Hey! To make up for the angst in the last chapter, have a nice Lysander and Hermia fluff.

I'm honestly really excited for this because I love my modern AU Hermia. She's a lot like me. (On a good day, guys. Don't overestimate me XD)

♤♤♤♤♤♤♤♤♤♤♤♤♤

~ Lysander's PoV ~

I squirmed out of my mother's grip as she tried to smooth my wild hair down for what felt like the bajillionth time that morning.

"Mama! Stooop!" I whined.

"Sorry bud," she chuckled. "I suppose it was silly of me to think I could tame your lion's mane!" She picked me up and spun me around, causing me to erupt in a fit of giggles.

"Okay little lion, let's get you to the bus. You don't wanna be late for your first day," she said, holding my hand as we walked down the sidewalk.

By the time the bus arrived I was practically bouncing with excitement. I think Mama thought I was nervous, because she rubbed her thumb across the back of my hand and smiled at me.

"Bye honey! Have a good day! I love you!"

"Love you too!"

~ Bus ride time skip where I get nostalgic over a Justin Roberts song (Yellow bus, you're takin too long, youre takin too long, my yellow bus) ~

I weaved between older kids that looked like high schoolers but were probably actually just 5th graders. Finally reaching the sanctuary of my classroom, I placed my backpack in the cubby with my name on it.

Okay, now it's time to find friends. Mama always said that all I had to to make a good impression was introduce myself and make sure to smile.

Most of the other kids seemed to already be talking to people. All except one girl, that is, who was too focused on her drawing to try to talk to people.

I was instantly intrigued by her. She was wearing a white silky scarf, a black short-sleeve shirt, and a bright, puffy tutu. I noticed purple rainboots under the table, as well as a silver sequined headband holding back hair that was almost as wild as mine.

Having zero sense of when people were too busy to pay attention to me (like all other kindergarteners ever), I sat in the chair next to her.

"Hi!" I chirped, smiling as big as I could.

She looked up from the jumble of colors on the paper in front of her and set down her marker.

"Hello."

"My name's Lysander. What's yours?" I asked, figuring it was common courtesy to know a person's name before you ask what the heck they're drawing.

"Hermia," she stated, holding her hand out. I shook it happily.

"What are you drawing?" I asked, leaning over to see if I could decipher it from another angle.

She suddenly grinned. I guess she liked talking about her art more than her name.

"A rainbow octopus," she said. "But octopuses have eight arms and there are only six colors in the rainbow, so I had to use pink and brown so that they could all have their own color."

"It's octopi, actually," I corrected before I could stop myself. Hermia tilted her head in question. "When you have more than one octopus, you call them octopi. It's the same thing with a platypus."

I was worried she'd be mad at me for correcting her, but she grinned instead.

"That's so cool! It makes me think of a pie with eight octopus arms," she said, pulling a blank piece of paper towards her.

"What are you doing?"

"Now I wanna draw it," she replied, not even looking at me as she selected new markers from the bin. "But you can finish the rainbow octopus if you want."

Figuring I had nothing better to do, I began coloring in the last few sections of the octorainbow.

~ Lengthy time skip so they can finish their drawings. These two have LONG attention spans, so they actually stuck with the drawings. ~

"That's awesome!" I grinned once Hermia pushed the octopie toward me.

"So's yours!" She responded, taking the octorainbow.

"We should totally put these on our cubbies," I said, gasping.

We made eye contact and nodded simultaneously, determined to make sure that everyone knew who created these masterpieces.

After hunting down tape and over-securing the papers to the wood, we stepped back and admired our work.

"I think we're both awesome artists," Hermia remarked.

"We should be famous for these," I agreed.

"Can I ask you an important question?" She asked, turning towards me.

"Sure," I said.

"Does this make us best friends? If you don't already have one, that is."

I thought for a minute. I didn't have any other friends at this school, we were cubby neighbors, and she had let me talk about weird animal grammar.

"I think I'd like to be your best friend," I said, smiling shyly.

"Awesome! First day and I already have a bestie!" Hermia exclaimed, throwing an arm around my shoulder and putting a fist in the air in victory.

She suddenly looked like she remembered something, and quickly ran to her backpack. She pulled out a length of string with a small assortment of beads strung on it.

"Here," she said, holding out the string to me. "My dad said I should give this to my first friend. I think he thought it would be a girl, but... I mean, if you want it..."

I smiled, grabbing the string and tying it loosely around my neck.

The smile she gave back was worth a thousand times the interrogation I'd get from my mom.

~ Another time skip to like 4th grade ~

"Chips?"

"Check."

"LEGO Movie?"

"Affirmative."

"Pillows?"

"Confirmed."

"Pokémon cards?"

"... Aye."

"Aye?" I laughed.

"Shut up!" Hermia grumbled. "I ran out of synonyms for yes that sounded cool!"

We were having our usual weekly sleepover at my house. We occasionally relocated to her house, but her dad was really grumpy and we tended to leave him alone.

After we'd finished the movie and stuffed ourselves with junk food, we flopped across the air mattress in my room. It was technically just for her, but we didn't care.

"Lysander," she asked, rolling to face me. "Can I ask you an important question?"

I mirrored her position, searching her eyes for what she was feeling. I was pretty sure she was just tired, though.

"Aye."

"When you grow up, who do you think you'll marry?"

That caught me off guard. I blinked a few times and tried to process the sentence. I subconsciously reached up and fidgeted with the beads on my necklace, which I'd only taken off to adjust since she gave it to me.

"Well, I mean, probably you," I answered with surprisingly little hesitation or awkwardness.

"Good, cause I was gonna say you. That would have been uncomfortable if you'd said... not me."

I laughed a little, lacing my fingers with hers in the space between us.

"I'll never say not you, I promise."

We shared our usual warm smile, completely oblivious to the fact that her father would be searching for a new job in a few years. The new one that he got had better pay, but it wasn't in our town.

Hermia was moving away. She was moving a week's drive away. That was much farther away than either of us were comfortable with, but her father had never been the type to take his daughter's feelings into account.

Just like that, it seemed our fates were sealed. It took me a good year to adjust to not having her around, because I used to never be able to get rid of her.

I never got rid of the necklace, though. It grew too small to be a necklace around high school, so I started tying it around my wrist instead.

That was the one part of her I couldn't lose.

~ Time skip! (Last one, I promise.) They're in college now. Hermia's PoV ~

Anylizing my appearance in the changing room's giant mirror, I concluded that I did, in fact, still look better in denim jackets than leather ones.

I quickly snapped a picture and sent it to Helena, along with "You owe me $10."

I hung the unwanted garment on the "return to shelves" hook, and decided I needed a smoothie.

Turns out walking with your eyes closed is a bad idea, because one minute I was dancing to my music on my way to get a smoothie and the next I'm on the ground. I pulled my earbuds out and shot my head up to see exactly what I'd run into.

Or who, I should say. The guy had crazy black hair that looked like he'd stopped trying to even brush it years ago, and he wore a bisexual pride shirt along with faded blue jeans. I mentally applauded his wardrobe choices before looking at his face.

Damn, this guy was cute. (Here comes author's description of characters, oh God.) To compliment his black hair, he had spotless caramel skin aside from the freckles that dotted his face like stars. He had a small, full goatee that topped off his Tired College Student look perfectly.

Regaining his senses first, the man stood up and offered a hand to me.

"Sorry about that! I wasn't looking where I was going. I guess texting and walking isn't a very safe combo, huh?" Ooh, he was good-natured too!

I laughed, shaking my head. "Nah, it was my fault. I had my eyes closed."

"Really?" he asked, pulling me up.

"Yeah. It was my favorite part of the song, and I was kinda dancing, and I sorta just closed my eyes," I explained. "I guess walking and dancing isn't a very good combo eith-"

I cut myself off mid-sentence. He was wearing a beaded bracelet that had a good amount of excess string trailing after the knot. Looking at the beads, I was smacked in the face with the all-too-familiar pattern of greens, blues, and oranges that I'd thought up in kindergarten.

You're kidding. No fucking way.

"Hey, c-can I ask you an important question?" I stammered, not quite believing it.

"Sure..." he said questioningly.

"Do you remember me?"

After a terrifying five seconds that felt more like five years, his eyes lit up.

"Oh my God, I can't believe it! Hermia!" he exclaimed, pulling me into a giddy hug. I hugged back as tightly as I possibly could.

"I thought I'd never see you again!"

"Ditto, but I guess destiny had a different plan for us," Lysander said, winking. I groaned.

"I still don't believe in your fate and destiny crap," I said, sticking my tongue out.

"Why not?" He pouted.

"Because I just don't. Even years of constantly being around you hasn't changed that," I stated.

"Whatever, you weirdo."

After sharing a smoothie and exchanging stories for hours, we figured we should get out of the coffee shop before they kicked us out. Walking along the river under a cloudless sky, we continued to talk, less about our lives and more about whatever came up.

"Ooh, look at them! They're cute!" I squealed, pointing out a couple sitting on a bench. Lysander waved to them, and they waved back.

"I know them, and I one-hundred percent agree that they're cute as hell. I'll introduce you sometime," he smirked, giving my hand a small squeeze.

It was at that moment that I realized we were holding hands. It was so natural for us that we didn't notice when it happened.

After another peaceful stretch of silence, Lysander pulled me into a hug.

"What's this for?" I giggled, reciprocating the embrace. He nuzzled his face into my scarf like he used to do when we were little.

"I don't know, just... let me hold you for a minute," he murmured into my neck.

I smiled to myself and combed his hair with my fingers. It was never tangled, just messy. I was very glad to see that he could still claim the title of lion.

"This is kinda couple-ish," I said under my breath. I wasn't even aware that I'd vocalized the realization until Lysander looked at me.

"What was that?"

"Oh, it was n-nothing," I stuttered, refusing to look him in the eye. He sighed.

"It wasn't nothing, I definitely heard you say something," he pressed, smirking a little.

"I don't mean nothing like I didn't say anything, I mean nothing like it's not important," I explained.

"Then just say it's not important instead," he laughed. I rolled my eyes and attempted to fight the smile that was threatening to ruin my frustrated facade.

"Well, then it's not important."

"Look, you know I'm not backing down on this, right?"

"Fine," I sighed. "I thought it was kinda couple-ish."

Lysander seemed surprised for a moment, then turned away and mumbled something.

"Right, my turn. What was that?" I asked, smirking.

He sighed and bit his lip. "You're not letting this go, are you?"

"Nope," I said, popping the P.

"That's what I thought," he grumbled. He scratched the back of his neck, still refusing to make eye contact with me.

"Um... I said I wouldn't mind it if it was meant to be couple-ish..."

I did a little internal victory dance at his words, but only growing my smirk externally.

"Then you wouldn't mind if I made it a lot more couple-ish?" I asked.

Lysander barely had time to look up in confusion before my lips were on his and my hands were back in his hair. After a moment of shock, he placed his hands on my waist and pulled me closer.

When we finally had to break for oxygen, he leaned his forehead against mine, panting.

"That was definitely a lot more couple-ish."

♤♤♤♤♤♤♤♤♤♤♤♤♤♤

Oooooh, we got a long'n here. I'm very happy with how this turned out. Some parts felt a little rushed, but it's fine.

On a completely different note, I'm crying on the inside. Tomorrow is my last day with my friends from this year, and it makes me very sad. Not only that, but I'm going into high school and I'm high-key already stressing. I love my school, like a lot, and I'm not ready for things to change. Sadly, I'm not in control of time. I'd repeat this year if I could. I loved it.

2020 update: It's all very much the same. Better in some ways, even. All is well!

Anywho, I should sleep now. Till next time, faeries. May you always remember the good times past.