Chapter 1

I dropped my heavy bag bursting with notes from this morning's lecture on the dark, weathered oak floor of my bedroom. I laid the red leather vintage satchel down on my bed and collapsed against the ornate wrought iron headboard. Just as I started to drift off the familiar sound of the skype ringtone blasted from my red laptop perched on its desk far away. While I wanted to just bury my head under the covers and ignore the irritating sound until it stopped I figured it might be important and mustered up the will to leave my comfy check-patterned abyss of bedding and marched across the room to click the blue camera icon.

"Hey Freya!" a cheerful voice greeted me with a lilting accent that could only be from one country, the country I vowed I'd never return to; partly because of my traumatic childhood filled with phsychological abuse and other such fun things and also because it was so damn boring and lonely. Ireland, ugh. Granted I was the type of person who could feel completely alone in the middle of comic con, I had always hated the place. I made a point of ignoring any remaining family, so I wasn't exactly thrilled when my cousin suddenly skyped me out of the blue.

"Oh…Heyyy Étáin" I said with mock enthusiasm though it was obvious how uneasy I sounded as I ran a hand through my long almost-black-but-not-quite-brown-either hair. Étáin (Ay-tahn) is a traditional irish name that literally means "jealousy" and boy did she live up to it. Pinching me poking me, laughing obnoxiously behind my back; Étáin was the master of snide comments when I was growing up and the unwelcome visitor I would constantly dread at each family gathering. She was always jealous of any talents I possessed, I could play electric violin, so of course she had to beat me to it with Cello. I won a medal, she would have to beat my record. It went on like this until we'd finished secondary school. Over the past few years she'd seemed to have matured with age and since we watched the same youtubers things were less awkward when it came to small talk.

"Well, I was thinking that because Dan and Phil are doing that sim-card thing, and you know how you live in London now and all, you could basically just screenshot anything they send you and pretty much show me everything because it's just so unfair how the rest of us Europeans can't see a thing you know?" She continued whining in her South Dublin accent until I finally agreed.

My sim-card arrived in the post about a week after she had reminded me. I smirked when I saw the piñata shots of Danisnotonfire and AmazingPhil and slipped it into the back of my phone. I liked Dan and Phil, I guess I found them relatable, they were funny and cringey but charming.

I wasn't a die-hard fangirl or stalker. I didn't ship Phan or harass them on twitter or anything like that. They didn't really feel like celebrities to me, just funny awkward boys with too much spare-time and wonderful personalities. After a ten minute long slow chat with my cousin about "How everyone was getting on" and "What I thought of the new course I'd switched to" I made up some excuse about how my cate fell down a well and clicked the red "End call" button that had been looking more inviting by the second. I slammed closed the laptop and took along nap with my phone charging under my pillow. Big mistake. It let out a loud chiming sound while vibrating and disturbed any rst I was going to get. I sighed and reached my hand under to get it muttering.

"Oh for the love of—" I stopped when I saw who it was from. Phil Lester. Huh, cool.

It read simply "Hey:D"

I replied "Hi there". I put it on the bedside table, highly doubting I'd get a response but whithin seconds I heard the chime again.

"Sooo…liking the new sim so far?" Wow this guy was really going to engage me in conversation, Okay then.

We ended up talking for hours, with long discussions ranging from Turner vs Constable to how pointless humanity is in this staggeringly huge, cruel, disarmingly beautiful and ridiculously mysterious universe and self-awareness to Pokémon theories and our favourite Death Note characters (We both said L). He could really hold a conversation and turned out to be a really lovely person despite the fact that he happened to get into pretty odd situations with a lot of weird people. We realised it was then 4:00 am and decided to get some sleep, good thing I didn't have college in the morning. The first thing I did was rush to my phone and check to see if there was any text from Phil, I felt like a schoolgirl who'd just been texted by her crush. Crush, no, I didn't like Phil in that way, did I ? mean he seemed like he would make a fantastic best friend but to be honest I never knew the guy. I texted him back and he texted me and I texted him and well…that's how I spent the next three hours. Well, maybe next three weeks would be more accurate. Every day when I got back from college, before I left, at lunch, on the bus, I was texting Phil. I felt really bad for keeping him from his daily life. Poor Dan would probably be getting frustrated seeing his bestfriend glued to his phone all the time. It was time we met in person.

Phil's POV

I was looking into getting the latest version of Tekken for ironic purposes to play on the gaming channel when my phone let out it's creepy alien-esque text alert noise. Freya! She'd replied.

"You know we should really meet up sometime, seeing as I'm in London too"

Meet up? In person? Apart from the fact that she could be a raging cannibalistic sociopath I think that could be fun. She seemed like one of the few people I really clicked with, and besides, judging from her profile pictures on social media she was really pretty too. Pretty? Wait a second, I wasn't starting to fancy this girl was I? I'd had internet crushes before and they'd never ended happily, I mean I didn't even know if she was single or not. Well, if I did like this girl I wasn't just going to take her out on any date, no, I had an idea that was a bit more…old-fashioned. "Sure, how about Saturday night? 7:00pm? I have tickets to the Roaring 20's Great Gatsby ball." I let out a breath I didn't even realise I was holding in. I felt like I was asking my Year 10 crush to a school disco or asking her to be prom date.

"Oh my god yes, that sound sounds like a riot"

She was in then. It was followed by another text just after

"Suit up Lester, I'll meet you at the entrance;)".

My moment of victory was interrupted with a familiar articulate accent yelling at me from across the sofa.

"Phil, get off your phone, I know I can't say much but we're trying to watch attack on Titan here and I can't focus on the subtitles with you tappingaway, beside's I thought you were looking forward to this episode it's just rude when people don't focus on a movie,ugh" and with that he threw a malteser at me.

I laughed slipping my phone into my back pocket and announced nervously "I was just making plans for a date"

Dan dropped his malteser bag.

"What? I thought we were meant to be bachelors who everyone thinks are gay!"

I shrugged

"It's that Freya girl isn't it? She seems quite nice, go for it. But…uh don't let the internet know, not just yet" he laughed.

A weight was lifted off my shoulders. Dan approved of her, however there was still one more question.

"So…you'll be my wingman at the ball then?"

Dan's eyes widened "You expect me to trail after you for the whole night giving you bad advice and standing around on my own while you charm your new internet friend?"

"Well, you wouldn't be alone…I mean we have four tickets you could ask Louise or someone I don't know" I countered.

Dan raised an eyebrow and gave me a rueful smile. "Oh go on then. I could do with embarrassing my self with a bit of social interaction now and then".

I grinned and gave him a surprise hug which he clearly wasn't comfortable with seeing as how he stiffened up and we continued to watch as Eren dismembered a Titan on the screen.