Bittersweet Coffee [A 5SOS, Luke Hemmings Fanfiction]

Chapter 12: Her Shock

Annie scoffed, "Of course I am." She still felt slightly irritated from their previous interaction. She remembered the zap of electricity that flowed through her skin when they touched Luke's, momentarily taking her in a little trance of wonder as she reminisced the feeling. Truth to be told, it was an oddly nice feeling for her, though a bit weird nonetheless it was from Luke, after all.

"Well, they do have similarities though. They're both tall, if you ask me. Although not as tall as her 'oppa', she's quite taller than the average girls, and it's not a bad thing. A tall girl with that looks is a complete turn on for guys." Ashton said, slightly defending Annie yet slightly teasing her, too. She was a little irritated with them for teasing her of the 'brother' thing, but shrugged it off. After all, it was wrong of her to address her brother informally, though she had already grown used to it, and it wasn’t like Mike minded – or so she thought.

The other two nodded their heads, agreeing to what Ashton said. Annie noticed the faint blush in Luke's cheeks, as if he was imagining things in his mind.

Perverts.

Annie blushed as well to his words, all the while trying hard to contain with her pokerface, although failing since her blush is quite noticeable with her pale skin. You can't blame her though. Sure, she receive compliments from student from their school every day but she didn't expect that compliments from friends would be any different, and she liked the feeling, although she won't admit it to others. She hadn't had actual friends for years.

'She's cute when she blushes.' Luke thought, observing the blushing girl.

“What were you planning to do with Mike tonight, anyways?” Annie asked, attempting to change the topic.

Calum grinned, “Actually, it wasn’t us who had wanted to meet up. This was Mike's doing. He called us up and asked us to go here to his apartment. Apparently, he wanted us to meet you too much so he set this up,” he said, followed by Ashton, “It was actually surprising, to be honest. We really did wanted to meet his sister, since he did tell us how you loathed us and everything for no apparent reason. We didn’t expect to see you here though, but what the heck, right? This is better since we already know each other, so introductions are spared! Well, at least for the three of us. Wait until you meet the other lads!” Ashton exclaimed, grinning like an overly-excited Cheshire cat.

Annie bit her lip, remembering how she spurted harsh words about them before, “Yeah. Sorry about that. I thought that you were… you know. Bad infleunces. Let’s just say that I shouldn’t judge a book by its cover next time?” She sheepishly said, rubbing the back of her neck awkwardly as she casted her gaze downwards, feeling utterly awkward. She was surprised to feel hands pinching her cheeks.

“You’re so cute!” Calum exclaimed, pinching her cheeks hard – though not hard enough to hurt her as he exclaimed with a seemingly high-pitched voice.

Annie scrunched up her nose and swatted his hands away, and proceeded to shower him with punches on his arm, silently thankful that she decided to sit beside her. Ashton laughed, pointing at Calum's contorted face, probably happy that the latter was getting punished – hard.

Their conversation was cut when they heard the front door open. They heard several voices but Mike's voice were dominating the others'. The front door closed and three more guys entered the apartment, including Mike. The guys saw Luke, Ashton and Calum already seated and greeted them. When they looked at Annie, their eyes went wide while staring. Annie was weirded out and asked her three friends for help. She recognized the others as students from the university, too.

"Why's the ice princess here?” A guy with a baby face blurted out, his eyes widening as she registered her existence in the living room though it glared as she stared back.

Annie glared at him in return and the said guy flinched under her intense glare, backing away and muttering words under his breath.

Mike cleared his throat, "Moving on... Annie, these are my friends. That's Niall. That one with the jet black hair is Zayn, and the one with short hair is Liam. They have a group name as well, like us. They call themselves One Direction, and don't. I just know you're going to say it's childish. Anyway, there are two other guys though, but they just bought bubbletea and were taking a long time, so we left them." he paused while laughing, "Anyway, don't worry 'cause you'll be meeting them later."

Annie just rolled her eyes to her brother. She remembered him insisting to meet her friends, and today he finally did. She didn’t expect them to be that many though. In fact, she would be utterly happy if it was just Mike, Luke, Calum and Ashton – and no one else. They were just… too many.

Although half-heartedly, she actually paid attention to their names, since she figured they'd be meeting quite often because of his brother. She bowed little to them and introduced herself, "Annie Clifford, the derp's sister," she introduced. She heard her brother muttering words like he’s not the derp that he was and all, though she ignored it.

Luke, Calum and Ashton together chuckled since they knew where it came from. The other guys laughed along too, leaving Mike pouting all to himself.

“Drama queen,” Annie mumbled under her breath, but with Mike's big, detective ears, he was able to pick it up, so he glared at his sister and playfully crossed his arms.

“At least make me a king. I am not a queen!” He exclaimed.

Together, Ashton, Luke, Calum, and the other guys exclaimed, “Yes, you are!” The action they made together as they exclaimed that had made Annie giggle at them, catching some of the boys’ attention – particularly Luke's – as well as her brother’s.

Mike openly grinned, happy that the small interaction between him, her, and the other boys had made her laugh.

“That’s surprising, to be honest. I thought Calum was the drama queen? And Annie! How dare you laugh at your brother?! You should be defending me, for God’s sake!” He exclaimed, standing up and stomping his feet on the floor childishly, as if he was a child who was not given what he had wanted.

“Got that right,” Calum said, not denying that he was called a drama queen, as if he was acknowledging it. He flipped his non-existent, long hair and scoffed at Mike, crossing her legs together in a feminine manner – which was a bit gayish in Annie's opinion.

Annie snorted, and excused herself after asking if the guys were hungry. The boys had nodded, some of them still silent, probably because they didn’t know Annie personally, so as to not make the situation more awkward.

Annie went to the kitchen and prepared six more glasses of juice. Luke saw this and offered her help again, but Annie refused as she was still feeling awkward due to the small exchange earlier. Mike saw this and brought out the tray himself, noticing how there had seemed to be something between his sister and his favourite dongsaeng. He took silent note of how Luke had seemed to cast curious glances at his sister, and how his sister would try her best to cast her gaze away and ignore the latter. He mentally took a note to talk to his sister later.

After cleaning the mess she made in the kitchen while preparing the drinks, she made sandwiches, remembering that two other guys will be coming later as well. She made extra sandwiches knowing how teenage boys were with their appetites, knowing well as her brother had been a bottomless pit whenever they eat together. With eleven more guys? Fun. She made her way to the living room and placed the snacks at the table, which the boys had automatically lunged at, like hungry animals. Oh, the metaphor. She was about to excuse herself to her brother when a knock on the door was heard, making her stop and head towards the doorway. She volunteered to open it and when she did, she got the shock of her life.

Three tall guys were standing in front of her. She was shocked, alright. It was Harry and Kaiden, together with a cute guy who seemed to be uncomfortable with the situation. The cute guy and Tao's face seemed gloomy while Kaiden's face was full of shock as he stared at Annie. He didn't expect Annie to be there at all.

This is going to be a long day, all right.