［ house of cards. ］

[ eight encounters 3/4 ]

❧

The collective liquid of blood, sweat and rain soaked the shirts of two young men sprinting down the nearly deserted streetwalks of the city. Their hands were linked together, never letting go.

The long ebony black hair of the man taking the lead whipped furiously against the wind, along with the ends of the black sweater clinging onto his right shoulder. The bloodstains were evident on the white shirt underneath it, and some drops were splattered on his face. He wished to find somewhere where they both can wash the blood off together. Right now would be best.

It was official. He and his friend-crush are now criminals.

His stomach lurched horribly, yet he continued his fast pace. At a quiet night like this, their breaths were like a tune only they are familiar with. Despite his stomachache, his face spelt anything but guilt. He started to wonder whether some part of him was crazy or not.

Rewind two and a half hours ago, and the same man with ebony black hair tied into a half-up half-down found himself stepping inside the house of his college friend's friend's birthday party. It was complicated how he managed to drag himself to attend a party; he was horribly bad with people and socializing, but he only came because his friend begged him to come. So he did, although he was practically invisible to everyone around him.

He slightly regretted giving in that easily to his friend's pleas, but his eyes brightened faintly when he saw someone else also minding his own business in the party.

Sitting on the bar counter with one leg dangling off the table, a man the same age as him stared blankly into his drinking cup as if he was questioning his entire existence. His black tank top was visible underneath his oversized white sweater, which had the sentence "fuck this shit but i still do it" in medium print at the center of the shirt. Everytime someone with a drink went closer to him, he would cover his ripped-jeans clad legs with his black sweater and give them some sort of stare.

It was the last week of everyone's college days, so no one really cared about what's really happening around them. All they know is that they can now finally break free from studies, that they can literally cause any havoc and not even be clear-headed about it, and that they just want the edgy sweater-clad young man to get out of the house as soon as possible because he was such an eyesore.

But to the other young man, he thought that this edgy person was something else. Better than an eyesore. But he knew no one would understand or even listen about it.

He went up to him and, surprisingly, they started conversing. Actually, it wasn't really much of a surprise since they were closet best friends, but no one really knew. They met three years ago when they both started attending college. And yet until now, the edgy teen he met back then was still as edgy as ever. That is, if people looked at him face-wise. Personality wise, he underwent a lot of change.

Although, despite knowing a bit of each other, both of them still hold their own secrets they didn't want to reveal so soon. For instance, the ravenette flat-out has one-sided feelings for him but his cool facial features wouldn't let it slip out one bit. But through sipping soda, small talk and giving no single fucks to other people around them, they had the same desire in mind -

That they both wished for the party to end already.

The man remembered how he felt at that moment. His head throbbed like mad, and everything that was happening around him became blurred out. It was as if all of the events that has ever occured in his life, like his horrible middle-school days or his shitty college system, had swirled into a mixture of overall negative feelings accumulated in his life.