Multi-Fandom One-Shots Part 2

falling all over again - Rini (HSMTMTS)

Richard had been attending the same summer music program since he was six years old. Every summer he was excited to spend the two months, learning how to play instruments, swim in the lake, and making a number of different crafts, even if he wasn't good at them. He loved spending his summers doing the things he loved, and hanging out with his friends.

Despite the number of friends, he had at camp, his best friend at camp was a young brunette girl, named Nina. He calls her Nini because he remembers one day she had scraped both her knees, he told her everything was going to be okay, and pressed a small kiss to the wounds after the counsellors put band-aids on them, whispering knee each time he kissed them. It was like a lightbulb went off in his head, and yelled out "Nini!" coining her nickname that day forward. In turn, she called him Ricky, she thought Richard was just too long of a name. When they were younger, the counsellors would always see them running circles around each other, joking, laughing, singing and dancing; anything you could name, they probably did together.

As time passed, Nini and Ricky ended up going from campers to counsellors in training when they turned 13. Being counsellors in training didn't give them as much time together, but they still managed to find each other during their breaks or at the end of the night when all the campers have been tucked away. They would sit by the fire, or on the dock at the lake and Ricky would bring his guitar and strum lightly, as they chatted about their day and sang along to the music.

The year Ricky turned 14, it was objectively one of the worst years of his life. His parents got divorced, then was forced to move to Chicago with his mom, leaving his entire life behind. And due to Nini and Ricky never exchanging any kind of contact information, he wasn't able to tell her that he wasn't going to be able to counsel by her side any longer, which tore him up a little on the inside, especially by the way they had left things last summer.

Nini showed up the first summer he moved, excited to tell her friend all about her middle school graduation, and how nervous she was for high school, and finally get the chance to talk about what happened last summer. But when she arrived, she waited the entire registration day searching for her curly haired best friend. To say she was disappointed was an understatement, that summer she still found herself surrounded by her other friends, but it just wasn't the same without him by her side. She was a little quieter, not as enthusiastic as she's been the previous years. Her friends had taken note on her change in behaviour, but decided not to mention it because they knew what that boy meant to her.

Each summer following that one, Nini would show up to registration day, hoping that he would show up, explaining his absence from the previous summers. Eventually, Nini had moved from counsellor in training to a counsellor, and still no sight of her best friend. After the third summer, she decided that it was the last one to be too hopeful. The summers following, she still hoped he would be there on registration day, but when he wasn't she didn't let it affect her mood for the rest of the summer, pushing the thought of the young boy out of her mind. She would be attending college soon enough, it was time to put the past in the past.

--

Nina was walking through campus, enjoying the brisk Chicago weather. Making her way down from her dorm, still finding things to admire about the downtown area, despite going to school there for a year already. She pulls her phone out of her back pocket, finding a number of incoming texts from Gina and Kourtney. Nina realized she was late to meet up with them, so she quickened her pace to their favourite coffee shop on campus.

When she spots the pair at their usual table, she begins apologizing profusely. Kourtney squeezes Nina's hand, "Nina, it's okay, really, what were you doing anyways?"

She sighs, taking a seat next to Gina, "I was working on one of my arrangements for class, and I kind of lost track of time. Both with the arrangement, and just admiring the city, if I'm being honest." Her admission caused to two girls to laugh.