“Hickeys? Me?” asked Mark Leever while wrapping a dirty bandage around his slightly blemished neck. “I’ve got no idea what you’re talking about. I just, uh, scraped my neck on some branches. Yeah.”

“Of course, it’d be horrible if it happened,” Leever continued, failing to note the suspicious glances and accusatory whispers from his friend group. “Glad it didn’t, though. In these tough times, I’m happy that we’re all surviving and hickey-free!”

“Groups like this depend on trust,” said Leever, addressing his now former friends who secretly know his awful, awful secret. “Without each other, I don’t know how we’d be able to survive out there on our own.”

At press time, Leever was seen covering the side of his neck with an enormous temporary Hello Kitty tattoo.