BOOK TWO OF THE "BROKEN" SERIES (previously "Peppy With A Side Of Pockies")
Myraliz-Cedar Tanaka is well-known for many things. She's the daughter of the billionaire designer Haruto Tanaka and philanthropist/restaurant owner Fumiko-Lily Tanaka, a fa...
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"Love makes your soul crawl out from its hiding place." ~ Zora Neale Hurston
•a.f.t.e.r..s.c.h.o.o.l• "You met a girl."
mc parts ways with her new friends from her Intro to Fashion Design class and decides to head back home to relax. Seeing as it's the first day, she doesn't have any homework, nor does she have anymore classes until Thursday and Friday.
Once home, MC enters her adorable little apartment. Her roommate had said that she didn't mind how MC decorated it, so she went ham with making it as cute as possible.
Her apartment is two floors, the first holding the living room and the kitchen and the second holding two bedrooms with en-suite bathrooms and a laundry room. MC decorated the living room pretty minimally. She left the creme color colored walls, added a white couch against the wall across from their flatscreen TV, a yellow loveseat with its back facing the door, a white rug with black and brown polk-a-dots, a small wooden coffee table in the center, a rolling tea tray next to the couch with several flowers and succulents, and a large plant in the far left corner of the room, right next to the window. Her roommate chose the plants and took care of them, as well as thrifted the trendy framed photos they had on their walls. There's also a white stair case as soon as you turn left from the front door, leading to the second floor.
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Their living room.
"Honey, I'm home!" MC announces as she places her bag on the couch.
The soft sound of footsteps is heard from the kitchen.
"Myraliz?" A soft voice calls out.
MC looks up to reveal her mouse-like roommate, Adelaide. She has light pink hair, tan skin, a small face, light brown doe-like eyes, perfectly arched, dark brown eyebrows, a straight nose, and pouty pink lips with a defined Cupid's bow. She often wore colorful makeup and adorable outfits, probably because of her moms being a makeup artist and a stylist.
"Hey Minnie, what's up with you?" MC greets, using her nickname for her. Since Adelaide is small, quiet, and shy like a mouse, she decided that the perfect name for he would be Mickey's partner, Minnie Mouse.
"I'm just cooking some quesadillas. Would you like some?" She offers, albeit nervously.
MC gasps. "Yay! Quesadillas! I L-O-V-E love quesadillas!" She rushes passed Adelaide to get into the kitchen.
Adelaide scurries after her. "Th-they're not ready yet!"
MC stares at the cheesy food on the stove. "I wanna be right here as soon as you're done with them."
Adelaide fiddles with her fingers. She's not really a fan of being in the spotlight, no matter how small. Hence why she works behind the scenes as a photographer and videographer. She's filmed for several famous artists as well as taken pictures for many magazines. She doesn't go to college, as she already has a viable career for herself, but she did move to NYC for better opportunities.
Concrete jungle where dreams are made of.
Meanwhile, Zeus is strolling into the weight room-- his least favorite place-- for wrestling practice. According to their coach, the team will be in here all day. He keeps his hood so that it covers his face and turns his music on his dark blue beats up all the way. His teammates (if you can even call them that) glare at him as he walks into the room. Well, all except for Mercedes-- who's the only girl on the team. She gives him a nod before going back to writing down the exercises on the board. Because of how much the coach trusts her-- what with her having the best record amongst everyone there-- she's basically an assistant coach for him.
"That make sense to everyone?" Mercedes asks once she's done. The boys nod. "Alright. One, two, three--"
"Break!" Everyone barks in unison.
Zeus checks the board. "106 - 132: four sets of twenty pull-ups" it reads.
He rolls out his shoulders-- happy that he stretched before he jogged over to the school-- and moves to complete his task. He's currently one hundred thirty-five pounds, but he usually wrestles one thirty-two, so he decides to follow what they're doing. He has a feeling that his coach is going to ask him to bulk up to one thirty-eight, but he won't take that initiative on his own.
Bulking up means more weight room. More weight room means a more unhappy Zeus. A more unhappy Zeus means more unhappy everyone.
As he's doing his pull-ups, he softly hums the tune to DOMINO by Stray Kids. The song has recently come out and he's in love with it. Then again, majority of what Stray Kids comes out with, he likes-- or just K-pop groups in general. As he's getting ready to do his second set, Mercedes walks up to him and gets ready to do her own pull-ups on the bar next to him.
He sees mouth move as she talks to him, so he pauses his music in order to hear her clearly.
"Sorry, didn't hear you," He mutters.
"What're you listenin' to so loud?" She repeats.
He looks down at his phone to see that the volume is almost all the way up. "Oh, sorry. Didn't know it was blasting."
She starts her pull-ups. "You're cool." She glances over to him. "How was your first day of classes?"
He thinks back to MC and her bubbly personality. "Could've been worse."
She studies him for a second. "You met a girl."
Instead of showcasing his shock, he raises an eyebrow. "What gave you that impression?"
"You're not as moody as you normally are. Besides, whenever I ask how your day is you say, and I quote: 'Shit'."
"Doesn't mean I met a girl though."
"Fine, did you meet a boy then? Or are they non-binary?"
He rolls his eyes. Mercedes knows that he's straight, she's just trying to get him to talk. And it works. "Fine, I met a girl. Happy?"
She smirks. "I will once you tell me all about her."
"Nothin' to tell. She talks too much, laughs too much, and doesn't know how to leave me the hell alone."
She finishes her first set of pull-ups. "So you like her then."
Zeus pulls on his headphones and presses play. Mercedes chuckles and holds up her right hand. She quickly spells "D-I-C-K" in ASL before going back to her pull-ups. Zeus just gives her a very impolite finger as an answer before continuing on with his as well.
A/N: btw, this story is set right after HOF, so it's 2021 not 2022. Hence why DOMINO had "just come out". There will be a lot of moments like that where songs or movies that are technically old have just come out in this story. Alrighty, glad we cleared that up 👍🏾
PS: sorry this chapter was so short. It was just a filler to showcase their personalities a little more.
