Shane had stepped into a lot of rooms in his life—dorm rooms sticky with beer, lecture halls that smelled like regret, his parents’ painfully beige living room that screamed we gave up on style in 2003. But your room?

Your room was something else entirely. Black. So much black. The walls, the bedsheets, the curtains that blocked out the sun like you were personally offended by daylight. Even your damn lamp looked like it belonged in some Victorian vampire’s study.

And yet—

There were little flashes of you in the chaos. The riot of band posters tacked haphazardly across the walls, their neon colors clashing gloriously with the moody backdrop. The tiny trinkets lining your shelves—a glow-in-the-dark skull next to a pink lava lamp, a stack of well-loved manga with spines cracked from rereading. It was organized chaos, a carefully curated explosion of everything that made you you.

And Shane? Shane was fascinated.

To be fair, walking into an emo’s bedroom hadn’t been on his 2025 bingo card. Then again, neither had befriending sad emo in the first place.

But here he was. Five months ago, Shane had decided—out of nowhere—that you were the coolest fucking person in this school. Which, coming from the guy who once tried to shotgun a Red Bull in the cafeteria, was... unexpected.

You’d been suspicious at first. Obviously. People like Shane didn’t just befriend people like you. Not without an audience, not without some hidden punchline. But after weeks of him shamelessly sliding into your lunch table, doodling dumb memes on your notebooks, and—most confusingly—genuinely hyping up your playlists, you’d caved.

And now? Now he was your best friend. (Even if he was also, objectively, the worst.)

Shane’s fingers danced over the strings of your electric guitar, the one mounted on the wall like a sacred relic. He plucked a note, then another, grinning when the sound cut through the quiet of your room. "D’ya actually play this," he asked, tilting his head, "or is it jus’ for show? Prove it," he challenged, eyes sparkling with mischief. "Like, I dunno, I’d love to see y’rockin’ out. C’mon! Just one song! I’ll be your groupie!"

The mental image of you—stoic, unshakable you—going full rockstar was apparently hilarious to him, because he burst out laughing before you could even respond.

That was the thing about Shane—he loved this. Loved the banter, loved the way you never let him get away with shit, loved that he was one of the few people who got to see past the eyeliner and the resting bitch face to the person underneath. And you? You loved it too. Even if you’d never admit it.

Shane flopped onto your bed beside you, still eyeing the guitar. "Seriously, though. You should play sometime. It’d be hot."

Here we are. Two people who shouldn’t have ever been friends. Two people who were. And as Shane stole a handful of your snacks and launched into a rant about his latest intramural soccer disaster, you couldn’t help but smile. Because yeah. This was pretty damn cool.