"A bit more up on the left, Tris- no the other left!"
"Josh, my arms hurt... I can't hold this any longer," I whined, shifting my grip on our poster.
"Okay, okay, let's just hang it there."
Tristan and Joshua held the poster in place while I taped the back.
"There," I said as I jumped to stick the top right corner into place. "Wait, it's tilted!"
"What- you can barely even tell!" Tristan exclaimed, staring at me nonsensically. "That's good enough."
"It still bothers me," I mumbled. I was trying to peel the corner off when itripped.
I froze and turned to the boys.
Tristan muttered smugly, "Hate to say I told you so."
I groaned.
"It doesn't really show if you fix it on the back," Joshua said, taking the roll of tape from my hands.
"This is your fault, Josh," I said as he added more tape.
"What? Why is it my fault?"
"I don't know, I'm not the one that gave directions on where to hang it," I replied with a giggle.
"I'm not the one who taped it though, am I?" Josh grinned smugly, bending forward to match his eye level with mine.
"But you're still taking the blame, right? You know, because you're just sooo nice like that."
"You sure are radiating youngest child right now for real."
Joshua rolled his eyes as he said this but smiled when I lightly hit his shoulder.
"You two stop flirting, we need to get back to class," Tristan laughed, shoving his way between us.
"We're not flirting!"
I punched Joshua in the shoulder and ran away.
"Hey, that hurt!"
---
"Mel, what's that in your bag?"
"Oh, this?" I pulled out the small red Tata plushie keychain from my backpack. "My aunt bought it for me from Korea."
"Really? It's so cu-"
A flash of gray swept by, and Joshua emerged with my Tata in his hands.
( so yk bt21 merch ? its one of the characters . . . actually i'll just find a picture )
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"Joshua! Give it back!"
"I guess that's payback for punching me," he grinned.
"Hey, Josh, pass it over here!" Evan called.
The former tossed my poor keychain into the air, and it sailed across the room right into Evan's hands.
"Evan!" As I tried to snatch it out of his hands, he threw it to Tristan.
"You guys are so mean," I pouted.
Tristan tossed my Tata back to Joshua.
"Want this?" he teased, holding it in the air way above my head.
Why am I so damn short?
"Joshhh," I whined, reaching up on my tiptoes. "Give it already!"
The bell rang for lunch.
"Actually, I think I'll keep it," he said, leaving the classroom.
I stared at the doorway in disbelief.
"Oh, it's on."
I crept over to his backpack and took out his chromebook, taking the slip with his name on it out of its case. We had chromebook checks every Wednesday, and if anyone was found without their name tag and didn't know where it was, they had to pay $2 to replace it.
"Let him miss his name tag for a bit," I said with a devilish grin.
---
And of course, right after lunch, Joshua discovered his tag to be missing and the whole class was looking around for it.
"Whatcha looking for?" I asked him, playing dumb.
"My name tag," Joshua mumbled.
"Your name tag? That's weird, I think I remember seeing something like it... white and rectangular, with 'Joshua Moore' written on the side of it? Oh, maybe it's this..."
I pulled out his name tag from my own case and waved it in front of his face.
"Want this?" I teased, just as he had done earlier. But before he could grab it, the bell rang and I sped away from the classroom, laughing with Jen.
yk it took me SO LONG to find a title for this chapter 🥱 anyways this is pretty much how we were before we started dating . . . i feel like im always meaner to people i like , yk ? like not even romantically- its just how i show affection ig lmao
