Liu Ink was just as I remembered it. The black storefront with the large slanted white font sprawled along the top of the window hadn't changed in the past year. Inside, I could see the reception area clearly. There was no one sat on the two worn red leather sofas, but Roman was there, slouched behind the counter with his feet up on the desk. Jun leant against it, head turned, speaking to him with a grin as she pointed to whatever was on the computer screen in front of them.

"Thanks for walking with me," I said to Markus, my voice tight. There was a strange, constricting feeling in my chest as I observed them from outside. But it was dark and cold out here, and the warm light seeping out of the building beckoned me inside, despite my apprehension.

"You gonna' be at the gym tomorrow?" Markus asked, just as his hand brushed against my elbow.

Startled, I tore my eyes away from the tattoo studio to find Markus watching me with something like concern in his expression. He looked oddly cute with the hood of a navy hoodie pulled up over his head, just a hint of his hair peaking out, and his cheeks tinged with pink from the cold.

"Yeah. It's Wednesday, right? I'll be there after work."

He nodded, attention darting to inside the studio before settling back on me. "We'll go through some take downs. Things you can get out of."

"Sick. Cool." I nodded, swallowing against a lump that had formed. "Okay, see you then."

"Right." He didn't move, and for a moment I wondered if I was forgetting something or if, horrifyingly, I was meant to hug him goodbye. "You good?"

"Huh? Yeah, yeah, I'm good," I assured him, smiling sheepishly. Why am I even hesitating to go inside? I'm being stupid.

"Okay. Good." Markus smiled back at me. It was warm and filled me with a sense of reassurance. "See you tomorrow."

"See you tomorrow."

With an awkward, half-arsed wave, I stepped away and into the studio. The bell by the door rang, announcing my arrival. Immediately, I had the attention of both Roman and Jun.

"Daisy!" Roman grinned, as energetic as always.

"Did you walk here?" Jun asked without greeting me, stepping out from behind the counter. She crossed her arms against her chest, a scowl set across her mouth. "It's too dark to be out by yourself around here."

It was quiet inside. Led Zeppelin played from a speaker in Daksha's booth at the back of the studio, but the perpetually tired twenty-five-year-old was nowhere to be seen. There were no customers, and most of the girls and Quinn were absent. Still, my eyes watered a bit at the familiarity. Jun, in all black, wearing her ratty black slippers she'd had since long before we'd met, chastising me about my safety was something I hadn't realised I'd missed until now.

Waving her off, I took a seat beside Roman, mirroring him as I leant back in the expensive rolling chair, crossed my legs at the ankle and placed them on the desk. "Someone walked me over. It's fine."

It was strange to be back here, but more so because it felt like I hadn't left at all. I had sat behind this desk and listened to Daksha's rock music many times in the past. The only thing missing was the others - wherever they were. And the only thing new was Roman.

"Someone?" Jun asked. At the same time Roman turned to me with a growing smirk. His elbow dug into my side playfully.

"Markus?" Roman asked, too perceptively. "Did you enjoy my little gift?"

With a huff, I turned my head towards him slightly, and snapped under my breath, "You're a little bastard-boy, you know that?"

Apparently, I wasn't quiet enough, though. Jun heard me anyway and tapped one fingernail against the desk as she leant closer. "What has my apprentice done now?"

"Yeah, what exactly have I done, Daisy?" Roman prompted mockingly, with a wiggle of his eyebrows. "Do share with the class."

"He knows exactly what he's done," I grumbled. There was no way in hell I was going to reveal the effect Markus' painted nails had on me in front of Jun or anyone else. It was embarrassing more than anything else. .

My phone buzzed in my pocket, and a quick glance at the screen revealed a notification from Instagram. Markus had followed my account.

He must have remembered my username when I showed him my profile earlier today. That, or he found me through Roman's followers. The urge to stalk his profile was a hard one to ignore. But I would save that inevitability for the privacy of my flat when it was 2:00 am and there was no one around to judge me.

"What's got you smiling?" Roman asked, showing no respect for my privacy as he leant towards me, angling to see the screen of my phone. I locked it before he could. "Are you sexting right now?"

"What the fuck, no," I exclaimed. "We're in public! Why would I be sexting right now?"

"I've sexted next to you before. I do it all the time in lectures." Roman shrugged. He turned his attention back towards the reception desktop, where the studio's appointment calendar was open.

"Roman has a little secret boyfriend he won't tell me about," Jun murmured as she reached across and batted Roman's hand away from the computer mouse, pulling up a folder entitled 'Designs: Roman'.

He huffed, shot her a shrewd look, and turned to me with a shake of his head. "I just get a lot of tinder matches, but Jun is a hopeless romantic and thinks I'm having some kind of affair."

Jun snorted. "It's not romance I think you're getting up to." She gestured towards me. The thick silver rings that adorned her fingers caught the light. "Have you told Daisy what you're getting done?"

"You're getting a tattoo?" I said in surprise, though I wasn't sure why that surprised me when he was Liu Ink's apprentice. Of course he would get a tattoo. When did you ever seen a tattoo artist without some ink of their own?

"He's doing it himself. His first one." Jun grinned at her over her shoulder and jutted her chin towards the computer monitor. "What do you think?"

"It's..." I squinted at the screen, casting Roman a strange side-eyed glance. "It's a worm wearing a cowboy hat."

"Yup!" He exclaimed, clearly pleased with himself. "Don't ya like it?"

"You and Andres are without a doubt, brothers," I said with a laugh. One had a banjo playing frog, and the other was getting a hat wearing worm. They weren't the weirdest things that had been tattooed in this studio, but that meant very little. There'd been a lot of strange tattoos on a lot of strange customers.

The design was just a simple line drawing - which I supposed was the best thing to start with when tattooing for the first time. It was kind of adorable, actually. It was a fitting tattoo for Roman, a boy who I had yet to see take anything seriously.

Roman grinned. "He showed you the frog tattoo?"

"No, Sam told me about it yesterday."

"Hold up." Roman gaped. His feet dropped heavily from the desk, and he spun in his chair to face me. "You've met Sam? Even I haven't met Sam! Our mum's been driving Andres crazy asking to meet him."

"Who's Sam?" Jun asked, glancing between the two of us with a frown.

"My brother's boyfriend," Roman explained.

At the same time, I suggested, "Maybe your brother just likes me more than you."

Roman made a disgusted noise in the back of his throat and shoved his palm into my face. "Don't talk to me right now. This is outrageous."

"He even told me he approves of our friendship. So he definitely likes me."

Roman clutched dramatically at his chest. "I feel so betrayed right now. Why wasn't I invited to hang out? And to think I invited you here to watch me get my first tattoo. I thought we were friends!" He draped himself over the counter, face buried in his arms.

Jun rolled her eyes and flicked his ear. "Come on, print out your design so we can get this done before the others get back."

"Why before the others get back?" I asked, eyeing Roman strangely as he suddenly shot up at Jun's words. With a few clicks of the computer mouse, the small printer beside us whirred to life, and out came Roman's cowboy invertebrate. He avoided my eyes as he snatched up the design and made his way over to the booth closest to us. "Are you shy or something?"

"I'm not shy."

"He thinks he's going to fuck it up and wants me to fix it without anyone knowing." Jun smirked. "Come on, bring the chair with you. You get a front-row seat to Roman not fucking it up."

"Roman," I said in a soft voice, smiling. I followed him to the booth, dragging the office chair behind me. "Do you really like me that much that you wanted me to be here over everyone else? I'm honoured."

He shot me a filthy look over his shoulder. "I already regret inviting you."

My phone buzzed again, this time with an incoming Instagram message.

"Seriously," Roman probed with a groan. "Who the fuck are you sexting right now?"

***

Later that evening, Jun had offered me a ride home and, mistakenly, I had accepted. I hadn't realised it was a mistake until I invited her into my flat for a drink, and the sight of Sarah on the sofa in her pyjamas with her headphones on and her laptop resting on her thighs greeted us. She didn't notice us at first, too focused on what she was doing, listening to music that was loud enough to block out all background noise.

When she saw us, she gave me a shy smile, didn't acknowledge Jun at all, and left the living room without a word.

Such a brush off might have offended some people - not understanding Sarah's actions stemmed from her social anxiety. But Jun didn't seem at all perturbed. In fact, she seemed quite the opposite.

"No," I snapped, scowling at Jun across the room as she took a seat on my sofa. Behind me, the kettle boiled noisily, and the cups in my hand clattered loudly against the counter as I put them down with too much force.

"What?" Jun asked, lips pressed together. She knew exactly what.

"I know that look." I slammed the instant coffee jar down, heaping too much on the teaspoon.

"What are you talking about?" Jun asked again, with just as much feigned confusion.

"That look!" I hissed, shooting a cautious glance towards Sarah's bedroom door, where she had retreated as soon as Jun and I had made our presence apparent. "The one that says you want to sleep with my roommate."

"Is she straight?" She asked bluntly, quickly dropping all pretences as she craned her neck round to look towards Sarah's bedroom door as if she would appear at any second.

"Don't."

Jun laughed. "Do you have any straight friends?"

I crossed my arms and scowled, well aware that given any other situation, I would have found such a remark hilarious. "Markus and Lynch, thank you very much."

Jun scoffed. "Markus doesn't count if you're sleeping with him. You have a weird thing for straight men. And no one is voluntarily friends with Lynch, he just comes along with the others."

"I do not have a thing for straight men! And that's so mean to Lynch." I joined her on the sofa with the two coffees I'd made. A black coffee for her, no sugar or sweeteners. Disgusting. Yet still more acceptable than Markus' green tea.

Jun shot me a pointed glance. "He's an asshole."

"He's sometimes an asshole," I stressed, exasperated. "He's okay most of the time."

"I'll believe it when I see it," Jun said, sounding unconvinced. She took a large gulp of her coffee and her face scrunched in disapproval - which made sense, it was shitty instant coffee that even I didn't like most of the time, but I'd broken my French-press and hadn't found the time to replace it yet. "I suppose it's good that you're getting on with them, though. I was worried about you. You don't make friends easily."

"Wow, thanks. I might not invite you back here if you're just gonna' pick on me."

"Please." Jun smirked. "It's taken over twelve months for me to be invited over. Regardless of whether I'm mean, I'm not expecting to be back here for another year."

I knew she was joking, but that didn't negate the truth of her words. I had been a little too callous in the way I had distanced myself from them. Upon reflection, I could see that. At the time, however, it had felt necessary.

I was quiet, ashamed, as I explained truthfully, "It doesn't feel like over a year since I lived with you. It feels like just a couple of months. And now that you're here, and we're hanging out, it doesn't feel like there was ever a point where we didn't see each other."

"It feels like longer than a year to me," Jun explained with just as much honesty. I tried not to wince at her blunt tone. I couldn't tell what the intention was behind such a statement, but it had the same effect of plunging something sharp into my chest. I felt like a piece of shit.

"Oh."

Jun must have seen some of the hurt I was feeling in my expression, because she sighed deeply and explained, "I didn't mean that as a jab or anything. Just that... I missed you a lot. And I hope we continue to hang out, and you visit the studio more, and stop by the house. That you keep texting us, even if it's just Quinn and all you talk about is what you eat each day. I want you to feel comfortable enough to have us over here too, if you wanted to. I don't want you to keep looking at us, and being reminded of Wraith and your brother. Okay?"

"Okay," I murmured, eyes downcast, as I tried to process everything she had just unloaded so suddenly. It was a lot to take it at once; none of it bad, but all of it overwhelming. I had missed them too, and I had wondered a lot over our time apart if they resented me for the distance I had created. I was so grateful that Jun and the others were being patient and reassuring.

Most of all, I resented Wraith. It was because of him I met Jun and the others in the first place, but it was because of him I had been desperate to leave and start a new stage of my life completely removed from him.

"I really didn't mean to stay away for so long. I just wanted to take a moment away to get settled into uni and feel stable and in control of my life. Before I knew it the whole of first year was over and I'd not spoken to you all in months." It felt like such a ridiculous explanation; how could I have truly been so oblivious to the passing of a whole year without them?

Bringing her coffee cup to her mouth, Jun took another small sip, scowled down at the contents, and glanced up at me accusatorially. "This is dogshit. You're gonna' have to get better coffee next time I'm here." I said nothing. I had no defence for the coffee. It was the cheapest one I could buy. But the thought of her coming here again was a pleasant one. "What are you doing for Halloween? That's coming up soon."

"I don't know. Why?"

"You always do something, and it's only two weeks away."

I shrugged. It was true; Halloween was my favourite holiday, but I had barely stopped to think about it this year. Last year, before I had become friends with Sarah and didn't know my flat mates all that well, I had spent the night alone in my room watching horror films.

"I hadn't thought about it, to be honest."

Jun cast me an odd look, as if she couldn't quite believe what I was saying. "Well, if you want to do something, let me know. I won't be doing anything that day."

"Sure, will do."

"Okay," Jun exhaled, "I'm gonna' head off. See you soon, yeah?"

"Yeah."

Jun carried her half drank coffee into the kitchen where she left it by the sink. She smiled at me as she left with no bitterness in her expression, only warmth and perhaps a little relief. When I smiled back at her and offered a goodbye, it was with a similar sense of ease.

bit of a filler chapter, more Markus and Daisy next chapter

[RE-WRITTEN 06/10/22]