Chasing You (Viktor Krum X Reader)

Chapter 20: This Is My Epic Training Montage

Chapter 20: This Is My Epic Training Montage

The world is coated in summer pollen. Yellow and grainy and sickly sweet in my nostrils. It dances in the air, spreading its life all around.

I sneeze.

My dad is somewhere far below me, sitting on the ground beside Nat. They have a small spread of snacks between the two of them as he lazily hovers a garden hose looped into a circle in the air. Cedric is on a broom in front of me, his face serious as he coaches me.

"—and I want you to focus on your left-handed throw from when you're beneath the goal. That's where you've always struggled. It's the one weakness that's persistent. Are you listening?"

"Yeah, yeah," I say and readjust on my broom. "My allergies are acting up."

"Well, get rid of them."

"That's not how it works, idiot."

"I'll push you off your broom," he says as offense spreads over his features. "You know I'm right."

"About the allergies?"

"No, about the left-handed shot."

"Yeah, but that's not what I'm talking about."

"Yeah, okay. Sure, killer, whatever you say." He rolls his eyes.

"You're a bitch."

"Bite me."

"Give me the damn quaffle so I can beat your ass," I say.

"Ah, ah," he says. "I don't believe that's how that works, killer. Are you just going to ask Gianni Fedele for the quaffle when you play in the world cup?"

"The world cup? Are you out of your mind, Diggory?"

"How can you even—"

I'm flying at him before the word can leave his mouth, and he chokes on the rest of his sentence, jerking his broom upwards to dodge my advance. I'm close on his tail, focused on the bright red of the quaffle tucked beneath his arm as he shouts, "I wasn't ready, killer!" The wind carries his words away, and I only lean forward, urging the broom to move faster.

Cedric is far better than my dad at flying, his movements much more graceful and precise. He moves like a seeker, which lets him maneuver his broom just right for narrow adjustments and gives him a leg-up in flying competitively, but he's not protecting the quaffle the way he should be, so it's really very easy to come up beside him in a move he never would anticipate as a seeker. Once I'm close enough, I throw my palm forward and knock the quaffle out of the crook of his elbow.

We're both shooting down toward the ground, and the wind whips warm tears out of my eyes. Cedric is just a blur of tan skin and dark hair as we barrel toward the ball. This is his specialty—catching a ball like this—but he isn't used to the natural movement of the quaffle. He's cautious in his approach, conditioned to be ready for a change in course at any moment from the snitch, so his chase is less sure than mine. I collide with the quaffle, letting it find its place against my chest before I wrap an arm around it and pull the handle of my broom upward toward the makeshift hoop.

Cedric yells something behind me, alerting me of how close he is, but he isn't trying to steal the quaffle from me. He's going to take the place of the keeper, so I slow down and let him find his place between me and the hoop. I never still even as I try to calculate where to shoot.

Unluckily for me, Cedric is without the distractions that a full quidditch game provides. There are no other players and only one hoop, so his sole focus is on me, and the expression on his face tells me that he's completely in the zone right now. He's hugging the bottom of the hoop, still expecting me to take the left-handed shot, but I'm so focused on winning, I hurl the quaffle straight ahead with my dominant hand from directly in front of the hoop. It soars through, and he immediately begins to scold me.