HALCYON | 𝘭𝘢𝘯𝘥𝘰 𝘯𝘰𝘳𝘳𝘪𝘴, 𝘪𝘯𝘴𝘵𝘢𝘨𝘳𝘢𝘮

- thirtynine

author's note: this is going to be an 'in real life' chapter and have no social media in it. i hope you're fine with it, because these kind of chapters will appear more often from now on and mainly nearing the end of the story.

i have mapped out the whole story set-up by the way, and for now it is looking like that this book will have around the 70 chapters, so we've already reached the half of it🥺

also, i have no idea where niran, aarav and maria are living but i assume it's fairly close to london, therefore i picked reading, haha

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📍reading, united kingdom

Indra was in the kitchen of the house when she heard her ringtone from where the living room would be. "Indra, someone's calling you." she heard Niran's voice yell from the other side.
"Who is it?"
"Ehm, Fabian, who's that?"
"Oh can you pick it up for me and say that I am busy, he's a friend."

She quickly finished preparing the snacks with Maria and hurried back to the living room, where now Niran was trying to get Fabian off the line. Niran sent a painful smile towards her, it screaming for help.
"Yeah yeah, she is here now, she'll speak to you for a minute. But we're doing business, man, so make it short."

The girl sighed softly before taking the phone from her newfound friend and colleague. "Hey Fabian, what's up?"

"Indra, where are you? You were supposed to get home after the race."

"I told you that I'd be going to England with Lando for something big that could be important for my future."

"Oh yeah, no, being with Lando only makes it worse."

"What do you have against Lando? Why do you make yourself look like you don't like him? He is kind of important to me and he is a good friend."

At that moment, Lando walked into the living room as well accompanied by Steve. Both of them had to do something at the karting track, something Indra didn't know, neither understood, despite how badly Lando tried to explain it to her. Indra had been picked up by Max Fewtrell instead, so they'd be on time for the first Quadrant meeting.

The poor guy didn't know what this was about, who Indra was talking to or why he was involved. He only heard his name and then noticed the weird tension hanging in the room. He made a questioning gesture to Max, who had sat down next to the girl. He mouthed the name 'Fabian', but it was more in a questioning way as well, rather than a knowing one.

Lando's face went from confused to blank, no expression left but he cocked an eyebrow. Indra was too caught up in the phone call to notice her friend's entrance until he sat down next to her and gave a reassuring squeeze in her knee. He motioned to take over the phone, but she shook her head and refused to give her phone to him.

Her school friend had been trying to reach her all weekend, her only picking up a few times and he totally went off to her, telling her how she was not doing enough for school or that she was spending too little time with her old friends. Luckily Indra could take a hit and didn't seem to care about his words, knowing that they weren't true. But deep down his words were bothering her, and it was hard to read from her face but Lando knew that something was off.

"Listen, Fabian. You have no right to be like this. I am with a friend, not staying in a shady hotel or something, doing business, like Niran said. I follow school online as it already was like that anyway and I'll be back for the assessments. Right now, you are just being a Nervensäge. Don't expect me to spend too much time on you this one and a half week, as I genuinely don't have the time for your complaining until after then."
[pain in the ass]

Then she hung up on him, not giving him a chance to even say some sort of goodbye, just to prevent herself from getting hurt more and more by his words. She had turned off her blue checks in Whatsapp, but she still read the texts he'd send her.

Everyone just looked at her in pure awe and surprise. "What is the English word for Nervensäge? I totally forgot it." she asked plainly, but genuinely asking it as she did lose the word for 'pain in the ass'.

"Yo, you're the German one here, I do not speak German." Niran said, speaking up for everyone. "Also, I don't know who that was, but he is the definition of toxic, I'm telling you."

Indra's face dropped and for a second she wasn't able to look up from her knees because she was biting her lip and fighting back some tears. When the tears were gone, she looked up again still biting her lips and she just shrugged his comment off, telling him that it was alright, that he was okay.

Lando looked up at the ceiling and sighed before looking at the girl. "Indra, can I have a word with you? We'll be back in a second to really start the meeting."

He didn't really wait for an answer from anyone and stood up to 'drag' Indra with him, grabbing her hand. They were actually just up the stairs, thinking they'd be out of hearing range and sight of everyone, but Maria, who had been standing in the kitchen door frame had a perfect view of them.

"Stop biting your lip, it started to bleed." was the first thing the British boy said when they were upstairs and he gently rubbed his thumb across her lip to release it from her teeth. He wiped away the small drop of blood that had formed itself on her bottom lip and smiled softly.

It was a bold move of him to get so close to her face, as it almost went wrong the last time they were. Or right, just how you would like to interpret the situation. The atmosphere around them definitely had changed ever since that night in Germany and they didn't know if it would be the smartest thing for Indra to stay at Lando's for the coming weeks. But everything had been arranged already and they had no time left to look for another option. Neither of them wanted another possible option though. They obviously loved being around each other, and though Indra was to stay in the guest room where the bed was also made, the bed had been untouched. They had slept in Lando's bedroom every night since arrival.

"Sorry, I didn't notice." Indra almost whispered, not being able to speak louder as a big lump in her throat caused by the close interaction prevented her from doing so.

Lando shook his head, making his soft curls move along with the movement in the process. "Don't apologize for that. I know that's your habit when you're nervous, you don't know you're doing it so you don't notice it until someone else does." he explained, his smile growing a little as did Indra's. She had to give him credit for noticing such a detail about her, not a lot of people seemed to pick up on her bad habits and no-one was to blame for that, but he still noticed.
"What did Fabian say about me though? It seemed to really upset you."

"Nothing big really. Just the same stuff as last weekend. He doesn't approve of me staying with you. He doesn't approve of me doing both schoolwork and this for Quadrant at the same time. He doesn't approve of anything I am doing right now really, but who is he to decide that for me?"

"A good friend?"

"Yeah, I am really wondering about that right now, you know?"

"Alright, if you say so. Please just tell me when he is bothering you again. You don't say a lot about it, but I know that it is bothering you."

"I am fine. Let's go back downstairs, they are waiting for us."

There she went again. She went into a full shutdown like she had been doing everytime that he had tried to talk about it. She had just gone defensive and walked off so that she wouldn't have to talk about it anymore and it was starting to get frustrating to Lando.

What was he doing wrong that she was acting like this towards him, like she didn't trust him at all? It annoyed him that he couldn't see right through her like she could see right through him. She was really good at this, but soon he was going to know the whole story behind it. He didn't care who he was going to hear it from - Indra, Sonne or even Fabian himself - ,but he was going to discover what was wrong. Just so he could help the girl he loved so much get rid of her clouded thoughts.