Chapter Text
It's raining, drops falling on Marker's bedroom window, who walks over to admire the weather. In fact, he never really liked rainy weather, but because of the lightning... Maybe he didn't hate it that much. He loves lightning.
"BOOMM"
Marker quickly covers his ears, cringing slightly. The sound was loud, he didn't like thunder, but oh... The lightning... His eyes sparkled when he saw a beautiful and long lightning forming for milliseconds. But before the thunder arrived, he covered his ears again.
Lightning... There was no doubt why Marker liked them so much. It was obvious, they reminded him of his friend, Lightning.
"BOOMM" another thunderclap arrived, and Marker shivered slightly.
"It's too loud..." The artist whispered, searching for his headphones in the messy room. He closed the curtains, but the sound of thunder remained loud and constant.
Marker found his headphones, quickly putting them on and searching for some music to drown out the noise that was bothering him so much. He opened YouTube, and a song he had never heard of appeared on his home screen: "I Won't Forget to Fly This Time", it sounded poetic, but had few views.
Without thinking twice - and afraid that the next thunder would be even louder - the man clicked on the video, with the music drowning out the sound outside the house, filling his ears with a pleasant and lively melody as much as possible. It sounded like rock, and the vocalist's voice reminded Marker of someone.
The song was incredibly good, and made Marker almost forget about the rain outside. He focused on the lyrics and the rhythm, letting out a slight smile. It had been days since the man had added any new songs to his playlist, and of course this one would quickly join the list. Marker was curious, he didn't bother to see who the artist who composed the melody was, - since he was more concerned with drowning out the thunder - but now, as he became interested in the work of this singer, Marker wanted to know more about this artist, and clicked on this person's YouTube account.
"Stormwake?" The man said the artist's username, as if testing the taste of this word. The icon was a lightning bolt, and this made Marker feel a warm feeling in his heart. He scrolled his finger, realizing how unknown this singer was. The songs were good, and it practically made him forget about the storm outside the room.
But curiosity got the better of him, so Marker found himself checking out the social media of this Stormwake guy, discovering that...
It was Lightning.
The man's eyes widened, and he felt his heart beat faster. It was only a few days until their reunion, and Lightning's voice was different... It was... Beautiful.
Marker felt his face heat up. He didn't recognize it at first, but now that he heard the songs and knew who the author was... It was different. He remembered that when he was in school, his friend's voice was more feminine and thin, but probably when he finished school, he started taking hormones and his voice deepened.
Marker smiled at nothing, wanting to imagine what Lightning looked like now, probably even more handsome than before...
Marker couldn't say why he was feeling that way, so shy and awkward when he heard his childhood friend's voice singing in such an angelic way... It wasn't like that at school, but this change didn't bother him. It didn't bother him at all.
Marker wondered if his old group of friends at school knew that Lightning was a musician now, and that he was producing extremely good works. He felt a little bad seeing the low number of likes and comments, and ended up liking all the videos without thinking twice. There were very few comments, but Marker let his curiosity consume him, and decided to take a look.
"Good job, son!" A frequent comment from the same user, Cloudy. It was Lightning's father, apparently the only one who was really supporting his work.
"Thanks, dad <3" was the common response to his father's comments.
Marker felt a pang in his heart, it was unfair how someone so talented was so unknown. But he didn't have enough courage to comment anyway...
"Does Fanny at least know that he makes music? She's very close to him too." Marker whispered to himself, looking at the screen with a somewhat sad expression.
He couldn't make his friend's channel explode with views and likes out of nowhere, so he did what he could: he subscribed and liked all the songs. Now they had one more thing to talk about at the meeting.
And before he knew it, he was already listening to all the available songs, and the rain that was falling outside had stopped.
And somewhere else...
Lightning was in bed, with no energy to do anything other than look at his cell phone. His guitar was on the floor, with papers full of unfinished song lyrics scattered across the floor. Ever since Marker asked him out, he hadn't been able to think of any songs to compose. The lyrics he thought of were never good enough, so much so that, in addition to the papers on the floor, there were dozens of them in the trash, crumpled and torn.
Lightning sighed, lacking the motivation to finish the lyrics he had started. After all, who was he writing these songs for? He opened his YouTube, expecting to see, as always, the same amount of likes and views, but for some reason... There was an increase.
All the songs had one more like, and the views were higher. This gave the singer hope, letting out a small, satisfied smile.
"It seems someone liked my work." Likes were anonymous, he had no idea who it was, but he was extremely grateful whoever it was.
He stopped and thought, now with motivation, "Why is no one interested in my songs? Maybe... The cover?"
Indeed, visually pleasing the viewer was extremely important too, but unfortunately, Lightning was not a professional artist or photographer. Sometimes that was all that was missing.
But what to do? He didn't know how to draw. Maybe collages? But he didn't know how to do that either.
With his brow furrowed as he thought, the guitarist opened Instagram, hoping to have some simple idea to innovate his music covers.
And on the home screen, it soon appeared. A beautiful art made of colored markers, representing lightning in a beautiful storm. Lightning found himself observing, appreciating every detail of that beautiful work.
"If this were the cover of my song, I'm sure everyone would be interested." He said quietly, "mm... I wonder if this artist does commissions?"
Without thinking twice, he opened the account of this person with the username "InkyDirt", scrolling and appreciating the works of this artist.
They were really beautiful, and the drawings brought a strange feeling of nostalgia to the guitarist, but he couldn't say why. And subconsciously, he was enjoying the art, finding it unfair that this artist didn't seem to have much recognition. The icon drawn by a purple marker brought back memories, and reminded him of his old school friend.
Without much difficulty, Lightning discovered that this InkyDirt guy was open to commissions, and when he checked the price list, he was relieved that it was quite affordable. But before sending any kind of message, he decided to check this artist's personal profile, and... To his surprise...
This artist was Marker.
Lightning was surprised, his eyes widening slightly. His art had evolved a lot. The drawings had changed, but there was still that touch of Marker in his drawings.
Looking at the posts on his best school friend's personal account, Lightning smiled slightly. Seeing how he hadn't changed much physically and apparently... He hadn't changed much at all.
The photos posted were silly and cute, just like Marker had always been. Blurry photos of himself, his pets, and his random comfort items, like a paper clip. That was very... Marker.
Lightning remembered his school days, and began to wonder if Death P.A.C.T again knew how talented Marker had become. But in truth... The singer had always thought he was very talented. A wave of nostalgia hit him again, longing for when they were best friends.
"Marker..." The name escaped his lips almost involuntarily. And the memory that in a few days the two would meet again started to mess with his head.
At least there was something to talk to him about when they finally did meet.