Man, it's been a while, huh? Apologies for the lack of stories lately. I ended up moving halfway across the country earlier this year on relatively short notice, and also, you know, a pandemic is happening. So it's been difficult to write for the past few months.
Anyway, a while back someone asked me on my CuriousCat what Mike is up to after the Quake, so that got me thinking, 'Good question. What is Mike up to?'. So I wrote this.
-~o~-
Mike didn't like wearing a tie. It left him feeling vaguely uncomfortable all day, like he was being strangled by the world's weakest murderer. The dress code at work was pretty strict, though.
He didn't like driving to work, either. It felt irresponsible - climate change, and all that - but he lived ten miles away from his job, and Blanchepierre didn't really have much in the way of public transportation.
He didn't like having to rely on caffeine to wake himself up in the morning, but he had to be at work at 8, and he wasn't going to be at his best if he was groggy, so there was no helping it.
And so, he pulled into the parking lot of Medium Marketing one morning at 7:45, tugging at his tie with one hand, cafe americano clutched in the other. Another day at the job of his dreams. Hooray.
He sat down at his desk, clocked in, and checked his emails. Early Christmas email from the CEO. Control + F. 'Bonus'. No results. 'Time off'. No results. 'Leave early'. No results. Delete. Spam from Adobe. Delete. An email from his latest client...
He actually took the time to read that one. 'You were a delight to work with.' 'The website you created is perfect!' 'We will definitely be coming back to Medium Marketing in the future!' He smiled at that, and his smile grew wider when he saw that they had CCed his boss. Hopefully something good would come of that.
Next email. This one was from his boss, addressed to the entire department. He furrowed his brow as he read it. Sonya, one of the other web designers, had quit and found another job at some university over in Kansas City. Damn. That was a shame. He liked Sonya. She was the same age as him, a recent college graduate, and she had a very no-bullshit attitude that he had always appreciated. About a month ago he'd had a conversation with her in the break room in which they discovered that Mike was being paid significantly more than her even though they had exactly the same degree from the same university, they were hired around the same time, and their job duties were more or less identical. He knew that Sonya had asked for a raise to have her salary match his after that. Apparently the boss had said no.
Oh well. Good for her. It wasn't fair that she was being paid less than him. If Mike was in her position he would have done the same thing.
Next email, again from his boss. He read it, blinked, and then read it again. When he was sure that he understood it correctly, he stood and walked down the hall.
"Hey, Gary?" he said, knocking on the doorframe of his boss's office.
"Yes?" Gary was a pudgy, middle-aged man with a gravelly voice from years of smoking and a comb-over that could only be described as 'aggressive'. He had a certain tone to his voice whenever he spoke, like he was annoyed that you were bothering him.
"You want me to take over all of Sonya's old clients?"
"Was my email unclear?" Gary said with a disapproving frown.
"She's got a project that's due by January 1st. I'm going to have to work through Christmas in order to get it done on top of all of my stuff."
"Okay," said Gary. "And?"
"I requested the week of Christmas off."
"Time-off requests have to be made and approved at least a month in advance. You know that." Gary went back to typing on his computer, like that was the end of it, but Mike stepped into the room.
"I requested the week of Christmas off back in June. And you approved it, back in June. Just... Couldn't you spread her old workload around a bit? Steve and Aaron are both wrapping up on their current projects right now. All three of us could split Sonya's projects between us."
Gary looked up at him with a withering, tired gaze. "Steve and Aaron are both slower than you, and more prone to making mistakes. We both know that if I give Sonya's in-progresses to them they won't be finished in time."
Mike sighed and clutched his forehead. He wasn't wrong. There was one person in the office who was even faster than Mike, but unfortunately, she had just quit. "Alright, well, could we see about extending the deadlines on any of my projects? My family all lives in New York and I only get to see them once a year. I already bought the plane tickets and everything."
"I have no problem with that, but you'll have to negotiate those extensions with the clients yourself."
Mike let out a breath. "Okay. Cool. Thank you."
"Anything else?"
"No, that's it. I'll get right on that."
Gary grunted in approval, and Mike went back to his desk. He was going to be busy for the next few months, but at least he wouldn't have to tell Mom and Dad that he wouldn't be able to see them for Christmas. Taking a sip of his americano, he began to write some emails.
---
After work, Mike found himself standing at the doorstep of a fourth-floor apartment on the east end of town. He knocked on the door, and a voice from the inside called out "Hi, Mike. You can come in. Door's unlocked."
He went in. The apartment that Yuriko shared with her girlfriend was small, but it was comfy. Cluttered, but cozy. Their couch was so big that it barely fit in their living room, and it was incredibly soft and poofy, and covered in a heap of pillows. There were books all over the place. Some of them were clearly Yuriko's: thick fantasy and sci-fi novels and manga, some of which were in the original Japanese. Others clearly belonged to her girlfriend: books on engineering and astronomy and physics. Some of them, Mike wasn't sure, like the artbook on their coffee table that had a wonderfully detailed render-painted image of an extraordinarily busty woman with blue hair on the cover. That one really could have been either of them.
Yuriko was in the kitchenette, which adjoined the living room, mixing something up in a big bowl. She was short, a scant few inches taller than five feet, which meant that the top of her head didn't even clear Mike's shoulders. What she lacked in height, though, she made for in volume. Lilly was heavyset, with big hips and a big butt and a soft tummy. Not that anyone ever really saw her tummy - it was hidden under her boobs, which were easily the biggest that he had ever seen on a real person, even now, after the Quake, when people's bodies were getting all weird. Speaking of weird, her eyes were yellow. And even weirder than that: her boobs had been gigantic and her eyes had been yellow since before the Quake, and when the Quake happened, she didn't change at all, making her fairly rare among most people on Earth.
"'Sup," she said as Mike plopped himself down on the couch. He sunk into it a good six inches. "You wanted to talk about something?"
"Yeah. Sort of. Mostly I just kinda wanted to hang out. Is it okay if I stick around for a few hours? I don't want to impose if you and Rose had plans tonight."
"Nah, it's cool." Yuriko was wearing what Yuriko typically wore around her own home - a T-shirt that, due to the size of her bust, managed to be tight around her chest and loose everywhere else. Even with a bra (he could see the lines of it through the shirt), the mixing that she was doing with her hands was making them jiggle in ways that he probably would have found hard to look away from, if he was even a little bit interested in women. "She'll be home in, like, an hour, but we didn't really have any plans. Wanna Smash?"
Mike snorted. "I don't think that Rose would be cool with that, you know."
Lilly giggled at her own joke. "Oh, she'll be fine with it. She'll probably even join in, once she sees how much fun we're having! S'gonna have to wait until I'm done with this, though." She patted the bowl that she was mixing. "I'm making cinnamon rolls."
"Oh, nice. You've been baking a lot lately, huh?"
Yuriko shrugged. "Yeah. I dunno. I just got this weird bug up my ass one day to make bread and pastries and stuff. It's fun. Speaking of, do you care if I take my boobs out?"
It would have been a bizarre question coming from any other person, but this was Yuriko, and Mike already knew why she was asking. "It's your house. And I've seen 'em before," he said with a nonchalant wave of his hand. "Uh, would Rose be okay with that, though?"
"Yeah, she won't care. S'not like we're fucking." Even as she said it, Yuriko was pulling her T-shirt up and her bra down. Her nipples were big (although, really, in order to be proportional with the great size of her breasts they had to be) and pink, and after she gave them a warm-up squeeze or two, they were leaking. She positioned one of them over a measuring cup that she had ready on the counter, which was awkward, because her height combined with the size of her chest meant that she had to lift them up quite a bit in order to aim correctly. And when she squeezed, her milk came out in wild sprays, half of which missed the cup entirely. "Shit," she said.
"Why don't you just pump the milk out?" asked Mike.
"No, no, I've got this," she said determinedly. "I just need to... There we go." Her solution was to actually put her nipple in the measuring cup, pressing her breast against the rim and forming a liquid-proof seal. Her areola was so large that it was actually wider than the rim of the cup. She began massaging her breast, and her nipple began to spray, in a more contained way this time.
"Seems like a lot of effort when you could just go to the store and get some regular milk," said Mike.
"I'm cheap. And also everything tastes better when I use breastmilk instead. And also, I make a ton of the stuff and it's not like we have any kids to feed. It'd just go to waste, otherwise."
"Fair enough." Mike leaned back into the soft sofa. Nori, Yuriko's cat, padded in from the other room and meowed at him. He gave him a scritch under the chin. "So, uh. About that thing I wanted to talk about."
"Mm-hmm." Yuriko had her tongue out in concentration now, which would have been cute if the thing that she was concentrating on wasn't squeezing her own breastmilk into a measuring cup. "I'm listening. What's up?"
"Do you ever sort of feel like..." Mike paused, finding his words. Nori hopped up onto his lap. "Have you ever found yourself at work and just sort of thinking to yourself... Well. This is it. This is what adult life is like."
"Mmm..." Yuriko stopped her milking, looking pensive. "Not really? Could you elaborate?"
"Like... Like, I was sitting at my desk today, and I just had this moment of realization. Like... I was so excited when I managed to land this job right after I got my degree, 'cause it pays an obscene amount for a 22-year-old. And I really shouldn't be unsatisfied with it! I've been there for years and I still make more money than anyone in my group of friends, even now that you and Rose have your teaching jobs, and I really do like doing web design, but for some reason I just feel..."
"Unsatisfied?" offered Yuriko.
"Yeah. That's it." He frowned. "It makes me feel like a shithead."
She cocked her head to the side at that. "Why?"
"'Cause, like... I mean, I'm pretty much at the peak of privilege. My parents have money. I'm white. I'm cis. I'm a man."
"You're also gay."
"I mean, yeah, but it's not like I put that on my resume. And nobody at work knows, so it's not hurting my prospects there any. I've got no debt, a good job, a great boyfriend... Pretty much everything I could ever want. But I still don't feel satisfied."
"Mm. Well, I don't think that makes you a shithead. Maybe it's just that web design isn't really your thing, and you just didn't realize it until now?"
"I... Don't think that's it? I do like web design. Really. But sometimes I find myself sitting at my desk and I just have the realization that... This will be the rest of my life. I'll probably be sitting at a desk, doing the same thing, until I die. The desk might change, but the job won't."
"Okay." Yuriko looked at him. "I'm kinda getting mixed messages here. You like making websites, but you don't like your job making websites?"
"No, I..." Mike tried to elaborate, but he couldn't find the words. "I don't know. Maybe I'm just being stupid."
"I don't think you're being stupid. I'm not sure I understand what you're getting at, though."
Mike decided to try a different approach. "Have you ever felt like your life is just... Planned? Like, you know what's going to happen for the rest of your days, so there's no mystery or excitement in it?"
That actually made her laugh. "Mike, I've felt entirely the opposite for my entire life. I had never even considered going for my Master's degree until Rose suggested I should do it, and I never imagined that I would be teaching until it came up as part of my Master's application process. I never imagined that I would have a girlfriend until you got me to ask Rose out. I never imagined that I would have friends until you started hanging out with me in highschool."
"Oh," said Mike. "Yuyu..." It was the sort of thing that made him just want to give her a big hug.
She waved a hand. "My point is, I've sort of been living my life by the seat of my pants. I never expected any of this to happen, and I'm sure that life is going to take me places that I still never imagined. So, um..." She shrugged. "I guess I can't relate? I'm trying, though! Honestly, it sounds to me like you should investigate getting a different sort of job."
He sighed. "I'm not even sure what else I'd even be happy doing. Maybe I'll look into it." He looked over at her, and found that she was still standing there with her boob in the measuring cup, looking at him with her Worried face. "Hey, don't worry about me, though. I'll be fine. Where's your Switch? I'll start Smash up while you're finishing those cinnamon rolls."
"It's on our bed," said Yuriko, and she resumed milking herself. "Uh... Don't mind the stains on the sheets. Do you want a cinnamon roll when I finish them? They're really good."
"They're also gonna have your boob-milk in them."
"Yeah, that's why they're really good."
He laughed at that.
---
Mike's legs were burning. His throat was dry, and his chest hurt. He padded along the track, not running especially fast, and groaned when he saw the time on the big digital clock that was hanging from the rafters above. He had only been running for five minutes and he was already winded. Pathetic. Even in his more athletic days he had never been all that good at cardio, but he could still remember a time, not even that long ago, when he could run for four times as long before he felt like he did right now.
But if there was one thing he had always been good at, it was pushing himself. He cranked up the volume on his phone as high as it would go, took a deep breath, and kept on running.
He made it another five minutes before he had to stop. Drenched in sweat and feeling like he was going to vomit, he slowed to a walk and left the track. Ten minutes. Not great, but it was more running than he had done in... How long had it been? A year and a half? Something like that. His legs were screaming at him, but he forced himself to keep walking. If he didn't do a cooldown for at least a few minutes he probably would throw up. The University Rec Center was enormous, so he decided to just wander around its halls until he felt like a person again, and not a pile of noodles.
All of the Rec Center's various activity rooms had huge windows on them, so you could see inside from the hallway. He passed by the pool room, where it looked like the University's swim team was practicing. There was the weight room, which at the moment was full of mostly beefy college dudes lifting. One of them was shirtless, which was against the gym's rules, but apparently nobody had told him off yet. Looking at him made Mike feel even more flushed than he already was from running, so he continued on. Treadmill and machine room. All sorts of folks in there, including some older people that he guessed must have been teachers. Tennis court, currently empty. Yoga room, also empty...
Okay. He was starting to feel better now. He definitely wasn't in danger of throwing up anymore, anyway. His legs still hurt. He considered going back to the weight room and lifting a bit, but the guys in there were really hot, and if he ended up popping a boner it was going to be extremely visible in his gym shorts. He'd been in enough awkward locker room situations in his life that the idea really didn't appeal.
He headed towards the Rec Center's exit, and on the way he passed by another room. It was called the free-weight room, but in addition to racks full of dumbbells and medicine balls there were also pull-up bars mounted to the walls, a few yoga balls, and two punching bags hanging from the ceiling. There was a girl in there too - she was tall and slim, with long legs and long hair, wild and poofy, tied back into a loose ponytail. She was wearing a pair of loose white pants, the kind that belonged to a karate outfit (What were they called? Gi? Something like that), but above that she had on nothing but a pair of punching gloves (the kind used in karate tournaments, not in boxing) and a sports bra. She had a very athletic build: Mike could see thin but powerful muscles flexing in those arms of hers as she punched the hell out of the bag, her back was well-defined, and her stomach was flat, except where it rippled slightly with her abs.
He stepped inside the room, just in time to watch her do a cool-looking spinning kick that had her turn all the way around, right into another kick, this one with a jump. The force of them made the chain holding the punching bag to the ceiling creak.
Mike started clapping, and when she didn't react it took him a moment to realize that it was because she was wearing earphones. They were hard to see under her big hair, and there wasn't much cord visible, because she had her phone tucked between her breasts. They were big enough that he couldn't see it at all between them. They really were sort of disproportionate for her frame, given how thin she was.
He walked around her, staying well clear of her punches, and waved when he was in her line of sight. "Hi, Rose."
"Oh!" she said, taking out her headphones. "Hey, Mike. What's up?"
"Not much. I was just running on the track and I saw you in here. That was really impressive! Was that taekwondo?"
She shrugged. "Sort of. Mostly I'm just moving around. Getting my heart rate up, you know? Are you here often?"
"Nah." He leaned against the wall, arms crossed, in a way that he hoped looked casual, and not like what it actually was, which was the exhausted lean of someone whose legs were rapidly converting to jello. "I just bought a membership the other day, since I'm not a student anymore. Trying to lose some of this gut." He poked at his stomach. It had never been as flat as Rose's - as a football player, it had behooved him to be big as well as strong - but it was definitely far bigger than he wanted it to be right now.
"Ah," she said. "That's why I've never seen you here before. Hey, you should let me know next time you want to run! I'm here at least three times a week. We could run together! It's always easier when you've got someone helping to motivate you."
"Uh..." Mike glanced at the punching bag, which was still swinging gently from the force of Rose's blows. "I have a feeling that your runs might be a little intense for me. I've always been more of a weights guy than a cardio guy."
"Mm. Maybe. I usually only do like, maybe a mile and a half. And honestly, I usually use a stepping machine instead of running, or just do this for a while." She patted the punching bag. "Since the Quake my boobs have gotten so big that I need to wear, like, three sports bras to keep them from bouncing all over the place when I run. It's kind of annoying, but also kind of awesome?"
That made Mike laugh. "Really? It kinda sounds like it'd just be annoying."
She smiled. "Well, most boob-owners would probably agree with you. I dunno, I always wanted to have really huge boobs, though. I like 'em more than I dislike the inconveniences they cause me. I think they're still growing, too."
"Wow, really?" He glanced at them, which he figured was probably okay, since she was the one who had started talking about them. "They're already kind of..."
"Crazy big?" She laughed. "Yeah, I dunno. Maybe dating Lilly for so long has skewed my perceptions a little bit, but I don't think that I'd mind them getting bigger than they are. They're not as big as Mari's yet. Once I get to that point maybe I'll think about trying to get them to stop. Or, maybe when I don't want them to grow anymore, that will cause them to stop? Who knows how this magic shit works?"
"It'd be nice if I could magic myself thinner," said Mike. "I dunno, Icarus likes that I'm soft. Maybe the fact that I like that he likes how I look is making the magic shit not work to make me lose weight."
Rose shrugged. "You should ask Lilly. She's been researching this exact thing lately. Not that there's much existing knowledge out there, since the Moonsingers are being stingy with what they teach us."
"Yeah. Can't really blame 'em, though. Imagine coming back from a 3000s BC Earth and finding it like this. I can kinda see why they were horrified with what we did with it."
"Yeah..." They both trailed off into a silence that felt awkward to Mike when he realized that he was the one who had sort of killed the mood.
"Um. Anyway," he said. "I'll leave you to it. You can probably tell, because I'm a sweaty mess, but I've already finished for the day. I just saw you and wanted to say hi."
"Hi! Like I said, if you wanna work out together sometime, let me know. Lilly's basically allergic to exercise, and I could use a gym buddy."
"Yeah, I'll give you a call next time," said Mike, and he did mean it. Having someone to help keep him accountable certainly wouldn't hurt any. "Anyway, see you later!"
"Hey, Mike?" said Rose as he turned to leave. He stopped.
"Yeah?"
"Lilly told me that before I came home the other night, when you were over, you were talking about some pretty heavy stuff with her. Is everything alright?"
"Oh. That." He shrugged. "Yeah, it wasn't really that heavy. I've just been feeling kind of unsatisfied with my job lately, but then on top of that I feel guilty because I really shouldn't feel unsatisfied."
"Why do you think that?"
He leaned against the wall again. "I mean, I sort of have everything I could want at this point in my life. I'm not a millionaire or anything, but I've had a really successful first half of my twenties by anyone's standards. I'm not having any trouble paying any of my bills, I'm not in any debt..."
"Yeah, you're way better off than most people our age," said Rose. "Lilly and I are doing pretty well, but we both still have debt out the ass from our student loans. I guess if you don't like your job, you don't like your job, though. Think of it this way: You're in a prime position to look for another career to get yourself into, since you're not struggling to keep yourself afloat."
"That's sort of the thing, though," said Mike. "I don't think that I want another career. I like doing web design. Really, I do. It's just that when I go into work every morning and sit down I just feel..." He shrugged. "Bleh. Am I just being whiny?"
"I mean..." Rose seemed to be struggling for words. Probably because she thought the answer was 'yes, you are', but she didn't want to say it. He didn't blame her. "I guess anyone can get burnt out on their job, even if it's a really good one. How much do you make, again? If you don't mind me asking."
He fidgeted uncomfortably. "Like, fifty a year."
Her eyes got wide. "Fifty? Jesus. You make more than either me or Lilly. You make more than both of my parents did, combined, when I was a kid. And you make websites for people?"
"More or less."
"What about?"
"Huh?"
"Like, what kind of websites?"
"Oh." He shrugged. "Companies who are selling things. Sometimes we make online stores for them, sometimes just pages that are essentially giant ads."
"Mm. Have you ever considered going freelance? Maybe that would be more satisfying?"
"I wouldn't make nearly as much money, though."
Rose gave him a Look - the kind that demanded a capital L. He put his hands up, placatingly. "Okay, yeah. Point taken. I could probably take a pretty significant pay cut and still do fine. I dunno, though..."
She shrugged, and Mike was pretty sure he could detect a bit of exasperation in her voice when she said, "It might be worth it, if it means you'll be more satisfied with your work."
"Maybe. Um. Anyway. I'll leave you to it." He turned to leave, and was once more interrupted.
"Hey, you should talk to Mari about it."
That made him blink. "Why?"
"She's smart and she gives good advice."
"Yeah, but isn't she sort of..." He trailed off, looking for the right word. "Isn't she, like, a communist or something? She did that huge rant about capitalism in the friend Discord the other day."
Rose snorted. "Have you ever had a conversation with her?"
"Not really. She's kind of... Intimidating."
That made her actually laugh out loud. "You're, like, seven feet tall and all muscle."
"I'm 6'6"."
"That still makes you like a foot taller than her."
"She's not physically intimidating. She's just..."
"She has strong opinions and isn't afraid to voice them. And she calls men out on their bullshit." She added, quickly, "Not that you need calling out on anything. You're a cool dude."
"Mm. Thanks. Maybe I will talk to her. Um. Anyway. See you around? I'll let you know the next time I'm up here."
"Definitely! I'll give you a good workout!" She said it, and then added, "Um, that wasn't innuendo. I'm not into dudes, and I know you're not into girls. I literally just meant-"
"I got it," said Mike with a laugh. "It was nice talking to you, Rose. See you later."
---
Blanchepierre University had a pretty campus. It wasn't a large school by national standards, but it was easily the biggest in Mid-Missouri, and it was the only reason that Blanchepierre was bigger and more populous than Jeff City, Missouri's capital. The town had, more or less, formed entirely as a supportive organ for the school.
The Environmental Science and Botany departments maintained little miniature gardens all throughout the campus, so pretty much wherever you went, there was something pleasant to look at. Mike had graduated years ago, but he still liked to drop by every once in a while to just walk around and look at the flowers and all of the interesting old buildings. About a third of the Blanchepierre campus had been built back in the 1800s, and whatever architect had been contracted to work on them, they (or, probably, he. It was the 1800s) had a distinct interest in the Neogothic aesthetic. Walking through Old Campus was like stepping into 18th century Europe.
Except, 18th century Europe didn't have people walking around with magical mutations. As Mike stopped to look at a particularly pretty patch of flowers (the sign next to them said that they were mostly phlox and winter jasmine, which explained why they were still in bloom), he was passed by a guy who had a fluffy tail, covered with fur the same color as his auburn hair, sticking out of his pants, which had a hole in them specifically to accommodate it. He was walking with a friend whose skin was leaf-green in color. Further down the path, there was a person with slits in their neck which looked an awful lot like gills. Mike wondered, idly, if they were functional. They were talking to a girl whose chest was moving in a very odd way as she walked, and it wasn't until they passed by him that Mike realized that it was because she had four boobs. Whoa, that was a weird one.
Further along, sitting on a bench, there was a girl drawing in a sketchbook. She was holding it with the bottom edge resting on her breasts, which were themselves resting on top of her enormously pregnant tummy. Hey, wait a moment...
"Hannah, right?" said Mike as he approached her.
She looked up at him, in surprise at first. Mike was big enough that he tended to have that effect on people, so he was used to it. "Oh. Um. Hi. Have we met?"
"Yeah, we met at Yuriko's birthday party, like four months ago."
"Yuriko?" She looked confused.
"Lilly. You know, short girl, purple streak in her hair? Boobs the size of yoga balls?"
"Oooh!" Her eyes widened in recognition. "Yeah, you're the big guy! You were there with your boyfriend."
"Yeah, Icarus. I'm also Bellomarius in the friend Discord. I think we've talked there, like, once?"
"Oh yeah! You gave me recommendations on ska bands."
"Yeah, that was me! Do you mind if I sit for a second?"
"Oh, yeah, sure. Go ahead." She scooted over on the bench, which was more of a gesture of politeness than practicality, given that she wasn't sitting on the center of it anyway and there was plenty of room for him. "You and your boyfriend were really good at karaoke. You both have beautiful voices."
That actually made Mike blush a bit. "Oh. Um, thank you. You were..."
She laughed. "I was terrible. You don't have to sugar-coat it. I would say that I was drunk as an excuse, but honestly, I was barely even buzzed."
"Yeah, um..." Mike glanced at her enormous belly. It strained at the dense sweater that she was wearing. "You know, it was kind of worrying seeing you drinking, but I guess that if you were actually pregnant, you would have popped by now, huh?"
She sighed. "Nobody believes me. Ever. It really is just water in here," she sat, patting her belly. "I don't think they're as big as yoga balls, by the way."
"Huh?"
"Lilly's boobs. They're more like..." She thought for a moment. "Maybe like, beachballs? Small ones. Or really big pumpkins."
"Oh." He laughed. "Yeah, I guess. Hey, I didn't know that you were an artist."
That made her blush. "Oh, um. I'm just sort of doodling." Her sketchbook was covered in a variety of things, from a drawing of Blithe Hall, which was just across the way, visible from where she was sitting, to some of the various trees that were planted around the area, to people. She had, apparently, seen the four-boobed girl too, because there she was on the page, though Hannah had only finished half of her. It was the top half.
"If those are just doodles then your finished pictures must be amazing, because those are really good."
"Thank you. You wouldn't want to see my other drawings, though. They're um..."
He waited for her to continue, but all that happened was a very sudden change-of-subject.
"How have you been? I saw you mention in the friend chat that you were feeling sort of down lately. Is everything okay?"
Mike frowned. He sort of wished that he hadn't mentioned it, now. He was starting to feel like a bit of a whiner. "Yeah, it's not a big deal. I'm just sort of feeling sort of unsatisfied with my job lately. But then, like, I also feel bad for being unsatisfied, because I make a lot of money there, and it's a really good job."
"What do you do?"
"Web design. I build sites for companies that are looking to sell stuff, basically."
"Well, why do you feel unsatisfied with it? Do you not like making websites?"
Mike appreciated that she was trying to help, but he was getting a little tired of repeating himself. "No, I do like it. That's kinda why I'm sort of confused as to why I feel this way. I mean, my boss is kind of an asshole, and he overworks me and my coworkers a bit, but I'm still a lot better off than most people my age. I get paid time off, a set work schedule, health insurance... And I make more money than anyone my age that I know. I'm pretty sure I'm the only person in our friend group who has more than a thousand dollars in savings."
"You're not," said Hannah. "I have about ten-thousand in mine."
Mike blinked and tilted his head to the side. "Ten? Really? Don't you work, like, a part-time at a bookstore or something?"
She looked away, uncomfortably. "I work at one of the University libraries. Most of that is from my parents. They're both doctors."
"Oh," said Mike. "Still. Damn. Ten-thousand."
"If you've got a decent amount saved up, why don't you just quit and live off of that while you look for another job?"
"Quit?" said Mike. "Just like that?"
"Why not? If you can afford it. You could find a job doing the same thing, but where your boss isn't as much of a jerk."
"I mean, I guess. I'd probably have to move if I was going to do that. There are only, like, two other companies in Blanchepierre that do this sort of thing, and I don't think that either of them are hiring. Icarus would probably be down for moving, but..."
Now that he was thinking about it, the idea didn't seem that terrible. He was sure that he would be happier if he found a job doing the same thing, but with a nicer boss. And maybe better coworkers. Sonya had been the only one in the office who could really hold an interesting conversation, and she was gone now. And he did have plenty of money in savings, enough that he could probably live off of it for a good year, at least. Maybe even longer with the money that Icarus brought in. Living out in the boonies had one advantage: rent was cheap.
He pictured himself handing in his resignation to Gary, and it made him feel... Unexpectedly good. Really good.
"It's... Not a bad idea," he said, finally. "Something to consider."
She smiled at him. "See, there you go! You probably just need a change of scenery. Maybe a different office to work in."
"Yeah, probably." He stood. "Well, anyway, I'll get out of your hair, let you get back to drawing. Those are really good. Do you post your art online anywhere?"
She turned bright red once again. "Nope. I've never been brave enough to."
"Well, if you did, I think it'd be really popular. You're great at it. Anyway, see you around."
"Mm-hmm. I hope I was able to help!"
---
Tomino's Pizza was not in a prime location. It was technically in the downtown area, but it was right on the southern edge of it, which meant that it was a good three-mile walk from the University. Still, they delivered to campus, which meant that they were still able to get a good bit of that college student money, and they were pretty close to Pointe Bellevue, which was the richest neighborhood in Blanchepierre, so they did pretty good business.
It helped that they served, easily, the best pizza in the city. In Mike's opinion, anyway. Marlowe's was more popular, but he'd never liked it as much. Tomino's had also started to become more of a significant presence in his life a few years ago, when his best friend had started dating its owners' daughter.
The front door jingled as he walked in. They still had a literal, physical bell attached to the door instead of an electronic alert system, which he'd always found very quaint. It was 8pm on a Monday, which meant that the place was basically empty. There were no other patrons in the dining area, though he could hear quite a bit of noise back in the kitchen, and there were two people at the counter.
It was easy to see where Rose got her big hair from. Her mom had hers tied back in big, poofy ponytail that was larger than her head, and her dad wore his loose and long in a wild, wavy mane that would have made Fabio jealous. They were both bent over the register computer, speaking to each other in an eclectic mix of French and Spanish. Mike could understand maybe one word in ten, but it was interesting to listen to.
"Hola, David," he said when they noticed him walking in. "Bonjour, Bella. Am I too late to put in an order?"
"Mike!" said David happily. "Of course not. We don't close for another two hours."
"You want your usual?" asked Bella.
"Yeah, that'd be good." He got his wallet out, and Bella clicked her tongue.
"Put that away, honey. We don't charge family."
"I really don't mind paying. And, I mean, I'm a friend of your daughter's girlfriend. That doesn't really count as family."
"Extended family." She laughed, and when she did it she looked and sounded strikingly like Rose. Which shouldn't have been a surprise, he supposed. It would have been weird if they didn't look and sound alike.
"Well," said Mike. "Thank you. I appreciate it. Can I at least tip you? That goes to the kitchen, right?"
"Sure does," said Bella. "That would be nice of you."
Mike looked through his wallet and frowned. "Um... I don't have any cash on me. Oops."
"Let me see your card," said David. Mike gave it to him, and he typed something in the register and swiped it. A receipt came out for a charge of one cent, with space for Mike to add a tip above his signature.
"That works," he said with a laugh. He wrote in ten dollars and signed it.
"Ooh, big spender," said David as he took the receipt. "Very generous."
"You're the ones being generous. I'm still paying less than the value of the pizza."
"Well, we appreciate it. You want it to-go or are you eating here?"
"To-go, please. I know I'm a big guy, but even I can't eat a Large by myself. The other half is for my-" Mike did some deductions in his head in order to decide what his next word was going to be, the type that he often had to do around strangers. It didn't take long, in this case. David and Bella were both in their fifties, and he had been to their house. There were an awful lot of crosses in that place. But, their daughter was also trans and a lesbian, and from what he'd heard they were never anything other than supportive of her. So, the next word he said was... "boyfriend."
To their credit, neither of them even batted an eye. "Will-do!" said David. "You want a drink while you wait? It will be about fifteen minutes."
"Nah. I'm good." Mike took a seat on the bench near the door, and Bella and David disappeared back into the kitchen. He could hear several voices conversing back there, some in Spanish, some in English, but all too muffled for him to make out what they were saying. He texted Icarus that he was going to bring a pizza home with him, and he immediately received a response that was just a pizza emoji with an exclamation point after it, which made him smile.
After about five minutes and a few pages of the novel he had saved on his phone, the kitchen door opened again, halfway, as a girl stood in the doorway while she spoke. She had bright pink hair, at least half a dozen piercings in her ears, one on her eyebrow, and one just below her lips. She wore black lipstick and black eyeliner, and... A Tomino's Pizza T-shirt. It didn't quite match with the rest of her aesthetic.
"Yeah," she was saying to someone in the kitchen, even as she was leaving it. "So I was like, what, you want me to suck your dick because you tipped me really well, dude? That's not how this works. He got all pissy and asked for his tip back, and I'm like, motherfucker, you tipped with your card, over the phone. I can't do anything about that. Call the store if you've got a problem with it."
"Okay," came Bella's voice. "Did you really call him a motherfucker?" It somehow sounded even more vulgar in her accent.
"No."
"Good. Did he try to touch you?"
"If he had you would have heard about it by now, because I'd have given the jackass a black eye. I just turned around and left."
"Alright," said Bella, with a sigh. "I am going to blacklist him from the store. This is not the first time that he has done this. And I will make sure that you get to keep the tip."
"Thanks. I appreciate that."
"Are you okay? Would you like to talk to someone about it?"
"Pfft. I deal with assholes like him all the time. I'm fine. I appreciate you looking out for me, though. I already clocked out. Am I good to go home?"
"Yes, go home. I'm sorry that you had to deal with that."
She came the rest of the way out of the door, which swung close behind her, and that was when she saw him sitting there. "Oh!" she said. "Hey, Mike. What's up."
"Hi, Mari," said Mike sheepishly. "How're you?" He didn't know why she made him so nervous. As Rose had pointed out the other day, she wasn't physically intimidating at all. Mari was relatively slim except for her chest, which was enormous (why did all of his girl friends have big boobs? It was a weird pattern in his life), and she was of average height, which meant that, yes, he had a good foot on her. He certainly wasn't attracted to her, either - he wasn't attracted to any women. She just had this sort of presence to her.
"Can't complain," she said. "Or rather, I could, but it'd be an awful way to start a conversation. You?"
"I'm alright."
Without an invitation, Mari took a seat next to him on the bench. Mike could just barely see a little bit of her marking peeking up above the collar of her shirt. It covered her right side from neck to upper arm and down to her hip, as well as her entire right breast, which Mike knew because the T-shirt that she was in now was by far the most concealing thing that he had ever seen her wear. It was sort of like a tattoo, but it changed color with her emotions. Right now it was sort of a sky-blue color, which was how it seemed to be whenever she was in a good mood. "I've been hearing that you've been feeling a little down lately," she said. "Wanna talk about it?"
God damn it. Why did all of his friends have to be so caring and supportive? "You'll think I'm being stupid if I told you why."
"Betcha I won't," she rebutted.
"Alright, well... You know what my job is, right?"
"More or less. Web design for a marketing company, right?"
"Yeah. I've just... I haven't really been satisfied with it, lately, and I feel shitty about it because I make a ton of money compared to everyone I know. That's pretty much the gist of it. I've been talking to a few people about it. Yuriko's sympathetic and tried her best to help me, but she doesn't really get it. Rose, I think, thinks that I'm just being whiny, and I don't really blame her. Hannah just told me I should quit my job and live off savings until I find something new."
Mari snorted. "You should absolutely not do that."
He tilted his head at her. "Really?"
"Yes, really! Listen, Hannah's wonderful and I love her, but she's never really had to worry about money in any significant way. She doesn't understand what it's like to have to live on ramen and one-dollar oven pizzas, and to feel the stress of not knowing whether you'll be able to make rent or not, or to be terrified of getting sick because you don't have health insurance. If you've got a steady source of income you should definitely not give it up just on a whim, unless you've already got another job lined up that's said 'you're hired'."
"No, I... I just thought that of anyone I know, you'd be the one to tell me to quit my job."
She looked genuinely confused at that. "Why on earth do you think I would tell you that?"
"Well, I mean... You're sort of all, anti-capitalist, the State is oppression, and that sort of thing. I would think that you'd be the one telling me to say 'fuck you' to The Man and just walk out."
She laughed a good-natured sort of laugh. "Well, see, the thing about The Man is that he's established himself in our economy so well that you can't say fuck you to him, because then you'll die of hunger or exposure out on the streets. You can't live in our society and not participate in capitalism, because the capitalists have set it up so that you have to participate in it in order to get the resources you need to survive. So, no, you shouldn't quit your job and live off of your savings, because what'll happen is those savings will run out before you find a new one, and then you'll be fucked. Or, worse, you'll break your leg or something and end up with a ridiculous hospital bill that you can't pay, because capitalism has also turned our healthcare system into a giant money-vampire."
"Wow," said Mike. "You really go all-in once you get started, huh?"
She grinned. "Read some Kropotkin sometime. You might surprise yourself."
"Kropotkin? Not Marx?"
"Marx was a good start, but his ideas needed iterating upon. Kropotkin had things figured out a bit better." She had a sort of look in her eyes. The same look that Icarus got when he was talking about music, or that Rose got when she was talking about physics. Like there was just too much to talk about inside of her, and she had to let some of it out. But then she sighed, and it turned into a chuckle. "I could gush about this for days, but I'll spare you."
"Thanks," said Mike, and he hoped it wasn't obvious how genuine the relief in his voice was.
"But really, your problem is more with capitalism than with your job, specifically."
"It is?" said Mike. "That's news to me."
"We're conditioned by our society to associate our self-worth and self-fulfillment with money and productivity. If you make a lot of money, you're successful, and you should feel good about it."
"Yeah," said Mike. "What's wrong with that?"
"Well, look at it this way. You like doing web design, right?"
"Yeah. I do. Even if I don't really like my job doing it. If that sounds like a contradiction, I guess it's because..." He scratched his head. "I don't know, I guess it kind of is a contradiction. I don't know why I feel this way."
"It isn't a contradiction at all. Do you care about the products that the websites you make are pushing?"
"Not really."
She waved a hand. "Well, there you go. Your talent and your creativity and your hard work are being put towards a purpose that you don't care about. Why would you feel satisfied? So you make a bunch of money doing something that ultimately is unimportant to you, even if you enjoy the means by which you do it. You're productive, and you make your company a lot of money. Everything about our society tells you that you should feel a sense of self-fulfillment from that, and since you don't, well. There's your internal conflict, buddy."
"That's..." Mike wanted to protest, but... He put his chin in his hand. "Shit. I mean, I'm not gonna go full-communist or anything, but you may be on to something there."
"I'm not a communist. But yeah, that's your problem."
"Well, does Kropotsky have any suggestions on what I should do?"
"Kropotkin. And..." She shrugged. "Iunno. What do you like to do? Like, what gives you a sense of self-fulfillment? Try to find a way to make money doing that."
He thought about that for a moment. "Hmm. You know, when it comes down to it, you kinda just gave me the same advice as everyone else did. Just in a different way, sort of."
"Mm, well, maybe you should listen to us," she said with a grin.
"Do you find your job here fulfilling?" asked Mike.
Mari glanced casually over at counter to make sure that Bella and David weren't within earshot before shrugging and saying, "Eh. Everyone who works here is cool, and I like pizza, but not really. I'm very passionate about being able to pay rent and eat something other than ramen, though. Sometimes you gotta take what you can get."
"Would it entice you at all if I said that my company is hiring for an administrative assistant position? It'd probably pay way more, and I could put in a good word for you, if I'm going to be there for a while anyway."
The bit of Mari's marking that he could see immediately turned a greenish sort of color. "Not really. I appreciate the offer, thank you, but marketing is really not my thing." She leaned back on the bench. "I'm stable right now. Running deliveries doesn't pay a lot, but rent is cheap where I live and I have a roommate to split it with, and I don’t have any kids or anyone to support. I'm not struggling to cover any of my bills, so I'd rather hang out here until I can find something that I'm really passionate about, you know?"
"Mm." Mike rested his chin on his hand. "Like tearing down capitalism?"
She laughed at that, and her marking immediately turned blue again. "One brick at a time. Maybe I'll save up to buy a farm and start an anarchist commune. In the meantime, you should start looking for a job doing web design, but for, like... I dunno, an LGBT or homeless advocacy group, or a food bank or something. There are a bunch of those, and they all need websites."
"Huh. That's not a bad idea." Mike stroked the scruff on his chin.
"I'm full of not-so-bad and moderately okay ideas," she said with a smirk.
"You've given me a lot to think about."
"Did I?" She shrugged. "Well, I'm happy to help. Let me know how it goes." She stood and stretched, thrusting her arms in the air and her chest forward. Good lord, they really were huge.
"No, I don't have back pain," she said.
"I didn't ask."
"You were staring." She sounded amused, rather than offended. "And everyone asks."
He shrugged. "I've been hanging out with Yuriko since we were both in high school. I've seen her get asked all the annoying questions, so often that even I'm tired of it."
"Oh!" She snapped her fingers. "You're, like her BFF, right? Do you know her bra size? I keep asking her but she gets all coy and mysterious about it."
"She doesn't really have a size. She gets them custom-made, so she just sends, like, her bust and underbust measurements to her seamstress. You'd have to ask her what the numbers are, though. Why do you want to know?"
"Curiosity."
"Hmm."
She raised an eyebrow at him. "What? You don't believe me?"
"Well, what's your bra size? Just out of curiosity."
Without missing a beat, she said, "I have bras that range from K to O, in varying band sizes. Which one I wear depends on what I'm wearing over it, whether I'm on my period or not, and whether or not I want to look like my titties are exploding out of my top. This one-" To Mike's great surprise, she lifted up her shirt, revealing a lacy plunge bra and an absurd amount of cleavage. "-is a 34O, and it's probably my best-fitting one. For now, anyway. They've been steadily getting bigger over the past few years, and with all the weird shit that peoples' bodies have been doing lately, who knows when they'll stop."
As she put her shirt back down, Mike whistled. "You know, I think that I've honestly seen more boobs in my life than a lot of my straight friends. I don't know how that happened."
Mari shrugged. "I mean, I like showing my tits off. If it were up to me I would tear this thing up and make it a crop top or a V-neck or something," she said, tugging at her T-shirt.
"Mm. You know, I think this is the first time that we've, like, actually had a conversation with each other? We should talk more often."
She looked at him. "For a long time I thought that you were avoiding me. I assumed that you didn't like me or something."
He felt himself turn slightly red. "That's because I... Sort of was, I guess. I like you just fine, but - and you might think that this is silly - but I've always found you sort of intimidating."
"Really? Why?"
He shrugged. "I don't know, honestly. You've just got sort of an aura about you."
"Well, I'll take it as a compliment," she said with an impish grin. "But, really, all you need to do to get over that is listen to me talk about linguistics. I defy you to be intimidated by anyone who can talk about vowels for a solid half-hour."
"A half-hour?" said Mike. "Is there really that much to say about them?"
"That sounds like a challenge." Her grin grew even wider, and she sat back down. "I was gonna go home, but you've opened Pandora's Box. Alright, so, to start, English doesn't use all of the vowel sounds that the human mouth is capable of producing. Technically the number of vowel sounds that humans can produce is infinite, but our brains are limited in how finely we can distinguish between sounds, so..."
---
In the end, Mari had not been exaggerating. She was still talking about vowels when David came out from the ktichen with his pizza, and at around 45 minutes, when Mari had grabbed some paper from the register and started drawing a trapezoid-shaped chart with weird letters on it, Mike had to throw in the towel. She said that she could easily have gone on for another hour, and at that point, he believed her.
He was driving home now. Yuriko had once described Mike's place as 'Haunted as fuck. Cursed. A home for ghosts.' He guessed that he could see why. It was pretty out-of-the-way, down in the dense woods that lined the southern edge of Blanchepierre, and there were no other houses nearby. And the place was really old. It had been built back in the 30s. It got very dark here at night - outside of the limits of his car's headlights, there was nothing but inky blackness. The few times that Yuriko had visited him at night this had unnerved her nearly to the point of panic, but he had always found the darkness comforting, in a weird way. It was like... a blanket. Protective, rather than scary.
He pulled up to the house, pizza in hand, and smiled as he heard an owl hooing in the night as he made his way up to the front door. His smile grew wider when he heard Icarus singing inside. He was a beast on the electric guitar, but he had an acoustic as well, and he tended to play it whenever he was feeling bored. Mike didn't recognize the song. Icarus was probably just making it up as he went along. He did that a lot, and he somehow always managed to make it sound good.
"Handsome-ass man, walking through my front door," he sang in time with the tune as Mike walked in. "Carryin' a pizza. Yummy, yummy pizza." He had himself draped over the couch, playing the guitar with it resting on his chest. "This handsome-ass Pizza Man is really late, he said he was gonna be home half an hour ago." He wasn't rhyming, but it was still impressive how well he managed to keep his voice in tune and on-beat.
"The Pizza Man got caught up talking about vowels," said Mike, keeping the rhythm, right up until Icarus stopped strumming.
"Vowels?"
"Yeah. Long story. I'm sorry. The pie's still hot, though," he said, setting the pizza box down on the coffee table.
"Have I ever told you," said Icarus, righting himself, "how adorable it is that you call pizzas 'pies'?"
Mike shrugged as he grabbed a slice. "It's a New York thing, I guess. When my family moved here when I was a kid I got made fun of for standing on line instead of in line, but nobody ever noticed the pie thing. I didn't even know that people don't call them that here until I was, like, fifteen. Uh... You okay, there?"
Icarus had, in Mike's opinion, the coolest Gift ever. He didn't know whether whatever cosmic force that made magic work had a sense of humor or if it was just an extremely lucky coincidence, but Icarus... Had wings. They were beautiful, covered in feathers that were black, like his hair, and he could even move them independently. The only downside was that they didn't actually work. Icarus was pretty thin and lanky, and he weighed less than half of what Mike did despite being nearly as tall, but that was still, apparently, too much. When he fully extended his wings they were easily twice as long as his arms, but after a lot of experimentation over the years, he had never managed to generate enough lift with them to even glide, much less fly.
They also made sitting upright on the couch from an upside-down position very laborious. Mike was battered by feathers more than once as Icarus righted himself. "I'm fine. There we go!" He settled down in the same spot, right-side-up now, and tucked his wings down behind him as he dug in to the pizza. "Aw, you even got pineapple on it!"
"It's an abomination, but I'm willing to sacrifice a pizza for love," said Mike.
"You're sweet," said Icarus with a laugh as he kissed Mike on the cheek. Through a bite of pizza, he said, "How was your day?"
"It was alright. I talked to yet another person about my job. Ever since I mentioned not really liking it in the Discord it's like my entire circle of friends started checking in with me about it."
"That's because the way that you worded it made it sound like you're depressed," said Icarus. "They all care about you. Who was it this time?"
"Mari. The one with the big boobs."
"That's, like, all of your female friends. Seriously, how did that even happen?"
"I don't know! It's really weird. Mari's the one whose got the marking."
"Oh, yeah! Glowy-boob girl. She's cool. Good taste in music."
"Yeah, well, she's good at giving advice, too. I think that I'm going to follow hers."
"Which was?"
"Basically the same thing that you said I should do, but she also mentioned capitalism and some Russian guy."
"Told you. Was it Marx?"
"Some other one. Hey, what was the name of that place you called when your parents got super shitty at you when you came out to them?"
"Uh... I ended up having to call like three of those hotlines before my aunt took me in. The best one was the Missouri LGBT Resource Center. It's a boring name but they were good people."
Mike took out his phone and looked them up. "Hey, look at this. They're hiring."
Icarus leaned in. "Anything you could do?"
"There's nothing here that's really focused on web development... Oh. Okay, hold on."
"I can hear the excitement in your voice! What is it?"
"Full Stack Developer."
Icarus blinked at him as he took another bite of pizza. "What's that mean?"
"It means that it's the same job I do now, plus all the back-end stuff of writing and running server software."
"Could you do it?"
"I'm... Not sure," said Mike as he read through the job description. "I know how to do a lot of this stuff in theory, just from tinkering around in my free time, but I've never done it as my job. I don't know if they'd be willing to hire me."
"Well," said Icarus, "there's only one way to find out." With a smile, he reached over and pressed the 'Apply' button.
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