"No, no, and no. You look perfectly normal to me gurl I have no idea what you're talking about???" Danielle sighs for the umpteenth time as she eats the last spoon of mac-and-cheese in her bowl. "Pixelated or what not, you probably spent too much time on that desk of yours." She points at the PC setup that Eugene has in her room.
"But..." The other girl has a different opinion. She is very sure of what she witnessed earlier and yesterday; it was a clear picture of a pixelated person. And the other party, which is the pixelated person, apparently also saw the same thing as she did.
What can we learn from this? Eugene puts her hand on her chin, thinking about the weird phenomenon that she experienced. Her eyebrows furrowed so much that it got Danielle laughing. "If you keep on making that expression, you'll grow old sooner than expected."
"Righttttt...." The girl replies in a rather sarcastic manner, still, extremely curious about the event but decides not to talk about it further. It's going to be a fruitless conversation anyway if Danielle did not see what the pixelated person did.
"Anyways, since I'm already here, I wanna see your flower boy next door please." Danielle puts on her twinkling eyes, pleading Eugene with both hands curled up into a ball, placed under her chin. Since when does she do aegyo??? Eugene finds it a little amusing but only replies with a shrug.
"I'm not sure if he's even home at this hour."
"Gurl it's 8 and what lecture ends at 8?"
Eugene shrugs again for the second time, earning a dissatisfied reaction from her friend. "I legit don't know Danielle, I'm not his girlfriend?"
"Ugh I already came here for dinner and quality time with you, I thought it wouldn't hurt as well to try and peek at the so-called cute guy next door." The girl slumps on her seat, yet, willingly grabs the empty dishes and proceeds to wash them in the sink.
"Thanks for cooking dinner by the way. I'm saving lots of spending from this haha." She chuckles, and her action warms Eugene's heart a little bit. So she musters up the energy to get up from the dining table to go to the door, "Let me check if he's home."
"AHHH YOU'RE THE BEST!" Danielle hugs her with soapy, wet hands.
"Thank God I haven't showered." Eugene rolls her eyes jokingly, "Or I would've killed you for wetting my shirt."
"Right right right my bad—" She quickly retracts her hands and goes back to washing, "Good luck peeking!"
"Yeah yeah yeah focus on your dishes and pour some love and care while you're at it." Eugene shoos her friend away as she leaves her room to check on Jake's room. Why am I even doing this? She wants to cry in embarrassment because as much as she likes Jake, she doesn't think that her feelings are strong enough to justify her current action.
I look like a stalker wtf. She tries to get close to the door and places one of her ears on it to detect any source of sound from the room.
"Everything should be ready in 2 days. I hope the staff won't break my stuff while they move them though, haha."
"What?" Eugene is a little confused and worried—is it what she thinks it is?
"All good. I'll grab a ride to go to the new address. I can't possibly go in the same truck as the moving company."
"New address? Truck? Moving company?" Whatever Eugene is hearing, she definitely doesn't have a good feeling about this.
"Okay, thanks a lot, future housemates!" And with that, she can no longer hear anything coming from his room. Eugene steps away from the door as she tries to process the conversation that she has just eavesdropped.
Is Jake moving out? But he hasn't told me anything about it. For some reason, a huge wave of disappointment and sadness started coming to her. Then again, she was reminded that the crush is unrequited; she may like Jake, but he only sees her as a neighbor.
And obviously, the friendship isn't tight enough for him to tell her about his life plans.
Right. I have no right to know this. It's not like we've been that close to talking about each others' lives. Eugene slaps herself with some rationality and lowers her expectations to zero. She leaves his door and goes back to her room, only to find a hopeful Danielle near the exit.
"So so so? Is he home?"
"Yes, but he's currently busy with his stuff since he's moving out in 2 days." Eugene frowns.
"WHYY!?" Danielle seems to be more distressed than the actual neighbor.
"That's what I wanna know too."
.
.
.
The news about Jake moving out has been lowering her mood for a while. 1 day left before he leaves yet there hasn't been any news coming from him at all.
I guess I really am just a neighbor... She sighs as she closes the textbook that she has been reading for the past few hours. The warm sunset at least, gives her some calmness. The seat that she took in the university's library is indeed the best for sightseeing.
It was such a good balance between studying and resting.
I wonder if he's going to tell me tonight. She starts packing up her books into her tote bag. Eugene has tried a lot to distract herself from Jake's news by keeping herself busy with studying, but at the end of the day, it still disturbs her thoughts somehow.
THUD!
The sound next to her shocks the girl again, as she finds the same, pixelated man, dropping his textbook this time.
First, the water bottle. Now, his textbook? She's probably starting to see a pattern here.
"Y-Y-You!"
"Yes, it's me, Eugene!" She gets tired of the same, shocked reaction from the guy. And she wished that he could gather some courage and try to analyze the situation properly together with her.
But they can't even have a proper introduction.
"Don't tell me to leave. I'm indeed packing up my books so please just wait, pixelated no-face." She rolls her eyes and speeds up her action.
"Stop lumping me with you, you're the one with a pixelated face right here!" He replies with a hint of annoyance, "I'm perfectly fine. None of my friends ever call me that!"
"So, you asked for your friends' opinion? Good. Because I asked mine and I too, am told to have a normal face." She replies. After the short exchange of conversation, the two of them just went on with an uncomfortable silence.
"This is why we need to discuss properly, Mr. No-Face." Eugene sighs but gets surprised after hearing the person replies to her in a calm tone.
"Felix."
"What?"
"It's Lee Felix."
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Author's Note: Oh WELP HELLO I'm updating a bit early because I'm going on a camp for like 3 days? TT I'll probably update another chapter on the weekend when I get home, coz I'm planning to write during the bus trip anyway
Coz gurl the trip is gonna be 2 hours-- TT I will die out of boredom lmao
But hope you enjoyed this chapter!
- Howley.
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PIXELATED | Lee Felix
FanfictionA story of two university students who started off being terrified of each other due to their pixelated faces, but came to develop a bond that could never be replaced. "I think the universe wanted to teach us the true meaning of seeing beyond appea...
