Chapter Text
“I knew that she was the one.”
Those words rewind in my mind as I imagined Phil smiling brightly at Janet with me awkwardly watching them as the third wheel in a corner. I turned over in my bed and tried not to think about it too much. It was bound to happen after all, Phil getting a girlfriend and all since he’s been expressing an interest in women for a while now.
‘Yeah…It’s better for him this way’. I told myself as the I looked at the zero’s on my wrist.
But my tears said otherwise.
~
This morning I woke up to some loud banging on the walls and I could only assume the worst. ’Maybe it’s the neighbours’, I thought as I got out of bed much earlier than usual. I went outside to see Phil on the floor on all fours, swiping his hands all over the carpet as if he was looking for something. I tried hard to not muffle a chuckle and snuck up towards him quietly so that he wouldn’t notice me. Eventually, his hand swiped over my feet and recognising that it was me, he clutched onto my bare legs.
“Dan, have you seen my glasses?” He asked, squinting to make sure that it was me and not some burglar.
“No…I haven’t.” I glanced around to see if he’s left them anywhere.
He sighed. “I need to find them; I’m going out with Janet today.”
I paused and stopped looking for his glasses. I continued to watch as Phil crawled around the apartment like a child with nothing except his boxes on, and it was becoming hard for me to not do something to him since he looked so defenceless.
I glanced inside his room and spotted his glasses case under his bed; he must have accidently kicked it there when he got up. I walked inside his room and gripped his case tightly with one hand. I didn’t want to give it to him. It was difficult, because I knew that he was going to have fun without me and with Janet instead, and that would mean that sooner or later she was going to be his life’s priority. However, I grabbed the case and decided to give it to him anyway, because that was the right thing to do.
“Have fun.”
I told him before locking myself in my room immediately; I was going to become a hermit at this rate. If he’d seen me right now, then he would’ve been able to read the unnatural jealousy printed all over my face. Not that he’d understand that it’s because of him if he ever did.
~
After around about an hour and a half into my private session of Netflix and chill in the early afternoon, the door opens and Phil throws himself on the couch next to me, arms splayed wide open while he rested his head back on the cushion.
“Why are you here? Aren’t you meant to be out with your girlfriend?”
“I didn’t say that I was spending the *entire* day with her, Dan.” Phil said back. “Why don’t you get one as well? You’ve already met her haven’t you?”
I didn’t realise that I sounded so bitter.
“Well no…I’m not really interested right now.”
Can’t exactly say that the person that I’m interested is a female or single now can I?
Phil takes his arms off the couch and uses them to shift in my direction.
“Or have you found her already but you’re hiding her from me?” Phil raises an eyebrow.
“Well N-No I haven’t yet Phil.” I sounded too nervous avoiding the question, and now he’s looking at me in disbelief.
“So you have found her!” Phil smiles cheekily. “Dan’s in Looooveee. Why don’t you tell her already?”
“I can’t.” I flinched realising that I answered that question a bit too bluntly. “I-I mean she’s not into me. And I can tell you now that she’s not going to believe me even if I do.”
Phil looks at me with a serious expression on his face and thinks for a bit.
“Then just talk to her anyway; even if you’re meant to be her, she won’t fall in love with you unless you make a move, Dan.”
I turned my wrist over and brushed my thumb across the soulmate counter.
“Phil…Can I ask you something? Don’t get angry though.”
“Yeah what is it? Go ahead.”
“How can you be so sure that Janet is really ‘the one’? I mean it’s not like you’ve seen your soulmate counter tick to zero as soon as you met her eyes, you might’ve seen someone else and that person could be your real soulmate.”
“Wait, what? What are you talking about Dan.”
“You know what, nevermind.”
There was no use in continuing this conversation since I wasn’t planning on telling him the truth anyway. I get up to leave but Phil grabs my arm to stop me from going any further.
“Dan! Tell me the truth.” His tone was starting to get colder, which meant that he was getting angry.
“There’s nothing left to say. It was just a hypothetical example.”
“What have you been hiding from me, Dan?! You’ve been avoiding me lately, You’re always in your room and when I’m with Janet I can tell you’re not happy Dan. So I stopped bringing her home and even ended my dates early for you! What exactly is going on, DAN?!”
It was the first time Phil yelled at me, so it hurt a lot more than I thought it would.
I chose not to say anything. Because I was too busy concentrated on not crying in front of him.
“Dan!” He yanked my arm harder.
I looked up and faked a laugh. “I was just getting a bit irritated that you’re so worked up with going out with Janet that you forgot our yearly tradition of making ‘Phil is not on fire’ videos, that’s all.” I then apologised to him and locked myself in my room, covering myself with my bedsheets and contemplating my decisions.
I wasn’t brave enough to tell him how I felt, and I guess I’ll never be at this rate.
-
A/N: For this Chapter I couldn’t make up my mind on how everything was going to get laid out. I knew that I wanted Dan and Phil to have an argument, but I wasn’t sure when to put it in (at first I was going to make this entire chapter a flashback, and then imply the argument at the beginning, but I scrapped that idea). Next Chapter onwards is from Phil’s Perspective, please look forward to that! :D