summer sadness ( jj maybank )

# eight

━━━━━━ ☀︎,━━━━━━━...‥・

"I MEAN ITS OBVIOUS, RIGHT?"

the pogues drove down a random road in the obx, as pope fiddled with the compass, john b and kiara in the two front seats, and jj sitting on the seat behind the drivers seat, and aelia sitting in between the blonde boys legs on the floor board.

"i mean, it's obvious, right? a family heirloom. what better place to hide a message? he had to know it was gonna get back to me, right?" questioned john b as aelia leaned her head against the seat above her and sighed and kie responded, "yeah. it's possible."

"it could also be possible that you're concocting wild theories to help, you know, deal with your sad feels." kie gives pope a look after his comment.

"bro, you know how i process my sad feels? dank bugs and the stickiest of ickies" jj mumbled, as the girl below him agreed. "that is the realest thing i've heard all week—."

"—im not, im not concocting, okay?" john b cut the blonde of, looking over at kiara. "my dads trying to give me a message."

"if it helps you believe, john b," replied kie as john b looks at the girl, "look, i- i don't need a therapy session, okay? look, i'm not trippin' out."

"it's okay to trip, bro, but-"

"look, my- my dad is missing, okay? missing." sighed john b as aelia looked up at jj as he shrugged. she knew he'd never give up on finding his dad and she couldn't really understand why, he'd been missing for nine months, theres no way hes still out at sea.

"you don't know what it's like to have the person closest to you vanish and then have no idea what happened. just wake up every morning wondering."

kie leaned towards the boy, "it's been almost a year." he looked at kie as jj sighed and trys to lighten the mood, "hey, he could have been kidnapped. that's definitely a possibility."

"yeah, could be in a soviet sub getting interrogated by the KGB somewhere," adds pope as jj replies, "absolutely. uh... or atlantis."

"maybe he was taken by a whole bunch of dwarfs" aelia suggested, as jj looked down, smiling at the girl who was undeniably high.

"guys.. look, what do you think the message is?" kiara asked john b, "redfeild"

"redfeild lighthouse, that's my dads favorite place."

the rest of the drive was quiet, as none of the pogues knew what to say. none of them believed a single word john b said, but if doing this little treasure hunt would help him realize his dad wasn't coming back, they would do it.

john b parked the van outside a fence that surround the lighthouse, all the pogues hopped out to look at the tall white building infront of them.

john b turned to the two blondes, "right. you guys are gonna post up and look out for bogeys, okay?" aelia looked around, "why us?"

"because you guys are not coming," sighs pope as jj looks at the boy, "why?" pope sighs, "look guys, there are independent and dependent variables. and you both are independent variables, we don't know what you'll do."