some fluffy sophrella <3
school is sucking away all my free time
It's that girl again.
Sophie has been ordering a seriously unhealthy amount of takeout for the past few weeks, ever since she started college. Most people do when they have about five dollars in their bank accounts. There's a takeout place near her called Crunchy Chicken! and though the name leaves much to be desired--as does the food--it's incredibly cheap. Cheap is all that matters right now.
Normally Sophie didn't pay much attention to the delivery people. Her attention was focused on whatever semi-warm bag of food they had to offer. But she's been ordering from the same place for two weeks straight, and it's always the same delivery girl. Every single time.
Here she stands in front of Sophie, blonde hair twisting around one finger, other hand clutching a takeout box. At the beginning, Sophie had just taken the food and left, but now she's started to linger a little bit longer.
"Hello?" The delivery girl wiggles her fingers before Sophie's face, and Sophie realizes she'd been staring. "Uh--The food."
"Oh." Sophie grabs the takeout box and then reaches for her wallet. As she scrambles for the dollars, she works up the nerve to ask, "So, um. Is there a reason you're always my delivery person?"
"Do you think I'm like, stalking you or something?" the girl asks. It's hard to tell if she's joking.
Sophie blushes, fumbling for an answer. "No. No. Just--"
"Relax." The girl laughs. "I get what you mean. I'm not a stalker. It's just that we're super understaffed and no one wants to work here--thanks to the quality of our food, as you probably have experienced by now--and I'm the only one who's so desperate for extra cash they'll take the delivery guy position," the girl says with a dry smile.
"Oh," Sophie says for the second time in thirty seconds. "So I guess I'll be seeing you a lot?"
"Yep. Anyways. About that cash...?"
The girl gestures and Sophie realizes she's still holding the payment. Embarrassed, Sophie hands it over. "Sorry."
"It's cool."
The girl goes to leave, but she's only made a few steps before Sophie shouts out, "I-I'm Sophie!"
Her face instantly burns red when she realizes what she said, but Sophie stands her ground as the girl turns around, confusion written across her face. "Yeah, just--yep. I'm Sophie. That's my name."
She wants to disappear.
"Uh," the girl says slowly. "Nice. My name's Marella."
A small part of Sophie's heart feels like it's glowing with warmth, grateful to have gotten a name at the price of her embarrassment. "Oh. Cool."
Marella.
~~~
"Why do you order so much takeout?"
It's a fair question, especially coming from Marella who's been over almost every day for the past several weeks to hand Sophie whatever cheap dinner she wanted. They've grown familiar enough with each other that now Marella stays behind after delivering the food and chats with Sophie for a while. Today, after complaining about her coworker's flour explosion in the kitchen, Marella has finally decided to ask the inevitable.
"Um." Sophie shrugs. "I'm a broke college student and this place is cheap."
"Feel that," Marella snorts. "Do you have a job?"
