#⊰ ⠀ * ⠀ ♡ ⠀ ⠀ it looks like i'm the queen ⠀ ﹕ ⠀ visage ⠀ ⊱

[woneuntonzz]

what's it like to love ? 𓇢𓆸

anton lee x afab!reader (part 5/5)

• part 1

• part 2

• part 3

• part 4

warnings: cussing!

genre: fluff -`♡´- highschool love

word count: 2.8k words!!

[note!!: hiii i'd just like to quickly say that this is my first post ever and i'm still a bit insecure with my writing, and english is not my first language so bare with me now 🙏 open for any forms of feedback

please do take note that i will take longer to update/respond to anything because of school, thank you!!! ]

[Day 99]

It's been a few weeks since your senior year began, though, the path to take after overcoming highschool is still a little unclear to you. Still, you don't rush yourself. 

“Psychology's quite interesting.” you said as your fingers glided through the array of vinyls.

“You wanna be a therapist?” Anton was at the other side of the tall steel shelf that divided the two of you.

Your fingers stopped on a vinyl of your favorite The Smiths song. You walked over to the record player, just in time when Queen had sung the last lines to Don't Stop Me Now.  Anton crept up behind you and laid his hands on your shoulders.

“That song reminds me of the time when I first fell for you.” he would whisper in your ear.

You turned your head and looked up at him with raised brows. “Really?”

“Yeah. I've liked you since freshman year. I can remember very vividly. I felt so tired from training at the time and kinda hated that I still had to go to school the next morning. I was sleeping in the classroom during lunch time, and, like, I had my head down and couldn't see anything, then I suddenly heard you singing 'There's a light, and it never goes out'.” Anton sang the last part right into your ear.

When the record started to play the song, you turned around to face him.

“How'd you know it was me if you couldn't see?” you posed him a question followed by a low chuckle.

“That's the thing. I wanted to know who it was so bad, but I didn't know how. I'm still a total loser at the end of the day.” His words got you shaking your head at a mild pace, laughing. “I guess it took me about 3 weeks to figure it out. You would always sing it randomly. At some point I thought you were doing it on purpose to get to me.”

Disbelief was displayed on your face as you looked at him. “Wow, I can't— why would I even try to 'get to you' when you never even talked to me unless you really needed to.”

“Yeah, yeah, I know. It's just that —well, I just thought you were like the other girls back then that snuck love letters underneath my desk and stuff.” your smile grew to a cackle that infected him.

The sweet sound of your harmonious laughter and the music marked another halcyon for the two of you to look back on.

“Okay 'Mr. Chick-magnet'.” you joked as you hugged his waist and buried your face in his chest.

As a response, he wraps an arm around your body, and the other would reach behind your head, caressing your hair as the two of you slowly and subtly swayed to the music. 

You two have been together for almost 3 months now. Not much has changed since then other than being more open and touchy with each other and no longer caring if people gave you piercing looks for being so enamored towards each other.

The record store would end up being a hotspot for you two —though, it would only be when you weren't able to go to your grandfather's flower fields. The record store owner grew fond of seeing you and Anton lost in each other's visage, and the music. He saw the way you would stare into each other's eyes and wondered what kind of film played in them to cause so much immersion from the two of you. 

“I thought it was easy to play the cello.” you mumbled against his chest.

“Yeah. It is, you just don't know how.” you giggled at his light-hearted retort.

You looked up at him with gleaming eyes.

“Am I a bad teacher?” he asked softly.

“No, not at all. I guess I'm just really distracted.” a chuckle escapes his mouth by the end of your answer.

“Distracted by what?” he prodded at you with his words, and his eyes as he pressed his forehead against yours.

You grin knowing both you and him already know the answer to that.

“By you.”

He took you to his house after another one of his swimming matches. Well, it was actually his mom who had asked you to come to their home for dinner and drove you along. Anton wordlessly thanked his mom for inviting you over, he wanted to do so himself, but he got scared you would decline. 

After dinner, he took you to his room and there you finally saw the cello that would always be in the background when you two facetimed, that he sometimes would play to you through call. He played you your favorite ballad and asked you to sing to it. His mind would adrift from the walls of his room and would follow the mist of your dulcet voice. You loved the way he closed his eyes as he played, and how he'd slowly flutter his eyes open to meet yours. His sobriety shattered as he got drunk in your grace and how your head would tilt to peek in his reverie, and it almost slipped out of his mouth —I love you, but something held him back.

After a while, he would go on to teach you. He'd position himself behind you, and guide your hands with his own. His hands would linger on your skin which made you unable to follow his directions or comprehend anything he said clearly.

After everything that went down, he truly never wanted to let go of your hand as you stepped into the gate of your own home. His smile urged you to drag him along with you, but you resisted, and gave him a quick peck on his cheek before saying goodbye.

“You know when you'd always lecture me on the lessons I can't understand?” 

You and Anton were now seated on the little sofa in the store, you laid your head on his shoulder as he played with your hands.

“Hmm~ what about it?” you asked him back.

“At some point I constantly lied about not getting it so you can teach me over and over again.” he says, almost in a laugh, laying his head against yours.

“Are you saying that because I jokingly called you stupid one time…” you felt him frantically shake his head.

“No! I'm being for real.” he laughed.

“Yeah, okay…” you kept your wary tone from which he dragged your hand near his mouth and bit it lightly. “What are you doing?” 

You two were giggling against each other. It was only with each other that you reached true serenity. You were lucky to have the record store all to yourselves. It would always be empty —at least at the times you'd visit— as if it was being reserved for the two of you. 

————— ୨୧ —————

You sat on your desk, typing out an essay given by your English teacher as an assignment to be submitted the next day. You hopped on a call with your friends who were given the same assignment.

“Our essay topic is just 'memories', she just gave us that word, said nothing else about it and left!” Yuna grumbled.

“Tell me about it. Anyways, what topic was given to your class Y/n?” Liz asked.

“Love. Just love.” you replied, continuously typing on your laptop.

“Dang. That's kinda easy.” you couldn't help but grin at the slight frustration in Liz's voice.

“'Memories' is not that bad. You're both school journalists, you can do it!” you gave them words of encouragement in hopes that they'd start to restlessly type too.

“Okay, okay. Game mode on.” 

You couldn't stop your lips from forming a smile as you read through what you had already typed. The only reason this was easy for you was because of the given topic. It gave you the opportunity to give an answer to the life-long question you've had in your head. 

“Finally finished! I feel so tired. I'm gonna head out first, I might bang my head against my desk if I don't go to sleep, bye lovies! See you tomorrow!” Danielle yawned before leaving the call.

“Me too guys hehe.” Yuna spoke. 

“Y/n? you're still not done?” Xen asked.

“Yep. Just doing revisions. I'll be done in a few minutes.” you were in fact not done, not doing revisions just yet, you just had a lot to say.

“Well, let's end the call and get some sleep. Go to sleep as soon as you finish, yeah?” you looked over to your phone screen and gave Xen a dozy nod. “Okay, bye babes!”

“Bye-bye!”

“See y'all tomorrow!”

You turned your attention back to your essay, deep in thought. An idea suddenly crossed your mind. You would finish your essay, but would end up sleeping way later as your head ran with thoughts about tomorrow.

————— ୨୧ —————

[Day 100]

You woke up to your mom assisting you to the kitchen to eat breakfast. Your temperature spiked up and you felt light-headed the whole time. It was still early in the morning, but you were already receiving sought messages from your friends, including Anton. 

You chuckled before getting up from where you sat. You realized it would take you all the strength you had to get to your room to retrieve your laptop, still, you persisted and was back in the kitchen with your laptop within minutes. You hurriedly sent him the file, but then you remembered. You had intended to give it to him after it had been graded by your teacher —as a love letter. It sounds cheesy, but there's more to that. It contains your genuine thoughts and feelings, the big and the small that you languished over, and most importantly, it contains the words both you and him have yet to utter. 

It was really only recently when you'd find yourself thinking about it. Maybe it's too early —was enough to shut down your thoughts. It had only been 2 months, but you happily embraced his affection, his words, his voice, his touch, every moment with him felt enchanting to you. You were certain he felt the same and he would often express it with his eyes and the placement of his hands and indirectly if he was being vocal. The shared passion for one another was undeniable, and it only seems to be growing more and more as time goes by that even after the first heated argument you've had with him a while back, you two were able to recover and came out better than ever. 

“Eat well hun'. It's better if you lay for the rest of the day.” your mom went over to you to caress your hair.

She had decided to call in sick for work to take care of you today, and you couldn't be more thankful.

You did what your mom advised you to and the whole day, you laid on your bed as you listened to the playlist Anton put together for you for your first monthsary to help you sleep or relax yourself. 

————— ୨୧ —————

When you woke up, the sun was already setting. You weren't feeling any better from when you had fallen asleep which frustrated you a bit. You stood up and stayed there for a little bit, feeling dizzy. You suddenly heard a knock at your door. You weren't sure if it was your hazy mind making up the sounds or if it was real, but you still took weak steps to the door to answer it.

“Tonii?” you were engulfed in Anton's arms the moment you opened the door. “Why are you here?”

Anton didn't speak and led you back to your bed. 

He had that look in his eyes again. It was the same eyes you saw that night at the flower fields. 

“I love you too.”

Your heart was throbbing loudly and it was the only thing you could hear right after Anton's voice faded into your soul. 

He didn't wait for you to respond as he knew you were feeling too weak to continuously speak, and so he cupped your cheek with his hand, while the other held your hand as he leaned in for his lips to slowly collide with yours.

✦ . 　⁺ 　 . ✦ . 　⁺ 　 . ✦

It was Anton's first time going into the student council office without you. He stood by the printer quietly trying to brush off the student council officers eyeing him as if he was eating up all the printing paper. He immediately rushed out once he got your essay printed. 

He still couldn't believe the length of your essay as it was three pages long, even then, he was intrigued and wanted to read what you had put that made it so lengthy. 

He decided to stay back in the classroom a little longer when lunch came around. He sat on his seat with his back against the wall next to him and started to read. 

What's it like to love? an atypical query to have as a child, as you would think most in the age of innocence could only make time and thought for leisure and the attainment of joy, but young minds are always curious. The very first time I caught a glimpse of love was in the form of a field of flowers…

Anton was hooked and mesmerized with your potency.

…It was from it that I realized that if you truly loved, any ounce of pain, blood, or sweat will be overlooked. I failed to completely understand it back then, throughout my years of adolescence, I've had my fair share of misfortunes when it came to love. I was easily convinced that what I was feeling during those times were love despite the lack of sincerity from those who had taken my heart for granted. It took some time to accept that being 'young and stupid' is not just a phrase being thrown around as an excuse, but it's an indication of vulnerability. I had my time to heal and embarked on a journey to self-betterment, and I thought maybe love is waiting for me at some other point in my life, and this thought would later be contradicted…

Anton flipped over to the next page with a vivid mind.

…I am admittedly afraid of what the future holds. This man that had me smitten was one I never even acknowledged fully until much later. I had no idea what took so long for me to see him when he's been around since I've begun recklessly handing my heart out to others. To think back, if I had handed him my heart back then, maybe I would've been spared from all the tears I have shed because I know he would hold it dearly, close to his own…

…feelings I have never felt before, that I never even knew of, are now all I yearn for when the sky's painted black. It was with him that I understood what it was truly like to be appreciated, to be loved with no conditions. It's a pain to think that it could all disappear with a blink of an eye, but when he holds me close and looks into my eyes, I am assured. What's it like to love? to love, is him. It is he, my love, my one and only. I had liked you for 100 days, and today I declare, I love you, Anton Lee.

Your words plunged deep into his heart. Seeing his name after those words made him feel dazed, warm and just so, so in love. He wanted to see you, to feel you. He looked over to your empty desk and could see the specter of your smile against the light of the sun.

It had seemed as though you had written him a love letter with not much intention of receiving a high mark for your sleepless effort. But even if this task was not assigned, you would still plan on expressing everything you had written to him directly, for the 100th day. 

✦ . 　⁺ 　 . ✦ . 　⁺ 　 . ✦

You pushed Anton away gently, and very weakly so. You weren't able to actually make him back away, but he got the message and pulled back. 

“You're gonna get sick too.” you faintly voiced out your worry. 

Anton bit his lip and proceeded to make the heat in your body rise even more as he smiled. He gently pulled you closer to him, laying your head on his chest and wrapping you with his warm embrace.

“I love you so much.” he uttered under his breath, burying his face in your hair.

You just remained quiet, and snuggled even closer to him. Your arms would lazily make their way around his neck, and you would look up and express your love with your lips once more.

Anton went home with a sanguine tint on his cheeks, feeling so warm and fuzzy inside. Let's just say the warmth would become more literal than figurative, and you would definitely be the one to visit him the next day.

Fin.

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