Chapter Text
JULIE
Julie doesn’t really know how it started, but she woke up to what felt like a million comments, all tagging her on a video posted by @mynameisluk3patters0n. She’d heard of him before, but it’s not like she knew him. She did know people tagged him all the time on her videos, and, starting a couple months ago, people had started campaigning their get-together. She clicked on one of the notifications.
Oh.
He’d stitched one of her videos complaining about being single. Of course that’s what this was about. He’d decided to finally do something about the millions of people who thought they should get together, even though they had never talked once.
The video he’d stitched was simple enough, one of her in her bedroom looking wistful, text on the screen reading ‘POV: me daydreaming about the day I get to soft-launch a boyfriend on my instagram story.’ When the clip changed to Luke’s face, he started with,
“Hey Julie, guess who? Oh!” He laughed nervously. “I was just wondering- how many- I can’t say this I’m nervous—so I was just wondering how many more videos are you gonna make about being single, ‘cause I’ve been tagged in every single one of them—um—is this a—are you trying to reach me?” He paused. “‘Cause you know they tag me every time. You—and I’m—uhmmhm—” The clip ended with a nervous laugh, then cut off.
Julie didn’t know what to make of this. He was right, of course, she knew her followers tagged him every time. They did the same on Luke’s videos to her, but she never thought something would actually come from it.
She didn’t know if she wanted to reply—didn’t know if she SHOULD reply—but then she saw the comments. Never look at the comments, they say, and, well, they’re kind of right, but when you post videos every day on the internet AND release your own music, it’s pretty much unavoidable.
@suns3tcurveefannn
OMG THE CROSSOVER IT'S HAPPENING @juliemolinasmusic
@isawrites
STOP THIS IS SO CUTE @juliemolinasmusic you have to reply!!!
@clara_rose
im new here can someone catch me up
@sunsetcam77 replying to @clara_rose
basically Luke and Julie both complain abt being single so ppl have started shipping them (ie: tagging them in each other’s videos)
@skye_blue_wheeler_
ship name: Juke
@officailcallie
the giggle- this is so sweet I can’t (@juliemolinasmusic)
@itsdefnotsunsetstraight__
I shipppppp
Julie sighed, clicking out of the comments, when her phone rang with an incoming FaceTime from Flynn. She swiped to answer the call, Flynn's voice bursting out of her phone speakers.
“Have you seen the video???” She asked, practically bubbling with excitement. Luckily, her phone was propped up—if Flynn had been holding it, the camera would probably be shaking.
Julie nodded. “Yeah, I just saw it. It’s really sweet.”
“You HAvE to reply!” Flynn told her. “I can be your wingwoman- I’ve already written a script for a response video and everything.”
Of course she had. Flynn took her job as her manager very seriously. Julie just shook her head. “I feel like I should respond naturally, you know? He could have edited his to make it exactly perfect, but instead…” she trailed off.
Flynn sighed. Julie was getting that dreamy look in her eyes, like the one she had when they were in high school together and she saw her crush in the hallway, knowing full well she’d never talk to them.
“Instead what?” Flynn asked, though she had a pretty good idea where Julie’s thoughts were going.
“I don’t know. Everything on the internet these days is always so edited and perfect, but this… he was so genuine. I think mine should be like that too.”
“I’m coming over. Don’t start filming without me.” Flynn hung up, leaving Julie sighing and… maybe swooning? Just a little bit? No. What?
**
Flynn let herself in when she got to Julie’s, waving to Ray and Carlos before heading upstairs. Both Julie and Flynn were living at home, Flynn going to an art school in LA, while Julie was finishing up her senior year of college and launching her music career as a solo artist.
She only had a couple singles out at this point- ‘Wake Up’, ‘Flying Solo’, ‘I Got The Music’, and ‘Stand Tall’, but her career was slowly taking off, her follower account growing steadily as her posts got more frequent and her content showed more of her songwriting process, promotion clips of her dancing, and just general music and life things.
Julie looked up when her room door opened.
“Hey Julie! I stopped for coffee—I got you chai.”
“Thanks, Flynn.”
“I figured you could use something to ground you, calm you down.”
“So you got coffee?” Julie questioned, sipping her drink anyway.
Flynn nodded. “It was mostly an excuse to get myself matcha, sooo.”
“Ah, the truth comes out.”
Flynn sipped her matcha, and Julie feigned disgust. “Get that liquified grass away from me.” She leaned away, tipping her chair. Flynn laughed, as she pretended like she was going to pour some on Julie, who shrieked and almost fell backwards.
Flynn backed off. “Okay, we should probably film a response video. Get behind the camera.”
Flynn started recording. “I don’t know what to say, but I feel like I should respond, so this is me… responding.” She sighed. “I feel like I should say something else, but I don’t know what.”
Flynn stopped the video. “Well, take 1 was not great. I should’ve given you my script.”
“What did you even write?” Julie asked.
Flynn handed her a piece of paper, a nice one too, not just ripped out of a notebook.
Julie read it, and cringed.
Flynn noticed, and read her friend’s mind. “Cringe culture is dead! We are free!” She paused, then, seeing Julie’s expression, added, “Just do it, it’ll be funny.”
Julie sighed. “If you’re sure.”
They filmed another couple takes before Flynn felt one was good enough to post. She was Julie’s manager after all, she had to approve these things.
The final video showed Julie in her room, saying “I don’t know what to say, but I feel like I should respond, so this is me responding. Um, everyone keeps on commenting something about a boat, or like, a ship we’re going on, apparently? I don’t know what that means, but I guess I’ll see you aboard the ship, Luke.”
**
Flynn stayed over as Julie obsessively checked TikTok to see if Luke had replied. Finally, a couple hours later, his response came, in the form of a stitch—first with clips from his first video and Julie’s response, then came his answer. “I know what you should say. You should be like, ‘what’s up Luke?’ and I’ll be like, ‘what’s up Julie? What’s cookin’ good lookin’?’ NOO—”
The video ended abruptly, looping as Julie sighed. Flynn gave her a knowing look.
“You’re not about to fall in love with this guy you haven’t even met yet, are you?”
LUKE
“GUYS!” Luke jumped out of his seat. “SHE LIKED MY RESPONSE TO HER RESPONSE!”
“Oh my god!” Reggie jumped over the couch, landing next to Luke to look over his shoulder.
Alex sighed. “Straight people are so weird.”
The two ‘straights’ he’d referred to turned around in offense. “EXCUSE ME?” They shouted in unison.
“Sorry—girls are so weird.” Alex revised his statement.
Reggie nodded, accepting the revision. “Thank you.”
**
Later, Luke found himself scrolling on TikTok, and he came across an edit video of him and Julie. His hand hovered over the ‘duet’ button. Sighing, he moved it away, then moved it back, muttering “fuck it,” and pressed the button, then posted the video. Seconds later, everyone was all up in the comments. But not Julie.