1000 serenades for zhong chenle ➳ imagines & one shots

7 | Waste The Night

Waste The Night
5 Seconds of Summer

11:27pm

You sit alone in your room upstairs, quite content your own company with your favourite book. Downstairs, your brother is holding another one of his wild high school parties. There's music, dancing, singing, alcohol, everything. He's known for his 'gatherings', or so he tells your parents, and is always the very life of the party. You're quite the opposite – not much of a party animal at all, and so you've learned to drown out the noise and live in your own little world, nice and comfortably in the centre of your bed each week while he does his thing.

"Oh God, not again," you think, as your door jolts open. But to your relief, it's not yet another couple hoping to use your bedroom to eat each other out. Instead, your half drunk brother leans through the doorway, a drink in one hand and some girl you've never seen before in the other.

"I think the neighbour's come to the front door, can you get that?" He slurs. You shoot him a glare as if to say 'why can't you?', to which he only gestures to the girl next to him, responding "I'm a little busy."

You roll your eyes and get up from your position, mentally rehearsing how you're going to apologise to your neighbour. They had just moved in after your last neighbours had sold their house, and though they denied it, you were convinced they had only moved because of how much racket your brother always caused with his social events. You stumbled your way down the trashed stairway, pushing past piles of drunk 19 year olds trying not to fall over themselves.

Finally reaching the front door, you turn the handle already putting on your usual apologetic expression. You try to keep it, but you can't hide the shock and sudden nervousness you're feeling when you meet eyes with a tall, handsome boy standing on your doorstep.

"Hi, I'm Chenle, your new neighbour," the boy says as he greets you with a smile. "I don't mean to come off rude at all, especially because we've only just met, but you see I've got my baby nephew staying over with us at the moment and I was wondering if you guys would be able to keep it down a li– is that Harry Potter?" He says curiously, fixing his stare down to your hand, which is, in fact, holding Harry Potter: the Order of the Phoenix.

You lift your hand up to make the book more visible to him, half embarrassed about the fact that you're reading a book in the middle of a high-energy party. To your surprise, Chenle takes the book out of your hands smiling even more at what he sees.

"This is my favourite series! I've got the whole book set at home, I've read them all too many times to count," he confesses, realising that he's rambling before becoming quite shy and handing you back the hard-back novel.

"Really?" you ask, still in shock about this perfect boy-next-door that has suddenly walked into your life. "It's my favourite too, this must be the fourth time I've read this book, let alone the series," you say, brushes forming on your cheeks. "I'm [y/n], by the way."

The scratch in your voice
leaves me no choice

"Nice to meet you, [y/n]." he says kindly.

Chenle finally notices that you're wearing sweatpants and a baggy t-shirt, quite a little bit different to the rest of the girls behind you who are probably all only wearing just as much clothing as you collectively. "Not much of a party person?" he says, looking around at the commotion behind you. You shake your head and let out a small, embarrassed laugh.