it's not living if it's not with you | harry lewis/wroetoshaw

chapter one

October 16th

Living in London rarely lived up to the hype, or by extension the YouTube London scene. Perhaps the YouTube scene in general hadn't lived up to the perceived standards, with influencer's superficial demeanor and shady shit behind the scenes. However, London today seemed tranquil in the sense that most people wouldn't expect it to be. From the crack in the lazily closed curtains, the sky outside the window of Stella's bedroom glowed with a soft pink and piercing orange as the sun began to rise above the skyline of tall buildings of central London.

Stella lazily opened one of her eyes and squinted irritably at the source of disruption of her peaceful lie in. Despite being well past 11 it was ironic that Stella felt like she could sleep for another several hours, but while summoning an unnatural force to pull herself out of bed and sleepily stumble out of her room, she brushed her unruly bushy brown hair out of her face and walked into the living room.

Unbeknownst to her, the likes of Vik, Talia and Simon had let themselves into her flat, already bustling around the rooms as if they were their own. The smell of bacon and toast reached her just as she rounded the corner off the hallway to the large space consisting of her living room and kitchen, where Vik was valiantly trying to not burn himself on the frying pan as it bubbled and hissed from the heat. Simon was sat nursing a cup of tea with his back to the approaching girl, while Talia sat across from him, looking up as she heard the faint footsteps and beamed warmly at Stella.

"I thought I was going to have to drag you out of that bed." She smirked, eyeing the childish Marvel pyjamas Stella was adorning. Stella pulled one of the other table chairs out before sluggishly plopping down onto it. "Well, you know how I like my sleep," she replied blinking profusely to keep her lids open. "I'm honestly praying to slip into a coma one of these days, then at least I can sleep a full night."

Talia smiled sympathetically before lowering her own mug to shuffle closer to the sleepy girl. "You know, a good day out might make you feel better," Stella doubted that. "Tell you what, I'll take you out for a girls day next week, with Freya and Gee of course."

"I'll think about it Talia, I promise," she sighed, "It's just that I've been pretty busy recently with YouTube and--"

"And that uni degree," Simon adds, acknowledging Stella for the first time with a knowing smile.

"And helping with the Sidemen shoots," Vik interjects, not turning round from nursing his scolded finger from under the tap.

Talia nods. "And the--"

"Yeah, yeah, I get it, I make a lot of excuses," Stella sassed, lifting her hands in the air in a mock defense.

On the rare occasion that Stella wasn't working on her own decently sized YouTube channel, she was helping out with the sidemen videos after Simon had offered to take her under his metaphorical YouTube wing, despite JJ's jibes of how if she wanted proper help with YouTube "she knew were to find him" accompanied with a wink.

"They're valid excuses, Stella," Talia started, placing a hand over the smaller girl's. "We just want to see you more often, we haven't really seen you since the last night out--"

"Which was so funny, by the way," Vik interrupted, sitting down at the table across from Stella, smiling brightly while pushing a plate of bacon and toast her way. "I can't believe you almost cried at the fact that birds don't have hands!"

"Please don't remind me." She groaned, holding her face in her hands.

"I especially liked when you and Callux fell off of the stripper pole." Simon snorted, smiling at the memory while covering his mouth with his cup to avoid the glares of the girl next to him.