girls of effulgence | bts

twenty-three

The thunder rolled overhead, and rain poured harder on the window like it was threatening to shatter the one thing that protected everything inside the house. The virtues had grown a bit more comfortable with each other and had started a few conversations, but it was all about the boys. One might have even said it was like an ordinary sleepover of giggly girls, but it was much less fun than that, and way more agonizing to see.

They all were okay in a sense, but still, something inside them wanted to break free, like a screaming prisoner in bars.

The pain hurt them all, hurting their hearts and making it hard to concentrate on doing nothing. Occasionally one or two of them would cease to talk about a lightly boring scoop of small talk and grab their heart quickly, cringing and feeling the pain. They all figured this was a side effect of being sinful.

They all knew sinful was wrong, but it was part of them now.

"So, you wouldn't believe how happy Envy was when I came to him, ridden of kindness." Kindness grinned and pulled her legs up to her chest. "It was great! For the first time ever, Envy wasn't stupidly awkward around me!" The virtues sat around her emotionless. Kindness had been fangirling for an hour, and all of them were getting extremely bored of it.

They looked around the room for the thousandth time, looking for something to do or thinking about something to say, instead of listening to Kindness blabber on and on about her knight in envious armor. Patience thought about grabbing the coffee table and shoving the legs into her ears to block the noise, while Abstinence had a different approach, just simply throw the coffee table at her.

Diligence tried falling asleep, but Kindness was so loud she just gave up. Everyone seemed bored to tears except Generosity, who seemed to be cautious. She would look around the room like she was making sure none of the other virtues were looking at her. Then quietly, she snuck something out of her pocket and turned it on.

A blast of light came out of it, the opposite of what she wanted and expected. Everyone looked over to see what had happened, even Kindness, as Generosity blushed and tried to hide the object, but it was too late. All of them were too excited because there was finally something to make Kindness be quiet without being rude.

"Was that a phone?" Diligence screeched with excitement, holding her hand out. "Well, let's see it!"

"I thought it was a flashlight," Chastity muttered, but craned her head to get a better look at the mystery item. Maybe it was a phone.

"Well," Humility growled, making Generosity even more uncomfortable, "show us." Her eyes narrowed at Kindness, her bossiness showing through.

With great disappoint, Generosity pulled out a phone, sighing. She didn't feel like putting up a fight with the others.

All of the virtues shrieked, then all grabbed for it at once. Generosity instinctively pulled back, protecting the phone like it was her child. "No!" She yelled, and the virtues stopped to look at her, all filled with questions. "Where'd you get a phone?" Humility yelled while Diligence yelled practically at the same time, "I was right!"

Generosity sat on the phone so no one else could touch it. "Just chill! Greed gave it to me, since, well, you know, he steals stuff." All of the virtues thought about it and then nodded. "That makes sense," Chastity muttered, and then wondered if she could get a phone from him.

"But none of us got to have our phones when we were brought here. Most of us left it at our house,"

"Or insane asylum,"

"it just wasn't on us at the time we were taken."

"What I'm wondering," Kindness muttered, twiddling her fingers, "is why we're so important in the first place." Their attention turned to Kindness.