⦂ corridor

@－ ❛ s ❜：liandro kang。⁰⁴ He fell for her.

Drastically different, they were, yet maybe that is exactly what drew her to him. Perhaps she fell for the way he cherished and prioritized her, in comparison to those around him, or the way he held her so close to his heart that she swore she could hear how it thrums for her, the song it dedicates to her. The way how such physical acts seemed so nonchalant to him, yet he'd ask her for a kiss, he'd hesitate to hold her hand, she'd been the first one to initiate their hug—he was a different man around her. To her, he was vulnerable, emotional, and sentimental. To others, he was charismatic, sensual, and alluring. It baffles her.

"How could I forget you.." She says weakly, her gaze dropping back down. Someone who has taught her the feeling of love, to love and to be loved. And someone who has shattered that perception, all in one. "It's hard to forget someone like you, Liandro. Trust me, I've tried, and I've just decided to deal with the fact that.. I can't."

Now, as dusk shadows over the two, she finds herself stepping a tad closer to him, though to just reach out for the door knob of her respective house. He's close, merely a half step before her, and nothing more aches her than fighting the urge to just... embrace him, just as she would not too long ago. It's so easy to give in and here he is, as heavenly looking as he is, but she doesn't move towards him and neither do her eyes linger upon his as she lets out a quiet sigh. They'd become so complicated, nearly unmendable. And whose fault that is—both, she'd say.

"Liandro.. I'm tired," she says, her teeth sinking into her lower tier as if to keep herself from breaking. "I can't do this anymore, really." The begging, the trusting, the risk of getting hurt once more—she can't. At least for now. They say time heals, but for someone like Liandro Kang, the promise of someone she can't have, it was going to take even more. "It's late, you should go, please. I'll.. see you around."

@－ ❛ ʜ ❜：maya yim。⁰⁴ It was easier on her. Of course just pretending he didn't exist would be so. Besides, Liandro had only been in her life for a few months and had only been so for his own strange coping mechanisms. Possibly she thought he saw her as merely someone to talk to and nothing more. He'd be quite easy to forget if that were the case. "There's only you." The words fell out of his mouth without thinking. Of course, Maya would think otherwise, many might think that a ual relationship meant intimacy on every level. But that is where Liandro always was different, choosing to be physically intimate with girls he either didn't know nor had no particular feelings for. Though, they were always just a pawn for his ual mindset and nothing more. That's how it always was for him, until he started to develop feelings for Maya. Only when he started becoming aware of how he felt for the Hufflepuff did each ual act he perform feel absolutely disgusting. "I'm sorry."

How many times will he apologize to her? "Please Maya, I'm begging you to not forget me. I..." There he was again, being selfish. He needed her. The past few weeks without talking to her, without really a shred of acknowledgement other than on the day of the dementor attack, had been absolutely hell for him. He missed her so dearly, yet there was no way to see her, speak to her. With his pausing, it allowed Maya to say more of what was on her mind and admit the very thing that Eleanora had hinted quite heavily at.

"Why is it foolish to like me like that?" Why was it foolish when he thought very much the same? "I don't want you to hate me or cry over me. But I don't want you to pretend that we never were close either. I want /you/, Maya, and I need you. Only you. Please. Please give me a chance to show you I'm not just some sort of dickhead. I don't expect you to forgive me. But please give me a chance. Please." Despite his begging, he allowed her to remove his hand from her sleeve, not wanting to push his luck in any way with her. "There's been nobody since Eleanora. I swear. Because I fell for /you/, Maya. That's why I suggested what I did at the ball. Please, just give me a chance. I can't. I don't want to just be a past memory for you." If only he hadn't been afraid to be honest with his for Maya before this whole issue presented itself.

@－ ❛ s ❜：liandro kang。⁰⁴ Maya was not one to like confrontations, and it shows in the way she appears rather silent in front of him as he continuously, stubbornly, attempts to explain his perspective. And though she could feel the sincerity that drips from his tongue, it only makes her wish he'd stop. She was a coward, someone who'd find the easy route to shield herself from the pain, even if it meant just.. disappearing, and perhaps that is what she was trying to do the moment Eleanora had dropped this news upon her; disappear. "It's just easier," she croaks out, her gaze falling unto his hand that so desperately clings to her sleeve. "To try and forget. It's easier than to deal with the idea of.. you two together. Of me not being the only one in your life. I'm not even angry, I don't think I ever was. I could never stay mad at you, or her, and I think I hate myself for that. I should be mad, I think I deserve to be, but I'm not. (I'm) just.. disappointed, I guess. And upset. Definitely that."

Her voice remains low as she voices out to him, her heart twinging as she comes to face the bubbled feelings that'd make a home in her mind. She's weak, a push-over. Even with her best friend and the guy she's head over heels for messing around and keeping it from her—she stills finds herself unable to be angry with them. Her lips purse as she takes in a deep breath. "I like you," she says and inevitably, the shame of her admittance follows with it. "I like you a lot, Liandro. It's actually so foolish.. the way I like you so much that you could lie to me and I'd believe you in a heartbeat. I'm envious of.. everyone that could dislike you so easily because I can't and I beat myself up about it. I overthink it and I cry about it, but I still can't find it in me to." Her voice quivers and slowly, she reaches to softly tear her robe from his grasp.

That was the hard route; hating him.

"I acknowledge your apology, I do, but I can't forgive you. And though there might be a time where I can, please don't anticipate it."

@－ ❛ ʜ ❜：maya yim。⁰⁴ The feeble attempts she made at continuing to lie to him just made him feel all the more worse. Of course she didn’t want to discuss this with him, he knew that enough. Maya didn’t even have to say it. It was all over her face and her actions that this was something she wished to not think about. But that made it all the more frustrating for him, that she refused to even hear him. She obviously heard it from Eleanora, she had her chance to speak. But he hadn’t. Instead, he was merely ghosted without being told why. “I know, I’m sorry. I know there isn’t really much you can say. But...but I wish you would say /something/. Did you really expect me to not try to talk to you? That just ignoring me would make me never speak to you again? I don’t understand what your mindset is.”

Maya was too calm for him. Possibly it was just her way of coping with the situation but it just didn’t sit right with Liandro. However, he couldn’t help but wish that he would yell at him, say something, show something more than her disappointment. “I didn’t…” What was he supposed to say to that? Her feelings were completely valid, she probably felt like an absolute fool at this moment. “I wanted to tell you that day. I...was being selfish.” It was only a few days later that the male had met with Maya. However, instead of telling her what was on his mind, he allowed her to comfort him instead. “I was scared of losing you, Maya. I know it sounds like a bunch of bull right now. And I think she was too? I don’t know.” He got the snippets of whatever Eleanora threw at him.


“What was I supposed to say? I don’t know what I was supposed to say. That I accidentally screwed around with your best friend? That she might be pregnant? I don’t know. I never had to deal with this before.” His face was turning red as he spoke. He had thought it before, that it would have been simpler if it weren’t her friend, that if it was any other girl, he would've been more open with Maya about it. Even then, it would've been hard, he would have probably still waited until he knew the result of the test. How was he supposed to tell her? What was he supposed to? Especially when before this whole thing started, his feelings for Maya had become more obvious to him. "Please, I don't want you to just disappear like you seem to be trying to do."


(God please respond with smth short like we were. I was on computer ankskskw )

@－ ❛ s ❜：liandro kang。⁰⁴ She pauses, almost scared to move as his tone surprises her. He's never sounded so stern with her, frustrated with her feeble excuses, and it's painfully evident in the way her visage saddens, the ends of her tiers tipping down in a weak frown. Yeah, she /is/ a liar, he's sure of it, but here she is, still attempting to lie to him for.. God knows what. "I.. don't know what you're talking about," she mumbles out, eyes darting to the floor. Numbness spreads like wildfire underneath her skin, shriveling over her arms and burning at her legs, it's nearly unbearable, but truly, it doesn't hurt her as much as he does to her now. "Liandro, I don't know what you want from me. There's only so much I can really do.. Only so much I can really handle."

It stings just a tad more as he somewhat confesses to.. What does she even call it—this secret? Their rendezvous? Hook-up? She lets out a shaky breath, lips soon pursing after. "But you didn't, both of you. I was left in the dark for so long and I.. I felt so incredibly ridiculous, I don't know. What do you want me to say?"

@－ ❛ ʜ ❜：maya yim。⁰⁴ "Don't." It was firmly put. A tone that Liandro never used with Maya before. He was frustrated, of his own fault, but it made him even more so that she wouldn't even think of a discussion with him. "You know you're a horrible liar. And you know that I know that. Stop it. Stop making excuses to avoid me." Why else did he come to her? If she was supposedly too busy, then he would find a way around her schedule. And he wasn't, no, he refused to take her answer about her long day.

"I'm not stupid...I know you're bothered by me now." He wanted to say he knew why. Wanted so desperately to beg her to not keep him at arms length over it. "Maya, I swear...I swear I wanted to tell you when I found out." His voice cracked and his fingers seemed to clutch onto the cloth of her sleeve even tighter. "Please just talk to me."

@－ ❛ s ❜：liandro kang。⁰⁴ For a moment, a brief second that passes her, she forgets. The dread and hurt, she forgets it as her once star-dazed irises meets his. He looks.. hurried, unkempt. His carefully sculpted dimples and dainty smile that he used to show her, it's gone. And so was she, she wishes.

She blinks up at him, then at the way he so desperately grips unto her uniformed robe. In the past, maybe she'd opt to interlace their fingers, hug his arm to her chest, and press her cheek to his shoulder fondly. But he feels so far—the man she liked.. likes. He's unfamiliar to her mind, but her heart still beats the same melody that he wrote, strumming and thrumming in her wake, just as it has before. For that, she despises herself; falling for a man that could possibly never return her feelings, even now.

"I don't know," she murmurs out, glancing to the door to her dorm behind him. "I had a pretty long day, I think I just want to rest." With this, she eases out a pitiful chuckle, one that he could tell was all for show. A sliver of her, it yearns to apologize to him, mostly for wasting his time, but she doesn't mention it, instead stringing together more excuses. "You know, between the prefect duties, studies, and—yeah."

@－ ❛ ʜ ❜：maya yim。⁰⁴ It didn't quite add up to the Slytherin, the claims that were presented of her schedule just being too hectic to him...even to just message him for that matter. It hadn't hindered either of them before, they even spoke and saw each other through studying for finals. It was becoming clear that Maya was trying to avoid him, and he had an inkling as to why. But he wanted her to tell him the truth about it herself. Besides, the reason he believed she was making any excuse to not see him was the very one that he wanted to speak to her about.

Thus, he found himself standing in the basement corridor that led the the Hufflepuff house. It was a bit inappropriate and possibly stalkerish, but he had no other idea as to how to make her talk to him.

He hadn't waited long when the blond made her way to her dorm. And although it was clear that Maya was far from being her usual chipper self, the aura she presented was much the opposite, Liandro didn't hesitate to reach for her, his fingers clinging tightly to the sleeve of her robes. "Maya, we need to talk. Please?"

(Please don't kill me for replying right away sjsjsjsksk)

@－ ❛ s ❜：liandro kang。⁰⁴ As someone who used to admire the gleams of the moonlight, it only feels bittersweet as it seeps through the corridor glass. This time of night—once filled with shared laughs, shy touches, heart to hearts—as much as she'd like to forget it, she remembers it as if it was yesterday. And perhaps she's the most unluckiest woman, for there's not only one person that dwells on her mind, but two. This ache persists on even on her way to her respective dorm days later, seemingly failing to see the figure that awaits her presence in the Hufflepuff corridor, as she saunters in their direction with slumped shoulders and her gaze settled towards the floor.

[] just a short starter to set the scene sdfhshdfh