Notes 1: Reade, you can't expect me to let you just gift me with a ChaseDarling fic without me writing you one back, do you?
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Juliet with a dagger
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우린 유치해지고
자꾸 대담해지고
우리 둘만 이해하는
단어들을 만들고
– Sugarbowl, Scary Enough
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The park is lovely and bright, filled with fresh air and flowers and warm sunlight on their skin.
"I never would have expected you to surprise me with a picnic." He says, deep blue eyes crinkling with amusement as he holds her hand.
Earlier, she had insisted on carrying both the picnic basket and blanket on her own. 'I'm a big, strong girl' She had said as she swatted his helping hands away.
"You know me." She laughs, pale blonde hair swept in a high ponytail and periwinkle blue eyes filled with glee. She's the type of girl that boys go gaga over. She's always so adventurous, so wild, always so free-spirited and happy. "I'm spontaneous."
"I do know, that's what I like about you,"
"Just that?" She asks, daring if not pleading him to say more. "That one trait?"
"Hmm, maybe." He teases. But the main point is that she knows that he likes her, her spur of the moment decisions and her rambunctiousness and her fiery spirit, everything about the way she is.
He feeds her a strawberry because he's such a romantic, and, for a moment, he really does think this is love.
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"I love you," Darling says.
She's the first one to say it, which is a big surprise for both ends because – well, everyone, their friends, families and them included, always thought it would be Chase to say it first.
She reaches over, kissing her lover's knuckles as they drive with the wind through their hair and smiles painted on their lips.
Chase thinks, Darling should really have both her hands on the steering wheel or at least one on the steering wheel while the other is on the stick shift but he's too over the moon to care about that right now.
"Do you?" He asks stupidly and her response is to only hold his hand more firmly.
Her blue eyes flit from the road to their interlock hands. It's a little dangerous but her present grin widens after remembering how she had let him paint her nails for her in the middle of binge-watching Buzzfeed Unsolved.
"I do." She finally answers and hopes this isn't the last time she utters an answer of 'I do'.
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They're young and reckless with smiles on their faces and hearts on their sleeves and a promise ring around her finger.
(They think they'll last forever)
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He's grinning so wide. Darling thinks to herself as she tucks her chin on her hand and pretends to not be bothered by it all. At least, not that much.
Chase is talking animatedly to Lizzie Hearts, laughing and joking and moving his hands as he reminisces on memories and tells old jokes.
And, Darling realizes she hasn't seen him smile at her like that in awhile – a long time, actually. Because all he's done now is nag her and scold her and uttered words of 'rules are rules' when she goes off and does something wild that she knows he would never agree to but does it anyway.
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"Did you get into another fight?" Chase asks, impossibly tall and impossibly worried out of his mind as he stares at the clock and not her. He has work in the morning (a few hours, actually) but he had decided to stay awake anyways, worried sick, because he loves her so so so much.
It's three AM and she just got back from the Rabbit Hole bar.
She swells with girlish-anger and tries not to wince through her injuries, "Leave me alone,"
Chase doesn't know why he even needed to accuse Darling of anything because it's clear from the black eye forming on her face and the split lip and the dried blood on her knuckles that she did infact get into a fight (and he wasn't there to protect her, not that she would have wanted the protection even if offered).
He tries to be patient with her. Mostly because he's tired, just as tired as she is, if not, maybe even more. He tells her, "I was worried about you."
"I can take care of myself." She snaps because she hates people thinking of her as some useless damsel-in-distress. It's her strength and weakness.
He tries not to stare too hard at her bruises. Why? Just why?
Maybe he had found it charming years ago when they had met and she had come to his rescue like some knight in shining armour and saved him. But now ... it just seems so childish. Picking fight with strangers, what a stupid thing to waste her time on. She should be looking for a job or at least helping out with chores because right now, Chase is doing both work and the household errands.
She's supposed to be contributing! A relationship shouldn't feel one-sided. It shouldn't – It shouldn't feel like whatever this is.
Besides, Chase thinks oh-so obviously, Darling's a girl. And a girl should be treated like a princess – no, a queen – not thrown around like a street rat in some cheap bar.
This isn't funny. Not one bit. She's so –
"Grow up." He says before he even registers what he's just said.
The only response he gets is a glare that sends a chill down his spine, but he doesn't stop talking regardless of the warning.
"Please." His voice softens, now barely a whisper. "Please, grow up."
Her gaze turns to the floor. "I thought you liked me the way I am,"
So did he.
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"I made you breakfast," Darling says as a way of apology. Her face still hurts from the bar fight but she pretends it doesn't because she's good at pretending.
Blonde curls spill from her ponytail as she holds out a plate of scrambled eggs and toast for Chase. The recipe is nothing hard, yet it's nothing spectacular either. It's not even homey, maybe half-assed.
"No, I – I'm in a rush and I'm … not that hungry." He answers, a lame excuse. The circles under his eyes have darkened and his eyebags have grown as he stares ahead at nothing. He's already dressed for work but he doesn't even look like he's fully awake yet.
"Oh."
"But, em, thank you."
Since when have their conversations felt so forced?
"Anyway ..." Came his response. "Don't ... wait up for me. I'll be back late today, okay?"
Darling bites her lower lip, trying to focus her blue eyes on him. She swears she's not crying, she's just – she's just blinking back dust from this morning's fight. "Okay." She answers.
"Thanks." He repeats himself one more time before he leaves, but he doesn't mean it.
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There's an annoyed look on her face as he tries holding a conversation with her.
"Will you just listen to me for one second?" He says, more of a demand than a question. He's always so bossy, thinking he knows everything just because he's a couple of years older than her.
"I told you I'm busy." And she's typing furiously as she says this, not even sparing him a glance.
"No, you're not." He accuses, he doesn't even hold back the malice in his voice.
"I'm inspired and I need to write it all down before I forget." Darling says but even she doesn't believe her own bullshit.
"You've been working on that book for years now, it's not going to get you anywhere." He tells her because she had decided to not go to college and to just let life guide her so now she's working on this book she had thought the plot of when she was sixteen or something (but what sixteen year old's decision ever comes out as successful or good?).
Her fingers stop and hover over her keyboard, she looks him dead in the eyes and says, "Don't look down on me," because if he can't even support her on her dreams then how is he going to support her on her everlasting, very permanent life decisions?
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She tears down the wall she dedicated to them, for them – Polaroid pictures and concert tickets and other stupid cutesy things that hold a thousand and one memories.
"I hate you!" She cries and doesn't mean it one bit. She swears she's crying so hard that she wonders how she's not dead yet from the intense emotion and dehydration.
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"Where are you going?" He asks one night as she's kneeled on the ground over a luggage bag. Her luggage bag; blue and cutesy, heart-themed and filled with clothes.
She looks up, blue eyes filled with blue sadness.
"Who are you staying with?" He asks because he knows he can't stop her. This isn't the first time she's left him (and then come back). Though, he wishes for this to be the last time she leaves him.
She doesn't answer him.
"Please tell me." He says, soft-spoken. Even when she's leaving him, he worries about her.
Blinking back angry tears, she finally answers with a zip of her bag, "Cerise's," because she's getting a little too old to be crashing at her brothers' place, both Dexter and Daring are married, after all.
"When will you be coming back?" He hesitates and doesn't reach out for her as she passes by him, not even heaving her bag as she's preparing to go. She's learned from the many experiences to not leave too many of her belongings at his place.
Her heart swells as she replies, "I don't know."
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He doesn't remember what the fight was about, it seems so stupid now that she's pulling her arm away from him and making that face. She looks so damn sad and he feels so guilty.
"I'm sorry," He says, an automatic response. They really need to stop fighting.
She doesn't dare look at him, but she does say something back.
"You should be." – And he is but that doesn't mean this is the last time he'll be breaking her heart, knowing who he is and what they are.
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They're sharing a dance in the kitchen, dressed in their pyjamas, hands wrapped around each other lovingly, foreheads pressing together and an earbud connecting them in more ways than one. The moment is more sad than romantic, just this morning, she had refused to come out from under the covers and now they're holding each other like nothing was wrong.
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"I love you,"
"Then why is it so hard for us to be together?"
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He sits at the edge of his bed, their bed, head in his hands and back turned to her, while she's huddled in a corner, knees pressed against her chest and teary eyes trained on the pattern of their bedsheets.
"We're a mess." He says, a rueful smile on his lips. This sucks. It sucks so bad.
He hears her inhale deeply, probably thinking of what to say. "Together, yes." She mutters. "Individually, no,"
And he hates to say it, but she's right.
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"Will you stay?" He asks and doesn't get his hopes up. It's hard when even he has given up on such a miracle. "Will you stay with me?" Forever?
She's standing at their doorway with mascara tears and a manicured hand wrapped around the handle of that luggage of hers. She's not sure anymore if she's leaving or staying.
"I don't know." She says, the same reply she gave to him months ago.
The promise ring still wrapped around her fourth finger feels familiar yet also foreign. Will they ever get married or will they keep breaking up only to get back together again?
Their relationship … it's still a mystery, but the thing is, she thinks they'll never solve it.
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end
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Notes 2: It's six AM as I'm editing this and I can hear my dad play the Doraemon theme song from my room. Don't ask, we're weird and I can't explain to you how I got into law school.
– 25 July 2018