PLAY THE PART | mileven

eleven

two weeks after their brunch together, el had finally gotten the courage again to look at mike without turning crimson red.

does she still feel guilty over what she did? absolutely — but she didn't repeat the actions and didn't think of mike like that anymore, it was surprisingly easier to pretend like it never happened then.

another thing that definitely helped was them not being able to see each other since then - except for a few random meet-up's with max, lucas and dustin.

why? well, the beginning of december is always an indicator for the exam period to come up. el's first home was the library now.

and once again she was sitting in the library with five different books splayed open on the table, her laptop directly in front of her and some other papers splattered around just in case she needed to take a look on them.

she was sitting there for about six hours straight without daring to take a single break because of how intensely she was studying.

her back started to ache, her ass was feeling sore from sitting on the chair and her fingers were cramping from typing too much.

she sighed and rubbed her eyes in exhaustion, perhaps it was time to finally call it a day and lay in her bed — maybe even watch a movie if she still has some energy by then?

when she opened her eyes again, she noticed a single daisy sitting atop her laptop.

she blinked a couple times in confusion, curiously grasped it in her hands and tilted her head to the side just to see mike standing next to her.

"surprise." he said out, shrugging with one shoulder. his hands were buried deep in his pockets and shadows were hiding most parts of his face because of the hoodie he was wearing.

a smile was forming on her lips as she rolled the daisy gently between her fingers. "where did you get this from? how did you even find me?"

"you told me that you're at the library, remember?" he answered casually, "and i picked the daisy when coming here, saw it on the grass."

she raised her eyebrows suspiciously. "it's december, there are no daisies around here."

"shit, yeah." he reached out to pull a chair back and plopped himself on it, "i just found it and got it somehow."

just as she was about to say something teasingly back, her words died in her throat. the shadows that kissed his face were disappearing when he turned to look at her. while she was usually pretty content with the sight of his face — she couldn't say the same thing this time.

"mike!" her voice was way too loud for a quiet library. "what happened?"

there were people aggressively shushing in her direction, she lowered her voice but the concern didn't go anywhere.

there was a big bruise on his cheek, green and purple circled around the aching spot in deep hues. the corner of his mouth was split with a crust of dried blood.

he simply sighed, bringing his hand up to push some curls out of his face — even his knuckles were bruised — and crossed his arms afterwards.

"i ran into your ex-boyfriend." he replied in a nonchalant voice.

her heart dropped to her stomach right in that moment. what the fuck?

she had to digest the words first, not because she was naive enough to try to deny them but because of the circumstances.

not even during high school would they ever get into actual fist fights — it was always lowkey with passive aggressive looks and words.

maybe back then kai was simply holding back because he had a certain prestige to hold up, but it doesn't make sense to her why he would hold off during the worst times of their feud and let it out when they've all grown already?