French Kiss (Skam - Chris Schistad x OC)

Rule N°1

Rule number one: Never let your guard down.

People are everywhere, all the time. Chris learned not to drop the mask until he was in a safe place, hidden from the prying eyes constantly darted on him. No matter how much he racked his brain he couldn't put his finger on when exactly it started but he knew that at some point in his life he's begun to care more about who the others thought he was rather than who he really was becoming. Maybe it was the sudden feminine attention he got when he started high school, or maybe it was behind part of a popular group. The other Penetrators never shared his problem though.

Was it a problem? That was another good question he didn't have the answer to. Were the increasingly dark bags under his eyes becoming a problem? Was his sight getting blurry due to lack of sleep and hangovers? Was the ever present feeling of jadedness an issue? Nothing he couldn't deal with, but definitely things he could live without. People weren't going to notice anything anyway. Even assuming the bunch of self-absorbed teenagers attending his school weren't too busy thinking about their own little life to notice the others, Chris would still fool them all. Even Eva didn't notice anything despite hooking up with him on a regular basis at the time. Then she moved on and found an actual decent boy to have a real relationship with. Chris understood.

Girls. Simultaneously the worst and most magnificent creatures in all of creation. And Chris somehow managed to attract the attention of almost all of them – with the notable and shocking exception of William's girlfriend who's merely the exception that confirms the rule. Though now William was gone and Noora had followed him to London so no one was around to make him come back to earth. The one girl who could resist him and his best friend weren't there to remind him to stay grounded. It was an understatement to say that after high school, things began to go downhill for Chris.

He thought it would be different, but it only became worse. He didn't know what to do with his life. Chris tried to follow his father's steps but quickly came to the conclusion that it wasn't for him and dropped out of university. He figured now was as good a time as ever to do his military service and he joined military school. It went fine but it was bound to end. Twelve months after signing up he was back to square one, wondering what the hell he was supposed to do now that he was back.

Girls. They still stared at him when he walked down the street. He still got invited to parties. Those two things were familiar enough for him to dive into them head first. For an entire summer Chris partied and fucked like there was no tomorrow and suddenly he found himself being pushed to the wall. His parents told him they wouldn't support this lifestyle of his and blackmailed him. If he wanted to keep the nice off campus apartment they first bought him when he started studying economics, he had to go back to university.

"Whatever," he told them with a shrug right before storming out of the family house. Family dinner my ass, he thought, this was an intervention!

He did care about the slight form of autonomy he's gained by living outside of the family circle and he would rather go back to school then give it up. Gotta work for what you want. Chris waited a few more days before officially signing up at university again and a couple more before announcing it to his mom. Through a text. Just to keep them all hanging. This time he chose a subject that actually interested him – linguistics. His father had laughed when he heard about this, claiming that it wouldn't lead to a well paid job and that he might as well go back to the army.

Contrary to popular belief, Chris was an excellent student. Very few people knew that and among those who did there were his parents – his father thought he had to put his brains to good use and by good use he meant to make money, while his mom merely wanted him to get a degree, whatever major he wanted to get it in.