The Ordinary Haunting

31. Another Boring End

"You don't look like you're doing too hot."

I lifted the garlic butter BLT (no T) to my nose and inhaled strongly. The tangy, earthy aroma pressed gentle hands underneath the dumbbells behind my eyes, raising them off my vital points for a second. I heaved my head from my lap and nudged my sunglasses back up my nose with my knee.

"Are you gonna crouch there all day?"

Shouldn't the sun have nothing but respect for a man named 'Tawan'? Why is it working so hard in the middle of winter like this? And on Sunday, too. 'Sun' day. It's your day to rest, dude. Every other weekend you let the rain in to spoil everyone's plans. Why not this one?

"You're not going to talk to me, at all?"

Why not this Sunday? Not only would it have been that much easier on my eyes right now, but I probably could have avoided this meeting altogether. These were plans you had my wholehearted consent to spoil.

A plastic tumbler dripping with water was shoved against my neck. I squealed and rolled away. Joss drew his hand back, watching me tuck my neck into my collar as he, too, sat down on the edge of the sidewalk. A businessman passing by talking loudly on his phone unknowingly smacked Joss across the ear with his briefcase and I felt a little better.

Joss raised a huge eyebrow at me. I mean huge. I suddenly wanted to research the mating rituals of caterpillars -- if they had any -- to see if Joss' eyebrows would be considered kings of the Lepidoptera world.

Apparently Hungover Tay thinks about caterpillar sex.

"A smile. Good."

I scraped my shoe against the pavement lip to see if anything was stuck underneath. "Just a train of thought."

"What's wrong with your neck?" he asked.

I eyed him tiredly. "Say what you had to say. I'm not in the mood for stalling."

"You're really not, I see." He waved two fingers at a vendor nearby selling fish sticks on the landing above the river. An old woman with permed purple hair gave him the 'OK' sign and he turned back. "You figured out a way to drink, then? Well, 'get drunk', anyway."

I thumbed a fallen leaf his way. "I guess."

"I bet there'd be a lot of money in it if anyone was willing to study you." Joss snickered at my glare. "Ghost or not, you always manage to find a way to do what you set your mind to. Be careful, that kinda thing makes me admire you, but other people will hate you for it."

"Exc--"

"No-one yet, though, hey Charming?"

"I'm leav--"

"Okay, okay, I'm sorry!" Joss shuffled closer and clapped his hands together in front of his face. "I had to bring back a little of that residual envy for me to remember why we got into that conversation at teamLab last time, when I was nothing but soda pop for you up until then."

I squeezed my sunglasses tighter around my face. "Can you hear yourself? What the heck is feeling 'soda pop' for someone?"

"It's when your insides get all fizzy thinking about them. It's like having a sweet taste in your mouth that you can't get enough of." Joss leaned in and bared his chunky, surely store-bought teeth. "Now I'm gonna take a wild guess and assume it's the reason I'm sitting with a hungover ghost right now."

I shook my head, almost keenly aware of the feeling of sun-kissed but chilly air going in my left ear and leaving unimpeded out my right. "You've lost me."