Ugh. I need a breaaaaaaaaak ಠ╭╮ಠ Watty shortlist results up tmrw weeeeeeeeeeee

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Walking up several flights of stairs because some dumbass broke the elevator like a decade ago —and no one could be bothered to fix it— isn't exactly a thrilling experience. However, doing so while being very fucking hangover might just be a million times worse. 

My eyes scanned past all the Sharpie doodles on the peeling verdigris walls, gray concrete showing through its cracks. The echoing of flip-flops against metal steps rang around my head like some blaring alarm, piercing through my still throbbing skull. Everything hurts.

Sucking in my lip, I let out a shaky exhale through my nose as my hand hovered over the doorknob to apartment 215. One by one, I let my fingers coil around the smooth material, before gently clicking the knob around. That was when I remembered the door was always locked and.. I did not have keys. Right. Safety and stuff.

Right as I was about to knock, my hand hanging mid-air, the door opened. 

Aleksia stood there, her dark hair messily tied into two braids. She stared at me for just a second before practically launching herself at me, arms wrapping around me so tight I had to gasp for air. "Don't ever do that again," she mumbled into my shoulder, sniffing. "God," she swallowed, pulling away with her hands still firmly placed on my shoulders, "what the hell were you thinking-?!"

I smiled a sad smile, avoiding the gaze of her big, dark blue eyes. "I'm pretty sure I wasn't thinking. But I'm sorry."

She just scoffed, shaking her head with a short-lasted chuckle. "I shouldn't have argued with you like that." Her eyes glanced away from me as she bit her lip, various thoughts most likely bubbling in her head. "I just— I wish you weren't so quick to judge her."

Seriously? This again? I sighed, ready to turn right around again. "Are you really—" My words fell silent when I noticed sunrise-colored hair standing out in all our living room's dark blue. "Is that— is that Reagan-?"

Snapping out of her older-sister-lecturing trance, Aleksia's eyes sparked up as she followed my gaze. "Oh! Yes, she came by to check on you after I'd called her yesterday to see if you were with her." 

At hearing her name, Reagan glanced up from whatever she was doing and pulled out her earbuds, face breaking out into a smile when she saw me. "Robbie!" She sprang up from the couch, ran up to us —five-bazillion necklaces rattling as she did so— and pulled me into a quick hug. "I hope you don't mind me being here," she said with a lopsided smile, eyeing Aleksia before grabbing my wrist to pull me toward my room. "I just wanted to make sure you're okay."

I wasted no time launching myself onto my bed with a loud groan, shoving my face into the first stack of pillows I could find. "Stay as long as you want," I attempted to say, my voice muffled by all the pillows. 

Reagan still seemed to understand as she laughed, plopping down on a bean bag in the corner of the room. "Anything you wanna talk about?"

Flopping around onto my back, I propped my elbows up behind me and turned to Reagan with a sigh. "Where do I even start-? Sure you don't wanna hear me rant about how fucking disgusting alcohol is."

She snorted, smiling at me as she shook out some of her bracelets. "Maybe not, but you could," she grinned, leaning forward to me, "tell me about... Seth."

Well ladies, gentleladies and non-ladies, that was my cue to disappear. Off the face of the Earth. Immediately. Please.

I somehow managed to not choke on my saliva, but I did feel my entire face burning fifty shades of deep red. So as any sane person would, I shoved my face into a stack of pillows and let out a muffled pterodactyl screech. "Shut up. I don't like you."

Reagan just laughed and got up from the bean bag before throwing herself on the bed too, causing me to launch six feet into the air. "You don't like me, but you like him," she teased, poking my ribs to probably check if I was still alive. Just in case.

"I do not."

"Do you think he's attractive?"

I crawled up from my position, squinting at the sunlight slapping me in the face as I grabbed a squishmallow to press against my chest. "I mean, have you seen his hair? Or just like, his face? Have you ever looked in his general direction-? That's— that's not a fair question."

She huffed, folding her arms across her chest. "Favorite thing about him then?"

These questions were rigged, I'm telling you. I furrowed my brows, copying Reagan's actions. "Just one..?"

Reagan scoffed, pressing her lips together to hold back a laugh as she stared at me with dead-serious eyes. "You're like, totally into him."

"I am so not!" Without thinking, I snatched a pillow and tossed it at her face, laughing when it caused her to topple over, necklaces clattering against each other.

She burst out laughing and also grabbed a pillow, face morphing from innocence into a devious smile as she slammed it into my face. "You so are."

This was a battle I probably couldn't win. Didn't mean I wouldn't try, though. I grabbed my massive white pillow with two hands before turning to Reagan with what I hoped to be an evil grin. "You're going to regret your choices, madam."

Her eyes widened and she sprang up with a shriek, hopping off the bed to try and flee. "Oh my god, please have mercy..!"

I jumped off after her, ignoring the way I almost face-planted into my easel, again, because of the heavy-ass pillow. "You can run but you can't hide!"

That might've been a simple —albeit threatening— statement, but in Reagan's case, it was also true. With mesmerizing, sunrise-orange hair like hers, I could spot her from a mile away.

I had her cornered. Nowhere to run other than right into me, which would be a strange move to make. Just as I was about to slam the significantly heavy pillow into her, she smirked, distracting me enough to snap me out of concentration.

"Can't run, but I can attack, mister crush-in-denial." She lifted her arms, semi-seethrough green sleeves flowing in soft motions as she wriggled her fingers.

Oh shit. I'm doomed. "Can't we talk this ov—

No. The answer was no. Reagan leaped at me with an ear-piercing battle screech, sending us both crashing onto the white rug as she mercilessly attacked my ribs. I gasped for air between involuntary laughter, reaching my hands in the general direction of her freckled face to try and shove her off of me. "Have—" another wheeze "—have mercy!"

"Mercy," she breathed, tickling the shit out of me, "is for the weak!" She rolled over and dove into the pillow I was trying to use as a shield, dug her hands into it before pulling it off of me, lifted it above her head, and smirked. "I suggest you run."

With my arms held in front of my face, I flinched and drew my eyes shut, expecting the pillow to smack the bones out of my body. You can imagine my surprise when the pillow just.. dropped on top of me. Huh?

It took me another few seconds to open my eyes and shove the pillow off of me, confused when Reagan wasn't on top of me anymore. I crawled up with a groan, turning around to find her sitting on my bed. She glanced up from her nails and smiled at me, causing my confusion to grow even more. "I am.. very confused."

Reagan laughed, flopping around onto her back such that her head hung down the bed, hands resting on her stomach. Her hair fell down like Rapunzel's, sweet orange contrasting fluffy white. "I wanna hear more about Seth. When did you start liking him?"

Running a hand through the tangled mess on my head, I sighed and shuffled closer to Reagan to sit down in front of her reddening face. "Your head's gonna explode like that," I said, pressing my finger against her forehead with a snort.

She chuckled and attempted to blow my finger away, unsuccessfully. "I'll be fine. Answer my question!"

I rolled my eyes and took in a soft breath, digging my fingers into the soft rug. Thoughts running free, my brain did its best to try and recollect some specific moment when I started to like Seth. But instead of doing that, I just got bombarded with every possible angle of Seth's face that I'd apparently safely locked in in the vaults of my mind. His laugh, his smile, the calm carelessness he always radiated, everything. Instead of one certain moment, everything crashed into me at once until it all exploded in a rush of butterflies curling around my stomach, elevating my heartbeat so much it began to feel tight around my chest.

"Robbie-? You're... super red," Reagan pointed out, gently shoving my knee with a chuckle. 

The feeling of her cold hand against my skin snapped me out of whatever the fuck that was, hazing over my rapidly escalating thoughts with a layer of fog. I bit my lip to hold back a giddy grin, exhaling the already lacking oxygen through my nose in an attempt to calm my heart. "I— I guess I don't really have a moment.."

Reagan hummed at that, lips pressed into a teasing smile. "But it's definitely been a while, hm?"

I glanced at her, a smile tugging at my lips just like hers. "Definitely." Then, panic shot into my head before rationality could stop it and I jolted up from my slouched shrimp position. "B-but don't tell anyone! He probably doesn't even like guys.."

It was silent for a few seconds. I was starting to get worried until Reagan's furrowed brows loosened up and they morphed into a brief expression of surprise. She quickly shook her head and then glanced at me, smiling. "I won't tell anyone, don't worry."

My relief didn't last long because the moment I let out a small sigh, a smile crawled up Reagan's face. "You should tell him," she said, wiggling her eyebrows with her genius idea.

All emotions left my face as I stared at her. "I should not."

She nodded. "You should!"

Right as I was about to reach for the pillow again, the door swung open. 

Aleksia appeared in the doorway, arms crossed over her navy blue blouse— I take she'd changed outfits. "Should what?"

Reagan glanced at me with a grin before turning to my sister. "He should tell Seth that he likes him, right?"

Eyes widenening, Aleksia pursed her lips. "For sure. But good luck getting him to do that."

Wow. I flopped forward onto the bed with a loud groan, squinting through a blade of sunshine that'd slipped through my white curtains. "I hate everyone."

"'Course you do," Aleksia chuckled, then cleared her throat. "But anyway, I came here to say I'll be making lunch in a minute. Did you wanna join us, Reagan?"

Even though I had my face smushed into the mattress, I could imagine Reagan smiling. She let out an "Oh!" before I heard some shuffling on the bed. "That's really sweet, but I can't! Saturday is family day," she explained, hopping off the bed with a thud. 

That got me to roll over and allow oxygen to enter my lungs again, brows pulling together into a frown. "You're leaving-?"

Reagan glanced at me with a sympathetic smile. "You'll see me again on Monday, dummy."

Aleksia hummed, heels clacking against the wooden floor of my room. "Assuming Robbie isn't going to leave his bed ever again, I'll let you out then, yeah?"

Reagan nodded and Aleksia left. Where I thought she'd just follow her, Reagan turned back to me, still smiling. "I'm glad you're okay. And just so you know, if you don't want to tell him, then you don't have to, okay?"

I found myself smiling too. "I know, thank you. And say hi to your sister for me!"

"Will do!"

-

Little rainbows cast all over my ceiling, dancing around the soft feathers of the wind. I had been lying there for a good while now, stretched out on my mattress with nothing on my mind other than the music blasting through my headphones. You're so golden.. Bzzt bzzt. Turns out, I'd forgotten to put my phone on silent mode. Now, the temptation to quickly check the notification grew bigger by the second, despite being fully aware it was probably candy crush telling me it'd been six months since they last saw me. 

Curiosity killed the cat, they say. But 'they' say a lot of stupid things. So, I opened my phone and almost choked on air when I saw Seth's name on my screen. 

Seth 15:22; hey (☞ﾟヮﾟ)☞ Hope you got home okay xx

Stupid emojis. Stupid Seth. Stupid grin on my face.

Robbie 15:25; I did! :D 

The typing bubble appeared as soon as my text arrived, and I found myself curling up on my mattress like a giddy school girl texting her crush. Which, thinking about it, wasn't too far off from the truth. 

Seth 15:25; I'm glad ~\(≧▽≦)/~ Watcha up to?

Staring at my rainbow-covered ceiling-? Yeah no, that's totally not weird. 

Robbie 15:26; just listening to music :P

Should've fucking asked the question back, idiot. 

Seth 15:26; oooo:O Send me your playlist sometime(～￣▽￣)～ 

How does this guy always know what to answer?! I sure as hell didn't. But that wasn't my fault, I just couldn't think straight with the amount of insects swarming through my body or the way my heartbeat thought it was fueling a Formula One race car. 

Robbie 15:26; will do!!:> 

It can always be worse. 

Seth 15:27; mom's calling me(ಥ _ ಥ) i'll ttyl!

Robbie 15:27; oh shit haha ttyl!!

Just as I was about to throw my phone out of the window and scream into my pillow, I felt another buzz. 

I clicked the notification to find a photo of Harvey, glistening eyes staring at the camera with his little pink tongue blooped out on orange-spotted skin, captioned; Harvey says hi too(*/ω  \*)  seeya on monday xx

Once again, as literally everyone expected, my brain stopped functioning and turned off the ability to form proper sentences. Thus, as any sane person would, I reacted to the photo with a white heart while chewing at my lip hard enough to drain the heat out of my face. 

I'm so fucked.

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I love Seth's silly emojis pft. Might not update next week, we'll see.

Thank you for reading<3