Red Room Hours with John Tan

Like Nothing

John looked at you with interest. "Why would you need a single dorm, Y/N?" He teased you but you could tell he wanted you to say more. The things you could say would fill his whole sheet of notes, and you wondered if you'd ever get the chance to share them.

"I think we should move on from talking about family, it triggered a lot of emotions for me, and I'd rather change the subject," You looked away but mused to yourself. You were definitely not ready to talk about the items in that box, or the advantages of having privacy.

"Sounds like this conversation is something that is making you uncomfortable," he laughed fully and watched you, waiting for you to continue.

"Don't write that down! I didn't answer that question, I think you're cheating," You reached across the table and pushed his shoulder with enough force to rock him slightly sideways. You hadn't meant to do it so hard but the look on his face made your skin tingle. Was this really the first time you'd touched him? And you'd done it so aggressively. He didn't seem to mind but he was looking at your hand on his upper arm. He leaned into the heat of your palm, had he liked your touch?

"Okay, okay, I won't, I'll change the subject I guess," he waited for you to lean back into your chair before the mischievous grin lit toward his eyes. "Are you dating anyone, Y/N?" When the words left his mouth you realized, you were going to have to talk about relationships with him. The thought thrilled and terrified you. You definitely weren't dating anyone, it had been weeks since you'd spoken to your ex for the final time, and you'd broken up half a dozen weeks before that.

"Why do you look like you already know the answer to that question?" You refused to answer him, and thought back to your hand on his arm. It had felt so warm and firm beneath your fingers, thinking about it now you'd wished you had taken the chance to slip your fingers down his sleeve and make contact skin to skin. Even though he'd touched you a couple times already, being the one to do the touching felt different. Like a flash of lightning the thought of dragging your fingers under the cotton of his shirt and digging into his flesh made you want to close your eyes and imagine a lot more.

"I did my research on more than just the questions before I got here," he emptied his cup with a final swallow his head tilting back to get the last dregs of whatever had been inside. If he'd noticed you losing focus he didn't give it away. "I asked around about you, didn't want to find out you had a boyfriend and get you in trouble with them." He didn't look like he cared if he got you in trouble, were his eyes making their way down your necklace that you'd worn because it swept into your cleavage? He was decidedly letting his gaze take in quite a lot of your body suddenly.

"I'm single, and clearly you already knew that." He looked smugly back to your face, he had known you were going to say that. This was another side of John you'd not known. He could be very coy and you liked the playfulness you were seeing, but below that was something else, it felt melancholy.

"Are you single? I wouldn't want your partner to be upset with me for spending all this time with you while we finish this project." You purposefully chose the gender neutral term because you weren't going to assume, like he had, that he was only into dating girls. Why did you hope he wasn't just into girls? It made you pause to think about the possibilities when people were more open with their attractions. 

"I've recently gone through a break up, and I'll go ahead and give you this one." His brown eyes dimmed a shade and you knew even though you were going to be able to check another question off your list, this was going to be painful for him. You poised your fingers on your keys trying to seem like you weren't invested in what he was about to say.

"Six months ago I would have told you that my first heartbreak was my high school girlfriend. Isn't that what most people think?" None of this was being said while he looked at you, all of the playfulness had poured off him. How had the mood changed so quickly? He'd brought up your dating life, he had to have known you'd reciprocate the question. "Then I met Bree, and the way things ended, I will never think of my high school relationship as a heartbreak again."

He looked like all the air had left the lounge, and that thought made you realize you were still sitting in the bookstore. The whole room had fallen away in the short time you'd been sitting with him, you'd not heard the sounds of others' conversations or the whine of the coffee machines. You'd just been so focused on John's face and words, and body. You watched as he dragged air back into his chest, the curve of it lifting with the effort. What did the lines and arches look like without that shirt in the way?

"We were what I wanted to think of as soulmates. We met while we were both getting gas, just about a mile from school. I couldn't stop looking at her, she didn't even seem to notice I was staring, but when she did, I felt my whole life change. Sounds dramatic right?" He looked at you for the first time, his eyes holding an ache that you could feel in your own chest just looking at him.

"It's not dramatic, it's how you felt," you hated him describing his attraction to someone else. You wanted to get into your own car and drive it right into her. She was probably beautiful in all the ways you were plain. Even her name, Bree, sounded like something that would be easy to moan and you thought about him doing that, breathlessly into her ear. Why would you torture yourself with that thought?

"I won't disturb you with all the details of our break up, the question was, how did I feel about my first heartbreak?" He sat up straighter as if he might brace himself for the next words that would leave his lips. What he was about to say was not the words you wished you could drag from between them. 

"I felt like maybe I couldn't ever love again. I felt like maybe I wasn't worth enough to even try. She gave me this bracelet," he held up his delicate but strong left wrist, a black cord with beads dangled against the fragile veins. You'd seen that bracelet every day, you couldn't remember seeing him without it. 

"It means you're enough in Morse code, and she made me feel like nothing at all." All in one quick motion he ripped the cord outward and away from his wrist, snapping it, tiny beads bouncing to the floor. You watched them roll away.