Falling (a Heartstopper fanfiction)

Exuberance

Over the next week or so, Charlie noticed he often ran into Nick Nelson in the corridor. And even though they barely knew each other, Nick always smiled and said "hi", like they were friends. He said it in form, too, every morning. Charlie had never noticed before how having someone greet him first thing made the day better, but he did now.

Often, Charlie found himself turning to stare after Nick, thinking what a shame it was that someone that cute was straight. He still had Ben, though, at least occasionally. They didn't meet up as often as they had before the holidays, but Charlie was happy when they did.

One day as Charlie turned the corner to head for maths, he met Nick just coming out of his geography class. He might have gone on by, but Nick stopped short to say "Hi."

"Hi."

"Are you going that way?" Nick gestured in the direction Charlie was, in fact, going.

"Yeah. Maths."

"Same."

They fell into step together. Nick was holding his homework on his arm, focusing on the unfinished problems on the page.

"Are you literally doing your homework while walking to your lesson?"

"I might be."

Charlie laughed. "That's very chaotic."

Nick considered that for a moment, then said, "That makes me sound way cooler than I actually am."

Not in Charlie's view—in Charlie's view, it would have been hard to be cooler than Nick Nelson. On the other hand, he was doing his homework all wrong. "Do you want me to do that for you?"

"No, I'm good."

"I can tell you the answer."

Nick looked up at him with exaggerated earnestness. "Then I won't learn."

As far as Charlie could tell, he wasn't learning anyway. "If you're stuck I can just ..." Charlie reached for the pen. "Let me just ..."

"Get off!" Nick said, laughing. In the scuffle, his pen marked Charlie's hand.

Pointing at the streak of ink, Charlie said, "How dare you?"

"Look." Nick grabbed his hand and made two extra dots above the slash of blue, turning it into a smiley face. "Better?"

Charlie looked at the smiley face and couldn't help smiling to match it. "Maybe."

They went on down the corridor together, Nick returning to his homework. As they turned a corner, Charlie saw Ben coming toward them from the other direction. He smiled shyly and said, "Hey."

"What?" Ben stopped walking and looked at him as if he had no idea who Charlie was.

"Uh ... Just ... hi."

"Why are you talking to me? I don't even know who you are."

Charlie was caught completely off-guard. He hadn't realized that Ben would actually deny knowing him.

Then Ben looked at Nick, and nodded. "All right, mate?"

"Yeah, all right."

If possible, Charlie felt even worse that this was all happening in front of Nick. How awkward. If only he'd kept his mouth shut and just let Ben pass.

Ben walked on by, leaving them there. Nick was looking at Charlie as though he wanted to ask what that was about but was too polite to do so.

"You're friends with Ben?" Charlie asked.