⊹ ࣪ ˖ still into you ໒꒱ | a lohen x reader SMAU
𖥻 ACT 1 , PART 4 : 𑣲𝄞"do u have to let it linger?" 1.5k words
The walk to the store was short enough for you to not argue. The campus was quiet that time of afternoon. You weren't thinking about anything important. You were thinking about whether Navia would actually be satisfied with whatever you brought back, which felt like a more pressing concern than it should have.
You didn't think about Lohen. You hadn't thought about Lohen in days, actually, which felt like real progress.
The store came into view, fluorescent and warm against the dark street, the automatic doors already propped half open from the cold air leaking out. You could hear the bell above them from a few feet away, a small tinny sound that always went off a second too late after someone walked through.
Inside, Venti was three feet from the door, already holding court with himself over a shelf of chips like it was a genuinely difficult decision.
"Spicy or regular," he said out loud, to no one, since Lohen had already drifted two aisles over without responding.
"You ask that every time," Lohen said, from somewhere near the drinks.
"And every time I need a second opinion. You're a bad second opinion, you never weigh in."
"Because it doesn't matter, Venti. They're chips."
"Everything matters, Lohen. That's the problem with you." Venti grabbed both bags anyway, solving his own crisis without input, the way he always eventually did.
Venti had known you both for years before any of this. He'd watched the whole thing happen back in high school, the slow build of it, the way you used to show up to lunch a little brighter whenever Lohen had texted you something stupid that morning, especially how Lohen used to actually let his guard down in a room if you were in it. He remembered the version of the two of you that existed before everything fell apart, the quiet, easy version, it looked almost effortless from the outside even when it probably wasn't. He'd also watched the end of it happen, the silence that followed lasting so long it stopped being something people brought up at all.
There was a version of today where he could've steered clear of any of this entirely. He chose not to. He told himself it was an accident later, when Tartaglia asked. It mostly wasn't.
You walked in still looking down at your phone, thumb hovering over Navia's last text and didn't look up until you were already three steps into the store.
"Hey!" Venti's voice carried easily across the narrow aisle, completely unconcerned with subtlety. "Didn't expect to run into you here."
You looked up, smiled instinctively, because it was Venti, and you liked Venti, you'd liked him from the very first conversation you'd ever had with him. The smile held for exactly one second before your eyes moved past him to the person standing just behind his shoulder.
The fluorescent light wasn't kind to most people, washing them out, making everyone look a little tired and a little gray. It didn't do that to him. He looked the way he always had, like the room had simply adjusted itself around him instead of the other way around, and you hated how easily that thought arrived.
Your smile didn't drop so much as freeze mid-motion, stuck there like your face hadn't gotten the memo yet.
"Hey," you managed, voice softer than you meant it to come out.
"Small world," Venti said, glancing between the two of you, perfectly aware of exactly how untrue that phrase was. There was nothing small about it. He'd known both your names long before tonight, known the history behind them even longer, and he said it anyway, like he hadn't just walked the two of you into the one collision he could've avoided.
Neither of you said anything for a second. Just looking.
"Funny running into you," you said finally, the words coming out gentler than you wanted them to.
"Yeah." Lohen's voice had dropped, quieter than it had been a second ago, like the words cost him something to let out. His eyes hadn't moved from you yet.
"You guys good? Need anything?" Venti asked, holding up a bag of chips like it might do something to settle whatever was sitting heavy and warm in the air between the three of you. "We're just grabbing stuff for a hangout."
"Same, actually." You gestured vaguely at the empty basket still hanging from your hand, unfilled so far. "My roommates ran out of snacks."
"No way," Venti said, sounding far too delighted by this fact. "We're doing the exact same thing right now."
"Of course you are," you said, not quite under your breath, the corner of your mouth betraying you before you could stop it.
You moved toward the snack aisle quickly after that, telling yourself it was about the shopping and nothing else. Lohen ended up in the same aisle four steps later, the two of you reaching for the same shelf at the same moment, your hand brushing his before either of you could pull back. You were surprised by how cliche this was.
Neither of you moved right away.
It was such a small thing, the barest contact, gone almost before it registered, and still it left something warm sitting in your chest.
"Sorry," you said, quietly.
"It's fine," he said, just as quiet, and for a second his eyes dropped to where your hands had almost touched before lifting back to your face.
There was a beat where neither of you reached for the chips again, both of you just standing there a little too close, the aisle narrow enough that there was nowhere else to be.
"You can take it," he said eventually, voice low, stepping back only half a step, like he didn't fully want to.
"I don't need it that badly."
"Take it anyway." A pause, his eyes on you the whole time. "You always liked that brand more than I did."
The sentence landed somewhere soft and unguarded. You hadn't expected him to remember that. You weren't sure what to do with the fact that some part of him had carried it this far, through the year of silence, still intact.
"Thanks," you said, voice barely above a whisper, taking the bag from his hand, your fingers grazing his again on the way.
Neither of you said anything else for a long moment. His eyes still on you like he hadn't decided to look away yet, until Venti's voice cut through from the next aisle over, too cheerful, too well timed to be accidental.
"You guys finding everything okay?"
"Fine," you both said, at the exact same time, softer than either of you intended, and something about saying the same word at the same moment made it harder to look away from each other than it should have.
You grabbed the last few things on your list after that, slower than you needed to, and said something that was supposed to sound like a normal goodbye. It came out quieter, almost reluctant. Lohen watched you go, didn't say anything else, didn't have to. Venti stayed behind at the register a beat longer than necessary, watching the door swing shut behind you. Something unreadable and a little pleased on his face that he didn't bother explaining to Lohen, who didn't ask anyway, because some part of him already knew.
By the time you got back, the bag of snacks had left a faint red line across your fingers from how tight you'd been holding it the whole walk back. Furina opened the door before you even knocked, like she'd been watching for you through the peephole, which, knowing her, she probably had been.
"Finally," she said, then immediately frowned. "Why do you look like that."
"Like you fought someone and lost."
"I didn't fight anyone." You set the bag down on the counter harder than necessary, and three different snack items rolled out onto the table like they were trying to escape the situation too.
Tartaglia, who had been suspiciously quiet on the couch since you walked in, did not look up from his phone.
"You good?" Navia asked, already digging through the bag for the specific items she'd requested, only half paying attention.
"I'm fine. Some guy at the store was rude about the line, I said something back, it's not a big deal." The lie came out smoother than you expected it to, which only made you feel slightly worse about saying it.
"You don't usually let stuff like that get to you," Clorinde said, watching you a little too closely from her spot on the floor.
"I'm allowed to have an off day, Clorinde."
"Sure," she said, in a tone that meant she didn't fully buy it but had decided not to push.
"Can we just start the movie," you said, mostly to redirect the room's attention somewhere else.
Furina clearly wanted to keep asking, you could see it sitting right there behind her eyes, but Wriothesley had already grabbed the remote and pulled up the streaming app, and within a minute the opening credits were rolling and everyone had settled into their usual spots, Navia stealing half the blanket from Clorinde, Lyney narrating the title sequence like it personally offended him.
You sat down last, pulling your knees up to your chest, and didn't look at your phone again for the rest of the night. You told yourself that counted as moving on.
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₊˚ෆ a/n: damn updates r lowk getting slower.. im trying to keep up guys i swear
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