Chapter Text
101915. 2 inch heels. 9:30am.
You click your mouse timidly to the next screen on your computer, darting your eyes quickly to the next information it shows.
101915. 2 inch heels. 9:30am
You sense everyone in the room watching you. But this wasn’t a watching that was direct and explicit. It was side glances, judgement and sensing. They could sense when you were doing something wrong.
101915. 2 inch heels. 9:30am.
You repeated these three phrases in your head over and over in a dedicated, desperate effort to remember all of them. You’d already had the worst day God could ever conjure up for a human. It was not going to get worse.
101915 the account number of your first customer, 2 inch heels, the required footwear for newstarters, 9:30am, the time you should have arrived if your bus hadn’t got a punctured tire from a dead porcupine 10km away from the office. Comical almost.
“Good morning”
First impressions were never your strongest suit and you always maintained an underlying level of anxiety for most things, but for a new job, your levels were already through the roof. You tapped your heel rapidly on the floor so as to not show anxiousness above the desk. These people could do without a late, rain-soaked newstarter and they could certainly do with the pay raise that would accompany the hours they’d snatch up in the process.
These flats were far quieter than any 2 inch heel would be.
You just need to get through the next… 7 hours…
—
No one speaking to you all day didn’t really matter to you. After your lunch going missing and the horror of the morning, you rathered they didn’t sheepishly nod to you on the way out, nevermind speak to you. You grabbed your bag and slung it over your right shoulder, grabbed your phone and made your way out.
You needed coffee. It didn’t matter that it was 17:41pm, you needed to get back to your flat and unpack all of your stuff, ready for the first day of classes tomorrow. You couldn’t imagine anything worse but it had to be done.
You curled the door to the closest coffee shop open with the outside of your hand, head down and generally developing a migraine. The coffee shop was packed full like fish in a net, the floor to ceiling windows steamed like a sauna.
You took a first step toward the counter to rest your tired fist on the lowest part. A humble 10 seconds passes before a towering man in a black suit walks right into your left shoulder, shoving your full body onto the counter. You felt a fluid run down your chest, forearm and hand with barely any feeling. For half a second you thought it might just be the shock and strain of your hand stabilising yourself on the counter.
Burning. So hot it doesn’t feel warm, just painful. You yelp like an injured animal, but the bustle of the coffee shop mercilessly overshadows any sound that could escape from your pressurised chest. The man left the shop as if you were a figment of his imagination. After a few seconds of disbelief, shock and pain, you feel a patting on your hand. A deep voice spoke to you like a siren from behind your shoulder but it was too muffled over the bustling and the ringing in your ears to make out any words.
A hand placed itself gently on your shoulder, and you realised you’d have to turn around in a couple seconds to look at the person who seemed to be the only one that acknowledged your existence in the last 8 hours. Today was not the day to be perceived past 9:30am. Tears pricked at the corner of your eyes. You had no choice but to grab your now trampled bag off the floor, gathered messily in your left hand, and bolt out of the place as quickly as you can.
—
To say “today was not the day” would be a gross understatement. And you still had to unpack all your boxes. You hoped and prayed Manon and Lara weren’t awake or in the kitchen. They had been the closest friends you’d had in your first year of studies, but no one or anything could’ve made you feel better right now. Trudging up your apartment stairs with takeout in hand, although barely hooked onto your middle and index fingers, you just wanted to get into your unmade bed. Today was rough, but sulkily staring at the floor wouldn’t help things, as you’d never be able to notice the man rocketing down the stairs from the flat next to yours staring at his phone, for a straight collision.
You lightly bumped into each other, but it was enough to send your weak ankles jolting and your world spinning. The takeout went flinging off your index finger. The bag ripped and two containers burst on the stairs, food littering the cold concrete. You sank in disbelief.
“Oh my god, I’m so sorry let me…”
No. Something somewhere between a burst of frustration and a release of anger left your stomach through your lungs and past your lips. And before you knew it, you were lecturing this poor boy about your day and every inconvenience, small to big, that went wrong, as you sensed his presence knelt down, frozen in the act of pointlessly dabbing the remains of the takeout from the stairs.
“And where did you THINK you were looki–...”
You dared to meet his eyes in a fit of rage but you couldn’t possibly know what you’d see. You’d never seen someone like him. His perfect complexion made you hesitate to breathe, wiping all the rage of the day from your upper chest in a fluid instance.
His doe eyes stared back at you. Brow furrowed. Like a deer in headlights. His eyes both sparkled in the dingy light of the stairs and were a deep brown that pierced your soul. He was mortified at your rant. And now, so were you.
You dipped your head, “sorry, I just… I’m sorry it’s not–”
You were only a couple words into your deserving apology when his hand inched slightly towards yours on the step between you, close enough to enter your vision and give you a level of comfort but not close enough to suggest any level of closeness.
Three scrunched up brown napkins laid under his left hand. You stared without much attention and just hung your head in shame. The napkins were stained. A combination of red sauce and older… coffee stains? Your consciousness hit you in the head like a hammer.
Your head bolted up, as did his a second later. You locked eye contact just centimetres apart. His blonde locks sat neatly on either side of his face and bounced as his face raised to meet yours. You simply couldn’t keep his gaze for more than a few seconds, but this time it didn’t feel like embarrassment, or tiredness, or regret from the rant you had unfairly unleashed on him. His eyes were too encompassing. Like a warm hug. They were brown dreams with a complete innocence, not of a lack of experience, but a pure and unfiltered love.
Click.
“Um… are you good?”
Manon opened the door to your flat. Only a few steps away from where you had sank just a few moments ago, that now seemed like decades. You blinked and it circled you back into reality, like a new set of eyes. Both yours and his hands were messily sprawled on the step between you. And his left pinky finger and your right index had been gently resting on each other. You didn’t know for how long.
Your brow furrowed in shock and eyes widened. You grabbed your bag the fastest you had all day, faster than running to the office at 9am, faster than leaving work, faster than leaving the coffee shop. It felt like life or death.
You busted past Manon and she made a small movement of discomfort and confusion as you knocked her shoulder with uncharacteristic coldness.
“Wait, what’s–”, his voice faded as you ran furthest into the flat and away from the staircase as possible. Knowing Manon, she probably forced a sympathetic grin to an unknown man and uncaringly shut the door and locked it.
You ran to your room and face-planted your mattress with a slam of the door. Boxes surrounding you.