#mrefic

His best shirt is stifling—his mom had insisted on him wearing a bowtie like some kind of fucking faux-hipster—and as another wave of semi-drunken cheers erupt from the living room, Mark sighs dramatically at being trapped in his own damn room, and buries his head in the pillow.

"Oh, Mark," his mom says, when she opens the door. Her cheeks are flushed with happiness and rice wine, but she still manages a show of disappointment. "Your hair, dimsum."

"Mom!" Mark hisses, because Eric, only his favourite cousin in the entire world, and another boy are standing behind her with equal expressions of twisted delight. He pets his hair down, or at least tries to, and tries not to look as red as he feels.

She waves her hand dismissively, introduces the new boy as Jackson, and tells Eric to 'take care of them, please, you boys have so much to talk about', as if he and Jackson are toddlers in need of babysitting. Which, okay, point, given that Mark all but flew upstairs after his experience with Auntie Huang, and that Jackson looks like he's All Kinds of Trouble.

He hides behind his fringe, suddenly hating his impulsive decision to dye it dark red, and hugs the pillow to his chest, sighing when Eric comes to sit next to him. He hasn't seen Eric in a couple of years because the older boy's been off enjoying his college years in Boston. They used to see each other almost every summer before that; Mark has half a shelf dedicated to photos and mementos from back then.

It's—awkward, now. Mark's grown about a foot since they last saw each other, dyed his dumb hair red, fallen in and out of love with an older girl at the local ice-cream store, and taken up volleyball. Eric's hair's brown now, he's wearing geek-chic glasses, and his bowtie actually looks like it suits him instead of being a strangulation device of shitty poser-ness. Eric is cool, always has been, a ladies-man without being a player, smart, talented, everything Mark's wanted to be since he was seven and twelve-year-old Eric showed up at his house with the newest Pokemon game.

"Auntie says you're into sports now," Eric says, smiling gently. His voice takes Mark back to seaside escapades for a moment. A Polaroid shot of them drawing maths equations in the sand catches Mark's eye—the last trip they went on together, just them, just after Eric got his driver's licence.

"Yeah, uh, volleyball? And I've started learning skateboarding, uhm. Yeah." God, he sounds like such a dork.

"Volleyball's kind of wussy," Jackson pipes up. Mark glares at him, because one, volleyball's not wussy; and two, no one asked his opinion anyway. Mark tells him that, uncaring if he's being rude for once, because it's his room, goddamn it, and he's tired of people assuming that volleyball's just a game for hot girls in bikinis.

The other boy simply flings a cheeky grin back, and leans against Mark's desk. He's peering at the photos pinned to the corkboard on the wall, looking like he's holding back more snarky judgements of Mark's life.

"Do you know him?" Mark turns back to Eric almost savagely. Objectively, he knows that he's kinda old to be a little shit, but whatever. Teenage hormones and all that. The noise from downstairs is getting even louder; a part of Mark's brain wants to place an anonymous call to the police out of spite.

"Nah, we got to talking downstairs about Hong Kong and Beijing and your mom brought us up here," Eric replies, smiling. He pats Mark on the shoulder and the younger boy feels himself relax. "Jackson's pretty cool though; apparently he's good at fencing or something."

"Hey, I'm not 'good' at fencing, Nam," Jackson says. "I'm fantastic. Generally speaking, but especially when it comes to fencing. And basketball. You could say," he smirks, arms wide open, "that I'm fantastic, baby."