★ kee speaks i forgot how to write fluff and i got lazy at the end im sorry

Our game began on a Tuesday night, around 10 P.M., in the place where we always talked. The air was still and it wasn't too hot nor too cold. I turned the lights off in my room so the light wouldn't seep through below the door when people passed by. I pushed my curtains aside and put one of my school textbooks on the end so it was weighed down.

I didn't need to open my window, it was open all the time anyway. Swinging my legs out and sitting on the ledge, I tried to peer into the black square that was the room of my neighbor, right in front of mine.

"Hey Connor. Connor, you up?" I whispered. Something fell and someone showed their face.

"I never sleep," My friend replied, sweeping his curly hair away from his eyes.

I thought about the time he was practically passed out after a night of sneaking out to go to a skateboard park. "Sure."

He got up from his crouching position and sat on the windowsill as well. "So what do you want to talk about?"

I chuckled. "That's the driest question in existence."

"Not as dry as, um..."

I bit back a laugh and crossed my arms. "Go ahead, I'll wait. We have all night."

"Fine! So-oh yeah, I um, I have to tell you something."

I jokingly narrowed my eyes at him. "Go on."

He sucked in a breath and said, very quickly, "YoumakemeblushalotandIhonestlylikeyousomuchpleasedon'thatemeY/N!"

World pause.

My fingertips turned cold. My brain malfunctioned, and I shot back, "Yeah? Well you're the best part of my day!"

I thought Connor was going to fall out of his window. "I-if I was a cat I'd spend all nine lives with you."

I snapped my fingers at that, quickly regaining composure. "Stolen from the Internet."

He tilted his head. "No?"

"Then why'd you say no like a question?"

"Because I didn't know it was on the Internet, princess."

"I'm counting that as stolen, still."

"You know what else I plan to steal, Y/N?"

"My heart?" I asked dramatically.

"Yes. Starting now!"

"Not if I steal yours first, Con!"

Both of us quickly caught up to what the other was thinking, and it became a thing, like an inside joke between us. It was a playful exchange of flattering words, to put it poetically. It was nice playing a simple game like that, throwing compliments back and forth. Were we competing? Maybe, maybe not. I mean, neither of us said anything like "first to blush loses" or "first to be told to go to bed buys the other person Kit Kat".

After some time, I heard the sound of a door clicking open and a second later light spilled into Connor's room. "Stop yelling or mom will hear," his brother said.

"You should go to sleep now, princess," Connor said, retreating back into his room. His shirt got caught on something and that gave me time to ask, "Why do you call me princess?"

He shrugged and pretended to be in deep thought. "Hmm. Maybe it's because of the bedroom completely painted pink—"

"Yeah, okay, okay, I remember, no need to bring that up."

"Have you forgiven me for stealing that fairy wand yet?"

I raised my eyebrows, remembering how he threw it into my window and made it hit my face when I asked him to give it back. I held out my hand. "Crimes can be forgiven."

Connor went back to his window and stuck his arm out as far as he could to shake my outstretched hand. "Crimes? You're being dramatic, Y/N."

I chuckled, still shaking his hand. To be honest, I didn't want to let go. His warmth contrasted with the cold atmosphere and it would be nice if he just climbed over and stayed.

Hold on. I'm not even sure if he genuinely liked me as a crush.

So maybe it was mind games or us convincing ourselves that we liked each other, but when you've known a person and lived beside them for nearly your whole life, you can get pretty close. Close enough to keep exchanging half-assed compliments, of course. I guess creativity only lasted for one night.

Wherever we saw each other, in school or in the streets or even when we just caught a glimpse of each other, we'd say something to fluster the other and wait for their reaction. It was pretty fun. I'd yell something like "Nice face!" in the hallway and wait for the silence that came while Connor tried to think of a response. He'd randomly text me in the middle of the night something along the lines of "I hope your dreams are as good as the butterflies you put in my stomach" and I'd just let it pass. Totally normal.

Yeah, well, here's the thing—He um, well, we shared feelings. I was relieved, honestly, because at least all those romantic one—liners weren't for nothing. We just kept playing that game for nearly a year, leaving notes in each other's bags and flying paper airplanes into each other's open window nearly every day and making each other smile.

Then, at some point, it wasn't pretending anymore. It was real, and true, and sweeter than whatever Willy Wonka on crack could stir up.

To put it shortly, we both learned it right after he set off a prank in my driveway. I had come home earlier than him, because he had gotten himself caught in the process of messing with the school speakers-a rare occasion, honestly, he never really gets caught-so I had time to myself, spacing out in my room and staring at the ceiling.

Some time later I heard a scuffle in the room opposite mine and I sat up to hear Connor muttering something about tape. Knowing he was always up to something, I snuck down to my front door instead to find my family's car covered in pictures of Steve Buscemi's face.

Stepping out of my house, I started laughing, walking over to the car. Connor followed shortly, speeding out of his front door to arrive beside me.

"Why me?" I asked, shaking my head and catching my breath.

He tilted his head to the side as if confused. "Huh?"

"Why are you always pranking me?"

"You-you don't hate it when I do it, don't you?"

"No, no of course not, you saw how I..." I vaguely gestured to the car, sheets of paper fluttering in the wind. "It's okay, I don't hate it, at all, but why me and not, I don't know, Stan or Jaz from school?"

A smile started to form on his face. "You really don't get it?"

"No?"

Then he put his hands on my cheeks and kissed me on the lips. Steve Buscemi's clones really got front-row seats to our story, huh?

I got my first kiss in front of a car covered in about 50 copies of someone's face printed out. Goals, honestly. Something I didn't know I needed.

Just kidding. But I really enjoyed being Connor Stoll's girlfriend.

After finishing some homework, I sighed and packed away my things. A few minutes later a paper airplane flew through my window, swiftly and quietly, bumping the wall when it got too far. I picked it up and unfolded it, expecting a message in it like usual, but it was blank on both sides of the paper. I turned to see Connor sitting by his window.

"Hi, princess," he said, waving at me.

"Hello," I answered. Immediately I restrained myself from asking him to come over. "Need anything?"

"Can I come over?" he asked, not even trying to hide his grin.

"Yeah, sure," I mumbled, blushing. I did that a lot around him. "Do I get my board or yours?"

"I'll get it." and then he went out of his room. Another random thing about us was that our windows were also a form of communication. If we wanted to be left alone, we'd close them so the other won't be bothered. If we wanted to talk, or had free time, we'd leave them open. If we wanted to say that we were waiting for the other person, we'd leave a chair by the windowsill. Sometimes we'd even tape messages to the glass. Taylor Swift's You Belong With Me music video much?

Oh, and the boards. We both have one in each of our attics, long planks of wood that could stretch across the space between our houses so we could cross. I found mine when cleaning up the gym at school and Connor found his while exploring their attic. They were sort of like bridges to us.

Moments later I was in between his arms while he pressed a kiss to my forehead. "Can we play UNO?" I asked.

"Yeah, sure. Is it still in your kitchen or..."

"Here." I went to my desk and tossed the deck of cards to him. He caught it and smiled, sitting down on my bed.

"Remember when you lost a bet and had to challenge our math teacher to a game of these?"

I sat down beside him and crossed my legs. "I don't think so."

"Hm. Maybe that was someone else. Anyway, do you know how to shuffle cards, princess?"

I laughed nervously. "I try."

"Here, just..." He split the deck into two and shuffled them so they alternately fell into place, left and right.

"Yeah, I can do that," I said, holding my hand out. "Let me try."

When he passed them to me, I pretended to split it into two just like he did, but I bet he wasn't expecting me to throw them into the air, 224 colored cards raining down on us.

"I got you!" I said, pointing at him and laughing.

He pushed one off his shoulder, grinning despite the mix of shock and surprise on his face. "Y/N!"

After cleaning up, we went to play, laying cards on my bed and stealing glances from each other. When he put down a +4 card, I gnawed on my bottom lip and scanned my own cards.

When I looked up, Connor looked disappointed. "What?" I asked.

"I thought you'd talk." He frowned.

"Why do you look so sad?"

"Because," he started, getting up, "I am quite in love with you and your voice." He tucked a strand of my hair behind my ear, making me shrink and stutter.

"N-not as much as I'm in love with you."

"Really? Bet."

"If you ever disappeared, I'd place and lose a thousand bets to get you back."

"I'd place and lose a million."

I chuckled. "Can you even do that in one lifetime?"

He put a hand on the back of his neck, and mumbled, "If I couldn't, then I'd spend that lifetime looking for you myself."

Well, we obviously still played that game I was talking about earlier. Now that we were a thing, though, it wasn't just jokes and I had no complaints.

I hesitated for a moment, then I leaned in close and ran a hand through his hair. I just blurted it out without thinking. I'd never said it before and if it weren't for the card game I would have been more nervous than I really was.

"Connor? I, um...I love you."

"I love you too."