Escalators {Frerard}[COMPLETED]

➳ ennui

❝Ennui- a feeling of listlessness and dissatisfaction arising from a lack of occupation or excitement❞

The next morning arrived as usual, although 'usual' was the only possibility, really. Amid a dampening sense of dispair at what the day to come would hold, that being many hours of unbroken boredom, I eventually managed to drag my ass out of bed, where standing in the middle of my room in a trance seemed to be the extent of my capabilities.

School was the time for waking up at seven in the morning. Summer, however, was not. Definitely not. My protests went completely unheard by my mother as I stumbled around the house, looking for my arrangement of belongings that would get me through the day. Breakfast seemed to pass in a daze, as I sat at the kitchen table, yawning obstinately. If my mother insisted on waking me up this early, then she could deal with the consequences; that being a painfully grouchy version of myself that quipped at my brother, Ryan, at every opportunity.

Ryan wasn't my actual brother, he'd been adopted. After she'd had me, my mother was unable to have any more kids, thanks to some serious and complicated medical thing that I didn't understand. It didn't matter, however, because Ryan had grown up in our house and he might as well have been my brother. We argued like real siblings anyway, despite the fact he was only ten, therefore seven years younger than I was. Irritatingly, that had seemed to become my mother's main theme of 'telling Frank off', being the fact that I was a lot older than Ryan and either needed to stop arguing with him as a result, or needed to set a better example.

This morning Frank wasn't doing a good job of it, really.

Every tiny noise seemed to irritate me, and I wished that I could just stay in bed. At no point had I ever wanted to go and work during the summer, although truth be told, I never wanted to work in my life. Not because I was lazy or anything (although I was) but because I'd have rathered spend my life travelling the world, or writing books, or sitting on rooftops in the middle of the night, looking at the stars and holding deep conversations with the person that I loved.

On account of the fact that I had no social life and as much as I tried, was most likely not going to become an author, here I was. No night-time, star-lit rooftop talks for me, because I was spending my time on fucking 'wanderer's duty', where the only thing I was going to acquire was an increased bad temper, and not the social interaction that my mother so desperately wanted.

What a time to be alive.

-

"Morning, Frank!"

Despite the fact that to me, it was more accurately the middle of the night, I grinned back wolfishly at Rob, hoping he wouldn't realise that this smile was less 'I'm happy to be here' and more 'I'm going to kill everyone at the first chance I get'. Somehow, I'd have thought that such things would have an effect on the amount of credit I actually ended up with at the end of this summer.

"Morning, Rob." 

"You alright?"

Amazingly, no. However, I simply smiled at Rob in a rather sickening way, and nodded. Smiling broadly despite the fact it was early and cold and there wasn't even anyone here, Rob strode off in the opposite direction, seemingly content with leaving me to whatever it was that I had to do. 

Something in my brain told me it was 'wanderer's duty', but that was open to interpretation. That being 'go and sit on a bench and listen to Cage The Elephant' which was exactly what I did. As long as nobody with the authority to sack me caught sight of my slacking, then I was fine. 

The fountain provided enough protection from the eyeline of Rob, who had been wandering around the general area as though he was expecting me to be slacking off.