said as Cassie heard her TV turn on.

“Yeah, she said it’s just because people always think it’s weird she’s into video games.” Shugi explained.

“Loads of people play games, why is that weird?” Koto asked.

“Because she’s a girl and girls aren’t good at video games.” Brayleigh said in a mocking voice, “I don’t really care either way. If you’re good you’re good. Gender has nothing to do with your ability to have good hand eye coordination.”

“I think it’s cool cause’ if there’s ever a game I wanna play, I know Cassie will want to play it with me!” Koto said.

Oh, stop being so damn cute!

“Honestly, I think she should chill playing games so much.” Shugi began, “I mean, one day when she was helping me with something she was playing that thing the entire time! I thought her eyes would turn bloodshot, so I offered her some food to get her to stop playing for a bit.”

“Of course she has to play for hours, that’s what you do with video games.” Brayleigh said as a matter of fact.

“Still, I think playing games for hours like that is bad for the player’s health, hers especially.”

Glad to see you all have your opinion of me.

“However true that may be, I think it’s cute. I mean, have you ever seen her get frustrated when she can’t beat something? She frowns and doesn’t even talk for hours.” Koto began with a cherry voice, “one time, she came to work and I thought she was mad at something else, but turns out she was just upset that she had lost to a boss and wasn’t able to beat it.” Koto recalled while chuckling.

“Video games are pretty serious to her. Otherwise, she hides her emotions pretty well. I don’t even remember the last time I saw her sad.” Brayleigh said. “She doesn’t really get sad, it’s more like she’s trying not to be visibly upset, but you can tell when anything’s going on because she-”

“Doesn’t talk!” They all said together.

Cassie rolled her eyes and kept listening.

“I mean she doesn’t talk normally, but when she’s mad, it’s like if you even just touch her she’ll snap and break your arm!” Koto exclaimed as Cassie heard him pick a game, “I still think it’s pretty cute though, because I just get the urge to hug her until she smiles again.”

“For that, all you gotta do is offer her some food.” Shugi said.

“Really?”

“You didn’t know that?” Brayleigh said, “she’s a huge foodie, and anytime you tell her you’ll get something for her, her mood skyrockets!”

Cassie could hear the sound of the One Piece game she had bought. He better not do anything to fuck up my save!

“Sweets especially.” Shugi added.

“I mean, I kind of figured, since she always has something to snack on when she’s at work. Though she never eats it.” Koto recounted, “though I know why she doesn’t.”

Shugi questioned. “Why is that? I never understood why she never eats in public.”

“Well, Aki was telling me it’s cause’ people used to stare at her in school whenever she ate. Don’t know if that’s true, but I’m sure she took that personally as a kid.” Brayleigh explained.

“Yeah, that is right. People still do it now for some reason!” Koto began, “I don’t know what it’s about, but people always look in her direction. I used to think she was just imagining it, but people really do stare at her even when she’s not doing anything.”

Cassie heard Brayleigh chuckle. “Then again, who wouldn’t.”

Cassie sighed but kept her voice soft. The group paused talking for a bit and that’s when Cassie focused back on her game hearing Koto on a game mode.

“You better be careful that you don’t mess anything up Koto.” Brayleigh warned.

“She won’t get that mad.” Shugi said.

“Try again, I remember one time I was over here and she was playing…” he paused to remember, “oh, Final Fantasy, and she was freaking out because she couldn’t find her save file.”

“Seriously? Well… then I just won’t save anything!” Koto explained.

“You just did.” Shugi spoke up.

“No I didn’t!”

“The game said saving down at the bottom.”

“I guess it has autosaving.”

Koto!

“Fine! I’ll get off.” Cassie then heard him quit out of the game, Cassie relaxed, “but where is she? I'm kinda tired of waiting.”

“Why don’t we just text her instead of sitting here doing nothing.” Shugi said. Shit! Cassie looked around and found her phone sitting beside the sink, she then decided to do something. She quickly composed a message to Shugi and sent it. “Or she could text us?” Shugi paused and began to read the message aloud, “I’m not sure what my next piece should be about, but I’ll just keep working on my old pieces… oh, she sent it to the wrong person… okay, I just asked her where she is.” Cassie responded, “she said she’s still at work and that she’s leaving right now.”

“Really?” Koto moved on, “tell her we’re at her house.” Koto said.

Trust me, I know.

“she asked why we’re here,” Shugi said with a chuckle. Cassie read his explanation. A dinner date? The hell? “she said she doesn’t have anything to cook, so maybe we should go out and get something?” Shugi asked.

“Yeah, we are intruding in her space.” Koto said.

Cassie heard all of them get up and Shugi responded to her saying that they’d bring some food and when they got back she should be home.

Just get out of my house!

“Okay, I say we get her some chicken and some kind of dessert.” They all began to talk amongst each other as Cassie heard her front door close. Cassie let out a sigh and quickly went out to find her lotion.

“These guys are so annoying…” she looked at her game console, “but… I guess they really do pay attention to me.” Cassie groaned a bit, “Over anything, I’m happy they know that food is the way to go.”

Cassie then began to get herself ready for them to return.