The Story of Tonight

Chapter 2

Annotation of the author: this is gonna be a shorter one, sorry for that, but the next one will be rather long, soooo... (and also I wanted to finish this as long as it's still Groff's BDay, and yeah that's basically it) anyway, have fun :D

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After today's chemistry lessons, which I apparently took without the new student, I went to the cafeteria for lunch break. On my usual seat, at the window towards the large courtyard I always found the tiny piece of calmness I needed to survive the rest of the school day.

Though still a little puzzled by this morning's encounter I soon felt the usual pacification drift into my mind, helping me to get my thoughts away from everything that had bothered me until now.

Still, this recovered peace was not to stay for too long. Startled I looked up, as a sonorous voice asked: "May I-...?" and as I recovered from my surprise, I recognized the cognizant look in brown eyes. I simply nodded, wondering why he would sit exactly with me. Slowly he sat down, steadily keeping his eyes off mine.

I felt like I had to say something, but since he was the one who wanted to sit with me, it also felt wrong to take an approach to start a conversation. So I just waited.

Apparently, he did, too.

This resulted in this typically awkward silence everyone wanted to end, but nobody felt like he had to break it first.

Yet, finally, the new student cleared his throat to say in the same pleasant voice as before: "My name's Lin-Manuel Miranda. Lin's fine though."

Surprised by his attempt to contact, I replied: "Jonathan Groff. Jon for short."

A tiny smile flashed on his face, then it went back to the rather serious mimic it had before. "I just wanted to say-..." At once he seemed to get a little nervous, no comparison to the superior appearance this morning. "I mean... I heard that..." He sighed, and as he finally looked me in the eye, I felt a slight presentiment about what was about to come next. "I've been told that the seat I took used to be yours and I simply wanted to apology. I didn't know."

I looked back at him, not quite knowing what to respond. I wanted to be mad at him, just as I was this morning, but as I kept my look on him, I discovered an unusual sadness. Wait- Was he really trying puppy dog eyes on me?? Apparently, yes.

I wanted to say: "Please just stop this might get embarrassing for both of us" or "I'd appreciate you to take the front row seat next time" or at least "Listen, this doesn't work with me" but none of these came out of my mouth. Instead I just said: "Nevermind, apology accepted" and added after a short pause: "You can keep the seat, if you want to."

Intimidated by this reaction of mine, I abruptly stood up, shook my head, hastily packed my things back into my bag and left.

I didn't look back to check how Lin was dealing with my answer. Otherwise I probably would have noticed the winsome smirk on his face. But as things went, I didn't. Not this time.