irl

Chapter 19

Sipping their coffee side by side, Dan and Phil watched Attack on Titan, incredibly intrigued by the show.
"Eat me, Titan daddy, yaaaaasss," Dan joked as somebody died due to Titan chomping. Phil laughed, feeling bad for laughing at a death, but still amused by Dan's interpretation.
"I'm not sure that person was thinking that at that moment," Phil pointed out.
"Hey, I can have my fantasies, you have yours," Dan smirked, continuing to keep his eyes on the screen.
"Yeah, me and my erotic tentacle hentai fantasies." This made Dan spit out his coffee snorting, luckily he set the mug down on the table without spilling any.
"You totally stole that joke from me. That's something I would say," Dan accused, a devious smile on his face. Phil set down his mug as well, and paused the show. He swiftly picked up a pillow and threw it at his enemy, jumping behind the couch immediately afterwards. Unfortunately for him, he got the same pillow launched at his face before he could take cover.

This went on for a few minutes, before the pair realized that they had jobs to do, and Phil rushed to get dressed.

"You coming home after work today?" Dan asked, desperately hoping Phil was.
"Yeah, I don't have any plans tonight," Phil confirmed, much to Dan's relief.
"Good. I won't be lonely tonight. See you later," Dan waved, as Phil shut the door, also bidding his friend goodbye.

"Is this what's going to happen every day..." Dan wondered aloud. It was almost like deja vu. Every day, Phil left him and Dan felt an emptiness in the space he inhabited. The whole George situation wasn't helping him, but what was he supposed to do? Say, "yeah, Phil, please quit your job and stop having another friend, who you're gay for. Just so I can not be lonely and left out!" He couldn't do that.

To him, Phil was more important than his mental wellbeing.

~•~

"So how was your day," Phil asked from beside Dan on the couch.
"Fine. It's always fine. Nothing different."
"Okay? At least we have tomorrow off, right?"
"Yeah, that's cool," Dan said, focusing on his computer.
"Earth to Daniel?" Phil waved his hand in front of the laptop's screen, gaining Dan's attention.
"What's up?" Dan looked up to find Phil's face painted with a worried expression.
"You seem distracted," he said, shutting the computer, making Dan look him in the eyes.
"Well... I guess it's just," he hesitated. Was he really going to tell him this? "When you leave every day, I'm alone. I can't exactly call up a friend and have a friendly chat, you're my only friend. But how does one just magically find a friend?" He ran a hand though his hair, titling his head back to stare at the ceiling.
"Do you have any high school buddies?"
"You see, the thing is, I wasn't exactly social in high school, either. I wasn't outgoing enough to make friends. Even if people tried to initiate with me, I always was just to awkward to really start an actual conversation. Except this one time," Dan said, leaving a pause for dramatic flashback effect.

Dan sat with his back against the wall, eating a sandwich. Being a freshman sucked in high school, because it meant you didn't get a spot in the cafeteria, and even then, Dan didn't really have a group of friends to sit with.

For some reason, that day, a girl decided to sit with him. Wearing a floral blouse and some jeans, she took a seat right next to Dan on the floor. Dan gave the blonde a small smile, before going back to eating.
"You're Dan, right?" She spoke, revealing a tooth gap.
"Yeah," Dan responded, not interested in what this girl was trying to do.
"You're in my Geometry class. I like your weird hair," she smiled, and Dan only nodded in response. "You don't talk much, do you? I mean, it's not like it's a problem, it's just an observation I made."
"Thats... nice. What're you trying to do here, though?" He finally gave her some attention.
"Have a friendly conversation."
"Don't you have some of your own friends to hang out with? Are you just pitying the boy who sits alone at lunch?" His voice suddenly became more cold and harsh.
"N-no..." Her voice became less upbeat, and more sullen. Her smile dropped. "I don't really have real friends. I mean, just some people that are friendly to me just because. I get into super awkward situations and people get kind of weirded out by it. I guess that's why not many people actually bother to keep up a conversation with me," she said, looking down in embarassment. Dan was taken aback by this load of information that was dumped on him. The girl had seemed like one of those good girl socialites, and not someone who'd get into weird situations like he did. The way she initially greeted him put him under the impression that she was used to speaking to others in a friendly manner.

There was a silence between the two, in which Dan did not eat.

"Sorry," he mumbled. "I didn't mean to snap at you. I get how you feel though," he attempted a smile. Though it was small and filled with braces, it was genuine.
"It's okay, Dan. Plus, it's nice to have someone just ask awkward as yourself," she chuckled.
"What's your name, anyway?" He asked, mentally face palming for not asking earlier.
"It's Louise, Louise Pentland."

"Someone just ask awkward as yourself..." Phil said aloud.
"Yeah. We remained friends all through high school. Though she branched out a bit and made other friends, we were always super close. Her other friends thought we were dating, which we were not."
"Why aren't you still in contact with her?"
"Though we saw each other on breaks during college, we just drifted a bit. After that she got a job in London and I haven't heard from her for, like, a few months."
Phil raised an eyebrow at Dan. "What?"
"Remember where we live?" Phil chuckled a little bit.
"Yeah, we live in... Ohhhhhhhhh... London. Where she lives! I should call her up!" Dan said excitedly.
"I wish I had thought of that," Phil rolled his eyes, his voice oozing with sarcasm.
"Thanks, Phil, such a genius," Dan laughed. He picked up his phone before finding the contact for Louise, praying that her phone number hadn't changed.

I'm currently listening to a music playlist entitled "edgy". Please DM me I'm bored. I have no book to write since I finished this one and I don't have any ideas ;-;