The Long Island Iced Tea cocktail tasted sweet by now, the bitterness had long since been something I got used to. I slammed the glass lightly against the counter, cheeks flushed with heat and anger as the memories of why I was doing this, in the bar sitting next to my friend. Best friend? Hopefully she thought of me that way, Alaina always helped whenever I felt everything had become too much.

Even now, one of her hands came around my right hand, the one not holding the glass. She squeezed it, her warmth against mine, reminding me that she was here. Supporting and wouldn’t go away.

“I’m… I just want my boss to be reasonable.” I cried out, tears welling up in my eyes, a tightness I didn’t want to focus on forming in my chest. “Asking and asking for me to do more work without any extra time, getting mad when I was unable to…”

My words trembled as I shakily took another gulp, eyes looking toward my friend’s glass for a moment and seeing she barely drank her own. She was still watching me, though, her golden eyes seemingly shimmering under the yellow light of this bar.

I looked away, my stomach churning uncomfortably under her gaze. She wasn’t judging. But I wished I could be stronger anyway. My hand came up once I let go of my glass, wiping my tears away. I was still shuddering, though. Just… everything felt too much. The weight, the issues—none of it felt real right now, thanks to all the alcohol I plied on my body.

Alaina was a solid presence next to me, not saying anything. She gave me another squeeze, and a gentle smile spread on her face when I peeked at her.

Always too good for me, but I couldn’t find it in myself to say that she should leave. No, I shamelessly took what she offered, even if I was uncertain what she saw in myself. She was always the better one between the two of us. I never heard if she had issues or not in her works, or where did she find one even.

Maybe I should. Thinking, dwelling on my own work right now sounded like a recipe for disaster. I could still feel them at the back of my mind, the way my boss would stand up a little straighter, his eyes narrowing as he looked at me and knowing that I was merely an expendable worker in the company. Just another accountant he could cut off, find someone else, a fresh graduate who probably could work better and would accept lower pay than me. So he would then smirk, his mouth widening, edges sharp like a sickle.

“You didn’t seem busy, Elys.”

I shuddered again, closing my eyes for a moment to banish his presence away. When I reopened my eyes after merely a few seconds, I kept my eyes on Alaina. Focus on her instead. She’s better, way better than Manager Howard after all.

The edges of my sight were becoming blurry, but Alaina still looked as resplendent as ever, her smile angelic and the gold relaxed me someway or another. Her red hair reached past her shoulders, slightly wavy in a way that reminded me of ocean’s waves, when they were reflecting the color of the setting sun. I let everything else fall away from my focus, the music still running in the background. The chatter of the other patrons. They all didn’t matter except for Alaina…

I let out a soft sigh, leaning against her shoulder. “I’m just tired. Bossman wanted me to do too much, and everyone else looked at me as if I’m an easy mark—I mean I accepted when they asked for help in their own responsibilities but like, what can I do?” I groaned, knowing and remembering the way every of my coworkers love to ply me with a few of their paperworks.

Just a little bit of data. Taking a look, rechecking and then rethinking their analysis… Everything felt too much, and I had no recourse. I couldn’t complain, because then they would, and the manager wouldn’t be happy to hear I refused them on the grounds of me being a newbie. These were all just what a newbie should handle—or at least that was repeated enough I could still hear the exact tone in my head when I repeated it.

“Couldn’t I just… not have any more responsibility? Just living and… being taken care of, I don’t know.” I whispered tiredly, burying my face into Alaina’s shoulder. Not really into the crook of her neck, just not seeing anything else. I didn’t want to think of anything, except for the wishes I constantly have about getting a few months of vacation.

Alaina’s hand, the one that wasn’t holding me, came around to rub on my back. She was so, so gentle and kind to me, always. Another sigh came out of me as I try to get even closer. Just a little bit…

“Do you really want that, Elys?” She whispered, her mouth so close to my ear, I could feel her breathing. The way her breath felt slightly warm against my skin… It was wonderful, and her words felt heavy. As if it was something important, the world holding its breath to know the way I would answer, one way or another.

Any other time, I would have laughed and said no. That there was no way that could have gone true—not unless I found some sugar mommy who would be willing to pay me without wishing for some sort of depraved thing herself.

But at this moment, after drinking who knew how many glasses of cocktail, the warmth of Alaina, the frustration of my job pressing down on me? There was only one answer I could give.

“Yes. I… I’m just tired.” I whispered again, the words trembling slightly on the air. I really didn’t want to think how tomorrow would be. The pile of unending work, the way my coworkers and higher ups were so, so uncaring. The slight possibility that it wouldn’t be an issue anymore was so, so wonderful already. I wanted it so badly that my heart, my chest, ended up aching without any other reason.

But I let out a choked, cut short laugh right afterward. “It’s okay. I’ll be able to live through this… just a little bit more.” I whispered, more tired than anything. “Let’s just finish my drink, and we can go home…?”

“Sssh, ssh. It’s okay, I hear your first words.” Alaina said instead, seemingly ignoring the words I had just said.

I tried to lift my head up, but everything felt fuzzier than before—my eyes were blinking closed too, each blink somehow making the eyelid heavier than before.

“Now it’s time for you to rest, Elys. I’ll take care of it all.”

Her tone was gentle and soothing. Something I should question and yet, with me not even able to open my eyes anymore… I let myself sink, feeling Alaina’s warmth somehow surrounding me even further than before. A soothing embrace.

It was so, so easy to slip into the darkness.

Waking up felt different.

I blinked slowly, the cobweb of sleepiness still doing its best to drag me back down into slumber. Trying to shake my head to gain some semblance of wakefulness, I found that my body refused to move. A chill started to form in my chest, a grip of ice and cold around my heart. I tried again, somewhere else.

My hand.

Maybe that would be better.

And yet nothing moved. The usual feeling of moving my limbs, of the way one part of my arm would stretch and another would contract, didn’t happen, not at all.

I staved off the beginning of panic by looking around, the only thing that could move seemingly my eyes. It was a cozy room. Big, but not too big. Enough for a simple wardrobe on one end, and a huge wooden table on its side, a few more shelves were above it, while a computer sat right above the surface. The bed was right at the opposite side of the table, right below me.

The graphics on the mattress with purple eyes and witch hat, with dark green for the rest—those designs were burrowing themselves into my mind, so familiar that I was almost certain I should know who the owner was.

That should matter. Probably.

I should be panicking. After all, I woke up after a few rounds of drinking with my friend—hell, was Alaina okay? No, no, I couldn’t think like this. Not right now. Unless I saw her, I would presume that she was okay. Alaina always found a way to be safe no matter what, and I never knew what she did to ensure that.

For now, I focused on myself. Maybe that was a hallmark of being evil and bad, but when I woke up unable to move at all—that should be a pass, right? The desire to giggle formed in my chest, choking my throat up. And yet I could so easily push it back down, my thoughts and faculties still clear somehow, not marred by any sort of panic.

My heart didn’t beat faster, for there was nothing inside my chest. No sweat formed all over my skin, for I wasn’t… a human. I didn’t want to believe that, but the little I could see over my body—I didn’t look like I had skins, no. Those looked more like fabric, and that thought should send a churn through my stomach.

But there were no reactions, and without that—it felt as if I was being calm. The emotions held no purchase over my mind, scrabbling futilely at the edges. Unable to give me something more than mere realization, that I should be feeling something.

This was the few moments where I wished I could have panicked and being unable to breath. Or even just ending up hyperventilating, because that meant I had a reaction, that there was something more than my thoughts and how I was supposed to act—

The door suddenly clicked, and all my attention immediately focused on that. The handle turned, and I could hear the hinge groaning loudly as someone opened it, walking into the room with ease.

My heart stopped, dropped away into the pit of my stomach. Or at least that was my expected reaction when I saw who had come in. The familiar golden eyes, that beautiful auburn hair.

Alaina was there. She was relaxed and smiling as she put down her handbag to the bed, and I wished I could have said something. Her eyes were looking elsewhere, mostly looking through her bag as she rummaged through the contents, looking as if she was trying to find something.

Ignoring the uncomfortable feeling brewing in the back of my head—because my body wasn’t being cooperative on how I should personally feel, I tried to move a part of myself. Maybe a stitching in my mouth. Maybe one of my hands. Just anything I could use to try and gaining Alaina’s attention.

I didn’t want to think of the possibility of being unable to do anything else, only able to sit here, on Alaina’s shelf and then—I wished I could close my eyes for a moment, and yet even that little relief was denied from me.

Of course, this was when Alaina finally find what she needed from her bag, some sort of—tube? It was plain black, reminding me of a lipstick. Especially as Alaina’s smile widened slightly while looking at it, before she popped it open, and twisted the mechanism a little to make its inside coming up.

That was when she came closer to me, picking me up—and this was when I stopped thinking, because I could feel her. Even the shelf I was on didn’t feel like anything, but Alaina’s warmth around my plush body… the way her fingers gently gripped around my limbs, I couldn’t help but wishing I could lean closer to it. To ask her for more of her touches and hold, because the little I had was enough to remind me that I had been feeling nothing beforehand.

She sat back on the bed, of course, putting me on her lap while her other hand still fiddled with the lipstick. Even if it was more of a way to make her hand free, as her left hand continued to touch and caress my doll body. Every part she rubbed, even just a moment, was enough to make me relax, as if parts of my brain was slowly being placed into a warm bath.

“I know you are awake already, Elys.” She started, her slight smile widening into a full one, wide, with the sharpness of her teeth somehow I could feel. “How do you feel being a doll, hm?”

She knew.

That somehow was the one that left me dumbfounded, not even able to focus on the warmth, on the assurance that Alaina was keeping me close to her. I wanted to scream, and yet there was nothing I could do to make that happen—and the panic was still staved off by this transformation, still merely staying at the edge of my thoughts and only barely influencing my mind.

“You probably have so many words you wanted to say, right?” Alaina left the tube on her side, using both of her hands to lift me up for a moment, allowing me to look down on her from above. Despite the speed she had moved me, which was fast enough it should be making me dizzy and nauseous—all I feel was merely a comfortableness. A calming sense as she held and touched me. As if it was right.

I… I didn’t try to dwell upon it. Pushing all those feelings off, I focused instead on the way Alaina was putting me back on her lap. Her hand was coming back to the already open lipstick-thing that she immediately put close to my face—I could feel the way it depressed the fabric of my skin, the slightly tingling feeling that somehow spread all over my face as she moved it slightly, around where my mouth should be.

It didn’t take long before her smile widened further, and she finally put the tube away once she screwed it closed.

“There, you should be able to talk now, Elys.” She said, satisfaction glimmering within her eyes.

Could I really do it? I couldn’t believe it at first, considering the many times I tried to move any part of my body and failing beforehand. And yet, when I finally did, for I was certain that I would face another failure—my mouth moved. I could open and close it, even if I couldn’t feel any tongue or lips or anything. Just… the sheer fact something was able to move according to my will was enough.

Gratitude immediately welled up within me as I looked at Alaina, at the fact she had managed to do something I didn’t believe anyone else could have done. “Oh—thank you, Alaina! I had given up on being able to talk again. That was…” I let my words die, not wanting to tell her too much of the fear that had been slowly creeping up on me—or perhaps the worse fact. That I didn’t actually feel the ‘fear’. Just a feeling I should have.

She merely smiled, a secretive one I usually enjoyed looking on her face. Because it allowed me to try piecing together what her thoughts had to be to lead to it, and yet it felt a touch sinister right now. An off feeling that made me wish my stomach could still churn.

“A-anyway! You didn’t seem surprised.” I asked her, because not only was she not surprised about me—she was the one who managed to make me able to move something once more. So, she had to be connected with my situation. I wanted to believe in her. I truly did. “Do you know what’s happening?”

I tried my best to not let accusation leaked into my words, but I didn’t think I really managed. Not when Alaina amusedly started to stroke my head—and I could feel her body heat warming mine. The way her other hand gently pressurizing me, so I would stay still, as if I could move even a little. She did let me look more into the room, even if it was toward her table, where I could barely see the top of her laptop’s monitor. Not tall enough for that, and Alaina’s body was incredibly distracting.

It was only after I had a contrast, a point to compare with, did I realize that beforehand… I hadn’t felt anything else, until it was Alaina’s doing it. As if her hand, her body, her very self was what allowed me to gain something.

How did the feel of the shelf I was on before? I had no idea whether it was smooth, having been painted, or rough, like a wooden plank that didn’t get smoothened over at all. Or maybe it was a rusted metal, forgotten and unused.

Surely that was because I was distracted and merely focused on my absurd situation, or at least that was what I told myself. I pushed the thoughts away, focusing on what Alaina’s answer would be, especially when she had been silent for a while. Was it because she wanted to find the right words, or perhaps she was just trying to manipulate me? Either way, I hated the fact that I had no choice but to wait for her to answer, even if her touch made me feel more relaxed. The tension I thought I felt dissipating away under her warmth and petting. I couldn’t help but wanting it to continue forever…

“Of course I knew. I did this, after all.” Alaina said it so casually, that for a moment I couldn’t understand—no, didn’t wish to understand. But she continued before I could have said anything, and her words made me wish I didn’t ask, even if that was an impossible task. “After all, you wished for it, didn’t you? To live and be without any responsibility.”

I wanted to explain, to say something, anything about that presumption. That it was merely a complaint, that I didn’t wish it for real. Not a word managed to claw out of my throat, though, as I laid there unwillingly beneath Alaina’s ministrations.

Her warm touch was the only sane thing I could hold onto, the only thing I could halfway recognize as everything else felt far too much—even if I barely have anything to interact against, anyway.

“Isn’t this much better now?” She said, and I couldn’t be certain in what tone she had said those words in.

All I could do was say yes.