The Past is Only the Future with the Lights On

---After school; 3:11 p.m.---

"Having fun there?" I heard Frank ask me in an amused tone as my eyes continued to scan over the tattoos on his arms. A sigh left my lips as I dropped his arm to his side, after admiring it for the past five minutes or so as we walked down the cold streets of New Jersey.

It was a wonder how Frank was able to walk around without a jacket or anything keeping him warm in this weather, being so close to Christmas and all.

"Did these hurt?" I asked, referring to all of his tattoos as I looked up, only to meet his admirable face.

"A little. But after a couple, you get used to the pain," he gave me a small shrug of his shoulders. "You thinking about getting one?" he raised his eyebrows at me.

I nodded my head, remembering how after I saw my aunt's tattoos several years ago, I had been obsessed with getting my own.

"Cool, cool," he nodded, looking over his tattoos for a second, as well. "I was thinking about doing my knuckles one day."

"What would you get?" I asked curiously.

"Halloween," he smirked, glancing down at me.

"Like your birthday?" I asked, watching him nod before putting a thoughtful expression on his face.

"Do you have a sharpie?" he asked, suddenly stopping. I nodded and stopped as well so I could fish through my messenger bag, finally revealing a black sharpie.

I handed it to him, confusion written clearly across my face as he grinned and uncapped the permanent marker, placing it at the end of it.

"Let me see your hands like this," he said, showing me what to do with my hands by putting his in tight, clenched fists next to each other. I did as I was told, Frank not hesitating to put the black ink to the skin of my knuckles.

He wrote something on eight of my knuckles (leaving out my thumbs) before passing the marker to me, the cap still on it's end. He then told me what to write on his knuckles. This confused me even more, because I was still completely clueless as to what was written on my knuckles (Frank told me I couldn't look yet - which kind of made it hard for me to write but I managed) and my name was included in what I was writing on Frank's hands.

"Alright, put or hands next to each other and then look," he instructed with the same toothy grin. I set my side by side hands next to his and read it. On my hands, Frank had written: F-R-A-N-K-H-E-A. Then, as my eyes continued onto his hands, I read what I wrote: R-T-S-K-E-L-L-Y.

A helpless smile formed on my lips as an amused laugh left them, Frank's 'creativity' flattering me more than it should have over such a silly thing.

"Think of that by yourself, Iero?" I smirked over at him, my knees suddenly going into a weak state as he smiled proudly at me.

"You bet," was his un-insulted answer. He looked back ahead of us, his eyes landing on something there, mine, naturally, doing the same.

The sidewalk across the street, from the corner we were standing on, had been completely taped off by bright yellow caution tape. Pieces of white paper had been taped to the eye-catching plastic, reading: WET CEMENT.

"Stupid bastards," Frank mumbled under his breath as he stepped off the curb and onto the black pavement so he could make his way towards the cement.

Intrigued, I followed close behind Frank.

"Who?" I asked, seeing Frank stopping a couple inches away from the tape, his head turning in all directions to check for anyone who may be watching.

"The people who left this wet cement unattended," he smiled as he lifted the yellow tape and walked underneath it, his black Converse covered feet immediately being swallowed in the gray substance.

I couldn't help but laugh at Frank as he had slight difficulty with walking through the cement. He turned back around so he was walking towards me, a smile still spread across his lips.

As he came back under the tape, he looked over his shoulder at the damage he'd caused. Smiling proudly, he nodded and then looked down at his feet, his shoes and a little bit of the bottoms of his black pants covered in gray, wet cement.

"You should take those off before the cement dries," I chuckled, pointing down at his no-longer-black shoes.

"Probably," he laughed, putting his right foot in the back of his left one and kicking it off before doing the same to his other, as to keep the cement off his hands.

We continued walking, the mall now only a couple blocks away.

"You like to live in the moment, don't you?" I smiled at Frank, seeing a small smile creep up on his face as well.

"You could say that," he nodded. "People - we play it safe, you know?" he asked, receiving a nod from me. "Then they regret it. I'd rather regret doing something completely stupid than regret not doing something."

I agreed 100% with Frank's philosophy on life, but couldn't help but think about how I wasn't living by it. I was the person playing it safe and regretting it afterwards. Even if it was something stupid like walking through wet cement just to say I had, I wasn't doing it. But it was mainly with my feelings. Dahlia went for it and told Mikey, but I knew it wouldn't be the same for my case. And telling Frank about my feelings was something I'd rather regret not doing. Telling him would just make things worse.

"You'll have to listen to this song I have," he said. "Perfect example of all of this," he explained, referring to what he'd just said about living in the moment.

I simply nodded again, unsure of what to say to that. Thankfully, the large, two story brick building came into view, shutting both of us up until we stepped inside the warmth of the mall.

"Alright, so you go do your hair and I'll go buy presents and. . .shoes," Frank smiled, holding up his shoes. "And we can meet in about. . .an hour and a half at the fountain, yeah?" he asked, glancing at his Nightmare Before Christmas watch.

"Sure," I smiled, patting him on the head as I walked past him and made my way to the hair salon in the mall.