It's later than I thought, nearing ten, but Dan and I are both "night owls," so it doesn't matter as much as it might for two normal people. It sounds horrifically cliche, but Dan and I aren't exactly normal people. Unless you count staying up until 6 AM on a daily basis normal.
The Phan flat isn't far, so it only takes a few minutes on the train. I'm an odd mix of nervous and excited. The nervousness is from the whole "going to Dan Howell's house" thing, and the excitement is honestly the same. The fangirl part of me is feeling so many emotions the rest of me doesn't know what to do.
It's raining even harder by the time I get off and put into the street, I can't run to their flat as I'm still not sure as to where it is. Now, I'm forced to huddle under a bus stop while I rapidly type the address into my phone. Luckily for me, it's only a few houses down, and still light enough outside to see the house number.
I texted Dan as I got off the train to tell him I was close. That was probably a good move, as he now waits for me with the front door open just a crack.
Dan wraps me up in a hug (he's a great hugger, by the way, everyone should strive to get a Dan hug at some point in their lives), and leads me upstairs to where I can take off my nearly-soaking coat. I was brilliant enough to forget an umbrella.
"I've missed, Mia!!" says Dan, giving me one last hug before taking me up one more flight of stairs to the lounge. I don't understand how someone like Dan could live in a flat with this many stairs. Just the thought of having to climb these every day makes me want to be sick.
"I missed you too!" I say, immediately perking up at the smell of pizza, "Is that for us?" Dan grins.
"I assumed you might like something to eat," he says.
"You understand me so well," I gush melodramatically, putting my hands over my heart.
We get to the lounge, where a pretty big box of pizza sits almost untouched on the coffee table, surrounded my dirty mugs and paper plates.
"You ate a piece!" I accuse, noticing a small section gone. He scoffs and sits down.
"Hey. You can't just leave me alone with pizza and expect it to be there very long. And I left the rest, so don't act like it's all that bad." I grab my own slice and sit down next to him, not caring about how our legs are barely touching at the thigh. It's not a fanfiction for fuck's sake. Friends accidentally touch legs all the time. It is a little awkward sometimes, but it's not like touching someone's leg with your leg makes you a couple or whatever. Legs aren't exactly a romantic gesture, if you know what I mean.
At some point I notice that Dan has MarioKart, and I can practically feel my eyes light up. "You were the one who brought MarioKart to Vidcon?" I ask, grinning.
The pizza is nearly gone now, and without the excuse of eating for the awkward silence I wasn't sure what we were going to do. Dan smiles.
"Yeah. You wanna play? Maybe I can beat you again!" he jokes. I narrow my eyes and grab a controller, now set on beating this bastardized so hard he won't know what hit him,
"Or maybe I can beat you, you cocky bastard!" We both laugh for a moment but turn deathly serious when the lighthearted intro music begins. We're serious when it comes to our Nintendo games. Normally I might film this moment, maybe a camera leaning on an armchair to capture the race, but something about this feels more private than that. LIke filming this would be weird, like filming a date. 'Is this a date?' I ask myself, but decide it's not. Friends can hang out all the time. Just because a girl and guy are friends doesn't make them dating. Right?
We decide on a quick team round as a warm up, then a solo sort of thing. I don't know the technical terms, as I don't obsess that much over the game, but I know that since we're both on the red team first neither of us will have bragging rights over the other, at least until the next round is over.
