3rd POV

The street was loud even if it's almost the middle of the night. The streets were bright because of the several lampposts that illuminated the whole place while the kids were blowing off their horns and played with their friends. The adults were drinking and singing wildly in the karaoke, and the neighbors were using fireworks to make loud noises and beautiful explosions in the sky. Even if they were so loud and can be irritating for those who were sleeping in the middle of the night, they were all happy. But it was all different in the home of our main character. It was quiet in the place of Lia. Neither noises nor any hints of liveliness can be heard inside her home.

"I'm tired."

That was the first noise that was made during that time. Lia groaned in annoyance as she stared on the plain white ceiling above her. She was lying on her bed, waiting for any notification that she will be hearing from her phone, completely unproductive. She was already done with the things that she needed to do before the celebration. Cleaning, decorating, cooking, changing, washing, preparing, and etc., all for the sake of this special event, New Year. She was the only person inside her house, and that's probably the reason on why her home is very different to the others. Their houses were full of people and not alone like her.

But things would eventually change later and will be similar to the other homes when her guests would arrive her place.
Few seconds later, the quiet room was disturbed by the weak ringtone that was coming from her phone. Her eyes widened in response but quickly took the phone then looked at the newest message that was sent to her. She had been waiting for their reply.

"We are coming."

Only three words were sent to her but her heart skipped a beat and a small smile was formed to her lips. She couldn't believe it. She was going to see them for real. Her last wish before the year ends was finally going to happen. It was an indescribable feeling to her.

Her mind was very occupied to what she had saw that she didn't bother to reply back. They already knew that she saw it so they don't need to say something; of course, it's the power of technology after all. And since she was already finished about the house preparations, she wanted to waste the rest of her time with her phone. She used her thumb finger to click her phone's home page and for some reasons, she clicked the app named "Gallery" the moment she saw it.

Her eyes shifted to the pictures that she saw inside her gallery. Hundreds of stolen pictures, thousands of anime and meme pictures, few pictures of herself and many more were the things that she can see inside this application. She laughed quietly seeing the pictures and continued to scroll down the whole file before going to the next one. Now, she probably knew the reason why her phone couldn't download more apps: and it is because of her low storage coming from those saved pictures.

As she continued to explore the whole app, doing some recap of her past self in the whole year, she spotted something that made her curious. Her eyes lit up in joy as she finally found what she had been looking for. Those were most likely her reasons why she had been loving gallery.

Screenshots.

It was one of the things that she liked the most in all of the android phones, and even to the other gadgets. You can do those things called "screenshots" every time and anywhere, as long as the gadget is alive. You can save the pictures in the screen of your phone a short span of time by just clicking some specific keys and done, a picture was already saved. and it can be also used for blackmailing someone, which is one of the things that she really loves.

She didn't have any second thoughts of skipping it and she immediately clicked the said file. She was pretty sure that she would take a bit of time in this part because she took millions or even billions of screenshots in the whole year. And as she opened it, her eyes immediately softened seeing the images. It brought her back to those days.

Hundreds of chat messages were can be seen and hundreds of known and forgotten faces were there. There were messages that were funny and hilarious and only few would get it. There were also chats that made her fangirl mode triggered and smiled for seeing such cute and sweet moments of the people in the screenshots that she had. She also felt surprised as she forgot some of those moments that she should never forget. But thanks to it, she remembered it all.

'Are we doing the "Hashtag Throwback" before the year ends Lia?' She thought then let out a chuckle.

Finally, she turned off her phone and put it away from her after she took several minutes on looking on those memorable images. She then exhaled in satisfaction after seeing the pictures, especially the screenshots. Those screenshots instantly reminded her of them, they were the ones who did those romantic and weird funny stuffs after all. They are the people who made her laugh. The people that made her cry out of sadness or happiness. The people that she will treasure for the rest of life. The chats and memories with them that made her life still fine despite of the problems she had been facing off during this year.

'I hope this will last for a long time.' She thought and closed her eyes as her mind went back to those unforgettable pasts with them.

'This new year will be just an another beginning for me and for them. We will still face more but by the grace of the Lord we will stick together.' Lia thought, with a smile on her face, and laughed for talking to herself once again.

Minutes later after procrastinating, a familiar sound of the doorbell was heard. Lia's eyes widened as she stood up instantly the time when she heard the sound. Her heart was beating quickly and her hands were slightly shaking due to the excitement and happiness that she was feeling right now. She then started to panic, not knowing what to do.

"C-Coming! Wait for a while!" Lia shouted back and quickly did her final cleaning. She also placed her wrapped gifts to them in the table that was standing in the middle of the living room. The names of the people who will be on her home for this night were all written neatly and beautifully. The color of the wrappers and designs were all different to each other as she defined them according to her own perspective towards them. One is red, one is brown, one is blue, the other one is white and many more. Those gifts would be obviously her gift to the people behind her door. She just hoped they would like it and maybe somehow remind them of her after they will leave her premises.

Ding dong.

Her panic state worsened when she heard the noise again and scramble. She fixed the things that were already fixed from its place. The already-clean place was being cleaned again and she organized the foods to their own places as well. She was starting to be a clean-freak because of them. She never intended to be like this from the start. She wanted to have a good first impression so she would do this for the sake of that.

Ding dong. Ding dong. Ding dong. Ding dong. Ding dong. Ding don—

'They are doing it now on purpose!!' She exclaimed in her thoughts as she stopped from her place promptly. The loud sound of her doorbell didn't stop, and it made her irritated rather than being in the panic mode again. An irked mark was formed in her forehead and Lia cracked her knuckles loudly, ready to punch someone's head.

She left the living room that she was supposed to be fixed again because of the disturbing noise that has been apparently made by one of them. And she needed to open the door if she wanted to make things a bit back to normal. In her mind, she would like to cut a hand to prevent it from clicking her doorbell. She was just only exaggerating though.

Few seconds had passed and she was in front of her wooden door. Her hands were aching in anticipation, wanting to knock out the person behind the small prank. She only needed to open the door and voila, finished. But for some reasons, she can't.

Lia was hearing their voices behind the door. They were all somehow familiar yet foreign to her. Their voices were either murmuring or laughing, and it was somehow now belonged to the loud noises from her neighborhood. It seemed that they were having fun outside, that she got slightly envious because of it. However, she didn't let that jealousy overcame her and thought about them instead. Because of that, her eyes immediately softened and her irritation from them diminished.

'Damn you screenshot.' She thought as she mentally laughed at herself. Lia still remembered the screenshots that she saw earlier. They were fresh from her mind so hearing their voices made her somewhat weak towards her. She can really talk to them for real so she can't help but to be like this. It's like an automatic victory for them and an instant lose for her.

'A new year with them huh...' Lia thought as her right hand softly grazed the doorbell. Her mind was in peace despite of the sound of the doorbell. The noisy sound weakened to her ears because of the continuous flashbacks of the pictures that she had seen earlier in her mind.

'That will be a very nice thing to celebrate before this year ends.'

She gently twisted the doorknob, earning a small attention, coming from her special guests, towards her way. She could feel them staring straight to her. Lia sweated nervously and laughed awkwardly but took a deep breath and exhaling it afterwards. She was finally seeing and talking to them using physical contact after all so she was nervous. That would be their first encounter with each other, and only few know each other that much in real life.

She opened her mouth slightly and then smiled sweetly while her eyes were closed from smiling too much. She finally talked to them for the first time of the last day of the year.

"Want to go inside my home?"

~The End

~~~

Hello guys, it's been a while! Sorry for not doing any new stories. I got unmotivated to do one-shots but here I am, having a little surprise to you all. It was unexpected, even for me but atleast I get to update for a while here XD

And also, I want to say thank you guys so much that this book already had 1.4K views. It's truly a miracle for me and asked myself on how do the hck I have more than 1K viewers? And so, I would like to dedicate this story to the people behind that story and of course to you all.

It's a New Year One-shot if you guys will notice it. Well, many things happened here in my life so why not make a short story like that? I hope you guys will like it!!

See you guys on the next update. Belated Merry Christmas to you all and have a wonderful New Year!!!