Neville thought they were walking aimlessly around, but they still ended up in the aquarium’s gift shop in the unaffected wing. As expected, it was stocked with merchandise of varying degrees of ridiculousness.

Neville found himself standing before a rotating display of novelty sunglasses, each more absurd than the last.

"Star-shaped..."

"No," Grayson said flatly, holding up a pair of enormous pink frames.

"I didn’t say anything."

"You were looking at them."

"Of course I would look. You’re—No, I mean—I am looking at the silver fish ones." Neville pointed to a slightly less offensive pair—frames shaped like leaping silver fish, with small rhinestones scattered across the surface. "It looks more doable if you compare the two."

"You liked wearing a live fish on your face?"

Neville snorted and pursed his lips.

"Come on. It’s just temporary, and they’re—" He checked the tag. "—cheaper than actual glasses."

Grayson plucked the silver fish glasses from the display and held them up to Neville’s face. He tilted his head as if assessing a piece of art. The rhinestones caught the light, scattering tiny rainbows across Neville’s cheeks.

"These," Grayson coughed a little before continuing, "are acceptable."

"... seriously?" Neville didn’t know where he had the gall to be sarcastic with Grayson. But fck it, it was also his day off! "Says the person in a ridiculous merch shirt."

"We’re both wearing the same thing."

"Mr. ’WHERE THE FIN BEGINS’, must be nice to skip art class, huh?"

Grayson, with a resigned expression, said, "Are we really going to bicker about this?"

Still, Neville accepted the glasses and slid them onto his face, catching a glimpse of his reflection in a nearby mirror.

It was... something.

The silver fish frames shouldn’t have worked with his already ridiculous outfit, but somehow, they completed the set of absurdity and created their own kind of harmony.

Neville turned away from the mirror, adjusting the glasses on his nose, and felt his stomach about to growl really hard for being neglected.

"We should get food," he turned to Grayson and said, "If we’re going to be stuck here for hours, I’d rather not be investigated on an empty stomach."

Grayson nodded, falling into step beside him as they navigated toward the food court area. The remaining visitors had spread throughout the unaffected sections, clustering in small groups and speaking in hushed, excited tones about the incident.

More than a few shot curious glances at Neville and Grayson. But Neville was kind of sure that no one recognized Grayson wearing ridiculous clothes.

If—I mean, ’If’—in the off chance that Grayson got recognized, this would be something that would go down in Grayson’s dark history.

They found a relatively quiet corner near a window overlooking one of the outdoor exhibits. It was a massive tank housing creatures that looked like a cross between jellyfish and floating lanterns, their bioluminescent bodies pulsing in slow, hypnotic rhythms.

There were fewer gossipy fish around, so it was relatively quiet.

Neville pulled out his camera from the bag that thankfully didn’t get wet since the bag was waterproof. Interstellar-grade stuff was really amazing. When it said waterproof, it was really waterproof.

"What are you doing?" Grayson asked.

"Taking pictures," Neville said, turning the camera over in his hands, and then suddenly said excitedly, "You know what? We should take a picture together too, so we can show Julius that we actually used the tickets."

Grayson’s expression became a little unreadable for a second before smiling.

"That’s... a good idea."

"I know. Let me position it a little." Neville said, "Look on this part. Right there."

They positioned themselves with the bioluminescent tank as a backdrop, Neville holding the camera at arm’s length. The instant capture function whirred, and a small square of film emerged from the slot.

"Since we didn’t take pictures from the beginning," Neville suggested, "we might as well take more now. Later, let’s see the rest of the aquarium and document the experience."

"For Julius?"

"For Julius. Obviously."

Grayson’s lips curved into something that was almost a smile.

"Obviously." He said slowly, his eyes slightly darkening for a second that Neville didn’t notice.

After taking a few more photos, Neville and Grayson stopped.

They watched in silence as the photos slowly developed.

Neville stared at the first photo.

Two figures in matching ridiculous outfits, one with silver fish-frame glasses and one with slightly foggy regular glasses, standing in front of alien sea creatures in a post-explosion aquarium.

It should have looked absurd.

But looking at the way Grayson had angled himself slightly toward Neville, one shoulder almost touching. And the way Neville’s smile and slightly blush make a happy expression.

Neville stared at the photo, and he couldn’t look away from it.

He felt something in his chest, a small crack forming in the ice he had carefully maintained around his heart since Grayson forgot about that seven days.

One exception, he told himself as he closed his eyes. Just this once.

"It all came out well," Grayson observed, leaning closer over his shoulder to look at the developed image. His shoulder pressed against Neville’s, warm and solid. "This one captured your smile really well."

Neville’s face heated. "Why are you fixated on my smile?"

Grayson shrugged lightly with a mysterious, mischievous smile playing on his lips, "You should smile more often."

Neville could feel his face burning; he must be fuming red right now.

He smacked Grayson’s shoulder and said while laughing, "I would look ridiculous if I smiled that often."

Grayson tilted his head with genuine confusion, "Why? It looks great."

Neville couldn’t help but stifled a laugh, "Oh, come on, smiling like that while dealing with work? Damn, that would be scary."

Grayson contemplated a little before saying seriously, "Then just smile like that in front of me."

He was really done for; he couldn’t take this random, flirty side of Grayson.

"Oh, really, we’ll see, Mr. Maxwell." 𝙧𝙚𝙚𝔀𝒆𝓫𝓷𝙤𝓿𝒆𝙡.𝒄𝙤𝓶

Neville suddenly grabbed all the photos, stood up, turned around, and walked away.

Grayson furrowed his eyebrows. "I’m serious, though."

"I know, I know," Neville said dismissively, walking faster than before.

Grayson had no choice but to follow until Neville calmed down.

In the end, they just walked around, arriving back at the same place they walked away from.

It was really ridiculous.