Chapter Text
Jinx’s first breakup went about as well as anyone could have predicted.
Well, no one died or suffered any kind of grievous bodily harm, so maybe not totally. It happened quickly, too. Just a thirty second dumping—over the honest to God phone—and, oh yeah, a sucker punch to Jinx’s heart. And her heart’s been through some shit, so that part really hurt.
And worst of all, her now-ex is in 99% of her classes, meaning she’s going to have to look at their face every day for the rest of the school year. Basically, she’s already started sketching up designs for her own tombstone. And all for a dumb relationship she wasn’t even that emotionally invested in. It’s the humiliation she hates, the embarrassment of not being wanted, of being too much, too overwhelming.
Too Jinx.
At least she has her Mechanical Engineering class project with Ekko—big and explosive and thoroughly awesome—to distract her. He never thinks she’s too much of anything, at least not enough to stop hanging out with her. Ekko’s always been there, through everything, ever since they were kids. And his big brain can keep up with hers, which she can’t exactly say about her ex.
But it’s not the project she’s thinking about today. And she doesn’t have a homework sesh in mind when she drags Ekko from study hall to the nearest empty classroom, sits him down and says, “I have a business proposition that you, and only you, can help me with.”
“Why do I feel like I’m about to get waterboarded?” Ekko’s brows are furrowed, hand still clutching his half-opened bag.
Jinx plops herself down on a chair next to him, hopefully looking less like a scary mob interrogator that way, and takes a moment to consider how to present her plan. She really doesn’t want to make this complicated. The last thing she needs is more stupid problems. She has enough of those already—dealing with school, getting dumped, a sister fresh out of the slammer, and the mental repercussions of being tossed between two dads like a bouquet between bridesmaids who hate each other’s guts.
Jinx can deal. Really, she can. She just needs this one victory. A conclusive Fuck You to her ex, just to tie everything up with a pretty bow of Moving On, sprinkled with a healthy dose of Better Off Without You glitter and sent on its merry way with the Eat Shit Express. She just wants to smear it in their face a little. Where’s the harm in that?
Of course, it’s not really about her ex. It’s about Jinx and her utter lack of ability to leave well enough alone, and her best friend knows it. Her beautiful best friend with his seemingly infinite patience for Jinx-related bullshit, which she’s seriously—kind of—okay, super afraid he’s going to run out of one day and leave her to stew in her own misery.
Today might very well be that day, but Jinx decides to take her chances. Why waste her valuable time on thinking things through, anyway? With Ekko, she’s used to just pitching whatever ideas come dumping into her head, good and bad. It’s why they work so well together, the honesty. Full disclosure. Zero judgment. She never had anything like that with her stupid ex. They didn’t even like Ekko! She should have noticed that red flag right in front of her face from the start. Dating someone who doesn’t vibe with your best friend? Huge no-no.
“So you know how you trust me?” she asks innocently, throwing an innocent braid over her innocent shoulder.
“Unfortunately, yes.” Ekko narrows his eyes. “What are you thinking?”
Jinx scoots closer to him and says matter-of-factly, “I need you to give me a hickey.”
Silence. He looks at her like she just suggested they eat the table. “What?”
“A hickey. Nothing too crazy or anything. I don’t want to look like a leopard. Just somewhere you can see. Preferably from, like, four rows back in Quantum Physics 12B.”
“Why are you discussing specifics as if I’ve already agreed to do it?”
“Well, I figured you’d want to know my terms first. Don’t you know anything about business propositions?”
“Do you—“ Ekko’s voice is careful, measured. “Do you know how hickeys are made?”
Jinx rolls her eyes hard. “Uh, yeah, douchewad. D’you think I’d ask if I didn’t?” She folds her hands like a prayer and switches on The Puppy Eyes. They usually work like a charm. “Pretty please? It’s not like it’ll mean anything.”
Ekko blinks. “No… of course it won’t. Look, I can tell what you’re thinking, and if you’re trying to rope me into making your ex jealous—”
“Gross! No. I just want them to see how over them I am. You know, rub it in a little.”
“You don’t owe them shit. They treated you like garbage.”
“That’s literally why I want to do this, dude. It’ll be for their eyes only, okay? People aren’t going to know.”
“Jinx, this is high school. No one ignores a hickey.”
“Exactly! I’m just saying they don’t need to know it was you. It’ll be fine. Look, I’ll even take this off.” She unhooks the black choker necklace she’s wearing and stuffs it in her pocket, leaving her neck bare and pale. Ekko’s eyes fall on it, watching her throat as she offers it to him as casually as opening wide for the dentist. There’s a certain flash in his eyes, one that he quickly blinks away. Caught. Ha.
She looks at him. He looks at her. There’s a stretch of silence during which Jinx becomes very aware of the fact that their thighs are, in fact, touching. For some reason, she suddenly feels nervous. No. Bad. Go away.
Finally, Ekko pinches the bridge of his nose and snorts a laugh. “You’re really serious about this, huh?”
“Okay, look at it this way,” Jinx says. “Remember all the times when we were kids and would wrestle or chase each other or whatever, and I’d chomp your arm to get the upper hand? Well, Little Man, I am literally offering you free revenge.”
“Tempting, but we’re not eleven anymore. It’s… different now.”
She frowns. “Why?”
And there’s the patented Ekko Sigh™ letting her know he’s getting tired of her shenanigans. He looks away, focusing his eyes on the whiteboard as if it’s the most interesting thing in the universe. “Just is. Why do you care so much about showing off for someone like that, anyway? They suck.”
“Because I’ve already done my crying while eating garbage on the kitchen floor and having to be carried to bed by my big sister, and now I’m officially in my spiteful phase.”
Silco used to say she had a flair for theatrics. And yeah, maybe she likes to put on a show. Maybe she likes to be seen and heard, likes to be loud and overwhelming enough that no one can ignore how she’s feeling. Little baby Powder, a tiny speck of blue invisible to the world; blink and you’ll miss her. Well, Jinx has had enough of being overlooked.
Maybe she just wants to be touched a little.
Yeah, Vi gives the best hugs in the world, and Vander can totally envelop you in his tree trunk arms, but that’s not the type of comfort Jinx is after. She wants the kind of touch that leaves a mark, the kind that shows the world—and all the mean, awful exes in it—that someone wants her.
That someone being completely random, of course. She just trusts Ekko. He won’t make it weird. They’re best friends. This is a best friend-to-best friend favour. A strictly professional operation. Why fake a hickey when there’s a perfectly good human mouth around in the form of Ekko? You know, for authenticity. It’s gotta look real, right?
Seconds go by. Jinx can’t quite read the look in his eyes. She’s still trying to decipher it like code when she realises they’ve been gazing at each other for way too long, and she’s starting to get antsy.
“Okay, well,” she says, moving to get up and grab her bag, “I guess I can just use a vacuum cleaner nozzle or pinch myself with some fake plastic vampire teeth if you don’t want to—“
But Ekko grabs a braid and tugs her back down to his side, and then he leans in, head tilted. “Don’t say I never did anything for you.”
His lips land on her neck like a feather, and the only thought that springs into her mind is holy shit. They feel just as soft as they look, maybe even softer. He takes it slow, mouth brushing against her skin so gently she wants to die. Jinx shuts her eyes and grits her teeth, biting against the urge to sigh like a moron. Her thighs rub together and her hands grip at her skirt, fighting the instinct to touch him.
Okay—so maybe she’s imagined how his mouth would feel once or twice, in a totally scientific kind of way. You gotta look at your friends, right? You can’t be friends without observing each other sometimes. And looking at Ekko… well, he’s objectively not bad to look at. Anyone would notice the twin bows of his full lips, his perfectly smooth skin, the way his eyes shine deep and dark and impossibly bright at the same time. And what do boys need such long eyelashes for, anyway? It just makes it harder to not melt when they brush softly against the back of her neck, fluttering near the top of her spine. Ekko smells like cinnamon and faded men’s body wash. His eyes are closed, she can tell. Is he enjoying this? Or just waiting for the horror to be over so she’ll leave him alone?
She doesn’t know, and her brain glitches out when the teeth come, anyway. A stupid little chihuahua yelp escapes her, and a smile forms against her throat.
“You okay?” Ekko asks, probably pleased as a peach with how flushed she is. Just because he can blush up a storm and it never shows, unlike Jinx and her telltale cheeks. Idiot. “You sure you know how this works?”
She scoffs. “Can you just do the thing?”
He does the thing, and quite expertly. His teeth scrape gently at her skin, stopping just short of a closed bite. They work in tandem with his lips, nibbling with just the right amount of pressure, and there’s the tip of his tongue pressing down, and oh God, he’s definitely done this before. This isn’t something you learn from practicing on your arm. The thought makes a strange twinge of jealousy flit at her like a bug, and she tries to squash it with her willpower. This is strictly business, after all. Nothing more. Jinx shuts her eyes tighter, trying to pretend she’s just being fed on by a really big, platonic mosquito. One that smells really nice and is also incredibly soft and warm and—
She really, really doesn’t want this to end. What she wants, suddenly and very intensely, is to unpeel her hands from her lap and pull him closer, closer, closer. Jinx can feel her skin growing hot and sensitive at Ekko’s touch, blood vessels bursting underneath. Gotta hand it to him, he’s giving it his all. If this doesn’t leave a mark for the next few days—hell, the next few weeks—she must be made of steel. Flushing, she imagines asking him to make more. And more. On both sides, then moving down, with so many places he could go…
Shit. Maybe she should have gone for the vacuum nozzle solution.
Before she can fully navigate the minefield that is her mind right now, it ends. Ekko’s mouth leaves her neck with a plop. Cold air immediately rushes over the spot, pecking at the delicate skin.
“There.” Instead of meeting her eyes, Ekko studies his own handiwork. He’s still leaning in close, so goddamn close. “Wow. It…”
“What?” Jinx instinctively touches a hand to the sore spot, feeling warm all over but especially there.
“Nothing. Just…” He leans back quickly, eyes averted. “They’re, uh, definitely gonna notice.”
She blinks, dazed. “Who? Oh. Yeah, good. That’s good.”
His smile is a little too smug, and—oh no, his lips are all pink and velvety. Her mottled neck isn’t the only physical proof of what just went down in this classroom. She can never watch this boy eat a piece of fruit ever again. In fact, cancel all future lunches right now; Jinx can never unsee Ekko’s mouth as the thing that just sucked down on her neck like a ripe strawberry.
“Looks good on you,” he says then, and a stray bullet ricochets inside her. “Hand me your thing?”
“Thing?”
“Your choker.”
“Oh.” She rescues the crumpled accessory from her pocket and hands it to Ekko. Gently and so slowly she suspects he’s doing it on purpose, he fashions it around her neck. Her heart gallops a mile a minute.
“You can keep that on to cover the worst of it. You know, until Quantum Physics 12B.” His job done, Ekko leans back in his chair, ever casual.
Jinx gets up from her chair, brushes imaginary lint off her skirt, and takes her bag. “Okaythanksthatwascoolofyouseeyoulater,” she shoots off before running to the door like she’s got a report to file on Monday.
Later, when she sees the evidence in the mirror at home, she leans against the shower door with a groan. There’s a dark purple blotch the size of a plum crawling up the side of her neck. The blue of her hair even kind of highlights it. It’s… substantial. Unmissable. Just like she asked, and Ekko delivered like a champ.
But dismissing the knowledge that it’s in the shape of his lips—his perfect and shockingly talented lips—turns out to be a lot harder than Jinx thought.
A knock on the door breaks through her thoughts. “Pow-Pow? You gonna be done anytime soon?”
Shit. “Uh, yeah,” she calls back to Vi. “Gimme a sec.” Before leaving, she draws her fluffy bathrobe up over her neck like a winter coat.
She doesn’t think about her ex a single time that day.