𝐡𝐞 𝐛𝐫𝐢𝐧𝐠𝐬 𝐦𝐞 𝐜𝐮𝐩𝐜𝐚𝐤𝐞𝐬 • 𝒐𝒏𝒈𝒐𝒊𝒏𝒈

✿ 31.07.22 ✿

3 months later. . .

Noah's POV

"Aargh, I missed the mystery box!" The games console controls shift and slip in my hands from the sweat on my palms, it was becoming a tense game.

I swerve right, drifting, but something catches me on the right side. "Stop hitting me with those fucking red shells!"

The impact sends me flying "Shit I fell off the rainbow slide."

"Aaaand, I win again, what a shock." Amir says with content as the winner's theme music plays, dropping his controller and taking a swig from his beer. I slam my controls down on the sofa in anger.

"Mario Kart is a fucking shit game anyway." I retort. It was my eight defeat in a row.

"It's only shit if you play shit, bro." Amir laughs, but it only makes me scowl the more. I reach out in front of me and pick a Cheeto from the bowl, the orange dust coating my hand immediately.

"What time is it anyway?" I ask

"Erm," Amir picks up his phone to wake the screen up "Quarter to two."

"Quarter to? Fuck I'm gonna be late! I thought you set an alarm for half past?"

"Yeah, I did but then I put my phone on silent."

"Why did you put it on silent?" I fumble to get my black Converses from the carpet and slip them on quickly

"Because Mikaela kept calling me and I told the girl I ain't got no joint til Tuesday."

I roll my eyes at another of my plans disrupted by Amir's drug dealing habits. At first I overlooked them, but nowadays they always caused one inconvenience or another. It was getting too much.

"Amir, I trusted you to be reliable. This is my last job interview; I can't miss it 'cause nowhere else in town has vacancies. I fucking told you already."

"I'm sorry, ok? But bro if you ever need cash, you know I got some to spare from my side hustles, let me just hit you up with a few hundred."

"Stop Amir, I don't want your stupid dirty money, I want to earn real money. With my football career looking more and more bleak, I need a way to earn stable income." I rummage around the Cheeto bowl for my tie "Have you seen my tie?"

"Oh, you mean the stripey one? Yeah, I spilt some beer so I used it to mop it up."

"Goddammit, Amir, you are utterly useless."

"And you are utterly hopeless. You really think they're gonna give an accountancy job to a guy who got D's in maths?"

"It's an assistant accountant, I'm only learning the ropes for now, and besides, according to them I got an A minus..."

He almost chokes on his beer as he's taking another gulp "An A minus? How did you get away with telling them that? Do they not know you play football?"

"I kinda... missed that bit out of my application."

He scoffs, rolling his eyes.

"Don't give me that, they're quite low on background checks since they're still barely established."

"So in summary, you're applying to an accountancy firm who don't know who you really are, and don't have the capacity to actually check."

I nod

"Wow, good luck with that." He picks up is controller and loads another Mario Kart race, but this time against a computer opponent.

"At least I'll actually have a job, Amir."