'Fact, I Don't Wanna Feel // [Mac&Irene Brunch]

The sweet and saccharine smell of melted chocolate and freshly baked pastries mask the unpleasant odor clinging to her partner's skin.

Well, most of it.

His training clothes hug his sweat-slick skin, his dark hair peeled back and gelled. Irene sits in the chair opposite of him, whispering a quick apology for being a bit late and then placing down her already full plate of fluffed pancakes drenched in a brown syrup, crispy laced potatoes, and chunks of fruit she questionably forked from the carved sculptures. He gives her a small, closed smile before getting up with his own empty plate and wandering to the tables clustered with arrays of food.

Irene turns his place card around, wanting to take a peek at his name. It's better to know them than not, right? 

Machiavelli Hope, the delicate and hand-written card reads. Huh, she inquisitively turns her head ever-so-slightly, the name 'Hope' ringing familiar in her head. 

She quickly turns it back around as he returns to his seat. Machiavelli licks something off the end of his thumb, snagging one of the curled papers scrawled with 'ice-breaker' questions.

"What's the worst thing that happened to you up until the reaping?"  He asks, his jade eyes leveling with her own.

"Um, it would when my grandmother died. And we work in a mortuary, well, live above one, and my mother had me do her embalming. You know, draining the blood and replacing it with formaldehyde, gluing the eyes closed, sewing the mouth..." her voice starts to trail off. She closes her lips, realizing her rambling and over-sharing as she rattled off every thought coming to the forefront of her mind.

"Yeah," Irene finishes, breaking eye contact and focusing her gaze on the table. She abashedly plucks out a question, desperate to move the conversation elsewhere.

"What's your biggest regret from back home?"