Chapter Text
Bug hunting: “I’m Looking Out For You”
“Gah! This is gonna be so much fun , Anne!” Marcy squeaked, trying to contain her excitement as she bounced her leg, the anticipation buzzing in her bones. “I can just see the beautiful insects we’re going to find as if I could reach out and touch them right now !”
Marcy grasped at some invisible thing in the stuffy air to emphasise her point.
The low rumble of the car kicking up dirt on the beaten path hummed in the back of Anne’s mind as she glanced at her friend out the corner of her eye.
“I’m sure you can, but just remember to look where you’re going - can’t have a repeat of last time, Marbles.” the brunette remarked, raising her eyebrows, unable to keep a smirk off her lips.
Immediately, the brightness that Marcy exuded in both her expression and body language took a quick nose-dive at the reminder of her last incident when they went out bug hunting together.
Flicking her head round, Marcy wore a frown accompanied by a playful pout.
“Oh come on, Anna-banana, you sound like my Mom! Let me have at least some freedom…”
Anne’s smirk wavered for a second, noticeable to nobody else in the car except herself, but pulled it back up as quickly as it had went; she wasn’t sure how her friend managed to pull such a convincing pleading-face, knowing full well that Marcy would jump at the first chance she got to see a cool bug… even if it wasn’t safe.
Even so, Anne still wanted to let it slip, I mean, just how could you say no to a face like that?
Squinting determinedly at her, Anne steeled her expression - she may be a pushover, but she wouldn’t give up that easily.
“If your so-called ‘freedom’” her fingers gestured air quotes at Marcy mockingly “includes following a butterfly—“
“IT WAS A PAINTED LADY!”
“—as it flew over a river and being sooo stuck in your thoughts that you fell into said river, getting soaked and gaining symptoms of hypothermia before I could finally get to you…” Anne extended a slight silence after her words, gauging her friend’s reaction.
Marcy folded her arms, puffing her cheeks out as she turned to face the back of the shotgun chair in front of her, pretending that she wasn’t interested in what Anne might be saying. Leaves came into view from out of her window, a light glow of green illuminating the side of Marcy’s face as they drove by.
Anne continued, “…then maybe it’s good that I’m looking out for you.”
Huffing pitifully, Marcy continued to death-stare the headrest of the other car seat, not wanting to admit that Anne was probably right.
Inwardly, Anne scoffed, finding the sight amusing.
A gentle metallic clink would mix amongst the muffled sounds of the roaming vehicle as Anne’s mom’s keys would jostle about if they encountered a large bump or ditch in the track.
Both Anne and Marcy had done this before, they’d been doing it since they were kids. Oum would take the two out to a secluded forest, about an hour and a half away from the Boonchuy residence, and wait in the car for the duo to be finished, satisfied with whatever strange insects they’d come across.
Today, it was the weekend and summer break was right around the corner (at least, in Oum’s books. Anne thought that 2 weeks was still a long time to wait) so the warm weather with brighter evenings was the prime time to let her daughter and her best friend venture out on a little fun expedition for the most colourful and crazy critters.
Two smiling faces reflected in Oum’s car mirror, both staring out their own window, she knew they were only happy because they were together - the lush greenery was only adding to the comfort that was already there.
Oum wasn’t blind, and she’d die on the hill of her daughter liking Marcy no matter what Bee tried to tell her.
“Oh, oh, Anne, look!” The shorter of the two pointed urgently at a spindly tree in the distance, curling up into the sky as it wound its way down into the damp earth.
Following her line of sight, Anne’s eyes sparkled with Marcy’s own, both of them finding this specific willow to be intricate and interesting.
“Wow, Marcy, it looks really cool!” Anne complimented “Good thing you spotted it.”
“Yeah,” the nerd bunched up her hands into the crook of her neck as she grinned wildly “we should totally go back there and climb it!”
Anne didn’t know if Marcy’s grin could grow wider - or when she’d started to return it, either.
Oum wasn’t sure if Marcy rubbing off on her daughter was a good thing… but she knew that Anne rubbing off on her certainly was. Marcy’s recent moments of awareness and fewer accidents being added to her daily nicks and bruises hadn’t gone unnoticed by both herself and Anne.
“Well… while that does sound very fun, please remember to be careful- I don’t want you hurting yourself… again.” The brunette reasoned tentatively, not wanting to spoil the other’s enthusiasm. Resting a hand on her shoulder, Anne offered a haphazard smile, creases in her brow caused by her inner worry.
Marcy’s energy fell dead. At least, to Anne, watching her from the outside, it did.
Her little button nose scrunched up in surprise for a second, hand hung in the air as if Marcy wasn’t sure what to do with the extra limb. Slowly, Marcy’s eyes trailed to Anne’s hand on her shoulder, an array of emotions muddling behind her eyes.
Sharply, Anne yanked her hand away, eyes widening with realisation and smile fading as she studied her friend’s expression closely, picking up on every minute detail of her expression. Marcy still hadn’t spoken, still a little too shocked to say much.
“S-sorry.” Anne spat suddenly, unsure of what to do and anxiety crawling up her throat. “I forgot you aren’t one for touch. It… w-won’t happen again.”
Cradling her hand as if it had been burnt, the taller girl averted her gaze from Marcy, sitting back in her seat instead of leaning forwards like she had been doing only moments ago. The new distance was strange to Marcy, uncomfortably so.
Marcy felt her eyes becoming wet and forced herself to tear her attention away from Anne. She didn’t like to be treated like something untouchable, something that could be easily upset, something fragile .
As much as she hated physical touch from people she didn’t trust, she wasn’t as breakable as glass.
However, Marcy felt her heart shatter at the thought of Anne never touching her again. It wasn’t like she got it from anyone else - nor would she accept it from anyone else.
She shook the thought away, trying to divert her thoughts away from the suspended tension that lingered in the car.
Sparing a glance or two in Marcy’s direction, Anne tried to think of anything else she could say to her than a stream of more apologies. Although, after some time of formulating a coherent question, she summoned up the courage to speak.
“…are you okay?”
In the front, Oum gripped a little tighter on the wheel, watching her daughter’s friend draw her knees to her chest in her rear view mirror.
Anne cringed at the sight, wishing that she could take back what she’d done, before receiving a small, meek response.
Behind the fabric of her trousers, her chin pushed into her knees, Marcy mumbled “Yeah, I’m fine.”
Narrowing her eyes, Anne could see that she was far from fine, but the dismissive reply from Marcy was enough to tell Anne that pressing any further would only make the j-rpg player more upset.
She dropped the subject, still staring at Marcy in hopes of spotting any sign of her being willing to talk, but Marcy simply kept her eyes locked straight ahead, looking more put-together than she certainly felt.
————————
Luckily for Anne, after about ten or so minutes of more turbulent driving (a consequence of the beaten road not being as flat as the group were used to on the usual tarmac of main roads) Oum switched off the engine. It didn’t matter if her car blocked the rest of the road, it cut off at the river only 50 meters away anyway and there didn’t seem to be anyone else around to bother.
Hastily unclipping her seatbelt, Anne hurried to escape the lingering tension by physically removing herself from the car entirely, quick to bolt out the door and stretch.
“Anne! Make sure you look after Marcy, alright? And Marcy, don’t let Anne do something stupid either.” Oum shouted from inside the car, glaring coldly at her daughter to express how seriously she meant her words.
Begrudgingly, Anne gave her mom a half-hearted thumbs-up, hearing another click of one of the car’s doors - most likely the sound of Marcy getting out too.
Hauling out a heavy backpack, the smaller girl thanked Mrs Boonchuy before shutting the car door firmly, trudging around the vehicle to stand with Anne.
Anne rubbed her arm subconsciously, not that she’d learnt her own tells that gave away when she was feeling anxious, but Marcy, on the other hand, had learnt those tells. With her social ineptitude, she couldn’t not, it being the only way to navigate how her best friend was feeling.
Breathing in deeply, Marcy expelled a long sigh.
“Can we go to the river? Then maybe we can climb the willow later.”
Anne perked up at the inviting question, her own tone encouraging Marcy’s confidence.
“You mean that tree? Wasn’t that like…” pulling a focused face, eyes searching the empty air around her, Anne tried to calculate how many miles that tree must be from them if they sat for another twenty minutes in a car before they got to where they were now.
“Ten minutes away by car?” the gamer offered, mouth quirking into a little smile, swaying backwards and forwards on her heels. “Yeah… but it’s not as far as you might think.”
Anne simply looked perplexed.
“What.”
Marcy had to choke back a laugh, the bemused expression plastered on Anne’s face churning a light fuzziness in her chest.
“God, you looked horrified ! I’m not gonna make you walk that far, silly,” Marcy explained between giggles that seemed to interrupt her speech like bubbly hiccups “The road here by car is unbelievably windy, even if it was ten minutes ago by car in all those loops and twists, in reality, it’s probably only eight minutes or so on foot if we go in a straight line.”
The sunlight shimmered in Marcy’s dark brown eyes, illuminating them to gleam and keen umber with a serene soft glow. Anne blinked away her stupor.
“O-oh… right.”
Marcy held her small smile, clasping her hands behind her back as she swayed backwards and forwards, looking off to Mrs Boonchuy’s car that was doing a U-turn at the bottom of the road.
She decided to set off, feeling Anne’s eyes on her. Marcy didn’t want to be self-conscious for longer than she had to.
“Sooo… I’ve got two tupperware boxes in here,” she patted her school rucksack, strangely empty of all the revision books it was normally packed with “incase we find any cool bugs - and I’ve got a breathable cardboard box for any that we might wanna take home!”
Blinking twice, Anne hurried to keep up with her friend, matching her pace as they both walked together.
She scoffed “I don’t think my mom would be too happy about me bringing bugs into the house.”
Something about the way Anne’s cheeks would go rosy when she admitted anything embarrassing captivated Marcy’s full attention, not really focused on the road ahead at all.
Ofcourse, Anne knew her blush wasn’t entirely just to do with embarrassment, feeling her face grow warmer.
“Eh, it’s fine ,” Marcy tore her gaze away from Anne, rolling her eyes endearingly and cracking a mischevious smirk “I hide all the bugs in my room from my parents, fuck knows if they ever found out I had them.”
Although she laughed light-heartedly, Anne didn’t find it all that funny.
“Wow, Mars… I don’t think I’ve ever heard you swear before.” She raised her eyebrows, expression surprised but neutral for the most part. Thinking, connecting dots in her head.
Anne wasn’t kidding either, Marcy never swore, so it was incredibly noteworthy, to Anne, that the curse slipped from her lips so easily.
Marcy visibly flinched, almost tripping over her own feet.
“O-oh, yeah, sorry about that, just being dramatic and stuff… maybe Sasha’s rubbing off on me more than I’ve noticed…” the nerd’s last remark was probably her thinking out loud, but given that Anne had heard it regardless, she shot her an inquisitive look.
Dirt scuffed along the soles of their shoes, a pair of yellow sneakers and brown hiking boots (that were clearly too large for their wearer).
“Well,” Marcy fumbled with her hands in front of her “we both know how… vulgar… she can be at times.”
“Most of the time.” Anne corrected her, not afraid of calling out the blonde’s bad mouth.
Cringing awkwardly, Marcy tapped the straps of her rucksack with her pointer fingers. Even she couldn’t deny Anne’s words.
Anne had never really asked Marcy about her parents much, finding the topic a little touchy due to how tense her friend would get when discussing it. Although it wasn’t good just how much Marcy hid from her parents, Anne was under the impression that it might be worse if they did know.
Formed purely by what Marcy had been willing to tell her (and her own experiences being round her house), it was clear the Wu family was rather proud of Marcy’s academic accomplishments. But… there were no photos framed on the walls that showed Marcy with anything other than a certificate in her hands. It wouldn’t be the first time her friend had complained about being smart, something that - at the time - Anne had never understood, humiliated by her own low grades. Anne never excelled in any of her academic subjects at school except sports, so she had always envied her best friend’s intelligence.
These days, the harder she thought about it, the more she realised just how much pressure Marcy put on herself to achieve a ‘perfect score’ in just about everything in her life - test paper or not.
“Anne?”
Forcibly shoved back into the present, Marcy eyed her warily, waiting for some kind of response. The trickle of water rang softly through the cool breeze as Anne turned to see that they’d reached the river sooner than she’d expected.
She shook her head and put her brain back in gear.
“What? Sorry, I didn’t hear you.”
Marcy opened her mouth to speak, but just as quickly shut it before she could manage to get a word out. She looked tired, Anne noticed, more tired than she should for someone who was normally bouncing off the walls with energy like a tiger held by the tail.
Weary from a torrent of feelings brewing behind her eyes, Marcy sighed, turning back to lay her gaze on the running water.
“I… just asked if you were okay.” She mumbled, lowering herself to kneel on the river bank, blades of grass tickling her thighs and mud squelching under her knees. It was a little cold, but the warmth of the sun helped fend off the approaching chill.
“Oh,” Anne hesitated before joining Marcy on the bank, watching the waves of blue froth when they collided with the sharp rocks and jagged stones that jutted out occasionally along the river bed. It was larger than a stream but smaller than something too colossal; Anne could stand in it and have the water come up at waist height, but she was sure that Marcy would somehow find a way to drown in it if she were clumsy enough to fall in - and with Marcy’s streak of clumsiness… she wouldn’t be surprised.
Unfortunately, the nerd was just clearly cursed with being accident-prone because it wasn’t exactly like being short would put her at too much of a disadvantage to Anne in the river, it would only probably be stomach or lower chest height on her — not exactly shoulder height.
Alas, this was Marcy Regina Wu, head of the chess club, master RTS player, straight-A student (except in gym but only because she was reading in class), and the klutziest person Anne had ever known.
It didn’t make her admire her any less, though. Anne thought of Marcy very highly, always had and always would…
…She just hoped the ravenette felt the same about her too.
“Yeah, I’m just… y’know, thinking n’stuff.” Anne replied, shrugging as she offered the other a small smile, crouching down next to the water’s edge to dip her hand into the rushing water. It was cold and calm against her warm and heightened pulse beneath the layers of her tanned skin, something to distract her from her confusing and strange emotions.
Marcy quirked an eyebrow up at her friend, cocking her head as she saw Anne sift the river water through her parted fingers, sitting down beside her to level with her face. Now, she could see the brunette’s lips were pursed and eyes watching the blue trickle over her palm mesmerisingly.
“Thinking?” was all she could ask, the single word in itself speaking volumes.
“Yeah, thinking…” Anne murmured, still staring at the water as it flowed past.
Marcy spotted the edge of Anne’s yellow hoodie graze over the surface of the river as she crouched over it, the iconic comfort clothing (a signature piece of Anne’s) dampening at the contact, growing darker in hue as the water spread through the fabric. Normally, Sasha would have immediately pointed out this detail to Anne, taking care of her friend’s appearance to make sure she always looked stylish and clean in her own weird-yet-caring way. But Sasha wasn't here (which was almost a privilege really, considering that Anne and her almost never got any alone time together after Sasha first befriended them all those years ago, but Marcy couldn’t claim that she didn’t enjoy having Sasha around when she was with them as a trio) and Marcy wasn’t Sasha. So, she overlooked that detail and tried to focus on the conversation at hand and not stray too far from the main topic.
She scrunched her brows. ‘Thinking’ ? Thinking could mean many things. Thinking could be daydreaming, thinking could be mulling over something you didn’t understand, or thinking could be worrying (all three being the types of ‘thinking’ that Marcy was very used to having first-hand experience of). Therefore, hearing Anne claim that she was ‘thinking’ couldn’t have been a good sign at all.
Tapping her fingers thoughtfully, Marcy leaned forwards to get a better look at Anne’s expression in hopes of identifying the undertones lying beneath her words.
“Thinking about… what? Is it bad thinking?”
Anne lifted her hand out of the river, leaning back a little to sit down, her legs aching a little after being bent and balanced on for so long. Squinting, Anne finally turned her head to meet Marcy’s inquisitive stare. It did startle her a little to see how intently her friend’s eyes were examining her, but after blinking away the soft pink that seemed to suddenly dust her cheeks, her tone lowered, growing more concerned.
“You don’t talk about your parents that much. You and Sash are similar like that.” She blurted out suddenly, swallowing the lump that choked that back of her throat.
The smaller of the two visibly flinched, caught off-guard by the question. Pausing for a moment to process Anne’s words and let the statement breathe over the sound of soft splashing water in front of them, Marcy chose her next words carefully.
“…do I need to?”
Anne looked at her blankly, simply observing the hazel colour of her irises before humming.
“I suppose you don’t, I guess,” She chewed the inside of her cheek before continuing “But… you know you’re always welcome in my house, right?”
Marcy glanced at Anne cautiously, slowly understanding what Anne was implying. Somewhat anxiously, she wrung her hands subtly in her lap.
“I mean, my mom probably loves you more than me at this rate!” She continued, joking to lighten the mood somewhat.
Her rosy cheeks, her curly hair, her eyes that still managed to smile even when shut so tight, her bright smile that radiated like the sun, her laughter, her warmth that left Marcy burning from the inside out. She let go of her hands, letting them fall lax.
Breathing past the cotton stuffed down her windpipe was hard, but it wasn’t nearly as hard as pretending she didn’t feel it at all. If Anne knew she was like this when around her, Marcy wouldn’t know what to do with herself. Not that she’d do anything without Anne if she could help it, anyway.
“Nooo… don’t say that! I’m sure I’ve done plenty of things to annoy your mom.” The Vagabondia Chronicles enthusiast challenged, eyes already drifting up to the low hanging branches that draped a few feet above them to recall certain humiliating instances.
“Nuh-uh! Trust me, you’ll know when my mom’s pissed. I can’t even think of one time I’ve ever heard her upset as a result of something you’ve done.” As the tennis player articulated her words with her hands, Marcy felt her own being pulled magnetically to Anne’s but quickly suffocated that spark of thought after what had happened in the car earlier.
Suddenly, an all-too vivid memory struck Marcy square between her eyes.
“What about when I broke your mom’s vase? Didn’t you say that was a family heirloom…?” She inquired, a swell of guilt now sloshing around uncomfortably in her stomach.
“What? No, she wasn’t mad at you for that!” Anne protested, flapping her hand at the other’s question like it was a pestering fly.
Marcy didn’t move her eyes from Anne, waiting.
“…”
“…okay, maybe she was a little irritated when that happened—“
“HA! I knew it.” Marcy gloated, scoffing as her intuition was right.
“ But, ” Anne insisted, cutting the ravenette off before she could spit out more remnants of her now-fortified pride “She never blamed you, she was just sad it got smashed.”
Marcy’s smile wavered, thinking back to how awful she felt after the incident that day.
“And, anyway, she blamed me for letting you slip and fall into it in the first place.” Grumbled the yellow-shoe’d friend, picking up little pebbles wedged into the wet mud of the bank and tossed them fruitlessly into the river.
Marcy choked down a laugh, sighing fondly.
“Seriously, though,” that caught Marcy’s attention again “you’re always welcome to stay over or talk whenever. I want you to stay over and talk to me, because sometimes I feel like I don’t listen to you enough which makes you stop communicating with me at all. And if you just can’t deal with being in your own house, that too…”
Gratitude, that’s the first thing Marcy felt, amongst a flare of hope and belonging that she hadn’t noticed lacking from her heart until she felt herself drown under it.
Smiling, she simply nodded, albeit bashfully. It was enough for Anne to know she’d understood.
A few moments passed, the wind blowing strands of their hair into their faces, a leaf narrowly missing Marcy’s face (instead flying into Anne and getting wedged into her thick curly hair).
“…thanks.” Marcy whispered at last, drawing her legs up to her chest so her chin could rest idly atop her knobbly knees, the thin texture of canvas brushing against her skin as the War of Warlocks themed plaster that had been hastily applied to the bloodied scuff across the top of her knee crinkled under the new added weight of her head, heavy with all the thousands of words her mouth failed to say until Anne would’ve already walked away. There wasn’t time enough for all that she wanted to tell Anne, sometimes. Luckily, though, that single word relayed the gist of how she felt to her oldest friend.
Anne turned away from her, embarrassed to show her reddening cheeks, nodding passively to let Marcy know she’d heard her.
Pressing her nails into the drawstrings of her gamer hoodie, worn from years of chewing and pulling, Marcy’s smile fell when Anne turned away. Did she not believe her? Did she not get how much her offer had meant to her?
At first, she hesitated, stilling as the rippling water beside her continued downstream, ever moving. No - she hardened her eyes and pursed her lips - she wouldn’t let this adversity stop her from connecting on a more personal level with her friend. Spontaneously, she shoved her hand towards Anne’s, feeling how it still felt wet from being dunked in the river yet warm despite the coolness it had been submerged in.
Whipping her head round, the brunette’s eyes widened, pupils shooting up and down between Marcy’s hand on her’s and the face of the girl herself who’d initiated the contact. Physical touch? Marcy?
Reading the taller like a book, the nerd chuckled, rubbing her thumb over Anne’s knuckles casually. The action tinged Anne’s ears a fuzzy pink.
Glimmering keenly in the soft dappled light that filtered through the entangled vines and leaves that shrouded the branches of the tree that leant over where they both sat, the flowing river trickled by, filling the silence that fell between them.
The sides of Marcy’s eyes creased as she offered Anne a sincere smile of gratitude.
“I mean it, thank you. It’s a big privilege to be welcome in a second home if or when I need it…” she pressed, fingers squeezing her friend’s gently in a reassuring manner.
If Anne’s heart was a ball of yarn, a small, curious cat had wormed its way into her chest and began playfully tugging at the loose strings. It felt similar to being pulled like a slinky; yearning yet persisting no matter how far the warmth caged behind her set of cold ribs was stretched. It felt wrong to keep it trapped, confined in her being while it begged to be free. However, Anne wasn’t even sure what ‘it’ was, never having previously felt this excited buzz blooming in her being before. Sighing, she expelled the stiff breath she’d been holding out through her nose, tension leaking from her muscles as she tried not to focus on Marcy’s soft hand weighing heavy on her own.
What she did know, though, was that Marcy was her best friend, and Anne liked her. A lot .
Enough to go to great lengths for her comfort. One of those lengths was how Anne abstained from touching Marcy, knowing that she could get overwhelmed by physical contact at times and was naturally touch-adverse. So, you can imagine her surprise when Marcy so swiftly went to lay her palm over the back of the tennis player’s hand.
“I know you mean it- it’s just…” the brunette bit her lip, her fist clenching underneath Marcy’s fingers. “…is this okay? With you, I mean.”
—End of Part 1—