๐ข๐ฝ๐ช๐ป๐ฝ ๐ธ๐ฟ๐ฎ๐ป?
Description - Michael and y/n had known each other from the ripe age of 5, she had known him before anything. before the fame, the fans. Before he became 'Michael Jackson'.
She was there for him through anything and everything. They'd shared secrets, made promises they were certain would last forever and spent countless afternoons dreaming about what their futures would hold. But as the years passed, life began pulling them into different directions. His world grew bigger, filled with responsibilities, no room was left for friendships in his new world, and joseph made sure of thatโฆ
(This is just chapter 1. I plan on making the next few chapters longer!๐ )
๐ป๐๐๐๐ ๐ถ๐๐ถ๐พ๐..
The halls of Motown felt different when y/n walked through them, she couldn't help but feel inadequate. Everyone else seemed to have a place, a sound and a name that carried weight. she wondered if she would ever be able to reach the same stardom as those she idolised, or if she would be in a constant chase of leaving the shadow others had left her in.
Lost in her thoughts, she turned a corner too quickly and collided with someone, the force of the impact causing her to drop the drink she had been nursing onto the carpeted floor below her. "I'm so sor-" she halted as quick as she began as she looked up.. she saw the one person she never thought she would see again.
Michael Jackson. Out of all people she could have run into, it had to be him.
For a moment, neither of them moved. The air between them was heavy, old conversations left unfinished and a friendship that had faded into something neither of them knew how to define. There had never been some dramatic betrayal or explosive argument, just misunderstandings, missed opportunities to apologise and two young stars growing in different directions until the distance between them had become to great to ignore.
Michael knelt down to pick up the bottle she had been drinking from, trying not to spill the remnants of it." still daydreaming I see.." he said quietly with a small smile. Holding the bottle towards her to take.
Y/n took the bottle from him, her expression unreadable. "and you're still making jokes when you don't know what to say!.."
His smile faltered.
She hadn't meant for the words to sting, but by judging by the brief sadness that crossed his eyes, they had.
For the first time in years, y/n realised that maybe the but between them had never come from hatred.. or whatever was left unsaid back then. Maybe it came from the fact that somewhere beneath all the silence, they had both missed each other.
After that, neither of them said much. The silence that had fell upon them was bold, but there was a quiet understanding that thh4ey had both been standing in the same memory, staring at it from opposite sides. "Take care of yourself, y/n" Michael said after a while. She swallowed the lump in her throat and gave him a small nod. "you too, Michael"
And just like that, they walked away. It should have been easy. They had spent years doing exactly that, turning away , choosing silence, pretending that the other had become a stranger.
Later that evening, alone in the quiet of her Detroit hotel, she sat by the window and found her mind drifting of to memories of her and Michael.. Childhood dreams. She remembered two children with impossible dreams and endless imagination, spending hours hiding away in studio corners while their parents and managers talked business they were too young to understand She remembered the way Michael used to laugh until he could barely breathe over the smallest, most ridiculous things, and how he would pull her into whatever adventure he had invented that day. Or the days she would spend at his house, playing with his newest animals and whatever new game he'd accumulated.
Back then, they believed growing up would be easy.
They believed fame would be something they shared, a dream that would keep them together rather than something that would slowly place oceans between them.
But then the schedules became impossible.ย
Tours turned into months away from the home. Interviews, rehearsals, recordings and the constant pressure to become everything the world wanted them to be left little room for them to be children. 12 year old Y/n would sit my her family phone waiting for their daily scheduled calls.. and they never came, and the ones that did never lasted their usual 2+ hours, they'd be 10 minutes max. Michaels voice would be strained with exhaustion. Letters that used to frequent each others houses dwindled and even the time spent together came to a holt. Somewhere between all the "Ill call you tomorrow" and "we'll see each other soon", they'd become two people who only knew each other through old photographs and memories.
That was the part that hurt the most.
There was no villain in their story. No terrible mistake that shattered everything. Just time. Slow, quiet, unforgiving time.
She looked down at the old picture of her and Michael, the one she kept with her all the time, a 'good luck charm' she'd tell herself. Her and Michael were laughing at something she couldn't quite remember now, But untouched by fame, expectations, or the loneliness that came with becoming the whole world knew.
ย Her fingers brushed over his smile and she wondered if he remembered too...