(On the cusp,
The both of us without any maybes but musts.)

His sensibility, something he valued the most, turned out to be a weight too heavy for his finicky date.

It might be the last time Olive Anthos had a chance to look into June Maure’s eyes.

One overestimated, and one underestimated the outcome of their relationship, and they're now stuck in her silky sheets, separated and thoughtful. Olive looks for that trace of sweetness in miss Maure. She's silent, calculated. She hides behind a trace of smoke, and won't dare to say anything more than “we got too far”, while she dresses up. June leaves, and he lays in the same spot, as passive as ever.

Wherever he might've gone wrong, it's too late to think about that. He leaves the dried frond he's been twisting between his fingers this whole time on the pillow. Olive also slides back into a shirt and gathers his belongings. He leaves the house, without looking for her, without any goodbyes. The final words were already said anyway.

Later on, he'd receive a phone call. June bluntly explains how she doesn't feel anything for him anymore, and her diplomacy and analytical mind shine through. Contrasting the precise voice, Olive's hums are as lost as himself. He ends the call, as he looks for the keys for the apartment.

He closes the door behind him, and he starts sliding down it. His blank expression stayed unchanged since the phone call, he’s staring straight ahead into the void, letting his limbs spread on the floor. Should he convince himself he's not alone on this earth, he tries dialling his teammate. It goes straight to voicemail, she’s still travelling. Olive lets his hand fall on the floor, phone and all.

It gets quiet. It’s piercingly quiet. His mind runs off.

There was one sight that Olive still remembers since childhood. Most romance movies he watched without his mother’s approval after bedtime showed lovers planting their lips all throughout each other’s skin. The scene that left a mark on him was one which showed a lady sticking fangs out in her neck kiss, bringing gasps from the man she’d captured. It was so scandalous for his young mind, it remained sealed into his vision.

And the exact same scene rolled over his eyes, looking back at how Maure snatched him away, all dazzled, all vulnerable to the high of falling for a feeling. And he falls so easily.

Her bites would sometimes leave bruises. His flowers and gifts would make her switch to innocent nibbles. Maybe she had enough of bouquets and bonbons. He can’t really bring the excitement she wished for. Then again, it was his first date, he had to make it perfect. Nobody gets it perfect in the first go. Anthos was very shortsighted in the past months. Now, with his ass on the cold kitchen limestone, he starts seeing the mess that he let happen. Truth is, a cheeky crush turned into a caprice.

Maure is smart, nevertheless. She’ll be smart enough to avoid seeing Anthos around campus for the rest of her stay at University. She’ll finish her course and clean her hands. Olive’s just a simple fresher, he won’t bump into June again for a few more years to come. They’re separating ways.

It's oddly relieving, knowing that all of this will stay in the past. The constant state of uncertainty and helplessness in his hook up is gone. Of course he feels remorse and he can’t detach as easily as she did, but he too can be wise. What’s done has been done, and he needs to find someone else to pour his love into, hopefully someone who appreciates a bit of clinginess. No hard feelings for June, though, probably only thankfulness for opening up his dreamy eyes. It's hard to manage someone like him, he needs to suck up.

Olive scoffs at himself, runs a hand through the two tufts in his hair to relieve the incoming headache. He appreciates his level temper in such moments, but his soft spot is still stinging. Whoever thought mindlessly falling in love is beautiful, they don’t know shit. What goes deep inside him is unsettling at best. It’s scary to be alone. It’s scary to not have a strong knot around someone. He can’t just suddenly go prancing around in life by himself. There just isn’t anyone to take him by the hand anymore. Life is to be shared with someone, and not sharing little moments with anyone drives Olive insane. There’s no worth in them anymore.

No worth in his fortunes, there’s no worth even in his misfortunes. Who would know, anyway? If anything good or horrible would happen to him right now, it wouldn’t make a difference. There’s no point of reference in close reach for Anthos.

With his melodrama out of the way, which lasted a few good hours, he snaps back to the mundane. He anxiously anticipated reaching a breakup by the time June stopped asking for a piece of his mind, and not of his skin. Their separation wasn't that sudden. It was very predictable for anyone without rose-tinted lenses.

By the next day, he had enough of this useless lingering. The world won’t end. He doesn’t escape his routine. He heads for the campus in the morning, diligently attends lectures, even if he might fall asleep in them, and gets his marked work back. Exceptional, among-the-top results for his latest laboratory assignment, though Olive lets this fact pass by.

His coursemates are whispering. How can Olive not proudly mention his achievement in any conversation? He always did that. Maybe he has reached burnout around the end of the first year. He’s detached, a bit of a bitch, and he sticks to monosyllabic responses.

...It’s not like him! He knows well he’s acting wrong. He went from lax to cranky. He doesn’t need others to tell him that, it’d just get him frustrated.

He tells himself to get up. It’s been three days. He needs something fresh. He should stop drawing flowers over his notes... he could draw one on himself.

Too bad he regrets the idea by the time the tattoo artists' needle stings him in a place he can't even see properly. A delicate, stylised flower will soon be resting for the rest of his life on his lower back, which sounded cooler before getting continuously stung for an hour. He thought it'd be clever to do an olive blossom, pun of his too literal name, but not many will ever recognise it as such. At least the rarity of its sight made it a bit more special.

It’s evening. His back still burns, he soothes it by dragging his cushion fingers over it. Olive sits in front of the fridge for minutes, thinking of how to cook with only a bag of frozen peas and a stick of butter. He’s too lazy to go grocery shopping. The shop is a street away, but he feels sloth dripping away from his pores. It’s not the time for that, though. His paper is due, he barely did any research for it, and the topic brings little to no interest out of him.

Instead of going over a dozen ecosystems created after the Great Flood, he’d rather spend the evening admiring the intricacies of the leaves that surround him, feeling their different textures. Firm, sharp, smooth, veiny, fuzzy... Instead of pressing fingers over someone’s skin, he could substitute it for a while with leaves.

He has flower pots placed all around the apartment, he’s adopted and grown so many plants in the privacy of his room, all with diverse and lush foliage, that his apartment can rival the University’s greenhouse. The shadows that form around the plants’ silhouettes are so elegant, interweaving warm light with the crisp greenery. Nature always knows a way to create beauty on its own, and Anthos will be forever fascinated by this.

That’s what he thought being a botanist was about, letting his hands curate and take care of such beauties. Academics only dulled down the wonder and magic of it. Olive never was a fan of formalities, after all. He’s headstrong enough to keep that unexplainable passion separated from the overly-scientific, formulaic view he holds. A diploma in Botany sure looks nicer than a Splat Zones rank, though, so he spends the weeks before the deadline in the library.

Luck really doesn't shine on him lately. Someone quickly took advantage of his absence. He should’ve known not to trust the neighbourhood he moved into. Returning from a long study session, he finds his apartment broken in, rummaged through all of his papers, pots and field notes. All of this just for a thief to steal the crucial amount of cash Olive left over for rent. Not good. Rent's due in a few days.

He envisioned tucking in bed comfortably on his way back, not standing frozen in the middle of the house turned upside-down. Following the frenzy of curses he spat this whole time, he stops. He won’t go beg mercy for anyone. Only he knows about this, and that’s how it’s gonna stay. He’ll solve this by himself, there’s still time.

Reality then sinks in, the implications of this happening are rather serious. He’s had a rough history with his fussy landlord, he can’t afford hitting a nerve with him again, or even dare trying to stall the payment. He’s fucked if he can’t get hold of money by the end of the week, but only if.

Besides, police won’t probably find who did the deed, even if it took them hours to pick off fingerprints out of the student’s apartment. As time drips by, the lack of solutions infuriates him, stresses him out so much that he can’t think of anything else but the stupid rent.

All hope is not lost, however, as a backup plan lays before his sight. On his way back from groceries, he sees a poster: distracting, colourful and crowded.

The Annual Amateur Mid-summer Tournament is tomorrow. The name’s a mouthful, and the prize is just right: a hearty sum of money, more than enough to keep him into the apartment for another 3 months. He rushes to sign up in Inkopolis Plaza, with milk in hand and all.

Olive doesn’t often decide to battle on his own, so this better work out. He usually has Pepper Ludmila on his side, but she’s busy holding intense battles for competitions overseas, tournaments that tie together big names. Which is a lot more respectable, she got further than him in this domain. He’s sure his graduation meant that Pepper can no longer be held back by his lack of skill or talent, though she doesn’t want to see things as such.

The decisive day comes by quickly.

He finds himself in a fast-paced, free for all tournament, where groups of six individuals battle to get closer to the grand prize. So, in other words, if you're very unlucky, you'll have five enemies chasing you around.

The rules are well known, whoever inks the most turf wins. It either turns into a multicoloured battlefield, or a monochromatic one, where the most inkthirsty battler eliminates most of their rivals.

There’s a twist. It's all or nothing, one splat and you're out for good, to tie in with the lack of teams. It seems dangerous, but, surprisingly, Olive manages to do well out of his simple joy for detail and stealth, managing to catch corners often forgotten by the more violent contestant, jumping away from danger whenever he felt queasiness. The top 3 battlers get a chance to continue fighting, and while Olive never managed to get first place, he always entered the qualifying spots. It might also be because the other 3 losers sometimes got splatted before they had a chance to continue, but that's just how the cookie crumbles.

It's the fifth battle. So far, it went unbelievably smooth, he's filled with hope. Compared to the first ones, he now gained enough confidence to sneak into wider, more exposed spots to steal turf. Survival and behind-the-scenes action are still an important part of his tactic, and thankfully, the other 4 contestants begin picking onto each other, letting him and another one take care of the territories.

Olive sees red spots reappearing in places he'd been before, and no matter how many times he tries covering them up, the red-inked rival always returns with his splash of colour, over and over again. The ground goes green for a minute, then it goes red. Rinse and repeat a hundred times. Red. Green. Red. Green...

This semaphore sequence can go on to infinity, so one of them needs to be smarter. To get the upper hand, he needs to know where his opponent is.

He skids to a hiding spot, behind a pillar. Olive sits with his right shoulder glued to the wall, with his eyes constantly scanning any movement in the area. With such a good cover, he doesn't need to check behind. Or so he thought.

Nobody likes a campy battler. For the red opponent, "not liking" is too little said. Because, in an instant, his Dual Squelcher went flying into Olive's head, sending off a loud thud and knocking him out for half a breath. He raises himself off his knees, and turns to the other fuming.

"The fuck's your problem?" Olive dug his palm on the bruise that started to form under his hair.

"Get off my goddamn turf!"

"Your turf?!"

Before their quarrelling continues, a whistle jarringly announces the halt of the match. The familiar Judd, skirting his little feet over to the offenders, flashes a black flag in front of their faces. You don’t see a black flag too often in Turf War, the meaning is as clear as day. Disqualification. Very unsportsmanlike of them.

Olive goes white. The ink in his hair drains and pales suddenly, his pupils are tinier than ever, he’s unable to feel or do anything. His plan failing was unimaginable before, and now it’s as real as ever. He's frozen solid, while the riled-up stranger starts swearing under his breath and bribing the judge for a softer penalty.

That's not the case, they get moped outside. Without any money, without any discussions. Surrender of tenancy is written all over his forehead.

For now, he's stuck outside the Tower, right next to the guy who screwed him over. The scoreboards promptly crossed out their names. He couldn’t care less for checking the other’s name. From intense fear, Olive went to intense spite. He's so vexed, his fingers rake at each other and their palms. He should stop. They sharply reach for his weapon's carry case. He takes a cigarette out, he has to think of one last way out of losing his place, but it's hard when the dude who just smacked you shifts his look towards you insistently. Why, though? Olive does the same back, and gets a glance of the idiot. He's a short guy, with a side swept hairstyle. He's very uninspired in colour choices, the all-black scheme of his clothes naturally lets your eyes dart to the saturated carmine colour of his eyes. His heavy eyelids thankfully soften the sharp eye-shape and stare he holds.

"Stop looking at me." Olive spat.

"So you wanna stay angry...?" The stranger sounds a tad nasal.

Olive pays no mind. He goes back to flicking the soot off the cigar. The stranger, however, keeps staring. Anthos’s not liking it.

“You should’ve just splatted me. Asshole.”

“Yeah, on a second thought. I should’ve. I made a great first impression, didn’t I?”

His goofy, though snarky smile just brings Olive to a boiling point.

“You fucking stress over your first impression?! ...Nothing more important here?!” Olive has his tone unusually sharp.

“Look, unless your head still hurts, that was a dick move on my part, there’s no point in being so stuck up about a tournament. These battles are for-“

“I don’t care, don’t give a fuck about the battle, or you. I only wanted the cash. I lost the roof above my head, and you yap about your stupid image.”

“Whoa, there.”

There’s an awkward moment of silence.

The stranger‘s less loud. “Like in...?”

“Now you get some links going?”

“...”

At least that got him quiet. He reads between the lines. The red-inked man furrows his eyebrows while he crosses his arms, looking away to his left. He's suddenly tense.

With that out of the way, Olive leans back on the tower's wall, scrolling through his phone like mad, to start searching alternatives. It takes him a few solid minutes to come up with something. He’ll either borrow a-

...The stranger snatches Olive's phone. It takes him by surprise.

"Uh... Not cool...? Give it back?"

He quickly taps in a number, long and pointy fingernails clacking fervently on the screen, saves it, then hands back the phone.

He takes a few steps back, keeping his stare on Olive. "Sorry man. You seem in a pinch. I don’t want to twist and turn in my sleep over you, so... I have a free spot over my place, text me if you need it."

The stranger turns and leaves before Olive can say a thing. He’s left with the sun in his eyes. He looks down on his phone, and sees the new contact. Rodi.

...Rodi? That's his name?

Olive keeps gawking at the name, his cigarette was nearly finished and waiting to burn his fingers. That's not right, though. That happened too quickly. Things don't make sense. This day was too much already. The stub suddenly burns his index finger, he yelps. He throws it on the ground and squishes it hard.

Whatever train of thought he had, it’s gone. He needs a retreat, back home. He can’t even savour his last hours into it from the bewilderment he’s experiencing.

The door unlocks, he lets it close with a backwards kick. Olive impulsively gets his phone out. What was his name... He taps it. And stops. He stares at the blank conversation, at the keyboard, but he won't bring himself to write anything. Where should he even start? Ask more about his favour, or just forget it all? On a second thought, neither. Not just yet. He still needs to digest the situation. He tucks the phone back in his pocket.

He feels a foul stench coming from one corner of the kitchen. A flower vase with a rose bouquet has been sitting there for two weeks, forgotten and unkempt. It was supposed to be gifted, but it never got to its recipient. Said recipient was last seen in her home, holding Olive for a last time. He said he wouldn't think back on it, but something stood out like a sore thumb since then. June used to be rather indifferent to Olive’s pleas for staying together, but by the end of it all, before leaving the mansion by herself, she looked very saddened. It was a huge shift in her mood, and June is usually balanced in her demeanour. She definitely planned out their end, but he'd expect Maure to walk out of the relationship with better morale, not looking in the ground, with her back constantly turned. Hence the last phone call, she knew she’s been too emotional, she wanted to look unaffected, to have the last, cold word. Not that Olive would fight for it, he’d give her anything, even that.

It was nobody's entire fault in the end, both had made their mistakes right from the beginning. Sadly, they were acknowledged too late. June made the mistake of taking advantage of an unassuming romantic in a rough place on her timeline. Olive made the mistake of selfishly accepting her advances, out of a strong need for something physical. The closer they were to ending their hookup, the more they dragged each other down. It's for the best. He starts sweeping the petals into the bin, though some of them fall outside. Forgive and forget, he'll appreciate whatever he had.

Back onto the current frame, Olive can’t brush off the queasy feeling from today's exchange. The stranger's proposal becomes outlandish, given the context of their meeting. Nobody blows someone’s head off like a golf ball and then decides to help them out. There should be something as rotten in the middle as the brown petals scattered on the floor.

He gets startled mid-picking up the petals when his doorbell rings. Surprise, surprise, Pepper returned early from the competition. She unlocks the door herself, after waiting for only 2 seconds.

He looks wide-eyed in her direction, mouth agape. "Oh my god, you're back."

Pepper's a bit confused, seeing him kneeling on the floor. "Yeah I am! What are you even doing?"

"Cleaning."

Olive's cluelessness, mixed with his bluntness makes Pepper giggle.

"Not with that spooked face."

Anthos relaxes, he giggles with her. Not even a minute in and he's already feeling better, the whole room lit up with her. Everything clears up. Of course he let her have one set of extra keys, not only for safety measures, but half of the reason is because he got tired of locking and unlocking the door after her all the time. He gets off the floor and takes her in a big, hearty hug. Pepper embraces back with an even tighter hold, making Olive humorously gasp for air.

“You’re back.” He says again in slight disbelief, for reassurance.

"I can't believe I go missing for a month and you end up sitting on the floor!"

Olive keeps hugging, letting himself move along with Pepper’s childish sway.

Once that’s over, Pepper prances on her springy feet to the coat hanger, leaving her supersized backpack behind, then turning back as bubbly as ever. “So, what were you doin’?”

"Haha. About that..." Olive picks Pepper up and places her on the armchair, disregarding any squealing or the fact that she's grown so fit that it's hard to carry her around. "Sit here. Let's both catch up, talk about what we've been doing lately, okay? You start."

"You’re rushing things! Did you miss me?" She neatens her shirt.

Olive sits in front of her, amusingly enough, on the floor. "I missed your surprise entrances, sure. How come you're back early?" He rubs his hands together in anticipation, whilst showing his neat fangs.

Pepper stretches in a cattish manner. "Ehh, you know how it is! Some smartass decides to play sniper and throws off the entire team. ...We used to have that happen a lot in high school."

"Good times..." Olive winces at the thought of a Splatterscope targeting him, though he’s keeping the smile on his face. "So, that's all? You lost one game?"

"Not only one, we went pretty far in the tourney, but we didn't make it in the finals. I don't really care, it was full of snotty kids. Even you, of all people, seem more fun than them!"

"Thanks, I'm touched."

She pulls her head back. “Man, I don’t know, now that’s done... I should start a new hobby, I have too much downtime in between tournaments and freelancing. How about skateboarding? That sounds cool. Whatcha think?”

Olive distantly nods along. All seems to be fine and dandy in her world. Or, that’s the impression she always wants to leave. Olive knows her enough by now to know she’s susceptible to bottling up.

Ludmila stretches over him and playfully punches his shoulder. "Your turn!"

And his smile dissipates. He doesn't want to burden Pepper with his problems, he wishes to see her happy and glowing all the time. His inconveniences really aren’t worth it from his point of view. Otherwise, how can she light up his mood in situations like these? It seems that she's left him pretty cornered though, she's kicking her feet into his chest, waiting for a response.

"Spill it out, homie. I know you have something in there."

Anthos grabs her ankles, so she would stop kicking. "A lot happened."

"Small steps, you can do it."

“Um... give those keys back.” His eyes dart Pepper’s set of his extra keys.

“What, why? ...Not until you tell me!”

“Yeah, I just realised I have to hand those back too... Look, I’m moving out.” He hesitated on the last few words.

“Weird. I thought you decided on staying ‘till the year’s end. Where’re you moving?”

“I... I don’t know yet? I just need to... I have an option already, but...” Olive circles around the main idea, straying his gaze to the side.

Pepper frees her ankles from his hold and stands up. “Olive! Did something happen?”

Random syllables come out of his mouth.

“Did something bad happen?” Ludmila thinks she might get something out if she asks the problem differently.

“No. Yes? Sort of.”

Pepper leans closer, over her knees. He should start slow, as the first step to fixing a problem is identifying its source.

"You know how I applied, like, some months ago to a bunch of places. Not many called back."

"That's so annoying!"

He raises a finger. "However, only one place got back to me, and, guess what, it's Kelp Dome."

"Now, that's better," Pepper sighs in relief.

"My only problem with that is that they move so, so slowly... I haven't even finished the whole recruitment process, and some colleagues have been working for months now." Olive picks up the pace in his talk. "And I've planned to start work by the beginning of summer, and it's already the middle of it, and I'll end up pissed off and forgotten and broke, which," he deeply sighs, "brings me to the main point."

Seeing how things stand, and how he's sunken into himself, Pepper lifts Olive from the floor. He’s malleable enough to scoop him from under the shoulders and make him sit on the armchair. She starts pacing in front of him. Her hands are on her hips.

“That being?”

“I signed up for this tourney...”

“Oh, yeah, I know which one. There's a pretty good prize! And then...”

“Then I get disqualified. Along with a guy who thought it’s fine to smack me in the head with a weapon.”

“Hahaha! Oh wow.”

“...”

“Sorry! Go on!”

“And I’m here.”

“What’s that to do with moving out?” Pepper stops and faces Olive head-on.

Olive avoids Pepper’s stare and scratches a non-existent itch behind his neck. Before convincing himself to come clean, he meekly covers his mouth, so his words come muffled.

“I can’t pay rent.”

Pepper’s expression goes from stern to concerned. “No way! It’s the shitty landlord, isn’t it? I can help, I just got-” She rushes over her bag, left at the door.

“Wait, I don’t need it!” His legs instantly spring from the chair. Olive rushes over her and zips up her bag.

Pepper looks disoriented at Olive’s stiff hands, going from clawed on the zipper to softening around hers. “...You earned it, keep it.”

“Dude! It’s not like I have anything to do with this!”

“You didn’t let me finish.”

Her lime eyebrows ruffle up. She puffs in frustration. “Ugh. You never want any help, ever. Neither your mum, or myse-“

“I already got help.”

Ludmila knows and reminds herself she’s quick to jump to conclusions. She lets him talk.

“Someone lets me stay over their place.”

“Who?”

Anthos nervously laughs, he tried to avoid this question. “Neither do I know.”

“That’s just wrong! It’s not safe to meet strangers! That’s like, a basic safety rule!”

“I already met him! It’s just that I don’t know him too well.”

“...Well? How’s he, from what you’ve got?”

Short pause.

“...A bitch?” He mutters for himself under his breath, not knowing more about them.

“Just like you!”

“Pepper, please.”

In the light of the situation, Pepper flashes her fangs once more and sends off a youthful laugh, with snorts and all.

She’s back to taking things as lighthearted as usual.

“I needed a better apartment anyway. Rent’s too high for this shit hole.”

"Oh, come on, it ain't that bad. You're just bitter over losing it." Pepper starts crawling to his behind, to toy with his long hair. “When’re you gonna get kicked out?”

“Soon... very soon. Likely tomorrow, since that’s when everything’s due.”'

She tugs on the tentacles on every consonant, out of slight frustration. “Augh, I would so kick Rue out, so you’d have space at my place.”

“I think your brother hates me enough already,” Olive adamantly smiles, and holds his hair from its base so it won’t hurt.

It takes a few silent minutes for Pepper to finish messing up her teammate’s hairstyle. Once she’s done using Anthos as a guinea pig, she says stoically: “...So you’ll move in with the guy.”

Olive ponders for a few seconds. “Should I?”

“Do you have any other options?”

He can’t come up with anything. “...Not really, not now.”

“Do it, then. You’re already this low. At least ‘till you’re done with your summer term, and then move in with your mum.”

Bless her honesty, because his decision-making skills are too sluggish for these circumstances. He nods and intentions to follow her advice.

Though, after a pause, part of her wants to eagerly change the subject, as if remembering something. She's showing some hesitation. “Now... There’s this girl I met. She skateboards, that’s why I’ve been thinking about getting into it.”

Olive oohs. Pepper pinches his arm, he squeaks.

“Let me finish, geez. Thing is, she’s super good at it, but she’s so aloof and shy, I can’t just come up to her and be like: hey! I’m Pepper, a crazy bitch, can you teach me some flips? She’ll close up in-stan-tly.”

“Then go easy.”

“Will it be worth a try?”

“Maybe. I can’t be the only one taking leaps of faith here.”

“I’m not convinced,” she yawns playfully.

“Then why ask me?!”

Ludmila just snickers.

She hangs around for a few more minutes. She gets disappointed by how empty the fridge is, whilst Olive gets lost in newer worries. Moving in with someone you just met, as ludicrous as it is, could probably be viable. But he can’t go back home after, his mother shouldn’t know any of this. He won’t be another weight on her shoulders, he’s been that enough.

As soon as Pepper storms off home, only after another hug, Olive reluctantly begins packing up. The landlord will surely come by next morning to make the unceremonious announcement, so he better be ready for it. He definitely won't be able to move with all his plants, he will leave the larger ones behind. Which sucks, it's a bit of a heartbreak, he put in a lot of hours into them, but they just aren't practical.

By evening, still not done with packing, he gets his phone out once more. He’s finally gutsy enough to type his text.

“It’s that guy from today. do you still have a free spot for me?”

Sent. He stays with his phone in his hand, waiting minutes for it to buzz.

...

“yes, ill be in tomorrow. you don't even have to knock at the door when you arrive. call me when you can”

The red inkling is nice enough to offer an exact map location instantly after.

How surprisingly easy it was.