Genre: schoolboy!Chan, angst, fluff
I've been ignoring him for … let me just check my phone … twenty minutes.
I stab my pen into the desk. Maybe I'm not the best person to ask about friendships … but I'm pretty sure staring at someone for twenty - oh, twenty one minutes now - isn't how you make friends.
He's so annoying. Not that I know him personally. But there's always an annoying aura around the popular kids, you know? Even if you don't know them, you feel like you do know them because everyone else does … or maybe that's just how I feel.
I flare my nostrils as I continue to angrily scrawl letters across my paper.
Why is he even here? Shouldn't he be … I don't know, going to wild parties or playing football with his mates?
I don't plan on saying anything to him. But then I hear the clow crackle of a packet being opened, followed by an even slower crunch and I feel my last brain cell exploding in frustration.
"What do you want?" I slam my pen down on the desk as I glare up at him.
He's leaning against the window, and the watery late afternoon sunshine creates a halo of bronze around him. It reflects off of his dark hair and taints his white school shirt, making it look like armour. I resist the urge to throw my water bottle at him. It's not fair that he's popular and looks this handsome when I haven't a single friend and look like a drowning rat.
Life is just so fair sometimes.
He chuckles, reaching into the bag for another crisp. "Wow. Took you twenty two minutes to look up. I'm impressed."
Wow. He's been counting too?
"Why are you stalking me?" I ask, shuffling my papers together. "I could call the police, you know."
His smile widens. I feel my heart flip; I wish he wouldn't look at me like that. He has dimples to absolutely die for. I can't exactly hate him when he looks like that … and that's not good for my health at all.
"You could," he muses, crunching on another crisp. "But I don't think you actually will."
I snort. I can't exactly reply when he's seen right through my bluff.
I'll be real. Maybe I've always wanted to talk to him. Everyone seems to love him … he makes this life thing look so easy. If anything, I want to ask him how the hell he does that. How does he manage to cruise through his days while I'm struggling to even get out from bed in the morning?
"And FYI," I do a double take as he jolts me from my thoughts and I realise he actually just said those letters out loud. Is he living in the nineties? "I'm not stalking you. If I was stalking you, I wouldn't be watching you publicly and openly where you can see me."
Damn, I think to myself. He's got a point.
"Then why are you watching me?" I ask. I'm more curious than anything. It's been hours since school ended … why is he taking time out to stare at me?
He cocks his head to the side, his eyes sparkling. "For fun."
That's it. I throw my pen at him.
He laughs, moving out of the way as the pen falls to the floor. "I'm joking," he says, before picking the pen up. He pulls away from the window and casually walks up to me, setting the pen down in front of me before he pulls out the chair beside me, plonking himself down on it.
I catch a whiff of his cologne as he moves. It's fresh yet warm and I inwardly groan.
Why couldn't he have just stayed over there?
"I'm Chan," he says, and I blink in confusion.
"Yeah, I know who you are," I reply. "Bet you don't know who I am though."
Now it's my turn to stare at him.
He moves his head and meets my gaze, and I immediately look away, picking up my pen again.
"Want some?" He offers his bag of crisps to me, and for what seems like the hundredth time in the past ten minutes, my brain seems to explode with a huge, comical 'what?!'.
I consider screaming that at him. Instead I opt for, "Are they poisoned?"
He laughs, taken aback. "Do you think I'd be eating them if they were poisoned?"
"I don't know … maybe you like eating poison."
To my surprise, he starts laughing. It's a genuine laugh, his eyes smiling with him and I'm taken aback again.
"You're strange, you know that?" He says, and I'm shocked that he's managed to make it not sound like an insult. "I like that."
I look away; I kick myself under the table for the redness slowly creeping up my face in a way that I'm incredibly unfamiliar with.
"You're weird yourself," I whisper.
He's still holding out his crisps and I suppose he's not going to give up. I take one from him and he smiles happily before going back to munching on them.
A while passes before either of us speak again. Chan stares out of the window as he finishes his snack, and I continue my work … or rather, the sporadic paragraph of words that has slowly transformed into a pile of gibberish.
"I don't know what you're going through," Chan says slowly, all of a sudden. I raise an eyebrow but don't look at him; I stare at my paper instead, my heart beginning a marathon in my chest. "But my dad always says … if something is bothering you, sometimes it's best to just … let it go."
I look up at that. I don't particularly know what to say … I mean, what do you say when a popular boy suddenly talks about his dad to you?
"What makes you think I'm going through anything?" I ask.
He smiles. "Well, aren't you?"
Damn. Answering a question with a question.
I shrug. He winks, leaning closer to me.
"Thought so," he grins his contagious grin and I fight the urge to slap his pretty little face.
"Do you want to talk about anything?" He asks.
I give him a side glance. "Sure. Can we talk about how interfering you are?"
He laughs, a tiny squeak leaving his mouth, having me involuntarily increasing my 'like radar' for him.
"Maybe another time," he says. He rests an elbow on the desk, looking at me with his full attention. "What's going on, hmm? Why are you always so angry and defensive?"
"I'm not," I mutter. How has he already got me so figured out?
"You just proved my point," he smiles a crooked smile and I sigh, dropping my face into my hands.
Something in me feels strange; I want to tell him everything. I don't know why. Is it his handsome face? Annoying charms? The pure honesty and caring glint in his eyes?
"I … I don't think we're close enough to discuss our personal problems with each other," I opt for, pushing down my want to blurt everything out to him.
I can't let myself do that. I can't be vulnerable … not here, not in front of him.
"That's true," Chan nods amicably. "You don't have to tell me anything you don't want to."
"I don't want to tell you anything."
Chan laughs quietly. He scrunches up his empty packet and tosses it expertly into the small bin near the desk.
"When was the last time you had a hug?" He asks then, and I jerk upright in my seat.
"Yeah, a hug. You know, when you put your arms around someone and they - "
"I know what a hug is, thanks," I scowl, making him smile with amusement all over again. Then I sink into my seat, my tone softening slightly. "I don't really remember. Maybe when I was like … ten?"
The boy's eyes nearly fly out of his head. They're so wide that I can see the whites all the way around, and I'm reminded of eyeballs in haunted houses.
"Ten? Ten?" He repeats, absolutely stumped as he slumps back in his seat. "Like … one zero?"
"I'm sorry … " He apologises, and I look up at him through my lashes. "It's just … wow. I mean, no wonder you have so much anger and pent up emotions inside of you."
I turn to look at him, my face as blank as I can make it. "Can you stop reading me please?"
I expect him to smile; he looks at me sadly instead, and I almost jump in my seat.
Well. I hope I never see him looking at me like that again. My heart twinges and I avert my eyes.
I raise my brows again. "Want what?"
I can't help but smile. "If we aren't close enough to share feelings, what makes you think we're close enough to … touch bodies?"
I don't know why I worded it like that but he cracks up; he laughs, his eyes crinkling up again like tiny crescent moons.
"Hey, people who don't know each other hug all the time," Chan says.
I look at him warily. He stands up and to my bewilderment, he moves closer to me, suddenly holding his arms out.
"Come on, I know you want one," Chan says. "Well, maybe you don't want one … but you need one."
Who am I kidding? Of course I need one.
I look up at him. The curve of his arms and the broadness of his chest looks so tempting … but I just …
He doesn't let his arms drop to his sides. I wish he would. "Why not?"
I bite my lip. "Because," I breathe. "If I hug you, I'll probably burst into tears."
Chan's face softens immediately; his eyes adopt a tenderness that makes me already feel like I'm about to bawl my eyes out right here, right now.
"Hey, there's nothing wrong with that," he says softly, quietly. "You can cry if you need to."
"I've never cried in front of anyone before."
He frowns. "Not even your parents?"
It's out of my mouth before I can stop it. "Fuck my parents."
Chan's mouth turns up at the corner. "Well, that's a start," he chuckles, taking another step towards me. "That was a feeling shared … right?"
I look up into his friendly, irritating face. "I guess so."
He takes another step towards me. We're close enough that if I step forward, my face will be right against his chest.
"Come here," he whispers, and before I can convince myself not to, I close the distance between us.
His arms slide around my shoulders slowly, as if not to startle me; my hands stay at my sides for a while, before I find the courage to slip them around what feels like a very toned torso.
"That's it," Chan whispers into my hair as my head sinks into the hollow beneath his chin. "Hey, you're almost a natural hugger … minus the awkward pinching on my side."
That makes me splutter with laughter; I can feel him smiling and I slowly unfurl my fingers, letting them rest on his lower back as my tears do indeed threaten to fall down my cheeks.
"You can cry," he murmurs, his hands very delicate as they pat my back and my shoulders. "No one will know you're crying apart from me … your face is hidden."
I smile at his joke just as my tears spill down my face; I lean closer to his chest. He's so warm, so, so warm that it should feel sickly and almost nauseating. But it doesn't … his heat feels calming, almost like a sedative that immediately has my muscles melt against the curve of his body.
"It's okay," Chan hums, running his fingers through hair. "Let it all out."
I nod, my throat already clogging and making me feel as though I'm choking. He starts to rub circles over my back and the gesture is so kind and loving that I cough, more tears sinking into the fabric of his shirt.
"I'm sorry," I whisper, curling my fingers into the back of his shirt. "Your shirt is getting wet."
"That's okay," he chuckles quietly. "It'll dry. I don't have a jacket for no reason."
I smile at that. I make to pull away but his arms tighten around me and I let him; we stand there for a long time, his cheek against my head and my heart slowly, slowly breaking down its very first wall.
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