#now today it took me another 2 hours to install the canvas inside

[oflgtfol]

call me John the way i be Carpenting 💪💪

[franboos]

I don’t want to be your friend i want to kiss you neck

a vds college roommate fic

written by @gucciboner and me <3

word count: 3282

chapter one, part 1/3 (part 2/3)

They arrived in Antwerp about a half-hour ago. It is the beginning of September. The weather is still okay and since these are the last days of summer everyone is making the best of it by enjoying the sun outside. Lucas is driving a minivan with Isa in the passenger seat. They arrived in the last part of their journey, since they are just a few streets away from their new student residence.

“I already love Antwerp,” Isa says while looking out of the window, “the city looks so full of life.” She smiles and turns to look at Lucas. “Yeah, I’m excited too,” he says smiling back while still focusing on the road. “I hope our roommates are as nice as they told us online.” Isa starts laughing and bumps Lucas’ shoulder. “I’m sure they are nice people, don’t worry about it.”

Just a few minutes later they arrive in the correct street. “okay, now we gotta find the right house,” Lucas says slowing down slightly so he can absorb his surroundings, “It’s house number 264, you’ll look right, I’ll look left.” He slowly keeps driving through the street looking for the house until he hears Isa screaming next to him.

”Stop, it’s here, number 264!”

Lucas stops the van and turns to Isa her side to check out the house. “Well, that looks about right,” he smiles.

“We, surprisingly, survived this 2 hour trip together with you behind the steering wheel, so I think we are gonna be totally fine here in Antwerp,” Isa teases.

“Ah! I’m a perfectly good driver,” Lucas reacts offended but quickly changes his voice to a teasing one, “how dare you offend me like that Isa Keijser!”

“I think, Mr. van der Heijden, as one of your best friends, I’m privileged enough to offend you like that,” she says with a serious but still mocking tone.

“So you're one of my best friends? Weird I didn't know that.” 

“Luc!” Isa says offended.

“I’m just kidding Ies, I’m really happy we are doing this together, since you are one of my best friends.”

She gave Lucas en smile with a hug right after. “Well, what are we waiting for, let’s go and meet our new roomies!” Isa giggles and jumps out of the van.

Once they both stand in front of the door, Isa rings the bell. They wait a few seconds until they hear a voice through the intercom. “Hello?”

“Oh, uh hi, we’re Isa and Lucas. we're here to move in,” Isa says.

“Ah yes! If you wait a sec, I’ll come open the door,” the voice, that probably belongs to a guy, says.

After a moment a figure appears behind the door. They hear the jingling sound of keys, a loud sigh, some more keys rustling together and finally the lock clicking open.

The door swings open to reveal a guy. Lucas swallows, taking in his appearance. He looks about their age, tanned skin and dark brown hair, or maybe it's black? Lucas can't really tell in this lightning. He's wearing a maroon-coloured shirt with grey sweatpants underneath that are just a tad too short. He looks taller than Lucas, altogether he was very handsome.

“Hey guys, come in,” the guy smiles stepping aside. They walk inside and Lucas closes the door behind him.

“I’m Jens, nice to meet you.” He stretches his hand out in front of Isa who takes it.

“Nice to meet you too, I’m Isa.”

Jens smiles and releases his hand from hers and turns to Lucas, sticking out his hand again. Lucas looks at his hand for a second before taking it in his own. He sucks in a breath at the touch.

Suddenly Isa elbows him in his side. He totally forgot to say something. “Oh uh,” his voice comes out shaky, “I’m Lucas.”

“it’s nice to meet you, Lucas,” Jens nods with a smirk on his face.

They drop each others hands. The small silence that followed was quickly replaced by Isa’s voice.

“So, can you give us a little tour?”

“Yes, sorry, of course,” Jens said, shaking his head, “follow me.”

Lucas and Isa follow Jens from the small hallway to the stairs, which leads them to another, but little bigger, hallway with a few doors on the right side, another staircase on the left side and a door on the end of the hall.

Jens point to the doors at the left. “these are few of the bedrooms which you can look at later, because first I’m  showing you the living room.” He keeps walking to the door at the end of the hall, and opens it before stepping aside so Isa en Lucas can enter first.

There are two couches placed on the left side of the room with a small coffee table in the middle, which already as some empty beer cans laying on top of it. On the wall is a TV, and it looks like there is already a PlayStation installed. In the middle of the area, there is a big wooden dining table with place for at least 8 people. And on the right side is a kitchen that is, for the most part, separated from the living area with a white empty wall. Behind the kitchen table are a few large windows and two doors that lead to a balcony. The whole place looks a bit crappy, it is still just a student residence, but Lucas thinks they will be able to make this a nice and homey place. Maybe they can add some plants?

“This is our main living room. As you can see it’s mostly still empty, I just moved in three days ago and I thought it would be more fun to decorate it all together.”

“It looks nice,” Isa says while walking to the middle of the room to take a better look.

“Are any of the others already here?” Lucas asks Jens.

“Ah yes, one guy named Friso. We arrived at the same time, but I think he is in his room right now. He isn’t so talkative, so I don’t know much about him.”

Lucas nods.

“and the last people should also arrive today if I’m correct.”

“That’s awesome,” Lucas says while giving Jens a small smile. “But how does this work, can Isa and I just choose between the leftover rooms?”

“Yeah, the rooms are all kind of similar, so it doesn’t really matter who gets which room. So there are two rooms down this hall, one of which is already in use by Friso, with a small bathroom in between them. Then we have three more rooms on the second floor, but with a bit bigger bathroom. And lastly a room in the attic with a small bathroom.”

Lucas and Isa nod and take in all the information.

“I’m using one of the rooms on the second floor, the one right in front of the staircase, so you can choose between the rest,” Jens says while walking over to one of the couches to sit down.

“Okay, thanks Jens,” Isa said while grabbing Lucas's arm to drag him out of the living room. ”Come, Luc, let’s get ourselves a room.”

After checking out all of the rooms, Isa settles in a room on the second floor, at the end of the hall next to Jens his room, with the bathroom next to hers.

Lucas went for the room on the attic. It has a big window, which he likes because now his room has a lot of light, and there is enough room to leave all his art and his easel.

The rooms already contain a bed, a dresser for some close and a small desk with a chair. Lucas his bed is placed on the left side against the wall, opposite from the window. It is a double bed, which he likes. The desk is also placed on that side and the dresser is next to the window.

Lucas looks at the setting for a while, before deciding to switch the dresser and desk. He places the desk right under the window. this way he has a lot of daylight while working, and he can look outside while doing so, which calms him down.

After giving everything a place he is satisfied with, he hears Isa calling him from under the staircase. “Luc, come, we're gonna get our stuff!”

“coming!” He walks out of his room and hops down the stairs.

“Jens and Friso are gonna help us,” Isa says when Lucas walks up to her.

“Friso?”

“Yeah, that other guy. Do you ever pay attention, Luc?” she rolls her eyes in a playful way. “I just had a little chat with him, he seems nice.” “So come, you got to meet him too and we're gonna get our stuff from the van.”

They walk down the other staircase, through the hall to the front door. Jens and Friso are already waiting at the back of the van. This is the first time Lucas sees Friso. He has black hair, is wearing a simple grey sweater with dark blue jeans and wears a pair of glasses. He kind of reminds Lucas of Shane from buzzfeed unsolved.

When Lucas is in front of him, Friso shakes his hand. “Hey, I’m Friso.”

“Hey, nice to meet you,” Lucas answers.

“Okay, let’s get all this shit to our rooms,” Isa says, while opening the back of the van.

-

When Jens walks into Lucas his room, he sees him sitting on the floor opening one of his clothing boxes. “This is your last box”

Lucas looks up. “Thanks, you can put it next to the others,” he says while pointing to the last unopened boxes standing next to his desk.

Jens walks over to the other boxes and places it next to them. he stands back up and takes a look at the stuff that Lucas already took out. There is a skateboard placed against the wall under some band posters. He takes a better look at the posters. One of them is from the  1975 and the other from the arctic monkeys. He does recognize the names and knows they are indie bands, but he doesn’t really listen to it himself. Next to his desk is an easel with an empty canvas on it. There are a few pictures on his desk, probably with his friends, a few books, an open sketchbook and a lot of paint and some brushes. He wants to take a better look at the sketchbook, so he moves some of the boxes making more room for him the stand.

On the paper is a pencil drawing, a portrait of a woman laughing with wavy hair and eyes that sparkle. The whole drawing has a calm and happy vibe to it.

“that's my mom.” Jens jumps a little from Lucas’s voice, before looking up.

“It’s really pretty. Did you draw this?” Jens asks curious.

“Yeah, I think that's kind of obvious since half of my room contains art-related products,” he laughs, “but thanks,” he says with a genuine smile.

“Do you just do this for fun or do you also study art or something?”

“Well, of course, I do this because I like to do it, otherwise it would be a waste of time. But yes, I’m gonna start studying art, here in Antwerp.”

“That’s so cool! From what I have seen, it looks like you’re really good at it.”

Lucas laughs. “You have literally seen one pencil drawing I did.”

Jens rolls his eyes. “Okay, then show me more, convince me,” he says with a cocky smile.

Lucas stares out the window, staying silent for a second.

“Unless you don’t want to show me more, of course,” Jens says, realising art can be something very personal.

Lucas looks back at Jens. “Maybe another time,” he says before ducking down to grab another box and walking back to his dresser.

Jens stays silent for a second, watching Lucas walk away. The small interaction had left him stunned for some reason. “I’m heading to the supermarket for dinner, any requests?” he asks, walking over to the door.

“Uhm, can we just get pizza. I’m really hungry from the drive so some good pizza would be nice,” Lucas looks over his shoulder.

Jens nods. “That sounds good, see you later.”

“Later,” Lucas answers going back to unpacking.

-

After putting some of his clothes away Lucas decides to check how Isa is doing. He walks into her room and sees that there are still a lot of closed boxes on the floor. It looks like she hasn’t done anything at all.

“Looks like you have made a lot of progress,” He says while scanning the room.

Isa is laying on her bed that is located in the middle of the room with the head against the wall. She is scrolling through her phone while mindlessly eating out of a bag of leftover chips from the trip.

“huh? O yeah, I’m not in a rush,” she says with her eyes still glued on her phone.

Lucas laughs. “I can see that.” He walks up to her bed and drops himself down next to her.

“You excited for your first day of school tomorrow?” Lucas asks. “Gonna be kinda scary, new country, new people.”

“Yeah and new hot people,” Isa says with a cocky smile while finally taking her eyes off her phone and looking at Lucas. “It is time for you to meet a nice Belgian guy. On our way here I already saw some cute guys walking around.”

“Ugh Ies,” he says annoyed but with a smile on his face. “I’m not really looking for anything you know.”

“Okay I know that, but it doesn’t hurt anyone to at least meet some new guys, does it?”

Lucas rolls his eyes. “I know, I know. I will meet some people, for you,” he says while getting off the bed.

“No, no Luc. You gotta do it for yourself!”

“Yeah Ies, whatever. Get off your lazy ass and start unpacking these boxes” He gives her a big smile and walks out of the room.

-

They are all sitting on the couches in the living room, eating their cheap pizza while watching some random program on the tv when the doorbell rings.

“who's that?” Isa asks with her mouth full of pizza.

“Probably one of the new housemates,” Jens shurgs.

When nobody gets up to open the door friso says “somebody needs to get up,” but everybody stays put.

“Alright, I’ll go,” Friso sighs moving off the couch.

Just a few minutes later, Friso comes back with two new people behind him. Jens sits up straighter so he can see who the new people are.

One of them is a girl. She has blond wavy hair, her skin is kind of tanned and she is wearing light blue denim skinny jeans on her long legs with a black tank top and white Nike air forces. She looks kind of sweet but arrogant at the same time. Next to her walks a guy. He has messy dark blond hair, he is wearing a white oversized band shirt with dark blue pants and a pair of white dr. martens underneath. He has a big grin on his face while scanning the area he is standing in. He looks like a chill guy.

Before Jens observe them more, Friso starts talking.

“Guys, this is Annabell and Ely, our last roommates.”

They all put down their pizza and stand up from the couch to properly meet.

“Do you guys already know each other, since you came together?” Jens asks after they introduced themselves.  

“O no, we just arrived at the same time,” Ely answers.

“Ah, okay cool,” Jens says. “Well you guys can fight over the last two available rooms. One of them right down the hall and one upstairs on the second floor.”

Ely turns to Annabell. “Oh, I don’t really care, you can choose. I’m going for a smoke,” he says while turning around to walk to the balcony.

“Is it okay if i come with you?” Jens asks.

Ely looks back. “Yeah, sure.”

Jens walks over to the coffee table where he has an already rolled joint ready. He grabs it, and walks to the balcony where Ely is already lighting his joint. He leans back against the railing and looks at the view. It is around 8:30  in the evening. The sun is slowly setting, giving Antwerp a orange glow.

“You need the lighter?”

“Yeah, thanks,” Jens says while taking the lighter from Ely.

He puts the joint in his mouth and covers it with his right hand from the wind while lighting it with his left hand. When it is lit, he lowers his left hand and takes the joint in his other and inhales slow but deep.

“What do you study?” Jens asks after exhaling the smoke.

“Music production, gonna start my second year tomorrow. You?”

“That’s so cool! I’m gonna study communication and multimedia design, it’s a lot about programming and visual design and stuff. This is my first year so I’m pretty excited.”

“I’ve heard of that, sounds cool,” Ely answers. “What do you do in your spare time?”

“I like to skate with my friends.”

“Really? I also skate, we should go to the park together sometime,” he says while taking another drag.

“Yeah sounds cool,” Jens says with a smile. It’s gonna be fun living here with these people he thinks.  

-

“Does anyone else want anything?” Annabell shouts from where she’s standing in the kitchen

They’ve been spending the rest of the night hanging out in the living room, getting to know each other. Except for Friso, he wanted to go to bed early and get a goodnight rest before his first day.

“No thanks, we’re all good” Lucas yells back at her.

When she returns from the kitchen holding a can of coke, she walks over to the couch that Jens is sitting on. She plops down right next to him. Leaving almost no space in between their bodies. Jens rubs his hands over his legs and gives her an awkward smile.

“Have you lived in Antwerp your whole life?” She asks him, turning her upper body into his direction.

“Yeah I have.” he slides his body away from her, completely leaning against the armrest of the couch.

She pushes the tab of her coke can down before taking a slow sip, looking into Jens’ eyes the whole time.

Across from them, on the other couch, Isa is trying not to laugh at how uncomfortable Jens looks.

"wow me too, weird I haven't seen you before," Annabell says, making Isa and Ely snort at the same time.

Annabell tries to give them an innocent look. “What?” She says, batting her eyelashes.

Lucas rolls his eyes at her, he already doesn’t like her. Right when Annabell is about to say something else to Jens, Lucas cuts her off. “I heard there was a chill skatepark around here somewhere, is that right?”

“Yeah, there is.” Jens looks relieved and sends him a small smile. “You skate too right? I saw your board in your room.”  

“Yeah, I do.”

Annabell slumps down against the couch and crosses her arms with a big pout on her lips making Isa laugh again.

“Jens and I were talking about skating together, you should join us,” Ely suggests.

“Yeah, you should” Jens grins directly at Lucas.

Lucas smiles weakly and nods, “Yeah cool.”  

He was kind of hoping to skate alone with Jens, but there’s plenty of time for that in the future.