Five Seconds of Summer Imagines

To Love Him (Hood)

Summary: He was perfection in her eyes.

Pairing: Calum Hood x Reader

AU: mute!au ? , college!au , friends to lovers!au

Word Count: (I'm so proud of myself dshfkjshd) 6.7k

Warnings: absolutely none, really, pretty sure pure fluff

A/n: Okay birthday girl it's finished! Happy birthday Lauren I hope you love it lots! This is a sort of imagine I wrote as a birthday gift to my best friend

...

Calum was more than "a quiet one". Even though at times his throat burned and his tongue died to form words, his mind begging to reach out for help - just to talk, or vent, or even cry - he remained silent. During the good times, and the bad, he never spoke a word. It wasn't to be mistaken that he couldn't speak, he was more than capable, but chose not to. Or was forced not to by his own self. The silence was his friend, he told himself, but unbeknownst to him, his own silence was his enemy.

Often, his refusal to utter a single word was the cause for a thousand pains. The students around him from his childhood, to his teens, to even now in college, didn't understand his silence and chose to mock him instead of putting in more effort to try and get him to talk. If they did, he still wouldn't speak, but if someone were to try, it'd make a world of a difference. But they never did and gave up on their first try, leaving him alone in scorn.

But then he met her, the only person in the world who offered him more than one chance and he fell quicker then he'd like to admit.

It was in the expansive college's library that she had first approached him. In this place of solitude, he had relished in the fact that here was the only place he could go and not stick out like a sore weed amongst daisies. In here, even if these students were quiet for just a moment, in this safe space he wasn't the only one who lived in silence.

That day he had been tucked away in a small corner; he was in the spot everyday and always at the same time; dressed from head to toe in black or a very, dark, dark gray, a beanie covering the majority of his obsidian colored locks. White earbuds plugged his ears but produced no music despite their cord being attached to the silver phone he held within his grasp, tapping his thumb against its screen every few seconds or so. His eyes glazed over dully as he scrolled through his social media feed, photos of people enjoying their life and having a better time than he was, that and memes, sucked up his entire focus. In his bored gaze he completely missed the shuffling of footsteps near him and the presence of a new body sliding into the chair across the table he had positioned himself at. But the sudden awkward clearing of a throat pulled his attention from his device in an instant.

She was pretty, he had admitted that to himself the first moment he caught sight of her glistening (e/c) eyes that fluttered in content, and the timid smile she had adorned as she nervously slid a paper across the table to him - he was hooked.

"Hey, do you know anything about this?" Were the first words she had spoken to him. For the first few seconds, he hadn't torn his surprised gaze from her own (it had been a long while since someone had approached him last) but slowly, and hesitantly, he lowered his stare to the piece of paper that now lay before him. Messy, but barely eligible words decorated the lined page in dark blue ink. He took a moment to read the print, in silence, of course.

(Y/n) had noticed immediately that this boy she had suddenly attacked with her presence was unusually quiet and to be honest, his lack of response had heightened her nerves and she only prayed that she didn't make a fool out of herself by picking him to be the one out of everyone to talk to. She couldn't have helped it, by default she was a kind person (she'd like to think so at least) and had spotted him immediately for the lack of friends surrounding him. In her mind, that made him more approachable than say walking up to a group of random strangers who were all friends or partners. But that wasn't the only reason as to why she had set her sights upon him. It was the way he stared at his phone with seemingly empty eyes and the smallest frown tugging at the corners of his lips and she found herself pitying him before she even spoke. She had no idea of what his situation could be, nor his personality or even his name; but the sadness she saw was heartbreakingly evident and more than enough for her to inhale a hearty breath which sucked up just enough courage to march over to his hideout in the darkest corner of the cramped library and ask for help.