Car - After School
The sun decorated the car as Lunes drove. Y/n inhaled, seated in the back behind her mother, she felt the unwanted tension building up in her body. She focused on faking sleep as Armin and Lunes talked.
"Oh, that's pretty far away." Armin nodded, fidgeting with his fingers and holding back the urge to look at Y/n. "Yeah, um, I thought it would be nice for a change of scenery." Lunes nods. "Yeah, I went to Japan once. Let me see..." Lunes snaps her fingers. "I was sixteen!" Armin's eyes widen. "Sixteen?" Lunes giggles. "I know, shocker, but my parents traveled a lot for work, so sometimes I'd go with my dad or mom to huge places in the summer." Lunes glances in the rearview mirror, a pout on her lips. "Hmph, I thought Y/n would have told you by now." Armin shakes his head. "Well, I guess my stories can get a bit too much." Y/n fights the urge to roll her eyes as Armin nibbles on his bottom lip, keeping the conversation going, "Where else did you go?"
Lunes sighs in nostalgia. "Well, for Japan I was mainly at a very fancy hotel in Tokyo, after that we came back to America, boring I know... But I know before that there was Rome, Dubai, Bangkok, Paris-" Lunes is interrupted by a chuckle. "Is there something funny?" He shakes his head. "No, no, it's just Historia really wants to go again." Lunes nods in acknowledgment. "Yeah, they have good macrons." The two chuckle. "When did you stop going?" "Eighteen, was when I was forced into college," Lunes enunciates with her dramatic hand gestures, stopping at a red light.
"I spent five years getting a master's in a degree I didn't want until I saved up and left for Shiganshina!" Armin smiles at her enthusiastic energy. "What was the degree?" She clears her throat. "Teaching," she said with regret. Armin hums. "Do you have some type of vendetta against teaching?" She shrugs. "My parents didn't really see anything for me besides that, or being a therapist." Armin quirks a brow. "And what were their jobs?"
Turning the corner with one hand she answers Armin's question, "My mom was a geologist and photographer while my father was a doctor." Lunes pulls in front of a massive restaurant. "Sorry, if I'm prodding too much, but why did he travel?" Lunes inhales, parking her car.
"So, you think I'm not good enough?" "Never said that," Her mother mumbled with a smirk, wiggling the colorful fake money in front of her daughter's face. "Fine! Fine! I'll give you my apartment, but I swear there are consequences, ma'am!" Lunes chuckles with her beautiful mom.
Her mom was short with light blue hair and highlights of baby pink and had the skin of Gods, smooth and perfect accompanied by her bulbous nose. "Okay, okay, I understand! Fuck, Philip get that stick out of your ass!" Her father was tall, very tall with a sturdy stature and his skin was more on the rough side. Back then, Lunes only remembered the details that made her parents stick out, but now she can barely remember their eye color.
Her mother cleared her throat. "Could you get some water for me, Lunes?" Lunes nods, a bright smile on her lips as she gets up and walks to the tiny kitchen.
After that, the night went on with her mother and father yelling and yelling and crying and crying at each other.
Her dad wasn't perfect, but he provided so much. Lunes went to a top-tier school and a top-tier college. She was fed and clothed, never neglected appearance-wise. When she started going on trips with her father, she was around ten. The first place she ever went was to Chicago. Chicago was a big city with tons of places to throw money around, as her father said. She and her father were escorted any and everywhere by beefy men from the airport. The only time she didn't see those guards were in the hotel room, but outside was a different story.
Lunes lived in utter wealth. After some years, she could bathe in the money her father made per second, she couldn't wait to give her children the same life. She promised herself to get the same job as her father, live with a shorter, kind partner and give them a carefree life as she almost had, excluding the fights of course. "Yes, mom, I'm okay. Yes, I'll get that done. Okay, okay, okayyyyy! Can I go now? It's like midnight here." She heard her mother's hearty chuckle and then an I love you before the line died. She smiled, content with her life.
She had five more months in her home. Five months and then she'd go after her father's profession.
Sure, she was excited about that, but also there was this solemn feeling, this weight she couldn't wait to eradicate. Maybe she'd find the love of her life just like her parents, and she'd marry them, live in a tiny city, and travel with both her wi- partner and child.
She watched with a frown as the rain kept pouring. "Awh, come on!" She stood up, padding over to the large windows and shutting the curtains. She was happy once again.
A little while later, she dozed off on her phone, the rain used as peaceful background noise. She groaned at the loud yelling sounds. She almost banged her fist on the wall, but her brain connected before then. She sat up, face pissed as she glared at the wall. A very contemptuous conclusion was made. She stretched briefly while walking over to her door. She opened it and breathed 'thanks' to the Gods as the guards were on break. She turned and was face-to-face with the door next to hers. She knew her father was to her right, and this nobody was to her left.
She had to be very cautious with how she handled this interaction. If she fucked it up, her father would be sent home early, like last time in Chicago. And since it was most likely 3 am, her father would be more than pissed at her. Clearing her throat, she knocked on the door, trying a smile. Though, that smile slowly dissipated as they just kept going. Now she resulted in banging, banging hard and loud as they were literally breaking her wall.
Thankfully, after five minutes of her bruised fist hitting the door, she got silence and steps, very heavy and angry steps headed straight for her. Oh shit. The urge to run was on her mind, she guessed it was only a twenty feet jump from the top of this hotel. It couldn't be that bad, right?
It would've been better than this.
"The hell-" That tone was so familiar she almost cried. That voice was too similar to her father's that it was almost him scolding her about her failing algebra again. And now, it was him scolding her for not letting him cheat.
The flight back home was tiring, long and uncomfortable. Her father offered expensive food, clothes, books, movies, cars, expensive hair dye, anything she had always wanted, she would've gotten, save her father's attention. The car ride was lonely and tense. She just wanted to get back to her mother's warm embrace. Her mother's oblivious embrace keeping a smile on her lips.
Oh, Gods. She almost vomited, slapping a palm over her mouth, hand on her knee. Her father pulled over, and unlocked her door, encouraging her to open it. "Why would you do that?" She gulped down any vile resin that was lying in her throat. "What?" He almost whispered. When she looked at him, he wasn't the strong man she once knew. Despite his tall and sturdy stature, he was like a puppy kicked down a sewer. Disgusting is what she would have said. Lunes whimpered, "why would you cheat on mom? After twenty-five years together, you cheat on her?" He sighs, knuckles gripping the steering wheel, head resting on it. "What did you want me to do?"
It was as if he needed her approval, her word that she would stay his little girl, stay compliant and kind to him.
"Why did you? Why did you? Why did you?" She almost hit him, quickly unbuckling her seatbelt, gripping his collar, and glaring daggers into his contaminated pupils.
His brows saddened, everything about him was pathetic. "Lunes," he said her name with so much care she had never known. It's as if he was always there at her music recitals, her mathlete competitions, her bake-off. She'd like to stay in this moment if it was actually that.
"Your mom always knew." She pulled away quickly, ripping her door open, and walking out onto the cold cement sidewalk. He followed her, of course, he did. "Lunes!"
"My mom, would never! She would have more respect for me and herself! I swear you are lower than low, the shit on my-" Her wrist is gripped and she shuts up. She watches her father cry for the very first time, and she wants to hit rewind.
"She knew?" He nods, a stranger's distance apart from his daughter. They were sitting on that very cold sidewalk, Lunes hunched over her knees, hugging them as close as she could to never be in reality again. Her father's hands splayed behind him, legs spread as he looked at his car's front, dried tears on his cheeks. "Why?" She mumbled. She didn't know what she was asking, but for the first time in her life, her father was there for her. Maybe he went through something like this, she'll never know.
"Being a doctor didn't make enough when she had you, so I went private and a lot more clients wanted me..." He scoffed. "Your mother was very stressful, and I just did it once. I regretted it but inevitably... I kept doing it." His brows furrow. "It was like a high that felt so good even if I stopped for a day, I always craved more and more... She found out one morning when I came home with hickeys."
He looked over at Lunes's indifferent face, the most genuine smile shone through her father's cursed lips. "I think your mother always knew, she just didn't say anything because she wanted you to have a better life than she did." She was always the problem.
Lunes found comfort away from home. She could date anyone she wanted without that nagging disapproval in both ears. Soon, she found her own person, and that became her mother and father's relationship. But she never forgave herself. In her mind, she would always be the problem. She wanted you to have a better life than she did.
"Lunes? Lunes?" Armin snapped her out of her daze, embarrassment clouding her senses. "Ah, sorry, um he- he needed more money- Yeah!" She watched as the blonde nodded, concern dousing his features. "That's not what he's asking mom..." From the back seat, Y/n motioned to the gigantic restaurant in front of her. Lunes had the biggest smile known to man, shaming the sun. She was pleased. "Happy birthday, N/n!"
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