sold my soul to a three piece

     they’re quite tasty, too. that doesn’t hurt, he smirks to himself, and he hasn’t had this kind of… availability in quite some time. it’s certainly convenient. as he slips through the throngs of people, there’s a strange energy that flickers in his senses. it’s one quite familiar, one that he hadn’t expected to feel in this day and age. it’s an energy signature that he’d initially felt several centuries ago, and he frowns slightly as he picks out the person among the crowd. 

     with ease, he slips through the crowd, vampiric grace serving him well as his sharp eyes focus on a figure unfamiliar in their appearance, but familiar in their presence. an eyebrow arches silently as he approaches the unknown, his expression mildly curious. 

Lost in his own thoughts, he’s unprepared for the beautiful stranger from earlier to extricate himself from the throng of bodies. Mark watched curiously, expecting him to give his attention to the two excited girls from earlier. But imagine his surprise to hear a soft greeting followed by a quick smile. He floundered for a bit before regaining his composure. Lifting his drink to his lips once more, he used it like a temporary shield, one to hide his insecurities behind. “Hello, yourself.” Mentally he berated himself for such a lame comeback as an introduction.

It’s just a short bus ride down, having decided he was too lazy and not awake enough to walk the entire way. Most days, Jaebum probably would walk the whole way, but with his tired brain he was liable to get very lost in the city he had learned to call his own. And that would just be a little bit pathetic on his end, and he wasn’t planning on sending Mark another text saying he had gotten lost. That would be even more pathetic, and the mage would probably laugh at him and never stop bringing it up after. So, therefore, the bus was the much safer route - if only to keep his reputation safe. (What reputation, his brain would supply, and he would shoot it down with his street credit, of course.) 

He steps into the shop just a few minutes later - he’s not sure how long it had taken for him to get here, with the detour into the coffee shop and all that, but he’s not even sure if Mark knows how long it would take normally. Having tossed the empty cup after getting off the bus, Jaebum heads straight into the back of the shop where he knew his friend would be, announcing his presence by knocking loudly on the door. 

That being said however, the knock on his door and the booming voice the follows startles Mark straight down to his core. His body jumps ever slightly and his hand threatens to lose its grip on his cellphone. Mark has just moments to readjust his hold and barely saves his phone from meeting its end against the tiled floor below. “Think you can be any louder?” It comes out a little bit biting and sarcastic but Mark grins at Jaebum either way. “You’re late.” 

He gestures to the chair in front of him. “Ready to cry for the next hour?” It’s a joke, Mark’s never heavy handed with his tattoo gun. His strokes are sure and even and he’s quick, much faster at creating masterpieces on the bodies of strangers than his coworkers. But they say idle hands are the devil’s playground and between appointments, Mark covers his entire room in sketches of stencils ranging from large pieces that would cover an entire back to pieces as small as quarters. 

{ @mthmark ! } 

It had been a long while since his very first tattoo and he would be lying if he said that it wasn’t fading a bit. He had been meaning to go months ago to get it touched up, but had instead gotten more patterns and designs inked into his skin. He wasn’t planning on doing much more on his sleeve at this point, or anywhere else on his body now, so he hopes that this visit to his usual tattoo parlour will actually be for the said touch-up that he needed. 

He hadn’t really considered calling ahead of time to make an appointment, sure that Mark wouldn’t mind taking him in for a quick touch-up session. Perhaps he would be a little more, hm, affectionate this time and not as stingy as he was the last time he had done a surprise walk-in. Maybe he should call ahead this time … but no, he wasn’t going to. Mark could suck it up.

A pair of purple headphones rests comfortably over his ears, managing to effectively block out any noise. His phone rests at the edge of his elbow, pumping song after song from a playlist aptly named ‘Loud’ through his headphones. And Mark mouths along with the words as he concentrates on the mess spread out before him. A haphazard mess of sketches and water color paintings takes claim to almost every inch of his workstation. A thick bound journal teeters precariously at the edge, its pages threatening to burst from overuse. As he picks up momentum in his sketching, he sees the book slowly begin to slip from the corner of his eye. Mark mutters a few words under his breath and the book changes trajectory and calmly takes its place back on the counter.