ghoul school

this is how it feels like when someone points at him and asks him what he’s done, asks him to confess even though they know it already. it feels like condemnation, because there’s no way this is anything other than a crime. jaewon is not a nice guy. he’s not good, not in the way that counts, and he feels himself drifting again to where his mind shouldn’t. alcohol drags him there, like an unwilling asshole, and fucks him right over when she says no and doesn’t take her hand away. he doesn’t notice how much closer she is.

he hums in response to whatever she says, laughs like someone prompted him to: something to fill in gaps that aren’t really there. it chokes his heart, so he stops, and, just a tad, a millimetre-difference, he leans against her, because she’s the only thing that ever comes close to stable. his silence is enough.

so, now, see, he can’t help it when he brings her palm to his lips. it’s just another tug towards an unknown he used to have a name for. he remembers this – how it felt like on that balcony – and he lets his mouth linger, breath warm with alcohol, and brings the inked skin away from him when he’s content. it’s the only selfish thing he might remember doing, and still he thinks: maybe he’ll keep this safe ( this thing that might turn to ashes, if she crushes it enough ), and maybe he’ll keep her safe, too. 

“i remember,” he half-admits ( to what, he’s not sure; maybe to both ). there are some things he doesn’t, but he remembers a little. too much, and still not enough to mean anything other than a sinking feeling that he’s done something he shouldn’t have. “can i ask about it? i mean – why…there?”

there’s a string between them, and maybe it’s gold and maybe it’s red, but neither know because they’ve spent a lifetime squeezing shut their eyes as soon as they’re close enough to see. this is a game of monsters-under-the-bed in reverse, pretending the good things aren’t there if you pretend hard enough. they’re so close, and she can’t feel the difference because it feels like where they’re supposed to be, and she can because it’s so much closer than they’re allowed to be.

one day she just wants to molt into his side. it won’t matter if she can’t pick herself up whole again.

she hears music play as he lifts her hand up again, but it’s nothing sweet or kind. it’s some kind of warning signal, the theme in jaws before the girl has her legs swallowed. from the spot his lips touch she turned incandescent, yellow warm flitting through her like a paper lantern. soon, she’s going to burn.

it’s a miracle they’ve gone this long with not a crack seen in what they have. he has half a mind to tell her that they’d let each other go thank you very much, but he decides that would be more childish and do little except give her something to laugh about. “would you want to hang around somebody who couldn’t graduate because of a little fun?” he asks. “i don’t see why you can’t give me hickies whilst i study but whatever. virtues and all that.”

he huffs at her, lips pursed at a girl who has luxury dripping off of her and probably more future plans at aged eighteen than he has now. in fact, marceline’s someone that jiheon probably shouldn’t even dare to look at but here he is with her prettily seated in his lap. “sounds like an easy decision for someone like you. for someone like me, however,” he tilts his head, “if i do that, i might as well sign my death warrant.”

“and that would be a tragedy?” he phrases it like a question when they both know it’s a clear statement, clipped at the sides with mirth. he doesn’t even find it within him to do anything when she has the audacity to pull his sweatshirt over, a chaste kiss to his jaw and that’s it. he feels the cool air against bare skin and sighs, a picture perfect example of someone used to her ways. “of course you’ll always be here. there’s not a single other person i could trust to flip a page for me and leave me half naked.” 

he pauses. “… you know me too well. the usual, yeah?”

its only by the mutuality of their previous decision that marceline can make pretend passes at an unbalanced scale. “well, no,” she admits with simple effervescence. “but i liked thinking i was so much fun it could distract someone from their life goals. it’d be a good testament to my not safe for work game, right?” she chuckles, watches herself flex her toes then pivots her head back rapidly at jiheon’s next comment. her grin splits wide open. “really? okay.”

playful at feline, she rattles her lips with air in response to his huff. “shut the fuck up. you’re smart. you could do whatever. and you’re a gumi monster,” she adds unnecessary, exaggerated emphasis to the last two words, opening her eyes wide and shaking her head, poking fun at the school’s reputation. “we can’t get killed because everythings afraid of us.”

in the beginning, when the stars were still fireflies, his soul, once, perhaps, prayed to some god for some change that left him warmer, left the world brighter, and he was given marceline zhao, years younger, smile more beautiful and skin so much softer, untouched by mortal crime. between the two of them he’s the only sinner, and he thought – thinks – he’s accepted it, but something in him drowns again in the temptation to go far away from this noise and this procession of monstrosity, towards somewhere they can be people, without power or evil, and only the goodness of each other. ( but this is a forgotten dream. )

instead he laughs, and laughs until his sides begin to hurt, even with her hand over his mouth, and he yells in return, unintelligible, and does the same for her, as if to catch the name from her lips and crush it in his palm. 

but instead he focuses – he’s distracted! that’s it – and his hand seeks out the one that holds onto her wrist, arm slipping down so he can, and holds it and holds it and doesn’t think about anything other than he doesn’t want to let go. ( because that’s what he always does, isn’t it, when he’s sober? ) “make me more finger puppets,” he blurts out, because it’s the first thing that comes to mind that isn’t venturing too far into places it’s learned not to go. “you should teach me how to make them! i gotta be a big boy, you know – be self-sufficient,” and learn to live without you. “it’s about time, isn’t it?”

he laughs because it’s something he finds funny, and she might not. he still doesn’t let go.

“will a kkangpae surprise you on your sixteenth? you remember, when we were on the balcony?” and he can’t recall if he’s already brought it up ( he has, hasn’t he? ), but it reminds him of that again, so he brings it up again, and there’s something that hurts about the memory that he’s been gathering up the courage to face, and still gathers when he brings her knuckles to his lips and presses a kiss, and holds her hand in his own as if it’s a flower, and unravels her fingers and traces engraved ink: “this wasn’t here that time, was it?”

she stands like a concentric-moving circle, serpent choking on its own tailed shoved down its fucking mouth, wanting to pull away but unable to so much as flex her fingers in case the movement inconvenienced his gentle hold. why is he holding her, why why why. like a petty thief she wants all or nothing, and this first lick of a nitroglycerin trail to something burns up her throat, her intestines, the lining of her stomach. when her gut has disappeared the butterflies held captive there fly throughout her whole body, turning her fluttering, afraid, a tremor.

“no,” has she ever tried that word on him before? “then what would you need me for? alpha boy, physics major, golden boy of new york -- i need something to stay relevant in your life.” i need you in mine. she’s speaking properly but everything feels clumsy on her tongue, like she’s tripping over cracks in a sidewalk. “besides, you’re not that big.” her hand burns. please let go now. “we haven’t grown up so much...” marceline shifts her weight, a hip closer to him. the air between them burns now too. “we’re still the same, aren’t we?”

you remember, when we were on the balcony?

what mask is this: one or two, comedy or tragedy? it feels like both. the butterflies inside marceline startle, panicking. “yes,” she answers slowly. i remember. you don’t. there’s caution in her pitch, the way with which she watches jaewon lift her hand to his mouth and press her knuckles there. she chokes on the heart of it. whose watching? why is he pulling her open like gold thread? “i thought you didn’t remember.”

reality is the opposite of a dream; he can recall the beginning with such clarity – and every day leading up to it – but cannot, for the life of him, remember ever saying good night, or good morning. it must’ve been something, for sure, and he doesn’t bring it up again. he’s too drunk to try. ( as he always is, when alcohol tugs him down further, and centres his gravity to the bottom of a bottle that’s cheap in comparison to his usual tastes – but that’s something entirely different, and he tries not to get too distracted by the fact that his drink is all but finished – )

and when she brings up home, and happiness, and youth, he laughs like they’re back then and not now. oh, truly, the elder zhao would’ve kicked his skinny ass out of that pool and into the open sea, if the man didn’t treat him as a second son already. these are people he’s known, who’s known him in return, and never to the same measure as marceline – no one ever gets that close and returns unscathed. “bendy wendy! that’s a terrible nickname. your name is far from wendy,” he says, with unabashed distaste, mostly because he’s always preferred her name more than anyone else’s ( even his own ). 

so he laughs harder when she hits him, and notes, with regretful clarity, that she’s started to hit harder. she’s grown up. but her hand feels the same, and he reaches for it before she can pull it back, hoping to hold it still, and doesn’t think about why he’s holding on still.

“jesus christ, cee,” another nickname, another time, and this time, they’re back in highschool, and he’s fending girls off of marceline, because they’re sure to get hurt before she can even obtain a bruise herself. “speak of the devil and she shall appear!” they’re speaking in tongues, now, and he holds on and holds on, and her hand is so warm, and he remembers that, at the very least. something in him jumps, and wants to pull away; he’s too tired to do that, too, so instead he lets go, as he always does, and holds out his arm instead. “she’d be terrified if she saw this,” he says, referring to the markings there, multiple, now, and more than his mother has allowed. “or maybe she’d think i’m mafia. either way – whatever gets her to avoid me forever is fine by me!”

marceline runs a hand over her scalp and the end of her ponytail. “hellions roll some strong shit, hey?” blame my head on this drug, the haze on the substance, the way my mind slants sideways until it passes all the way off the fucking shelf and into the depths i try to bury on the inebriation. it’s the weed, god, the alcohol, shit, fuck. the pink, fleshy insides of her brain fall off their perch and smash against the hard sculpt of her skull, squishing flat before starting to reshape into sentient, moving puppets of their past. she fixes the upper layer of her suit and swallows the question do you think i look pretty? it settles in her stomach like a mean black stone and her head spins.

her neck turns and her gaze offers jaewon terrible, terrible fondness as he palms and labels an old nickname not good enough. “you’re right.” she concedes with lilt, intoning his fact-checking is obvious but endearing. “but i couldn’t just go and let him call me seelie anything.”

his skin is so soft and she’s so, so sorry that she can’t stop her eyes from dipping over his abdomen, a smooth water-drop roll from collarbone to hips. there’s more muscle than ever before, though she can hear his younger voice defending the leanness of his shape. it’s their first time colliding tonight but she doesn’t have to have been standing with him to know how many girls had stretched their imaginative selves like film over the sculpt of his body.

their hands are together and somewhere there’s a glass breaking and the house screams. marceline hears nothing. her heart sweats, puts its hands over its ears. she looks at their fingers and feels gold molt down her throat, pausing her speech until it slides into her stomach and turns to gilded butterflies. she wants to ask forgiveness for whatever this is. 

but then her grin is window-wide, playfulness coming in and out like air because jaewon is safe, so safe, even when he wracks her with fright it can’t survive. “shh!” she inhales, gasps, uses her free hand to messily cup over his mouth. “don’t you dare. she is a - no, you listen - she is a fine woman, jung jaewon, and you could do a lot worse than miss toni. i hope she finds you again.” her body turns to the street, mouth to the sky: “TONI -” she calls a girl that’s not there to make him laugh, to play this like a wrestling game because they’re not supposed to spar in bathing suits on a college porch. her eyes slate on him and her mouth stands open in the jovial threat of calling louder, like she might just summon the strange girl into existence.

“if we were still fooling around, i wouldn’t be studying right now.” he’s quick to throw an answer back, furtively enjoying the way both of them can dip their fingers into the waters of a testing friendship without making anything horrendously awkward. then again they’ve always clicked even if they’re so, so different. nothing like two peas in a pod, yet fitting together, much akin to a perfect puzzle. he hums appreciatively. “mm. you’ll have to stop doing that soon.” 

jiheon laughs though, fixes their positions again so that she settles much more comfortably into his lap. he runs a hand through her hair, twirling a strand between his index finger and thumb. “i can’t help it. biology makes me cranky.”

he’s not really sure what to do when she looks so proud of herself over something like turning a page, so he kind of .. gives her a round of applause at her accomplishment. “the best.” he presses a kiss against her shoulder, mouth curving in an amused smile. “what would i do without you?”

touché.

marceline laughs, mouth split open at the surprise effect of his rebuttal. “fair enough.” she tucks a finger against the place his cheek dimples, holding his chin briefly. “it’s a good thing i let you go, huh? you’d never be graduating otherwise.” in good will, the girl seems to consider putting her teeth away, “or i could just sit here and give you hickies. that sounds like more fun, doesn’t it? then i could really get people to believe we’re dating.”

it’s easy, soft affection with only attention behind it, and it becomes a kindness to their bodies. it’s so wonderfully nice to have warmness to turn to without expectation, judgement, fear. marceline turns an arm under and around his to stroke idly at his bicep and shoulder. “so stop studying biology.” she says simply, with the luxe apathy of a girl whose future-decisions are still stiff and strong.

she’s being facetious, a pretend dim-witted showgirl proud of her reveal of board letters, but his reaction turns her smile true. “probably stay stuck on the same page forever. wasting away with limited knowledge and nobody with the panache to properly take you from 252 to 253.” her arms go up behind her, over jiheon, to grasp the hood of his sweatshirt and pull it over his head. she uses enough force to push him down with it, so he grows closer to her. she extends up enough to return his chaste kiss on his jaw before letting go. “but i’ll always be here.”

she lets him have silence for a few more minutes before breaking that across her knee.

he wants to fall again into the ocean: return to the breathless closeness, the gasping for breath, and every excuse to hold onto her hand. he laughs but doesn’t deny her claim; he can hardly remember, but he’s getting better at it. there are fragments of memory that he’d rather recall than the ones that stab at his dreams, even when the ghost of his sins has long since left. and maybe he has every reason to do the same, now, but they’re all terrible, selfish ones, and jaewon returns to drowning in his own way. she forgives him for his transgressions, and it feels like condemnation, like another burden, and this, too, is one he wishes to have forgotten. (  he should’ve stayed drunk. )

“i’m glad you enjoyed watching me fall off my surfboard,” he jokes, but is grateful nonetheless for her effort to lighten his shoulders – where else, and from whom, will he get this sort of weightlessness? something inside him glows, and it’s not the same soft fire; now it’s angrier, more regretful, and he puts another lid, another jar, another thing to try and kill it, and hopes to god that time will make it turn to ash. 

“hey! –,” because he remembers, “to be fair, he only caught us once. your dad might as well think i’m your brother, so i don’t think he wouldn’t have minded if he caught us a second time.” and it might be that she thinks of him that way, too, and it’s killed so many things, but it hasn’t stopped feeling like the dull thrum of a worn-out beat. “and if it had been andrew lin, your dad would’ve made me chase the guy out myself. you know that boy has no spine. like…literally – what could he do? something with rubber.” boy, like he wasn’t one, at one point. “andrew lin was never as bad as – what’s her name– toni? wacky toni, you remember her?”

“well i didn’t know you were coming -- the surprise makes the falling all the more exciting.”

everything about that night is pieces and wholes, details tucked into a locket and a picture painted on the back of her eyelids. she remembers a rose-coloured sky and green, thick bottles of warm champagne, sand turning their bare feet into sand paper, rubbing them together anyways; that blue-and-white striped towel looking grey as the morning light came. the way they huddled together up the beach and into the house, damp and dirty and exhausted, only stopping to wash their feet in warm water before climbing onto the balcony. the moment she thought the world was end-beginning and he was a sunrise. 

she laughs and its real, whole, tastes like the night they’re conjuring with cushions thrown haphazardly over jaewon’s exposed body on the pool deck. “oh, he would’ve cared the second time. twice is too much skinny ass for him to see racing out of his hot tub.” and maybe that’s how he feels about them, brother to something slight and un-grown, but her heart is a wild beast and her ribs are cages it wants to escape. “please. i know you like to think you’re essential to the zhao family operation,” you are. “but he would’ve loved to have knocked that boys teeth in himself. now, maybe, he’d let you do it -- getting kinda soft in his old age.” she spreads her lips open because it’s a joke he can unlock by memory. zhao chen is a tooth in the eye of god, sharp no matter the day. “he could stretch,” she corrects. “like, elasticity. used to be kinda fun though - he’d help me do it myself, ‘till i almost got better than him. called me ‘bendy wendy’ for a while.”

she sighs, and it has no edges. just frothy, kind dew.

the stars align in all important events, and one day, it might allow him to restart, and return to sometime when the thing in his chest hasn’t began to rot with time. he isn’t the only one who can touch things and make them go away ( and he’s done it before ) ; it just hurts more, he thinks, when he’s on the receiving end of what he can do. perhaps, if they weren’t so close, he wouldn’t have destroyed what they’ve been, what they could’ve been, and everything else that comes after silences that shouldn’t have existed between them.

so he laughs, because it’s all he can do when he feels that familiar twist, an old kind, the one he keeps safely tucked in all wrong parts of his bones. it rattles around, this laugh, and sounds a little too empty, so he drinks, takes a long swig so whatever it is, it’ll drown somewhere at the bottom of a bottle. 

“oh, please,” he says, and ignores the usual hooting and yelling, “if you’re old, then i’m a dinosaur. oh, to be young again.” he doesn’t look at his youth beside him. they’ve grown up, and she’s in his grown-up space, she said, and this space isn’t one that allows anything between them to thrive. there’s too much, too often, and not enough; he’s never been good at letting things grow, and helping things live. whatever they have isn’t some stray he can pick up from the street. “i recall being able to stay on my board for five seconds. you probably couldn’t beat my record then,” he jibes, and they both know this probably isn’t true, but he says it anyway, and laughs all the same, and ends with something like a sigh.

“why didn’t we?” it spills out of him, and it begins here, and he swallows another fountain of alcohol, and lets it coat his mouth first. “i think – uh – i had to go back to class, then. i don’t think i ever said sorry for leaving so soon.” for leaving at all. he looks at her, apologetic without meaning to, and the ghost of something entirely different passes over his face, and disappears again. “but if i did, your dad would’ve killed me. us old adults are bad influence for you young’uns.”

it’s hard enough to be here, now, pretending to be a new version of her and an updated version of him, without their past. he’s still so kind it makes her ache, so handsome the moon peeks out a little further to slant its light across more of his body. marceline knows the feeling. she wonders where jennie is.

-- and it’s even worse that he wants to be the them they were (still are?) collecting remembrances like pearls and stringing them out on a chain between them. let that girl die, something inside her screams. the one that waited for him when he was already right there and unable to give you everything you wanted. but she’s tried killing that girl before. the knife always goes straight through. “yeah -” she chortles instead, eyes opening and eyebrows raising, pretending now to feel gardens open inside her. “you got to five seconds maybe once. i had to stay on two feet to make sure you didn’t drown.”

why didn’t we?

she wants something to do with her hands, her mouth. another spliff, a bottle. there’s nothing so she slides her tongue out and over her lips. she lapses into english out of habit, back into their world, just them, private from anyone else. “dunno.” you left. “it’s okay.” i wish you hadn’t. “i had family stuff to do all that week anyway, it’s no big deal. i probably would’ve been too busy to hang out much.” how might things be different if -- he looks down so she looks up, and god she thinks she’s reading tea leaves trying to guess his expression, but she looks anyway. her smile is soft, a reassurance. something else entirely. “it was still my favourite birthday.”

“worse than this one? why, you trouble-maker, you.” he laughs at their silliness. some things remain a remnant of their youth, and he remembers more than he should, thinks of something more than he’s allowed to. instead, he’s careful, and closes his eyes, and pretends that his mind is somewhere far away, where his heart doesn’t rest. he doesn’t have to be sober to regret so many things, and there’s only so much he can carry around before he gets tired. 

face turned upwards, he imagines they’re back home again: their own private beach, and their pools and their balconies and perfect views. he remembers how the expanse of nothingness at night glitters with the light of a party, and when he opens his eyes again, it’s because of the weight against his shoulder grounding him back to the present. 

“i’ve gotten used to it,” he replies, and ignores her earlier inquiry. there’s much to be said about jaewon, but he can’t lie to marceline very well. it’s parties like these where people lose themselves, and jaewon is afraid, more than anything, that the control he’s so carefully maintained over himself will spill over, and slip out of his gloves, and remove the world because he hadn’t been careful. ( but he doesn’t move away. ) 

he glances over at her instead, this girl-turned-woman, and smiles again. “we’ve been to a lot of parties together, marc. remember your 16th?” because it’s the first thing that comes to mind, and the night, just like then, reminds him of the cracked-up upturned cage in him, and the fire that licks at his bones. “we lasted so much longer. until sunrise, if i remember correctly.”

it’s perception or it’s a knowledge of him, and there’s a difference. he doesn’t answer, and her gaze glosses him in concern. god knows he carries fireflies around in him to make him glow; there are ghosts in there, too. 

“mmm,” she hums instead of asking what’s wrong, because that’s not a story for right now, with their bodies laid bare and open with so many people around. it’s repetition, knowing he wouldn’t tell her anyway, but her words soften around the edges in an attempt to knit comfort together. “should i go in their and embarrass you then? get really drunk and start calling for you? or should i go straight to the story of your exit at jimmy fischer’s year end party.”

everything inside the madhouse is lost in short-term memory when the long-term lies before him ( and for so long ), and he doesn’t dare touch past the hazy outlines of everything, just in case the madness follows him here. they’ve been to countless parties before, but never like this: around people they haven’t known for years, in a place both of them have come to escape the one place they always find themselves returning to. there’s a slow kind of burn, and he attributes the gradual rise in temperature to previous shenanigans and wildness, and thinks that everything that swims in his vision can be fixed if he calms down enough.

being around her does everything, all at once, and he finds himself smiling, finds his heart aching less, his lungs expanding to give it room to give.

suddenly he’s conscious about his hair, and tries to brush it back, even when he laughs, and hopes that the expression on his face is more put-together than the mess he’s become. “i hope the scheming is going well,” he tells her in good faith, bowing his head as if to acknowledge the power people might not have acknowledged today; it’s the least he can do. 

he hums, too, and looks up at the moon. there’s a lot of everything he’s never said, and knows that he never will, but instead, he says something else, “any alphas give you trouble tonight?” because he’ll always fall back on this when he’s lost, always protect her, always give her his attention and take away all his fun from the festivities if it means giving her back any enjoyment she might have lost in coming here. “i know you can take care of them, but…old habits die hard, y’know?”

i wish you wouldn’t, she thinks as he pushes his hair back without thinking about what she means. i wish you wouldn’t try and fix your hair. i wish you wouldn’t try and smoothen your delightful mess. i wish you wouldn’t come to me alone and beautiful as you are. i wish you wouldn’t.

“ah, yes,” she nods, exaggerated emphatic gesture. “you should hear our plans for the eclipse. it’s going to be a riot.” her eyebrows rise and fall with a chuckle, turning around to face the open span of gumi and lean on her elbows. she looks over at jaewon, thinks about how similar a background this could be to the summers they used to know if she forgets about the screaming in the background and the cheap vibration of the floors around her. thinks about how he looks the exact same, only moreso. 

@rmarceline

some cacophony or another later and jaewon is a drunk mess. he might’ve played too much beer pong ( and lost ), or got himself in a drinking game ( or two, or three ), but who can blame him? it’s a pre-requisite of being a dog, a hound, a more acceptable kind of monster: the kind that smiles and makes friends and pats the backs of others in passing, and wears gloves to keep the real kind of enemy from seeping into anyone else’s skin. and he passes by them all, one by one, drinks and laughter and sharp words barked at each other in a series of unfortunate words, until he finds himself stumbling outside with the ghost of a laugh hardly-swallowed.

and this is where he finds her again.

he could have sat anywhere, but he decides to be next to her. ( he always does. ) there’s no drink in his hand, now. not anymore. his lungs have been begging for reprieve, and when he situates himself by her side, his hands are flat against either side of him – on the spaces where she isn’t – and he looks at her with all the familiar comfort of a fresh breath of air.

and they make a fucking mess of this goddamn castle.

it’s sloppier than the parties she’s used to; a concession, she thinks, to the kind of boys playing host: like a dog growing to resemble its owner, the party is shaped like its men. or vice versa. it doesn’t particularly matter. she steps outside with a group of hellions for the promise of a joint, comradery formed while the paper and kush burns down. hellions always have the best weed, and while the especially drunk ones lose hold of their propriety enough to stare at the floral appliqué of her bodysuit and the breasts beneath them, largely they’re fine company for a smoke. the group dissipates as the joint burns down, but marceline remains outside, grateful for small reliefs and slight silences. there’s a voice and a boy coming into the darkness and he’s the kindest ghost she’s ever seen. marceline smiles, the world around her warm-hazy.