You Infire Me

Chapter Four: Pizza and Persuasion

"She learned romance as she grew older: the natural sequel of an unnatural beginning."
—Jane Austen, Persuasion

Nicky's Pizza in downtown Hunsaker, West Virginia isn't exactly a world-renowned pizza joint. Its entire menu is, in fact, pretty terrible. But it's the only pizza available in your tiny college town. The next nearest option is the Pizza Hut an hour away. When given the choice between cold, good-ish pizza and warm, pretty terrible pizza, the majority of Hunsaker College opts for the latter. So, Nicky's Pizza has stayed open for 30 years.

At least the atmosphere is kind of interesting: music memorabilia lines the walls, and some sort of band or solo artist is always there, performing live. On the Wednesday night you walk into Nicky's to meet Yoongi, there's a pair of girls sitting on stools, acoustic guitars perched on their laps. They're playing some light folk song that's vaguely familiar.

You spot Yoongi at a table by the window, and say a silent prayer of thanks that that's where he chose to sit. The restaurant is packed, and sitting by the window will help you feel less trapped inside a room of germ-filled Carbon Dioxide, generated by strange people with strange scents.

You find it strange that, in just a few days of knowing him, Yoongi has made your list of, well . . . people who aren't strange.

"Hey, Y/N," he says as you sit in the metal chair across from him. "How was your day?"

"It was fine," you say, picking up a paper menu. "Could've been better, but all days can always be better. How was yours?"

He laughs lightly, the upper part of his chest moving in and out. He's wearing a black button down with the top three buttons undone, and you notice a tiny necklace resting on top of his collarbone. It shimmers under the round-bulb string lights that are draped around the restaurant's window. His dark hair glistens beside the red parlor light hanging over your table.

It takes you forever to notice his eyes staring at you expectantly.

"Oh! I'm sorry, did you say something?"

He laughs through a smile and blushes a pastel shade of pink which, against his ghost-white complexion, makes him look a bit like a porcelain doll.

"Sorry I'm laughing," he raises a hand to cover his mouth. "It's just been a long time since I've had that happen to me."

"Had what happen to you?"

"Oh . . . you know," he looks at you through heavily-lidded eyes that seem almost seductive. "I caught you staring at me."

You cross your arms. "You did nothing of the sort. I . . . I wasn't staring."

His gaze drops back to his menu, lips forming into a smirk. "Fine, fine. I'll let that one slide. So long as you explain Persuasion to me, because my goodness is it hard to understand."

As you begin to fish around in your backpack for your copy of the book, your server arrives and takes your order. He leaves you with a glass jar filled with water—the only nice and remotely Italian thing about Nicky's—to share. Yoongi lifts the jar and fills your glass before his own, and you find the simple gesture kind and oddly intimate.

"Ok," you ask. "What chapter are you on?"

"Oh, I finished it," he says.

Your eyes grow round. "What? Already?"