pretty and dumb and pretty // ky & enzo

[Deleted]

We do whаt we cаn to dull the pаin
Pinky promise things will stаy the sаme
Even when I'm old, I'll know your nаme
Anywhere we go, oh

"Is this seriously what I'm wearing?"

"Watch it," Mateo says, that sulky tone in his voice as always, "you don't like it? Go naked." 

"You get paid either way, huh?"

He smirks at me -- what a dick! I respect it, really, he settles the fascinator in my head and I try not to laugh looking at myself. Flowers? This isn't a date, it's just "you sure this is what the Earnests will like... like?" 

"That's my whole job. Just like your's-" Mateo grabs my temples gently, making eye contact with himself in the mirror, "is to be quiet and pretty." This man dresses my father, I just have to trust him at this point. "They are victors from One, they expect something extravagant, so that's what they get!" 

I shut my mouth for the rest of the session, letting him curl my lashes and I swear he bruised my eyelids. If this is what it means to be a victor, maybe it's for the best that Shy goddamn gutted my ass. I just need to blend. Just for a day, just long enough to walk down the street; pops told me I couldn't go out without getting somewhat done. 

Play the part, look the part, just long enough to be a dumbass. 

I've done great so far! 

Mateo sends me off in a mask, eyelashes long enough to masquerade my brow bone until I get to Opal's capitolite apartment. It's somewhere near the circle, I imagine somethin' they're granted by the Capitol for her status. Mine's down past the residential quarter, I am no victor, of course. Just another victor child; that comes with it's own perks. 

Namely that I can rip this shit off by the time I'm at their door. I about cuss as the doorbell scans my face, ringing in my face in a state of disgust with a beep. And then static. "The fuck?"

"KRRRR..... the fuck?" It repeats back, the static dying down with a 'send message?' button. 

I swear as I fat finger yes. 

It's not on purpose, really, I'm just not used to these tiny screens yet. Maybe fourteen year old me would have been better, had he won and got to live around here, but I ain't that. I've given up on that whole tribulation, it ain't until "Miss Opal!" opens the door that I'm caught up in it again. 

"Hello?"

"Heyo! I'm Mace and Saffron's son, Enzo," might have heard of me - not to toot my own horn. I stay somewhere in the news every so often, just under the headlines of my- of Beck being with Lysander. "Oh, well, come in!"

"Can I ask," she closes the door behind us, "why are you dressed like a fruit basket?"

"Hmm. That's just what I was wondering to tell you the truth." 

"Haha, noted! Please, how has Saffron been?"

"Oh, stressed." I roll my eyes before realized, "I mean, like good! Mother stressed haha, sorry, Quinn and I are a lot."

Opal chuckles, welcoming my further into the house, "I understand that, really."

"I am so sorry." She's warmer than I expected, I always imagine the career victors as something vicious, something like Julian and Ridley. 

Can she really be so dangerous? 

I look at Opal, and all I see is Bette. How similar they must be in ways I don't understand. 

"So, I'm mostly here to see Kyle. Where is he?" 

"Um. It's just Ky, he should be somewhere around here."

"Oh, thank you Miss Opal! I'll find him, don't worry- HEY KY!" I don't give myself time to be embarrassed, just yelling through the house for "KY! IT'S ENZO." 

"Uh-"

"I'VE GOT GIFTS!"

 
 

(table inspired by: rook)

[gamemaker kelsier]

k y .

"Road shimmer
Wiggling the vision
Heat heat waves
I'm swimming in a mirror."

In the end it's the commute that cinches the deal.

It's something good having all the distance between the training centre and the apartment. It's a five-minute walk, ten if he's slow about it, but for the first time in the Capitol, Ky feels like he can breathe a little. Of course, Opal's apartment at the training centre is still waiting and he's spent half his time there this trip too. There's something about his room and the dead silence of the apartment when it's just him. It's not often he's so surrounded by people and so alone all at once.

It's nice to see Opal so happy, gross to be around her and Kate for too long. It was easy enough to get his mom's phone off of her for the trip, everyone she would have wanted to call is already here. Asher isn't much of a talker already, on the phone even less so but Ky likes calling him anyway. Voice creaking in the morning to sleepy sounding at night, he misses all of the corners in his tone.

It's harder like this though, not being able to see his expression makes it all more confusing. Talking to Beck on the phone has always been fine, he knows what the inflections in his voice mean at this point.

Asher's always just been hard for him in general.

He sighs and tosses the phone in the air above him and then catches it. His room here is odd, upgraded from the apartments in the training centre. The holographic wall is gone, now if Ky wants a forest all he has to do is press a button and his whole room becomes that.

It's an odd thing for a Capitolite to want in their concrete city and high, protective walls. It's kind of sad that the only way they want to visit the great outdoors is digitally unless it's to tour an old arena.

He's thought about going to the 85th arena a couple times, but he's never followed through. That seems too close.

There's commotion outside, someone yelling and Ky is thrown for a moment, he can't think of any victor that's got enough life in them to shout anything.

"It's Enzo!"

Ky sits up, a jumble of emotions running through him all at once. Enzo, like Lorenzo, as in the guy that Beck likes, liked, likes? They've ran adjacent from each other for ages, two different parts of Beck's life.

But here, how? Maybe same how that Ky is here. He jumps off his bed and tugs a sweater on, discarding his old t-shirt in record time. He tries to think about what Lorenzo might want from him. Beck's been gushing about him a lot less, like one hundred percent less. For awhile, he's thought that maybe that whole thing was no longer viable.

Maybe he's wrong though?

Oh shit, Ky freezes, Maybe he's seen that stupid story from that blogger.

Some girl wrote a whole... thing, a porn? About Beck and Ky last year.

"UH... uh COMING," he shouts at his closed door while standing completely still. He looks at the phone that he's left on the bed, wondering if he has time to quickly call Beck and get more information on this visit. Enzo sounds like he's right outside of his door though, that doesn't seem like it will be possible.

He has to go at this moment alone.

A shiver runs down his back and Ky takes a deep breath, trying to ignore the overthinking happening a mile-a-minute in the back of his head.

"Enzo, dude," he says with a smile, "Cool to finally me- why are you dressed like a fruit basket?"

Rude, that was rude, shit.

"I mean," he backtracks, "You look just as I imagined!"

Wait fuck.

"In a good way!"

No that still didn't help.

"I'm Ky!"

[Deleted]

We do whаt we cаn to dull the pаin
Pinky promise things will stаy the sаme
Even when I'm old, I'll know your nаme
Anywhere we go, oh

"Enzo, dude," he says, I can't help but grin.

"Ky! Duder," I might have lied about the gifts, do you think he'll hate me? Honestly, I forgot how to make good impressions a long time ago- did I ever know how? Man, how have I gotten away with being annoying for literal decades. "Cool to finally me-"

"Why are you dressed like a fruit basket?"

Good question. For a second I almost forgot, I don't know how, his mother - Miss Opal? Opal's son? Why are they both famous, that can't be fair - just brought it up. I'm starting to feel like Mateo set me up, and I can't even blame him. I've always wondered how the stylists feel about the eightieth kids like me, and if fruit basket ain't an analogy than maybe I'm just a banana short of a bunch. 

"Um." 

"I mean, you look just like what I imagined!"

Umm." 

"In a good way!"

"It's fashion, really."

"I'm Ky!"

"Hey! I'm Enzo," good first impression, me thinks. I reach out a hand and extend for a hug, and then draw that back, dial it down to a two, lock it in a box, throw the box in a river and die inside just to go for a hand shake again. "You know, I've heard a lot about you! I'm surprised we haven't met yet," and that's truthful. 

Maybe the real gift was the friendship we made along the way. 

Well, at the start. 

Are we friends? 

Doesn't matter, "do you know Justice at all? I may have taken something of his a few-" I whisper to my shoes a brief, "seven" before looking Ky back in the eyes, "-years ago and I haven't seen the man since." Haven't really had the chance yet, honestly. Been a busy few years of depression and being a child star. I circle past him into his room, nosy is as nosy does, Saffron'll kill me for it later. 

But later ain't now, and I don't get to see Capitol apartments too often. It's almost like I imagined, cold and empty, the only life put into the room being from the Earnest's hands themselves -- I never understood that. How the entire Capitol is dedicated towards this aesthetic life style, they boast and brag on how they get to live above it all, and there's nothing.

It's like, the less they have, the more lucrative; they get to brag about having the least. No memories, no family heirlooms, minimalism is cheap and dying -- I would know, I've been both those things. 

But my eyes light up with the random bullshit they have laying around, every little bit of technology they incorporate around the place. Domestic machinery, I've seen murals that animate, gardens that piece themselves apart and shuffle back together like a rubic cube, stood on the invisible barrier of the train ride like it was something that let me fly. They have everything in the world, and no use for any of it; no desire for any of it. 

Like they exist just to piss me off, really. 

"No way, they have these in the apartments?!" I'm almost embarrassed on how excited I get, the dial on the wall catching my attention as soon as I notice the motherfucker. "For some reason, I didn't fuckin' think they would," that they'd give tributes the something comparable to a Capitolite luxury. 

Those hologram walls catch every tribute's attention, it's like a common thread for us all. The Capitol would let us die and get reanimated before they show us anything too cool, and knowing these are as common as a lightswitch for them? 

"Do you care if I mess with it? I kinda missed these things!" 

 
 

(table inspired by: rook)