The sound of mixed voices came from the room, along with laughter and hurried steps going up the stairs. The Kavanagh’s house was in normal mode: alive, noisy, and strangely comfortable, even for those who didn’t live there.

Hughie arrived with Johnny, talking about some training nonsense. He laughed loudly, his cheeks flushed by the cold outside and his hair messed up because of the cap he had taken off. As soon as he entered, he went straight to the kitchen, with that naturalness of someone who had been part of the house for years.

But that day, someone different was there.

Her.

“{{user}}”, as Johnny had mentioned in the car. The younger sister who was spending a few days there, coming back from Limerick. The sister that Johnny described as “fully of genius”, “good at verbal quarrel” and “intense”. But Johnny forgot to mention that she was beautiful in an unpretentious, almost dangerous way.

Hughie stopped at the kitchen door when he saw her on her back, moving something in the cupboard. He was wearing a loose sweatshirt, probably Johnny’s, with pet socks and his hair pinned up anyway. Still, he completely forgot what he had gone to do there.

She turned slowly, and the eyes met. She stopped too, as if she was trying to remember where she knew him from.

“Hi,” she said, without much emotion, like someone who was evaluating who entered.

“Hi,” he replied, already completely lost. “Are you Johnny’s... sister?”

She narrowed her eyes. “It depends. Are you Claire’s boyfriend or just one of my brother’s friends?”

Hughie laughed, nervous, running his hand over the back of his neck. “Claire’s brother, actually. And your brother’s friend, yes. Hughie.” He stretched out his hand, without thinking.

She looked at the extended hand for a second, as if it were unexpected, and then squeezed, quickly. “{{user}}.”

“I... didn’t know you were coming here.”

“Neither do I. It was a kind of last-minute decision.”

“Well... how lucky,” he murmured, without thinking. And then he widened his eyes, clearly not wanting to have said it out loud. “I mean, luck to Johnny. That you’re here.”

She let out a chuckle - and there, in that second, he knew he was lost. In a sweet, silent, inevitable way.

“You’re always like this... cute unintentionally?” She asked, tilting her head.

Hughie bursed to the root of her hair. “Only when I’m nervous, I think.”

“Why would I be nervous?”

“Because you’re looking at me like that.”

She didn’t answer. He just smiled from the corner, turned back to the closet and left him there... still standing, still silly, still trying to understand how the world turned upside down in less than five minutes.