"I don't get nervous around people, not overly nervous and definitely not for no good reason. This doesn't make me nervous in the slightest." Mark says to himself, the music mixing with poor singing and managing to escape the confines of the karaoke rooms. "I can't connect with most people, I'm too detached, for most it's not worth it and I'm more than fine with that. I can admit that and I can also admit I don't like making the effort. He knows." Rattling the last of his drink in the glass bottle before finishing it off, Mark uses his ability to make sure it finds its way into the trash. "Imagine trying to force together wrong pieces of a jigsaw puzzle. I showed up anyway. That's got to mean something, right?"
"Have I missed your song?" A sweet voice asks, approaching Mark as he sits off to the side of the karaoke rooms, "No, I was just about to head out actually..." Mark pauses, not having an inkling of what her name could possibly be, "I'm Tess."
"Mark--" Before he can finish she interrupts, "I know. We've met. Three times."
Mark mumbles out an apology that is again stopped before it can be completed, "How about you apologize by buying me something to drink?" She suggests, a coy smile taking shape at the edges of her lips.
"Of course." Mark mumbles, shifting in his seat to find his wallet in a back pocket and then pulling out a note. "Its old fashioned but they should still accept cash." Holding his hand out, the crumpled up note poking upwards.
Taken aback for a moment, Tess shakes her head slightly to go along with the sour look now encompassing her face, "Never mind. Goodnight."
"I'm not an idiot. I've learnt some things from Anthony, he can get along with rabid hungry dogs if it came down to it. But I'm done with trying to force this kind of thing, it dissolves into trying to fill silences too fast. I avoid it now, well not entirely." Valentina coming to mind.
"She said a few days, I haven't seen her in a week." Mark mutters before Anthony interrupts, "What'd you do?" He asks, his face flushed and speech slurred, "Tess wouldn't shut up about you now she's eyeing some random tag along. Apparently she has a type." Anthony giggling to himself.
"I didn't do anything.." Sliding into the seat beside Mark, Anthony whispers in the direction of his ear loudly, "I'm talking to somebody.. I think its love at first sight for me, I can't stop thinking of her."
"There's no such thing, you just think she's pretty," Before Anthony can properly protest Mark cuts back in, "You said the same about Alicia."
"Things were different with Alic-- her.. She liked someone else but now I'm an awakener too. Awakening was the best thing to ever happen to me man. I wish you could feel how I feel all the time, It's the best man. I think I might have been isekaied or something--"
"It loses its novelty." Mark mumbles, Scott not hearing or caring, continuing with his random, floundering thoughts that he just cant seem to keep inside.
Drowning out his friends ramblings, Mark glances over in the direction of the karaoke rooms and holds it momentarily before looking back towards his now practically snoring friend and a thought comes to mind and persists, "Why would you do this to me? When did you become so selfish?"
Borrowing a pen and a sticky note from the front desk, Mark sticks a note to his friends forehead and writes his address on it before smuggling him back into the karaoke room under the cover of a terrible rendition of a overplayed and much too early Christmas song.
"I can't feel cold," Mark thinks as he opens his hand to the rough night wind blowing against him, "You don't know what you'll miss until its gone I suppose. I wouldn't change much of anything though."
Turning the corner, a handful of figures bicker among each other, only recognizing his half conscious brother as he comes up directly behind them, "What're you doing?" He asks the one holding Scott up.
"We're just trying to figure out which one is our friends place." Scott's friend answers, taking a step back. "You're not even on the right street." Mark answers to their confusion, "How would you know?"
Pointing towards Scott Mark gives his answer, "He's my brother." A few of the friends whisper to one another before a collective, "Brother?" forms.
"They kinda do look alike." One whispers and the friend holding him up hands him over much too eagerly. "He only had a mouth full to try it. We all did. He's an ultra light weight." Now seeing the two next to one another he cant help but continue, "Brothers, huh? Weird."
Waking up, cheek on his big brothers shoulder, Scott almost tilts all the way off of his back. "Awake?" Mark asks sarcastically.
"Put me down." Scott orders, resting his head back down on the opposite shoulder. "Good party, huh?"
"We were celebrating--" Interrupting himself with a yawn, "We had our awakening 'probability' read." Scott mumbles, forgetting a word in the process.
"Really, good news then?" Mark asks as he pushes his brother further up his back again, "Eighty three percent. I'm definitely awakening.. Then they'll stop caring about you so much more.."
"I've not spoken to Anthony in three days. That's not unusual especially now. He wants to integrate me into what he's building now so he guilt trips me into eating lunch with him and his friends every couple of days. They choose awkward places so I end up wondering around." Walking across a mostly isolated pocket of school yard, voices emanate from an awkward little dead end carved into the building itself.
"Just leave before I let him convince you." A stern but sympathetic voice commands followed by a couple of other students making a break for it seemingly out of nowhere.
Coming up to where the voices just were, Mark stops to stare. Familiar-ish faces greeting him, Andrew and Robbie the two wrecking balls with a handful of others. Andrew lifts a finger, sparking a fire from his finger to light a cigarette before spotting Mark. "The fuck you want?" He shouts to no response, Mark only holding the stare for a couple more seconds before carrying on.
"I don't want to have lunch with his friends so I haven't been going. Anthony hasn't brought it up so I guess he doesn't really care. I'll go to the connector again."
"I missed a class." Mark thinks as he checks the time on his phone, "It was only Aptitude but I'll be getting an earful tonight anyway." Opening his phone, he flicks onto the gallery and to the picture he and Valentina had taken the first time they talked.
"She's a busy person but.. I'm disappointed we haven't been able to talk or just sit, I don't mind sitting while she reads."
"Hold up." Mark calls out as he catches up to Anthony between classes, "Are we hanging out later? I'll come over to your place if we are."
"I cant, I have plans with everybody. Maybe another time?" Anthony says, the two moving out of the way of the wave of students pummelling down the corridors.
"Well I could go along, we've not hung out in a while so.." Mark suggests despite sounding as if he were dreading the idea of it all.
"No, I don't think that's a good idea." Anthony pauses, making sure to choose the right words, "I was wrong for pushing all of this onto you. I'm sorry. It did nothing but make things strange for everybody so you don't have to force yourself into anything anymore. I'll message you when I'm free and we can hang out, just the two of us. I've gotta go my class is on the other side of the building." Anthony finishes, a smile stretching across his face.
"Alright, see you later." Mark says, his face unchanging from what he wore at the start of their conversation.
"Yeah, man. See you later." His smile somehow growing from what it was earlier, unable to hide his relief. Parting with a quick two taps on the arm Anthony leaves Mark behind who wastes no time swiftly parting in the opposite direction.
"Strange for everybody?" Mark thinks aloud only for his blaring music to drown out his words, his head atop a thick hardback book which itself is laying on his desk.
Sitting up he continues, only silently this time around, "Did I mess up? What was strange for everybody?" Rummaging through his brain to find the last time he hung out with them all, Mark comes up empty, "I did nothing. I sat off to the side, didn't bother anybody and only ended up speaking with Anthony. Ahhh I don't care. I was avoiding it anyway but.. it's like I've been pushed aside. Like I failed something."
"Yeah, I don't care. When push comes to shove I got what I wanted, why bother reading into it. I have other things to do. The Wind Manipulation is coming along nicely but I want to perfect this before going all in on that." Pulling one of the few empty cola cans closer, Mark claws three of his fingers, the index and both of its neighbours, leaving the can hovering and his clawed hand floating in front of it.
"Opening the middle of the can and leaving the rest unaffected, that's the goal. Easier said than done, much easier. The metal is so thin that trying to tear it open without ripping the separating points is almost impossible. Most of the time I end up exerting too much force and the entire thing ends up crumbling in on itself and when that doesn't happen I mangle the can."
Rotating his wrist holding the clawed fingers, the metal begins to neatly tear away from itself. Dulled guitar, fading singing and suddenly incredibly prominent, poorly timed drumming until Scott has enough of banging and allows himself in.
"Hello? What're you doing?" The suddenly crushed can hits the edge of the desk before falling to the floor, "Nothing, what's up?" Mark asks, turning off the music and slowly raising the can to his hand then placing it in the trash.
"Food." Scott answers bluntly, shutting the door as soon as the word leaves his mouth. The sound of dust hitting the back of the desk catching Marks attention all of a sudden.
"Crap, he distracted me.." Marks thinks as he stares eye to eye with a newly formed hole in the wall, powdered brick now pooling. "I'll fix it. Sometime."