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Coming of Age Friendship Teens & Young Adult

      “Huff" he goes as he looks around the living room, which had been destroyed with whatever the party people had partied in it with. “Uhm, I don’t think I want to cover your cleaning duties like I did for this month’s rent” said Chloe, throwing a tired look at Miles .Miles and Chloe have been roommates since the last 5 months and a not very interesting fact is that their personalities are completely same, which means Miles isn’t getting the “ glow up” he expected to achieve after meeting his so anticipated outgoing, super fashionable roommate. Instead he is stuck with a person who has the same guts as him when he struggles to order literally anything at a restaurant, yes even on a call; talking too fast, heartbeat over the roof and sweaty( occasionally). Miles looks at Chloe hesitantly and utters softly, “ Yeah,sorry I was just about to clean up too” and another flustered ‘ sorry’ comes along the way, to which Chloe responds with a little more confidence than Miles, “ It’s...it’s alright just be quick. ” Even though they shared only the one ounce of confidence in any sort of conversation, Chloe always seemed to have the upper hand in a conversation with Miles. She begins cleaning the living from one corner and Miles takes over the tiny messy kitchen. Silence. “Hey Miles, man ,I think it was sorta brave of you to be a party host..” a little more sensitively, “given, you know, how you are..” Miles stops his work for a while to listen clearly what Chloe was shouting from the living room. “ Not that I’m any different..” Chloe's voice trails off. Miles turns around, sends a genuine but still hesitant smile across the living room towards Chloe, who was now looking at him too and let’s out a soft ‘ hmm’. Chloe reads the room, no, the entire apartment and it does not seem good. She feels that she talked too out of the blue and that she needs to lighten the mood as Miles turns around again, to clean the kitchen. She chuckles loud enough for Miles to be able to hear it but decent enough to not sound fake and tries to ask few random questions about the food or where he ordered them from. It wasn’t a stupid attempt but it wasn’t very helpful too, since the conversation seemed to die out quickly, quicker than she had planned. Miles had answered them too perfectly and crisply as if he was answering short question answers. Chloe had to find the courage to make one damn good and meaningful conversation with Miles where they didn’t talk about studies only; they were pretty chirpy and talkative when they studied together but not in any other situations. She was determined now, more so, since Miles had built the courage to come out of his shell and host a party. She buckles up and goes in for it, as in planning her conversation in the next fifteen minutes. By the time Chloe had all the words planned out, Miles had only the kitchen counter to be cleaned and there was a mountain of cups in every corner of the living room which Chloe had ignored while planning . He was soon gonna get out of the kitchen and Chloe began getting tensed about executing her plan. She tried to continue her cleaning but another idea struck her mind, “ What if I get the dude to clean up with me, rather than talking face to face, that way we can get the momentum to look at eachother after we get comfortable talking while cleaning!” Miles had come out of the kitchen, looking like he was about to collapse when he had only cleaned a tiny space, he begins to say something, “ Okay, sooo I have fulfilled my duties” chuckles a little, “ I’ll turn in now,goodnight” he waves at Chloe as he walks towards their room; they have separate beds but they share the room.  Chloe speaks up before he had almost left the room, “ HEY!” Miles gets startled but settles quickly, she speaks again, “ I’m a little too tired and I have an all-nighter to pull tonight ,I got a heck load of assignments to complete” she smiles apologetically, “soo I was hoping if you could help me out this once..”  Miles is quick to help her as he speaks, “ Don’t worry I’ll be happy to help, besides...it’s the least I can do for you after you decided to become” a little pause, “my saviour this month.” They laugh a little at the rent joke and begin to clean the shabby room together. “ So how did you like becoming a host for the first time?” Asked Chloe in a sing-song manner. Miles smiled and answered, “ Eh.. it seemed pretty strange because you know how I am” quoting her from earlier, “but it was an okay new experience.” Chloe’s face lit up as she teased him with a ‘ayee brotha!!’ She felt that this was going good and now she needed another good question to continue. She begins, a little too confident and quickly, “ How did your party like the friends? ” Oh no, this wasn’t how she was supposed to crash ,not this soon atleast, she needs to recover quickly. Miles looks puzzled but he might be onto Chloe’s little speech error. Chloe speaks, rather shouts unknowingly, “ Cuz-cuz uh the party has its own entity which needs to be respected before the party-goers!” It was at this moment, she knew, she messed up.  Miles laughs a little ,he has definitely caught on with Chloe’s little act. He tilts his head in an understanding manner as if he was saying, “ I so get you....it’s alright, I know exactly what you want to ask, I’m just like you but at this moment I need to be your saviour.” They are smiling fondly at eachother now and little do they know that they are both trying to be eachothers' saviour. “ I wanted to change a little” Miles begins, “ not that I wanted to change completely but... I wanted to be a little courageous tonight, take my first step out of the shell.” He looks at Chloe expectantly and she catches on with, “ That definitely seems like a big occasion then.” Miles expected just a little more talk from her but the silence, not the awkward one, starts to set in. “Oh my God!” Chloe exclaims and they fill the silence with a loud laughter. “ I’ve been meaning to ask you this since you had told me about this party!” says Chloe while her laughter fades slowly and Miles shrugs to that. “ Thanks to you I too, had gathered courage to talk to you and I’m pretty satisfied with the results” Chloe states, a little too proud suddenly and Miles responds, “ I’m proud of us!”  They are in the momentum now and so they continue picking up the trash in the room. They put on some lofi chill music, grooving in their trash picking party as they slowly open up more and talk upon simple, never before talked about in 5 months, topics like their favourite colours, music, foods, hobbies, siblings etcetera. Chloe asks Miles, “ Do you have any special talents, like you know excelling at sports?” and to that Miles laughs and replies, “Are you kidding?” too comfortable with eachother now, “I don’t even have a favourite sport!” he goes on, “ I do...sing and write, just a little though.” Chloe never expected that, but she guesses it was only plausible for a guy like Miles to vent his heck load of emotions into music which was reserved for his and his ears only, as if this was the only logical reason. “I would call it fun if you’d ever like to sing in front of me, well ofcourse, no pressure.” Miles takes a moment to decide and agrees to sing for her, he was already pumped up with his new found carefree attitude around her. He clears his throat and begins to sing his original song, which by the way no one has had the chance to listen to before.

I can imagine

Leaving you behind

Leavin'

Oh, you

So sweet, but too dangerous

You can imagine

Dreaming all you want

Dreamin'

Oh, I

Was never yours

And you, never mine

      Chloe has no words, she is staring at Miles with a jaw drop. Those lyrics, his melodious voice?! She claps a little too loud making Miles shy and cover his ears a little. “ This was your just a little?! The university’s music club must feel betrayed at your absence!” she screams at him,“ The uni would be heckin' lucky to have you at one of their events!!” Miles answers shyly, “ You know how I am, besides I don’t want to do that...maybe just yet.” Chloe knows the tone Miles used right now and she knows even better than to pressure him into it, so she replies, “ I get you, I just wanted to let you know that I play the drums...so maybe we could perform as a band one day...because I have just one other friend here who plays the electric guitar, who by the way is totally different from us, makes me wonder how I became his friend.” Miles smiles big at this and it gives Chloe a ray of hope for them two losers/talented people to shine with pride someday, ofcourse with the help of the other, actually confident guy. “ I’m sure we’d make a great team, maybe....but till then, you could play the drums for me sometime when you have the equipment?” Chloe agrees to play for him. The lofi chill music seeps into their ears again as if it wasn’t playing since quite a few minutes. Its Miles' turn to ask a question now. “So...uhm do you have any nicknames?” he asks hesitantly as he feels it too personal a question to go with right now, even though its been a literal hour since they began cleaning together, they’re way too caught up in their conversation, its affecting their performance. Chloe seems to be taken aback and that was exactly what Miles was dreading about as he asked her the damn question. He tries to recover hurriedly, “ You don’t have to answer, forget that I asked” but Chloe eases him down by telling him it was okay. She was horrified about her stupid weird nickname, because people have normal funny, cute or weird nicknames names, not out-of-the-world weird as her’s was. But she finds the nerve to go on, “ Me telling you this, is as awkward as the first time we tried to converse.” Miles has an expression which tells that he now understands the depth of the situation. Chloe continues, “ I wont tell you why I got it, but here’s what it is..”

 Drumroll

 “...puke-head-drummer-kid” she scrunched her nose hard when she said that and Miles laughed so piercingly loud, it made Chloe give in too. “That is too random and long a nickname, you seriously have to tell me the story!!” The next five minutes go by, with Chloe denying and Miles begging. She finally decides to tell him, but at the speed of light, so it’s not her fault if he doesn’t get it, because the main deal is to tell the story. “ I was 11 years old—I got my new drum set as a birthday gift—but I decided to play it after I had stuffed myself with the birthday feast—I began playing it and I wasn’t trained—I was moving my head too fast and it was spinning like crazy—and I puked.” Miles was laughing so fondly at this little story, that Chloe knew he wasn’t laughing at her, but with her, so she joined him again. Chloe hugs Miles and Miles embraces her, as simple as that. She chimes into the hug, “ But don’t you dare call me that ever!!” Miles chuckles and pats her on the head as he agrees to not spill her nickname to anyone. They part and get back to their trash picking party with the usual “Huff!”

May 08, 2021 16:22

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5 comments

Karan Yadav
14:52 May 12, 2021

Amazayn

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Tanisha Yadav
08:07 May 13, 2021

What even,thanks though😂

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Anusha V
17:16 May 08, 2021

It was so fun to read!😍

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Tanisha Yadav
07:40 May 09, 2021

Thankyou so much!🥰

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Tanisha Yadav
17:12 Jan 24, 2022

This story began just as a fun casual writing habit and heck, its filled with missing words and what not, I didn't think that it would get even this much love...but it did and I'm grateful to all of you who read it!

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