-

◜ ◝
12. radio silence
◟ ◞

˖⁺ 🕷⋆ ୭ ⛓ .⋆｡⋆༶⋆˙⊹

ALL CORPSE FELT WAS REGRET. When he woke up the afternoon after calling Lorelai, he felt instant remorse flood his body. He had made a grave mistake, hadn't he? He had been too drunk and too scared, and because of that, he had also freaked out Lorelai. Thousands of scenes of Lorelai telling Felix and Marzia what a loser Corpse is had been playing in his mind like a movie theater ever since he woke up.

That afternoon, he spent time cleaning things up. He cleaned the wine off of his tile, swallowed some pain relievers to help with his pounding headache, and tossed the red splotched tee he had been wearing into the far corner of his bedroom. There was no hope of getting the hours-old stain out of the white tee, but he didn't necessarily want to get rid of the shirt either. Surely, he could find a use for it someday.

He unloaded the groceries he had left sitting on his counter, making sure to throw away the carton of milk now that it reeked a foul stench and had floating chunks bobbing up to the surface. Corpse would have to make due without milk until whenever he went grocery shopping next. One thing was for certain, he would have to find a new grocery store. He didn't care if it took hours to drive there; Corpse would frequent a new store.

Cleaning his apartment had made Corpse feel a little better. The nagging regret still lingered in his mind, so he had made sure to stay off of his phone and not check any of his socials. He hadn't even turned on his computer out of fear of finding a Discord message telling him just how weird he was from Lorelai. Nowhere in his mind did he feel like he was overreacting, although one day it would become so apparent that he was.

All of this led him to where he is now, sitting on his couch, lazily watching Black Butler to help distract himself. Corpse had watched and re-watched the show a dozen times over, but it was comforting, in a way, to know what was going to happen when.

Corpse looks to his side, eyes catching on the clock on his oven. How was it already ten? He could have sworn it hadn't been that long since he woke up.

The minute number changes from a five to a six, and Corpse stands up. He needs food. For the first time in a while, he was starving, and it wasn't the starving where he knew he was going to feel like shit after eating.

Maybe he's being overly cocky, but Corpse grabs his landline and orders pizza. Pizza was one of the foods that Corpse was always told would make his GERD worse, along with other fast foods and overly sugary items. Unfortunately for him, Corpse was always craving pizza. All of the time. Usually he would regret ordering pizza out of fear his condition would get a lot worse, but today he feels good. Anyways, he needs this pizza. Overthinking his call with Lorelai had really drained him out mentally, psychically, and emotionally.

The pizza man leaves the box on Corpse's doorstep, and after waiting five minutes, Corpse goes out to grab it. He takes it straight to the couch and lays down, hungrily shoving a piece into his mouth without a care in the world. It had been a long time since he felt good enough to eat pizza. This distraction had entirely wiped Lorelai from his mind, and even if he subconsciously knew that wouldn't last for long, he was grateful for the break in the storm.

The show continues on, Corpse watching intently as Sebastian threatened some one episode villain. A sudden ringing in his ears pulls his attention, his fingers grasp at the remote and press pause. The lack of sound coming from the television allows him to focus, and he pinpoints the sound from his bedroom.

With a groan of annoyance, he pulls himself to his feet and trudges to his room. His phone, that had sat neglected on his bedside table all day, was lighting up the whole room and slowly shaking its way to the edge of the table. The caller ID reads 'lorelai', and Corpse can't do anything other than stare down at the name with a nagging feeling of panic rising in his throat.

She's calling to tell him how weird he is, isn't she? Who would've thought that famous YouTuber Corpse Husband is actually a major fucking weirdo? Certainly not Lorelai Kunz, and she just has to be calling him to tell him that now.

He grabs his phone and brings it out onto his balcony. The balcony is small, barely six feet long and four feet wide, but it has a beautiful view of the harbor and the Star of India, so it's definitely the place Corpse feels calmest. Eventually the ringing stops, and yet Corpse still stares unblinking at his phone. A minute later, the notification that Lorelai left a voicemail shows up, and Corpse shakily runs a hand over his face.

But then Lorelai is calling again, and again, and Corpse slumps down the wall connecting his balcony to his bedroom and staring at the night sky. The longer he looks, the more stars he can see. He wishes he could find constellations and know what each one meant, but he had never had enough time to stargaze to pick up that knowledge. Maybe it would do him well to stargaze more; he should've star gazed instead of calling Lorelai.

Corpse sits on his balcony until his tv shuts itself off automatically, and even then he's not ready to go inside. The weather had only just begun getting cold at night, but it's still not cold enough for Corpse to need a sweatshirt. He just sits there, letting Lorelai try to call him until she gives up, and staring at every star he can find.

When one random gust of wind feels stronger than the others and drags Corpse from his daydreaming, he decides to go on Twitter and send out a tweet. It was something he had been meaning to do for a while, but as he sits there and thinks about the grave mistake he had made with Lorelai, he thinks that there's truly no better time than now to do what he had been planning.

TWITTER !

23:59

Corpse Husband | corpse_husband
———————————————————
Fuck it, I'll drop a lofi song on the music
channel in the morning. It's only going to
be on there though, not iTunes or Spotify
or anything like that. Just there for the
people who can relate to it and want it
9.3k comments 8.2k retweets 177k likes

replying to @corpse_husband

valkyrae: what time
↳ corpse_husband: idk lol
↳ valkyrae: same

tsunadeishot: you smexy mf ily

spooky_olie: drop it on SoundCloud bae

kiyaeltran111: this tweet made my night

drowzymerr: this is the nicest thing anyone's ever done for me i just cried because of you

kaiikatt: i will cry

WHY DOES MY BACK fucking hurt? The words, cause you're fucking dumb, answer Lorelai's inner question as she sits up and looks at where she had fallen asleep the night before. Slumping over her desk with her cheek pushed into her keyboard wasn't exactly going to make her wake up feeling the best. Her back aches, her neck has a terrible crick in it, and rightfully so. That's what she deserves for falling asleep at her desk.

She instinctively grabs her phone and tries to check it, but the flashing empty battery symbol takes up her screen rather than the line of notifications she had been expecting. An annoyed grumble leaves her lips, but she sets the phone back down (making sure to plug it in this time) and arches her back to try and get some more feeling in it.

Lorelai backtracks through her memories, trying to pinpoint when she had fallen asleep. She remembers waking up at seven and calling Corpse. Some dream made her nervous that Corpse was in an even worse mental state than he had been when he had called her the morning before. She had called him multiple times, but he never picked up, and she reckons she fell asleep again around eight.

What time was it now? How long had she slept this time? Her dreams were haunted with what ifs and maybes, and the lingering idea that Corpse was doing worse wouldn't leave her mind. If only he had answered her calls and reassured her that he was okay. Maybe then Lorelai wouldn't feel like she was a minute away from throwing up.

She slowly walks down the stairwell into the kitchen, her hand lazily grabbing the fridge door and opening it up. For a moment she scans the fridge, but nothing sparks her interest, so she closes it and moves into the living room.

Where's Felix and Marz?

Lorelai turns in a circle, her eyes catching onto every piece of furniture and every little knick knack in search of something. She finally notices a piece of paper on the coffee table with a sloppy 'out getting groceries' written in what was clearly Felix's handwriting. He was one of those people to write in capital letters only like an idiot. Lorelai looks at the note a little longer before throwing it into the trash and sitting down on the couch.

Her gaze naturally shifts to the windows. Outside, the snow is still falling, and it puts a soft white light on everything in the living room. It's still just as beautiful as it was when it first started falling, in Lorelai's opinion. The snow had come so suddenly, but it was readily accepted and welcomed into Lorelai's life.

Funny how that seemed similar.

Lorelai walks back upstairs, going straight for her phone as it sits on her desk. This time her phone is alive, even if it's only fifteen percent charged. She scrolls through her notifications, eyes picking apart every box looking for 'Corpse', and nothing but two Tweet notifications from him catch her eye.

Corpse Husband Tweeted:
Fuck it, I'll drop a lofi song on the music
channel in the morning. It's only going to...

Corpse Husband Tweeted:
idk lol

He was on Twitter. That had to be a good sign. If you were on Twitter, you had to be doing okay. Well, not really, but it meant Corpse was definitely alive. It was possible he was ignoring Lorelai, though, if he was active on Twitter but not answering Lorelai's calls. Or maybe he was just unavailable. At this point, Lorelai's clueless.

Lorelai clicks on the notification and immediately Corpse's Tweet pops up. She reads it as quick as possible, taking in the information with a small frown. 'People who can relate to it and want it', what did that mean? Lofi wasn't Corpse's normal genre, so what was he planning on releasing?

Almost as if he had heard Lorelai's thoughts, a Tweet notification from Corpse pops up on Lorelai's screen.

Corpse Husband Tweeted:
youtube.com/watch?v=ra-XCs6LHAM

Lorelai doesn't even bother replying to the tweet and immediately clicks on the link. A new video from Corpse's music channel pops up titled '🌧agoraphobic🌧', and Lorelai's eyes widen as she sees a little animated Corpse appear on the screen. The guitar starts, and it hits Lorelai that this song definitely isn't like his other songs.

The songs continues on and with each lyric, each beat, and each breath, Lorelai feels even more worried for Corpse. He was so scared of the worker recognizing him because of his agoraphobia, and his anxiety did nothing to help. It almost felt as if the song was an explanation to her— in the lyrics she could hear Corpse telling her what was wrong in a way that he could never actually say aloud. He was telling her what he felt without actually speaking to her.

When the song ends, she hastily calls Corpse again, praying to any higher being that exists for him to answer. But he doesn't, and Lorelai is stuck listening to the automated 'leave a message' spiel for what feels like the thousandth time. The beep plays, leaving Lorelai in silence.

"Corpse," she begins, sitting down on her bed and getting ready to leave an actual message, something that wasn't just a 'call me back' like she had left before. "I'm not sure what's happening, or if you've been ignoring my calls, but you're really scaring me..."