(Requested by nyxnlilith)

ISFP (male) x INTP (female)

"Harris, I swear that there are elves here."

"Elves?" The man quirks an eyebrow at his co-teacher and close friend, Elena, who is busy going through the new stuff on her desk in the faculty room. Days ago, Elena shared with her co-teachers that it’s been getting hot since it’s the summer months already. And when she and Harris entered the faculty room early this morning, lo and behold, powdered juice packets she can mix with cold water and a small handheld battery-operated fan were wrapped together and placed on top of her desk. 

“You know,” Elena starts, fixing the batteries in the compartment of the fan, “it's just like the story of the elves and the shoemaker. These elves of mine, though, might be their cousins. This new stuff has been appearing on my desk for the past weeks.”

As much as Harris wants to burst out laughing, he forces himself to keep it in and instead, comments, “That’s preposterous, El. How could elves exist in this world? In the first place, you're not even a shoemaker. It must be someone in the department."

"So are you saying that a 'secret admirer' is a more plausible being than an elf?" 

Harris immediately whips his head to throw a bewildered look at the woman. "Did you hear yourself?" He asks, bemused. "Were you seriously asking that question?" 

"Please," Elena breathes out, "I believe that elves exist more than the possibility of having a secret admirer."

Harris shakes his head and sits behind his desk across from Elena's. "You're hanging out too much with grade-schoolers." 

"Says you," Elena fights back. "We're both teachers, Harris." 

“Yet I know how to differentiate between what’s real and not.”

Elena scoffs and pouts as she finally gets to switch on her new fan. Its blades go slowly in a circular motion and it builds up speed, bringing air to the woman who is holding the fan in front of her face. “I’ll leave you with whatever you want to believe. All I’m saying is, you must be fun at parties.”

The man shrugs his shoulders and cocks his head to the side. “I know you love me,” he utters as a joke.

“Yes, I do,” Elena acknowledges it, going along with his words. She takes a step forward and rustles the hair of her friend. “I hate how much I can’t hate you. See you at lunch later and don’t be late.” She waves her free hand at him as the other is still holding the fan and leaves the faculty room with her friend seated behind his desk with flaming cheeks. 

There are that close that it’s normal for them to say that they love each other. Of course, friends could say that they love each other, it’s a platonic kind of relationship. There’s nothing wrong with that. 

But for the past few months, the word ‘love’ is bringing different emotions to Harris and it is making him worry. Whenever Elena says that she loves him, it makes his heart race along with the eruption of butterflies in his stomach. His hands turn all clammy and his throat dries up. 

His feelings for Elena have changed. And it’s scaring him. 

He knows that if he doesn’t do anything about his feelings they will start to eat him up which may drive him crazy. Harris knows that he has to take action, but he, for the life of him, cannot push himself to act out immediately. 

Thus, the decision to pour out his love for Elena by doing secret deeds to help her. 

“Is she really serious with the elves?” he grumbles quietly under his breath. “My whole existence has been reduced to one of an elf’s?”

It wasn’t his first time doing something for Elena in secret. He first bought a seat cushion when he overheard talking to their co-teachers as to how her back has started to hurt for sitting too much on her office chair. A week after that, Harris purchased a box of almonds covered in chocolate when she wouldn’t stop staring at their co-teacher eating the same brand of chocolate during one of their shared lunch breaks. 

The kind of anonymity he carries excites him as much as it adds to his nerves. But he doesn’t know when and how she’ll find out that it was him the whole time. Harris knows that Elena is not that dense, she would have said by now that it’s been him who has been giving her gifts, yet she does not speculate anyone and is even being ridiculous by thinking about magical creatures that are helping her. 

Harris chuckles softly under his breath. That's Elena, all right, he thought before preparing his class materials for the first subject. 

------------

“I don’t know. I mean, I think it’s wrong…” Elena sighs and scratches her head out of frustration. “I’m not one to get mad so easily, but I think it’s unfair that the admin is asking for a report from me that is due tomorrow all because the person they assigned to do it can’t reach the deadline.” 

When Harris, Elena, and their co-teachers met up to eat lunch together, Elena could not hold in her feelings of hurt and betrayal and immediately goes into sharing her bad encounter with one of the officers of the administration early in the morning. 

Harris keeps quiet as one of their co-teachers utters, “That’s ridiculous of them to do. You have every right to feel frustrated. Do you need any help?”

Elena shakes her head and huffs, “No, no. I don’t want any of you to worry over me. I’ll have to go through the old projects of some of the students and sort them out in the faculty room maybe early tomorrow morning. I’ll work on the write-up tonight.” 

The man notices how his friend’s crestfallen eyes stare blankly at the table in front of her, not even bothering to take another bite of her pastrami sandwich. His heart hurt for her.

And it was the feeling of hurt that prompted him to go back to the school late at night to bring out the past projects of the students from the storage room so that Elena wouldn’t have to do so much tiring work early in the morning. 

From handmade globes to colorful posters signifying the act to support sustainable development, Harris handled each project carefully and brought each one from the storage room to their shared faculty room. Even if he has started to sweat due to the manual work along with being alone in a dimly lit room, Harris still does not choose to stop for the mere thought of helping Elena is his driving force to continue until the job is finished. 

He pants softly and carries two dioramas depicting different times in history together and carefully brings them to a clear table in the department. He places them down and fixes their arrangement so that they won’t fall off the table on their own. 

“I knew that you were my elf this whole time.”

A voice from behind makes him jump and instantly face the person behind him. When Harris sees that it’s Elena, standing with her arms crossed in front of her and a knowing smirk formed on her face. Harris turns cold, rendered speechless with how Elena was looking at all the projects in the area. “I said that I didn’t need help since I was planning on my own to come here late at night. But,” she drawls, eyeing him from head to toe, “what are you doing here at this time of the night?”

“I’m just being a good...friend.”

“Really? Friend?” Elena emphasizes the word and takes a step closer towards the man.

“Look, El, if you knew this whole time, why didn’t you say anything?” Harris asks in one go, doing his best to keep his cool stance.

“To be honest, I was surprised with what you were doing,” she answers, then her voice goes soft as she continues, “and I found myself enjoying it.”

His eyes widen in shock. “What?”

“You know…” Elena takes another step forward and then another until she finally stops in front of her friend. Peering into his eyes and noticing the way he is looking back at her, she can’t help to say, “the elves stopped making the shoes for the shoemaker when his wife made those little clothes and shoes for them.”

Becoming wary with their sudden close proximity, Harris mutters breathlessly, “What are you trying to mean here?”

The woman’s eyes waver, her heart hammering against her chest as she leans in and captures the lips of the stunned man in front of her. Elena closes her eyes and follows her gut as she moves her lips against Harris’s for a fleeting moment before she pulls back, surely all red from that spontaneous and brave gesture of affection. 

Harris, still stunned, could only raise a hand for his fingers to lightly touch his lips. It’s his first kiss. It’s their first kiss. 

Elena draws back and shyly faces the ground between them. “Will that make the elf stop doing things for the shoemaker? I wouldn’t want to keep on calling you my ‘elf’ when clearly you are more fitting to be called my boyfriend.” She timidly looks up at him to see a smile on his face that reaches his eyes.

“Deal.”

~~~~~~~~~~~~

I fell in love with the song above back in 2014 and I've always imagined if ever a guy has had the same thoughts as the lyrics towards me (HAHA that's the INFP in me again). And I realized that it is very fitting for this imagine!

Thank you for requesting and waiting!

I hope you enjoyed it uwu ♡

Some positive traits of ISFP: artistic, charming, adventurous

Some positive traits of INTP: reserved, imaginative, flexible