A/N: I might not update next week because I have a shitload to study and a fuckload of piano to practice and this story takes a lot of my time and mental energy[not that I don't enjoy every living second of it because I do]. That's why I'm giving you this chapter a bit earlier, as an apology. Sorry, again.

P.S. I'm sorry because of its length, I promise the next ones will be longer.

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The next morning I woke up with a pounding headache. I didn't know what caused it or why, but I believed the position I woke up in – the same one I slept in the whole past night wasn’t exactly flattering for my… well, anything.
I stood up and stretched my neck using my hands. It cracked three times, leaving me satisfied and moving onto my fingers. I cracked them as well, the pinches of pleasure spreading around the cracked knuckles. I sighed loudly before I rubbed my face and walked into the hallway. I entered the bathroom and splashed cold water against my cheeks, snapping my eyes slightly more open. I brushed my teeth as well, rolling my eyes when I remembered it was Sunday. I had no idea what I’d be doing the entire day and the thought annoyed me.

Knowing I had nothing to do made me realize I would have to spend my time thinking, and that wasn’t something I wanted to do. I exited the bathroom when I was done with everything to reach the kitchen in hope Mikey already made coffee. I was greeted with his presence sitting at the table, his head in some book.

“Morning.” I heard his voice behind me while I was pouring coffee.

“Hey,” I greeted him with a smile when I turned around. I took a large sip from my mug, immediately soothing my already worked up nerves. Coffee was definitely my drug.

“Any plans for today?” I asked him after a few more moments of silence.

“Actually, yeah. I’m going to out for lunch with Melissa.”

“Okay, I can order takeout then.”

“Sorry,” he looked at me apologetically. “We’ll have lunch together tomorrow.”

“Don’t worry.” I gulped, running a hand through my hair.

“Seriously, though. We don’t hang out as much as we used to anymore.”

“You know I’m not exactly the hanging out type of person,” I grinned. “Besides, you have to spend time with your girlfriend. Not your cranky-ass older brother.”

“I guess,” he sniffed, the habit the both of us had. “I still think we should spend more time together.”

“We’ll work on that.” I didn’t exactly believe my words because we had those conversations every month, but I kept my mouth shut when it came to that. I didn’t like fighting with him.

The rest of the morning went by dully and mundane before I saw Mikey about to leave the apartment around 2pm. He waved as a goodbye and closed the front door, leaving me alone with my third cup of coffee that morning, Milo in my lap and my thoughts rambling around my head pointlessly.

I completely forgot about ordering food or takeout and I spent the afternoon sitting on the couch, simply drowning in memories and regrets.

I almost already fell asleep when the front door slammed shut. I jumped in startle and instinctively got up in a sitting position.

“You were sleeping?” Mikey’s voice sounded from the living room door frame.

“Daydreaming,” I coughed. “What’s the time, even?”

“Around nine,” he said, kicking his shoes off.

“I feel tired,” I yawned and stretched out my arms, feeling the familiar cracking.

“You should get to bed, then.” He turned the light on. I looked at him before standing up, more out of habit than anything else. Mikey was always taller and thinner than me, things I envied him despite the fact he was my little brother. His hair color was the same as mine naturally was, neutral light brown. He had our mother’s dark eyes and a creamy, porcelain skin tone, unlike the pale, green eyed me who inherited most of my features from our father.
I sighed again, lightening the familiar weight lying on my chest just a bit.

“Gerard?” His voice sounded a bit worried.

“Yeah?” I was a bit distracted, but still there.

“Is everything okay?” He looked at me curiously.

“Yeah,” I smiled as genuinely as I could before I walked through the narrow hallway and into my room.

I sprawled onto my bed, not even bothering to change since I’d spent the entire day in my pajamas. I rolled over to my side, my head pounding and finally finding peace at some point when I blacked out.

*

I woke up due to my alarm clock beeping and I let out a groan of annoyance. It was Monday, everyone's most beloved day of the week.

I stood up and cracked my bones fiercely before leaving my room and heading down the hall to take a shower. I stood under the hot spray for at least a half an hour, trying to wake myself up at least a bit after an unpleasant night.

I’d dreamed badly, I knew that, I just couldn’t seem to remember what the dream was about. I recalled waking up in the middle of the night, though, drenched in sweat, just to roll over to the side and fall asleep again, the exhaustion of all the squirming, tossing and turning letting me pass out. I rubbed my eyes with the water again before exiting the shower, the steam clearing out my lungs.
I left the bathroom with a towel around my waist, ruffling my own wet hair as I was pacing down the hallway again to grab some clothes in my room.

“Morning,” I saw Mikey coming out of his room.

“Someone’s up early,” I raised my eyebrows.

“Yeah, I have class at eight,” he yawned. I pushed the door of my room open just before I heard him calling my name.

“Yeah?”

“Have you lost weight lately?”

“I don’t think so,” I shot a glance at my stomach, which was mostly flat, apart the small extra skin I had in the lower part, along with a few stretch marks over my hipbones. Losing and gaining a lot of weight in short periods of time left trace on my body. Although, nothing looked significantly different to me now.

“You just seem skinnier,” he blinked twice then shrugged his shoulders. “Never mind.”

I said nothing more, I just continued into my room and put some clothes on.
I sighed and left the room, walking barefoot into the kitchen.

“Have you made coffee?” He was sitting at the table, rubbing his face with his available hand. The other one was holding a mug, supposedly containing the liquid I needed fiercely at the moment.

“Yeah, there’s your mug, I made instant.” He motioned his head at the red mug on the counter and I grabbed it, taking a large sip and closing my eyes.
After a few large ones I was already done, the coffee buzz kicking in, causing me to sigh in satisfaction.

“I think you should get going.” He pointed his finger at the clock which read twelve to eight.

“Shit,” I muttered and ran into my room, putting on a pair of socks and some sneakers afterwards.

“Bye,” I yelled to him before I shoved my phone and keys into the back pocket of my jeans. I hurried to the record store, pacing on the sidewalk fiercely hiding from the morning sun.

“Fuck!” I hissed when I felt something fall on my shoulder, creating a yucky stain. “Gross.” I frowned in disgust.
I opened the store door still groaning.

“I’m so sorry I’m late, I slept badly and now this bird took a shit on me and, well, shit.” I sighed and rubbed my eyes. I looked at Katie who was giggling, much to my annoyance.

“It’s okay, Way, it’s only 5 minutes. You need tissues?” She grinned and I rolled my eyes.

“I could use some, yeah.”

She motioned her head at the tissue pack on the counter behind her. I walked over to it and grabbed a few, cleaning the bird poop off my t-shirt. It wasn’t much, but the stain would still remain visible until I washed the cloth. I sighed and threw the dirty tissues into the trashcan under the counter.

“They say it’s good luck.” Katie smirked.

“What?”

“When a dove takes shit on you,” she laughed. I rolled my eyes again.

“How do you know it was a dove? I didn’t even see it.”

“Doves are the only birds around here. And besides, dove shit looks like that.”

“Oh, now you’re an expert in bird poop. You shouldn’t be working in a record store, you should use your talent,” I added sarcastically. She snorted accidentally and punched my arm playfully.

“Shut up.”

I grinned and went at the back row of the CD-s, re-stacking the piles in the right order. I had fun with that for a few hours, before Katie called me for brunch break. The brunch break wasn’t exactly a brunch break since neither of us ate during those 10 minutes, she’d usually drink a soda and I’d have coffee.

“You live on that stuff, dude.” She said a few seconds after I shoved my milk mug into the small microwave we had at the staff room.

“It’s healthy.”

“No it’s not, dude.”

“Well, neither is Sprite, dude.”

She rolled her eyes. “You can’t get addicted to Sprite.”

“You can get addicted to everything,” I pointed out. She just sighed in defeat and I allowed a victorious smirk cross my lips. I loved winning our little discussions. I got the milk out of the microwave when it beeped and made coffee like I usually do.
I had a few small sips, satisfaction starting to spread around my body.

I noticed Katie was staring at me. “You’re a real weirdo.”
I raised my eyebrows as a question.

“You should get yourself a girlfriend, really.”

“Not my thing.” I looked into my mug before taking another sip.

Katie smirked in confusion. “Loner?”

“Not really,” I lied. Not entirely, though, because that wasn’t the main reason I didn’t have a girlfriend.

“Then what?” She grinned. I just had another sip saying nothing and her eyes shined in realization. “Oh.”
I raised my eyebrow as a question.

“Gay?”

I gulped loudly, leaving the question unanswered.

She started giggling. “Can’t say I’m surprised.”

“How come?” I felt slightly relieved. Katie didn’t seem like someone who would judge other people regarding their sexuality, and I wasn’t ashamed of mine, but there was always that pinch of doubt that made me think I’d be judged.

“I don’t know. I guess it’s just hard picturing you with a girl.”

“So you picture me with a dude?” I raised both of my eyebrows, a smirk forming on my face.

“No!” She started laughing. “I just don’t know, okay?”

“Okay,” I sipped the last of my coffee and turned to her again. “I think we should get back to work.”

“Yeah.”

She tossed her Sprite can into the trash bin and we left the staff room. It was getting quite hot outside, considering it was… summer? The door of the store opened soon, and two figures walked inside. One of them rather cheerfully waved at me and I nodded, while the other mumbled something like a ‘hello’ and followed the other. The first one was a girl in her teenage years, a blonde fringe falling over her eyes and her body covered in all black clothing. The second one was a woman, probably her mother, possibly in her late thirties, wearing a frown on her face.
The girl soon came back with a CD in her hand and she put it on the counter. Her mother sighed when she saw the cover art and that intrigued me to glance at the CD as well.

“Nice choice. ‘Pretty Odd’ is definitely their best album,” I smiled at the girl while taking the dollar bills her mother offered, still frowning and sighing.

The girl blushed and nodded. “My brother insisted on getting it for me.”

“I don’t see him here,” I noticed, hoping she wouldn’t take my comment as an offense.

“He couldn’t come, but it’s his money.” She smirked, but I noticed just a pinch of sadness in her eyes. She looked like she wasn’t really satisfied with the lack of her brother’s presence in this moment.

I didn’t really blame her, I knew what excitement it was when I would get a new CD as a kid, and I always wondered how beautiful it would be to share it with someone.

“You both have a good music taste, though,” I noticed again and tried to smile at her encouragingly as I handed her the bag I put the CD in.

“Next time I’ll bring him here,” she promised and smirked shyly again before closing the door.

I sighed and rubbed my face with my hand. I kind of hoped that girl wouldn’t get shit from her mother because of the conversation we'd had, nor because of the CD she'd chosen to buy.

“Come on, Way, two more hours, you can do it.” Katie entered the front.

“I guess I can,” I sighed and went at the back of the shelves to re-stack some oldies, my mind drifting around the past few days and landing on Frank. I really wanted to figure him out. Somehow.

Notes