Paper Hearts

𝕀 𝔽𝕠𝕦𝕟𝕕 𝕐𝕠𝕦

Chapter 2: I Found You

"What kind of sh-" He looked up at the poster in the corner of his room. "No swearing! It's bad for your lungs!" was printed on the colourful background, a pig in an oversized mug peeking out from the top.

Whenever he was about to swear, Lex always remembered the poster and laughed. It was embarrassing at times, speaking to your friends and stopping mid-sentence to laugh, but he appreciated the fact that it helped him swear less. Nothing, absolutely nothing on the poster made sense.

He'd reached home, showered and ate a nougat bar while staring at his phone. He'd picked it up with a small 'screw it' and downloaded the app, staring at it still.

5%

23%

61%

99%

99%

99%

99%

I- 100%. Finally.

He'd quickly started making a profile, choosing a picture of himself staring at an almost cloudless sky, his black mullet on full view and a beautiful side profile that showed a deep dimple as he was smiling, he's bare shoulder showing. He'd chosen a basic username that gave away just enough information: LexAnd2503.

As soon as his profile was made, a few accounts were suggested to him based on his hobbies, favourite foods, likes and dislikes. There were a few that looked interesting, but some were just too old or too young. What were 13-year-olds even doing on the app?!

One in particular made him laugh. Like down-right guffaw, choke, roll around his bed and choke some more. It was a man with horribly photoshopped pictures and an even worse bio: "Anyone need a daddy?" Looking at his photos, the abs and v-taper body were fake and the photoshopping did nothing to hide his pot belly.

Shaking his head, he moved on very quickly from that profile, opting to look through others when he found three that actually caught his attention. One was a woman who seemed to be a older than him, but she seemed to have kids his niece's age. The other two were men, both in their twenties. The first one had short, curly brown hair. He had narrow, hazel eyes and thick lashes and his smile attracted Lex. He had a little dog he named Coco (for some odd reason) who had black and brown fur with the cutest shiny button-like eyes.

With a sudden burst of confidence that only existed because he was behind a screen, Lex messaged the user with a simple 'Hi' and then regretted how it looked after.

Before he could embarrass himself any further, he left the man's profile and went to the next. This man had short black hair and slightly wide dark brown, almost black eyes. The way he looked at the camera with an arm behind his head as if he was directly flirting with the person on the other side of the screen made Lex very sceptical, but he decided to take a look at his other photos.

In the next photo, the man was wearing a lilac hoodie, laying upside down with half his body off the bed and his legs spread into the splits. He had multiple anklets and thin pieces of colourful rope on his ankles and wrists. He seemed to really love having things tied around his limbs. Behind his legs on the bed, Lex could see an abundance of colourful plushies to add to the already colourful room.

Moving to the next photo, the man was in what looked like a big library. The table he was sat at was covered in books, another book open in the middle between his elbows, one hand holding a pen between his teeth. He had gold rimmed glasses sitting on his nose, some of his hair falling slightly in his eyes.