under my skin || n.h. au

seven: pull me backwards

On a Sunday morning, Brooklyn wakes up feeling restless and agitated. She knows straightaway that her plan to stay in bed until it's late in the afternoon is out of the window so after she's finished scrolling aimlessly through her Instagram, she climbs out of her bed.

After making her bed – Brooklyn can never leave her bed unmade no matter how lazy she gets – she brushes her teeth, washes her face and puts on her running attire. She hasn't gone for a run in a while and she hopes to God her stamina won't fail her this morning.

She's in the middle of tying her shoelaces when Beck stumbles out of his room, rubbing his eyes with the pad of his hand. "Bee?"

"Hey."

"You're up early," he remarks.

"I'm going out for a run," she tells him as she gets up and pulls her hair into a ponytail. Beck looks at her like he's trying to figure out if she's lost her mind. Who'd want to spend a Sunday morning running around a park? His twin sister, apparently.

"Well, take care," he comments before disappearing into the kitchen. Brooklyn wants to ask what's he doing up so early, but when she hears the sound of a mug breaking – that'd be the third one he breaks in the past month – she picks up her iPod, one that she's had for years, along with its earphones and heads out without saying anything else. She needs to get rid of the tenseness before it takes over her.

Brooklyn goes through her music playlist and stops at 'one for the run'. She made that playlist a few months ago when she decided that she needed more upbeat songs in her music library. She clicks play and begins her warmup exercises. Once she's sure that she's not going to pull her muscles or anything, she starts running. Slowly at first, but her speed increases to the beat of the songs she's listening to.

The loud and heavy music flows through her body like a ripple of energy as she focuses on her next step and nothing else. Her breath has moved from controlled inhaling and exhaling to uncontrolled gasps and spurts. When every single ounce of her body is poured into propelling her forward, leaving her committedly focused on her steps, she can feel everything that has been bothering her melts away. Tension drains out of her body and she no longer feels like the universe is against her.

That is, until someone tugs at her earphone, pulling the left one out of her ear. Shocked, Brooklyn lets her reflex takes over as she pulls her arm back and punch the person who scares the life out of her. She's read enough news to know that people these days aren't afraid to harm you even in the public. Luckily she learned how to punch someone from Oliver and her trainer back when she used to go to the gym regularly.

A victorious smile touched Brooklyn's lips when she hears that bloody idiot winces in pain. It disappears immediately, however, when she turns around and sees that the person who's just plucked her earphone out of her ear is-

"Niall?!" She shrieks as she walks up to him. He's covering his eye with the palm of his hand and whilst Brooklyn feels bad for him, she can't stop herself from laughing.

"What?" He frowns at her.

"You sort of deserved that," she tells him. He shrugs. "What were you thinking?"

"I wasn't thinking, obviously," he mutters as he makes his way to the nearest bench. Brooklyn follows him and once he's seated, she pries his hand away from his face and tries to take a look at his eyes. "It's bad, isn't it?"

Brooklyn squints her eyes a little and lets out a sigh. "You're gonna have a black eye for a few days, that's for sure."

He groans. "Tell me I look cool."