pain, pleasure & eurovision ; Damiano David

OUCH

I open one eye slightly and close the other one even more. The sun shines directly through the living room curtain. As I lift my head a bit, pain goes down my back. Well, I slept great but on a shitty couch.

My head falls back down with a sigh. I feel something heavy resting on my stomach. Damiano breaths slow and calm, his head laying directly below my ribs. We have a simple blanket covering us, someone must have placed it there while I was asleep. I feel his messy hair tickling my belly button and observe his bare back moving up and down. The position doesn't look natural that's why I slightly stroke is neck and spine.

He holds on to me.

"Damia'" I call him by his Italian Nickname.

His head shoots up and he looks towards me through red and narrowed eyes with an angry expression. I move closer to the edge, giving him more space. He turns around, shows me his back and places his head on a couch pillow. I roll my eyes and turn in the other direction.

A look at my phone tells me, it's just 5.25 am. I let Damiano sleep because of the fact that I don't know when he joined me here. He needs to regain strength for the following days. So do the others, wouldn't want to wake them either. I slept like 13 hours but they still had to do the drug test yesterday.

I use this opportunity to go on social media to get some updates. As I go to turn on music on Spotify, I check out Måneskin's profile. "ZITTI E BUONI" has millions of streams more. I have a look at the Global Chart and see they are in ninth place.

It's hard to not rejoice at that. I take a screenshot and send it into the Måneskin+y/n chat. 'Til nine I scroll through ESC-memes and fall asleep a few times. I see the video where people assumed Damiano is coking and others that denying this.

Damiano changes positions a couple of times, at the end the head is close to my chest and his hand rests on my inner thigh under the blanket. When he wakes up he moves it away quickly and we act as usual.

He looks at me while waking up, I can't tell if it's critically or dreamy. I stare back.

"How was the test?"

"Not very interesting."

"Do you have the results yet."

"Nope."

The conversation is super dry and a tension evolves. Luckily, there are steps coming towards the living room and I hear a high scream and clapping.

We turn our heads to the door where Vic and Thomas just entered. They are dancing around wildly, Thomas holding a phone in his hand.

"Cosa c'è?" Damiano asks while lifting his upper body.

Victoria reply's in Italian and Thomas gives Damiano the phone. A glance over Damiano's shoulder tells me it's about Spotify. I lean back again and have a look at my own phone. I see there are a few messages from my co-worker Marco.

He is a design student and helps me out with my work. I have a start up called "selfless" and of course I design  Måneskin's outfits. Yesterday, before I fell asleep, I texted him that I have to pick up the costumes today and he should prepare them. We agree that I will come today to get them.

"I can't fucking believe it, we almost have 2 million on Instagram." Victoria looks down at her phone.

We sit at the kitchen table and eat breakfast. Thomas grabs her phone and puts it away.

"You're focusing too much on that, let's just chill for a second."

The others agree and we talk about casual things. Damiano sits across the table from me. He gives me a few disapproving gazes but only converses with the others properly. He talks a lot Italian which pisses me off and he knows that, he wants it! I don't even understand what his problem is. I should actually be the one angry at him for not talking to me.