Acumen: Riddling Life

Plans (18)

We make our way down and out of the hotel.

I wish I had brought my headphone.

We eventually walk side by side in complete silence, not that I have any problem with not talking, but I don't know if it's just me or if it's actually a bit awkward.

But I think it's me. I'm probably overthinking it.

After a long while, Adrien pushes his hand through his hair and then looks at me.

"So... I was thinking... now that I've told you almost everything and cleared out the misunderstandings or whatever, we should try to... uhm, you know," he scratches the back of his neck and then clears his throat, "Try to move on from that and be like..." his voice trails down again.

I can't understand why he would want to fix things with me... but I guess that benefits both of us. After all, we're going to be traveling with each other for a whole year.

"Two normal people, who know each other since grade school?" I offer, since it looks like he wasn't coming up with the right words, and then everything would've gotten awkward.

He smiles and nods his head, "Exactly,"

I'm not comfortable around him, and it's hard to look over everything just because he told me his perspective... but I can try. I know I won't be able to be around him the way I was with Jace, at least not immediately, but I can try to... over time.

And this whole trip is about moving on from the past becoming a better me, I remind myself for the hundredth time.

We continue our walk in complete silence. Adrien eventually fishes out his phone along with wired earbuds.

For a second too long I stare at him with surprise.

Unfortunately, he notices and starts chuckling. "What?" He asks as he attaches wire to the bottom of his phone.

"Aren't we in the wireless era?"

He starts laughing, "Wireless things need charging... which is not very convenient." He pointedly says as he puts one of the earbuds in his ear.

I try to hold back my giggle and look away. I couldn't imagine someone would ever consider charging as an inconvenience.

"Music?" He asks and holds the other earbud towards me.

The logical answer is no, but the smile on his face makes me hesitate and the tiniest light of hope flickers in his eyes which makes me say otherwise.

"Sure," I reply with a small smile and take the earbud in my hand.

It would've been rude anyway to say no to him.

His smile widens, crinkling the corners of his eyes and he immediately looks down, fixing his eyes on his phone. I honestly can't understand this person.

He opens his music app and I put the earbud in my ear. The wire forces me to walk closer to him, close enough that our hands would be brushing if he wasn't holding his phone.

Why didn't I think of this! It's too late to give the earbud back though.

"Do you want to choose?" He asks, looking at me and I shake my head no.

He nods his head slowly and starts scrolling through songs until finally hitting play on one of them.

Up in the air by Thirty seconds to Mars starts playing.

I push my hands into my pants pocket. At least he's got a good taste in music.

Suddenly Jace's words start playing in my head, he always used to say mine and Adrien's music taste is almost the same.