recreational idiocy | wilbur soot

𝐧𝐢𝐧𝐞𝐭𝐞𝐞𝐧

𝐬𝐮𝐫𝐟𝐞𝐫 𝐫𝐨𝐬𝐚, 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐨𝐛𝐬𝐞𝐬𝐬𝐢𝐯𝐞𝐬

𝐰𝐢𝐥

"be bloody quiet!" via whisper-shouts at me as i bump my head on a book shelf. i think maybe sneaking into the library at one in the morning isn't the best idea we could have had, but then again, bad ideas are usually the most fun ones.

"i'm sorry- fuck, that hurts," i say, rubbing my head as we make our way to one of the rooms in the back. apparently, v's been planning this for quite some time. the room we end up in has a bean bag area and a round table pushed into a corner. it's a small room, but it's not entirely uncomfortable.

this would definitely not have worked out if the library we chose had cameras, but we made sure that there were none. or rather, via did- i had no intention of breaking into any place at all before two hours ago.

"alright, c'mere," she says, lugging our bags in and closing the door behind her. she sits in the beanbag opposite mine and takes my face in one of  her hands, looking at the top of my head. she gently threads her fingers through my hair, looking for any bumps. 

"all good, you won't die!" she says cheerily, her hands still gingerly scratching my scalp. "am i just a cat to you?" i ask jokingly, moving my head into her lap.

"ah yes, shane dawson core," she answers sarcastically. 

"ugh, gross!" i laugh, shaking my head and effectively burrowing further into her lap as she fiddles with the speaker we brought. "any requests?" she asks.

"nope," i answer, muffled by the fabric of her hello kitty pyjama pants. "alright then," she says, shuffling her liked songs. "before you listen to this one, think of what clay sounds like." she instructs.

"strange request but alright," i concede, picturing clay's voice in my mind. then the intro of the song plays, and i immediately understand why she asked me to think of it. "holy shit! that sounds just like him!" i say, in awe.

"i know! it's called surfer rosa," she says, setting down the speaker and humming along. 

we set up all the stuff we brought on the round table- a colossal bag of crisps, dark chocolate for via, pomegranate seeds because she insists that we eat the chocolate and the seeds together, a litre of mountain dew, more snacks, our chargers, the speaker, flashlights for exploring, a giant blanket, and a laptop.

"shall we start our adventure now, then?" i ask, elbow extended toward via. "why, i do believe we shall," she answers, mimicking my posh accent right back at me.

i smile as she loops her arm through mine, and we grab the flashlights and speaker.

"HELLO?" via calls out. if anybody were here, we'd have been caught for sure. but the place seems completely dead apart from us. we have the library to ourselves, it seems. 

i nudge her in the ribs with my elbow, causing her to twist out of my grasp with a squeal. "what is it, beanpole?" she asks, slightly annoyed. "let's look at the stars," i answer.

"i am fairly certain that if we go outside at this particular stage in our plan, we will get caught." she says matter-of-factly.

"not those stars," i whisper, pointing at the ceiling. "those ones."

the ceiling is a perfect projection of the night sky if there were to be no light pollution. you can see every constellation perfectly, if you know where to look. 

"it looks so different at night," she whispers back, voice hushed while her expression is awed- and quite frankly adorable.

"you can't know, it's not for us to know.." as the lyrics flow through the speaker, we look up at the ceiling together, trying to pick out the constellations. we end up just making up names and pointing at random groups of stars, trying to make it seem believable.

"c'mon, let's go!" she shouts suddenly, taking off toward the bookshelves.

half an hour later, my head is back in via's lap, looking up at her as she reads from the fault in our stars.

"I'm in love with you, and I'm not in the business of denying myself the simple pleasure of saying true things," she reads quietly.

"I'm in love with you, and I know that love is just a shout into the void, and that oblivion is inevitable, and that we're all doomed and that there will come a day when all our labour has been returned to dust, and I know the sun will swallow the only earth we'll ever have, and I am in love with you." 

she reads this part in earnest, her voice hushed. she has a perfect voice for storytelling, with a quiet conviction- there's an almost honest quality about the way she reads, as if the words on the page are being poured straight from her heart.

i'm still looking up at her when she stops and puts down the book, leaning back on her hands.

"via," i start out nervously, completely unsure of how this will go over.

"wil," she smiles, mimicking my tone of voice.

"i love you."