Tainted || liskook

Tainted [01]: introduction

Author's note:

Hi hi. I've decided to publish tainted again after lots (and lots) of consideration and heavy editing to something that I feel comfortable to put out there. There will be some minor changes, so if you don't feel like re-reading the whole thing again, it's all cool because I don't think you're missing out much.

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"Six men were found dead at five fifty-three in the morning— "

Click.

"—in the city, surprisingly no witnesses were found even though it was a—"

Click.

"Please refrain from going out late nights—"

Click.

"—what are the authorities doing?! It's not safe for us anymore,"

Lisa Manoban rolled her eyes and stared at the television screen in complete boredom, lazily resting her right cheek on a fist.

"Seriously Lisa, are you still listening to me? You know, that wasn't a smart move at all, you could have been—..." A huge collision could be heard then, followed by a high piercing shriek, "Hey, hey! Get back here, you little piece of shit! No running in the house! Listen to Auntie Rosie, yes—wait no! Put the vase down, oh my fucking god!"

"Yes, I'm aware," Lisa grumbled, her upper lip was curled back into a snarl as she groaned in annoyance; her patience was running thin at the awful combination of the background noise infused with Rosé's irritating tendency to always nag at her to death at any given moment. The blonde cringed when another pitchy scream blasted through the receiver, compelling her to pull away from the cell, "I don't think your mother would tolerate cursing at your nephews, Rosie."

"You know much I adore my mother so don't try to reprimand me when I say, 'Screw her!' since it's completely her fault for making me watch over the fucking hellions; you know how much I despised the small devils. Wait, do you want to know what could potentially be a great idea? You should totally come over and we could—"

Lisa giggled and rolled her eyes skyward, stopping her friend's train of thought before it escalated further; she was definitely not in a mood to be manipulated after receiving a lot of shit from school. "Don't try to use that tone on me," She warned playfully, "It won't work. I hate kids more than you do; naughty or good—my tolerance for little drunken shits is non-existent. Anyway, what were you talking about again?"

"Ugh. Right, you wouldn't believe what happened last Friday, after you rudely punched your stupid excuse of an ex-boyfriend. Soojung, the stupid bitch from History—you remember her yeah? She came in and tried to put her dumb fucking opinion about the matter and I swear the shit that came out of her mouth was pure cancerous—"

The blonde teenager attempted to listen the first few seconds but she couldn't sit through the rest of the gossip without grunting once or twice in between, not bothering to mask her disdain for the topic in hand. As much as she adored her sweet little Rosie, really, it was honestly so typical of her best friend to jump on the 'he said she said' phenomenon adopted by a bunch of half-baked has-beens without the basic foundation to form a proper opinion.

Lisa could appreciate something more profound, or something more relatively serious such as the disappearances of women in the neighbourhood caused by an uncaught serial killer, compared to something inane and pathetic such a school gossip. Besides, Lisa could go on without thinking about her lame ex-boyfriend; if she wasn't in the mood to babysit a bunch of shitty kids, talking about the cheating bastard was definitely off the list. Rosé was a little different—gossip was her main reason to live and breathe, basking in the fact that she knew every little rumour that circulated around the school; from the major embarrassment that happened to Jihyo in their freshman year which resulted to Jihyo's withdrawal from school, to the unfortunate incident of Mr. Ji Yong's forced retirement in their junior year because of a drug scandal.