Aftertaste × CH

Aftertaste

"Every now and then, the stars align."

This was tattooed on Calum's left bicep.

Boy and girl meet by the great design, Calum found himself reciting in his head every morning, right as he awoke, after reading the first part, the one inked onto him.

She had a Lana Del Rey song for every lover she ever had. And she had labeled Calum as her Lucky Ones lover. The tattoos they got together proved it. And for a time, he believed they were really lucky, but she convinced him otherwise when she left and broke his heart.

This second part that he recited was inked right under her left breast, in a semicircle, following the curvature of her chest. This irked Calum because he constantly worried about who else might be kissing her stained skin now. He knew her new fling was labeled her National Anthem lover, so he was American is all Calum could conclude, and possibly very loaded.

Ashton and his girlfriend, Lea, could be heard arguing downstairs. Or maybe not arguing, but loudly talking to each other. Calum could never really make it out because both of them were always loud people.

He spent the next fifteen minutes staring at his tattoo. His digital alarm clock rang three times at five minute intervals, but he refused to move and switch it off, so he just let it ring.

The next thing he heard, once the ringing had stopped, was banging that came from the other side of the wall to his left.

Luke hated that alarm clock, and constantly regretted choosing the bedroom next to Calum's for this specific reason: it woke him up more than it woke Calum up.

When the banging stopped, Calum focused his gaze on the alarm clock and decided to get up and switch it off before it pissed Luke off even more than it already had. He took it out of the outlet, and the digital green numbers that previously displayed 9:30 disappeared.

Moving almost sloth-like, he yanked his light but warm duck-feather duvet from his person and sat up in bed. He rubbed his eyes, then slowly lay his feet on the hardwood floor and got up. The floor was cold, and his feet were freezing, but he made his way to the bathroom conveniently placed in his bedroom: the reason Calum had chosen this bedroom in the first place.

After brushing his teeth, and not making any effort with his hair, Calum put on some black sweats and a baby blue t-shirt he had worn the day before, which were lazily draped over his desk chair. He then left his room.

The closer he got to the downstairs kitchen, the more he could hear Ashton and Lea's conversation, and the more it sounded like a conversation rather than arguing, but it was a pretty close call.

"What should I have said then?" Lea said. Calum could tell that she was very close to getting angry. Her question was said sharply, and she sounded annoyed.

"Maybe nothing?" Ashton suggested. "How about that?"

"She's still my friend Ashton, I can't just ignore her." She never called Ashton by his full name; this was definitely a tense situation.

Calum stopped in the middle of the stairs, debating on whether to even walk into the kitchen. His stomach growled in reply.

"You've done a good job at ignoring her thus far." Ashton said, just as Calum walked into the kitchen.

Calum muttered a soft and groggy "good morning" as he walked between Ashton, who was standing, leaning against the counter, and Lea, who was sitting at the kitchen table and eating toast, or at least attempting to eat between sentences.

"I never ignored her," Lea said. "She just hasn't come by the house."

Calum opened one of the cupboards above the counter – the one they always kept the snacks and cereals in – and took out the purple box labeled Raisin Bran and put some in a bowl. It was her favorite breakfast cereal; Maybe this should have been his first red flag? Calum hated it, but he always found himself buying it again and again when he went to the supermarket.