July 5th

I'm writing this in the morning, on my laptop, on Yunie's couch.

I woke up on kyr couch, not in kyr bed.

I haven't seen kyr yet this morning. Kye may not have slept alone.

I finally called Tara. Yesterday morning actually. Hunter was having a Fourth of July party at Yunie's place and I decided to invite Tara. A potentially risky move but honestly, everything between her and Misha seemed to die out already anyway, so I wasn't really worried about Misha showing up.

Unlike most of us, Yunie lives in a house. A small, two bedroom house with a tiny little yard, but a house nonetheless. Kye doesn't own it, kye rents, but it's still a house. So kye's often the one people go to when they want to have barbecues and such.

"How do you want your burger?" Hunter asked.

"Rare" Yunie said gleefully. Azura scoffed behind kyr.

"Of course you want it rare." Azura said in disgust. "I'll take my well done."

Yunie sighed. "Sometimes it really feels like you just disagree with me to antagonize me."

"Not everything's always about you, Yunie."

Fortunately, Tara tapped my on my shoulder, distracting me from the trainwreck playing out in front of me. "Hey, you." She said, smiling.

"Hey, you made it!" I held my hand in the air, not sure what to do with it. I started to reach out for a hug but lost my nerve, so I just sort of waved at her instead. The awkwardness of this gesture was clearly not lost on her, but she chose not to harp on it.

Yunie visibly beamed when kye saw us together, but respectfully decided to not make a scene. Instead kye took kyr rare burger and made kyr way over to mingle.

The night had been going pretty well. We drank a little, beer mostly, but not that much. It was easily our most sober encounter yet. At one point, Tara excused herself to hit the washroom, so I took the opportunity to mingle with Yunie for a moment.

"This is a kiler place you have, Yunie."

"Oh, thanks. It's not mine though, I just rent."

"Ohhh. Is it another one of Winter's places?"

"Nah, um. Karlen owns this one actually."

"Karlen?"

Yunie gave me a confused look. "You don't know Karlen?"

"Do I want to?"

"I'm pretty confident you don't. Karlen's one of Winter's biggest rivals, some hotshot real estate shit, I don't really know, or care that much, about landlord drama, but I know they reeeally don't like each other."

"Oh, I see."

"Oh, and Karlen is Tara's ex. Like... the big one."

"Oh... she has a rich ex. That's good."

"You don't have to worry about Karlen" Tara said, re-entering the conversation. "Karlen's dead to me."

"Well, alright, I won't worry about your extremely rich ex who apparently owns Yunie's house."

"They aren't that rich." Later that night, Yunie confirmed that Karlen was, in fact, that rich.

I can't deny having a bit of curiosity about this Karlen person. Yunie's phrasing, refering to him as the Big One stood out to me. I wonder if maybe they're the reason everyone gets so weird about the idea of me hooking up with Tara.

It didn't take much alcohol to pull my mind away from Karlen though. Tara seemed to be in a generally good mood, more talkative than usual and a little more energetic. It was pointed out to me after the fact that she had been a lot more physical with me than usual, which I believe is what some would call "flirting", but this completely missed me at the time. I hope she understands.

Nothing properly happened between us. She may have flirted and sent out hints, it's possible I did the same, but neither of us actually made the first move. Still, we had a good time together, and I like to think this party helped us establish groundwork for our relationship.

I've finally accepted that I like her, I really like her. I think I need to make an actual move soon.

I stayed the night at Yunie's since I was already here. There... really isn't any more to that part. It was just convenient and kye didn't mind.