quit - jiara

chapter five: don't call me baby

hi!!

-

around a year ago//

the moonlight shone down on all the polished kooks, shining brighter than jj remembers it ever shining in the cut. it's almost like even the solar system favours them. he looks around at all of them and shifts as he feels out of place, but kiara's hand is laced into his and the favourable moonlight fades out of his mind as she jumps into it.

this is how all the kook events she drags him to end up, he notices their polished looks and behaviour and wonders why they care so much, he gets a few glances as if to say 'what is he doing here?' and he get pissed- but then he remembers he's just there to give her support and it's doesn't matter when her smile lights him up.

this evening feels a little different though, not long before her and jj had had an argument after something that happened when they were hanging out with the rest of the group. they had all gone out on kie's dad's boat together, and the guys were making stupid jokes the whole time- but jj especially, and this annoyed kiara but she'd ignored it. until he made a joke about her dad, something about him being snobbish.

of course he'd bitched about kooks a million times to her, but she made it clear that she didn't want him to do it about her parents and he keeps slipping. when the others had left and it was just them at kiara's place, she asked why he did it. 'just forgot you don't like it about your parents, sorry' he said.

'it's not just about it being my dad, why did you say snobbish?' she said, frowning.

'i call kooks snobbish all the time, it's nothing against your dad. he is a little tight assed sometimes though' jj defends himself.

she scrunches her nose up, 'but he's my dad jj. if you're saying he's a snobbish kook, then i am too'

'you're not like your dad kie. but you know he's like that sometimes, the way he talks to me'

'he's not like that because he's a kook, i'm his only child. he just wants the best for me'

'and i'm not that?'

'of course you are, but you haven't given him too many reasons to think you are'

so he realises that while she doesn't like him talking about her dad like that, she's not really this mad about that. it goes further back.

'kie are you really mad because of this or because of the other day?' he asks.

she frowns at the word  "really", as if she wouldn't be mad at him stranding her in the middle of  nowhere. 'yes! i am, of course i am'

"the other day" is referring to them going on a date, the first one they'd had in a couple months of constant, tiring bickering. it seems like they're constantly walking on coals recently, neither of them can remember why/when it started anymore- they both just know they're pretty tired of loosing sleep, time and energy over it. 

on the date, everything was going fine. kiara had driven them both pretty far out to eat somewhere nice, then suddenly jj gets a call from john b and pope about surfing and wants to leave. kiara didn't want him to leave, after all this date is supposed to be patching up their cracking relationship- but she doesn't want to be controlling, after quietly listening in to a conversation between the boys when jj called her "needy". so she let him go, leaving traces of upcoming tears in her voice that jj picked up but didn't pay attention to- which she noticed in the pause he took before standing up and taking her car keys, asking if her dad can pick her up.

jj knows she has a right to be mad, but he's sick of loosing all their arguments to he's acting like he was right. 'you said i could go!'