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orellazalonia · 2 months ago

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Escape Room Chaos

Summary: You take Steve and Bucky to an escape room for a fun, relaxing evening, but things quickly spiral into chaos. Both somehow ignore the obvious clues in favor of dramatic theories and property damage. You’re just trying to survive until you can successfully escape without a lawsuit. (Steve Rogers x reader x Bucky Barnes)

Word Count: 1.6k+

Main Masterlist

You really should’ve known better.

The moment Bucky rolled up his sleeves and said “This’ll be easy,” you felt the first ripple of doom. You’d booked the escape room as a fun, harmless activity. Something like a little post-mission team bonding that didn’t involve hand-to-hand combat or collapsing buildings. You even picked a cheesy detective theme, thinking they’d enjoy something grounded and puzzle-y. Maybe even quiet.

You were wrong.

The three of you stood in the lobby of “The Great Escape,” surrounded by plastic magnifying glasses, dusty fedoras, and a suspiciously chipper staff member in suspenders and a fake mustache. She gave you the usual speech: 60 minutes to escape, no real danger, don’t break the props, yada yada.

Steve nodded solemnly like he was being briefed before an intense mission. Bucky? He crossed his arms and smirked. You could already tell his competitive switch had flipped.

The room itself was dimly lit and lined with fake wood panels. A ticking clock glowed red above the door while there were clues scattered everywhere ranging from files, books, old telephones, and even a fake fireplace. As soon as the door clicked shut behind you, Steve took a deep breath like he was about to deliver a speech at a press conference.

“We should split up to cover more ground. Look for patterns, numbers, keys. And be sure to keep a level head.”

You blinked. “It’s not a hostage situation, Cap.”

But Steve was already kneeling to inspect a lockbox with the intensity of a man deciphering enemy codes. Meanwhile, Bucky was tapping along the walls with the knuckles of his metal hand.

“Could be a hidden panel,” He muttered.

“Could be drywall,” You replied, dragging your palm down your face.

Ten minutes in, you had two clues solved and one increasingly serious argument about whether the bookshelf was a red herring or not. Bucky was now trying to climb it.

“James Buchanan Barnes, get down before you collapse the whole set!” You hissed.

He looked down, half-smirking. “It’s not real, doll. Look.” He gave it a little shove, just enough for it to creak ominously. You glared.

Steve, across the room, had located a cipher wheel and was mumbling to himself. “It’s gotta be a Caesar shift. Or maybe Morse code…”

“Steve, it’s literally a riddle that says ‘Look in the desk drawer,’” You pointed out, pulling it open and revealing a key taped inside.

He looked genuinely offended. “They’re dumbing it down.”

You exhaled through your nose. “Yes, they’re dumbing it down for people who aren’t 100-year-old super soldiers who do escape rooms like they’re battle strategy.”

By minute twenty, you were regretting everything. Steve had taken charge like a squad commander and Bucky had declared himself the “wildcard” of the team, which essentially meant “loose cannon with a metal arm and no patience.”

You were the only one actually reading the instructions on the wall.

By minute thirty, you’d reached the room’s second stage which was a secret chamber revealed when Bucky yanked on a wall sconce you definitely weren’t supposed to touch.

You all froze when the wall creaked and groaned like a bad horror movie. Then, with the slow drama of a B-grade haunted house, the panel slid open.

Steve actually clapped, cheering.

“I knew there was a hidden passage!”

“No, you didn’t,” You said, stepping cautiously inside. “You were still trying to decode that cipher wheel that said, ‘The butler did it.’”

The new room was darker with a desk, some faux-blood splatter, and a very questionable plastic skeleton slumped over a chair. Its skull was tilted sideways with a bowler hat perched on top of its head. There was also a magnifying glass clutched in one bony hand, and a suspicious envelope glued to its chest with “CLUE #6” scrawled across it in marker.

Steve stared at it. “I think we’re meant to… talk to him?”

Bucky narrowed his eyes. “Interrogate the corpse.”

You opened your mouth to say something, then thought better of it. You just took out your phone and started recording. For science… and for future blackmail.

Steve crouched beside the skeleton, folding his hands like he was addressing a witness. “We’re here to help. If you can tell us who killed you, we’ll bring them to justice.”

You bit your lip so hard trying not to laugh, you swore you tasted blood.

Bucky leaned over the desk and yanked the envelope from the skeleton’s chest.

Steve’s jaw tightened. “You’re contaminating the scene.”

“It’s a twenty dollar prop, Steve. I don’t think it’s going to trial.”

Then Bucky poked the skeleton’s head, making it fall off and clatter dramatically to the floor.

Everyone stared at it. Steve looked personally offended.

You raised an eyebrow. “Did you just decapitate our only lead?”

“It… it was barely hanging on anyway,” Bucky muttered, setting the skull back with exaggerated care. “These things happen.”

Steve knelt beside the fallen plastic remains, eyes full of regret. “He served his purpose. We thank him for his sacrifice.”

You threw your hands in the air. “It’s a skeleton, not a fallen comrade!”

The intercom crackled. “Hey guys,” The perky staff member’s voice rang out, “Just a reminder: Please don’t disassemble the props. Sir with the metal arm? Yes, you. Please don’t interrogate the decor.”

Bucky gave a small chuckle. Steve immediately stood at attention. “Sorry, ma’am.”

You looked between your two supersoldier boyfriends and the half-decapitated skeleton, then turned toward the camera in the corner and gave it a deadpan stare. “I just wanted a nice evening. That’s all. Just puzzles and maybe a little fun but no. Instead I get a dramatized cold case and two very intense golden retrievers with trauma.”

“Hey,” Bucky said with a shrug. “You’re the one who invited us.”

You squinted at him. “…You know what? That one’s on me.”

By minute forty-five, you were starting to suspect the real puzzle wasn’t the escape room. It was figuring out how you were going to survive this without needing a drink afterward. Bucky had taken it upon himself to test “structural weaknesses” in the fake brick walls. His version of “testing” was punching one lightly. With his metal arm.

The wall cracked and the room went silent.

From the intercom: “Please do not damage the set. Also, we are not responsible for injuries caused by over enthusiastic participation. Thank you!”

You turned on him like a storm. “What happened to ‘this’ll be easy’?”

“It is easy. The wall just looked suspicious,” Bucky replied, wiping fake cobwebs from his sleeve like a man with no regrets.

“It’s foam!” You yelled. “It’s suspicious because it’s clearly styrofoam!”

Steve, meanwhile, had discovered a locked chest with an old rotary phone on top. He was pacing in front of it like he was expecting it to ring with instructions from headquarters.

“I think it’s a code,” He murmured. “We dial something, and it opens. Maybe if we spell out a word using the numbers-”

“Steve,” You interrupted, pinching the bridge of your nose, “The clue literally says: ‘Dial 911 to unlock the final key.’ That’s not a code. That’s just instructions.”

Steve blinked. “Oh.”

He dialed 911 on the dusty phone. The chest popped open with a ding and a dramatic puff of dry ice that startled all three of you.

Inside was a black keycard and a note that said “Final door: 5 minutes remain.”

Bucky snatched the keycard. “Let’s finish this thing. I’ve got a hot date with a milkshake and a nap.”

Steve furrowed his brow. “We should think this carefully and plan. There could be traps in the last room.”

You looked between them and snorted. “What, like the staff’s gonna throw in a booby trap just to spice it up?”

“…They could,” Steve muttered. “It’d be unexpected, that’s good design.”

You made a mental note to ban both of them from anything resembling a mystery game for the rest of your natural life.

Then came The Moment.

You all stepped into the final room that was all dark with eerie music playing from a hidden speaker, and a blinking red countdown above the last door. Dramatic fog rolled out across the floor.

There was a button on the wall.

Just a red, glowing button with a sign above it that said:

“EMERGENCY ESCAPE – DO NOT PRESS UNLESS YOU GIVE UP.”

You hadn’t even opened your mouth to say “don’t” before Bucky pressed it. The room lights blared on and the music stopped. The countdown froze at 00:03 as you all stood in stunned silence.

The intercom crackled again.

“…So, you technically escaped, but also forfeited. That’s… a first.”

Bucky blinked. “What? It said emergency. I figured it’d blow something up. Or, like… open a trapdoor. Something dramatic.”

Steve looked personally betrayed. “We were three seconds away from winning with full completion.”

“You were still looking for tripwires,” You snapped. “I was reading the last clue. He just wanted to blow something up!”

Bucky looked sheepish. “You can’t give me a glowing red button and not expect me to press it. That’s on them.”

You stared at the ceiling like it might offer you divine intervention. “I invited two enhanced soldiers into a puzzle-themed children’s attraction. This is my fault. I accept that.”

As the final door clicked open and the staff came in to escort you out, one of them gave you a pitying smile.

“Hey,” She said brightly, “At least no one tried to climb into the air vents this time!”

You blinked. “Wait. That’s an option?”

Steve immediately looked intrigued.

You grabbed both their arms. “Nope. Out now. I’m buying you both ice cream so you don’t break anything else.”

#stucky x reader #stucky fic #stucky #steve rogers x bucky barnes x reader #bucky barnes x reader x steve rogers #steve rogers x reader #bucky barnes x reader #bucky barnes #steve rogers #marvel fic #marvel x reader

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riveredmoon · 12 days ago

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even when i slip away | c. kamo

pairing: choso kamo x gn!reader

synopsis: in a world where memories could be erased, choso clings to the pieces of a love he barely knew how to hold. even when you both forget — something in him remembers.

contents: modern au — inspired by the movie, non curse au, angst, post breakup grief, relationship troubles, altered reality, memory loss, themes of loss, longing and emotional isolation, suggestiveness, talk of medical procedures, no usage of yn or gender, quiet ending (open to your interpretation)

phy’s memory: this is my first complete writing piece for our cho! i hope i did his voice justice. i’ve really enjoyed writing this piece and i hope you enjoy reading it! :)

wc: 7K

italicized indicates flashback

“You don’t tell me things Choso.”

The sun is barely peeking above the horizon. The room is still dark besides the corner closest to the window — where your chair of miscellaneous things is. An opened book that wants to be closed, the words snuggling together in the safety of the book’s spine. The orange sweater you wore the first time you two met, the sleeves dipping into the slight touch of light filtering in.

The room is quiet besides your breathing and Choso’s fingers tapping on your thigh. He’s laying on his back — the palm further from you is gripping the sheets below. You’re lying next to him, hiked up on your elbow. He’s grateful for the position — his head could easily tuck into your armpit. The tips of your colored hair tickles his nose. He wants to wave it away, tuck that strand behind your ear but he thinks you’ll be too far away if he moved it.

“I’m an open book and you’re barely a bookmark.”

Your voice is tired, and understandably so. The clock on the bed side table is reading 5:34 am. The night was taken by your plight of hums and little conversations that couldn’t wait till morning. Your laughs inch Choso’s eyes open whenever he felt that he was drifting into a slumberland. One where your voice drifts away like a tide at the beach. So, he fought the tiredness to listen. To hear the real version.

“I like to listen to you.” He hums, his fingers near your thigh tapping in morse code. What is he saying? He doesn’t know. He almost never knows what to say to you.

“All my life that’s all people offer.” Your voice has this soft bitterness to it. Your chest heaving inwards when you let out a long exhale. He watches the way your heart beats against your chest from the corner of his eyes. The tank top you’re wearing is clashing with the dark that is seeping in from behind you but welcoming the warm light driving in.

“I want to be the listener. Especially when it comes to you.”

“Nothing I have in my life is interesting to talk about.” His hand is gripping the sheet below rather tightly. He hopes from your position you can’t see how white his knuckles are becoming. “The most interesting thing I have is…”

“Cho..”

“You.”

The room is quiet again. He turns his head, his face snuggling into your chest. He skips your eyes, but he feels then running along his face.

Without the words, he hopes you’ll read his body. The way his breathing chills whenever his body comes in contact with yours

“I don’t think constant talking is necessarily communicating.”

You don’t answer, not even offering him a hum. He smells your body wash, it’s etched into the threading of the sheets below and everytime you breathe, it washes off of you and over him.

He hears the clock’s hand tick by. You’re breathing stable, your hair now tickling his ear. His eyes are feeling heavy and he so badly wants you to lay your head on the pillow next to him — so that he can watch your eyes slowly droop as sleep takes over you as well. The streaming sunrise would give him the assist to see how your eye color looks in these hues of color.

“It is.”

You finally speak and once again Choso’s eyes fly open. His ears perk at your voice, trying to find any hidden meanings behind your tone or the words you chose to say to him.

Sleep is slipping out of his fingers the faster the sun merges in. The more you keep up with your need to tell him everything that passes through your mind.

“It’s about knowing what matters to you, Choso.”

The strand of hair tickling his ear feels more like a drill now. The presence of it isn’t comforting anymore. He raises his hand to swat it away.

“What makes you real.”

He feels you shift, his eyes focused on the beauty mark on your chest. The sunlight is now sparking on your soft skin. He almost wants to reach over and place a chaste peck on the mark. He hopes that it will turn you away from this conversation. He missed when you talked about the beach.

“What makes you mine.”

He’s now staring at your back. Your body quickly moves along with the beeline of light that’s shining in. Your breathing slowed, your back rising in a melody he has memorized.

He places the pillow he’s laying on over his head. Squeezing his eyes shut, one hand under his head, the other above the pillow. His leg carefully prods through the quilt, looking for yours. To let him know that you’re here.

That you’re his.

The box of things in his hands is heavy — and not physically but emotionally. The tension is obvious in his shoulders and how his feet are dragging through the slush. Last night’s snow is already being ruined by commuters — the white landscape now grey and even black on some sides of the street. Bootprints and tire marks act as signatures on the snow.

He wonders if you woke up excited to see the snow. Your eyes running to those rainbow mittens you wear as you run your hands among snow covered windows and trees. The white fluff falling at your feet like an offering to the gods.

Then he hears the gloves calling from the bottom of the box. Actually, you must have woke up angry. A rare emotion that sometimes comes in these huge waves that neither you nor him knew how to handle.

The colors mock him along with the other little debris of you rattling in the box. He wished you left even a smidge of something that wasn’t physical.

The smell of your body wash has faded over the months. His ears erased the tilt of your voice, the bass of your laugh, the sigh that would ease out of you and wash over him like a spotlight.

Instead, he has a box of your underwear, your gold rings that decorated every finger (besides the third finger on the left hand), mittens, a cookbook where you found the recipe you used for Yuji’s birthday cake last year. He hears the pictures in there flutter as a practically heavy gush of wind pushes him into the door that’s going to change everything.

You’re going to be out of his mind. You’re going to live a free person that doesn’t have an impending Choso shaped cloud raining over you. You made it look easy, this should be a piece of cake.

And he’ll be able to breathe — breathe in as hard as he wants without the want of your body wash to sneak into his airstream. He’ll sniff in the garbage he walks by without a daydream of your scent.

“Hello! How can we help you?” A white haired man greets Choso’s rigid body. The cold air that creeped in from behind him falling flat at the warmth of the man’s tone.

The room is stuffy. Other people sitting with teary eyes and heavy boxes on their laps. The last bit of memories slithering into their thighs hoping for another chance to be kept. To be felt. To be real.

He sways on his feet, his eyes not looking up at the other faces — at the start of life without you.

A picture of you and him has found its way on top. Your smile is bright, as you always were. He is standing behind you, his eyes on you, lips tucked into a slight grin, his hands on your hips — like you’re fragile.

You were. He must have forgotten that.

“I have an appointment, for the..” Choso cuts himself off. Eyes still on the picture, one of his hands coming from under the box to point to it.

His nose is still sniffing out, searching for your scent like a guard dog.

“Yes! Yes! You’re, let me check here…” Choso finally looks up. His feet are frozen, planted by the slush and dirty snow by the door. He can’t escape but he doesn’t think he could walk forward either.

“Choso Kamo?”

“Yeah, that’s me.” Choso’s voice is low. He feels his fingers gripping into the box with everything he has. Everything that still keeps him within your orbit — even if you decided to erase him from yours.

“Well, the doc is ready for ya!”

And there, Choso takes the first step. His eyes ignoring your bright smile. Ignoring the lady who’s holding a dog bowl while she weeps into a plaid collar. Just his legs are moving, arms screaming out in pain, and the snow slowly melting into the carpet below.

“So, you’ll be going through with the memory erasure procedure process.”

Choso is sitting in one of those uncomfortable hospital chairs. His leg hasn’t stopped bouncing since he sat down — the box heavy on his thighs, his arms still protectively wrapped around your mementos.

The room is warm, but uncomfortably so. The brown, peeling walls holding the heat in like a sauna. Stock photos plastered on the walls behind the desk where the doctor is sitting. He wonders if anyone left in the middle of the presentation. Taking their memories and pain, leaving their dignity (and hefty copayment since there are so refunds).

He could picture you here. Your fingers dancing along the chair’s armrest. Your voice would be steady, calm. Your legs would be still, the box containing his memories would have been filled to the brim with the things you wanted Choso to have.

Pages filled with those quiet words he just could never say out loud to you. Maybe you’ll throw your eardrums in there — in hope that you’ll finally hear what Choso had to say. Filling your memories with conversations that didn’t happen but tapped on his vocal chords and filled the blanks in the relationship.

“This little box of things would be compiled into a memory casket of sorts.”

Choso finally looks up at the doctor. Her long hair tucked behind her ears. Her eyes are distant, as if she’s done this a thousand times before. The qualms of heartbreak not affecting her in the slightest.

“So I’ll have access to it?” His eyes feel heavy, those pesky tears brimming on his lash line. The thought of having access to you when his mind isn’t going to know you causes a hole to push through his chest. He’s not sure if he is crying out of relief or fear.

Fear of not knowing you. Relief in leaving you behind, the way you did him.

“Not right away. No.”

Choso hums. Nodding his head towards her direction. His arms are hugging the box tighter. The doctor eyes his forearms around the box, her right eyebrow twitches in confusion.

“Before anything, I like to have my patients tell me about the subject they want to forget.” Her hand rummages through a desk drawer. “It’ll be recorded. So the memory lives, it just won’t haunt your everyday life.”

A recorder is placed in the middle of the table. Choso could only stare at the doctor’s nimble fingers pressing the buttons with ease. He wonders how a piece of metal could capture what is you.

Words don’t come easy for him, that much is true. That is why he is sitting here, why his brain is screaming, causing the headache of the day to beat through his temples. Why does he feel sand in his shoes despite it being a blizzard last night?

He thinks it’s a joke to sit here and think this box of things and this measly recorder could capture who you are. Not when you know languages and words he could never comprehend.

“Well they did this procedure. So I thought it’ll be fair to forget them as well.”

The back of the chair feels hotter than before now. The box once again becoming heavier, his thighs feeling the wrath from those mittens.

The doctor peeks up at him. He ignores the look, like how you ignored him when he went to “talk” to you last week. Your eyes looking him over with the stare you give a stranger who mumbles to themselves on the walk down the street.

“Forgetting indicates growth. Being forgotten indicates heartbreak. Two outcomes you can’t steer from while living.”

“I didn’t want to forget them.”

Choso feels like he has to defend himself. Defend you. Because in what world is it reasonable that you out of all people should be forgotten?

“Yet you’re here.”

“They wanted to forget me.”

“Or they want to forget you, forgetting them.”

The perils he was holding on to slip. Hard and fast around his feet, into the box, out of his eyes. His eyes shedding his tears like how the ocean sheds its waves to you.

“In all honesty, you weren’t supposed to know about their procedure. So I apologize for that.”

He nods. Accepting the apology. Accepting that it happened — there’s nothing he could change now. Not as his back begins to stick to the chair.

“Their personality carries me out of the mundane.”

“Carried, you mean?”

He stops, ignoring the correction. His eyes are searching the meek room. Not for answers, he could write a two hundred page book about you without stopping. He’s searching for a reason to give you life in the room right now. Especially when he isn’t going to remember you tomorrow.

“They just wanted to listen. That’s all.”

Yuji has run ahead, sand flying behind him as he runs to the group of friends ahead. His pink hair sticking to his sweaty forehead. His hellos are loud and real — his need to welcome everyone into his circle screaming louder than the beaming sun.

Choso is sitting on the steps to an abandoned house. His toes touching the invisible line that cuts the sand off from his spot of safety and the overheated beach in front of him. Everyone he knows and should be communicating with suffering the stabs from the burning hot sun on the bottom of their feet.

His eyes wander — spotting a seagull flying a little too low, a rainbow kite flying in the stale summer breeze, and a person. There are plenty of people here, but this one… he’s never seen and even across the beach, he feels like he knows you. Or he should know you.

Your back is towards him and the group of people he does know and who know him. An orange sweater thrown over the top half of your body, you’re almost as bright as the midday sun.

Your hands skim the waves rolling towards your shoe covered toes. Your colored hair swaying with the smoke from the grill closer to him.

He hated sand. He hated the beach in all its entirety. It’s too hot, and too clingy — he hates finding sand in his shoes weeks later and hates that Yuji never wipes his feet correctly. It’s bright, no corner for him to hide from the scorching sun or the judgmental moon. Just the sand in his shoes and his eyes squinting at the light. Don’t even get him started on how loud it is. The waves are always crashing, no sign of rest, no lul quiet no matter how relaxing others may find it.

So, he’s shocked to say the least when his feet tread through the sand. His steps are heavy and off balanced as if he’s walking through mud. Your back is still facing him and the party, but the inhale you breathe in snaps something in him. He knows you. He has to know you.

The waves roll in, low and soft the sun letting the waves roll leisurely to your ringed fingers. Seashells crunch under his feet as he continues to walk to your back. The shouts of his friends mend with the battle cries from the seagulls screaming above.

“Isn’t the beach just beautiful?”

Your voice catches him off guard. It’s warm like honey and instead of the waves overpowering it, it flows together. Like you’re the one with the power of the waves and the intimacy of the sand sticking in places where they do not belong.

“The waves call for everyone to listen. To feel. To even smell them.”

He smells the salt water, it’s strong and wafting over his body he feels like he’s swimming in the water — your fingers toying at the wave.

He’s closer to you now. The orange sweatshirt is even brighter than he saw when he was on those steps. When he was safe from the sand and the pull of your voice.

“I think the beach is the only thing that allows me to just listen to it.”

You finally look over your shoulder. And at that moment with your soft gaze running over his misplaced body and foreign steps — he wonders if you know him. Your ears trained on his steps as he sunk into the sand to you.

He feels like this happened before but at the same time, it didn’t. At least not like this. Both of you have had time to tweak the words you say, the things you do, the wave you’ll grab on.

“It wants nothing from me. And I don’t have anything to give.”

Choso hums. His hands find their way into his pockets. Your hands continue to train the waves. Roll in. Roll out. Sputter here. Crash there.

“I hate the beach.”

You laugh, and it’s soft and melodic. The wave rolling into your palms at the moment acts as a backtrack for it.

“I know.”

You’re standing to your full height now. Wet fingers clinging to the sleeves of your sweatshirt. Your eyes are still staring into his from over your shoulder. The sand sinking around you two — like it’s about to open up a portal for you to explore. Wet fingers laced around his fidgety ones. Sand pushes you closer to him, sneaking into the places you both can’t see.

“You do?”

“I think I know.”

You’re turned fully around. Your smile is bright, rivaling the sweatshirt, the sun behind you, the blue of the water, Yuji’s pink hair hopping around in his peripheral view.

It felt so intimate. Threading the line between strangers and lovers. The line between the sand and where the tide pulls and pushes the water.

Choso finds himself sitting in a train car. Hushed conversations holding space with the chug of the wheels rattling below.

He feels like he’s been here before. Right in this spot, the seat is swallowing him as if it’s aware of every slight movement his body has made before.

From the corner of his eye, he sees a woman mending to her dog. The dog is lapping at the snack being shoved through the gates of its cage. He smells the beefy smell of whatever his owner is giving him. A glimpse of a plaid collar makes him turn his eyes towards the dog.

He’s been here before. Why is he here now?

Before he could stare at the dog — maybe telepathically ask it how to work on his sniffing skills. He hears a voice. One that lives in his bones and scratches at his back when he feels nervous.

“Do you think we’ll find each other in every lifetime?”

And there. By the window. Your bright colored hair stuck to the window as your eyes trail the things that the train zooms by. Your fingertips are placed on the window — as if you’re trying to exit the train car. Have half your body here next to him, the other half feeling the wind and smelling the trees out there.

You’re in shorts, a tank top that shows the constellation of beauty marks that litter on your back. He smiles at the thought of the planetarium he had in his bed — offering a nightly show whenever the moon shone just right.

Before he could answer, tell you yes. That, yes! That is the hope. A voice that eerily sounds like him responds.

“No.”

Your eyebrows shoot up. Your face still inches away from the window. Just from watching the side of your face, he knows what’s your next movements would be. Your left finger is going to start tapping — like you’re sending a message to yourself and the trees. Your bottom lip is going to tuck in and you’re going to respond with a question.

“No?”

He looks down at his black jeans, sodden winter boots with the remnants of your favorite season dripping from his toes. He feels the warmth from his winter jacket circling around his neck, a gentle hold that isn’t needed for where he is right now.

The trees, full of life and green, are speeding past the window. Almost as if they’re running and the train is still. The day bustling by without a care of how uncomfortable or confused Choso may feel.

The voice that is his speaks up again. He leans in to listen, just like you.

“Yeah, no.”

Your left finger starts to tap and he feels his lips tick up in a knowing grin. But, an emptiness claims his chest.

“In another life I most likely wouldn’t have gone to that party. You possibly could have never been born.”

You turn your head to look at him. The sun shining through the window lightly kisses you. He’s almost jealous at how the sun lives on your skin without it saying a word. The shawls of light matching that orange sweatshirt, the gleam in your eyes, his apartment whenever you run in with a new topic to talk about.

“Bleek way to look at it, Cho.”

“Not at all. I’m lucky that it happened in this lifetime. I think we deserve each other now.”

You smile. He feels himself, or that version of himself smiling back at you.

“Cho…”

Your voice sounds far away. From the corner of his eye, the lady is weeping. The cage with the plaid collared dog is gone. It’s cold. Your eyes are planted out the window. The trees seemingly become bare, the sun setting behind a cloud.

Then, it’s sudden darkness. A rush into a tunnel, his hands grip the armrest for some stability. The loud blaring horn of the train brittles his bones.

He looks at your spot. Your normal hair color is weaving near your face. Your eyes are distant, but cold, never cruel.

Your bare fingers are clinging to each other. He wonders if the box is nearby so that he could give you those gloves, protecting your frostbite fingers.

“You’re not going to remember me after this, you know?”

He opens his mouth to answer. Tell you that isn’t true. Tell you the only reason he is here is because you’ve erased him first. But, the lady’s weeping is getting louder. His stomach is curling into himself. He knows that you don’t expect him to say anything.

He never does.

And just as quickly as the winter cloaked in, the train merged out of the tunnel. The sun is back, the trees are lined with luscious green leaves.

And you?

You’re gone.

Your eyes aren’t cruel but they’re distant. They’re not shining how they usually do. They’re not inching over his face, instead looking at your feet.

Your hair is your normal color now. The bright color that saturated every single inch of the tub for three weeks washed down the drain along with the words on Choso’s words on the tip of his tongue.

He feels like he’s on a boat in the middle of the Drake passage. His knees wobbly under him, wind gushing dangerously pulling and pushing him towards your shrunken body.

He has to snatch his eyes away from you to make sure that you’re both in his apartment. Your orange sweatshirt draped over your shoulders, your colorful picture frames looking out of place on his wall with his tacked dark band posters.

One picture on the wall catches his eyes immediately. Calming him down. Your eyes shining brightly — hair color just as bright. Your smile is real. He could almost hear your voice, your tone soft and happy. Not the heavy one you’re using now.

“Choso. Please.”

“This is it for us?”

He hates how clipped his voice sounds. Especially when his knees want to cave into the carpet below, the one you chose just for him. His hands feel sweaty and they keep running through his black hair. He wants to ask you how many steps it would take for him to make it to the bathroom before he hurls.

“We’re just two people who are meant to be alone.. even in a room full of people. Even with your hand in mine.”

He feels the words slither themselves into his chest like a caterpillar looking for an apple to bury itself into. The little pockets of you flashing along his walls, under his feet, in front of him — aren’t so bright anymore. A complete dullness washing over him. Loneliness coaxing him into a ball of nothingness.

“You’re not alone.”

He could take the loneliness. You don’t deserve too.

You let out a dry chuckle and he feels his knees give out — his hand reaching for his bedpost to hold him up.

“I don’t know who you are.”

The words hit hard despite your voice being low and mellow. A hint of nostalgia wrapped around the words, even with the knowledge of the fact that you’re leaving because you have nothing to hold too.

“That’s bullsh-“

“You sit here in silence. The words are always stuck in your throat.”

Your voice has risen. Your shoulders meeting your ears as you shrug. Choso’s shoulders feel like they’re being pushed down — not to be grounded or find balance but to push himself into the ground. Have it swallow him whole. Maybe then you’ll understand the true meaning of loneliness. You’d be in a room that was once haunted by him. Him watching from below, no way to reach out.

“You know every single embarrassing thing about me.”

Sixteen steps. That would get him to the bathroom. Sixteen long strided steps.

“You know every song I cry too. You know how I got that scar on my back in the seventh grade. You know I laugh when I’m about to cry.”

You laugh. The one that you just mentioned. It’s wet and stuck in your throat. He wants to reach out for you. But he knows he’ll throw up on you. Maybe then all the words would tumble out. No matter how late it may be.

“I don’t know who you are.”

The words are sticking themselves to the posters. Wafting through the bedpost and crawling up his arms, caging him to the room where it’s happening.

He can really see you anymore. The muted colors are not calling for him as it did all the times before. A blurry blob that’s you — he only knows because the body wash of yours is hanging above him like mistletoe.

“I’m tired of making this version of you that isn’t being shown to me. It’s not fair to you or me…”

“So I’m a stranger?”

You shake your head. He could barely make it out with how much water is pooling at his eyes

A tear drops and he’s reminded of the sea. Of the way the waves come to you, lapping at your toes and weaving through your fingers. He can’t help but let the rest of the tiny parts of the oceans seep out of him.

“No, we’re just two lonely people who love each other.”

He thinks he smells the ocean coming from you. The salt dripped from your eyes and fell onto the carpet. Maybe you just could make an ocean just for you two.

“I was never alone with you.”

"You didn't let me swim in. You just watched me drift away.”

He walks into the apartment — or the memory of it. It feels like he is floating, his feet barely touching the ground.

He hears the slick sounds of your bodies. The rhythm of it is a quiet devastation that's swimming in his gut. Like a soft knife twisting into an already airless balloon.

He passes the bare walls, pockets of empty places fighting with the posters on his wall. Only one hook for his keys, as they swing and clink lonely.

He peeks through the crack door of the bedroom — the blinds slightly peeled back. The ghost of the moon living above the bed. Where you’re in his arms, and he is in yours.

He creeps into the room, not too caught up on the mess his boots are making or of his loud imaginary stomping.

His eyes are sliding over every single aspect of this room. It feels like home. It feels lived in. But, it’s not real. At least anymore.

He stares at the chair of random things, books and pictures piling up on it. Words that Choso never said finding a seat to stay withering away for years to come. He wonders if you put the chair in your memory casket box.

He looks back towards the bed, your bright colored hair plastered to the pillows below. Choso’s face embedded in your neck as his tongue licks down the sweet column of your neck. Your back arches, one of your hands drifting from his face to tug at his hair.

“Talk to me.”

You whisper against his lips as you pull his face to yours. One of his arms holding him above you. The other one travels between the sheets to dip into you.

Your eyes are bleeding into his. Looking for an answer. And even as he stands back and watches, he doesn’t know the answer. Or rather yet, if he had it for you.

He hums against your lips. Choso walks over to the crowded chair to watch from there. His eyes falling to his fingers. His stomach feels empty. He doesn’t have to count the sixteen steps it’s going to take if he has to hurl.

He doesn’t pay attention to the unnatural creak of the bed, or the moans that sound distorted. He’s willing to take this as the last time he is within your reach.

“I never truly had all of you.”

He looks up. You’re speaking to him from the bed. The other Choso’s hips are moving, grinding into you. He hears how wet you are. Skin slapping against skin. His muffled moans, your pleasing gasps.

But you, you’re different. You’re… you. Dark hair. Soft eyes, distant but not cruel. The moon is shining on your face so gently, if he blinks he’ll miss it. The way it kisses the flutter of your lashes. The dimple in your chin.

“Yes, you did.”

His voice is hoarse, like he’s been swimming with his mouth open all day. His fingers are still pulling at each other. His chest feels tight. His eyes hurt from looking at you.

Your ringless fingers are gripping onto the other Choso. Your eyes watching him sweat in his coat. The way his eyes want to jerk away, he’s doing this to forget you. Not see you even more.

“No, not when you could barely tell me who you were.”

Choso wants to cover his ears, shut his eyes, and hide under the bed like a child. Escape the sounds of his body pleasuring yours, of your strong stare on him. He wants to get the memory casket back, live in the things that screams you — even if you want no part of him.

Instead, he stares back. His chest caving in the process. He misses the orange sweatshirt. He misses the bright colored hair. He misses when you talked to him, not looking for an answer in return.

“I was yours.”

You weakly smile, so weak that if he was not staring at you he would’ve missed it. A sob racks through his chest and he hates that he can’t get the tears to stop. He left some in his memory casket, shouldn't they be there?

The bed is still creaking. Choso’s moans are needy, yours are desperate. He thinks he could hear just how close you are by the tempo of your breath.

“I needed you to be more than just mine.”

Your response is kind, like you know how close he is from jumping over the edge. You were always good at bringing him back down. Your quiet sobs climbing over the sound of the bodies slapping into each other.

“Why did you do it?”

He nods towards you. His voice is still shaky from the previous sob. The other version of him is sucking on your neck, hoping to leave a mark to indicate that you’re his. He’ll skip the words and use his lips to mark and talk to you in different ways.

“It pained me to remember all the things you could never tell me.”

You shrug under him. The chair is starting to feel like it’s floating too. He hopes it floats away, following the moon’s call to the safety of the tides that wash along the broken rocks down by the pier.

“I was remembering a version of you that you didn’t even introduce to me.”

Your voice cracks, and he feels the crack in his chest again. And for the first time, Choso feels like he has some words to tell you.

“I thought I was who you needed me to be.”

You shake your head no. Your eyes are heavy as you now look up at the Choso pumping into you. Your ringless fingers lightly prodding his face, so gently with so much care.

Choso could do nothing but watch in the chair, hoping he feels a phantom touch. Your finger lining over the bridge of his nose, running along his eyebrow, maybe feeling the tickle of his eyelashes.

“Why are you doing it?”

Your hands drop, falling to the sides. Not affecting the other Choso. His moans are still deep and oblivious, his eyes staring deeply into the other you. He hopes they both feel the love.

“Because I can’t imagine a life without you. Felt it was easier to erase you.”

He answers honestly. His eyes began to water again. He knows even with you wiped from his memories, he'll look for you. His life would keep crawling to the little pockets he could find that keeps him orbiting around. Gone or not, his life would find a meaning for you in it.

“Are you erasing the choso that is mine too?”

He could hear you coxing your voice to come out calm and stable. He hears the tears that want to make an ocean right here. A clear line between the two versions of you both.

“No. I’ll keep him around to enjoy the little bit left of you that I have.”

You’re no longer under the other Choso. You’re walking up to him, in a winter coat. Your hair is still dark and your fingers are still bare. You’re floating too, to the chair of unsaid words. To him.

He ignores the other versions of you both. Ignore the smiles and the gasps still easing from you both. Ignore the want to yank himself by the hair and tell him just to say something.

But he sat on the sidelines. As you work the room, even as a ghost, a distant memory with so much nuance, he’s stilled to the chair.

He’s always been on the sidelines. His voice gets caught in the roar that is you. His eyes are always tracking every movement, but despite that — he could never understand how you got from point a to point b. Everything about you pulled him to you, confused him. Like those pretty paintings you’ll drag him to see in an art museum. Both of you get different meanings out of the same picture. Your answer would always be more integrated, more lived in.

“I’m already gone. You’ll be webbed in between the wedges of my brain like a song I can’t get the name of.”

Your eyes are still wet from the previous tears littering your cheeks. He wonders if he’ll be able to reach out and take one.

“Like sand that makes its way in between your toes.”

You let out an actual laugh. It’s hearty, coming from your gut. He can’t help but cry. Those sobs that puncture your chest punching through.

He could barely see you. He wonders if you’re crying again too. Or did you forget how to do that as well.

“Let's meet again, at the beach.”

You sound hopeful, like you've played this out before. You know he’ll trudge through the dunes to get to you, to have you be his again. He doesn't know if he’ll ever find the words, but his body will always find you. His heart would always be in the waves that roll into your fingers, the salt that clings to your hair.

“I hate the beach.”

He hopes you catch the joke he’s trying to let out. He wants to hear your laugh again. Try to remember it the way he filters into the moonlight.

“I don’t.”

Wet eyed, tired, and solid. You both smile at each other. The silent understanding that couldn't drive the relationship further.

“You won’t talk, so I won’t be able to listen. But you’ll know I love you and I will remember that you tried your best.”

His heart swells at the idea of you loving him. You knowing that you love him, no matter if he's been forgotten or not. The waves will tell you who he is and what he means to you.

“I think I could live with that.”

The morning is cold and dark. One of those weary days that makes it hard to drag yourself out of bed. The days that make it easy to ignore work and the feelings that are pressed into your chest with no way to be let out.

With a scarf wrapped around his neck, wet boots sloshing through the busy streets, and his hands shoved into rainbow mittens thar he has no idea where they came from. He makes his way to the one place on his mind.

A place that holds no bounds. A place he hates, but maybe they could hate each other together. Hate the cold, sheets of ice trying to hold the water down. The sand lays stif, the salt clinging into the air like discarded snowflakes.

The snow here is pristine. The steps are covered in it, no footprints destroying the pure essence of it. It’s quietish — the waves knocking into the sheets off ice. It sounds like thunder.

Just ahead, he sees someone. An orange hoodie is covering their head. Their back is straight as they look out towards the frozen waves, the water slowly rushing towards them.

Choso feels this weird pulling motion. Like you’re the moon and he’s the tide that’s getting called back to you. His boots start to follow the footprints you established into the snowy sand. The steps he’s following are soft and ghostlike, like you desperately wanted to keep the snow as white as possible.

“Do I know you?”

His voice calls out to you. Your head quickly snapping from over your shoulder to look at him. Your eyes warm but sad — like you’re missing something you’re not sure you truly ever had.

“I don’t think so.”

You hum. Choso is now standing closer to you. His feet planted in the sand below him. His brain is running at full speed to reconnect to the moment.

Figure out how he felt the color of your eyes instead of seen them. How your voice tugged lightly on his arm — offering him reprieve in the frozen, sandy waves rolling towards him.

You watch him. Your eyes are intense but caring. The wind whips an unnatural hair color out of your hoodie. It curls naturally around your face.

“I love the beach.”

“I know.”

He whispers. He’s not sure why this is what he decided to tell you — a stranger. Your eyebrows rise in speculation, your face turning back to the ocean. Like it has a secret you want to pull out.

“You do?”

“I think I know.”

You’re still facing away from him. And as if there’s is some distant memory off putting in the back of his mind, he hears the ghost of seagulls cawing in the back. Seashells cracking under his weight.

He looks away, the sky clear of clouds and birds. The winter sun chilled in the sky, like a painting.

“Why are you here?”

You finally turn towards him. Your hands stuffed into your coat pocket. Your eyes webbing down his body. He feels his heart lurch, as if it’s supposed to be given to you.

“I think we were supposed to meet. Why are you here?”

You respond confidently, tilting your head as you continue to assault him with your eyes. He doesn’t feel uncomfortable under your stare. He feels alive. As if you granted this specific spotlight before.

“To be lonely with the one place that allows me to not talk back.”

You hum, it’s quiet and thoughtful. Assessing his statement as if you heard it before. As if it holds meanings to both of you as strangers.

“Then let’s be lonely together.”

Choso walks closer to you. He smells your body wash — it’s comforting and a bit familiar. Like a smell he couldn’t get rid of even if he tried.

His hand closer to you twitches in his pocket. Crawling out to grab the sand particles above you, or to grab your hand.

“Even if you slip away?”

A huge wave crashes into a sheet of ice. The sound breaking off as an echo on the empty beach. Your breathing is still calm. Choso feels alive.

“Even when I slip away.”

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