Chapter Text
“What kind of benefits are we talking?”
You grimaced slightly at the teasing lilt in his voice. The grin on Kaeya’s face made you wonder if you’d regret the proposal you’d made to your smug neighbor. Despite having been living next to each other for about two years now, you wouldn’t exactly say you got along. He was more like an annoying mouse living in your cupboard that was too cute for you to kill, so you let it live there. However, there was no denying the tension between the two of you. So, after a few weeks of consideration, you decided to propose a mutually beneficial situation when you ran into him in the hall of your apartment complex. For some reason you thought he would be mature about it - in hindsight you definitely should have anticipated his reaction.
“If you’re going to be coy about it, I’m just gonna take that as a no,” you huffed, crossing your arms. You saw his grin waver, perhaps catching a hint of remorse in his eyes.
“I will admit, it is a rather enticing offer.” Any hint of remorse that you may have seen in his eyes before, if any, was now replaced entirely by that same toying glimmer that caught your eye any time you passed him in the hall as he glanced down at your lips. You quickly felt overly conscious of the chapped nature of your lips as you saw him swipe his tongue over his own. He gave you a once-over with his intentionally half-lidded eyes, and you pretended to gag.
“Gross! I take it back, there’s no way I can do this,” you spit, pulling out your keys to let yourself back into your apartment.
“Wait, come on. I was just messing around,” he insisted. You turned to face him, hands on your hips.
“Okay, so? What’ll it be?”
“Let me think it over, I’ll get back to you.”
You cocked your head to the side, taking a moment to digest what he just said. That certainly wasn’t the answer you were expecting. It wasn’t a ‘no’ but it also wasn’t a ‘yes.’ Perhaps you had just thought about the logistics of the arrangement so much over the past few weeks that you had just assumed he would say yes.
“What, are you disappointed?” Your silence must have been a bit too long, but you shook off your mild shock at the sound of his voice. He chuckled when you clicked your tongue at him before unlocking your front door and shuffling in. You peeked your head out for just a moment.
“Text me.” You ducked your head back in and shut the door behind you. You sighed heavily as you brushed the wrinkles out of your clothes that had formed during your riled up conversation. What an oaf. There’s no way you were gonna wait around all day doing nothing while waiting for him to text you. Right?
…
Four days. Four WHOLE days and he still hadn’t said a word about your proposal. You had passed each other in the hall twice since you brought up the idea and all that happened was a simple exchange of ‘hello’s. It made you angry. His dumb face made you angry, the stupid was he smiled made you angry, and most of all, the fact that he acted like you had never mentioned it in the first place made you furious. Lying in bed, you tapped your phone screen on and off, on and off. Groaning, you tossed the phone next to your head and stared at the ceiling. Why was this bothering you so much? Were you that desperate for even the potential of a good lay that you would mope around like a kicked puppy waiting to hear back from the dumbass who happened to live next door?
It was also entirely possible that he was doing this on purpose, just to mess with you. He probably wanted to see just how desperate you would get, to see if you really meant it or if you just wanted a one night stand - not that he would mind it, but a no strings attached, friends with benefits relationship would suit him much better. It would at least be more convenient than trying to find someone new every time he got horny. Or maybe he enjoyed the “hunt.” Honestly, who could know what was going on in that man’s head. As you continued pondering Kaeya’s intentions, you noticed your phone screen light up with a text notification. You cautiously unlock it, not wanting to seem too excited despite there not being anyone else in the room with you. You tapped into the messages app and see three simple words:
‘I’ll do it.’