better than me - minishaw

crushcrushcrush

simon.

The few days after the party, Harry had completely disappeared. The boy was nowhere to be seen and Simon was starting to get worried. What if he did remember and he was avoiding him because of it?

It was already Wednesday when Harry showed up like nothing had happened at all and he had been there the whole time. He had apparently been busy with family stuff and Simon was inclined to believe him because his behaviour didn't seem very different. He couldn't tell if Harry felt uncomfortable about them kissing or liked him so everything was right back to normal.

It worked for Simon, at least he thought it did. He had grown used to dealing with having a crush on his best friend so he knew how to act normally. Repress everything and then not sleep at night, it was healthy, right?

If he was able to deal with it, then nothing else mattered.

.•*

Nope, Simon was completely wrong, he absolutely could not deal with it. It had only been three weeks and they had felt like torture to him. With each passing day his feelings got stronger, and he hated not being able to talk to anyone about it.

The only person he confided enough in was Harry, which was why he had stayed quiet for so long. If it was any other topic he would talk to the Cals or Vik (who he had surprisingly grown extremely close to recently) but he couldn't with this. Simon found it extremely hard to open up and the fact that it was all about Harry, one of their closest friends, made it even more difficult.

Yes, Vik probably knew but he didn't have enough courage to talk to him. What was he even supposed to say, "I have a giant crush on your best friend"? Nope, that wouldn't work at all. It wase couldn't get his mind off Harry, and that resulted in him bumping into several things on the way to school.

The song that he was currently playing switched to crushcrushcrush by Paramore and Simon just wanted to smack his head into a wall. How fitting, he just wanted to get distracted by music and then his phone betrayed him and did that.

"nothing compares to a quiet evening alone,
just the one two of us is counting on,
that never happens,
I guess I'm dreaming again,
let's be more than this.
if you wanna play it like a game,
come on, come on let's play.
'cause I'd rather waste my life pretending
than have to forget you for one whole minute"

Simon's mind flicked back to reality when someone pulled an earbud out and yelling "boo" into his ear, making him jump. He hadn't realised he was already inside the school which was why Harry's appearance had startled him so much.

"Hey, what are you listening to?" Harry asked, as he stole an earbud which made Simon wish that he could spontaneously combust right then and there. Luckily the song was ending and it quicky switched to another song that Harry probably knew.

"Just Paramore. How are you so energetic right now, it's way too early."

"Well, don't kill me, but I might have drank three cups of coffee because I didn't sleep last night and now maybe I'm too hyper," He said extremely quickly, proving his point. Simon hadn't noticed that the boy was shaking in his spot, and he had very dark circles under his eyes. "Anyway, that doesn't matter, I realised you've never gone to my house so you're coming today, you have no excuse to not do it!"

That was where Harry was wrong but Simon couldn't refute him, being hopelessly in love with him wasn't a good enough excuse to not go. That's how he ended up in Harry's room only a few hours later.

"Okay, so, none of my family is at home, my dad's at work, my sister's at a friend's house and my mum went to the park with my little brother so we basically have the entire house to ourselves! We can make as noise as we want to, they never let me blast music loudly when they're home."

As he talked, Harry was plugging his phone into his guitar amp, since it was the only thing that he had to make the music louder. It started playing Scrawny by Wallows, which made sense because Harry listened to current indie music way too much.

"Okay, let's play 20 questions again, I still don't know many random facts about you." Harry sat on his bed, legs crisscrossed and Simon couldn't help but smile, of course it was Harry who cared about the little things that much.

"Sure, I'll start then. What's the stupidest accident you've had?" Simon was now sitting on the opposite side of the bed, facing him.

"Oh, I fell off the roof once." Harry said it so nonchalantly that he couldn't help but laugh. Harry asked him a question back but in their true manner, they were already having a completely different conversation about kids shows after only three questions.

Two hours later and they had talked about everything they could think about, well, nearly everything. Simon had it on the tip of his tongue but he didn't know how Harry would react to it. Harry was finishing telling him a story about a time he had fallen into a pool while blindfolded and it was look in his face, Simon knew he could trust him.

"I have something to tell you," He said and Harry just nodded, knowing by the tone of his voice that it was going to be serious. Simon took a deep breath and let his secret out. "I'm gay."

"Uh... I know."

Simon was extremely taken aback because out of all the scenarios he had drawn out in his head, this was none of them. Harry was wringing his fingers together and he looked guilty, almost, but he didn't draw back or get away from him which was a good sign. "How?"

"Cal told me. It was an accident and well, I ignored it because I didn't hear it from you. Sorry you got outed, at least no one else knows."

Simon could breathe properly, his secret was still safe with him, only three people knew about it. He did add a mental note to go punch Cal in the face though.

To release him of the awkward situation that had been created, Harry suggested that they should watch a film and Simon just nodded. That was how he ended up eating popcorn on Harry's couch while they watched Dark Shadows.

The energy Harry had gotten from his several coffees was long gone now and he was curled up in a ball, head resting on Simon's shoulder. This caused the older boy to be extremely stiff and stay in the same position for over an hour, not wanting to make Harry uncomfortable.

Simon was dying inside but he couldn't show it, he would just have to deal with it. But as the television screen flashed bright lights, the shadows would dance on Harry's face and Simon realised that he couldn't anymore. Harry chose that moment to look up and Simon took a deep breath before leaning down and kiss him softly.

The film continued playing in the background but Harry was kissing him back,that was all that mattered. The taste of alcohol was long gone and replaced by cherry sweets and Simon wouldn't wish it to be any other way.

author's note:

puta la wEAAAAAAAAA CONCHASUMADRE AAAAAAH WEÓN
RANTARO IS FUCKING DEAD
FBSJSVSJSVSHSJS AAAAAAAAH

anyway, what are your thoughts about this chapter?

oH & ALSO: the fact that simon actually references this song in a video is just,,, ah *chefs kiss* the man has a good taste in music,,, he says he listened to pop punk and thinks emo is great (yeah he was talking about mcr which technically isn't emo it's pop punk and punk rock but yeah the point is,,, good music)