After two days of avoiding everyone, Noah finally left his bedroom.
He wasn’t ashamed of anything that had happened on Friday—not of throwing up his guts or falling on his face in the middle of the street—but his social battery was drained. He was trying to come out of his shell, but no matter how fun the night was, he got easily overwhelmed in those situations. The noises. The amount of people. Being cramped and pushed. He didn’t completelyhateit in small doses, but listening to others’ stories for hours, without a second to isolate himself from the loud music and incessant chatter in the background, was too much sometimes. The weekend hangover didn’t help. Thankfully for him, Val and Theo were equally destroyed, so they barely talked.
Yawning for the tenth time in the last fifteen minutes, Noah dragged himself out of the bedroom. He was hungry as fuck because he’d been so sick for the past few days he couldn’t even eat. On top of that, he was cranky because he needed all the liters of coffee, and although the tea kitchen was just a few steps away, it felt so far.
But all the fatigue and sleepiness drowning his will to live faded as soon as he saw Mads. He was sitting at the table by thewindow, the faint glow of the sun edging his face as he looked outside, sipping from his mug.
“Morning,” Noah said, throat sore.Fuck. His voice was his best instrument. He needed to take better care of it.
“Hey.” Mads tipped his head. “Rough night?”
“Not really. But Friday was.” Noah opened one of the cabinets to grab his own mug.
“Can’t handle your alcohol well, I see.”
“I just overdid it a bit. Apparently, birthdays are an excuse for that.” He sat across from him, grabbing the coffee pot and pouring himself some. “How was your weekend?”
“Good.”
“Cool.”
Silence settled in the room like the awkward kid that made everything uncomfortable.
He seemed nice when interacting with others and was a fucking violin virtuoso, but with Noah, it was all tense courtesy. If he let him, Noah would follow him to the end of the world. No grounds of physical or sexual interest, though. Mads was good-looking, elegant, and slender, but he usually liked them more...built.
There was no denying he admired his musical skills, though. How effortlessly he’d play just about any piece and transport you to a parallel universe, floating as if trapped in a dream. It was breathtaking, otherworldly even.
Noah bit his bottom lip, looking at him from the corner of his eye. They were alone, relaxing over a cup of coffee. Maybe he could ask if he would lend him his talent now. He wouldn’t get a better chance since, save for Zach, they had different friends. What did he have to lose?
“Mads?”
“Hm?” He side-glanced at him, sipping from his mug again.
“I... I’m going to use this time to prepare my audition for uni, and I’m writing this twenty-minute track, divided into six movements. It’s still in the first stages, and I don’t have it all figured out yet,” he rambled. “I know you’re probably hella busy trying to get into the Royal Danish Academy of Music, but you’re the best musician around here. So, I was wondering if... you’d help me?”
Mads didn’t answer, but his face visibly twisted in confusion, soft wrinkles appearing between his eyebrows.
“I wanna add a violin part to it,” Noah elaborated.
“Oh.”
“So... is that something you would be interested in?”
His eyes briefly narrowed on Noah, and then, for the first time since they’d started living here, Mads offered him a faint smile. It was warm, but also looked exhausted, charged with understanding, sadness, and other conflicting emotions Noah didn’t decipher then.
“Can you send me what you have so far?”
“Yeah, sure. Of course.”
Mads chuckled softly. “I’m not sure if I’ll be able to accept, though.”
“Yeah, I get it.”
“It’s not only that I’m busy, but I...” He shook his head, a shadow casting over his face. “I’ll think about it.”
“Okay.” Noah frowned, confused. “Thank you.”
“No problem.” Mads stood up and washed his mug in silence, a dreadful sensation falling heavy between them. Then he left, offering a quick nod and a dry“later.”
