Chapter Text
Here’s the thing: ever since he was a wee little boy with a set of vocabulary too posh for his age, Grian knew he loved attention.
The kids at pre-school mostly kept to themselves, clinging to their parents, too shy to even reply when asked what their names were.
Not Grian, though. There he was, four years old and already taller than half his classmates — (that didn’t age well, but he’d grown to love his size by now. Better for agility, anyway) — smiling to everyone, talking a mile a minute about his toy train and how he found it simply unrealistic for the tracks to go under a mountain with no supporting pillars, what were these architects thinking?!
The other kids never talked as much, but Grian didn’t mind. He loved being listened to anyway. He loved watching his friends’ eyes shine as he pronounced big words like locomotive and scaffolding and terrain.
He’s a ray of sunshine, his teachers would say. And Grian believed it.
He grew up surrounded by books. They were his main source of vocabulary and entertainment — after all this time, Harry Potter still held a fond memory to him, irreplaceable — for anyone could write, but Grian’s experiences with Hogwarts and all its people were personal to himself and it wasn’t something any author could pre-package.
Fantasy switched to classics and classics switched to dystopian young adults and at this point, Grian had read every existing series with the exact same plot, it seemed.
Lucky for him, really — finance had never been an issue in his household — therefore he's able to read anything and everything he's ever wanted. In fact, he grew up spoiled, finding solace in similarly rich book characters as he looked around his gigantic, yet empty house — with certificates and trophies donning one full wall of the living room.
It started off rather stupid, like LEGO competitions — to full-blown essay-writing competitions worth two thousand pounds. He had taken a topic of modern architecture. Because, well, what would functionality matter when no one was interested enough to use the building in the first place?
At the age of seventeen, Grian knew he had to bury his repressed dream of getting a Hogwarts letter even further. Seventeen was an important age in the books — and Grian's went passing by without any notice of magical abilities.
Well, those books did mention one thing Grian managed to find in his own world — one that counts as magic.
Love.
And that, ladies and gentlemen, is what you signed up for. This was a story about love, and how each one seemed to further distort Grian's views of it — of brothers and best friends and colleague and — hell, even lovers. How people come and go, and leave and return, even those that seemed to never leave altogether. For better or worse.
The sun smiled at everyone, but maybe she smiled at like-minded people the most; appreciating how they always seemed to bring warmth and liveliness to any party.
On the other hand, maybe ray of sunshines were too bright to be accepted; blinding everyone around, making them mutter about how these sunshines needed to be taken down a peg or two.
Maybe voices that were heard too often, no matter how pleasant, could very easily turn to nails on chalkboards.
After all, the sun had to keep her distance to maximise her use in the world.
Oh, well. Grian would know soon enough.