A/N I did this for my best friend before he moved away, so I'm translating it into a phanfiction. Also, Pinterest prompts haven't been sparking my imagination lately, so let me know if you guys have any requests!
(Dan's POV)
"Arg!" I exclaimed, smacking my hands down on the keyboard for the umpteenth time this morning. Between this secret project I was working on and my school work, I was more stressed than I had ever been. It's not like I HAD to do this, but... But it seemed right.
You see, Phil was moving to another country, his birth country. In another continent for that matter. We had been best friends for the longest time. We knew what the other was thinking and feeling. We could always count on each other for support, comfort... I thought the rest of my high school career was laid out for me to see, but life likes to see how tough you are sometimes, and this was the hardest test I've faced yet. I still remember at the beginning of the year how he warned me that he might be moving. I simply hoped and prayed that it wouldn't happen. Alas, at the beginning of the second semester of school, he broke the news to me.
I was the first one he told. He told it to me in person, since we always valued talking face-to-face. I had to look away, trying not to cry in front of him. It's not that I didn't want him to think of me as weak, after all, he's seen me at the lowest point in life. I just knew that it was hard for him, too. If I cried, it would only make him feel worse and I didn't want that for him. I told him that I was happy for him. After all, he should be excited to go back! I always see how his eyes shine as he talks about his early years living there. After all these years spent together, his happiness has become my happiness. If he wanted to move back, then I would be the most supportive friend I could be.
Later on, I asked him to go the school dance with me, kind of. We decided on having dinner out together instead of going to the dance because we've always been more comfortable just hanging out and talking to each other than doing some sort of activity. However, as the year went on, our date kept getting pushed back further and further due to copious amounts of homework, and eventually, we decided the dinner would be the last time we'd see each other before he moved. Three days before he moved, to be precise. Not only that, but he mentioned buying me a going away gift for that night, so I got to thinking of what I could give him.
See, it's hard when you have a crush on your best friend, but you aren't sure how he feels about you. It didn't matter at this point whether or not we would date; we couldn't handle a long distance relationship at this age. And by we, I mean me. I've heard far too many stories about long distance couples cheating on each other or breaking up due to a lack of contact. It wasn't that I though he would cheat on me or I on him, I just didn't want to risk getting together just to break up. Anyway, I didn't want the gift to be just anything. Buying him something from a department store would be like saying he was an ordinary guy who deserved an ordinary present, and he was anything but that. I don't know how I got the idea, but I think I was sitting and chatting with him by our lockers when it came to me: a scrapbook of our lives together!
But that seemed too cliche and sappy.
Then how about a video of our time spent together?
Eh. Still too sappy.
I wanted something that wouldn't be anything ordinary or overly romantic. I wanted it to be completely unexpected and have him awestruck when he received it. I watched as our friend, Brennan, came up and started talking to Phil. They were laughing about some test they took in their inner disc class. It was always fun to watch Phil talk with his friends, especially since he always had a cute smile on his face when chatting.
"That's it!" I thought. I would make a video of all of his friends saying little goodbye messages to him!
The plan took effect the next day. I went up to people I barely knew, discussed my plan with them, filmed them, and then made them promise to keep this a secret. I kept blushing when they "aw!"-ed at what I was doing, trying to pass it off like it was no big deal. But it wasn't no big deal. It was a deal that would take 1 month, 1 week, and 1 day to complete. I managed to video tape all of his friends and some of his teachers, 24 people in total, in a bit less than a month. Then, I set to work planning out how I wanted the video to go. I once saw someone use PowerPoint to make a slideshow video for one of my classes, so I figured I'd start there. I watched some tutorials and figured out the basics of how to put it together and set to work. In three days time, I got every person on the PowerPoint as well as transitions, title and end screens, and video cues. I put my video last as a way to sum up the project and because I'm a romantic. Sue me.
All that was left to do then were the songs. I put the first song in there, Broken by Bjorn, and hit the play button. The only problem was that the song covered up the video audio. Scrolling through the audio options on PowerPoint, I couldn't find anything I could use to fix the problem. So, I went onto Google to see where that little bit of editing software was. Well, apparently PowerPoint didn't have that feature. It still doesn't, probably. Check if you want. I thought I'd have to get rid of all of the music entirely, but I thought of something before I closed PowerPoint for the day.
I'm a band nerd, just to clarify things. And for all of my audition tapes, I need to edit excerpt recordings together using music editing software. Well, if I could edit audition tapes using that, then why couldn't I do it for the songs? So, I chucked the song into Audacity, got the times I needed the volume to be lower and higher, and edited the song. I put it back into the PowerPoint, feeling triumphant as I hit play...
But it wasn't synchronized.
So, the timing of PowerPoint is unreliable. Alleluia. I quit for the day, feeling bummed out that the video wouldn't be as easy to make as I had planned it to be. Going to bed that night, only one thing was on my mind: getting that stupid song to match up with the PowerPoint.
The next several days, I slaved away at the computer editing and re-editing the song in Audacity. Every time, the timings would be off, like PowerPoint was playing some sort of cruel joke on me. It got to the point where I rage-quit and burst into my father's office, begging for his help. He couldn't help me since he never knew you could make videos on PowerPoint and said that I should abandon the songs all together, so I huffed out of his room quickly afterwards. I was torn between leaving the project for that day and editing it until my eyes bled. I'm pretty sure my mom will remind me in a few months how stressed I was during that time, but I promise, the end result was unimaginably great.
I finally found the solution to the problem after staring at the unopened file for a solid minute: the entire thing was over 800,000 kilobytes. PowerPoint wasn't messing with me, it had too much on one file to properly handle! I think I cried with relief at that point as I went in and transferred half of the video to another file. Putting the audio back in and editing it for a final time, it perfectly matched up about 85% of the times I ran it. Sometimes it would glitch, but I was hoping that when I showed it to Phil, that 15% risk wouldn't show up.
~
Finally, the morning came when I would show Phil his gift. He was coming over to my house in the early afternoon and we'd give each other our gifts before going over to a casual restaurant. I made sure to check and double check that my room and my office were spotless, except for a giant bag in the middle of the floor. In the giant bag was a small box, and in the small box was an even smaller flash drive. And on that flash drive was the project that I've worked the hardest on in my entire life. I sat upstairs on the couch, impatiently tapping my foot as the minutes slowly marched by. My stomach clenched as I heard the familiar sound of the Honda's engine as Phil and his mother pulled into our driveway. Not wanting to seem too excited, I waited until Phil rang the doorbell. As I opened it, I forgot for a moment how to breathe. See, Phil never does his hair or wear nice clothes unless it's a fancy event, and I've only ever seen him do that for concerts and church. But here he was, a smile on his face, his hair neatly combed, and dressed in preppy clothes that I didn't even know he owned.
"Wow," was how I greeted him. I let him in, waiting for the usual parent-to-friend greeting to finish. Forgetting how I wanted to seem cool and totally not overly-excited, I beckoned him downstairs to my office. "Oh! I wonder what that is?" I exaggerated as he laid eyes on his gift. "Should I-do you want me to open it?" he asked.
"Yes!" I practically screamed.
He sat on the ground with his legs tucked neatly under him. I watched as his slender fingers pulled away the tissue paper and dragged the box out of the bag. He looked at me quizzically, to which I pointedly looked at the box in his hands. He opened it, becoming more confused as he pulled out the flash drive. "Is there something on this?" he inquired. "I mean, maybe. Who knows?"
I jumped up and turned on my computer, pulling my office chair out for him to sit in as I got everything set up. I could feel my hands shake as the folder popped up with the two files titled "Dear Phil" inside of it. I double clicked on the first one and pressed play, crossing my fingers and sitting a bit away from him on the ground.
I could easily say I held my breath throughout the entirety of the video, only letting it out a bit once I realized that the audio matched up almost perfectly with the videos. I watched as his eyes began collecting tears as he watched each one of his friends pop up and talk to him. Every once and a while, he would close his eyes, take a deep breath, put his hands to his forehead, and slowly shake his head in disbelief. When it came time to go to the second file, no words were uttered between us as I reached over him to switch it. I sat back down as On Top of the World by Imagine Dragons came on, ebbing and flowing perfectly with each passing video. Finally, the end screen popped up, to which the quote "Adventure is out there." from Up was printed on a picture of stationary paper. The image slowly faded to black along with the audio until there was nothing. No sound. No color.
I sat there, watching him as he stared at the blank screen. He closed his eyes for a final time and took a deep breath before gently rising from the chair. I rose along with him and stood as he walked over to me, stumbling under his weight as he flopped into my arms. He shakily laughed and pulled away after a few seconds, wiping his eyes as he shook his head. "Wow," was all he could say. My face was practically splitting in half from the massive grin I was sporting. I watched as he went back over to the floor where his gift to me laid. He didn't move after he tucked his legs under him, but simply shook his head again and repeated that one word.
"So, you like it?"
"Like it!? Oh my gosh, Dan. Haha... I love it."
I won't go on to describe how I opened his gift and pulled out a necklace with two aspen leaves on the pendant, or how he was the one who put it around my neck, or how we talked away at the restaurant until 10 pm. If you are dying for those stories, I could tell them another time. But me and Phil spent that night together on the balcony of the restaurant, sharing untold stories of our youths and reminiscing on all the times spent together throughout the past 6 years. In the end, our parents came over and told us we had to go, since time had evidently slipped from our grasps. We went back inside and took our last photos together (after our parents urged us to). As his arm slipped around my waist while his mom stood with her phone aimed at us, I smiled a genuine smile at the camera, feeling warm and fuzzy as the moment was captured. We hugged one last time, squeezing each other tightly before going our separate ways.
My parents drove me back home, quietly talking to each other in the front seats as I leaned my head against the window. I should've felt sad, but I didn't. In fact, I probably felt the happiest I had ever been. When I got my first boyfriend, when I got my first academic letter, when I found out I wouldn't be leaving the school I currently attend, nothing gave me as much happiness as what I was feeling then. I played with the aspen leaves on my necklace, smiling as I went over everything that happened in the past 7 hours. I know Phil is leaving for good, but he is going where he'll be happy, the video was a success, and we agreed to Skype each other often. Forget the fact that we aren't dating. I didn't even register that as we drove home. All I focused on was how happy he was when he saw his gift, how he stated that "I never cease to inspire him," and how I truly gave him my love in a video.
Songs:
Broken - Bjorn
Brand New - Ben Rector
On Top of the World - Imagine Dragons
Safe and Sound - Capital Cities