Barcoded / Phan

One •phil•

"Phil!!" Mum called from down the stairs. "Hurry or you'll be late."

I was sitting at the edge of my bed, staring down at my wrist for a good fifteen minutes. "Coming," I called after a while.

On my wrist there is a barcode, the government scans it for my identification for important things. It's like a finger print; but just a barcode on my wrist.
Underneath that barcode, are six dashes, two for hours, two for minutes, two for seconds. That's the countdown for when I meet my soulmate. Mine hasn't started yet, so there are just dashes. Louise's has, and Caspar's. But, they're all anxious to see when I get mine.

I realise I've been sitting there for too long and I go to my closet and pull out a pixel Pokèmon shirt and throw it on, and some black jeans with white Vans. I quickly adjust my black fringe and stare at myself in the mirror. I look terrible to say the least. I sigh and dash down the stairs. Mum greets me with a hug in the kitchen.

It's been me and my mum for as long as I can remember, my dad died when I was only little, I don't really remember him.

I eat and then I head out on my walk to school, it's around 7:45 now. I'm supposed to be at school at 7:50. I sigh as I reach the school building. I walk to the normal spot by the apple tree where I'm supposed to meet Louise and Caspar.

"Hi, Phil!" Louise sings as she walks up. I smile and wave and we start talking. It's my third year in high school and I look around at the small Freshman.

"Louise?" I ask, not looking at her. Someone has caught my attention. A brown haired boy, his hair styled like mine but his part on the opposite side and a bit curly. He's obnoxiously tall and lean, but he's not skinny but not chubby either. He has medium to pale skin, but his brown eyes caught mine for a split second before I looked away. I could still feel him stare at me. "Louise who's that?"

"Hm?" She followed my gaze and then looked at me and smiled. "Oh! That's Dan Howell, he's a transfer from Manchester."

"Oh," I sighed. I looked at him one last time before directing all my attention to Louise. "Should we include him?"

"Why not! He's a junior too, I forgot to mention."

I smiled and walked over to him, I was only like an inch or two shorter than him. "Hello!"

"Hi," he said quietly looking at me with chocolate brown eyes.

"I'm Phil, um... I noticed you were new, I was wondering if you wanted to hang out with my friends Louise, Caspar and I." He smiled and I almost stopped breathing. This was the cutest human being to ever walk the earth.

"I'm Dan, nice to meet you, Phil. I would love to hang around you guys." I smiled and lead him over to meet them. As soon as we got there a shooting stabbing pain shot up my right arm, and apparently a pain went up Dan's too because he was holding his arm.

Louise looked at us and a smile steadily grew on her face. "Phil, give me your wrist."

I looked at her and gently lifted my right wrist to her. A soft gasp left her mouth and I looked at her confused before she suddenly let go of my wrist and my arm came swinging back. "What?" I asked.

"Well, check your wrist!" She said, giving me a look like what the hell. I raised my wrist up and my heart stopped dead.

4,032 . 47 . 12

And it kept counting down.

"Dan, may I see your wrist?" Dan was too focused on mine to notice Louise. He suddenly snapped out of it and smirked.

"Yeah let me just pop my wrist out of the socket."

Louise rolled her eyes and gently took his wrist.

4,032 . 46 . 0

"Oh my god."

"What?"

"Oh my god!" She yelled.

"What!?" I whined and she looked at me and Dan.

"Your countdowns match up!" I widened my eyes and looked at her.

"You're serious."

"Dead serious," and she showed me them. Sure enough, the numbers were the same.

"This is like 160 days though." Dan whined. I looked at him, and smiled internally.

I mean, I always knew I was a flaming bisexual.