i. saturday night

Talk to me.
I don't wanna let you down, I don't wanna let you down.
I mean, you see how we been living. I'm tryna keep it as simple as possible
You amazed right now? You got it made right now?
I won't let you down, I won't let you down.
We gotta chill right now, it’s like 4 right now
We gotta chill right now, it's like 4 AM right now
We can't be too discrete, they gon' wanna know right now
Got my name too big, everybody know right now
I enjoyed our time, we been on the low for a while now
I been solo now, I've been going solo now.

---

Oh Hendrix, somehow you've always got all the words! Well, at least all the words in James' headphones. A lone white iPhone earphone in his right ear as he let the left one dangle in the calm breeze. The chorus bounced with the beat and the sultry, slightly-autotuned-to-perfection voice of Future soothed his ears as he drifted off. Oh Hendrix, somehow you've always got all the right words. Except? Yeah James was uncharacteristically quiet for once. Poor kid! Lovestruck and strung out. Lost in translation with a stranger that didn't even speak his language. For someone he met back in the States, they were strangers nonetheless. Guess it said more than any of his other acquaintances in the drab little stain known as Karakura Town.

He was the sun, bound to burn up in the admiration of his own flames. She was the moon, constantly hiding behind a mysterious allure. Lost in translation with a stranger that didn't even speak his language. How could he tell her after all? Life wasn't exactly Sunday Candy when she was around either. And yet? No place he'd rather be. Poor kid!

As the song changed, Ilyiana's voice stabbed through the silence.

"You think wraps are easy to come by in this country? Sit back and be grateful we even got weed here."

He grabbed the blunt from the space between them without even acknowledging that she was wrapped up looking at him. Snap back dummy! There's this hotty with a body blazing it up with you on a rooftop? Where's all that suave composure now?

Ding!

As he spaced out the ashes flicked down on his Adidas All Stars. Unfortunately that was the thing that got his attention. Until he remembered how annoying Illy could be when she was ignored, intentionally or not. He leaned his elbow on the ledge and rested his face in his palm as he took a drag, a cloud of smoke in her face.

"Something on your mind? Or did you forget what a King looked like?"

A chuckle to disrupt the sting of his little comment, and then he was back to spacing out. Poor kid.

Playfully bashful. Bashfully playful. Totally awful. Every part of her inspiring every part of him, full of awe. Less wondrous and overbearing than joy but nevertheless a mystifying experience of interested confusion. How'd a lone wolf ever find himself in the company of a playful fox. A beauty to their association though; the somber proud wolf walking in tandem to the impulsive yet guarded fox, paradoxes entertaining the company of a paradox. Didn't living like that get exhausting?

James must've been running on reserves. They'd stumbled into one another's lives coming up on a year now. And for a year you'd assume the spicy chemistry to have always glued the pair together? As riveting an experience, oil and water don't ever mix completely, sometimes they just get used to the tension. And there you have it! Another layer unraveled in this intricate onion of a friendship.

James felt a tug at his lips and the bouquet of flowers at his mouth was promptly plucked by his fox companion. A twinge of annoyance accompanied her little gesture of snatching a strand of hair from his head. The calmest explosion ever followed. James' face was a monument to being lost. Eyes holding a dead glare at the stretch of city lights before him, cheeks and lips frozen in their unfeeling form. And then his fox plucked hair from his mane. The calmest explosion ever followed. His frozen facial expression burst into a look of extreme irritation, for but a second. The heat of his emotion burned out for a split second before his face rested back to its resting position.

She poised a question right back at him, their game of cat and mouse slowly ramping up. James was too lost in the void of his thoughts to entertain her petty charms though.

"Sad? Yeah...no. I'm already bored enough, why would I be sad and just add to it."

A trained liar. There are those dreadfully dull souls who preach that one should "never quit their dayjob", speaking to the subtle traits and personality quirks that set us apart as individuals. James never once considered quitting his dayjob, after all he'd spent years of time and efforts training up the tricks of the trade. You see lying isn't something you can half-assed commit to! No no!! Lying requires a certain...commitment. Can't tell a convincing lie if you don't believe it yourself after all! And how can you convince yourself of every lie you will ever tell before the thought even occurs? A difficult and arduous task certainly. Lies are just stories, and to believe every lie, one must become every lie. Every story? Indeed possible to live out. While possible, not feasible! And so, the individual gets buried, deep deep down. Everyman takes the place of the individual though, no need to fret. When one removes themselves from existence and lives as everyman, taking in the whole of existence into them, all the possibilities, every lie, every story, becomes them. Of course the individual is still there, just more of a passenger to the mask up front. Doesn't living like that get exhausting?

James must've been running on reserves. Exhausted, wholly and completely.