No matter how hard chelsea tried to convince herself otherwise the next time she saw Ezra, she had begun to like the way his hair fell messily over his face when he leant forward, and the way his eyes squinted when he laughed at her stupid insult directed toward him.
It was unbeknownst to Ezra that she had begun to adore the little things about him, and she knew it was better this way. 'A way to pass time' was more her title from him, she imagined, the words to obviously burnt on the back of his eyelids whenever he thought of her, kind of like the way the thought of wavy locks of black hair and coffee and fucking superheroes were on the back of hers. Maybe he didn't hate her, but their friendship—if you could call it that—wasn't entirely built off of gratitude for one another's existence, and more so debatable subjects with the pleasure of coffee and friendly baristas.
"Your hair looks nice like that."
Ezra had recently decided that complementing Chelsea was the easiest way to annoy her, but he had actually mistaken her uneasiness for frustration—not that she'd let him in on that, of course. She knew the fundamentals of keeping up her guard against the infuriating nerd that was Ezra Miller.
And your hair looks nice all the time, she thought. It really did. She often debated asking him what shampoo and conditioner he used so she could buy some of her own, but Ezra's looks was a topic she told herself she'd keep away from at all times.
"And your hair looks shit," she said.
"How dare you," Ezra feigned a state of pain, "after a compliment that came from the heart... no respect..."
"Oh, god, I forgot. Respect is one of your many redeemable qualities."
"Yeah, amongst my many others," Ezra says, but he doesn't elaborate on what these redeemable qualities are, and it's probably because he and Chelsea had been sitting across from one another for a good four minutes, yet no coffee had been touched.
If Ezra hadn't taken a sip of his coffee, Chelsea probably wouldn't have noticed hers at all. This was a reoccurring theme in Chelsea's life now; the inability to notice anything whilst Ezra was in sight, the inability to think about anything other than the snarky boy with an attitude problem whenever she'd seen him that day. These were things she'd become accustomed to, whether she noticed it or not.
As Ezra held the mug to his face, she wondered if he noticed that they'd been lost in time too. Probably not. While the two often let time get away from them, Chelsea theorised that Ezra had a different culprit stealing his. An escape from home, or a distraction from something else—she wouldn't pretend to have a clue. She just knew that her time got away from her whenever she sat across from this boy who, other than his expressed interest in superheroes and certain movies, was an enigma to Chelsea. Perhaps he always would be; some people were born with masks. Ezra seemed like one of those people, with his unpredictable comings and goings, and sporadic moments of unmasking.
The rain outside was noticed by Ezra first, too. His lips parted, coffee breath and lyrics pouring out like a warm, scented river, loud enough for Chelsea to notice and quiet enough that she nearly didn't.
"I've got sunshine," he drags the words out, and he's attempting to imitate the original singer, and honestly it's kind of funny to Chelsea.
"..on a cloudy day! When it's cold outside, i've got the month of may."
It's March.
"Well, I guess you'd say, what can make me feel this way?"
It's just the song lyrics, but Chelsea wishes she knew the answer according to her own brain and all of the new, pointless bits information she had on Ezra in her brain now.
Like what coffee he drinks. His favourite superhero. The fact that he's not fond of books. That he sings out loud sometimes, and it's kind of beautiful, especially on a rainy day.
hey!! so this has been in my drafts for a bit and i totally forgot about it and i feel really terrible for abandoning you all!! so here's this!! please forgive me, i'll get back to updating more regularly!! i'm in year twelve which is utter shit, but the holidays are coming up!!
also i've wanted to change the name + cover of this fic for like over a year now so i'm thinking.. maybe i'll do that. we'll see
anyway, if you're reading this: thanks for either A) sticking around, i'm really grateful, or B) for checking out this dumb fic and getting this far. you all mean a lot to me for enduring my shit writing and even more shit update schedule. i promise everything will be back on track rly soon!!
i've missed this a lot, and you'll see updates more frequently. i'm also thinking about both a peter parker fic and elliot alderson fic. keep your eyes peeled for those, though i won't be publishing new works until christmas holidays (you get six weeks for chrissy holidays in australia, fyi. it's summer here).
again, thank you n i'm sorry!!
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CONSTANT HEADACHE ; EZRA MILLER
Hayran Kurgu'i'm just a constant headache, a dead pet device you hang me up unfinished with the better part of me no longer mine.' » if there was one thing that ezra and chelsea could agree on, it was that they barely ever agreed at all.
