Chapter Text
A man so pretentious, and selfish, that not even the blinded love I had as a foolish woman could overcome the itching desire to tear away from him.
He was insufferable.
“It’s not my fault that you can’t adapt to my lifestyle.”
What’s that?
His ‘lifestyle’, you ask?
Being surrounded by insolent, stuck-up, blissfully unaware rich people who couldn’t even conceal their silver-spoon natures in their laughs.
Who the fuck even knew why his eyes darted in my direction?
They should’ve remained focused on that echo chamber of a circle he wedged himself in, too loaded with power to ever catch the privilege exuding off of him.
“I gave you everything you didn’t have.”
Money.
Jewels.
Access to high-end, closed off events.
A name.
“You were the one to throw it all away, and pick the pathetic life you were living before me.”
Who would’ve ever known that was how he truly felt about me?
About everything I was, before him.
“If I’m so pathetic without you, maybe you shouldn’t be around me then. Maybe we should divorce.”
And yet, a part of me couldn’t anticipate how the stumbling of my words would then lead to the clattering of my wedding ring as it would clash against the floor, every vow we made shattered in mere seconds.
”You’re right. We should.”
We’d had arguments.
Every couple did.
Whether it ended up in make-up sex or me slipping into his arms for cuddles on the sofa…
We always wound our way back to each other.
But I suppose, ‘always’ is too strong a word.
- 1 YEAR LATER -
I wasn’t fond of coffee before.
If I did drink it, it was with the comforting knowledge of how I’d add at least three spoonfuls of sugar to each cup, whisking it in to mix with the granules.
The aroma had me satisfied like a false dream, but the taste on its own was a dead buzzkill.
“You never switch it up.”
Nobara hung over my order as if it was made for criticism, herself almost too blatantly disapproving of the black pool of liquid in front of us.
I began drinking black coffee.
I was getting sick of sweetening the truth, and I had a craving now for nothing but the pure, blunt knife of reality.
“I like it.”
I hated it, to be honest with both myself and the concerned, unconvinced woman lazily sat on her seat, eyeing me as if I was the world’s worst actress.
But what point was it to admit out loud the reason of why I’d succumb myself to such a subtle, aggravating torture?
“He’s on the news-“
”Who?”
My voice filtered over hers, and my cutlery clattered to the side of me on the plate.
She hadn’t anticipated my sharp cut-off, but it was warning enough delivered to drop the topic.
I hated any discussion of him, weaselling that facade of a name back into my now blissful life.
Why would I ever invite evil in again?
“Right. Got it.”
Her hands settled themselves surrounding her plated croissant, laid flat on the glossy wood table.
I admired the calm of being an average customer at a small coffee shop, although I had to admit I held my empathy for the workers behind the counter.
Miserable.
Not a single smile to be seen anywhere on those worn out, far too young faces.
I too had lived a life similar to them…
Until he came along.
- 3 YEARS BEFORE -
“You hate the scent of coffee, and yet you work at a coffee shop?”
He lunged over the counter with an aura of audacity like I’d never before seen, and yet I held the mistake of not making haste in shooing him away.
Customers lined up in whole stacks with steaming faces I’d never received my way before, eyeing him up and down as if they’d write whole comments on his articles about how rude he was in person.
I too should’ve joined the crowd and chosen moral reasoning, than to be utterly helpless and hypnotised by the depth of those…
”Anyone ever tell you how your eyes are so… blue?”
They peeked.
With every slip down of his head accompanied by a boastful laughter, I caught sight of the aqua lurking behind black-tinted, round sunglasses.
They were bold, and siren-like.
“I don’t think it’s common practice to answer a question with a question.”
I parted my lips open with a stumble to find an answer, still too entranced by his face to commit to logic instead of the thudding in my heart.
“I… It’s my only job for now-“
”A job you’re not doing so well.”
My head shot over to the side as goosebumps of embarrassment swarmed over me, my cheeks turned flushed at the minor interruption from one of the awaiting men, a single step behind the world-renowned celebrity.
I’d never failed to do my job at a rate of 100%.
I was regarded employee of the month, and a whole year working the same old shifts had led to nothing but earnest compliments and wishes from old-time customers.
“A-Ah… Yes, sir.”
The rose-tinted delusions I wore over my sight had tripped from my view and I scoured the counter before me for the cinnamon sprinkles.
They were the last step listed on his order, a creamy, sweet drink that I too had favoured from time to time.
My sights ran over the powder and I clasped my hand around the cool, glistening glass, gulping down the last trickles of my shame and finishing the ‘cherry-on-the-top’ of his drink.
To think a man had been the cause to stunt m-
“I don’t like the way you spoke to her.”
I was too far in my own disbelief to truly comprehend what I’d just heard, my head a mere rusted component as it craned upwards.
Those eyes.
Those hands.
That vein in his neck.
The calm he carried around in his body language had transitioned within seconds into a quiet aggravation, and I was left as tense as a watching plank of wood, positioned in front of them.
We’d been taught what to do in terms of altercations, and yet two grown men entering into one with only me present to separate them didn’t appear to be the best choice.
I was at max about half the height of both of them, although standing at a good 5’4”.
I wasn’t exactly a prodigy who entered the gym religiously either, deciding about one single visit was enough for a lifetime.
“Excuse me?”
Mr. Celeb’s spine straightened as if in amusement of the astounded man, although too rendered bored now in mere seconds to continue on with him.
“You’re excused. You can leave, now.”
He gestured once to the door with a flick of his otherwise unbothered finger, the coat he carried ruffled in one palm extending back behind his shoulder after.
His fashion sense was admirable, and likely curated by whole groups to promote whoever the hell he was wearing.
“You think I’ll seriously leave because you want to chat up a hot worker-“
And that, was when all hell exploded.
A swift knuckle to the face and the ego-burning shouts of the man as he stomped out of the shop had left Mr. Celeb shaking his fist in front of me with a small annoyance, as if to wear off the residual contact from his bones to the man’s skull.
I’d never been a fan of violence, but a knight in shining armour?
He stayed a good 15 minutes more at one of the emptied tables, sipping on his now ready drink as he watched me attend to the rest of them in a flurry, all in time for my friend Shinobi to take over the shift.
I dragged him by the hand to the back with no words and scrambled for the first-aid box, finger lifted to scratch at the back of my neck as I wracked my brain on where it could have possibly been stashed.
And then, I turned.
Our lips collided with no warning and my heart burst right out of me, the click of the door behind us shutting alerting my body of how I was no longer in control.
I wasn’t in reign anymore.
”Fuck, I want you. I don’t think I’ve wanted anyone before like I’ve wanted you.”
I’d assumed the words were fished straight out of a pool of lies he told to get into any girl’s pants, and yet I’d never surrendered so wholly to a blatant trick.
He was good at what he did.
Too good.
We made out for whole minutes inside of that tiny room, his face dishevelling the braid at the side of my head with thin apologies leaving his lips in every peck, himself breathing in the scent of my skin as if it was cocaine.
I’d wondered if he did cocaine.
If it was regular, or balanced.
If he was as drug-driven as every other person I’d seen fake laughing so barbarically on talk-host shows.
“Lift your skirt up for me, if you want. Fuck, I can make you feel-“
“I’m a virgin.”
A total of 3 words and 9 letters, capable of completely ruining the harmonic build up of any tension between a guy and a girl, leaving both riddled with a thick awkwardness.
We breathed against one another’s mouths, his upper lip still pressed against mine.
My hands laid flat against the solidity of the wall behind me, a prey left with her heart beating whole ritualistic dances inside of her.
It was my first kiss, as well.
But that was far too mortifying to allow a celebrity to know.
Why would I?
”A virgin?”
I thought our story would end there, as my deep, forest-floor browns raised to confront that same icy blue.
I assumed it would be over.
“I’m sorry. I skipped ahead of myself like an idiot, and I hadn’t even asked you. My apologies for making it so lewd, like that.”
Something had deeply intrigued me about the way it rolled off of his tongue, a sentence I couldn’t have guessed off the top of my head.
“And… kissing you as well. I should’ve at least waited for us to start dating.”
I blinked, and I could still taste him on my tongue.
Cinnamon.
“D-dating? M-me?”
I was a little caricature on display for him, my hand limp and flimsy as it pointed back at myself all dumb-founded, like there was anyone else in the room to address that to.
“Well… you don’t have a boyfriend, do you?”
God, no.
A boyfriend?
They were silly, and took up time for no good reason.
Growing up, I could admire and bite a lip over the way men had looked, with rows of abs and piercing glances in magazines.
But the way they acted?
Gave me a case of ‘desert-itis’ down there, so severe it had left me with a lack of wanting anything from them.
”I don’t.”
And then, came the words that introduced me to a new type of man.
A type I couldn’t compete against.
“Well, that’s good. Saves me the hassle of having to cut that off first. You can be my woman from the beginning. From now.”
The persistent lover.