A/N: I know, I know, I said I was ending the book, but I had recently done a new Laurmau challenge for the autumn season and I couldn't resist posting it here. I also saw some people wanted me to return to this, so two birds with one stone!

Enjoy~
~
It was incredibly early in the morning. The sun had barely risen. Still, Laurance Zvahl was out in his backyard, raking the leaves.

Halloween had just ended, and November was starting up. Autumn was officially in full swing, and he felt responsible for taking care of the onslaught of leaves that came with it. It was his yard, after all.

The brunette was enjoying his time alone. The air was cool against his skin, and everything was quiet. It was peaceful. Laurance felt like he could do anything and no one would mind - mostly because everyone was still asleep. Or, at least, he thought they were.

“Good morning, Laurance!” He heard a familiar voice call out.

Turning around, he saw his good friend and crush, Aphmau, entering the yard. “Hey, Aph. You’re up early.”

“So are you. Did you wake up this early just to rake the leaves?”

Laurance shook his head. “No. I had a nightmare and I couldn’t get back to sleep, so I decided to come outside to get some fresh air. Then I saw how messy this yard was, and I decided to start raking. It’s been helping me keep my mind off things.”

“Want to talk about it?” Aphmau asked with a gentle tone to her voice. “I’ve heard that talking about your nightmares helps them go away.”

“No, thanks. I think I’m good.”

It’s not like Laurance didn’t trust Aphmau with his nightmare. He just thought that it was embarrassing. In his "nightmare", everybody had started dating and marrying each other. Meanwhile, he was left to be alone forever. It was pretty pathetic compared to most nightmares, hence why he decided to keep quiet about it.

Aphmau kept a steady, concerned stare at Laurance. It’s as if she was saying, “you know you can tell me anything” with just her eyes. To avoid it, the boy began walking in the opposite direction and started to rake the leaves there. When he turned back around again, Aphmau’s eyes were no longer on him. Instead, they were on his large leaf pile.

“Aphmau, no-” He warned, but it was too late. Not even a millisecond later the black-haired girl had jumped into the leaf pile. “Aphmau!” Laurance groaned. All his hard work had been ruined.

She was giggling uncontrollably. It’s as if she was a little kid again, and it made Laurance smile. Her laughter reminded him of how much he loved her. Walking over, he offered a hand to help her up, but...

“Ah!” … she just pulled him into the leaves beside her. Aphmau laughed louder.

Laurance then began laughing as well. With Aphmau’s huge grin, the leaves getting stuck in the both of their hairs, and the childlike feeling rushing through his veins, he couldn’t help himself. It was fun being alone with her on that chilly, November morning. Together, they began rolling in the leaves.

Finally, when the laughter and the giggles died down, the two lay in silence, staring at each other.

“... hey, Aph. Have I ever told you how much I love you?”

“A million times before, yes,” The black-haired girl replied to Laurance. “But have I ever told you how much I loved you back?”

“Wait, what-”

“Aaron! Put me down, hahah!”

Laurance froze. He sat up and turned his head to see a certain black-haired girl laying in the arms of a muscled, black-haired man, running around behind the backyard fence.

"Nope! You’re coming with me, Aphmau!” The man shouted, holding the girl close to his body.

Whipping his head around to face the girl beside him, he found no one there. No smile, no beautiful eyes, no love of his life.

Laurance suddenly felt disgusted with himself. How could he ever have fantasies about another man’s girl? He couldn’t help it, though… he was in love with Aphmau, and that was the truth.

Letting out a sigh, he looked down at the pile of leaves he ruined. Now he would have to rake them up all over again.

“Laurance, what were you doing?”

Looking up, the brunette was faced with his pale, emo roommate.

“Oh. Hey, Zane. I was just… raking the leaves.”

“O… kay. Anyways, I’m heading out to have breakfast with Nana. Make sure to tell Garroth when he wakes up.” Just like that, the man walked away.

Along with the disgust and guilt, Laurance also felt ashamed. One-eye had managed to get a girlfriend, and Laurance couldn’t even get over a girl who was never his in the first place.

Getting up and brushing himself off, Laurance continued raking the leaves, indulging in the peacefulness of the Autumn atmosphere once again.

Maybe he really would end up being forever alone.
~
Wow. I got kinda sad while writing this.

This was written for a challenge called the "November Writing Challenge" on Amino. The challenge was to create an Autumn/November-themed fanfic with some sort of twist to it, so I came up with Laurance raking the leaves and imagining Aphmau there with him.

This was a little bit inspired by the "My Blood" music video by Twenty Øne Pilots, which is really good so I recommend you check it out!

I'm pretty sure I'm not going to continue posting in this book, and if I do, it won't be very often. So, this is the last official Laurmau oneshot for now.

Hope you have a great day/night and I'll see you all later ♡

~Owl