Mana retracted slightly, her overlong sleeves folding down as she lifted her hand to her chest. Her face was one of a confused cringing; was this girl actually in middle school? She lifted an eyebrow and spoke in a manner she thought echoed her ‘disreputable’ friends all too much.

“Ahn? The hell are you talking about? You lose your parents in a crash, or something?” she said, waving a hand in dismissal.

[b]“Oh no,”[/b] the schoolgirl shook her head, [b]“I’d be able to indulge in self-pity if that were the case. This...better that you don’t know.”[/b]

Mana crossed her arms, frowning. “Well now you have me curious. You’re really weirding me out. Are you on drugs? What did you take today? No need to be embarrassed. I’ve been there.” Mana’s expression softened somewhat. She really was convinced at that point that something was mentally up with the girl, self-induced or not.

Her eyebrows raised slightly, a sliver of surprise at Mana’s concern. But she shook her head again. [b]“Didn’t take any. I don’t take any. Not anymore. But I…”[/b] The girl cut herself short. Restarted with a different sentence. [b]“Miss, are you happy with your life?”[/b]

Mana dropped her hands to her sides, staring for a moment. Why were the tables being turned?

“Happy…? Well, I suppose I could be happier, yea. Not exactly easy being me, but then I guess you’d tell me you ain’t… well you’re worse off than me. What’s your point?” she asked, briefly looking up into the grey sky. She’d have preferred at this point to be inside, but she definitely wasn’t about to turn her back on the lunatic girl in front of her.

[b]“A red pill, glowing like an ember in the center.”[/b] She closed her eyes, as if envisioning it in her mind. [b]“Don’t take it, no matter how you feel. They might even label it as an anti-depressant. And tell your friends too.”[/b]

She opened her eyes again, wiping the rain from her face, shifting wet strands of hair behind her ears. [b]“Like the apple in Eden. Take anything else, just not that.”[/b]

“You’re… really weirding me out, kid,” Mana said, shaking her head. She stepped aside, silently gesturing for the girl to back down the stairs before her. “I’m not leaving till you’re back on ground level.” Mana crossed her arms -she was quite adamant about the demand. She wasn’t going to follow her forever, but once the girl was out of her hands, she’d at least feel that her responsibility to her and the clean-ish streets was absolved.

That was the end of that, wasn’t it?

[b]“Then I suppose I will comply.”[/b]

A quieter place then.

[b]“Keep what I said in mind though, ok?”[/b]

With that, she picked up her shoes and walked down, bare feet leaving prints in the cement.

Mana watched her go back down, and so as not to make it awkward, stayed up on the roof for a minute longer, listening to her trek down the stairs. A red pill, glowing in the center? She’d never heard of a drug like that circulating around. Perhaps it was just some fancy rave ecstasy. But…

How’d they get the glow to be inside? Mana shrugged off the thought, and headed back to work.