STICKY NOTES // JSchlatt X Reader

22

You texted Schlatt that you had got home after your nap, and after waffles. He'd responded with a simple thumbs up, which was so like him that you couldn't help but laugh. It was the last exchange you would have in the text thread for a while. 

True to what you had told yourself when you got home, you dove back into work, making up from the streams and videos you had missed on your little trip. Getting back into the swing of things was easy - there were more items on your corkboard to be checked off; videos you'd been working, new ideas, and of course streams to tie everything together.

And, of course, you cleaned the apartment. Just to be safe. Not that you didn't trust Maddy alone at home - but that was exactly it. You would rather not find socks stuffed into one of the couch pillows again.

The next time Schlatt texted you was when he posted the first of the videos from the trip a few weeks later - the one at the barber shop. The loss of his most prized feature - the chops. You watched it as soon as he posted it, which might have been a bit of a mistake. 

You watched your past self smile and laugh and make fun of baby-face Schlatt and a pang in your chest echoed through - nostalgia already, even though it couldn't have been more than ten days since this had happened. Your memories of all this happening were still sharp, and it made the longing to go back all the more poignant. 

Still, you shoved it aside, told Schlatt that he had spelled indignant wrong in the subtitles and made a little origami heart out of a blue sticky note, pinning it to the corkboard. 

It became a sort of habit - the hearts. They were so easy to make (half, unfold, half again but the other way, top down to the line, bottom up to the top, fold the sides up, bend the corners to soften the look) and your sticky notes were always in reach. You would think of him, or watch one of his videos, and you would instinctively make a heart, pinning it to the board with all the others. 

You didn't understand why watching the videos of the trip made you ache like it did - they were doing exactly what you had wanted them to. The comments from angry thirteen year olds accusing you of ruining Schlatt's love or host stopped, and you gained quite a few subscribers by association.

It was great that the trip had paid off in that way, as that really had been half of the point of it all. And, you had repaired any damage your choice on the love or host had caused with Schlatt. Logically, you had no reason to be as upset that it was over as you were. Emotionally, you knew exactly why this was happening. You would get over it though. It was a pointless endeavor to try and make something out of those butterflies in your stomach - it just wouldn't work with the distance and the fact that trying to take a step into a relationship with him could unfurl all the work you had just done to make sure things were okay. 

Still, the hearts grew until the edges of your corkboard were completely lined with them, and they were scattered across a fair portion of your desk. They got in the way sometimes, but you couldn't bring yourself to move them aside.

You folded another one on muscle memory, scanning through your chat as it rolled by on your second screen. 

You laughed as you caught on the edge of a comment (something about you totally beating Schlatt's ass at Mario Kart - he had posted that video today). "Yeah he does suck ass at Mario Kart." You said with a smile. "And, like, who mains Bowser? We all know Rosalina is where it's at."

You set the completed origami heart aside and pulled another sticky note from the stack, starting on another. Your chat rolled by faster now - the comments filled with things about Schlatt, now that you had mentioned him. Your eyes were torn away though when a donation pinged through, your eyes scanning over the message.

"Thank you ItsKiwi for the 5 dollars... what's Schlatt like irl." You paused thinking for a moment as you completed the heart you had been working on. "Well... he's tall."

You smiled to yourself, thinking back to when he had first picked you up at the airport, and how you hadn't been expecting him. "And he pretty much only wears sweats." Except for when he had taken you out to lunch. "He's really loud." Except when he was driving, and he liked to listen to his music. "Kind of rude, honestly." But only in the way that everyone knew he was joking about it. "Piece of shit guy."

You snickered to yourself. "No, but he's actually really nice. It was a really fun trip - I would love to meet up again, he's really fun to film with."

It was probably one of the most honest moments you had ever shared with your viewers, but they would never know. To them, you were talking about Schlatt as a friend and friend only. They didn't know about the plethora of hearts you had made to distract yourself from the urge to get back on a plane and fly back to his city, live out that week over and over again. 

Shaking the thought from your head, you breezed back into the chat, answering comments and laughing as people donated funny media shares.

The ache would come back later though, when you were done streaming and settling in for the night. You would watch the videos you had made with Schlatt again - half analyzing whether your crush was obvious through the camera lens, half wishing you could go back in time and just live in those few days forever. 

It probably wasn't entirely healthy, but at least the hearts were pretty.