him, in all of his glory.

16. 𝘔𝘺 𝘥𝘢𝘥 𝘵𝘶𝘳𝘯𝘴 𝘰𝘶𝘵 𝘵𝘰 𝘣𝘦 𝘢 𝘴𝘩𝘪𝘵 𝘧𝘢𝘵𝘩𝘦𝘳, 𝘴𝘩𝘰𝘤𝘬𝘦𝘳!

It was a fine morning because Percy woke me up

"Psst!" He said
"Wake up, you gotta see this!" He said again.
I opened my eyes slowly and noticed him standing by the entrance of my tent, shaking me awake. How early was it?
"There you are! Come on, stand up. The view is to die for and you are going to kill me if you miss this view."
He said.
"What are you on about? We don't leave base camp until 3 hours." I said to him, now beginning to be annoyed with him. I pulled my sleeping bag over my face. He laughed and pulled me out of my tent.
"Percy!!! Come on!" I yelled at him. He couldn't stop laughing. "You have to see this, please just trust me." He said, and he smiled at me. I genuinely couldn't help it but his smile was everything to me.
"Okay, whatever, show me what you want to show me."
"You won't regret it." He said, smirking.

I got out of my sleeping bag and stood up. Percy offered me his hand and I took it. We walked for a bit and walked over a small hill our camp was located behind. His hair looked all over the place, and he looked energetic but also like he had gotten zero sleep.
"You want to listen to some music?" He asked and I nodded. He grabbed his music player and earbuds from his pajama pants pocket. He put on his acoustic playlist, these days by nico playing. We'd listened to this song when we first started hanging out with each other. We went to central park and just walked and listened to this song and many others. This song reminded me of one of my old host moms. She was the sweetest woman ever, all good memories with her. She was a huge velvet underground fan, so she loved nico.

The walk was really nice. Our camp was basically just in a field surrounded by hills. And now me and Percy were on top of one of the hills and what I saw was incredible. A huge mountain was hiding behind the hills. The mountain was huge and very rocky. She was beautiful. The tree's surrounding her and the birds flying around her. And on top of that the sun was rising just beside it. It shined on us and I took it all in. The view, the sun and the air. It was magical. Percy was looking for my reaction. I looked over to him and smiled. He smiled back and had this look in his eyes.
"This is insane. Actually insane, Percy."
"Happy I woke you up now?"
"YES! Come on, look at this! It can't get better than this."
"It truly makes you feel so small."
"Not at all! It makes me feel powerful, all this beauty surrounding us. Makes me really want to protect it, you know. Against whatever." I said to him.
"That's a nice way to look at it. I guess you're right." He smiled. He sat down and I sat down beside him. I was just closing my eyes and taking in the sun rays, while Percy was listening to his playlist. I could feel him staring.
"Stop doing that, it's distracting." I told him. He laughed.
"I'm just staring at the beauty surrounding me." He said. We both laughed and when our laughs faded, he came closer to me. Our faces are now extremely close to each other and I can count his freckles again. And see all the details in his eyes. His hands softly touched my jawline and he pulled me closer to him. I closed my eyes and he kissed me.

It was unreal.

His touch was gentle and his lips were soft. I started touching his hair and softly combing through it as he pulled away. He smiled at me and fell backwards with his back into the ground. He put his hands to his chest.
"Well finally!!! Gods!!!" He yelled, smiling. I started laughing. "My Gods, you are incredible, and I mean that with all my heart." He said again while coming back up. "Finally?! I was putting all the clues out there, you were just not picking them up." I told him, smiling.
"Oh now it's my fault? For a while I thought you just liked Malcolm. After now, I know you don't." He said teasing. "Ahah you seriously thought that? I just didn't want to ruin our friendship, it means a lot to me." I said. "I've liked you for so long Percy."
"Me too. You scare me sometimes but I like that."
"Scare you with what?"
"Your looks, your power, your wit, your everything."
I couldn't stop smiling after he said this. I was just over the moon. Percy actually likes me? AND HE KISSED ME? This was incredible.
"Wait, you thought I liked Malcolm?"
"Yeah and I thought Malcolm liked you. I mean he was giving the same look I was giving you anyway."
"Shit. It never crossed my mind. I just thought he was upset at you for..." I went quiet. It's a bit awkward mentioning his old love after he kissed you.
"It's fine. I want to stay here with you. Just this moment though. The old acoustic playlist playing with the sun forever rising." He told me. I pulled him closer and kissed him again. I could feel my body relaxing and him softly touching my head. I pulled away and our foreheads touched while we sat down at the forever rising sun.