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"So what are you two homies doin' out here underneath the godforsaken tunnel? You realise some people die underneath there, right? This place ain't safe."

Ashanti, Kehlani & their brand new friend Kishati had just escaped the tunnel now, where Jordan & Khalil had threatened to beat them up, until Kishati came and had saved the day.

They had just pretty much left the tunnel and they were now on their way to the neighbourhood party that Ashanti was so desperate to go to.

Kishati was right though.

The place they were in right now wasn't really that safe. Although it was probably worse than where Ashanti had lived- she had lived just across the streets from here but had never really visited this place before.

Until now.

Both her & Kehlani had felt pretty embarrassed about the whole situation, not that it had really mattered much anyway, because Kishati didn't seem too pissed for saving them.

Whenever Ashanti was in trouble and Kehlani had to rescue her from it, he would have always ranted at her for it, causing her to rant at him back.

"We were just tryna go to the neighbourhood party downtown," Ashanti explained, turning red due to the whole situation of her, Kehlani, Jordan & Khalil and not being able to rescue herself from it.

"And you're a hypocrite, you know that? You went under the tunnel as well."

Kishati had explained that the only reason on why she had gone in there in the first place was because she was trying to save both of them from Jordan and Khalil.

But she didn't really care about that bit though, because for some reason, she was mainly focused on both of them going to the neighbourhood party.

Well, she was going to the party herself, yeah. But Ashanti & Kehlani had seemed a little bit young to be going to that.

In fact, how old were they anyway?

Kishati had kept thinking this to herself as she had stopped walking to stare at Ashanti and Kehlani rather suspiciously.

"You guys can't go to that, you underage," she told them. "Realise it's an 18+ party. I'm nineteen. How old are you guys anyway?"

Whoa, she was 19?

Dang.

Ashanti and Kehlani were so much taller than her.

Looks were honestly so deceiving sometimes, and Kehlani knew that. For instance, someone that was really short could have been like twenty years old, and someone that was really tall could have been like eleven instead.

But did Ashanti know that looks were deceiving?

Well, no. Not really.

She had always thought that pretty people were nice, even if they weren't and not as pretty people were mean instead, even if they weren't.

Kehlani grudgingly told Kishati that both him and Ashanti were 17 right now, before mentioning that Ashanti was one month older than him, and she was born 5 June whilst he was born 5 July instead.

He had done that grudgingly because Kishati was right, they were underage, and now Kehlani had kind of feared that Kishati would have told them to go home and not come to the party anymore.

"Oh no, I'm not gonna do that," Kishati stated to both of them, almost reading Kehlani's mind. "Imma just let your ages slide for now. But you better keep a low profile. There are some gangsters at this party apparently, and they can mess you up real good if you ain't careful."

Ashanti and Kehlani had nodded to that, and soon after, all three of them had found themselves being right in front of the house where the party was taking place.

What the house had looked like?

Here:

The reason the party was there in the first place was because it was the prettiest house in all of the entire neighbourhood, and no disputing that.

Every other house here sucked, and Ashanti knew that. She had been living in her neighbourhood for five years now, but she didn't like it one bit.

No wonder her street was called 'Ghetto Street', literally. That was the name of the street at the bus stop.

Majority of the houses in the streets had looked really bad, kinda almost as if someone didn't care about what their house had looked like or they hadn't looked after it for days.

Flats were the worst though, which was really disadvantageous for Ashanti because she had lived in one.

There were broken windows almost everywhere, man, and it was absolutely crazy and insane. The criminals in the night had caused this, though criminals didn't always commit crimes, it was sort of like an intermittent thing.

The three of them were greeted with one of Rihanna's songs when they had arrived at the party:

You need to get done, done, done, done at work, come over
We just need to slow the motion

Don't give that away to no one
Long distance, I need you

When I see potential I just gotta see it through
If you had a twin, I would still choose you
I don't wanna rush into it, if it's too soon

Right now, all three of them were about to climb through the fence to get into that party, not realising that it was invite only.

But pfft, screw that.

They were already here now, and there was no point going back, was there? Ashanti had lived like five minutes away from here, goodness knew where Kishati had lived and Kehlani was staying with Ashanti.

If the dude had any more friends then he would have stayed at their house instead of Ashanti's, as her house really wasn't the best place to be in right now.

But sadly, Kehlani didn't really have any more friends. Well, he did, he had lots of them, but none of them were as genuine as Ashanti.

"Look at that Kehlani, our first ever party," Ashanti told the guy, chilling on the fence at the back of the house. "Everyone's having fun."

Although the word fun must have meant something way different in Ashanti's dictionary compared to its actual meaning because everyone around them seemed drunk.

No wonder Kishati said that they were underage. Ashanti and Kehlani would have most likely gotten influenced by the drunk people, and would have wanted to get drunk themselves.

A lot of people were at the party though, and it seemed pretty legit, to be honest. When Kishati heard that everybody was having some fun, she laughed a bit, asking them what the hell they had expected.

"Of course everyone's having fun, haha. It's a party y'all- have you never been to one before?"

That was the thing, they hadn't.

This was their first ever one.

"No one really invites us to parties, we're kind of like the overlooked kids at school," Kehlani lamented. "It's probably really embarrassing. You must think we must suck or something."

Kishati didn't say anything much, as she was just scanning both of them up and down, thinking something.

Now was usually the time when people would have left or had kinda unintentionally started judging them- despite Kehlani telling Kishati earlier that him and Ashanti were a two person crowd, they had often tried to get a new friend as the two of them had often (and literally) stepped on each other's toes sometimes.

But then when the friend had found out how pathetic they were, they had left them, never to see them again.

Luckily, Kishati didn't seem to be like that though, and what she had said next had really made both Ashanti and Kehlani happy.

"Yeah, I feel you guys, honestly. I used to be like that. But I don't really care about popularity anymore. It's kinda overrated, you know what I mean? I'd rather have one or two close friends than a thousand fake friends any day. You two seem tight."

Both of them had told her that they were, before Kishati kindly commanded them to go across the fence.

Kishati and Kehlani had done so successfully, but Ashanti seemed to be mesmerised by something in the far distance.

"Ashanti," Kehlani said, worriedly. "You OK? You coming?"

"Pass me those binoculars on the table next to you quick."

Confused at to why the heck Ashanti wanted him to do that, Kehlani had listened to her, not saying anything else.

"No chiz!" Ashanti gasped, using the binoculars. "Is that Rihanna? Shut the front door!"

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