▸ trouble - frank ocean

You had everything a person could want — good looks, popularity, friends, and Landon was… Landon.

That’s how he saw it, at least.

You were magnetic — a presence that turned heads in the Salvatore School hallways, a laugh that people leaned toward, a name that carried weight. Not because you demanded attention, but because it followed you. You fit. Like you were made for this supernatural world.

And Landon? He stumbled through every interaction like he was constantly apologizing for existing. All uncertainty. Always a footnote in someone else’s story.

But you saw him.

You were everything he wasn’t supposed to touch. In his mind, there were invisible rules — people like you didn’t end up with people like him. It wasn’t just about popularity, though that certainly didn’t help. It was about worth. And he was always convinced he didn’t have enough.

You, on the other hand, didn’t seem to care about any of that.

You still greeted him like he was the first person you wanted to see in a room. You still lingered when everyone else moved on. You still smiled like you knew something he didn’t.

Landon didn’t know what to do with that.

So, most days, he did nothing. Kept to his corner. Kept to his routine. Kept pretending you weren’t already softening the edges of his world just by existing in it.

But fate, or some cruel twist of supernatural chaos, had other plans.

---

One afternoon, when the sun was spilling through the windows of the Salvatore library, you decided to find Landon. Most students had cleared out for dinner or training, but he stayed behind, curled in his usual spot — tucked between shelves no one really visited, surrounded by forgotten books and a silence he found oddly comforting.

Until you broke it.

“Mind if I sit?” you asked, already sliding into the space beside him.

He blinked, clearly taken aback. “There are, like… a hundred empty tables.”

You shrugged, dropping your bag gently to the floor. “Yeah. But you’re at this one.”

He swallowed, trying to ignore how close your knee was to his. How the air felt different with you in it. How his heart did that stupid fluttering thing every time you looked at him like he was worth seeing.

For a while, neither of you said anything. Just the turning of a few pages. The shifting light. The quiet thrum of something unnamed between you.

Then, softly: “You always hide out here?”

Landon let out a quiet breath, almost a laugh. “It’s quieter. Easier.”