The years passed by and your lofty dreams have almost dwindled into non-existence.....the familiar feeling of emptiness is starting to creep back. Will this person who has suddenly been thrown into your life be the one to bring the light back into y...
Wednesday, today, is a half-day in school since the teachers have to prepare for Sixth Form Open Evening. Because of this, all the students are sent home before lunch and the teachers have a rare opportunity to enjoy lunch without having to supervise anyone. After lunch, you help your colleagues for an hour or so before heading home since you don't teach that age group and therefore don't need to stay in the evening. You wonder how to make the most of your long evening since you have no plans with Jungkook today. You perk up when Layla calls suggesting that you all enjoy a girls' night in at hers. Ordinarily, you would have declined a midweek rendezvous, but you are looking forward to updating the girls on how things are going with Jungkook. You can't remember the last time you were so keen to have a natter like this with the girls.
You spend the next couple of hours getting ready and going shopping to pick up a few snacks and drinks on your way to Layla's. She lives in Loughton, which technically is not part of London, but is so close to it that it's still considered London. For you though, any place outside of Zone 4 on the London Underground is not London, but you're sure Layla would happily tell you why that judgement is misguided. She lives in a large detached house, which is surrounded by six acres of land, with her parents and younger brother. Currently though, her parents are enjoying on a month-long holiday in Dubai and her brother is at boarding school. Her family is very well off, but she likes to "keep it real" by having a job and going out with "regular guys".
After another half an hour of travel, you make the ten minute walk to her spacious abode. Her road only has three houses on it and her home stands proudly in the cul-de-sac part of the road. You excitedly ring the doorbell, very much looking forward to this treat on a school night. Layla opens the door and greets you with a big hug.
"Anna! Oh my god, it's been so long!" she says enthusiastically.
"Lay, it's been just over a week," you say with a bemused look on your face and walking inside.
"Has it? Oh, I must be getting my friendship groups mixed up," she says, cheekily.
You head straight to her kitchen as you say, "Have you already started on the vino? And you don't have any other friendship groups, love!" you say jokingly. "Is Mia here yet?" you ask.
Layla laughs heartily and says, "Yeah, it's true you both are only real friends. Mia is in the loo. Time of the month," she adds.
"Ah, good thing I brought lots of chocolate then," you say. You take out all the edibles and drinkables and bring them to the main sitting room. Layla has already laid out the plates and cups, ready to be filled. Mia joins soon after.
"Ah, periods are no joke the older you get. How do men not get the same level of monthly punishment?" she asks, looking very cross with her body.
"Come on Mia, there's plenty of very alcoholic drinks and very unhealthy snacks," you point her in the direction of her salvation. Thus begins the evening of fun with the girls which ends at the not-so-sensible hour of 1 am, giving you around 5 hours of sleep before work tomorrow, which is perfectly adequate to deal with teenagers the next day.
You wake up on Thursday morning wondering what day it is. After having spent all of last night practising your performance piece at the Academy, you finally came home at 3 am, only to get up again at 9 am with great difficulty. Yesterday was your last chance to practise before Friday's performance and you had to get it right. Although you told Noona you were confident, which was true, all your peers, your hyungs, your teachers and Noona are going to be there on Friday. You don't want to let them down. Sadly your parents and brother can't make it, but they haven't been able to get any time off. In some ways it's a good thing; you don't know how they would have reacted to meeting Noona. Thinking of Noona makes your heartache. You never imagined you would fall for someone so hard and then miss her so much when she isn't around. If you had your way, you and Noona would be living together right now and who knows, down the line.....? Just imagining it makes you smile. You never thought that you would meet such a wonderful woman in London, of all places, and at your age. You don't feel the age gap and are pretty sure that Noona doesn't either. You smile again as you remember your more intimate moments. They have been so mind-blowing that they beggar belief. Is this the elusive 'love' that everyone always talks about? Something you can't quite put into words and describe fully. It is more than a feeling and more like a state of being. Lost in your thoughts about Noona and your relationship, you don't realise that you've been sitting on your bed for the past twenty minutes. You quickly jump up and run to the shower. Hyungs' flight arrives at 4 pm and you still need to check their house is BTS-ready, confirm the taxi and stock their kitchen with enough food for six men for a few days. Jin hyung and Yoongi hyung sent him very long shopping lists, telling him that if he didn't get the right ingredients, then Jin hyung would swap all his black jackets for pink fluffy ones.
By the time you leave the house it's already 11 am and you decide to hire a taxi. It takes around three hours, but you finally get the demanded food and make the rented house ready for them, which essentially means stocking the fridge with copious amounts of alcohol. Namjoon hyung and Hoseok hyung can really drink the others under the table! Now that everything is ready, you can properly look forward to the arrival of your hyungs. Finally, you head to the airport and go incognito to Heathrow Terminal 5. Incognito, in this case, means wearing the red cap Noona gave you, a white T-shirt, chinos and thick-rimmed glasses. The members won't be coming through the main arrival lounge with the other passengers since they are too high-profile. Instead, they will go to a private lounge with a separate exit that leads straight to the private taxi that you organised. You give yourself a mental pat on the back for doing a job well done and then fall asleep while the taxi takes you to the airport.
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