#olnf week day 5

[aoi1dee]

OLNF Week Day 5: Comfort

@olnfweek2024 a short fic is below....

He just can’t handle it any more. Looking at himself in the mirror hurts. It feels like every time he looks, he finds a new thing to hate about himself. His acne seems to be getting worse as time goes on, his stupid fucking hair wont cooperate, the way he stands is off, his facial structure is uneven, every. single. thing. He hates himself. And no matter how many people can tell him that he’s perfect the way he is, he’ll never believe it. He believes that they’re just lying to make him feel better. 

He pulls at his yellow hoodie and opens the bathroom door to head downstairs once he believes that he is ready. Alex doesn’t want to go to school today but when does he ever. But today feels worse, especially since he woke up this morning hating himself more than usual. Ma had already left for work before he had even finished getting dressed so he couldn’t talk to her about this. Whenever he has days like this, talking to his Ma always helps him feel a little better. But the house was more empty than usual when he made it down with his bag. There was no reason to stay any longer, he walks out of the house and locks the door behind him.

When he turns around, he sees someone he doesn’t see often in the morning. 

Qiu closes the door behind them, they take a quick glance at Alex but looks back towards their house. Are they ignoring him? Alex twists his lips up into a smile and begins to walk towards Qiu, “Hey.” he greets as he holds the straps on his bag, “You heading to school?” Alex doesn’t want to bother Qiu with his issues but trying to act like his usual self is so much harder today, everything is so difficult. 

But knowing Qiu, they read his mind easily, “What’s wrong?” They look at him straight in the eyes.

At this point, it doesn’t shock Alex, “I’m alright, just tired.” He responds, “Do you wanna walk to school together?” They squint their eyes holding the stare just a little longer. Alex begins to sweat a little.

“...Sure.” They finally answer looking towards the road. Without notice, they begin walking off. Alex didn’t even realize it but when he does they’re already a foot away.

“Wait!!” He runs after them and slows down when he makes it to them, “Is something wrong? You don’t have to walk with me if you don’t want to…” He’s really hoping that they want to… he doesn’t know if he can handle it if he forced Qiu to walk with him. What if they wanted to walk by themself?

They stop to look at Alex straight in the eyes again, “Sorry, I do want to walk with you.” Their eyes lead down to his hoodie. He started pulling at the hoodie again, was there something wrong with it? Was there a stain? Did he look weird? Oh god he probably dropped something on his shirt when he was making himself lunch! That's probably why they were staring. But they would’ve said something by now… they don’t usually keep those things to themself. After staring for what felt like forever, they begin walking again, Alex follows.

They finally made it to school. The entire walk was filled with an extremely awkward silence. Usually when they walk together, Alex talks about random things and Qiu listens. But Alex couldn’t find his wording today so he’s glad that that walk to school was over… 

Before Alex could even say goodbye to head to class, Qiu grabs his hand, “Do you want to hang out after school?” What. Did they seriously just ASK Alex THEMSELF if he wanted to hang out with them??? They never do that anymore!! Wait a minute, they should have ballet today too… Why are they asking him when they obviously have stuff to do?

“But don’t you have ballet practice?” 

“Screw ballet.” They spit out, “So do you want to hang out?” Well that was obvious, they haven’t been the biggest fan of it recently. But why do they want to hang out? After such an awkward walk to school?

“Sure!” Alex grins, “I’m sure my Ma wouldn’t mind.” 

“Does she ever?” Qiu grins back and slides their hand out of his hand when they begin walking to class, “See you later.”

“See you!” The further they walk away the more Alex’s frown becomes more apparent. His feet stay in place though. 

He doesn’t want to go to class. But he doesn’t want to skip…. So why isn’t he moving? He needs to go. Class starts in 1 minute. It's going to take longer than a minute to make it to class. He doesn’t want to go but he needs to. It’s too late already. He’s already late. The bell hasn’t rung and he’s already late. Was there even a point of going to class? He won’t be able to focus anyways. But if he doesn’t go to class he’ll get in trouble. Why wasn’t he walking? What's wrong with him? He needs to go. He needs to-

The bell rings. And his world crashes. 

He can’t take it anymore. His vision starts to blur as the bell continues ringing. Everything swirls together. Sweat starts dripping down his face, his breathing got harder as his mind filled with every single possibility. His body feels heavier as he starts taking steps to the restroom he needs to hide. Is he going to pass out? His Ma would be so disappointed in him. He shouldn’t be doing this. His Ma has much more important things to be doing. Everything seems so loud. Everything hurts. His head hurts, His footsteps, his breathing. Every touch feels like a hit. He opens the bathroom stall and everything fades away.

-----

The bell rings once again. Alex rests his head on his knees, his red earmuffs muffling the sounds of the halls as students share about their day. The school day had ended. It went by faster than he thought it would. He didn’t go to class, he probably passed out from stress that's why the day went by. He doesn’t want to leave. The entire world is looking for him right now.

Knock Knock. Alex hugs himself closer as he looks down at the shoes beyond the door. Those are Qiu’s.

“Alex? Are you in there?” They knock again. He doesn’t want to answer, but it’s Qiu. He promised them that they would hang out.  

Alex uncurls himself from the seat and opens the door, “Hi” 

Qiu frowns immediately, “Seriously, what's wrong? Your Ma got a call from the school saying that you were missing from your classes. Tam and I have been searching for you everywhere…” 

Tears fell down Alex’s face after holding back for so long, “I’m sorry… I-” he stops for a second, “I didn’t mean to worry you guys… I’m okay.”

“No you’re not.” Qiu grabs onto his hands the same way they did this morning, “Stop acting like your problems are a burden to everyone. I tell you my problems… you can tell me yours.” They squeeze his hands, “Let's go home okay?”

“...Okay.”

Alex’s Ma drives Qiu, Tam, and him back to their houses. Raindrops strike the window covering the view of the neighborhood complimenting Alex’s day. Really shitty. He sits in the middle between his neighbors. They’re both holding his hands. No one was saying anything, the only thing keeping the 4 of them from complete silence was the music playing from the car radio. They make it back to the cul-de-sac and walk into the Morello household. 

“I’m going to cook something up.” His Ma tells the three of them, smiling slightly, “You guys can go upstairs and hang out for a bit.” Immediately the three of them make their way to Alex’s bedroom. Tamarack pushes the door open and they all drop down onto the bed.

Alex holds his face into his hands and sobs, unable to hold the blank stare he has held the entire ride. Qiu wraps their arm around his shoulder and Tam leans against him. The rain continues to hit the window behind them. 

“Alex… what's going on?” Tam sniffles, “You shouldn’t have to be afraid to tell us anything you know?” Tears start rolling down her cheeks, “We care about you just as much as you care about us…” Qiu leans their head against Alex with tears at the corners of their eyes. 

Alex removes his hands from his face and.. everything spills. Every single thought that went through his mind, all of the terrible things that he has been telling himself, everything. Even stuff that wasn’t bothering him today. Why he didn’t go to classes. 

And they listened. They’ve always listened. 

They comforted him. 

(.... this would’ve been so much more if i didn’t say these were supposed to be short fics. Help me)

[dreamtydraw]

and here we are day 5 of the olnf week by @olnfweek2024 !!

Today's theme : Comfort

I think nowhere on earth comfort can be felt more than in the embrace of a loving mother, Opale probably gives the best hugs...

[hadraws-11]

(Late) OLNF Week day 5. Comfort 🫂💖

So uh- i changed the way i render 🧍‍♀️ BUT ANYWAYS- regarding the drawing; they love each other but they're not together… yet.

[Twitter(X)] [Instagram] [BlueSky]

[Our Life: Now & Forever Week 2024 made by: @goldengroovy]

[luv-indigo]

OLNF Week Day 5: Sci-fi

this was heavily inspired by those alien cat memes. in this au, i like to think nadine and cheyomi would be siblings. they were hatched from an egg or something. incubator buddies?? :3c

wyd if two aliens pull up to golden grove in a space shuttle?? @olnfweek2024

these two are on their first mission on earth to conduct research on the local environment. they’re not supposed to interact with the humans but they’re just so fascinating. they can’t help it if they watch the locals from afar (especially two particularly interesting individuals) and are incidentally spotted…. oops.

nadine and cheyomi panic at first thinking they blew their mission but to their surprise, the two humans approach them. they declare a new side mission! observe (befriend) the two humans!

[aoi1dee]

OLNF Week Day 4: Stargazing

@olnfweek2024 a short fic is below...

Alexander didn’t know how late it was nor did he care. He is currently rummaging through the closet near the kitchen hoping that he could find the perfect blanket to lay down on without feeling the blades of grass underneath him. He didn’t want to feel uncomfortable tonight. His main focus tonight should be the gorgeous sky. 

Alex would never miss an opportunity like this. Ever since he moved here, he has noticed that Golden Grove has the best nighttime sky he has ever seen and luckily his backyard has an open space with no trees so it gives him the perfect view. He loves stargazing, whether it’s by himself, with his friends, or with his Ma. Just imagining what the world was like from beyond what he knew fascinated him. Tonight was the perfect night as well! No clouds, no rain, not too hot, not too cold, absolutely stunning. 

The only issue was, Alex had to get up super early for school tomorrow. Seriously, who thought it was a good idea to make high schoolers get up at 5 in the morning for school?! It is crazy to him that some people even get up earlier than 5… 

When he finally sees the blanket that he’s been dreaming of, he grabs the ends and begins to pull. It wasn’t budging. He would love to just continue to fight against it until it gave up, but then everything else in the closet which was holding it down will fall onto the ground and make tons of noise. He didn’t want to wake his Ma up… she also had stuff to do tomorrow. Plus she would force him to go back to bed if she saw him grabbing stuff to go outside at 11 at night. So instead of just tugging and pulling, he grabs some of the stuff on top of the blanket and pushes it out of the way while his other hand continues to pull at the blanket. And after about a minute of adjusting, moving everything around, and praying that nothing would fall, the blanket was finally in his arms and ready to be laid upon. 

A grin finds Alex’s face as he walks out the back door with the blanket in hand. He moves past some branches and finally makes it to the treeless paradise for stargazing. Alexander begins to unfold the blanket until his phone buzzes. 

A little voice in his brain was praying that it wasn’t his Ma telling him to come back inside and go to bed. He quickly lays the blanket out on the golden grass, sits on it, and pulls out his phone to read the notification…

Tamarack 11:12pm - I saw you out my window, what are you doing? 

Oh, it was Tamarack! He couldn’t help but giggle as he lays fully down onto the blanket,

Alex 11:13pm - The sky is super pretty tonight ima watch it!

Alex 11:13pm - Do you wanna join me? 

He wasn’t expecting her to, I mean it was late at night and they had school tomorrow! Plus it might not be cold for him, but it could be cold for her. 

Tamarack 11:14pm - Yes. I’ll be out in a second.

Seriously? Alex is surprised that Ms. Tamarack Baumann wants to go outside late without her Omi and Opa knowing. If this was 3 years ago, she’d be having a heart attack. But that made him think, should he invite Qiu as well? Is that even a question? He closes Tamarack’s contact and opens up Qiu’s which was right under hers. 

Alex 11:15pm - I’m in my backyard watching the sky do u wanna join me?

Before he could even start waiting for them to respond, someone plops down next to him. 

“Hi Alex.” Tamarack says as she lays her sparkly hair all around her. Her arm snakes around his as she cuddles up next to him, “I should’ve assumed that you’d be stargazing when I saw you walking out.” She chuckles. Them snuggling has become a normal thing ever since they admitted that they had feelings for each other about a year ago but it still doesn’t fail to make Alex feel all warm inside. 

“I couldn’t resist…” he places his phone on his chest and looks up at the night sky. Her hair sparkles beside him just like the stars that he adores. Which fits because Alexander adores her as well. 

“Did you invite Qiu?” She asks while looking at his phone. 

“Ah- I texted them. I don’t think I have gotten a response though” They were probably sleeping by now, it’s completely understandable. Qiu needs their beauty sleep. 

Suddenly, something slaps him in the face. He moves his hands around to find the source of the impact. When he removes the item it's a… chip bag? “Hey.” They smirk from above, “Thought we could use snacks.” They scoot into the other side of Alex and sneaks their arm underneath his back while leaning their head against his. Snuggling is also usual for them too because they had also admitted their feelings for each other. They know that he likes them both and they both know that they like him. They aren’t dating though… Qiu and Tam had explained to him that they wanted to work a couple things out before it became official. Alex had also explained to them that he could wait eternities for them so they could take as much time as they needed. He still doesn’t know why they both squeezed him until he couldn’t breath right after he said that though.

Tamarack grabs the chips from Alex’s hand and begins to open them, “Thanks!” She begins munching on them with a pleased smile on her face, “Ah-” She shoots up quickly and looks down at Qiu. 

They look back at her looking more confused than ever but it hits them, “Oh! I’m not wearing nail polish.” 

Alex sits slightly up and looks at them, “Is that on purpose?” What Qiu prefers to go by at any moment is extremely important, he doesn’t want to mess it up and make them uncomfortable. 

“Yes sir.” He twiddles his nails in front of both of their faces, “he/him pleaseeee” Alex laughs in response as Tamarack lays back down, smiling wider than before.

Tamarack places the bag onto Alex’s chest once again so all three of them could reach for it. She goes back snuggling up against him the way she did before. All of them look towards the sky which twinkles brightly through the dark sky. Different shades of cyan hide behind said stars giving a bit of definition and purpose to the night. That's what Alex really loves about this town. In any other city he’s lived in before, the sky always looked the same. But here, it's magnificent. And he is absolutely going to blame his two neighbors for making everything here so beautiful. It’s like they make Alex’s life more wonderful by just cuddling up next to him.

Even though it’s a school night and tonight is going to end much earlier than he wants because of that, he still wouldn’t want anything different than to be with the two loves of his life watching the sky above. Alexander hoped that he could stay with them like this for the rest of their lives.

(this one is a little short my apologies)