Aria grumbled and rolled over in her bed, the light peering from the window hitting her face. Sighing from the discomfort of the beam of light, Aria sat up and shielded her eyes.
“Ugg, it's too early to be blinded by the light.” Aria groan, pulling the sheets over her head.
Realizing that the thin layer of sheets wasn’t going to protect her eyes from the sunlight, Aria tossed the sheets off of her and onto the floor. Rubbing her irritated eyes, she looked around the room she had slept in. A momentary stupefy look crossed her face before she remember where she was at. Quickly, Aria patted herself down and looked over herself, checking to see if anything was ‘off’ or ‘fishy’.
“Well, it doesn’t seem like he did anything to me, so far.” Aria mumbled under her breath.
Satisfied with her safe sleep, Aria stretched her arms as she got out of bed. With a yawn, Aria walked passed the desk that held her star hairpins. Picking one of them up, Aria stared at it, her mind slowly flashing back to her argument with Adagio. With a grunt, she pocketed both her hairpins and walk out into the hallway. She began to slow her pace when she came to the corner of the living room. Even before she enter, she could smell the breakfast that was already cooked. Her stomach let out a small growl as she remembered she hadn't eaten anything since they were kicked out of the hotel. Composing herself, Aria walked into the living room, not wanting to show the hunger on her face.
“Well, you're up earlier than I expected.” Quick mused, looking at her from the T.V.
“And you're not a creep that prey on defenseless female like I thought.” Aria mused herself, folding her arms.
Quick just looked at Aria with a surprised looked on his face. A moment passed before he shook his head, a light chuckle escaping from him. Using his free hand, Quick cover his eyes with it, a smile crossing his face.
“What so funny?” Aria asked suspiciously.
“It just that I prefer not to prey on sleeping girls, I prefer them when they're awake and rested.” He said slowly, his tone darkening with each word.
Removing his hand from his face, Quick gave Aria a sinister predatory looked. Seeing the looked on Quick face as he rose from his seat, Aria face fell into horror as she realized what was happening. She slowly walked backward as Quick advance on her, her eyes never leaving his as she remember she had a knife under her pillow. Not even half way through the living room, Quick stopped and broke down laughing, leaving a stupefy Aria staring at him.
“Oh my, so you can make a frightening face.” Quick chuckled, sitting back down on the couch. “Don’t worry, I was just messing with you I don’t even like those sort of things.”
Aria just stared at him, dumbfounded by what he just did. With an expression that could only match that of a two face mask, Aria’s face went from a stupefy look to a hard scowl. Walking over to where Quick was sitting, Aria gave him a dead arm with no mercy.
“Hey!” Quick cried out, rubbing his arm. Looking at Aria face, Quick sigh with remorse. “Guess I deserve that one.”
“You guess!” Aria retorted, bringing her fist up for another dead arm.
“Wait,” Quick said, putting his hands up. “Aren't you hungry? I put you up some breakfast.”
Aria kept her fist raise high, but her empty stomach was begging for some type of food. With a grunt, Aria dropped her fist and looked to the kitchen. “Just so you know, I wasn’t scared. You just surprised me pulling such a stupid stunt so early in the morning. But try that again and you’ll get more than a little laugh off. Got it?”
Aria made sure to put as much venom into that last statement as possible, getting a confirmed weak nod from Quick. Looking at the table, Aria saw a plate of bacons and eggs waiting for her. Giving one last evil glare to Quick, Aria walked over to the table and sat down. She then looked down at the plate, her mouth slightly watering at the food. Tentatively, she took a piece of bacon and bit down on it. The mixture of salt and crisp of the bacon assaulted her tongue, putting a small smile on her face as she grabbed another one.
“Well, at least you can smile, but only when you're eating. What a glutton.” Quick mumbled under his breath jokingly, his head resting on his fist.
“What did you say?” Aria question, glaring at him with a fork hanging loosely from her hand.
“Oh, umm. I said you look very pretty when you smile. You should do it more often.” Quick stated, a sly smile on his face.
Aria mouth hung slightly open, surprise by what he said. She been called many things, but rarely has anyone just call her pretty. She then narrowed her eyes at Quick, watching him closely.
“Uh huh. Just keep your eyes where I can see them.” Aria responded, going back to eating her breakfast.
“Sure. Anyway, let's talk about you actually staying here. Shall we?”
“Great.” Aria grumbled under her breath, she already knew this would come up. Though negotiation like this was usually handle by Adagio, Aria felt certain she can handle this little bit on her own. This was her moment to prove to herself that she could do things on her own without Adagio’s help.
“So, I don't mind you staying here, but if you do, you have to put in your own share of work. By that, I mean helping around the place, chores. Simple right?”
Aria put up her hands, swallowing her last bacon. “I don’t plan on staying here longer then I need too. I just need a place to stay, just long enough until I can get a job and afford my own place, then I’m out of here.”
“Well, that make things easy then. You can start applying for a job today, though I would like a little pay for you staying here.”
“I guess that okay, shouldn't take me long to get the money I need anyway.” Aria said confidently.
“Really? Let’s see; First you will need money for the place, then you need money for your first month of food, money for furniture, and cable. That's not including the fact you also have to find a available apartment and wait for them to reach you. And it also depend if your going for a full time job or part-time job, I doubt you can get anything better than that right now. So for all of that, you're looking at about half a year to a year, if you're lucky.”
With each word Quick said, Aria felt herself being more and more deflated. Hearing the task set before her, she didn't know how she could do this on her own or if she could. She needed a plan to go by this, but she didn't know where to start.
“Hey, no need to look so down about things, I was just telling you this so you know how long you would be staying here.” Quick added, trying to reassure her with confidence.
“UGG!” Aria screamed in frustration, pulling at her hair. “Why does these things needs to be so damn complicated!” Letting out a deep breath, Aria face planted her head onto the table, hard.
“Umm,” Quick said awkwardly. Not daring to touch her. Walking over to the door, Quick picked up his bag and looked to a depress Aria. “Well, I have places to be right now. Umm, I left a web page open on my laptop to a few nearby places that hiring. So yeah, check those out and I’ll be back in a few hours.”
Aria only gave a grunted nod, to watch Quick acknowledge and left out the door. Lifting her head up, Aria blew a few loose strand of hair from her face. She had a small itch to punch something, but not wanting to get kick out a second time in the same week, she decided to bang her head against the table a couple of times. Rubbing her temples, she looked over to the open laptop on the couch. A silent wind passed her as the defining quite surrounded her ears as she looked to the laptop. Boredom and loneliness swept over her as her eyes looked out the window to see Quick hoping in a car with, who she guessed, was his friends.
“Where that idiot when I need her.” Aria mumbled, resting her hands on her chin. Her mind went back to the alley, where she left Sonata. “I wonder if she still around there…” There was a small painful guilt in her chest, but she just tossed it aside. “Ha, knowing her, she probably already off either causing trouble or have already found a place to stay. I feel sorry for whoever found her.” Aria mused, chuckling to herself. “That innocent smile is going to cause a lot of trouble.” With a small sigh, Aria got up and walked over to the couch. “Might as well start looking for a decent job in this boring city.”
***
It's only been twenty minutes since Aria started to look for a job and she was already feeling hopeless at it. The jobs she came across had either require her to have a high school education or to be enroll in a high school for a decent pay, other jobs that didn't have that had low wages. When Aria decided to look at a random place to see what an average pay would be like, she was disappointed to find that a low wage job would barely get her through the rent let alone for food. It was time like this where she actually valued having the others around, where she didn't have to plan the needless stuff and could leave it to Adagio, where they could just split the work among themselves and have something to show. Even so, she refuse to let this put her down all the way. She said she could make it without either of them, and that what she is planning on doing. She just had to find a decent paying job that wouldn't bore her to death on Tartarus's doorstep.
Pushing the laptop away from her, Aria once again planted her face on the table, letting out a frustrated groan. “I hate my life!”