I Told You So

Cheers erupted. 

Micah blinked. Once. Twice. Thrice. Try as he might, he could not blink this reality away. 

He contemplated for a split second if it was too unreasonable to hope for a Truck-kun to take him out of his misery right about now. He didn't need to transmigrate to an alternate world. He didn't need to regress to his younger self.

He just needed the sweet release of death.

A truck in a plane might seem impossible, but so was a plane full of cultists trying to create an utopia. Clearly, the laws of reality had stopped applying. 

But there was no Truck-kun. No fantasy dimension which just happened to have a vacated body for him to slip in. No sudden realization that he had gone back a decade or two and could undo all his mistakes and regrets. 

Instead, there was only insanity. The troublesome and unsexy type. 

Micah knew he should appear as agreeable as possible when faced with hostility from all sides, but he simply couldn't resist rubbing this development in Avery's face. He leaned towards the latter and seethed, "What did I just say? What the fuck did I literally just say?" 

Avery simply shrugged. It's barely a reaction, and that's exactly why it's so infuriating. 

Micah decided there and then that he cared more about being right than being alive. "What. The. Fuck. Did. I. Just. Say?" 

Before Avery could recalibrate his response to something a little less aggravating and a little more deferential, Seo-ah seized Micah by his collar. "We have," she declared dramatically, "a dissident in our midst." 

"A what now?" her captive asked. 

"A di-ssi-den-t," she replied, enunciating each syllable like she was teaching a precocious toddler new words. 

A precocious toddler or a stupid adult. 

"How can I be a dissident? Do you even know what that means? A dissident is someone who goes against a government. I see no government here!" 

A stupid adult it was. 

"Aha! So you admit you're going against us!" There was more than a glint of madness in Seo-ah's eyes. 

"I admit to nothing!" 

"We don't need your confession to decide your guilt! We already *know* you look down on us. Your admission means nothing!" 

"And I already said I admit to nothing!" 

Avery allowed himself the time to massage his temples before standing up and physically separating the quarrelsome pair with his body. "Now, now," he began with a reconciliatory smile, "let's calm ourselves—"

"Are you," Seo-ah demanded, her voice dangerously low, "defending a traitor?" 

"No, of course not." Avery pretended to be taken aback. "How coul—" 

"Stop," Micah snapped, "using words you don't know the meanings of! When did I betray you? How can you be betrayed by someone who isn't even on your side to begin with!" 

"You admit it again!" 

"Are you deaf? I already said I admit to nothing!"

"You rat! You recalcitrant rat!" 

"Recalcitrant? That's another big word coming from you. I don't suppose you know what it means either!"

Avery liked to think that he's a pacifist. Avoiding violence was a matter of personal principles to him, but personal principles—like most rules—could be bent when the situation was dire enough. 

Or annoying enough.

Like now. 

In one fluid motion, he placed Micah in a chokehold.

The plane was silent again. Silent except for Micah's spluttering. 

Wearing the same reconciliatory smile—which had never once left his face—Avery turned his attention from his husband to Seo-ah. "As I was saying, we should all calm down and give each other a chance to speak and do our best to listen. Now, who wants to go first?" 

Micah and Seo-ah said nothing. 

"No one? Then I will go first," Avery continued in the same friendly tone. "I am not helping a traitor, because Micah is not a traitor." 

"You're lying," Seo-ah insisted, but the uncertainty in her voice was unmistakable. 

"I can assure you that I am not." 

"How?" 

"I am a fan of Zade's music. There is no reason for me to be with a man who despises what I enjoy." 

"So you're saying Micah is a fan too? Then let's tes—" 

"He's not a fan," Avery interrupted. "Yet." 

"Yet," Seo-ah repeated, uncomprehendingly. 

"Yet," Micah croaked.

"Yet," Avery confirmed, making it obvious that he intended it as a challenge. A challenge he knew these fanatics could not possibly walk away from. 

Seo-ah was slow, but other passengers were, thankfully, not. Or at least not as slow. 

One of them, an older lady seated two rows ahead, chimed in, "You're saying he's uninitiated and that we can introduce him to Zade." 

"Yes. It is an opportunity. If he still resists, we can deal with him properly. But it is too early to decide his allegiance." Avery loosened his hold slightly. "Now, my dear husband, are you ready to apologize to Ms Seo-ah?" He was still smiling, but the edge in his voice told Micah that this was not a question. This was a command. 

Micah tried his best to nod. It's not like his head and neck had much wiggle room.

Avery did not release him. Instead, he turned to look at Seo-ah. "Are you ready to apologize to my idiot husband?"

"Yes," she squeaked. 

"Excellent," replied Avery. 

Micah finally felt the pressure around his neck disappear. He glared at the culprit, but only very briefly and without being seen because the chokehold was not a lesson he could instantly forget no matter how indignant he was feeling. "I'm sorry," he said, sounding as deferential as possible without coming across as sarcastic. 

"I'm sorry too," Seo-ah said, hanging her head. 

"For what?" prompted Avery, earning him another undetected glare from his husband.

"For jumping to conclusions," answered Seo-ah meekly, "and for losing my cool." 

'Great,' thought Micah. 'I must play along or I will seem like the bad guy.' He sighed. "I'm sorry too, for being condescending and irritable. Come," he stretched out his hand, "let's be friends once more."

Seo-ah reached out to shake his hand. Clearly, all was right in the world. 

And then the plane dropped a hundred meters.