Code Zulu Alpha: Nerd in the Apocalypse!

Chapter 1019 Doll Business III - Broken Goods

For the record, I didn\'t think the conversation would turn this way but it seemed like my first mistake of getting everyone\'s ire was trying to tell everybody to calm down. No, actually, it was probably ignoring Kaley\'s mention of just letting them finish their piece. And yeah, it would almost always have this kind of effect but telling them to blow up instead of calming down wouldn\'t make them take it down a notch either.

A little bit of misunderstanding goes hand in hand with new people interacting with each other and simply talking it out respectfully and in a calm manner would resolve it.

I guess my role right now was just to listen until everyone else could say their piece—but not to be sexist or anything—but I should\'ve expected this conversation to get into a few tangents here and there. But yeah, it was still a little in line with what we were talking about earlier but then again, it was better to talk about this type of thing right now than let people\'s assumptions get the better of them.

In any case, the situation right now was that the twins felt that Marisha was looking down on them or something but even though I didn\'t feel or see it myself, who am I to tell them otherwise if I wasn\'t seeing through their eyes?

And so, Marisha took a deep breath and beckoned everyone else to do the same before she tried to clear the air:

"Alright, I\'ll start by apologizing to you two because my words and my actions hurt both of you— but do understand that we are talking about a rather sensitive topic—a highly sensitive one, if I may say so myself—so once our emotions are running a tad higher than usual, some things could be said rather unpleasantly and taken wrongly."

"..."

"..."

Dr. Nichols followed after the silence of the twins, "Then I\'ll apologize too because I also had a part in our rather aggressive… line of questioning and it wasn\'t fair and very judgmental on my part. I wouldn\'t say this as an excuse but I\'m gotta be really honest here because seeing— s-seeing a precious little kid in that… s-state wasn\'t something in the darkest corner of my imagination a-and it really took everything for me not to break down in front of her… So once we all started talking, my state of mind wasn\'t in the right place and I apologize for that…"

At this point, silence filled the room for a few minutes as everyone else was just looking on the floor but the twins soon opened their mouths to say what was on their mind:

Ruru started, "Umm… I guess we\'ll have to apologize too."

Riri nodded, "We should\'ve been a little more thick-skinned—and we normally are—r-regarding this type of s-stuff…"

"But you\'re right…"

"S-Seeing Amy like that was also a shock to us and it brought up a few things from our past."

Then they looked at each other for a moment before they turned back to us:

"W-We\'re sorry for blowing up like this too but while we\'re on the topic of honesty…"

"We guess that we should come clean about Mr. Cuervo\'s regulations regarding the Pink House—"

"Ah— Before you all worry, we ARE really clear of any STDs and whatnot, we assure you of that because we really did get checked but there was a lot of luck involved in that because if you\'re just… y-you know…"

"If you\'re a little new in the business… You gotta work really hard and there are limited resources to get your blood work done among other things so it was pretty probable for some of us to get something contracted even if some of us were careful…"

"We were a little lucky that our sales numbers are high because we are a two-for-one deal so we were able to have access to health care and we were able to deny customers and have a few rules set up for our own safety and whatnot."

\'I remember them telling me that…\'

They continued:

"And yeah, we were out of that line of work right now—though we still have a lot of fun ourselves—but we\'ll respect your choices to not have any sexual involvement with us at all but do keep in mind that our feelings still do get hurt if we get certain looks even if we are broken goods—"

Kaley then cut them off angrily, "DON\'T. EVER. CALL. YOURSELVES. BROKEN. GOODS. PERIOD!"

The two let out a bitter smile, "We were just—"

"I SAID EVER! DON\'T EVER CALL YOURSELVES THAT! IF YOU\'RE BROKEN GOODS THEN WHAT AM I?! HUH?!"

At this point, tears were already falling from Kaley\'s eyes and it was due to something that shouldn\'t be put on paper. It was something that we talked about way, way~ back, in private, of course, and it definitely struck a nerve.

But to give a brief explanation of it, it had something to do with her high sex drive that led to a few horrible things that happened to her from her past relationships.

With that said, I think I shouldn\'t dig it up too much because clearly, Kaley was hurting because of it, and even I had to step in to stop this conversation from going too far off the subject because it definitely had, several back and forths ago.

Kaley\'s face was now buried on my shoulder as she was trying to calm herself down but the twins started to break down crying as well among others. It was a totally different scene compared to when we had just arrived and I just can\'t stress enough for how much I hate to see her in such a state, even if it wasn\'t my own doing.

But yeah, after I made sure she was okay and had mostly calmed down, I decided to anchor back the conversation to what we should really be talking about:

The Garcia Family\'s involvement in the Doll Business.