Title: Taking A Break Status: Complete Characters: Naser, Naomi Rating: SFW Classification: One-Shot Author: hyi Summary: Naser and Naomi's relationship has taken a rocky turn in recent weeks. Naser feels like he needs a break. Naser’s bedroom door slammed open, and promptly slammed shut. His backpack was flung over to a corner of his room, and his bedsprings compressed as he jumped onto the bed on his back. Things had gone…rather poorly over the past week, especially between him and Naomi. The passion just wasn’t there anymore. There was no more happiness between them. Just cold, calculated responses to half-hearted conversations and half-assed “good night i love you” texts. The spark that was there those three years ago when they first met during the freshman assembly just wasn’t there anymore. They barely even talked about anything besides school anymore. He didn’t understand why Naomi was being so cold all of a sudden. Nothing he could think of had gone wrong. He had made sure to remember their anniversary, September 15th. He had gotten her a gold necklace with a locket hanging off containing one of the first pictures they had taken together. He had saved up many, many weeks to afford it, not wanting to ask his parents for any of the money. She wasn’t even wearing it today. Like she had completely forgotten that she had it. She gave some half-assed response about forgetting to put it on, but she sounded genuinely surprised that Naser even asked her about it. It was time to do this. Naser pulled his phone out of his pocket, unlocking it and navigating over to his messaging app. He tapped on his conversation with Naomi and started typing. ‘are you free rn? got something important i want to talk about with you’ Moments later, three animated dots appeared at the bottom of the screen, indicating that Naomi was typing something. “Yes! Just finished some homework. What’s on your mind?” Naser was surprised. That was the most amount of words he’d gotten in a text from her in a while. ‘ive been thinking recently. about a lot of stuff. i wanted to ask you a question.’ “Go ahead” Naser inhaled. This was gonna be rough. … ‘are you happy with us?’ Silence. ‘meaning us as a couple’ ‘like are you happy with our relationship?’ After what seemed like an eternity, she started typing again. “Of course I am. We’re only the greatest couple to ever come out of Volcano High, silly!” Naser could feel his heart rate begin to quicken. There she goes, starting with her illusions of grandeur bullshit again. ‘that’s good to hear. unfortunately, i’m not in the same boat.’ ‘i think we should take a break.’ Naser felt like he was staring at his phone for fucking hours with no reply. He probably should’ve worded that better, right? Probably should’ve eased her into it a little better? She’s probably fucking freaking out right now. “A break? What do you mean by that?” ‘a break from our relationship. maybe see other people, i dunno.’ ‘but as of right now, i’m not really feeling the same as when we first got together back in freshman year, naomi.’ Naser’s blood ran cold as ice as he sent that last message. Holy fuck. He finally did it. He finally told Naomi about how he really feels. ...But how did she feel? Was he being a complete and total asshole by saying it? Did he even really want to take a break? Or did he just want to feel the spark, feel the passion again like he did when he was a freshman? He wasn’t even sure at this point. But, far too late to backtrack now. He’d look like even more of an asshole if he told her he wasn’t serious about this. “I see” A single message. Less than three words, and without punctuation. That was DEFINITELY unlike Naomi. Naser felt the fiery pang of regret filling up his gut. “If you really feel that way fine I guess” “Not like I spent literal years of my life on this or anything” “Go ahead.” “See other people. See if I fucking care while you’re at it.” …What the fuck. What the FUCK. Naser tried to make sense of what he was reading. Okay, sure, a somewhat justified response I guess. If she’d said the same thing to him, he’d be taken off guard for sure, and he probably would’ve responded in the same way. Well, okay, probably not in the same way. But she was justified in being angry over it. But what the fuck did she mean, “this”? Was “this” just another one of her fucking plans? Was she using him up for some bigger, better goal? Did she even love him in the first place? ‘what the fuck do you mean ‘this’?’ ‘did you mean us???’ ‘naomi please tell me that was a fucking typo’ “Figure it out.” “Oh, and lets just remember for a second, I know the admissions faculty of the university you were planning on going to. I was planning on getting my parents and Spears to write a letter of recommendation for you. I’m not so sure I’ll be doing that now, Naser.” Naser was frozen in shock, staring at his phone. His room suddenly felt very, very cold. ‘naomi’ ‘please dont do this’ ‘im sorry’ ‘i didnt mean it’ ‘please calm down’ Naser could barely even think about what to type before he typed it. He knew he was fucked. ‘please’ ‘we can talk about this tomorrow morning’ ‘please dont do this’ ‘please i love you naomi’ “Too late for that, you fucking idiot.” “We were perfect together.” *** Naomi looked down at her phone and cracked a smile. The crippled worm at her feet was busy writhing, typing out another round of exasperated messages. She could honestly care less about the contents. Everything was finally falling into place, as perfectly as she ever could have imagined. Every single thing that had happened up until this point had been carefully planned, and executed with a level of finesse that would’ve made Alcibiades smile. She told Fang that she would get her comeuppance some day. That grey psycho bitch finally got what was coming to her. “Quid sit circum, fit circum.” [POST-NOTES] thank you for reeding and thank you beautiful awesome co-author MR. DJ BILLYBOOL for editing