The brunet spit into the restroom sink with an unbridled sound of aggravation. Casualty of the profession; he supposed he should be used to it by now. Especially when he was dealing with such an obvious novice.
Said novice stood beside him, quickly fastening his jeans and looking down at him apologetically, before his brown eyes darted about the very public restroom. He spoke quietly, as if he were afraid of overheard.
“My bad. I didn’t mean to, you know, in your—”
Cutting the man off, the brunet abruptly stopped the faucet water and expectantly held a hand out towards him. When he was greeted with confusion it caused him to narrow his pale eyes sharply. The novice shook his head.
“I already paid you.”
“And now you owe me more. Think of it as your way of apologizing.”
The harsh glare that accompanied words jolted the man back to his senses. While tucking his shirt, he simultaneously pulled out his wallet with an aggravated sigh. Disheveled and flustered, he rifled through it, ignoring the brunet’s tapping fingers to pull out a few extra bills.
“Fuchsia right?” he said, passing him the money. “That even your real name?”
The brunet rolled his eyes, counting out his payment before tucking it in with the other small payments in his tattered back pocket. “In polite society, asking for a hooker’s real name is considered rude.”
“Wow. Okay. So… we just leave and act like nothing happened?”
“Well, you can stand around in a train station restroom looking like an idiot all you want. But I have better things to do.”
With that, he stepped out of the restroom. At first, he was too busy ignoring the man’s glare to notice the hot mess of a situation he had walked out to, but a rotund police officer darting by him close enough to make him wrinkled his nose made him flinch.
She had managed to clip his foot, scuffing his shoe as she rushed towards the crowd forming beside the stalled train. He sneered at her back before crouching down to rub the dirt off the black pumps that he was wearing. It was bad enough that the heels were old and faded; there was no need for them to look like someone’s big feet had trampled all over them too.
Fuchsia buffered the scratches out as the nervous, hushed chatter fluttered through the crowd. His pale eyes glanced at the train which was being emptied of its passengers and the rotund officer helping to clear the bystanders.
Did that kid jump after all?
Truthfully, he didn’t think that she would. He had seen her pacing to the edge of the tracks and back when he had crossed the tracks earlier; she looked like she had been crying.
His eyes tried to catch sight of her, even craning his head to peer over the crowd. Not like there would be anything left of her to find if she had jumped. Except when his eyes caught sight of a gray bookbag left unattended on the cold, cement floor by the tunnel wall, his interest in finding the girl all but disappeared. It wasn’t doing anyone any favors there.
“Oh?” he mused aloud, “Don’t mind if I do.”
The brunet moved forward, using the crowd’s investment in the situation to carefully tiptoe over—as best as one could in heels. The brazen way that he tossed the bag over his shoulder and narrowed his eyes at those passing by made everyone turn away from him.
With the bag in hand, he strode along the platform, feigning indifference as he moved as far away from the waiting passengers. He found a gum ridden bench beneath the flicker of a florescent light which, much like himself, was too off putting for anyone to want to be around.
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