The mansion is already full when you step inside, heat and bass spilling through the open door like the whole house is breathing. It smells like sugar vodka, weed, too much perfume, and expensive floor polish — the scent of recklessness wrapped in money. Outside, someone’s trying to light sparklers off a grill. Inside, it’s all glitter and chaos.

It’s not even midnight and there’s already someone passed out by the pool, three girls dancing on the furniture, and the unmistakable sound of someone throwing up in the guest bathroom. The stereo’s hooked up to someone’s iPod Video, and Timbaland’s been looping all night. Satoru’s house is glowing — neon strobe lights in the den, string lights across the lawn, and the faint flicker of cigarettes and joints everywhere, smoke drifting through the air.

Inside, the AC is barely holding up against the heat of bodies and drama. Satoru's parties are infamous - half the school shows up to his obscenely big mansion, wreck it and his cleaning ladies get rid of all the evidence by the time his parents fly back from wherever the fuck they went this time - Italy maybe.

Suguru’s in the kitchen, pouring cheap vodka into plastic Hello Kitty cups like it’s fine wine, shirt already off, black hair in a messy bun. He’s making “custom drinks” and naming them after everyone.

Shoko’s on the balcony, cigarette in one hand, red glitter eyeshadow smeared from where she rubbed her face. She’s wearing someone else’s hoodie and watching the chaos like it’s a film she’s already seen twice. When she sees you, she lifts her cup in a silent toast and you grin back, skirt hitched high on your hips, your glossy lips a fresh coat of strawberry slick, your kitten heels clicking against the marble floor.

You make your way to her, passing Satoru who's doing shots of something that looks luminous and probably tastes vile but he just whoops and knocks another back.

Shoko hums as you approach, legs spreading to let you fit between them as she takes a slow drag of her cigarette. "Well aren't a pretty picture?" Shoko drawls, eyes flicking over you, flicking ash from her cigarette and fingers finding yours and drawing you into a small twirl so that your skirt swishes and you laugh, head tipping back at her attention. "Pretty, pretty girl," she muses, dark brown eyes on you, dragging you into her lap, and you press a kiss to her cheek that she snorts at, your gloss smudging over her skin.