Author's Note

This chapter contains feels, read with caution.

3 - Heading Out

The sunlight that peeked in through Coco's bedroom curtains woke me up unceremoniously. Grumbling, I shifted over to look at Coco, and panic quickly rose.

It was now me that was embracing her, unlike the night before, apparently having switched places while we slept. She grinded her back against my chest, eliciting a small groan from me as I felt my loins begin to heat up.

To Tartarus and damnation with this!

I yanked myself away from her gently, attempting to prevent her from waking up while at the same time preserving my sense of dignity, not for my sake, but for hers. I could only assume that she'd die of embarrassment if she found us in that position. Unfortunately for me though, she seemingly woke up regardless, giving a cute yawn as her bright blue eyes slowly opened to meet my emerald green ones.

I had just then realized how close our faces were to one another, and we blushed simultaneously.

"I-I b-better get ready f-for work. I have a big show that I n-need to start working on," Coco stuttered as she quickly pulled herself out of bed, trying to distance herself from me as much as possible.

She glanced back at me as she trotted towards the door frame, "Aren't you going to get up too? You have a big day ahead of you."

I gave a sigh of relief internally, thankful that she didn't notice my little 'incident' from early. "I'll get up in a bit," I replied, "It's not like I'm going to start working today."

She gave me a sly smile, "Not with that attitude you won't," she said, trotting away towards the bathroom, giving me a nice view as she walked out of the room.

Does she even realize what does sometimes? I thought to myself, before remembering how last night turned out.

Yes, she definitely does.

I could hear the hot water running from inside the bathroom and decided to stand up and stretch. I hadn't rested like that in quite some time, and never with a mare before.

It's not like we did anything anyways, it was strictly platonic.

Coco had said earlier that she often skipped over breakfast, and rarely kept any breakfast foods, so I'd have to scrounge up whatever I could if I wanted to have something this morning. I settled for some non-name brand cereal that I could only assume was stale, alongside some milk. I'd need to convince her to buy some actual breakfast items, and to eat breakfast more often.

I know she said she was watching her figure, but a little extra weight on her hips would do her wonders.

I shook the thought out of my head. I realized that I had been having a lot of invasive thoughts lately, and that it probably wasn't going to do our relationship much good, seeing as I was essentially living off of her as of right now. I stood up from my chair and put my bowl in the dishwasher. I figured I should head out soon, even though Coco was spending quite a long time in the shower.

Maybe I'll pay my brothers a visit.

A faint sound from the bathroom interrupted my thoughts. It sounded like Coco was enjoying herself.

Certainly she wouldn't be doing anything that I might hear while I'm still in an adjacent room, right?

Another small moan emanated from behind the door, just barely distinguishable from the sounds of pouring water, disregarding my previous suspicions. I hastily scribbled a note down, explaining that I would be leaving early, and set it on the kitchen counter.

I need to leave before my judgement becomes too impaired, this mare is going to kill me.

I suppose this city isn't the worst. I'd still stand by the statement that most this city is comprised of rats and cockroaches, but Coco showed me that there were some good ponies out there, even in a slum hole like Manehattan.

Unsurprisingly, work for accounting and banking in general was fairly sparse, and the places that did offer a position paid about the same to what my old job equated to, neither me nor Coco would be satisfied with that. The sun was beginning to hang low on the horizon by the time I finally felt like I had gone through most of my options, it was beyond frustrating.

I never really understood it though, my entire family had a knack for managing money. My mother and father made quite the sum of money off of investing, why was I struggling so much even though I was cut out for this?

I need to visit them again.

I sighed, and trotted towards my destination.

Most of this city suffered effects of dilapidation. There was just so much of it that it was hard to keep up sometimes, at least it kept construction workers employed I suppose. Among the rubble you'd find the entire spectrum though, ranging from con artists to thieves to prostitutes, none of which said anything good about this city. However there was one place that always looked beautiful to me, one place that always felt peaceful.

The graveyard.

It was both eerie and calming despite the overgrowth. It was charming to me, and I knew the path by heart anyways. I walked for a few minutes, basking in the silence and feeling the heat from the sun shining upon me. Despite there being a stigma towards graveyards, it felt like a solemn place, a haven.

I knelt down in front of the graves of my two brothers, both of which died several years ago due to gang violence, poor bastards were caught in a crossfire. I felt my eyes water as I placed flowers that I bought with what little bits I had next to each of their graves, they were buried next to each other.

We may have shared our differences, but I'd give an eye and a limb just to see you two again. Mint, Sterling, I love you both.

I stood up once more, and walked away.

I had arrived back at Coco's apartment around dusk, I promptly ignored the mare at the front desk attempting to have small talk about being 'Coco's coltfriend' and headed towards the elevator. I wasn't really in the mood to chat. Using my spare key that Coco gave me, I walked into the living room expecting her to ask me how the day went. Surprisingly, she wasn't home yet.

I guess she works fairly late, but how much could she possibly have to do?

There was no telling when she'd be back at this rate, so I'd have to find something else to occupy my time. I cracked open the fridge and pulled out the pizza we had last night. I figured if she wasn't going to be home in a while, she probably wouldn't have time to order or make food, so I placed one of the remaining slices in the oven to eat for dinner. I only had to find something to do until then.

The only thing that I could find that was of any particular interest to me was a small, golden locket that hung on a lamp near Coco's desk. As I held the locket, I noticed began to pick out a few key details that I might've otherwise missed. For one, the locket wasn't actually made of real gold, it was lined with real gold, but the majority of it was some other metal alloy I couldn't quite put a hoof on. Second, the clasp to the locket was broken, the inside of it containing a picture of what I could only assume was Coco's mother.

There were several instruments around Coco's desk that looked like they were used to fix delicate parts such as jewelry, which led me to believe that she must have tried fixing it herself, but couldn't quite get the job done. I decided that I would spend some time trying to fix it myself until she got home. I was most likely not going to be able to fix it, seeing as Coco couldn't, but I may as well have tried given my lack of success today.

As it turns out, it was much easier than I anticipated. I fixed it in a matter of minutes when I thought it would take at least an hour of fiddling around with it. The tools sped up the process significantly, and the clasp easily screwed firmly back into place. I was enjoying a nice pizza out of they oven, when Coco finally came through the door.

"S-sorry I'm home late, it got pretty busy a-at work," Coco said in an almost whisper, trotting slowly towards the couch.

Call it intuition, but I could tell immediately that something wasn't right. The areas around her eyes were dry, almost like she may have been crying at some point today. Even though she worked pretty late, she was still much more exhausted than I would've thought given how much she slept.

"Are you alright, Coco?" I asked tentatively, trying not to sound too accusing.

She blinked slowly and yawned, "I-I'll be fine. did you manage to find any openings today?"

I winced internally, this would be the difficult part of the day, luckily I still had something to make up for it.

I cleared my throat, "Uh, no. I didn't find anything that I felt would be acceptable."

Her ears lowered in response, slugging her shoulders and leaning back into the couch, "Oh, I see."

"However, since I arrived home before you, I noticed your locket that you have on your desk is broken. I took the liberty of fixing it."

Coco was at my side almost instantaneously, knocking me over to the side and staring down the locket in my hoof, "You did?!"

I shrugged in response, "It was only a minor fix, it didn't take long," I replied nonchalantly. I decided to leave out the part about the locket not being made out of real gold, considering it seemed like it meant a lot to her.

I was tackled by Coco with surprising force, hugging me and causing both of us to land on the floor.

"Thank you so much! I don't know why, but I couldn't figure out how to fix it, and the jeweler that I went to charged an outrageous amount of money to fix it," Coco said earnestly, burying her face into my chest as she all but crushed my rib cage.

I shifted her forehooves down a little, giving myself some breathing room, "It was nothing Coco, I promise."

We had decided it would be alright to sleep in the same bed again, considering she apparently had no problem with personal space and I didn't disclose what had happened the morning after.

"Hey Prime, do you know what your cutie mark means?" Coco whispered, turning over to face me.

I chuckled at the absurdity of her question, of course I knew what my cutie mark was, it was practically hereditary after all.

Did I, though?

"It is a modern Equestrian bit under a magnifying glass, the coin itself has very specific details. The production date of the coin actually matches my birthday if you look close enough," I replied.

She giggled, "I didn't ask what it looked like, I asked what it meant."

I found myself struggling to answer that question, actually hesitating a moment before answering, "I, I'm a business pony, Coco. I am well-versed in regards to economics."

That was a half-assed response, really.

There was a short pause before Coco responded, "If I were you, I'd look into how well you can appraise things. You said that you weren't particularly good with fashion at one point, but I'd like to know how well you'd do with jewelry."

I decided to change the topic, one to something that had me particularly concerned once Coco had arrived home.

"Coco," I began slowly, "Why did you seem so upset when you arrived home tonight, there's something you're not telling me."

Coco breathed a sad and heavy sight, "I think I might be correct, you're better at reading into things than you think."

"Answer me, please."

There was a long pause. It was almost as if Coco was contemplating whether or not she wanted to divulge any personal information. Finally the dam broke loose, and I was inundated with the stress that Coco was piling on.

"I have just been working on this project for so long and losing so much sleep over it, and the director doesn't a-appreciate a-anything I do. T-then y-you came a-along a-and I s-started to f-feel happy again b-but I can't-" Coco couldn't finish her rambling as it soon became incoherent, her venting turned into sobs as she cried out her stress into my chest.

It looked like she and I were much more alike than I thought. I knew at that moment that I couldn't let her be as sad as she was anymore, that I would take it upon myself to make sure she was happy.

Regardless of whether she reciprocated the feelings that I now had for her, I was going to make her as joyful as I could, even when I knew I wasn't.