i woke up to the sound of heavy footsteps and loud voices coming from all over the house.

i got up and opened the door of my room a crack to see what was going on. a whole swarm of uniformed officers were wondering around, packing up furniture and carrying boxes.

i caught a glance of mattia talking to an officer just outside his room.

i shut the door quietly and pressed my back against it as i couldn't help but have a side smile. mattia still had his morning hair.

fuck, how does he manage to look so attractive this early in the morning.

reminding myself of the situation, i got ready as fast as possible and left my room after packing a few last things into my suitcases.

as soon as i had shown my face, i was almost instantly confronted by the officers.

'your lawyer is waiting for you downstairs, follow me.' one of them said, signalling for me to follow their lead, and i did.

our lawyer, christian miller, stood up from his seat after seeing that i was approaching.

i had spoken to him a couple of times since mattia and i had been here and he seemed alright considering he was the defence lawyer for 'two of the most nationally hated people at the current time'. his words not mine.

we exchanged words for a while but soon enough we were in the van and on our way back to the city.

mattia and i sat opposite of each other in the back of the van, our knees almost touching, and each of us having one wrist handcuffed to a metal bar that looped around the back of the police van. the feeling of the cold steel against my skin made me feel uneasy, but i decided to ignore it, there was nothing they could do about it anyway.

mr miller sat in front and between us, giving us a rundown of what everything was going to be like.

'as i've told the both of you before, your case is extremely high profile. make sure that each of you are prepared to be crowded by lots of media, cameras and yelling. we're going to try our best to shield you but quite often things can get out of hand. in this case, there's bound to be masses of reporters awaiting your arrival already.' he told us.

'sir, could you make sure that the security prioritise y/n over me?' mattia asked respectfully.

'mattia-' i whisper-shouted through gritted teeth.

'please?' mattia said, ignoring me completely.

'well... okay, mr polibio, i'll try and get that message out, i can't guarantee anything, though.' he replied.

'thank you, sir.' said mattia.

my cheeks grew hotter out of embarrassment, but also out of my gratitude for mattia. i couldn't help but smile a tiny bit, thinking about how lucky i was to have even met him.

it took a lot of effort to stop myself from talking to mattia for the rest of the journey, but, we managed to communicate through our eyes.

to translate roughly, we talked about how nervous we both were, but mattia made sure to reassure me that he'd be by my side throughout. he also pointed out that it sounded like we were lowkey famous, which made us both laugh silently.

a few hours had passed and we were finally pulling into the police station where we were originally in holding. our parents were supposed to pick us up and take us home for a day before the trial began.

i don't know exactly what i was expecting when our lawyer had told us that our case had become very mainstream, but it wasn't this.

there were more reporters than i could ever imagine, and as soon as we started driving through, we were immediately deafened by the shouting of a combination of media people and protestors, and blinded by the constant flashing of cameras.

the longer we waited to be uncuffed after the van had stopped, the more i began to lose control of my breathing.

my knee starting bouncing up and down rapidly, matching my heartbeat which seemed to be speeding up after every passing second.

first, my legs started feeling limp, my arms following a minute or two later, soon after i was struggling to keep my head up right.

i watched mr miller addressing the audience through the one way window, i silently willed him to hurry up and let us out, the air in the van was beginning to suffocate me.

mattia noticed me quickly, i sensed him place his free hand on the back of my calf, slowly massaging his way up to my thigh.

he squeezed me gently, somehow drawing the anxiety out of me and into him.

i found comfort in his big hazel eyes, staring into them, 'it'll be over soon', they said.

the sound of the doors clicking open broke us out of our trance.

the sight of our lawyer's slightly overwhelmed expression and our parent's faces lost in a sea of people made me place a hand over my stomach instinctively.

'it's time.' said mr miller.