Tuesday, February 5, 2008

THE CATALYST, CHAPT 17: BLACK AND WHITE AND MALICE AND LUST
SINCERELY_SARCASTIC: GOOD-BYE, CORI-LA. I LOVE YOU

It had been 10 minutes since Beli-wa had typed and sent that last IM. It had been 9 and a half since she had logged off and left nothing else of hers but an automatic away-message to haunt the screen.

nOw AnD fOrEvEr WiShInG yOu CaReD & WiShInG i DiDn’T~ SINCERELY_SARCASTIC

Yeah, classic emo unrequited love heart-breaker. That was Belinda’s specialty. Heart-achingly sweet poems about random sexy pretty-boy jackasses that would never love her back. Depressing, yet beautiful. Frivolous, yet profound. Deeply superficial and superficially deep.
Usually Corinth Hiwatarski would just roll her eyes at her friends pessimism and jokingly chide her for being so damn cynical. But this time the little excerpt of melo-drama seemed to fit the mood.
Cori sighed and pushed the locks of neon green-ish blue hair out of her weary, caramel-colored eyes. “Damn it,” she muttered for the millionth time, massaging her aching temples. “It wasn’t supposed to ---ing happen like this.” And, indeed, it wasn’t.
But it had. Belinda was officially permanently lost to Cori. And it sucked. Oh, God, did it suck. Belinda had been so much fun, so easy to talk to, such a good listener and friend. And despite what Cori had just typed 15 minutes earlier, she really hadn’t minded Belinda’s fragile, confidence-lacking nature all that much. It had made Cori feel stronger in comparison. And not only that, but whenever Belinda had broken down and had been mere nano-steps from utter despair, it had given Cori a reason to not do the same. A reason to carry on. A reason to put on a brave face and be an example of perseverance for Belinda and anyone else who was watching. And somehow through the process of faking it so many times for Belinda’s sake, Cori felt she had actually become stronger. More reliable. More mature. In a way, she no longer had to pretend to be brave. Because now she already was. And she had Belinda to thank for it.
Being her adopted older sister had made Cori a better person. But what had really surprised Corinth about this, was she actually ENJOYED being a better person, too. Being Belinda’s friend and make-shift therapist wasn’t much, but it made her feel like she mattered. Like she had a purpose. Like she had made some progress from her former life as a narcissistic, detention-earning, trash-talking, cigarette-smoking, miserable “disgrace to the Hiwatarski name.”
She NEVER wanted to go back to that life. That life, where everything was so hypocritical and fascist and empty, and nothing made sense.
Belinda or no Belinda, no way in hell would she ever return to that. Not willingly, not automatically. She could deal. It was her sincerely sarcastic adopted little sister who really needed to be worried about. Her insecure, over-easily penetrated, inferiority complex-holding, adopted little sister. Because, let’s face it: despite her being able to ACT mature and brave and calm and laid-back, she didn’t do so well on her own. She was too sensitive. She couldn’t just shrug a minor conflict off her shoulders and move on like everyone else. Oh, sure, for the 1st 5 minutes after the ordeal happened, she‘d be fine. She could try to shake it off, or, at least pretend to. But then she would start to look at it in retrospect. She would consider it. And then, slowly but surely, like the incessant dripping from a ceiling during a huge rain-storm right before the whole roof caves in, the full effect of the blow would start to seep in. Then, before anyone could be able to do anything about it, the impact of the adversity would come completely crashing down upon her and she would just implode into an emotional mess of hysteria and desperation. Belinda could never really prevent the penetration, she could only delay it. Cori had seen it countless times before. So needless to say, she couldn’t help but be a bit concerned about what Belinda would do now that she wouldn’t be there to help the little emo recover.
Still, there really wasn’t anything she could do about it. Cori had already made her decision. Already made it and already acted upon it.
It was too late to go back.
So, with one final sigh, she logged off the lab-top and headed toward the kitchen. Breaking up with one’s best friend and obliterating every single chance of reconciling with them builds up an appetite.

As she stepped unto the gray-ish linoleum floor of the dining room directly adjacent to the kitchen, despite her sullen mood, she couldn’t help but admire the view from the window of the condo. It was beautiful. The neon city lights, the millions of cars rushing across the various roads and avenues, the multitude of hot-spots and tourist-magnets--it was all just so urban, so glamorous. So Las Vegas.
“It’s weird,” interrupted a smooth, cold voice, some distance behind Cori. “From here, it just looks like a bunch pretty lights. You can barely even tell that it’s nothing but a bunch of pathetic, greedy sons of bitches just blindly going from strip club to strip club, bar to bar. Casino to casino. Aimlessly looking for the next big rush of sin and pleasure. Like locusts.”
At this, Cori whipped around to see a shadowy out-line of a familiar figure slumped leisurely into a chair, at the table. Dashimay Malluste.
“Oh, Dashi…!” She breathed a sigh of half relief, half intimidation. “You scared me.” But then again, he always scared her.
Dashimay shrugged and reached for another chip out of the bowl on the table. “Story of my life, kid,” he said, before popping the chip into his mouth. While he ate the remainder of his snack, Cori couldn’t help staring at him. Despite the fact he and Vashoutoh were twins, there really couldn’t be a more obvious contrast between 2 brothers. Just how obvious?
Well, for starters, Vashoutoh’s skin was angelically fair and flawlessly smooth. Dashimay’s was dusky and rough.
Vashoutoh’s body was short and slender with the sexy, haughty hips, long, seductive torso, and tiny waist that your mother would kill for. Dashi’s was tall, athletic and strong and probably only 1 more six-pack away from being the epitome of masculinity.
Vash’s face was androgynous, willowy, and usually decanted in the best eye-shadow, eye-liner, mascara, and lip gloss that money could buy and fame could endorse. Dashi’s was square-jawed, defined, and he only ever allowed eye-liner to be applied anywhere near it when the band had to appear on TV or some other formal event.
Vash’s hair was dyed every single shade of blonde in existence and tirelessly styled/gelled/cropped/tussled to perfection. Dashi’s was dyed jet-black and, if not for Vash’s incessant nagging for him to grow it out, it would still be so short that it’d be inches away from being a buzz-cut.
And last, but not least significant, Vashou’s body was covered in white, artistic evidence of self-mutilation that were barely noticeable against his angelically pristine complexion.
Dashi’s skin was covered in various black tattoos of fore-boding symbols and exotic writing.
And for those of you who have no appreciation for detailed descriptions and just skipped right over the entire bit about Vashou and Dashi’s appearance, put it this way: Dashi was the ideal spokes model for Abercrombie & Fitch. Vashou was the ideal model for Revlon. Got it? Good.
“Cori, am I an inclined plane that you climb to get up-stairs?” Dashi asked after about 5 minutes of being gawked at.
“Er… No.”
“Then why are you staring at me?”
“Oh… Sorry,” she smiled apologetically, with a shallow chuckle at his stupid word-pun. There was something very unsettling about Dashi. Cori didn’t trust him as far as she could throw him. It was a pity she didn’t trust him as far as HE could throw HER. Because that was pretty far.
“If you’re looking for Vash, he’s out somewhere with Eli,” informed the dark twin, as he got up from the chair to take his now-empty bowl to the dish-washer. Eli was the band’s drummer. He was about as masculine as Dashi and as attention-attracting as Vashou. He reminded Cori a little bit of her juvenile 45-year-old uncle.
“Oh… Um, thanks, Dashi,” Cori stammered, suddenly not as hungry as she had been 5 minutes ago. The dark twins discomfort-inducing prescience had spoiled her appetite. Still shivering a bit from the coldness Dashi seemed to radiate, she began to stroll towards the TV. After her cyber fight with guess-which-sincerely-sarcastic-poet, she probably wouldn’t be logging on to the inter-web for quite some time. So she might as well kill time with the remote and the cable.
“Oh, and kid,” Dashi addressed her, as he paused by the door.
For some stupid reason, when she answered, Cori felt the need to look back into his dull dark brown gaze that she was usually so desperate to avoid. “Yes?”
“I don’t judge you by your name,” he said, opening the door to the kitchen, but still keeping his hallow gaze fixed upon her. “You shouldn’t judge me by mine.” And with that, he exited the scene. Again, Cori was left to shiver. The air suddenly felt heavier. The atmosphere, suddenly ominous. She felt a little bit like the under-cover heroine in a spy/thriller flick right after she’s been discovered by the impossibly suave evil henchman and is left to ponder whether she’s safe or if the fiend will rat her out to his ungodly powerful superiors.
“Dashimay Malluste,” she murmured. “Mal. luste. Malice and lust.”

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