Going Home

Jocelyn stared at Lan as she pittered and mumbled her way through another attempt to "reach" Jocelyn. The Chistralian wasn't sure what Lan wanted anymore other than to humiliate Jocelyn in front of Mei-Li.

Jocelyn remained quiet through Lan's mumbling, feeling genuinely bad for Mei-Li but unable to separate her from this incident thanks, mostly, to Lan. Jocelyn stormed away without even replying to Lan and grabbed Mei-Li's clothes off the couch and heaved them down the hall at Lan.

"There! Help her!" Jocelyn barked, staring coldly at Lan. "You really wanna know if I've been happy? I was pretty fucking happy shagging that Sheila." Jocelyn said, jabbing a finger at Mei-Li.

"UNTIL YOU FUCKING RUINED IT!"

As her clothes scattered in the air, Mei quickly scampered to collect them. Though she couldn't help but cringe as she picked up her soaked panties, she retreated back into the room to try and get dressed. She heard Jocelyn still screaming at her, or Lan, or maybe even both of them for all she could tell. Whichever it was, it probably didn't matter; Mei just wanted out of here.

As extremely discomforting as it was, she slipped on her damp lingerie, followed by her shorts and tank top, although the top had gotten quite a bit stretched out and didn't fit as snugly anymore. Waddling just a little awkwardly in her dirtied clothes, Mei peeked her head out back into the hall to see if the coast was clear for her to escape.

Jocelyn, of course, found the most aggressive way possible to help gather up Mei-Li's clothes. Well, at least she had done as Lan had asked, in a way. Lan was still crying, and her hand-eye coordination had never been fantastic to begin with, at least not when things were thrown at her. She managed to catch one of the articles of clothing—Mei-Li's bra—while all the others scattered somewhere between the point where Jocelyn had thrown them and where Lan was standing. Mei-Li quickly hurried over to pick up her clothes. Almost in a daze, Lan would hand the naked girl her bra, then turn her attention back to Jocelyn as Mei-Li ran back into the bedroom.

Jocelyn kept on yelling, and Lan was simultaneously both extremely angry and acutely regretful looking at her soon to be ex-roommate. She clenched her fists, just trying to find a way to channel all of her emotions and somehow keep them under control. <N-no you weren't,> Lan would say, countering what Jocelyn said about being happy having sex with Mei-Li. <Y-you're never happy. I just f-feel bad...th-that you'll never, ever know what—w-what real happiness is. Y-you don't even know what it is y-you don't have...> Lan would have to breathe deeply again to keep herself from starting up sobbing once more. <A-and...I can't believe that I almost, ah, let y-you bring me down into that s-same, sh-shameful pit.>

Lan also did not intend to let Jocelyn blame her for ruining whatever she had had with Mei-Li. <I truly regret doing this, umm, when I did...b-but only for her sake. I th-thought you were happy when...w-when we, umm...d-did the s-same. But then you r-ruined everything. Whatever happened last night, y-you would have ruined it for, umm, for both of you...as soon as you c-could.> She paused, considering what to say next. <A-actually, you did do that. E-exactly that. You woke her up. You wanted her t-to hear everything, t-to have to g-get involved...why?>

She stepped forward, getting a little closer to Jocelyn again, preparing to follow up on that question with another, related one. <W-why are you like...this? I've never met any other p-person who is such a...a p-parody of a human b-being.>

Jocelyn was pretty tired of the stuttering Chinese wimp trying to bring the Chistralian down to her level. Trying to say that she wanted to help while at the same time trying to point out how awful Jocelyn was. as far as Jocelyn was concerned, Lan was just as scummy as she claimed Jocelyn was. She was hell bent on making the biggest scene and jabbing the biggest dagger into Jocelyn just because Jocelyn hurt her back. It was schadenfreude and Jocelyn was quite through standing there listening to one of the most pathetic people she'd ever met in her life try and berate her when she couldn't even keep a coherent sentence.

Her reply to it all was simple, loud and harsh.

<GET!! OUT!!>

Her hand lashed whip-like at the door.

That probably could have been in English and Mei-Li would've still understood it loud and clear. She actually knew those words, though. Either way, she was more than happy to oblige, wasting no time in slipping past Yi Lan and heading towards the living room. She cringed again as she tried to move in her soggy undergarments, but tried her best to bear with it. Glancing around, she spotted the door, with her sneakers nearby, but paused for a moment.

Turning back to Yi-Lan, Mei bowed her head deeply and stammered out, < "I... I am very s-s-SORRY!" > Blushing furiously, she then ran towards the door, grabbing her sneakers without even bothering to put them on, before pulling the door open and sprinting away.

Jocelyn was obviously done talking. She had been more than happy to try to belittle Lan and hurt her and mock her just a few minutes earlier, but now that the shoe was on the other foot—now that Lan had, for the first time since they had met, managed to stand up to Jocelyn and put her on the defensive and force her to actually confront what a horrible person she was—the Chinese-Australian girl didn't feel like talking. Now, she wanted Lan to leave. She wanted to be left alone. She wanted all the pain that Lan was causing her to stop. Lan felt a pit rapidly expanding in her stomach, and she knew that she would agonize over what had transpired over these few minutes for weeks, if not months. But she wanted Jocelyn to know just how she felt.

Before she could even really register it, Mei-Li had already gone, sprinting out the door in her damp clothing, apologizing to Lan for...something. Lan couldn't quite be sure what Mei-Li had to apologize for. She had been an innocent bystander, one whose feelings Lan had ignorantly failed to consider before starting all of this, and whom Jocelyn had drawn into the fray. Lan still had very confusing feelings about Mei-Li—seeing as how the fact that she had slept with Jocelyn was the straw that broke the camel's back for Lan—but she felt for her poor, innocent countrywoman. At least she had been saved from whatever havoc Jocelyn would have wreaked in her life had this altercation never occurred.

Now, with the door open, Lan figured that it was just about time for her to leave, too. She had so many other things she had planned to say, though...some were forgotten, and would only be remembered hours or days later. Some Lan no longer felt could be said. The others were all a confused jumble, but Lan wanted to make Jocelyn realize just what a terrible series of mistakes she had made over this past year. And Lan honestly did feel that she was doing it out of a certain sense of compassion, that if she could break down Jocelyn into little chunks, that maybe the girl would finally be forced to confront those darker aspects of her personality.

<Do you...remember when y-you first b-brought me here?> Lan would begin, trying to be very deliberate with her words to cut down on the stuttering. She had started the night off coherent, but emotion had caused her to lose that control and she had started to get overly anxious. Well, this needed to get through to Jocelyn loudly and clearly. <W-when you made me have, umm, sex, I didn't want to, b-because I had a specific picture in my head...it was a f-fairy tale, you said.> She took a deep breath. <B-but...why did it have to be? It's not like we needed more money. We had plenty of money. A-and time. And I really did...I really did like you, you know. I think that s-some part of you liked me, t-too. And, umm...>

Lan was starting to choke herself up, now. She bit her lip and concentrated hard on keeping herself together, just for a few seconds more. <W-we could have r-really b-been...been happy. I d-don't understand why we never were. Th-there is...there is s-something, uh, s-some part of you th-that hates the rest of you. It k-kills any chance you...ever have of being happy.> She would take a couple of steps back, putting space between herself and Jocelyn. And she just let her vivid imagination go down that same familiar avenue, that dream street that these last few months had turned into a twisted slum. <Watching movies, h-holding hands...finding new favorite restaurants, w-walking through Tokyo late at night, v-visiting shrines on New Year's...cuddling, kissing, laughing...I really thought I could help you, a-and w-we could have...all of that. B-b-but until you can change, you...y-you'll never have that with me.>

Lan would turn her back and walk towards the door. <Or w-with anyone,> she would add, glancing over her shoulder, looking at Jocelyn with teary eyes before she would finally leave the apartment and begin the long walk back to her own home.

Jocelyn practically snarled as Lan finished one last jab at her. She wasn't going to give the whiny, stuttering blonde anything else. Finally, when she was gone, Jocelyn took a few moments to inhale and exhale before she finally unleashed a scream that nearly pierced her own ears.

As she stared at the door she clenched and unclenched her fists before finally turning and punching the wall as hard as she could.

She let her head fall against the wall and then dropped to one knee. She turned and eyed the door again. "Not everything is a fuckin fairy tale." She growled. "Nothin in this fuckin world is one bit, you twat. I did you a fuckin favor."