The Good and the Bad (Septiplier)

Chapter 7 - The Park

Jack's Perspective:

The next day Jack went to first period and sat next to Mark like he always did. When he sat down Mark smiled at him, and he smiled at Mark back. The stare between them broke once the bell rang, but Jack continued smiling because he had convinced his parents that it wasn't his or Mark's fault that they got detention, which means that Mark and him would get to go to the park today. "Pst, Jack" he heard Mark say, and he looked over to him and replied, "Yeah?" Then Mark told him that he got the situation handled. Jack asked him how and he told him that his parents scheduled a meeting with the principal including him, his parents, Aaron, and David and his gang. That's when Jack's smile dropped. Mark noticed this and tried reassuring him by telling him that neither Jack nor his parents would be involved. Jack was only slightly relieved though, because that was only one of the reasons why he was upset. The other reason was that he was worried that despite the meeting, David and his gang and Aaron might still come after Mark and him. He told Mark this, and Mark told him to not worry, because he was 100% sure that David and his gang and Aaron would be expelled from the school after this, and that they would never have to deal with them ever again. Jack sighed and nodded, having faith in Mark's reasoning. Soon the class started and both Mark and Jack paid attention.

Jack went through the rest of the day excited for the park. He was constantly smiling all the time, and some students even started to stare at him. But he didn't care. He was too excited for his hangout with Mark after school today. Once the end of the day hit, Jack went to his locker and got his stuff, then shut the locker door and waited for Mark to show up. They had both agreed to meet by Jack's locker after school to go to the park. Jack was waiting for Mark by his locker when he suddenly remembered something. He remembered that he forgot to ask Mark when the meeting is. Jack figured he would just ask him when they met up though. Speaking of which, Mark came up to him 30 seconds after he remembered. "Hey Jack!" Mark said excitedly. Jack smiled and said hey calmly. Jack was excited but he didn't wanna be loud and embarrass himself in front of everyone like he did with his smiling all day. However, he noticed that people were already staring because of Mark being loud, so he just shrugged the looks off. "Welp, ready to go?" Mark asked, and Jack nodded and they started walking to the park, which was only half a mile away. "Oh yeah, by the way Mark" Jack started, "When is the meeting with everyone, I'm curious" he asked trying to not sound weird. "Oh, uh, I think it's on Monday after school" Mark answered, a little bit unsure. "Oh okay. Are you sure that I won't be involved?" Jack asked nervously. "Yeah, I'm definitely sure" Mark reassured him. Jack nodded and looked at the ground. Mark frowned and put his hand on Jack's back. They both stopped. Jack blushed slightly and looked up at Mark. Mark looked into Jack's eyes and said seriously, "Hey, look, I promise you won't get involved, okay? I specifically asked my mom to not involve you, and she told the principal to not involve you, so I promise you won't be involved, alright?" Mark finished. Jack's eyes shimmered, and he nodded and looked away, blushing some more. Mark removed his hand from Jack's back and put it in his pocket. They started walking again, both staring at the ground.

The rest of the walk to the park was silent, but once they got there, they both got excited again. "So, what do you wanna do?" Mark asked. Jack put his hand up to his face and tried to think of what to do. "Hmm... Well, the only place I can think of is chilling by the trees" Jack stated. Mark snickered. "Seriously?" he asked jokingly. Jack scrunched up his face. "Well, do you have a better idea? Were too big for the playground, and plus it would be embarrassing having all those parents staring at us" Jack said defensively. Mark chuckled. "Alright, fine, let's chill by the trees" Mark agreed, and Jack stopped scrunching his face and started walking towards the field of trees.

Mark and Jack walked around the field for about 10 minutes trying to find a good tree, but all of them were either taken, almost dead, or tiny and puny. Jack sighed. "Alright, I give up, I can't find any good trees" Jack said, dejected. Mark frowned and looked around some more, and then saw a tree out of the corner of his eye. He looked back and saw a beautiful big green leaved tree in the corner of the park. "Hey, how about that one?" Mark asked pointing to the tree. Jack gasped and his eyes lit up. "Yeah that's perfect!" Jack squealed and ran to the tree. Mark laughed and ran after him. The tree was farther away than they expected, so they were running for a long time. Once they got to the tree, they were both out of breath. They sat down under the big shady tree and wiped the sweat off their foreheads. "Wow, that was a lot of running" Mark said. "Yeah, you can say that again" Jack said, struggling to catch his breath. "Okay, that was a lot of running" Mark said jokingly. "No that's not what I meant!" Jack said and laughed. Mark chuckled and stared at the sky, and Jack stared at it too. Mark sighed, and Jack looked over at him concerned. "You okay?" he asked. Mark nodded and sighed again. "It's just..." Mark started but then looked at Jack. "Hey, can I tell you something?" Mark asked. Jack looked at him curiously. "Yeah of course. What's up?" Jack asked curiously. "Well, something you should know about me, is that I'm into space. Like, REALLY into space. And, I always like to look up at the sky, whether it's starry or not, and just look up into it and think, "the universe is SO big, and I'm just a tiny little spec in all of it" and, whenever I think that, I always like to daydream about going up into space, and exploring the different possible universes, and just looking at all the pretty things" Mark finished, looking up at the sky again. Jack smiled and looked up at the sky. "Yeah, I guess those are nice things to think about, just to get your mind off of the real world for a little bit" Jack agreed. Mark smiled. "Yeah, but, there's also another reason why I love space" He said. "Oh yeah? What is it?" Jack asked. "Well, there's something I should probably tell you first" Mark said hesitantly. Jack looked at him concerned. "Okay, what is it?" Jack asked. Mark sighed and said, "Well, my dad, isn't actually, my dad. He's my step dad" Mark said. Jack's eyes widened. "Wait, really?" he asked surprised. Mark nodded, and Jack could tell that he was trying to hold back tears. Jack then realised what had happened, and he suddenly felt really bad for Mark. "Oh, Mark, I'm so sorry" Jack said sadly, trying to comfort him. Mark sniffed, letting the tears run down his face. "No no, i-it's fine" he said, wiping the tears away. "It's just that, he gave me this game, called Homeworld, and I played it, and I enjoyed it, but I never really understood it, so I didn't appreciate it that much. But, when my dad died, I found the game in one of his shelves in his office, and I took it out, and started playing it again. And this time, I was actually old enough to understand the game, so I appreciated it more. And then, once I finished the game, I went out onto the driveway and I just laid down, and I stared at the stars, and I started having those thoughts" Mark finished, letting the tears run down his face again. Jack felt really bad for Mark so he decided to hug him. Then he tried comforting him again. "Mark, I'm so sorry your dad died. I really wish I could help you feel better somehow, but I don't know how" Jack said sadly, starting to now cry himself. Mark was surprised by Jack's action, but he decided to hug back anyway. "It's okay Jack, your presence here is just enough to make me feel better" Mark said smiling and wiping his tears away. Jack blushed and smiled, hugging Mark tighter. Mark released Jack from the hug and wiped Jack's tears away. "Hey, you don't have to cry too. I swear it's okay. You don't have to do anything more than just be here to make me feel better" Mark reassured Jack, making Jack softly smile and let out a faint, "Okay" before wiping the rest of his own tears away. Soon both of them were staring into each others eyes lovingly, but neither of them noticed the other's stare. Mark was staring into Jack's ocean blue eyes, and Jack was staring into Mark's chocolate brown eyes. They stayed like that for about 5 minutes straight, just admiring one another's mesmerizing pupils. After awhile, Jack was the first one to break the stare by noticing his own staring. He looked away, blushing, which caused Mark to notice his own staring as well, and do the same thing. They stayed in silence until Mark spoke up. "Um, so, what do you want to do next?" Mark asked, looking at the soft grassy ground. Jack looked up and then at his phone. The time read 3:00. "Well, we've still got about 2 and a half hours to hang out, so you wanna just walk around and talk?" Jack asked, shrugging. Mark nodded and got up. Jack got up too and they started walking.

Once they had found the sidewalk they just followed the path and started talking about random things. This lasted for a while until they decided to go back to the tree and sit down to rest their legs. "Wow, that was a lot of walking, I didn't even realize" Jack said, chuckling slightly. "Heh, yeah" Mark replied, staring at the ground, blushing lightly. Jack noticed him looking at the ground and asked what was wrong. Mark looked up at him, still blushing, which caused Jack to blush as well. "Jack," Mark started, reaching out his arm to hold Jack's hand. "I-I have to tell you something" he finished, looking at Jack with hope in his eyes. "W-what is it?" Jack asked holding Mark's hand and blushing as well. "I-I..." Mark started, hesitating, but then starting again. "I-I lo-" suddenly he was cut off by a phone ringing. It was Jack's. Jack let go of Mark's hand and took his phone out of his pocket. He answered it. "Hello? Oh, okay, Okay, yeah I'm coming. Okay, bye" Jack said, hanging up the phone and putting it back in his pocket. He stood up and told Mark that his mom was here to pick him up.
Mark looked at his phone and noticed that the time read 5:30. "O-okay. B-Bye Jack" Mark said, waving and then looking at the ground. "B-Bye" Jack responded and then walked away.

As he was walking to the car he was thinking about what Mark was going to say. "Was he actually going to say I love you?" Jack thought to himself. He shook his head, thinking that the thought was ridiculous. Jack saw his mom's car in the parking lot, and he tried to not look as deep in thought as he was. He got in the front seat and his mom started driving home.

The drive was silent like always, but that only lasted for about 5 minutes until Jack's mom decided to start up a conversation. "So, how was the park?" she asked. Jack snapped back into reality and replied. "Uh, it was good" he said blandly. "Okay, well, what did you two do?" She asked, trying to get more information out of him. Jack noticed this and tried to keep cool. So he just shrugged and said nothing much and that they just talked. His mom nodded and stayed silent, knowing now that she couldn't get any more information out of him.

Once they got back home they all ate dinner together silently and Jack went up to his room and shut the door. He lied on his bed, and looked at his phone, thinking about whether he should call Mark or not. However, he decided not to. He didn't want to bother him, so he put his phone down and charged it. Then got in his pajamas, brushed his teeth, said goodnight to his parents and went to bed. But before he went to sleep, he turned over and glanced at his phone one last time. He sighed and turned back over, and went to sleep.

Heyyyy I'm back y'all! Well, I hope you enjoyed this chapter, and I'm sorry it took so long to make. I honestly forgot that this story existed for a while and then when I finally remembered I started writing it again. Buuut then I got writers block for a while. But, honestly, I'm happy with this chapter. It's not as long as my last one, but I still think it's pretty good. Also yes your allowed to hate me for that ending and I'm not sorry for doing that 😈. But I promise you it will get better soon. And who knows, maybe it'll happen in the next chapter! Or maybe not, who knows! *insert maniacal laughter here* But anyways thank you guys so much for reading and I'll see all you lovelies in the next chapter!

*eats food cause I'm hungry and I want lunch*