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"Can I, like, please go with you??" Salt had practically teleported to the kitchen since hearing OJ suggest shopping to Paper, who'd recently mentioned the low food supply.
Pepper soon followed, lugging herself behind her. Of course, shopping with Salt was one of her favorite things, but adding OJ to the equation automatically took away any enjoyment she'd have.
Earlier, Salt and Pepper had been sitting on the couch, binging the most recent trending series, not realizing how late they'd stayed up. OJ and Paper, likely running the hotel, happened to make their way downstairs, ruining the entire thing and practically crushing any hopes Pepper had of Salt thinking normally for the rest of the night. The process had already started, as now she'd completely abandoned what they were doing for some stupid late-night drive.
"Um… I don't think we need that many things. It'd be a pretty boring trip," Paper started, looking over to OJ for confirmation.
"Yeah, you'd totally be uninterested, Salt. Just a bunch of groceries." They were both right. Salt gets absolutely no enjoyment out of shopping for things like essential foods, especially along the lines of catering for an entire hotel of opinionated tastes that aren't her own, and Pepper knew that well. But what they were wrong about was thinking she'd let Paper "steal her man".
"No, like, trust me! We like, totally want to go, right Pepper?" She turned to the girl beside her, holding her hand as if to beg telepathically. Regardless of how she answered this question, there was no stopping Salt from going.
...
They all fit into one of the hotel's community vans, which were both vandalized, raggedy, and banged up, but somehow able to start. Once OJ got in the driver's seat, Paper in the passenger's, and reluctantly Salt and Pepper in the back, the drive commenced.
It was, in fact boring, as Paper had predicted. The first minutes started with regular conversations up front and occasional quips from Salt in the back, which eventually OJ had enough of, drowning her out with the radio. Pepper stayed silent, pouting by looking out her window, wishing she hadn't forgotten her phone.
Rolling into the parking lot, the driver made it clear he wanted out as soon as possible, pulling into the nearest spot and promptly getting out afterward.
"You guys can just… stay in the car," OJ started, turning the engine off. Salt had already unbuckled, however, and was about to begin the process again: the one where she'd worm her way into what she wanted.
"Wait, but–"
"W-We'll be really quick! Promise, Salt!!" Paper butted in. Thankfully, the boys were quick enough with escaping her grasp this time, already shutting the doors before she could protest.
The sudden silence in the van shut down her plans abruptly, convincing her to give up. She sighed in defeat, settling on crossing her arms and staring out the window. Now the entire point of her going on this trip was gone, and it actually was boring. Sometimes being in love dragged, but all Salt had to do was remember the good things about it, and it'd all come flooding back.
The girl beside her had realized much earlier how this'd go, which was probably what led her to tap Salt's shoulder.
"Do you like, have your phone. I want it." It was clear she was upset in her tone, and now that Salt had nothing else she needed to pay attention to, it was the first thing she noticed.
Salt furrowed her eyebrows, looking her up and down as she searched for when she asked for this attitude.
"... No. I left it like, at home. Why." Pepper sighed, irritated at her BCFF's incompetence.
"I'm like, bored, duh. Why'd you even make us go on this stupid trip? It would've been so much better back at the hotel."
"Well," Salt began. "You know why! I can't let OJ be alone with someone like this. What if they end up like… Kissing. In this parking lot."
"OMC, are you serious?" Pepper scoffed, glaring in her friend's direction. "That is the like, stupidest thing I've ever heard."
"You just don't get it, Pep, you've never been in love before." Salt'd found that nobody understood her, not even her best friend. OJ was the only person she could explain how she felt over and over to without the pretentious questions afterward. She'd come to accept Pepper would never take her seriously. Mostly.
"Like, nothing you say makes sense anymore! It's like you forget I exist when he's around! I bet you'd like, throw me in the garbage for that stupid… drink!" Pepper refused to try and understand why Salt acted the way she did around someone so basic. It made her feel replaced in a way, knowing she'd toss all they had away for some juice guy.
"... We both like, know it'd never come to that."
"But you would, wouldn't you?"
"I mean, at least he like, doesn't get on my nerves like you do! Do you even like, care about what I want?" Salt could feel the bitter feeling in her chest as she spoke. It was all she recognized when she talked to Pepper in this moment, and maybe it always had been, she thought, blind with rage. OJ would never treat her this way.
"Like, why should I? Just get OJ to do it, since you like him so much like, more than me!!" Pepper hastily unbuckled her seatbelt, unlocking the car door and shoving it open, seething with anger. Tears were forming in her eyes, but she couldn't let Salt see. She was stronger than that.
"Don't worry. I'll like, leave, so you can talk to him about it instead." She flung the door shut, walking aimlessly away from the car.
...
Pepper tugged on the van's door about two minutes later, reluctantly sliding inside. Slamming the door behind her, she crossed her arms in protest, wanting to connect with Salt again, but not quite dropping the bitter argument from minutes ago.
The lights on the ceiling faded out with the seconds of silence passing. Pepper's shoulders were tense, forced gaze on anything but the girl beside her. She gripped the cap of a lip gloss tube left in her pocket.
"... Why would you like, choose him over me." Her voice was weak, simultaneously holding back sobs. The approach to this question was a bit softer than she'd been earlier, honesty laced in its reasoning. Sure, she absolutely knew she was better than OJ, but maybe now wasn't the time to shove that in Salt's face. To an extent.
The girl mentioned took her sweet time forming a response, failing to do so at that. She didn't have an answer Pepper could understand, anything that made sense. She just had to be obsessed with OJ, and if Pepper could just let it be, everything would be balanced, everything would continue to be okay as it usually was, and they wouldn't have half of these damn arguments all the time.
"..... I… I dunno." Then again, could she really make sense of it herself? This feeling she got towards OJ was so amazing, she couldn't contain it. Just being able to express how she felt made it feel more amazing. Getting so caught up in that, why should she care where it came from? Why should Pepper care? Love was just love, she'd told her over and over, why didn't she get it?
Salt tried to keep herself from choking up again. The moment Pepper had left her seat, both girls unknowingly became the same lonely, ran mascara mess, and now they'd have to plow through what they started to stop it from happening again. Until then, the idea of abandonment dangled above their heads, one of the many things they had in common.
Hearing Salt struggle only made Pepper worse. Quiet tears fell, swiped away by her gray acrylics shortly after they began.
"... Is it because he's a boy?" Pepper began, side-eyeing her BCFF's knee-high converse. "You think he can do everything for you. Like, buy you things, or hang out with you, or, like… love you."
Salt listened intently, refusing to face Pepper like this. The darkness of the van concealed messy makeup, not remorse. Maybe she did think OJ could do all those things, but replacing Pepper she just couldn't let happen. After this long, after her return from Idiotic Island, she just couldn't try. She felt herself worsen.
Pepper heard her tense progressively in the van's squeaky seats. Giving in, she looked over her shoulder, eyes misty. Salt's knees were pulled to her chest, head gazing out the window, but nothing was interesting about the parking lot outside. She did her best to steady rigid breathing, making condensation on her corner of the glass.
"Salty-salt…" She moved closer to the choked girl, resting her hand atop her shoulder. Not quite moving, Salt only shifted her eyes down to her white-knuckled hands.
"... I can like, do that too…"
Salt turned her head towards Pepper, cinching the space between them. Her voice was almost a squeak, muffled with strain.
"...... Huh?"
"Like, anything you like, want him to do," Pepper reached for Salt's hand, eyeing it as she lightly guided it close. "I could do…"
Salt relaxed her legs, allowing her shoes to drift back to the floor. Tears continued to stream down her face after their brief pause.
"... Like, you'd really do anything?"
"If it like, means you'll stay," Pepper said, returning the long-needed eye contact to the girl beside her.
"Oh, Pepper, of course I'll stay. I like, want to stay with you forever, and ever, and ever."
"Me too."
Both girls stood still, staring into each other's eyes. The van was silent, all but the eager breathing in its backseat.
".... Pepper," Salt's breath hitched in her throat.
Salt could feel her body's stiffness start to untangle. Pepper was here, next to her again, and she wouldn't be leaving– No, she wanted to stay. The fear of her disappearing out of Salt's life, whether at the blame of a fist-thingy or fate's mistakes, faded away when they were close. It was a certain feeling. She wondered if she could have more of it. Knowing this time, she would truly care for who she'd experience it with; she couldn't spend another moment waiting.
"Yeah?" Pepper managed to shove a response out.
Pepper had always thought of herself as undecided on who she would be "together" with, but she always wanted to be with Salt, no matter the situation. She hadn't always known she could feel envious of how OJ occupied Salt's fantasy, but she certainly did now. The connection and contact she felt desperate to create with her hit her all at once. It felt so amazing to finally want something. It felt so amazing, she knew she'd never let go of it.
"... Can we still do the things… I wanted to do with him?"
"...... Mhm…"
A mix of relief, happiness, and comfort tugged at both the girl's tear ducts. It was getting hard for either of them to form words, now admiring each other's essence from a much closer perspective.
Bringing her hand to Salt's arm, Pepper was slow, considerate not to break the moment as though it was made of glass. She reciprocated the cautiousness, looking down at her hand moving to Pepper's back, ensuring a correct direction.
They stood still in what they wanted closer. Their eyes blinked away warm tears before looking into each other again. Neither could move a muscle but their slow-breathing lungs and quick-beating hearts, careful to protect this moment from harm.
Pepper decided they'd been frozen long enough, assuming she knew where this was going as she closed the space between them more. She was unsure, present in her pause centimeters away from the other's face.
Desperate, Salt completed her move, softly pressing their lips together. She gently held herself there, just now beginning to hold Pepper's waist like she meant it.
There was a sense of bliss and liberty from their kiss, not one to be described by flying sparks, but by the calling of a blank canvas to an artist. The slick feeling of lip gloss on soft skin encouraged exercising the potential they'd had all along, without the barrier of being just friends, some idiotic metal bars, or the label of 'only a fantasy', and it needed to happen now.
The two pulled away, a bit stunned by the sudden release of romantic tension. The fact they'd kissed each other was something that would've confused them less than days ago, and now it was all they wanted to happen again and again.
Pepper wanted to express with words how that felt, and maybe if she tried hard enough, she could, but there were too many surrounding elements that stopped her, mainly Salt's hand on her chest. She faintly pushed her back to her side of the van, an instruction diligently followed, leaning against the car door.
The other girl climbed overtop of her, not bothering to make smooth moves now. The two hastily fit themselves together to do it again, holding onto whatever they could to stay that way. In Pepper's case, that'd be elbowing the seat's headrest, and in Salt's, gripping the plush seat below her.
Salt began to part her lips, now practically ensuring Pepper would do the same. The latter, although less quick to take action on it, wanted this the same, indulging in the presence she consistently longed to be with now so close. To be reassured that on yet another plane of connection, romantic, she and Salt loved and needed each other the same, was past comforting. Though making out wasn't the only way of expressing that, it certainly helped.
This pace was Salt doing her best to take it slow, something someone as pent up as she is struggles with. Her thoughts weren't intelligible as words, but as actions, they felt clearer now. The space– mentally and physically, between her and Pepper was so unbearable it clouded her mind to no end. She'd find every way to convince herself she didn't need anything to change, so she and Pepper wouldn't either, and she wouldn't have to worry about losing her again.
Pepper curtly pushed Salt's shoulder back an inch, signaling to breathe, finding herself weak. Giving her the space she needed, Salt still couldn't find the means to stop, drifting to her neck. She kissed it repeatedly as Pepper sunk further against the car door, humming softly in satisfaction through deep breaths.
As she relaxed, her eyes fluttered back open, gaze drifting to the window behind Salt's hair. Although not focused on what lay outside, she found herself to be, as two recognizable figures came into view, now stepping out of the grocery's doors. Normally, and especially now, nobody but Salt would matter, but in the situation that this was OJ's car, it was alarming.
Reluctantly, Pepper attempted to get Salt to stop, starting with her voice. Quickly proven unsuccessful, she managed a whimper instead of coherent words. She went on to tap her back with a struggling hand, then frantically tugged on her shirt.
"S… Salt…. Salt, s-stop," Finally peeling herself away from the girl beneath her, Salt slowed her affection, but didn't back away.
"Hm?"
"O-OJ. He's– G-get off, quick," Hesitantly, Salt untangled herself from Pepper's grasp as she was pushed off, scrambling to her side of the van in the process. They both attempted to fix any unkempt parts of their appearance in the last seconds they had of OJ and Paper walking through the parking lot, distant voices progressively getting closer and closer.
There was a brief moment of silence as the wheels of the shopping cart stopped and the trunk opened. Upon such, the lights came on throughout the vehicle, and there was a sudden realization of how messy they actually looked. Salt's hair was rustled from Pepper's fingers, and the latter's collar had small smudges of the other's lipstick. She attempted to pick out her curls with her fingers, hoping the volume would cover any of the makeup up.
"... And that's how there were forty-seven casualties in total. Crazy," OJ concluded, finishing his conversation as he hopped into the driver's seat. Paper followed suit, uttering his astonishment as he sat in the passenger seat.
The girls in the backseat were going insane at the slow rate that the time the lights took to turn off, clenching every muscle in their body, manifesting they'd do so. The longer the lights put a spotlight on them, the harder it was to cover up what just happened, and the more upset OJ would be by the time they got home, assuming even if it wasn't stated in his van rules directly, making out was prohibited.
Pepper looked over to the driver, having an easy view from her diagonal angle. He was fishing his pockets for car keys in silence, tension practically radiating from the back seat, and she knew he knew. She knew he'd glance up from his hands to see why the girls were so quiet. She knew he was getting more concerned by the millisecond, and if the lights didn't turn off by then she'd reach up and break them herself.
Finally, the lights shut off as OJ tugged a keyring from his pocket, making a quick glance to the backseat as it descended into darkness, concealing the minor details of their appearances. Both Salt and Pepper let go sighs of relief– not too loud, in case he'd notice that, too.