Dylan

I wasn't quite sure when the last time I had moved was. I had been laying on the floor of my dorm room, tapping  the buttons rapidly on my game with wide eyes while bopping my head. I always died at this stage, so my concentration levels were through the roof. To the left of me sat my childhood teddy, slumped over from old age and a lifetime of cuddling. When I was younger, I had believed that Father Christmas watched me through its beady little eyes but now one of them had a chip and I was sure that if Santa knew it was me who spilt red wine on my mum's rug last year on Christmas-eve then I wouldn't have received a present the next day. So, I was safe. I think.

After laying on the floor for so long, my ribs were beginning to hurt. I rolled over and went from laying on my tummy to being on my back. The blood rushed to my head. I rolled too suddenly and made it ache. As I result, I lost my concentration and my character died. Straight into the lava with a little 8-bit 'womp womp womp' jingle.

Pouting, I moved to get to my feet and the room spun from my sudden movement. I wasn't sure what time it was, or how long I had spent on the floor exactly, but the sun had began to set behind the trees that stood directly across from my dorm room window. On my windowsill itself sat a shrine of video games that I had collected across the years. Small, anime figurines posed with ropes of blue hair and tiny plushes with felt daggers defended my window from intruders.

When I had moved to University, my mum had advised me to leave my video-games at home and I had laughed. She was not joking.

Posters of my favourite characters and games lined my ugly, blue cork board. My best friend, Kai, always said he was creeped out by the prospect of them watching me sleep but I loved them, regardless of what he said. Ever since I was young enough to figure out how opposable thumbs worked, I had loved video games. It was one of my special interests.

When I wasn't on an adventure from my dorm room in the form of a game, I was writing music or playing piano. My dad had insisted on me learning a classical instrument when I was a kid because he thought it would look good on my personal statement to get into University, but he hadn't expected it to take over my life. Much to his dismay, it was all I could think about sometimes. Especially when I got to play video game soundtracks on the piano.

I'm pretty sure my next-door neighbour, Nate, hates me because of the noise, however, because he had said very little to me since moving in, despite sharing a kitchen. Kai was the only flatmate who spoke to me, but he was down the hall. I was so happy when I found somebody who also liked video games as much as me when I moved here because I was so anxious about making friends and people like Nate don't exactly fill me with confidence.

Creaking open my heavy bedroom door, I paced down the flat corridor and into the communal kitchen. Nate was stood at the dirty hob, cooking some kind of pasta that was boiling over and spilling starchy, pasta water everywhere. He briefly flicked his eyes towards me as I walked in, but quickly redirected them to his pasta.

Nate was the extroverted and social kind of person. At least he was with anyone that wasn't me. He had a lot of friends here already and was constantly having people come over to hang out and drink. Kai and I quite often had to have dinner at the local takeaway instead of cooking because the kitchen was filled with people dancing to pop tunes.

It was a little inconsiderate, but there was no way in hell that Kai or I would say anything about it. In fact, we had barely spoken more than three words to him. He liked to ignore us. It didn't really bother me, since some people were like that during school anyway, so I was used to it. Besides, I didn't like the idea of hanging out in big groups like that; it filled me with dread.

I pulled open the fridge and scanned the contents. The smell inside was disgusting, since somebody had left something to mould over, but my shelf was barren of all food. I needed to go and buy food again. Nate's shelf was mostly filled with alcohol and chocolate, but at least neither he or Kai were the source of the mould-smell.

Glancing out the window again, I pouted at the prospect of having to leave the house.

Since my Uni work was done for the week, I had planned to spend the majority of the weekend in my room playing video games with the curtains drawn, but now I needed food. University work had been pretty non-stop for me since I started, so I was looking forward to a quiet, work-free weekend for the first time in forever. Glancing over at Nate, he was laughing at some video on his phone and eating his buttery pasta straight out of the hob.

Trudging back to my room, I dressed myself and wrapped up warm in my older brother's hoodie since it looked pretty dreary outside. Since I was the youngest of my brothers, I tended to get the hand-me-downs. I'm pretty sure even my socks belonged to one of my brothers at some point.

Taking my notebook that had my shopping-list template in, I packed my backpack with a tote bag to pack my shopping in and slipped my headphones onto my ears. I usually bought the same foods every week, which my older brother found odd, but I had always been fussy with food.

Campus was pretty busy. I passed the student bar and there were a tonne of people walking around the place: couples, friends, loners. I had never been to the student bar, but it always smell pretty strongly of bitter beer, so I don't think I ever will. Outside it smelt of fresh rain and I loved it because it smelt clean.

I was glad that I wore my headphones because the heaving student bar was usually super noisy and I hated how overwhelming all of the voices yelling could get. According to Kai, they were playing drinking games and chanting something along to them.

Crossing over the road, I came to the park entrance that I usually used as a cut through to the shops. Kai had shown me the route during freshers and it had saved a solid five minutes of walking time. Walking along the gravel path, I could feel the rocks beneath my feet but I couldn't hear the sounds of the rocks crunching together because of my headphones.

I slipped the headphones off and sat at the edge of the fountain, listening to the sound of the trickling water running through the water feature. It was pleasant and I bopped my head, appreciating the fresh air and pleasant sounds of the park. It was much nicer here than over by the bar.

Plus, it was a lot quieter. The only other people nearby was a woman who was rapidly texting on her phone sat next to a man who was slouched on the bench, watching a little girl play. The young girl looked almost identical to the woman. Despite the man they were with probably being the girls father, I let my eyes linger a second too long. He was pretty.

I refocused my attention on the water and decided to put my headphones back on, playing music to drown out the sounds of the child playing. It was pretty loud. I sat cross-legged at the edge of the fountain, pulling out my notebook to double-check my shopping list. I almost had it memorised since moving to Uni, but I wanted to be sure.

My mind wandered, however, to other things. I hadn't met anyone at Uni that I had a romantic interest in. While I hadn't expected it to be instant, I had expected to meet at least one interested gay man by now, considering it was a pretty large University. Kai was also queer, but neither of us were the others type.

While flipping through my notebook to find my recipe template, I came across some old song lyrics that I had jotted down while inspired the other night and bopped my head. The melody had been haunting me for the last few days and I couldn't stop thinking about what lyrics would go well. Noticing the time, however, I realised the store would be closing in less than an hour. I got a move on and rushed the rest of the way to the store, fearing that I would starve or resort to fast-food again if I didn't hurry up.

Upon entering the store, a blast of cold air hit me and I shivered, pulling the hoodie closer to me as I grabbed a basket. It was cold to preserve the food being sold, obviously, but that didn't make it pleasant. Wandering straight for my familiar aisles, I grabbed my usual foods from my list. They were out of my usual brand of cereal, which set me on edge and put a dampener on my mood, but I made do with own-brand. By the time I made it to the checkout, my basket was pretty full, and heavy, so I was desperate to set it down.

It clattered against the metal of the checkout and the checkout boy looked over at me with an eyebrow raised at the noise. Anxiety creeped through me as I realised he was mildly good-looking. The guys lips moved as he spoke to me, but I still had my headphones on so I was clueless as to what he said.

"What?" I asked, pausing the music.

"I asked if you were going to put it on the conveyor belt."

My eyes moved from the checkout to the conveyor belt and I realised I had left my items in the basket and not placed them to be scanned. I stumbled over myself, rushing to place things properly. My hands began to shake as I realised I had done it wrong. Checking behind me, I glanced to see if I was holding anyone up with my mistake.

With my luck, the guy from the park was stood just behind me with a juice-box and an ice lolly in his hands. I personally believe it's too cold for that, but that's besides the point. I mumbled an apology and scuttled over to the checkout guy who had now began scanning. He sent me a pearly smile and I swayed. Was that sarcastic? I couldn't tell.

"That'll be twenty-one pounds." Checkout guy grinned, once again showing me his pearly whites.

I blinked, nodding, and took out my wallet to pay. As he handed me my change, he winked at me and my eyes widened, wondering if I was mistaken. I was so flustered, in fact, that I walked into the promotional chocolate stand.

Park-guy looked shocked and took a step towards me, his arm twitching as if he was going to offer me a hand. Before he did, however, he stopped himself and his arm stayed firmly to his side. Instead, the checkout guy stepped out from behind the till and began to help me pick chocolate up.

Practically ready to run out of that store, I didn't notice the row of numbers written at the bottom of my receipt until I was back in the park. I hated that I was such a klutz. The park was beautifully lit up with colours of blue, cyan, green, and turquoise now that it was fully dark. Staring down at the slip of paper, numbers stared right back at me and I blinked continuously.

Had the cashier given me his number?

I had taken up the same position as earlier; sat on the fountain wall cross-legged. My headphones were once again firmly placed on my head and my heart was racing faster than the tempo of the music playing. I couldn't quite tell if this was a practical joke or not.

Humming along to one of my favourite songs, I tried to figure out the small row of numbers. I couldn't rationalise how me knocking down a chocolate display warranted an exchanging of numbers.

My mindless humming turned into a soft singing as I bopped my head and replayed the events of the grocery store over in my head. I loved to sing; it was my passion. While staring at the small piece of paper, however, somebody approached me. I didn't notice them at first, because I still had my headphones on, but when I did, I jumped out of my skin.

His lips moved but I didn't hear him, so I slipped my headphones off. I went to ask him to repeat what he said, but it was then that I realised that it was the guy from the park. The same guy that had just witnessed what happened in the grocery store.

Neither of us really said anything and he didn't repeat whatever it was that he said, so the silence sort of just encased us. The trickling of water continued and my eyes flicked around him, looking for the two girls from earlier.

"Did you not hear me?"

I shook my head to indicate I hadn't, not trusting my vocal cords to not squeak right now.

"You dropped this in the store." His voice was deep and rough, sending shivers through me.

My eyes widened as he stretched out his large hand that was holding my notebook. I hadn't even realised that it was missing, but when I did I probably would have broken down. There was a lot of personal stuff in there: small doodles, song lyrics, some emotion out-pours. Not to mention, half of my organisation took place in that notebook, such as my grocery list template.

I paled, realising that my most intimate belonging had been in the possession of a stranger.

"Don't worry, I didn't look or anything."

That sounded suspicious, but his face was genuine, so I believed him. I tucked it safely away in my bag, feeling gratitude surge through my body that it was returned to me safely. I'm not sure what I would do without my notebook.

"Your singing was nice." The man spoke up again.

Stood in front of me now, I could see his full face, despite his cap brim being dipped low. The lights from the fountain were lighting up his handsome face with the cyan and turquoise colours as they danced through the night air. He had day-old stubble and slight eye bags that made him look tired up close, but he was still pretty.

I suppose I kind of resembled a goldfish at that moment.

"Sorry, I didn't think that anyone else was around. Thank you for returning my notebook." I mumbled, avoiding eye contact.

"You're very welcome." He responded simply before walking away, disappearing down the gravel path.